Cornwall and cars 4

So, there we were stuck in Cadgwith car park with a car that stubbornly refused to start.

While I struggled up the long uphill drag through the beautiful bluebell wood, Bill groped and fiddled beneath the driver's seat and after a tense five minutes had the engine running. We drove smartly back to our base in Mullion, where he precede to take out the driver's seat so he could see what was under it. He found that if he fiddled with the wires, connection would be made, and the engine would start. (I don't know if I explained that the immobiliser function is to cut off the fuel to the engine if the car is stolen - so it cannot be driven away.)

Neither of us was keen to go sight-seeing in the car next day, so we ambled down to the cove, which was blustery and grey, where rain drove us into the cafe for coffee and a toasted teacake. We dodged rain all the way back to Mullion. Considering our options as we walked, we decided to head for home a day early, so we ate our final dinner in the Old Inn where I forgot once again to check and see if they sold scrumpy, and wandered back to base for an early night.

Bill started the car next morning by the unusual method of groping under the driver's seat and drove us all the way to Bristol. He filled the tank with petrol, groping under the driver's seat once again to get away from the petrol pumps, which earned him some very strange looks and didn't switch the engine off when we got to Parkway Station where he was due to meet a friend that evening. I ran into the loo, then got in the car and set off driving north knowing I couldn't stop until I rolled onto our drive.

Fortunately the sat nav got me out of Bristol and onto the M5 without a hitch and I cruised north at a steady 68 miles an hour to conserve petrol. I didn't dare stop for more and I had about 300 miles to go. It was dodgy, but I made it and rang Bill before he met David and set off for France. We were both so relieved I can't begin to tell how delighted we sounded! You'd think we'd won a vast amount of money or something.

It wasn't quite the holiday I'd envisaged. We never got to Penzance, or St Ives or any of the other places I'd had on my itinary. We did have a Cornish Cream Scone with jam and clotted cream, and we did stop at the Eden Project on the way down, which was lucky. We had planned to go back on whichever day it rained (and it was sure to rain sometime in the week!) as a couple of hours wasn't long enough to take it all in.

The Project is a series of Biome conservatories containing plants from the rainforests and the warm temperate regions of the world, all set in a disused china clay pit outside St Austell. We managed a swift wander in the rain forest, and retreated from the steam heat with misted glasses. I took the pictures of spring flowers you see here as we walked down into the bowl, but we missed the temperate and Mediteranean gardens. I'll post some more pics tomorrow, including the WEEE man.

Cornwall and cars 3

Tuesday was rainy and cool so we amused ourselves by burning logs on the stove in Parc Wartha which cheered the place up enormously. The back part of the house dates back to the fifteenth century, and the upstairs flat, which we rented, has been updated with great style and sensitivity. The walls are built out of huge chunks of Cornish stone, often the Serpentine for which the Lizard peninsula is famous.
After lunch we walked down to the cove, pictured above, and found the tide still very high. We also found ourselves with a one-legged seagull. We seem to be haunted by one-legged birds as we have a second one-legged robin in our garden at home, and now this seagull. He found it difficult to land exactly where he wanted, especially in a gusty wind, and we didn't have anything to feed him but tangerine segments, which he did not even investigate. (I went back with a thick, fresh crust of bread next day, but other people commandeered the seat that he'd chosen as his spot, and when they left, he left. I waited, but he didn't return, so I left the bread anyway. I like to think he came back and found it.)

About five o'clock we got a call from the garage in Truro to say they'd found the fault and we could pick the car up as soon as we liked. H'mmm. The garage was 40 long Cornish miles away. We said we'd be there next day, and then grabbed the bus timetables. Three buses, and we reckoned we could be there by eleven.

We were up very early next morning and stood in the rain at the bus stop outside the Methodist church. We were not alone, even though it was only 7.45. The bus breathed in and squeezed around the narrow Mullion streets, hurtled around the lanes to Helston at alarming speed. If you've never been to Cornwall, you need to know that driving through country roads is like driving through a leafy, sunlit tunnel. The hedgerows at this time of year are littered with primroses, bluebells and orchard spikes, but behind that beautiful greenery lurks two tons of solid stone and soil, often six feet high and not something with which you, your car or the bus outght to collide. The Cornish hedge repells all invaders. Your car, person or bus will suffer irreparable damage.

A short wait in Helston, another bus and off to Truro. Double the distance this time at 18 miles. Another change in Truro and off to Trispen, another nine or ten miles, 40 in all. We got off right outside the garage and joyfully picked up the Honda. A bad connection in the wires that ran beneath the driver's seat had been the cause of the problem. Something so simple! But we couldn't really complain after 8 years of trouble free motoring, paid our bill £85 and drove off back to Kynance garage to settle our account there. We paid out £150 but couldn't object, considering all the man had done for us, and on a Sunday, too; but I couldn't help thinking what such a small thing as a bad connection was costing us.

We drove another four miles to Cadgwith cove, parked the car and walked down through the woods to the cove and had lunch there. The sun disappeared and there was a brief fall of hailstones and lots of rain but we enjoyed a brief walk around once it cleared. It is such a hilly village that we didn't walk far, but headed back to the car and you'll never guess....it wouldn't start. Same probalem all over again. The immobiliser had immobilised us.

Cornwall and cars

This is Poldhu Cove on the Lizard peninsula. We spent the last week staying in Mullion, and there are wonderful walks in almost any direction - to the coast, the coves, and the coastal path along the sea's edge, which is astonishingly pretty at this time of year with all the spring flowers.

This is me on the path between Polurrian and Poldhu and if you click to get a larger pic you'll see some of the wild flowers beside me. They were amazing, some so tiny they were like little blue stars in the grass. Hard not to walk on them out on the open cliffs.

We had some adventures. After shopping at Tesco in Helston we drove down to the Lizard lighthouse, parked up on the grassy slope, looked around the Wolf Rock lighthouse, then ambled along the cliffs. When we grew tired of peering over the edge, we went back to the car. It wouldn't start. For some reason the imobiliser in the security system cut off the engine. The car wouldn't move. Ha! Five o'clock on a Sunday afternoon perched on the cliffs in a rising wind and a car that won't go. Wonderful.

Dh fiddled and probed, but nothing would shift it. About ten to six, after watching all the other cars zoom merrily out of the car park and beginning to feel very small under that wide sky, I volunteered to go to the tiny gift shop on the cliff edge and see if I could phone for assistance.

This offer was snapped up, and off I trudged. The young man proved most helpful and help was summoned from the local garage in Kynance. Ten minutes later, when I had barely recovered from trudging back up the hill to the car, the cavalry showed up in the shape of Mr Johnson and son, a tow rope was produced and off we went up horrendously narrow lanes back to their garage.

I rode with Mr Johnson, who told me he once towed a Rolls Royce backwards (because it's front wheels had locked) from the same spot, and that new Range Rover had gone right over the cliff last year. It's still there, he said, and I wished I'd known earlier when I was looking over the edge. I also wondered how a car as big as a Rolls Royce had fit in those narrow lanes....but then, a RR must be as wide, if not wider. Mr Johnson took us back to Mullion and promised to take our car to the nearest Honda dealer next day - which happened to be the other side of Truro, in a place with the quaint name of Trispen. All three men were of the opinion that only Honda could sort out the electronics that would enable to car to move again.

I think we were lucky indeed that Mr Johnson was willing to turn out on a Sunday evening...