Land's End & District

Spring/Summer 2020

1. REFLECTIONS ON 2019 BY OUR CHAIR JANET QUINTON

Looking back at last year’s activities I was pleasantly surprised at the variation which included quizzes, films, talks and trips out.
We have had wonderful and interesting talks from both guest speakers and our own members. The National Parks of North America, The Battlefields of WW1 & WW11 in Northern France and a fascinating glance at Costa Rica by our own members. Also all about Carthvean Alpacas by Julie Taylor-Brown a talk from local authoress Victoria Osborn-Broad, and a history of Levant Mine by Richard Bacon.

Trips out included a visit to the Lizard Lighthouse and its museum, Wyevale Garden Centre (which is now of course Dobbies), then brandishing our bus passes, we embarked on the open top bus to St. Ives. The journey there was plagued by fog (how very West Penwith!), but whilst in St. Ives the sun came out and we were treated to some spectacular views on the journey home. The summer was rounded off by a rather splendid cream tea at Molly Cox’s garden in Tregeseal.

The year drew to a close with members of the art group creating a model depicting WW1 trenches and the aftermath with the appearance of red poppies which was part of a Remembrance Day theme at the Methodist church in St. Just.
Our final get together was for our annual Christmas lunch another enjoyable occasion at The Commercial in St.Just.

2. LAND'S END & DISTRICT U3A REMEMBRANCE TRIBUTE NOVEMBER 2019

Our Methodist Chapel in St. Just where we regularly meet for our social occasions asked our Art Group to provide a tabletop memorial to mark Remembrance Sunday. Other local groups would also be creating their own tributes. One of our members thought it would be a fitting idea to show a model depicting the trenches of the First World and showing how red poppies started to grow over the old battlefields. And so work started on creating a suitable model using cardboard, newspaper padding, papier-mache, kebab sticks for ladders, toy soldiers, dried teabags for trench sand bags and lots of paint and glue and of course poppies on wire supports. We were rather proud of our efforts and the church seemed very happy as well. Below you can view the finished product which has gone into storage for another year.

3. EATING OUT

Eating out now let us see
The most exciting meal could be
Chinese, Indian, Thaiwanese,
Italian Pasta or Bengalese,
Polish too, Turkish or Greek,
An Irish Stew or Cheesy Leek,
A lovely plate of Sunday Roast
Or in a Café for Beans on Toast,
Spicy and Tasty Sour and Sweet
In a Pop-up Cafe on a Busy Street
Loads of Sandwiches and Pots of Tea
Veg or Vegan and Gluten Free.

Eating out can be very nice
Try Burger with Onions
At a Decent Price
Dining at the Table with Ones so Dear
Laughing and Talking over Wine or Beer
Wishing you’d ordered a different Dish
Enjoying the Company and a nice bit of Fish
Out on the Cliffs for a B.B.Q
Sea Breezes, Sun and Family too.

Pam Weaver

4. A CORNISH GARDEN

There are a few Cornish Gardens
That I have seen,
And many more I’ve never been,
The Gardens of Heligan lost for years
With all that work through sweat and tears

How wonderful to wander through
The canopy of trees,
A paradise Exotica of butterflies and bees

See the lounging ‘Mudmaid’ with eyes closed,
In the garden where she’s always dozed,
And as you walk along the way,
On a fine September day
The scent of roses fills the air
You’d like to pick but do not dare

There are Cornish palms with a tropical feel
Cooling ferns have eye appeal
In those gardens how glad we went
A lovely time and a day well spent

Pam Weaver

5. TRIPS TO THE LOO

1 of 4

My Nanny lived in an old cottage on a farm and she only had oil lamps, and water was from a well in the back garden. The toilet was like a very primitive Elsan at the bottom of the garden. One day when I was about six years old, I was sent down to put more newspaper squares on the nail and I thought I would have a quick wee whilst I was there. So, I hopped up onto the seat and slipped right through! I shouted for my Nanny, who tried but couldn’t get me out, so she called my Dad and he couldn’t get me out either. So, the seat was taken off with me inside it and I was carried up to the house with a blanket thrown over me. Dad had to saw the seat in half to get me out!

2 of 4
When I was about 18 years old my Mum and I went to Bournemouth. We were wandering around the park when we both needed the loo, so in we went. Mum was out before me so waited outside, but the door was stuck and I couldn’t get out! I noticed that there was a bit of a gap under the door and thought, that’s my way out! Down I went and started to slide out but I must have been fatter than I thought, because I was halfway out when my bum got stuck! I called Mum who, after she had stopped laughing, had to call the fire brigade, who took the door off to release me!

3 of 4
Another trip out with my Mum, and yes, we both wanted the loo but couldn’t find one. There was only a Gents, no Ladies at all. “I’ve got to go Mum” I said “Or I'll wet myself”. So, in I went. When I tried to get out the lock had jammed! There was no gap under the door so I couldn’t get out that way. Then I spotted that one side wall had an 18 inch gap at the top so decided that was my means of escape. I stood on the loo and cocked my leg over the wall when I heard a man shouting “Hey what are you doing? I’m sat here!” By now I was panicking and desperate to get out so I jumped down into his cubicle, apologizing for standing on his head, opened the door and ran out, shouting back “Sorry mate, I was trapped, my door got stuck”, leaving the poor man speechless!

4 of 4
Alan and I went up to see the S.S. Great Britain and were in a café near it and when I asked for the loo, was told its just outside. So, I went around to the loo, came out and washed my hands, then when I tried to open the door I couldn’t get out, the door was locked. Being too embarrassed to shout for help, I took my screwdriver out of my bag and had taken the hinges off when I spotted another lady washing her hands. “How did you get in here?” I asked. “Through that door” She replied. Apparently, the door I was taking off was the broom cupboard! When I eventually got back to the café, Alan asked “Are you ok? You’ve been gone ages!” I said I had to put the door back on. The waitress asked why and when I explained the whole café fell about laughing!

Maggie Yates

6. THE TRAVELLING WOES OF ANDY & FAITH HOLLIDAY IN THE SUMMER OF 2019

Having had a chilly spring, we decided to take the motorhome on a decent holiday to Portugal, leaving Plymouth for Santander in late April. From there we intended to travel on through northern Portugal, making our way down the coast to the Algarve, before cutting across to the eastern side near the Spanish border and making our way back to Santander. A round trip of about three and a half weeks, we thought, and 2,000 miles, all very leisurely, we thought! What we didn’t know was the Brittany Ferry we were booked on was called Pont Aven!

Perhaps we should have had an inkling of what was to come when our ferry arrived late in Plymouth for our Saturday night crossing. Some sort of engine problem had caused the delay. Anyway, off we went, had dinner then off to bed. At around 3 am we were roused from our beds by alarms and duly mustered in the main lounge, complete with lifejackets because one of the ship’s engine rooms was on fire! To cut a long story short, the crew eventually put out the fire and we turned around to limp back to Brest in France arriving 6pm Sunday evening instead of at Santander around lunchtime the same day! So, frantic search for overnight stop before setting off on 700+ miles to reach where we should already have been! The only real problem, our maps were for Spain and Portugal and we only had an out of date road atlas covering France! There could have been a serious domestic issue when Andy asked “which road?” and Faith replied, “I don’t know, the map says N123, but we are faced with a “peage” motorway with a completely different road number!” So, getting down to Portugal was a bit of a nightmare and took the best part of three days!

Having got there, we travelled through some fabulous mountain country and stayed in the Peneda Geres National Park, with glorious views.

We then made our way to Porto which, while it’s famous for Port we didn’t get to try any! It’s an impressive city, but when we went it was a rather damp and gloomy day and there seemed to be refurbishment work going on everywhere, builder’s dust all up the back streets, and vehicle fumes very prevalent throughout the whole place!! But, boy what a station concourse.

We moved on up the Douro Valley….Wow!....stunning scenery from high up and down at water level, lots of riverboat cruises and the weather was superb.

Moving back to the coast, we then made our way to Aveiro, a sort of mini Venice, again seriously lovely, we took a delightful canal boat trip, very reasonable pricewise and walked back streets where we had lovely light lunch in a square, also very reasonable!

We couldn’t make the Algarve as planned, because of the ferry delays so started back up north through the mountains to catch our planned trip home from Santander. During the travels we managed to get the offside wing mirror smashed by a German motorhome who decided he wanted our share of the mountain road, he also didn’t stop! Anyway, we got to a site an hour or so from Santander in the Picos de Europa. What a fabulous area and it took poor old Bertie the motorhome to heights he’d never before dreamt of!

We settled in to wait for our ferry, due in a few days when, yes, the first phone call, delays…..we stayed put for the next guaranteed boat, another few days…….then the really bad news, no ferry for another week, so guess what, we had to drive all the way back up France to Roscoff to catch a ferry for Plymouth since we needed to be back home. To be fair after a lot of haggling Brittany Ferries paid up reasonable compensation, relunctantly. We won’t go into the saga of the next ferry engine problems which delayed our arrival in Plymouth until very late in the evening…..we got home around 12.30am!!