Lancs & Cornwall 06
Day 8

Friday,  22 Sep. 2006 - One of my biggest fears came true this morning as I was awoke by the sound of Andy sitting beside me giggling.  Even in a groggy state of mind it didn't take long to figure out he was having a bit of fun with the camera! So it quickly became apparent that Andy turned into a 6 year old over night and was extremely eager to find the cottage in which we would be spending the following week in and then seeing the ocean view! Se we ate out breakfast consisting of Sugar Puffs and were soon on our way again.

We quickly found our way to Philliegh after turning on to progressively narrower roads with very tall hedges on either side. They definitely make the dry stone walls in Northern England seem tiny in comparison! I didn't realize how tall they were un the night as I was relying on them to warn me of oncoming vehicles.

We drove through Philliegh a couple of times to see the little town and to see if we could find where to pick up the keys and which cottage was ours.  Once we were reasonably certain where we needed to be we set up to find Portscatho. Once we found Portscatho we say on a bench overlooking the sea for a while since it was still very early in the day and nothing was open.  There was a bit of wind and the water was fairly choppy. The tide was still fairly high but it was on it's way out. We knew there was no way to do any rock pooling at that point so we started taking photos of the town. 

After we took a few photos from the bench we did  another run into Philliegh to se the cottage and the route again. Since the cottage wasn't ready yet we headed back to the beach.  When we arrived at the beach the tide was out far enough for us to start looking around for some fish.  Within minutes Andy had found a shanny so we started taking photos for the site and eagerly started looking for more fish.  It wasn't long before we started finding more so we set up our little tank to put the fish in making it easier to photograph them.  The next fish we caught was a little conger eel quickly followed by a sand goby! It as amazing how many fish were found in a short period of time.

Before long we started getting hungry and began to consider what to do for lunch.  Most days we planned on eating at the cottage or preparing a meal from our food supplies but we didn't have access to the cottage until later.  We decided that we decided to consult the sat-nav system since Andy had thoughtfully uploaded locations to many of the popular restaurants.  We looked for a place that was within a 6 mile radius from our current location and came across a Burger King and a McDonalds.  We settled on going to the Burger King in Falmouth which was just on the other side of the river, so Andy proceeded to program in our route for no ferries.

Now, I come from a country that uses kilometres so I don't really have a very good idea of how far a mile is, however after driving at a reasonably pace for about 20 minutes I began to have some suspicions that we had gone past the 6 mile limit we had set.  When I raised this topic with Andy, he started looking at the route we were taking to get to Falmouth and this is when we discovered the the 6 mile radius that we were looking at was as the crow flies rather then being by road.  Since we had eliminated the ferry as an option we had to travel to the top of the river Fal and then head back down the other side of it which put a considerable distance on to our trip!

When we finally arrived in Falmouth we were both getting to be fairly hungry and were looking forward to getting our lunch, all that was left to do was find the place.  Along the way we saw a McDonald's but since it wasn't what we had decided on so we continued on our way.  The sat-nav brought us down the coast road and then into what I assume was the town centre.  We were told to make a left hand turn but I had missed it so we went around a loop and came back to the location were the sat-nav told us to turn.  This time I was prepared for the turn and obediently turned where told.  Next thing I knew the street was full of pedestrians and not a moving vehicle in sight.  At this point the sat-nav informed us we had reached our destination.  Andy and I both looked around and couldn't see a Burger King anywhere but to be honest I was more concerned about the people staring at me funny and running back and forth in front of me.  This is when Andy calmly informed me that he didn't think we were suppose to be driving on this street; as if I didn't realize that myself!  Panic is about to set in as I demanded that Andy help me find a way off the street and his reply was simply "don't worry and drive like you are suppose to be here." Meanwhile, as I looked back behind me a huge line of cars had followed me onto the street, maybe they thought I knew where I was going or something!  I finally came across a road that looked like it was wide enough for a car to travel along so I turned up the street. At this point I would have been really happy to just get out of Falmouth! As I was winding my way through the back streets of Falmouth, Andy reprogrammed the sat-nav system to bring us back to Philliegh, figuring it would take us past the McDonald's on our way out of the town. 

Eventually we made our way back to the McDonalds and decided to go through the drive thru. For me the menu was different from what I was used to back home and it had been a long time since I had gone to a McDonald's as well.  Andy quickly made up his mind and told me what he wanted, however I was taking a little longer. Unfortunately it was our turn to drive up to the window and place our order where I was greeted with a "Yes love?" Now this really threw me for a loop because I had never been addressed like that and had no idea what she meant. I turned to Andy for guidance but he just stared back at me. So after being confounded with this statement, I ordered the only thing that I could remember from the menu. When it came time to placing Andy's order, I drew a complete blank, so I stuttered through ordering him a Double Cheese Burger. Meanwhile when I looked back at Andy, he had a puzzled expression on his face but still he didn't say anything.

Our order came fairly quickly after that and we drove off to find a place to sit and eat our meal. We separated our meals and as I was inspecting the sandwich I ordered for myself , from the other side of the car I hear Andy say, "This sure is a cheesy hamburger." Of course, I looked at him fairly strange but didn't say much and commenced eating my lunch. Now long afterwards I hear another little comment from Andy, "I don't taste any bacon." At this point it begins to dawn on me that he may be trying to tell me that his order wasn't exactly what he expected it to be. When I asked him, "Is everything alright?" He simply responded that he was expecting a little less cheese and a little more bacon but he didn't want to confuse me any more then I already seemed to be. At this point I couldn't help but burst into laughter because I realized that I did mess up his order. I explained to Andy what had happened and that I had completely forgotten everything I was suppose to order so I fudged it and hoped that I wouldn't be too far off the mark!

After lunch was over, we drove back to Portscathos for some more rock pooling until it was time to pick up the keys for the cottage. At 3:00pm we drove to Philliegh again to pick up the keys for our cottage but the person who was suppose to give us the keys wasn't in but left a message that the keys were in the door. We then headed back to the cottage and found that the lady was there just finishing up the last of the cleaning and minor repairs.  She showed us around the cottage and then left us to our own devices.  We quickly unpacked our stuff and started to settle in. During the evening we talked about what we hoped to do during the week and made plans some basic plans for the next day.

Click here to see more of today's photos.

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