Just Popped In To See My Aunty, Uncle and Cousins...For The First Time In 30 Years!

On a freezing, rainy Thursday morning (Feb 18th) we set off west bound for Goonhavern which is home to my Aunty Barbara, Uncle Trevor, Cousin Faye, her husband Peter and their children, Ellis and Evie (thus my second cousins..or first cousins once removed..or something..if you're an expert write in and let us know). I was 9 years old when I last saw my aunty and uncle. I didn't get to meet Faye when she came to Australia some 8 or so years ago and none of my Australian family have met Peter, Ellis or Evie.


We drove across to Bodmin and found the mighty A30 which is like the Hume Highway. We haven't really seen great big, long highways in England yet and it seems that major highways across the world are barren strips of concrete only designed for cars to travel fast on. The obligatory McDonald's road stop was dotted along it every 30 miles or so (we have got used to using miles fairly easily now). We only passed one as we didn't have far to go. It was very useful on the way back when a 'comfort stop' was required.




Non-family readers might want to stop reading now as I can tell this blog is going to become one of those "we drove into Goonhavern looking for a red postbox as aunty Barbara had told us that their house was near a red postbox. The interesting thing about red postboxes is that back in 1883 when the mining strike was on there wasn't enough lead around..." (ie. potentially boring - by the way I made the last bit about the mining strike and postboxes up in case you were getting excited).




We drove into Goohnavern looking for a red postbox as aunty Barbara had told us that their house was near a red postbox. We found a red postbox but we couldn't find their house so we asked someone. It turned out that it wasn't a red postbox we were looking for at all but a red telephone box! Oh, how we laughed...(I warned you...check out this instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw very funny but be warned that there is mild-coarse language MA15+)




Aunty Barbara and Uncle Trevor live in Chapel Cottage which is a small, renovated Cornish farm cottage not dissimilar to the Hodges' place here. It is all beautifully done in that Ye Olde Worlde style with lovely displays of ornaments, porcelain dolls and pictures. Aunty Barbara has a wonderful display of elephant ornaments in the dining room. We were welcomed with open arms and cups of tea and we were introduced to their 9 month old puppies Otto and Luna. They are Bernese Mountain Dogs which were originally bred as a cross between a grizzly bear, Cerberus, a mastadon and Bob Marley. Big, lumbering dogs of Canine Over-Exuberance (keep up with the posts..see Tintagel) but with a very gentle disposition and dreadlocks.

Over cups of tea we found out about each other and Aunty Barbara and Uncle Trevor inquired as to how we were coping with the cold. Trevor is now working at the local hospital as an Operation Room Assistant and he has resposibilities for checking that everything is proper and correct prior to a patient going into the operation room. Barbara works at the hospital part-time doing clerical work, I think (do you know I'm not too sure..it didn't come up directly in conversation with me but I am assuming it based on what Trevor hinted at).


Then we walked around the corner to Faye's families' place where we met Peter, Ellis and Evie and their Malamute dog, Roxy. The Bernese Mountain dogs and Roxy play nicely together as much as Sumo wrestlers play nicely together; it is all in good fun but they have the potential to destroy a small village in the process.

We decided to go to Perranporth Beach and a drink at The Watering Hole which is a pub actually on the sand. Perranporth Beach is big and sandy. The tide was out so there was about 500 metres of sand to cross to get to the water. It was absolutely freezing with an icy wind off the ocean. We let the dogs play a bit and then it was inside the pub for a hot drink (..Trevor and I had to try a pint of the local Watering Hole ale).

More chatting and all too quickly it was time to say goodbye. We will have to go back and see them again soon as there is lots more to see in the west and it'll be nice to catch up more over a pub dinner (as suggested by Trevor) and a warmer day.