There and back again...

Hi folks :o)

Hope you have all had a good couple of weeks! Ours have been spent exploring new places and enjoying lots of precious family time. I LOVE our family holidays - we have a couple of weeks in the summer and a week at Christmas that are just the 4 of us (and the dogs of course) I do my best to soak up the warmth & serenity and store it to keep me going through the rest of the year when outside influences do their best to disturb my equilibrium! With the children getting older I know that these times are precious... pretty soon they are not going to want to spend a week or 2 just with mom & dad...

We have been camping in Cornwall - yes, again; we love it there. Although next summer Im determined to visit Scotland! The weather was rather mixed... we had some lovely days, a cold day, a rainy day and a windy day - but every evening was beautiful strangely enough.

We spent the 'rainy' day walking up and over Pentire Head and along the coastal path to the Seven Sisters rock formation. On the walk up the headland the rain was coming horizontally at us - we were soaked through! But by the time we got to the top it had stopped... and there looking totally chilled out were these sheep - arent they lovely?!

We didnt want to go to close & disturb them so bypassed the bench, much Rachaels dismay. The day was warm and rather windy so luckily we dried out quickly :o) The cliffs where we walked are where the poet Laurence Binyon wrote 'For the Fallen'... very moving. Im sure you are all familiar with it.

Along the way we crossed the Rumps - an saw evidence of iron age fortifications. They are mound and ditch earthworks... I didnt manage to get a very good photo of them to be honest, you can just make out the lines going across the middleground. Matthew & Jess are just in this photo. Must get a better shot next time! We have wanted to explore here for years but up till now there has always been something thats stopped us; weather, health, unable to drag ourselves away from the surf :o) etc.

This is the furthest point we got to, as you can see a sea mist blew in and got thick fast. It was very rugged and beautiful... possibly due to the weather that day it was SO quiet, there was nobody else about, just the sound of wind, waves & gulls - wonderfull.

We also explored Trebarwith Strand at low tide... when the tide is high there is no beach (and it comes in pretty fast!), but when its out its huge - and fierce, rugged and beautiful. Trebarwith is a few miles south of Tintagel.

We had wildlife treats too; we saw many Merlins and Kestrels and birds that I really dont know what they were, but they were lovely. And walking south along the coastal path from Tintagel, we were the only people about, we were saw a wild deer about 30 feet from us. He bounded up the path and away before I could take a photo unfortunately.

We investigated many rock pools and coves (kids and dogs swimming in many :o) This activity led to one of our biggest adventures! We found treasure! Well, treasure as far as the Allen family were concerned anyway :o) and on that tantalising note Im going to leave you for today... I think this post is plenty long enough lol. Will post soon about our treasure

xxx