Who needs King Arthur?

-
The next day started off a little rainy, but it was out of its system by the time we reached Tintagel (pronounce that yanks!). This is the alleged site of King Arthurs conception and birth. And after the introduction video, the mystery and uncertainty of it was only worsened. The long and short of it was that even the experts aren't sure, but the potential brings tourists, so, go with it. But after my visit, I found that I didn't really care if King Arthur had been there or not, it was cool either way. And old! Settlement on the strange peninsula (at least some old pots found there) date back to Roman times. It was also apparently a kind of Celtic stronghold, and what historians know for sure is that Richard, the Earl of Cornwall built a castle there in 1233. That's still pretty old by my standards, and it falling to ruin since then only makes it look more legendary and mysterious. Plus a healthy dose of fog helps. I would have been happy to jog around clapping coconuts together.

We also visited the town of Tintagel, their very old (14th century) post office, and had lunch and some delish ice cream. And from there we went near Stepper Point for a nice walk along the coast. The best part of this was Pepper Hole, which was literally a hole in the side of the cliff. And by cliff, I mean tall, scary, rocky cliff. The gorse was in bloom in the fields around there, and filled the air with a lovely coconut-like smell which was great.
In the evening, we caught the sunset at St. Agnes head, which despite the clouds was beautiful, and I'm not sure I'd ever seen the sun set on this side of the Atlantic.

The next day we walked some more of the stunning coast to St. Ives, a very touristy (with good reason) and charming coastal town. We saw a pod of dolphins playing in a bay which was awesome, and then had a great lunch of fish and chips. That is a food that gets proportionately better the closer you get to the sea. After hanging in St. Ives for a while, we took the train back to the car, one of the best short train rides I'd taken as it went right along the coast.
We drove through St. Just (I think) which was, unsurprisingly, beautiful. We stopped in cot valley where the beach has some strange rock formations that look like dinosaur eggs. Ellie then took me to her top two beaches which were really breathtaking.

On the last day we took a coastal walk around the Beacon to Chapel Porth where the beaches went on forever. It goes without saying that it was gorgeous.
I left Cornwall on a satisfyingly long train ride feeling pretty sad to be going back to my land-locked county, but infinitely happy to have spent some time in such a unique and beautiful place. (I am officially out of adjectives).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dueling Blogs

-
I have the immense privilege to be sitting right across from Maddog Medic in the flesh. We aren't speaking, though he is listening to me. Want to solve this riddle? He is transcribing an interview he did with me for his blog at this very moment. And I too am blogging at this very moment! How crazy?! I am stationed this week at the EMS today conference to stock up on professional wheelings and dealings and learn some stuff. This is a wonderful conference full of networking and new products and I learned already that one dose of glucagon costs $130. That's out of control! I cannot wait to catch up on disaster literature and EMS tricks of the trade and get as many free pens as I can at the expo tomorrow.  As for now, I'm headed to a class on smart stuff and pediatric breathing problems.  I am surrounded by EMS nerds and I love it! I spent the day learning about things above my pay grade such as how to read a chest x-ray and how to differentiate between subarachnoi...
Click for More

Clothing Removal

-
Image
Last week I had a patient who fell from her horse while jumping at a show. When I got there the BLS crew had immobilized her and, well, that was about it. She was complaining of neck pain and at that moment couldn't remember what had happened. I used my horsey knowledge to build up a healthy rapport with a scared patient. In general, not a lot was wrong with her. My biggest problem was that she was on the backboard and still had on all of her fancy English riding clothes. I made my best efforts to get off her button up shirt with high collar and black outer riding jacket, but it caused her pain, and then I made it worse. Worse than falling off your horse, worse than the public embarrasment of having an ambulance called for you, worse than defenitly losing your show class, was the stupid paramedic who cut off your expensive riding clothes. I, too, had never felt worse for cutting someones clothes off. She cried and shrieked and you would have thought I was punching her in the gut. I...
Click for More

The Race

-
Sometimes this job is like a race. Like you're carrying this person on your back, and it's a messy race. You're tripping and sweating and you almost drop them. It's bouncy and there's trash everywhere. And if you can just get them over that line. To the line and throw them over. Throw them over and into the ER, you're obligation is fulfilled. Your job is done. You've won the race. And for a long time, that was it. Mission accomplished and I wasn't responsible for anything else. I didn't care about anything else. Get them to the hospital.  Dust my hands off and pat myself on the back. But somehow, they crept in. What did happen?  Did they live?  For the first time I asked myself.  I began to bring them home. I put them on a shelf and they stared down at me. They said, did you run fast enough?  Did you fall?  Did you drop me?  You threw me onto this island- over your line, but was it salvation?  I left in a hel...
Click for More