A Moody Castle, a Stolen Priory And a Silent Cheese And Wine Party

Lanhydrock, National Trust, Cornwall, England

We’re in Cornwall. Today we started off at St. Michael’s Mount and ended up in this non-conversational, companionable evening in front of our laptops.

In between we visited Lanhydrock, erstwhile home of the 17th century Earl of Radnor, nicked from an Augustinian priority and owned by various family branches since until the family died out due to appalling levels of childbirth. The family history bit was all very confusing, to be honest. 

This was a glorious National Trust-ish reminder of how aristocracy used to live in England. Didn’t think they had that sort of thing in Cornwall, even after watching Poldark on TV. Fifty rooms of upper-class Victorian England at its best. Amazing place.

We had a lovely forest walk, almost getting rained on. The fact that it didn’t rain disappointed me, getting wet is fun, and I don’t always get much chance to get wet. In this peaceful environment I discovered many small black beetles, identity as yet unknown.

Slight argument in the car over whether to use Waze and the built-in SatNav or just the built-in SatNav, which I resolved by taking over Waze myself. Then Waze disagreed with the built-in SatNav at every opportunity.

Managed not to get lost in the grounds during our forest walk, another achievement. It’s supposed to be impossible, like losing your balance while riding on a Segway, but we’ve managed it in the past and we can manage it again.

Once home we poured ourselves some local Cornish cider and Sue put it on a plate with some crackers and some cheese. We then settled into an hour of peaceful, self-amusing activity. Sue had the headphones on, I sitting at my computer with earplugs on. We were having a sort of non-conversational cheese and wine party.