The South-West Meet Revisited
Created | Updated Feb 24, 2003
Camping, Cornwall and ... umm ...Clotted Cream
So, last weekend I went to Cornwall for the South West Meet. This was only a small meet up, but fun. Myself and Toccata hired a car and drove down on the Friday night. Sadly, as we were starting from Surrey and Tocatta is a sensible driver we did not get to the campsite until ten at night. Luckily this meant we had missed all the rain. The tent was erected, a bottle of wine was broken out and we went to say hello to the other attendees who, much to my surprise, were not in the pub. Turns out they had been barbequing. Being tired from the drive however we quickly went to bed.
A slow morning was had on the Saturday, dodging the odd light shower, playing croquet (one game to me, one to C Hawke the crafty devil) and taking a spin round the local Tesco before myself, Tocatta and C Hawke left to walk to the Eden Project, which was allegedly a mile and a half away. An hour, two offers of lifts and three miles later we caught a bus into the old clay pit that the Eden Project sits in as we were knackered.
The Eden Project is a lovely place and I highly recommend it to you all, especially the clotted cream ice cream which is perfect after a trog around the tropical biome. Apparently the latest Bond film has done some filming there so keep an eye out. A long afternoon was spent, learning why we should drink wine (its good for the environment if they have real corks), why betel nut gets chewed (slightly narcotic) and how the banana tree is actually a herb and the panama hat palm is not a palm, amongst other things. Then a trip around the wholemeal, organically grown, fair traded shop, a sit in the sun and back to the campsite for a barbeque of epic proportions, well the steaks certainly were. Much to my surprise no one got food poisoning, nothing was set on fire (no matter how hard people tried) and all the kids were good as gold. Not to my surprise much alcohol was consumed before I retired to my 'leather pyjamas' (it was an inflatable mattress, honest).
Sunday was a lazy morning taking the tent down before I had a driving lesson down to the beach for a light stroll and an ice cream. Then home via Avebury and a game of 'Spot the Stockbroker's Son'. A fine old weekend, much more restful than some meets, but very enjoyable. I didn't even mind the fact we never went to the pub.
