Cream Teas and memories.....

I have done a lot of reminiscing this week and my thoughts have turned to my youth and the heady days that I spent in Cornwall for a significant part of my childhood and adolescence.
My mother being a bit of a shrewd lass..was always on the look out for a bargain and this presented itself in the shape of a pretty little coastguard cottage in the village of Coverack .. ...located on the south east corner of the Lizard point.. the most southerly peninsula of Cornwall..
This was way back in the early 1960's and from my rather hazy memory .. I think the cottage cost the grand sum of £2,000 or in the region of.. My mother single-handedly refurbished the cottage with her trademark furnishings and flair.. I like to believe that my talented mother was the Cath Kidston of her day.. by using beautiful fabrics that came from her father's textile factory in Belgium.. linens and gingham and chintz's.. my mother transformed the dingy cottage .. into a delightful chocolate box home that we retreated to at every opportunity. School holidays meant a trip to Cornwall and a reunion with this beloved home of ours..
My mother intended for this to be an investment and so it was rented out as a holiday cottage and always seemed to be fully booked as the position overlooking a quiet idyllic bay and headland was it's drawing point..
These days so vividly etched on my memory as some of the happiest of my life .. frolicking in the endless sunny days where blue skies and seas met without divide.

I have many, many memories of golden days down on the beach and walks across the cliff paths picking bunches of wild garlic and sea thrift..and putting them in a jam jar on the kitchen table to fill the room with the pungent smell that I always associate with Wyndleshore.. our cottage..
Then the unspeakable happened... my parents sold the cottage and my precious sanctuary was out of bounds.. something I still find hard to accept on my sporadic visits to this almost mythical village of my past..
It is to this day a holiday rental cottage and still houses remnants of our time there.. the chintz lampshade that my mother lovingly made still hangs in one of the bedrooms ...the Rayburn cooker.. and the ceramic plaque above the lintel of the stooped kitchen door that we had made to say..Duck or Grouse!
Coverack still holds a very special place in my heart for all sorts of reasons..Cornish pasties, Cornish blue and white china, fishing for mackerel, ferreting amongst the plentiful rock pools, salty sea air, bright ochre of lichen on serpentine rocks, lifeboat day, bunting around the harbour on Regatta day, vinegar soaked fish and chips, the cry of seagulls, basking sharks in the bay, skinny dipping, barbeque's on the beach, brightly painted fishing boats in the harbour, adders basking in the hot sun, thick clotted cream teas, and falling in love for the first time at the tender age of 15 ......with this lad who eventually became Mr Custard....
someone to share these precious memories with..