on returning home, and leaving it

...well, I've been back a week, but sshh.

Cornwall was great, a week and a half of not having to think about life, and instead enjoying coastal rambles and scrambles, hot pasties, blackberry picking, homely traditions, my gran's crumble and a brief dip in the icy sea.

We stayed mainly on the Lizard and visited lots of beaches and coastal towns including St Ives. I will probably write some posts up about each place instead rushing through it all - but I don't want to bore anybody with 'holiday snaps'. (Although I love to nosey at other people's holiday photos - I mean, that's what Facebook's for.)

On returning to London I spent the rest of the week doing homely things with my mum while she was off work. We made lots of bread, and lots of jars of bramble jelly (blackberry jam really). We did a lot of gardening, went shopping, enjoyed a lot of coffee and cake.

I'm trying to make the most of the time I have to potter at home, because *deep breath* last Thursday my place at university was confirmed which means that in less than four weeks time I'll be moving out and trekking up north with a car full of all my crap to study BA English Language and Literature. So now my days are filled with lots of boring things, like completing student finance forms and new bank accounts, and buying pots and pans and cheese graters, and trying to remember how to write an essay. I am a homebird leaving her home. This is scary. And exciting.

(Annoyingly I got the same mark in the resit exam I was stressing over for most of the year and didn't get my first choice of Bristol, which is less north. But at least this way I get proper snow!)

I don't know what will happen to this blog when I move, mainly because my everyday life is about to change dramatically, and therefore so will my posts. I don't want to scare my future flatmates off with habits of taking photos of food and partaking in granny activities. So we'll see!

Anyway here are some of the first photos from my Cornwall trip.

We stayed in a cottage in the mysterious grounds of an old manor hall, nestled in a hidden valley in the rambling Cornish countryside. Think acres of overgrown woodland and gardens, old carriage tracks almost buried by grass and and brambles, everything very wild, very quiet, very romantic. It was like something out of a novel. Almost-tame rabbits would watch you from every corner, and peacocks walked about the lanes loftily admiring the views. A peahen and her peachick made their home in the doorway of our cottage and became our friends. Peachicks make the sweetest noise!

And this is a cake I baked and decorated for my aunt's birthday. It took me three hours, and much 'spare' icing was consumed in the process...