Short take: the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray. This was a day that started off well, but then....
After a leisurely five star breakfast at our excellent B&B (the St. Michael's), we go down to the foreshore to catch a ferry over to St. Michael's Mount (the tide not being low enough to allow us to walk across the causeway). The weather is cool, with sun and clouds, and a little wind. The plan for the day is to see the Mount in the morning, then walk a short distance along the Coast Path to Perranuthnoe for lunch, and then we'll have about four hours of walking to do in the afternoon... which is more than I'd usually schedule, but the Mount only opens at 10:30, so a late start on the hike is unavoidable.
First delay: it is 9:50 but the ferries don't start running until 10. No biggy. We'll still have plenty of time to buy tickets, walk up to the castle, and enjoy the views before going in at 10:30. At 10 we tootle over and... second delay: we are informed that the ticket office doesn't open until 10:30. This is a little more problematic, but still we are only talking 10-15 minutes net delay. No reason for elevated blood pressure.
We buy our tickets and walk up to the castle. The walk and the views are impressive; the former because it hammers home the age of the place with higgledy-piggledy stones and steps, hugely eroded by centuries of weather and millions of pilgrims and their latter-day copycats (tourists). The Mount became a stop on the pilgrimage route from Ireland a thousand years ago, it being safer to walk across the Cornish peninsula rather than to sail around it, and the Benedictine Abbey on the Mount (subsidiary to Mont Saint Michel in France), some of whose walls are incorporated into the current castle, was founded to provide food and shelter to them.
Physically, the castle is one of the most dramatic buildings around, and its location on the top of a steep-sided granite tor just offshore surrounded by the grand sweep of Mount's Bay is absolutely stunning. It has been owned by the same family since around 1660, the St. Aubyns, and as Bonnie pointed out in call to Madeleine later in the day, their two sons are as yet unmarried (eliciting a response of "Anyway...!" followed by a change of subject :-).
After walking through the castle, we come out to find that the wind has picked up and it is pretty chilly. So we trot back down to the ferry docks (the causeway is even further underwater as it is now high tide -- tides in this part of Cornwall are normally almost 5 meters (15 feet)) and... no Claudia and Eric. I do a quick circuit of the restaurants and gift shops, but don't find them. And no mobile phone network either, so I can't call them. Perhaps they just took a little longer in the castle. So we find a shelter and wait. And wait. 20 minutes later I notice that Ingrid is using her phone... she has network access... so we send them an SMS. On their way, they say... and five minutes later we see them jumping into a ferry (they didn't see us in our shelter). So we hop into the next ferry... and wait for another 10 minutes until it is full.
By the time we start walking, it is about 12:40... we are almost an hour behind where I hoped we would be. But walking warms us up, and about 40 minutes later we stop for lunch at a little cafe. A side note: here's another example of the improvement of the quality of food in England -- when we ask for salt and pepper, they give us sea salt and cracked peppercorns in little bowls from which we take delicate pinches. However, food service is another question. Six of us are served almost immediately... but the other three have to wait almost a half an hour and so we aren't able to leave until about 2:15PM.
By this time I'm definitely feeling antsy. If we hike at a reasonable pace and if the Coast Path doesn't have too many ups and downs, we'll get there in good time for dinner at 7PM... but those are big "ifs". So I lay out the situation to the others and intimate (OK, it was a bit stronger than that), that we should walk at a brisk pace. Hah. Bonnie doesn't do a brisk pace. Not that she couldn't if she wanted to, but Bonnie is a free spirit and... she just didn't seem to want to.
By the time we get to Pra Sands, which is perhaps 40% of the way to Porthlevan, it is almost 4:15 and time, I decide, for an "executive decision". Those who don't want to run the rest of the way (only a slight exaggeration) should take a taxi -- six of nine choose to do so, and Franz, Mel, and I continue at high speed, arriving, exhausted from the effort, about 6:10. I'd guess we were hiking about 50-75% faster than we had been doing... so the executive decision was a Good Thing.
One shower and change of clothes later, and we walk into the Ship Inn for dinner, to be confronted by a heaving mass of local citizenry, drinking and talking at the tops of their voices. Two thoughts occur to us: that this must be a great place, closely followed by, where the hell are we going to sit? I tell the bargirl that we have a reservation for nine and she looks at me blankly. So I try with the sharper looking barboy. He looks in a book, gets a panicked expression, and runs out the back door. Ten minutes later we are shown to an empty room in the building next door. Bonnie, who is a social soul and who has been wandering around tasting the ales (by drinking out of other people's glasses :-), almost cries. And when the rest of us realize that the temperature in the room is almost 30 degrees colder than it was in the bar next door, we feel like joining her.
But there is a fireplace, with wood and paper stacked next to it, so we order food and drink and Lidia and Bonnie light a fire. Ummm... try to light a fire. The wood is green and there is no kindling. The food arrives slowly (the drinks have to be fetched from the bar), and throughout the evening various groups try to get the fire going... without much success. The only result appears to be having dried the wood somewhat, but even that questionable achievement is rendered pointless by the owner's comment at the end of the evening: namely that they weren't planning on lighting the fire again until the autumn, because it was too warm.
Shivering, we walk back to our inn, arriving to find a party in full swing downstairs, and thoughtfully provided earplugs on the bedside tables.
The best laid plans of mice and men....
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