Week 4

Admittedly this post is a little late given we're now in the full swing of week 6 but as this blog (so far) averages less than one visitor per day, I don't think there'll be too many disappointed readers out there, yet!

Week 4 was half term week. The boys were elated to discover that we were travelling down to Cornwall.... again. As my wife grew up in Cornwall, we have spent many a happy (as well as the occasional miserable) time in Cornwall. For my wife and I, it's an opportunity to spend 'quality' time with the boys. For the boys, this broadly sounds like a really f*cking awful idea.

Due to visiting 2-3 times a year, some of the novelty of 'going on holiday' has dissipated somewhat. We have tried surfing enough to know that it's actually really hard. We have trodden numerous coastal walks - including at Polzeath where I was first introduced to genuinely horizontal rain. We have visited many attractions including Flambards (I mainly recall a very unforgiving wooden slide), Poldark mine (fascinating but think it got shut down), Lappa Valley Railway (would happily still go there again), Dairyland (I mainly remember a lot of cows), Eden Project and Lost Gardens of Heligan to name but a few.

The typical response to a trip to Cornwall is therefore not always overwhelmingly positive. What started out at the planning stage as a week's stay on the north Cornwall coast, turned into a visit from Sunday to Wednesday because of a number of Halloween parties the boys (middle and younger) wanted to attend back home.

Nevertheless, we (well certainly me and my wife) still really enjoyed it. Perhaps even the boys didn't mind it too much because after one cliff top walk, a beach walk and a visit to Trebah Gardens (still good even though nearly all the flowers had died) - it was pretty much time to drive back home again.

We arrived home in time for the pumpkin to be carved and the boys to prepare for Halloween parties. Something had changed since I attended (or would have attended had I been invited) Halloween parties. There was not one mask, drop of fake blood, white face paint or plastic fangs between them. One night it was a cowboy, not even a zombie cowboy. Then hole punch Jim from the US version of the office (a white shirt with dark circles for hole punches) and finally, Ferris Bueller of FB's Day Off.

We also had our middle son's 17th birthday. Blimey it makes you feel old. We put him and his friends in the garden under various tents. No-one appeared to fall in, throw up or urinate in the pond. I'm not sure if that means the party was a success or not.