Eighteen years ago today we arrived back in England after spending seven years in Dunedin, Florida. And what a journey we've had since then. We spent 9 years living in Hertford, and have lived here in Cornwall for over 8, now. We became vegetarians and then vegans. We took up running for a few years completing several fun runs (including the Bupa 10k in London, two 5ks in Bournemouth, and a 10k in York, to name a few. Dawn had three jobs spending over half this time at City University. I spread my time over four jobs with the last 3 plus years at Cornwall Council. We even opened an award winning vegan cafe called The Cornish Vegan in Truro.

Sadly we lost Dawn's mum, Brady, my Dad, my brothers George and Dave, and Tiny, too. Unfortunately we've lost too many down the years. They are all in our in hearts, and always will be.

All in all it just goes to prove that Nothing is as certain as the unforeseen. Life doesn't stand still, and we must never forget that. You need to embrace change when it comes along and cherish the time we spend with those we love. That's what we've tried to do. And also what we'll try to do for the next eighteen years.

This is me after on 9th March 2006 arriving at Gatwick Airport.

Poor Tiny had to travel in the plane hold. Thankfully it didn't take her long to settle down once we arrived at our rental in Winchmore Hill.

The following Sunday, 12th March 2006, we enjoyed a nice lunch with Dad and George at The Coronet in Holloway Road.  Gone but not forgotten, we both cherish memories like this.  

 

How to spend Mondays

 

What a healthy lunch! Cherry tomatoes, avocado and roasted garlic on some home made pan grilled wholemeal bread, with a side of kale chips coated in home made 'vegan parmesan'; made with nuts and nutritional yeast.

Thankfully the rain that kept us indoors yesterday moved out today and we were able get out for our walk. Today we headed to Mexico Towans and home via the North Quay and King George V Memorial Walkway. We didn't venture to our happy place because of the 45mph+ winds.  However, the view from the steps up to the Haven site was good enough to enjoy the view of the three miles of golden beach, white caps and crashing waves. 

Happy Valentine's Day to my wonderful wife

When we celebrated our first Valentine's Day together, back in 1997, we had to buy generic cards that never really captured our true feelings or sentiments. All we could do was pick from a rack in a local card shop and hope it was at least close to what we wanted to say.  Thankfully 28 years later there is something called Etsy.  There you can find a card that not only has the image that you want on the front, but you can even get them to include your own words, so that it says exactly what you want to say.

Remembering 1997, we had our fist Valentine's Day meal at Farringdon's restaurant in Islington, London.  Today, we had a homemade pizza and we couldn't have enjoyed it more had we been served out.



 

Weather perfect for our daily walk

The sun was shining and today we really enjoyed getting out of the house for our daily walk.  It took us through Phillack Church graveyard and over the Mexico Towans to the sand dune we have affectionately called "Our Happy Place".  The following image doesn't really do the view justice.  To the west from Carbis Bay to St Ives the sun reflected off the white buildings against the hilly backdrop.  To the east Godrevy Lighthouse stands proud off the headland at Gwithian.  In between the blue sea, which was calm today, complements the golden beach and tall Mexican grass on the Towans.  The word Idyllic really does capture the view, even if this picture doesn't.

After a rest at "Our Happy Place" we made our way through the Haven campsite to the South West Path and on to the North Quay and back home via the King George V Memorial Walk. Sadly the view of the North Quay development is depressing.  It currently looks like what it is - a building site. Worse still is that as the developer has gone bankrupt it's going to look like this for a while. 

Thankfully they completed the first phase back in 2021. Unfortunately for the locals as they weren't what you could call affordable housing they stay empty most of the time and only used when rented out to holiday makers.

Thankfully with Spring around the corner, or we hope it is, the walk along the Memorial Walk was a little more pleasant than usual.  The warmth of the sun sparked the yellow petal daffodils into life adding a little more colour to our day.

 

   

Reinstating our Blog

Today I came across this blog that I hadn't updated in over ten years. I guess I had forgotten about it because Facebook had became my 'go to' platform to keep in touch with people. I will admit it did a good job. But perhaps now it's time to go old school, and go back to updating our blog again. So here goes.  I will start with a photo that we had taken the day we sold The Cornish Vegan back in August 2020.