Fourth Week

I've been here a month now, and have been rained on each and every day. Sometimes it drizzles, and sometimes it pours between sunbreaks. There's usually sunbreaks, some days not but one thing there always is is wind. Breezy or blustery, the wind is.

It's been nearly gale force the last few days, and I can hear it whistling and howling through the masts and riggings of the boats outside my hotel window in the Penzance harbor. If it's not raining. When there's water in the wind, all I can hear is pelting on the window panes. No matter, I just turn up the TV's volume.

The forecast is for improvement next week, so I'll be off again onto the trail. It's forecasted that I'll still get rained on sporadically every day still, but that's ok as I've grown accustomed to it. The locals call it "proper weather". And really, I don't know what they mean.

Last week I rounded the bend of the westernmost tip of England when the trail took me through Land's End. At six am, as the timing worked out, so I had the point to myself. For a brief period last Friday morning, to all of you back home and in the Americas, I was the nearest human to you on English soil. I could feel it, even if you couldn't. With the loneliness pangs and all, I forgot to take a selfie to commemorate the moment for Pete's sake, but there was a strange little farm there on Land's End and a I took a photo of England's westernmost pig. So this pig for you will have to do, with love.

As you can imagine, the trail around Land's End is incredibly popular due to it's location, and sees heavy foot traffic. Most of the trail is 'head down trail', meaning you've got to keep your head down watching the ground as you walk or you'll come to some misfortune. You know, breaking an ankle or falling over a cliff. Here's a photo of part of the trail.

I'd stuck to the trail going around the iconic part, but with my knees hurting from the trail's surface I found a smoother route more inland. In England, there are public pathways all over. I gather that way back in the middle ages knights and lords and such could trample through any serf's garden plot or pasture when or wherever they wanted. These paths eventually became rights of the Crown, and they apparently still are. And they're used, a lot. It seems everyone in Cornwall has at least one dog, usually more, and all these dogs take their humans out for walks. Anyway, the trails are lovely and one more thing the British have that's so much better than ours.  I'll see if I can post a video of my favorite traverse across a pasture via a public pathway.

Tomorrow's plan is to leave the hotel room with a light pack. It will be semi-urban for the next twenty miles, so I won't need to carry much food or water. Then I'll be coming into the 'Lizatds' and the Keynance area where 'Poldark' was filmed. I'm expecting changes walking through there, and imagine I'll be transformed before I come through the other side. I will look more like Ross Poldark after the Lizards, and less like Europe's westernmost pig like I did rounding Land's End. And then I won't forget to take selfies.