Jenny's Royal Wedding Visit

At the end of April, my sister, Jenny, visited us from Portland, OR. She had a business meeting in London and took a couple of days off afterwards in order to come to Cornwall. We were all very excited for her visit and so grateful that it worked out for her to see our life here. She arrived on a Wednesday night, and on Thursday I planned a long circular walk for us to do while the girls were in school. Long walks with plenty of opportunities for talking and catching up is one of our favorite things to do together. 

Our destination was Cotehele House, the medieval manor house of the Edgcumbe Family now owned and operated by the National Trust, and a mere 2 ½ miles from our cottage by foot. Jenny loved the scenery along our walk and really enjoyed touring Cotehele.  Her enthusiasm was fun and validating:  she loved where we live as much as we do! Here is Jenny on one of the paths up to the Cotehele House

and here is the house from the formal garden.

The flowers were in full bloom as this was the end of April.

I took her up to Prospect Tower, with its lovely view of the Calstock Viaduct. You can see that we had a beautiful day for our walk.

We treated ourselves to a cream tea in the Barn Restaurant next to the manor house. It is literally in the 15th Century barn that was used back when the Edgcumbes lived here.

The Cotehele cream tea is still the best I’ve had anywhere in Cornwall, and we were hungry, but we still found it difficult to finish two scones each—with lots of clotted cream and jam on each, of course! What a delicious problem to have. Look at that dollop of clotted cream!

It was a special “behind closed doors” day at Cotehele that day, which meant that we had access to many areas of the House that are not usually open to visitors. The highlight was that we were allowed to go up in the tower of the house and walk around a portion of the roof. It was interesting to see the estate from that unique perspective. 

There was also a flagpole on the roof with the Cornish flag flying! Knowing that Bill would love to have seen that, I took many pictures of it trying to catch it unfurled.  Here’s the best one.

Jenny and I walked home via the lovely Danescombe Valley and forests full of bluebells. I must admit to still preferring daffodil season to bluebell season, but the wash of little blue blooms in the forest floor does have its subtle charm. Here is Jenny providing evidence that we did indeed find the bluebell trail that our landlord Liz told me about.

We got home just in time to pick up the girls from school. They were very excited to be able to show Aunt Jenny around.

We did our Friday Pizza night at the Carpenter’s Arms a day early given that the next day was a Bank Holiday for the Royal Wedding. We enjoyed showing off our favorite pub to Jenny. We had some of their great pizza,

but the girls were also happy to be able to play the giant Jenga game

and goof off with their aunt.

Bill and I just sat back and enjoyed ourselves.

The next day we stayed home like everyone else in the country and watched the Royal Wedding. Who better to watch this event with than Jenny? We had a great time watching it. After the coverage ended, we headed to a village party in one of our favorite Tamar Valley villages, Calstock.

There were hundreds of people enjoying themselves with food, games, and real ales, including a special ale served only the day of the wedding: Skinner’s Royal Wedding Ale – Kate Loves Willy. We were fortunate to get some as it was only served at a few pubs and the Tamar Inn was fortunate to be one of them.

We enjoyed some of this ale on the Calstock Quay

while the girls played on the pirate ship playground, which they love. We also watched a Smite tournament going on next to where we were sitting and tried to figure out how to play. Smite is a Cornish garden game that resembles the French game of boule but is played with cylinders instead of balls.

Jenny left the next day on a train for London and her return flight to Portland, vowing to return to Cornwall before we left with her family in tow.