Wandering Wotan

Well just back from a weeks sojourn in Cornwall. Definitely a land of contrasts this week as the Gulf Stream brought in the tail winds of Sandy to batter the coast. Nothing quite like dipping your toes into the green Atlantic to set you up for the day, walking the beach every morning with my trusty hounds and having the sea air whip past was just the perfect recipe for relaxation. The rain and stiff winds mainly confined themselves to the early hours, so it was good weather on the whole. Having been to the region many times, it was a home from home. While we were there we looked in at Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, just down the coast from Lands End, where Marconi experimented with radio and the first deep sea telephone cables were developed. In the grounds of the museum is a receiver and loudspeaker setup allows you to hear signals picked up on a disused cable crossing the atlantic from fluxes in the Earths magnetic field. These were audible as ghostly and enigmatic sounds which warbled and wailed in an amazing fashion, not unlike Ron Grainers radiophonic workshop.

 On Halloween, we took off to the Eden Project to see the fantastic tropical paradise built in a disused clay quarry. Centred around three main geodesic Fuller domes, containing an amazing assortment of tropical and sub tropical flora, the Eden Project aims to educate and inform about ecology and botany.

 In the tropical zone, it was hard to imagine that just outside the transparent dome, it was hailing hard and blowing a gale as condensation dripped from banana leaves and birds hopped from beautiful coloured bloom laden branches.

Interestingly, the Eden Project featured in Pierce Brosnans last Bond outing, 'Die Another Day' where it featured as Gustav Graves Icelandic base. When I visited recently, the curved dome at the front of the photo held an ice rink, but there was no sign of Miranda Frost unfortunately.

Finally, to celebrate Halloween, I popped down to the local norman church to visit the wonderfully atmospheric graveyard as the sun went down. Just down the lane a little from the church sits a holy well, dedicated to one St Ambrose, sealed over by a wooden door. The weather was suitably wretched that evening and was watched over by a full moon!