Hellebores and Pasties!

Last weekend saw us visiting the wonderful Eden Project.

We used to go lots with the children, Eden do a great locals pass and we made full use of ours! Now the teens are less keen and so I haven't been for almost a year.

The sun was out (although there was the odd patch of hail) and the view from the entrance never fails to impress.

Wandering down to the domes we saw...

 Anemone Blanda in the sun...

Drifts of Hellebores surrounded by Daffodils and Hyacinths...

more Hellebores, Daffodils and enormous Crocus (although it started to hail just at this point so they don't feature in the photo)

...and lovely ferny glades of naturalised Daffodils.

 A slope of impressively clipped box circles containing drifts of bulbs.

Mounding drifts of heather.

And is this what took us to Eden on a bright sunny Saturday morning in March?

No.

We were there for the World Pasty Championships (yes it is a thing!)

One of my friends was a judge and needed support - it's an honour that is fraught with danger and proved very stressful! 

We celebrated the Cornish Pasty, Cornish Clotted Cream and all things Cornish. There was even a performance by The Pasty Rappers (yes - that's a thing too)

As if that wasn't Cornish enough, it was also St Piran's Day.

So I hope you all had a good St Piran's Day and celebrated with a 'proper job' pasty.

The blue skies of St Agnes

I have a couple of outings to post about, outings that were all the more special for being brief interludes in the bad weather. Our winter walks have been few and far between this winter, and so these were quite special to us.

The weekend before last we went over to St Agnes on the North Coast. Bathed in sunlight, the rugged shoreline stretched away to the north, the colours of the cliffs shining bright.

    

The sea was turquoise and constantly changing in the sun, the bare skeletons of the undergrowth stark and windswept, stripped bare and contrasting against the blues.

The brambles silvered and jagged.

Bare trees, twisted and whipped into contortions by the wind, clinging to crevices and edges.

Is there ever a time when Gorse doesn't flower - brightening every gloomy day. Down here in Cornwall Gorse is often a year round thing, but in winter even when the sun is on it there's no fragrance to speak of.

   

Shaggy grasses topping Cornish walls and naturalised daffodils nestling in sheltered spots.

Silvery seed heads, seeds long gone.

Topiary designed by the wind!

   

Outings like this remind me why we moved to Cornwall...

...how can you not be inspired!