Cornish travels and travails

I've been off down to Cornwall again yesterday & today. The Paignton meeting was postponed for a week, so it was just the two people to see - one in Helston & one in Penzance. I always forget just how far away Penzance really is. It looks ok on the map, but that's bcause you can't see that they don't have real roads in Cornwall! I also tend to forget to leave an extra 30 mins to get through the Truro traffic!

Still, I just about made it to my first meeting in Helston on time. LMD slept the whole drive which was great, but she was awake & happily exploring the place all through the meeting. Still, I think they're getting used to her now! We finished up the business talk noce & quickly, & I had time to nip back to Falmouth to drop everything off at my hotel, before heading out to the second meeting at Penzance. I got lost in Penzance - you'd think a brand new leisure centre, opposite the main collage might be signposted from the town centre? No. Signposted from the main road? No. Signposted at it's entrance? No. I finally asked a taxi-driver, who was very helpful, and made it there only 20 mins late. oops.

However, it went well, & I think I persuaded them to do all the stuff I wanted them to. I also got some useful conatcts for some furtur projects, so hopefully they will pan out well. Unfortunately I spent so much time chatting & being nice that we didn't leave till nearly 9pm. I still hadn't eaten, so I went looking for a restuarant. Now Penance town centre looked like a pretty vibrant place, but I was no-where near there & parking was difficult anyway, so I thought I'd stop at a roadside place on the way back. Yopu know the type of thing, one of the large chains, or a local equivelent.

There were none outside of Penzance, nothing on the road between Penzance & Helston, & nothing on the ouskirts of Helston. I decided to start looking for ANY kind of food - take-away, burger van etc. There was nothing on the road between Helston & Falmouth, & much to my surprise nothing on the edges of Falmouth. Not even any service stations were open! I even went round Falmouth town centre, but couldn't find anywhere that was still open at 9.30pm! I finally settled for a stale sarnie from a filling station & went back to my hotel room to eat it alone:-(

LMD refused point blank to sleep in the cot they had nicely provided for me, so we spent an uncomfortable night sharing the very soft single bed! BUT, I didn't get up till half past seven! Wow! Had a nice breakfast & set off back home. I did look for somwhere to buy Mr A some cornish pasties, but apparently all the normal places only have these during tourist season, so unless I was willing to pay to park in Truro, then wander around for an hour looking for the local bakers & hoping that they hadn't a) sold out already b) not cooked them yet for the lunch-time trade, I couldn't get any. So I didn't. Sorry Mr A!

We got back to find some idiot had parked their car right scross our driveway, blocking both my & our neighbours access. So have just called the police out to get them towed. That'll teach 'em.