I’m determined to find all there is in my local area, west of Penzance, and so I don’t travel far beyond the end of the line unless I’m on a long journey.
Mother lives in Redruth though, and so now that The Cornish Way is finally based in St Just I’ll be seeing a lot more of her, and today, Father’s Day, was a great day for us to go out together.
Like any true Cornish woman, mother is a dab hand at making pasties and so when she offered to knock our a couple for our picnic lunch I was happy.
We ate them at Port Navas, a delightful little hamlet on an estuary of the Helford River where we sat happily bantering on a bench for a good hour or so. It was so quiet, we didn’t see a soul.
Just one of the many houses I desired at Port Navas.
We’d headed to the Helford to find a garden, The Potager, that my sis had recommended, and we wound our way through a load of lanes before we found it, eventually realising that we’d driven within a hundred meters of it a couple of times but missed its overgrown sign.
Simple, beautiful.
The Potager is the resurrection of an abandoned plant nursery. It’s a gorgeous place to spend a restful afternoon in simple, not overly structured gardens. It offers civilised games such as badminton, table tennis (in the glass house so be ready for the hottest game you’ve had in a while) and a tight rope – not so high as to be scary, but surprisingly hard to walk.
Acrobat, in the glasshouse.
We were pastyful (strange, MS Word doesn’t recognise that as a word) and so didn’t partake of the great looking fare in the vege organic Glasshouse restaurant, but I’ll certainly try it next time.
Log wall, The Potager.
The Potager is just outside of Constantine and it’s a good excuse for Cornish Way guests to venture off to explore the calmer side of Cornwall. The Helford is sheltered from the storms that batter us in West Penwith, and is perfect for growing all sorts of lush vegetation. The garden is only open Friday, Saturday and Sundays, and while you’re in that direction the gardens of Glendurgan and Trebah are worth visiting too.
Peggy and Kelvin – pastyful!
