Of weddings and honeymoons
We did not have an ethical/green wedding.
Please forgive me! I wasn’t involved with the planning (god bless my wife) and to be honest it was stressful enough.
The honeymoon was originally going to be Thailand, but due to a) money and b) our striving to be green. We visited Cornwall and stayed in a small cottage with all the mod cons. Little Hendra was close to many attractions we wanted to visit.
One of the places my wife particularly wanted to visit was the Lost gardens of Heligan. I was surprised by how wide ranging they were including the pineapple greenhouse and the veg gardens. We also enjoyed the jungle valley – it was beautiful but unfortunately the lost valley at the bottom of the hill was nothing special.
The Eden project was fab as well. It’s a shame we didn’t know about the Eden sessions or we could have attempted to book tickets for the Friday night and spend the afternoon and evening there. It’s my second time to Eden and it’s a fantastic place. I love the way the allotment exhibition has evolved over two years and that they use some of the produce they produce in their pizzeria (well worth visiting for that alone)
One of the first meals we had down in Cornwall was at Rick Steins ‘The Seafood Resturant’. We both went for the taster menu which whilst expensive was incredibly delicious (though we both agreed the broth was the weak point of the menu) and cost an incredible £64 each (not including wine). Almost all the food on the plate was local or ethical. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to eat there – I don’t intend to pop in again, plus I’m not a lover of seafood so being so impressed by it shows how good the fare really was.
We did several alcohol related trips, including two English vineyards – one of which was Camel Valley. The tour was interesting and the wine quite palatable. We ended up buying almost £70 worth!
Another must (or should that be musk?) visit is the Tamar Otter Sanctuary. I’ve been fascinated by otters since I was a child after watching ring of bright water, though I’ve never seen them in the wild. This is the second time I’ve seen otters, the first was during a tour of Asia, though this time I got to see both the English otter (very much bigger than the Asian) and a mix of other species. Not only do they have otters there (very cute but also incredibly smelly) they also have wallabies and a menagerie of birds (ducks, owls, peacocks etc) and deer.
On the way back, we went via Hereford and stayed in a hotel next to an Abbey inhabited by monks. We popped into the spread eagle for dinner – had a lovely local fresh cooked meal (locally butchered chilli sausages in Yorkshire pud followed by tiramisu) before returning to our hotel – where we met our first monk taking the evening air.
We didn’t go to bed until late as we were watching a movie until about midnight. This wouldn’t usually be a problem because we’d arranged a late checkout, however we’d forgotten we were adjacent to an Abbey inhabited by monks, so around 7am the bells started…
We also popped into Westons cider mill. If you want a good afternoon out I can recommend no finer place. It really was worth the time and money. Not only did we get to see the brewery in full (including the massive oak barrels where the cider is fermented) but you get to try a big selection of their cider. Personally I tried them all as Helen was driving. I believe it’s sound business practice to do this – after all, you can’t easily buy every type of Westons cider in the shops and try just a bit to see if you like it. If you tried to drink every type side by side, you’d be more than a little ill.
After trying them, we bought a case of our favourite (a medium sweet). I’m now pretty sure next time I see a bottle of Westons in a supermarket it’ll be top choice over the competition.
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