Sabbatical Diary – Day 40

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Me at Land’s End doing the signpost photo thing. Which is easier to do after 6.00, when the photo guy has gone and you can just drive round yourself. Generated a bit of interest and ended up with a few others having photos taken on the trike. I should have started charging. (If you enlarge the photo and look at my jacket just below my left ear, you will see a white mark. There was more on my back, and a little on my cap. And yes, it is what you think it is. Did a little washing when I got to my room.)

View of Longships Lighthouse, a little over a mile West of Land’s End.

St Michael’s Mount.

Chapel in the old Priory at the top, where I went for Evening Prayer.

All the info on St Michael’s Mount, including what you are given there, now refers to a Castle, but the building’s origins are as an 11th Century Priory built by Benedictine monks from Mont St Michel in France. It seems a pity that these beginnings seem to be being unwritten. The guidebook consistently talks about the ‘Castle’ and there is no mention of a Monastery or Priory or the link with Mont St Michel, but, there is a brief mention of ‘after the monks had left’ as a time reference point, and the steps up are referred to as ‘Pilgrims steps’.

Good visit though, although tough on the knees, particularly after a steep walk to St Anthony’s Lighthouse earlier in the day.

Had a ‘moment’ with three youngsters in Porthleven. They were admiring the trike as I approached, very slowly, in very narrow streets. I ‘high-fived’ them as a passed. (Very slowly, as I said.) As I went they were shouting ‘rev it, rev it’. So I did (with clutch pulled in, so still travelling very slowly.) They were cheering. Not sure who enjoyed the exchange more, me or them.

I get quite a lot of people, especially boys, asking for some revs as I go past, generally by miming a twist of the throttle. I like to oblige, and generally get a good response. It does make a nice deep rumble, not like the high pitched whine of high revving sports bikes. I guess it’s a matter of taste.

God bless,

Mike