Intrepid in Cornwall

Setting off  For Cornwall

Like most writers I have to perform a juggling act. There's  the creative writing that comes straight from the heart, the copy-writing for rubbber gloves and wrinkle creams, and the fascinating work I have as a Clerk of the Court in London. 

Trendy people call it a 'work portfolio' and talk rather pompously of 'income streams.' If I'm honest, I don't care what they're called. Each brings its own mix of fun, despair, creative satisfaction and, well, money, in varying quantities.

This month one of the 'income streams'  brings me to Cornwall.  I have not visited that enchanted place since childhood. I remember it as a goblin-land - mysterious, beautiful and much warmer than London. Terrified that it won't be like that now, I book a ticket from London Paddington to Truro.  The Cornish Riviera Express - it doesn't disappoint and transports us at an unruly speed as far as Plymouth. After that, we meander further and further away from the capital city and all its angst. 

One of the things I want to do while I'm down here is rediscover my own creative wellspring, which has sadly deserted me in the year since my mother's death. Yes, I've met my commitments. I'm a professional, right? But my own, personal projects are stuck, and I cannot seem to recover that joy I used to have when I sat down with my novel and lost myself in another world. 

Photo JEnnifer Pittam

 I check into my hotel, The Alverton. It was once an abbey, owned by the Order of the Epiphany - well, there's serendipity. I could do with a bit of an epiphany. Things are looking up.

I was but made fancy
By some necromancy
That much of my life claims the spot as its key.

St Juliot, Thomas Hardy 1913