I was awake at the crack of sparrows this morning, still thinking I’m somewhere in the Far East. It does have some advantages, I was able to have breakfast ready by 8am and we were in the car on the way to Toby’s beach before 9am – this was partly to see Tobes, partly to walk R&A and partly because this weekend is the Run to the Sun. A VW event that has been running for years where a crowd of enthusiasts meet in London, drive down in convoy and camp near Newquay for the weekend. In recent years it has been taken over by non-VW folks who drive ‘hot hatches’ and don’t have any interest in the original reason for doing it. This has totally spoiled the event for the likes of DM who is something of a purist about these things.

BUT you do still see some wonderful bugs and buses so we thought a trip over there would give us something to see too. It did – there were some fabulous bugs and buses around but the traffic was appalling and we didn’t stay.

We spent a happy hour and a half on Crantock Beach at high tide. The river Gannel runs into the sea between Crantock and Newquay but is so silted up that it is un-navigable at anything other than high tide. This boat is the biggest boat I have ever seen in the Gannel estuary and makes its appearance here out of a sense of posterity rather than artistic quality.

There was method in our madness in another way too – on the way home from Crantock, we pass through Bodmin and their DIY shops so we could collect paint, timber and other stuff for a full-on day of decorating at the cottage.

I found myself, swaying with that strange feeling you get when desperately jetlagged as though the ground is swaying, up a ladder sloshing paint around for the rest of the day. Groan.

DMs view is why are we doing this at this pace when we’ve got forever. I can’t bear the thought though of every time we are here for ever more needing to paint – me, I’d rather just get it all over with in one short, concentrated period of pain!

Last year's pic is one of my highest hitting ever - strange! Two years ago I was struggling with life so took a bit of help from a time-saving but ultimately crappy service.....