This is Lansallos Church – to give it its proper name it’s the Church of St Ildierna – which was dedicated in 1321 – so it’s very old. It nearly was no more when vandals broke in and set fire to the church early in 2005, destroying quite a large part of the church. Now as you’ll know, I’m a complete atheist but I still think this is a disgrace and the fact that such an important and ancient building has been so badly damaged is tragic.

Anyway, the building looks a lot better now – photos of it after the fire of 2005 show it roof-less so at least it’s water-tight again. I don’t know (because all of the information about the church that I could find online is woefully out-of-date) how much of the internal restoration is complete.

The church sits at the top of the footpath down to Lansallos Cove. It’s basically the start and end point of our walk today.

We were supposed to be sanding, filling and painting the new woodwork in our sitting room but the weather is so gorgeous and we’re so in need of a break that we decided to knock off a bit of coast path that we’ve not walked before.

We decided on the chunk between Lansallos Cove and Polperro, the round trip being around nine miles or so, give or take a few hundred metres. (Pardon me for mixing my units of measure there.)

The coast path is dead difficult – don’t assume it’s a gentle amble along the shore, it’s quite a challenge. The path goes up and down cliffs, into gorges and up onto the tops of headlands so we got a good cardio-vascular workout as part of our day.

The weather has been exceptional – I was walking in a vest – well, not only a vest – I did have trousers on too but I was bare-armed and shouldered and I’ve caught the sun would you believe…..in October, I’ve got a little touch of sunburn!!!

Archie is struggling with such a challenging walk these days to be honest, he puffed like a steam train and rarely was further than two or three paces away from us but he made it and when we took him onto the beach at Lansallos for a swim at the end of the walk, he perked up no end and had a lovely swim. Both dogs got fortification in the form of a couple of packets of pork scratchings in the Three Pilchards, while we whiled away an hour in the middle of the walk with lunch and DM glued to the TV while he watched whats-his-face – you know the one – the ‘young turk’ of Grand Prix racing – I’m sorry his name escapes me - get his pole position for tomorrow’s Grand Prix, which I’m told could be the championship decider. I reckon just about every Brit on the planet is rooting for him tomorrow. Even I (and I basically think motor racing is tedious, sorry Gail and DM) may even watch. Lewis – that’s it – Lewis Hamilton – that’s the chap’s name – but then I’m sure you knew that didn’t you! So – come on Lewis!

We’ve seen a seal playing in the surf, a huge array of birds, butterflies, wild flowers and other ‘stuff’ while we’ve been walking and we’ve had a terrific time. Sometimes it’s nice to bunk off from responsibilities and chores and just have a good time.

Last year, I was showing off our holes in walls!