Day 13 Rest Day in Boscastle

What does one do on a rest day? Firstly dry out wet tent by hanging the flysheet (the wettest bit) over the shower. Sponge worst of mud off ground sheet and hang it to dry. Wash underwear and shirt. Realise no room left in shower. Also realise that other shirt is too unpleasant to put on so go down to dinner in a fleece. I’m counting the rest day as starting from the evening of Day 12 because I had a lot of washing/drying to do and the place I’m staying makes it quite clear that they don’t do guests’ laundry.

My guesthouse backs onto what I thought was the River Jordan. No, I’m not deluded, nor geographically challenged-there are two rivers in Boscastle, the Valency and the Jordan. It turns out that the Jordan joins the Valency about 20 metres downstream from my room so the river I sat looking out on at dinner last night was the Valency.

This morning I had breakfast, muesli, full English, toast, then went for a walk round Boscastle. I identified three pasty options but as tomorrow is a Bank Holiday I’m not sure what will be available. I had another look at the harbour and noticed the flood level marker from 2004 above the door of the Witchcraft Museum. Yes, Boscastle hosts the largest witchcraft museum in the UK. I didn’t visit because booking seemed rather complicated and I thought I’d rather have a snooze. The flood happened one day in summer 2014 after torrential rainfall, and although no lives were lost, a lot of the village was washed away. It has all since been rebuilt but still looks as if it is original.

And that is most of what I did today. I had a second walk later on when the tide was out.

As my day has been rather dull for you to read about, I thought you might be interested in the different stile styles, as they are now rather different from those around Zennor.

There were others, the most fiendish being a double stile. Firstly, steps with an upright at the top, with, immediately behind it a standard modern stile. Why? Can the sheep jump over the traditional stiles? In which case you think they’d have modified them a couple of hundred years ago. It certainly makes it more challenging for the rather tired walker.

And that was my rest day. Almost no walking, and a lot of clean clothes.