The new(ish) headmistress at the local comprehensive school has brought in a number of measures that have been raising several eyebrows in the local community. Some of the changes made have been much needed; such as kitting out the foyer and reception area and generally giving the place a feeling that it is looked after. Others such as keeping the kids in school during Feast Monday haven’t gone down so well.

In fact I would go as far to say that the raised eyebrow to unraised eyebrow ratio hasn’t been so weighted in favour of the former for quite a while.

The latest reports from our correspondent in the battlezone (that’ll be my mum) seem to indicate that the headmistress has had to bow down to popular pressure and free the kids (just for one day mind) in order to attend the Feast celebrations. I think we can all breath a sigh of relief.

As an aside, as fascinating as the article linked to is, it can’t compete with some of the comments posted. My favourite so far is the person who on being unable to find anything on the Feast on Google came to the conclusion that it can’t be anything big. Are we already reaching the point where if it’s not on Google then it doesn’t exist?

No surprise that a recent report on the effect of rising sea levels by the National Trust is going to be grim reading especially if you live in a county where you know, a lot of it is coastline.
A short article by the Guardian about the report starts off with the warning that the causeway joining St. Michael’s Mount to the mainland at Marazion will be in danger of washing away within 45 years.

National Trust branded waders soon to join the usual tat in their shops?

How’s that for a down to earth post title?

Couple of local St. Just artists are exhibiting some of their fantastic work at the moment. Sarah Vivian is exhibiting at the Just Fine Art gallery in St. Just itself while Tom Henderson Smith has an exhibition over at Falmouth at the Spring and Steele Galleries in the Falmouth Arts Centre. Both exhibitions are running until the 11th October so if you’re down this way they’re both well worth seeing.

A recent weekend saw some rather jolly weather and of course a long walk was in order. This time we ventured as far as Nanjulian via Cot Valley - about two thirds of the way from St. Just to Sennen. The local wildlife seemed to be out enjoying the sun as well. Luckily we were armed with a camera:

Llamas?!

Actually, llamas do seem to be quite popular with the farms around here at the moment as at least a couple seem to be keeping some. Out of shot were some sheep taking advantage of the shade afforded by a hedge. So sheep prefer shade while llamas prefer to sunbathe.

A cormorant. Honest.

The local variety is known as a Cornish shag. Much better than the shags you get in Devon apparently.

Migrating granite.

We had to be really quiet while we were taking photos of the granite. Over the next few weeks they’ll be migrating down to the Saharan desert for the winter.

How do longhorn cattle lie down? Quite easily it seems.

Not to be outdone by the llamas, the cows have upgraded themselves to version 2.0, usually known as longhorn cattle.

Monarch of Nanjulian?

The stars however, were a pair of Cornish choughs.

Having a walk.

Having a poke.

Having a clean.

Cornish choughs are really rare, so we did a bit of a double take seeing a pair of them just a few yards away.

Like Cot Valley, Nanjulian also sports a rather fine raised beach.

A raised beach - just for the geologists out there.

More photos in our gallery.

Over the bank holiday weekend we went on a guided walk of some of the local wells. Why go on a tour of the local wells? Well, (tee hee!) it was fascinating finding out stuff such as the reason why a stretch of wall near my mum’s house randomly has an arch is because it was once the site of a public water pump. I’ve blindly walked past this arch without giving a second thought while I was growing up and I would never have guessed that there was any more of a reason for the arch other than somebody sometime fancied one there.

This is relatively recent history (folks in St. Just still drank from wells & pumps up until the 1950s and 60s) and yet most of the sites have either been built over, capped or ruined by the various permutations over the years of the local water board.

The tour was by Rory Te’Tigo of the Stone Age Studio who has had a crack at uncovering and to an extent restoring a number of the local wells in the area.