Sylvia……………… We went to Boscastle next as you suggested. The Witchcraft museum was the main attraction although I did have to walk as far as I could along the harbour. The slate rocks felt slippery underfoot and my vertigo kicked in, a safety device I think because one false move and you were tumbling down the rock straight into the sea, the wrong side of the breakwater with no way out except swimming. Pat finally managed to get me back to the safe side of the breakwater without any mishap.

The harbour is quite fantastic and somewhere Pat’s read that if the Atlantic waves don’t get you then Boscastle Harbour will. The cliffs rise almost vertical to about 150ft on both sides and the inlet then goes round to the left, past a breakwater that juts out halfway across the channel and then curves right before finally bursting free into the Atlantic. If you can find it from seawards you are brilliant because there are no landmarks that I can see, but if you can then negotiate your way safely into the harbour, you should be captain of a Starship.

By the time we got back the Witchcraft Museum was open. I loved the Pentacles burnt into the wood above the front door and the Broom park for visiting witches (Pat’s a terrible passenger so I’d left mine at home). Once inside I enjoyed reading the history, but it’s really sad, the persecution of the village wise women and men must have been horrendous. I can’t help wondering how many others suffered because they could not find anyone with the knowledge to mix up a potion to cure their toothache, headache or other ills.

The museum obviously has all the instruments used to torture the victims and they were truly barbaric and we can only be thankful that as a race, we have grown beyond this type of persecution.

I loved some of the lucky charms and talismans they had on show and I’m certainly going to have a go at making some for myself. They’ll look good in our back garden, if we’ve still got one when we finally get home.
I was intrigued to see how many of the exhibits are protected by modern lasers and couldn’t help wondering why they hadn’t used protection spells. Perhaps modern man doesn’t believe in the power of thought!

Some of the exhibits were also gruesome, a mummified hand with a finger hanging on by a bit of bandage, a lot of dolls with pins stuck in them and dolls held over flames. These were obviously meant to cause hurt and harm to the victim but I can’t quite believe this of the everyday witch who’s creed is ‘So long as ye harm none, then do as ye will’. To ‘harm none’ is a huge task and not many of us today can honestly say we have never caused harm (include upset in that) to others.

Once back out in the sunshine we (my mouse and I) wanted sea and sand so off we went to Bude. We stopped in a layby for lunch and met Herbie, a lovely young crossbreed dog, a greyhound and wolf I think. He was so friendly his owner had no other option but to come and talk to us. His family had lived in the area for 5 years. They had sold up in Ipswich and bought a carpet cleaning business in Crackington Haven and never looked back since. He said they’ve felt on holiday for 5 years. They’re now saving for a caravan for weekends away and he wished us well with our travelling.

We arrived in Bude and having parked up it seemed a day for meeting people because we hadn’t left the van before we met with Rene (pronounce rainy) and her son Mike, who were interested in the van. She was Polish and lived with Mike locally. She also has a daughter in Vienna and sometimes goes on holiday there and has the best of both worlds. They invited us over to their house for a chat and coffee, an offer which we took up that evening.

We finally got onto the beach with the Kite Aerial Photography gear and took some low shots of a boat or two before the Dakota aircraft in the Dunkirk colours came flying by. It was Mike who told us that the beach at Westward Ho! is used as a landing strip for that aircraft.

Back at the van we were accosted by an elderly chap who again liked the van. He was a happy soul and loved our sticker that shows one finger in the air and accompanied by the words ‘ Two grumpy old farts boldly going nowhere’. He told us to look for his Fiat Panda ‘cos on the back he’s put ‘The poor man’s Range Rover’ and ‘Poxy Panda’. I don’t think he’s over keen on it.

That evening we visited Rene and Mike and Rene and I hit it off straight away. She’s 84 but makes all her own clothes, she paints, she knits some fantastic Aran cardigans and she does tapestries, very artistic. She showed me her portrait work and they were beautiful.

She told me that when Germany invaded Poland she was taken as slave labour to work for a high ranking German officer. For 3 years she worked 7am to 11pm hand washing for 7 people, keeping the house clean and tidy and lots of other tasks, it was very hard work. After the war ended she became a displaced person and was living in some Barracks near the River Elba. The British had control and she exchanged her portraits for food and soap. It was here she met Ernest, who tried to get her over to one of the barracks in the West because the Russians were going to take over. She knew she would be taken to Siberia or killed if she did not get out and found herself on a train. Luckily the train took her to a town where displaced persons could stay in barracks with the British in charge. Safe at last she started selling portraits to the soldiers and when one of them recognised her he told his Sergeant, Ernest. Ernest helped her get rooms in Hanover where he was billeted and like all good fairy tales they married.

Rene showed me some suits she had made, they were gorgeous wool and tailored. The one I tried on fitted like a glove and she would dearly have loved me to have it along with a brightly coloured print silk dress. As much as my heart wanted to take them, I knew they would only have sat in my wardrobe and I had to decline. I still think that dress would have looked good on me.

Two and half hours later (we were only going to stay for I hour) we left in a furious thunderstorm. We felt very privileged to have been invited into their home and treated as long lost relatives.