Our friends were due to arrive on Monday afternoon so as the weather was mainly dry again we thought we'd make the most of the morning and get out for another walk. We walk down into Padstow via St Petroc's Church and up to Prideaux Place to see their herd of deer, who all seemed to be enjoying the relatively warm sunshine.
We knew the weather would change and on arrival back to the site the heavens opened, producing a fabulous double rainbow over the site.
We spent that evening with our friends in their motorhome where we enjoyed a Chinese takeaway for four delivered to the site!
On Sunday morning it was time, all too soon, to pack up and leave lovely St Ives for another year. Before doing so we booked our favourite pitch for next Christmas!!!
Our next stop, for the New Year festivities, was Padstow. We arrived on site to lovely sunshine so after pitching up and sorting Paddy out we walked from the campsite down into Padstow for the afternoon, where we enjoyed a lovely Sunday roast in the Harbour Inn. The harbour area and town was packed, just like St Ives had been all over Christmas. The weather was stunning, although it was obviously the calm before the storm. That evening the torrential rain arrived again along with more gale force winds. We spent most of the night and early morning sat up drinking tea, hoping it would pass!
During Boxing Day night and into Friday morning the weather was horrendous. They had predicted 60 - 80mph winds and they were right. We also had torrential rain and hail for most of the night and into the early hours so didn't sleep particularly well. When you're situated on a cliff top overlooking the Atlantic and there's a gale blowing it's certainly not a time to sleep! Hence, we didn't do too much on Friday. We did manage to get out for a short walk in between showers but that was about it for us that day.
Saturday was our last full day in St Ives and even though the weather was predicted to be bad again it was dry when we got up so we decided to risk it and walk into St Ives again, fully waterproofed up!! We walked down via Porthmeor Beach and up onto the headland to the chapel and coastguards look-out point. There seemed to be a crowd gathering and the coastguard came out to tell us that there were dolphins in the bay. Wow, what a fantastic sight! I cannot believe how lucky we were to see them, it certainly made my Christmas. There was a small pod of six or so dolphins swimming fairly close to the coast and we stood and watched them for some time, as the weather closed in! We did manage to get down into St Ives via Porthgwidden Beach and the harbour before the heavens opened luckily! We enjoyed a few hours in St Ives, did a bit of sale shopping and had a lovely lunch in the Lifeboat Inn.
After a slow start to the morning on Boxing Day, following the over-eating and drinking the previous day, we decided to go for a walk to Carbis Bay and back as the sun was shining. St Ives seemed to be packed full of people doing the same thing!
On Christmas morning we had a nice lay-in, a very light breakfast and a short wander in St Ives and around the harbour area before heading back to cook our Christmas dinner. We spent the rest of the day with Paddy, chilling out and generally feeling full!
No sooner than our wonderful summer was over Christmas seemed to be upon us, which for us meant our now traditional trip down to St Ives for the festivities.
We arrived on Christmas Eve (Tuesday) and pitched up on our regular pitch overlooking the bay and discovered our neighbours were the same as last year, along with their pet macaw Motley!
We caught up with them, spent the afternoon putting our decorations up in the camper and then headed into town for a bite to eat and a few pre-Christmas drinks that evening.
