Nearly...

Long day...  Another early cockerel-inspired start, which gave us enough time (I say us, I mean me) to clean the apartment before packing up and leaving our little rural idyll to hit the road.  The smallholding we were staying on was down about 5km (according to Google lady - though truth be told she was never very happy that the house existed and was only really comfortable directing us from it, not to it) of very single track road.  In the sense that the 6 foot walls on either side precluded even a verge to pull onto.  However, in all our journeys in and out we didn't meet one other vehicle.  And in the whole time in Cornwall on tiny roads (Google maps really needs an 'avoid tiny roads' setting...) I only had to reverse into a passing place once - which is a joy given my general inability to reverse.  

Anyway, once on the road, we headed to Heligan, as in the Lost Gardens of.  A super place - busy, but easily big enough to feel you were alone for large parts of it.  The central gardens (the veg garden in particular) were fantastic - a real glimpse into how it would have been 100 years ago.  The pigs were being fed just as we arrived and the kids were overjoyed to see that.  Very cute piglets.  Though they (the kids) were a bit confused that none of them said 'oink'.  The mums said 'grunt' and the piglets mostly just squealed as the mums threw them out of the way of the food.  (I have decided to be that kind of parent and make the kids fight me for their food.  Well, CarbBoy anyway - I don't fancy my chances against TallGirl ...)

Lunch was delicious, and spent in the company of very bold blackbirds, robins, sparrows and a thrush (when the dog at the next table wasn't barking at them).  More exploring afterwards and several ideas for my garden; it may not be grand, but there's no harm learning from (ie stealing stuff from) the big boys. (Though I will certainly not be installing a scary wobbly rope bridge of the type I was forced over by my lovely children...)

We were done early enough for another activity, so headed off to the Eden Project.  Now, arriving at such a grand place at 4pm may not be a good idea given the entrance price, but it did mean we missed the crowds, could park right next to the entrance and had the place almost to ourselves.  The kids liked it more than I thought they would, to the extent that TallGirl was grumpy at being hurried through the rainforest biome as she hadn't had a chance to read all the signs (in my defence it was very hot in there and I wanted to tick 'cream tea' off our list of Cornish things to do before the café closed).  The Mediterranean biome gave us all a sharp bout of homesickness... and then, appropriately enough, it was time to start the long, Radio 4-fuelled, journey to Bristol.  

The Google lady did us proud again, giving us a wholly unnecessary and slightly tense last taste of Cornish single-track roads, before delivering us safely to the M5.  Our motel was just next to the airport (for an early start in the morning) though sadly my taking the hire car back meant we missed last food orders at the pub.  However, we all agreed that we had stuffed ourselves so royally for the past few days that a dinner of crisps would not do us any harm.  And I was able to teach the kids a few tricks with beermats.

Although the point of this break was to help the kids to not miss Mr B so sharply, I think it has had a side benefit of helping all three of us remember there is more to life than "have you brushed your teeth?" "have you done your homework?" "Mammy, she broke my stick" "That's not fair - he did it first"... And so on.  It's helpful to remember sometimes that family can be friends too.