Welcome Steve (Sparky)

[Kath Mulligan]

Hi Steve, welcome to the wonderful world of Minack. Linda says you have a little hideaway in Lamorna - you lucky person! And that you may be joining us for the AGM weekend, in which case, look forward to meeting you there.

In the meantime, do please come on the forum and tell us a bit about yourself and your interest in the Chronicles and Cornwall. We already have a couple of Canadian forum members, so you are not alone.

Kath

[gloria townsin]

Hi Steve - I am the late night one of the forum, although I do try to keep better time occasionally. Hope you make it to the AGM you will enjoy Minack company for a good long weekend. We are living in Hertfordshire at the moment but we have a bungalow in Mullion so just look across towards the Lizard when you are in Lamorna and give us a wave. We are doing lots of renovations and building work so will move when that is completed or at least a good way towards completion, can't be quick enough for me. In the meantime we will be spending as much time as possible there. Cornwall must have a huge magnet at it's border as I feel it's pull all the time. :D Look forward to hearing from you and great to have you aboard.

[Sparky]

Hello!

Thank you for your kind words of welcome!

My name is Steve and I am writing from southern Alberta,Canada where I have lived off and on for about 25 years having first come here to persue my profession as a petroleum geologist.

My wife,Elaine is Canadian and we have children and grandchildren.We live in the countryside on about 3 acres that we share with our three dogs(Yorkie,Bischon and my lifelong friend,Sparky,a Jack Russell and at 14 still as loveable and vibrant as ever)and hopefully soon a few horses.

I am however from Stockport and a confirmed Anglophile and a confirmed Cornwall-lover.

I discovered the Minack books a few years ago and have read many but not all. I re-read them constantly and find them a great source of peace and happiness and hope.I have a few signed first editions and would love one day to have a complete set. Unfortunately I never met Jeannie or Derek but did visit Oliver Land for the first time several years ago and found it a place of wonderment,particularily in winter,when the solitude is complete.

As a child we spent every family holiday in Sennen or Praa Sands and as an adult I have been fortunate enough to vist Cornwall almost every year. I love to hike and walk and watch birds and mammals and all all forms of nature and have walked most of the Cornwall coastal path many times.

It has been a lifelong dream of mine to own a home in SW Cornwall and after much searching last October the dream became reality. It was purely by chance(it was definately pure fate)when on a walk alone along the coastal path from Mousehole to the Tater Dhu lighthouse(by Minack and Oliver Land)and back that, in the almost complete darkness of a late Sunday afternoon,walking up the cliff path out of Lamorna towards Mousehole,completely alone,I turned around and,totally by accident spied through my binoculars what I thought was an almost hidden FOR SALE sign on a cottage just out of the cove(I certainly had not seen it on my way through an hour or two earlier).I debated with myself whether or not to return down into the cove as it was getting late and I had a good walk yet back to Mousehole but I decided to go and take a look and liked what I saw immediately! A little delapidated but perfect! A dream!
The following day I viewed the cottage and within ten mintes made an offer to the estate agents from the BT phone booth outside the Lamorna Wink(fortunately my wife trusts my judgement! She was back in Canada lecturing at the local college)and within 24 hours the dream had become a reality!
It is a very modest little cottage called The Magazine(originally used to store the dynamite for the granite quarry)and sits upon the cliff overlooking the sea and harbour about 100yds up from the cove itself on the right handside.
Derek talks at length about missed and taken opportunities in The Winding Lane and like him,I have missed many but no second thoughts,no weighing up the pros and cons this time!
We are having it renovated at the moment and hope to be there at the begining of February. I cannot wait to return to Cornwall.It always feels like coming home.

I also hope to be present at next years AGM.I am in the process of joining FOMS.

This is a lot of typing for me..I am strictly a hunt and peck two-fingered typist and I have just wrtten a similar long e-mail to Linda so have been at this for ages! I felt I should at least introduce myself. Please do not be offended if I do not reply to posts or join in discussions too often!

Here is Alberta we are having a very nippy spell.The temperatures have been as low as minus 36c with a wind chill of minus 45c at times.Rather chilly even for here! Cornwall seems a very long way away at times.

Steve.

[Brenda]

Hello, Steve,

Welcome from Skinner's Pond in northern Ontario. I am Canadian but my heart has always been in England. My husband (who's a Brit who emigrated to Canada about 35 or so years ago) and I go over as often as the budget allows to visit family and his old apprenticeship buddies and tour the countryside. No purchase of a Cornish cottage in the future for us, I'm afraid, unless the lottery comes up big. Lucky you!

You'll have to look over all our posts about how we met Derek or came to be interested in the Chronicles. Several of us have been lucky enough to meet him and sit in the little porch for a talk with him. I'd like to go to the AGM some year, but the Canadian economy will have to recover significantly before I feel that I can withdraw some of my funds for the trip. I have suggested that the AGM be moved around as there are FOMS members and Minack devotees globally now...

I'll look forward to your next post.

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

Hi Steve

Lovely to hear from you. Amazing how you spotted your little cottage in Lamorna - almost the same as the way Derek and Jeannie first saw Dorminack.

I was astonished to hear that you are originally from Stockport because I live in New Mills, about 8 miles away, and have done all my life. Whereabouts in Stockport did you live?

Will look forward to meeting up with you in March next year. Will your Lamorna cottage be ready to live in by then?

Kath

[gloria townsin]

Great to hear your news Steve and especially the exciting 'find' in Lamorna. I think you will discover John (FOMS Chairman) also made a phone call to his wife Mim having searched for and found, the beautiful cottage at the beginning of the Winding Lane and decided it was perfect for them. Look forward to seeing you at the AGM, I'm sure you will be longing to be in your Lamorna abode, will it be the first time your wife has seen it I wonder. I didn't meet Derek or Jeannie either, but for me that isn't important - Derek speaks as clearly through his books as if he is sitting opposite you in the porch, which is the way I read them. :D Post when and as you can, we will always be happy to hear from you.

[Sparky]

Hello again from Canada:

Thank you all for your welcoming words!

To answer a few of your questions:

Yes,it will be the first time my wife has seen The Magazine cottage in Lamorna(except in pictures of course).Unfortunately renovations will not be complete until March/April so we will likely be searching for a nearby little place to rent for a while.

It is a very small world,Kath.I know New Mills very well.It is close to another of my favourite places,Edale,where I have spent many a great day clomping about up on Kinder Scout or sitting in the Nags Head enjoying a pint. I am from Heaton Mersey in Stockport. Do you know it? Have you lived in New Mills long?

Your place in N.Ontario looks lovely,Brenda. Although we are only an hours' drive away from the Rocky Mountains here our habitat is praire grassland. We have a small acreage(3 acres) and I seem to spend a lot of my time planting trees! Some the old fashioned way with a shovel and some with a large mechanised tree spade(truck-mounted).These are mainly large poplars and blue spruce up to 30 feet tall and I think I have planted maybe 150 in the past 2 years. I am a tree-lover and very envious of your forest!!

We too have a small pond without the resident mammals of yours.There is not a lot of wildlife here in winter time,how the birds survive when it is as cold as it is presently amazes me.Most of the many summer feathered visitors have long gone south by now.Overwintering we have the ubiquitous house sparrow,house finch,tree creepers,jays,magpies,crows,woodpeckers(downy,grea t spotted and flickers),a resident great horned owl we call Ollie who will chat with you if you hit the right hoot and of course the miss-guided Canada geese who think this a good place to winter!As for mammals,we have hares,resident foxes,American badgers(much different from European badgers and quite aggressive),skunks,mice,muskrats and coyotes.The coyotes roam around in packs at night and have the most ethereal,the most spine-chillingly wonderful cackle and howl..great to hear as long as you are tucked up in bed at night.

Thanks again for the welcome.Look forward to meeting everyone one day.

Steve.

[Linda]

Wow Steve, it sounds a wonderful as Brenda's intro, quite a contrast too.
How the stories of how and why we buy places are in fact so similar but this is the 'Wavelength' thing we often refer to here. What an opportunity in findign teh hosue and it has to be D + J at work in ensuring you didnt walk past it! I am thinking that this house is the one which is directly above the cove , as you come down the hill into the cove there is a small turning ~ I am not sure but is there no vehicular access up to it?? Or am I too far down the hill. If it is this one I recall that a woman lived there with her poodle dog and it ALWAYS barked its head off as you walked by when it was out in the garden. Its a beeautiful spot with that vista from the garden, just perfect to watch winter storms battering Lamorna Harbour wall....without getting wet but close enough to really 'feel' the power of the sea.

Skunks huh! yuk! smelly smelly things...I couldnt believe the smell of them until we went over one, it was already dead I hasten to add, and the smell permeated the car for miles....

Just post when you can, however, now you have described where you live I am certain everyone will want updates on what the seasons are doing, what wildlife is around and some everyday living....its fascinating.......

Welcome again!

If at anytime you encounter any problems with the forum etc please dont hesitate to contact me or Jeff, or indeed any member here , everyone is only too happy to help!

:):)

[Kath Mulligan]

Hello again, Steve. If you have a look in my personal album on the forum, I have posted a couple of photos to take you off down memory lane - one is the Nag's Head, Edale and the other some of the countryside around there. Hope you enjoy them.

I've lived in New Mills all my life, and if I look out of my front door I am facing Kinder Scout. Used to go hiking up there in my younger days, over Jacob's Ladder and down into Edale.

Yes, I do know Heaton Mersey, several of my old colleagues where I used to work hailed from around there.

When the weather improves I will try to get up to Edale and Castleton and take some photos to bring to the AGM.

Your place in Canada sounds as impressive as Brenda's little pad! We talked Brenda into writing a book about Skinner's Pond after the tales she posted on this forum - wonder if we can do the same with you?!!

Look forward to chatting more with you on the forum, and at the AGM in person.

Kath

[Brenda]

I agree, Steve...I think there must have been some Minack magic at work to make you notice that house on your walk back, and to make the decision to look at it then and there rather than waiting until the next day. Meant to happen.

We have some UK-born friends (he's Cornish and she's from Chesterfield) who emigrated to Canada several years ago who are now working in Fort McMurray. They would normally be blacksmithing and painting (art, not walls) at Strawberry Fields, their 120-year-old log home in rural northern Ontario, but decided to give the oil patch a go for a couple of years to build up some capital. Talk about a change of direction! They will have stories to tell us all in the future. I'm sure you will notice an immense change when you relocate from Lethbridge to Lamorna... and we will look forward to your stories.

Brenda

[Sybille Weber]

................
It has been a lifelong dream of mine to own a home in SW Cornwall and after much searching last October the dream became reality. It was purely by chance(it was definately pure fate)when on a walk alone along the coastal path from Mousehole to the Tater Dhu lighthouse(by Minack and Oliver Land)and back that, in the almost complete darkness of a late Sunday afternoon,walking up the cliff path out of Lamorna towards Mousehole,completely alone,I turned around and,totally by accident spied through my binoculars what I thought was an almost hidden FOR SALE sign on a cottage just out of the cove(I certainly had not seen it on my way through an hour or two earlier).I debated with myself whether or not to return down into the cove as it was getting late and I had a good walk yet back to Mousehole but I decided to go and take a look and liked what I saw immediately! A little delapidated but perfect! A dream!
The following day I viewed the cottage and within ten mintes made an offer to the estate agents from the BT phone booth outside the Lamorna Wink(fortunately my wife trusts my judgement! She was back in Canada lecturing at the local college)and within 24 hours the dream had become a reality!
It is a very modest little cottage called The Magazine(originally used to store the dynamite for the granite quarry)and sits upon the cliff overlooking the sea and harbour about 100yds up from the cove itself on the right handside.................
Steve.

Truely a "There it is" - experience, just like Derek and Jeannie had it when they first saw Minack! How lucky you are to own 'The Magazine' now. I hope you will be able to spend a lot of time there.

[Sparky]

Thanks for the pictures,Kath.Memories indeed.I have traipsed all over Edale and Kinder Scout,generally walking up Grindsbrook and ending up back at the Nags Head for a recuperative pint or two.It's a lovely part of the world.

You are right about The Magazine,Linda.It is the house you described with no vehicular access(we have a leasehold parking spot in the cove).It is perched about 300 feet above the cove upon the ancient,400 million year old granite cliff and overlooks the sea and bay and Carn Dhu with the ocean close enough to feel it and hear it and be part of it(but not too close to be worried about winter storms or global warming). We are very excited about it.

We are renovating at the moment and our intention is to live there as much as possible but we will be maintaining our Canadian home,too.I am 55 and semi or more than semi retired.My wife is 51 and is a lecturer at the local college and is very happy here and has no plans to retire any time soon!

I agree,it is not a coincidence that I walked past Minack on the fateful afternoon I discovered by accident the cottage I had been searching for many years.There was certainly a guiding hand.

Time to put the layers on and go and feed the birds that are waiting,shivering outside.

Steve.

[nashie]

Hi Steve
Just catching up on the Forum, so a slightly belated welcome to the Forum and to FOMS from Mim and me. I know the Magazine, so I'm very glad that FOMS people will be living there. Lamorna is undergoing a bit of a 'renaissance' at the moment with once again quite a thriving creative community, and some families with young children, which was a particular joy at our carol singing evening around a bonfire in the Millennium Garden opposite the Wink on Friday evening. Mim and I live above the valley just 60 yards up the Winding Lane that ends a mile further on at Minack. Looking forward to meeting you in Lamorna next year.
Nadelik lowen - kres ha kerensa
John & Mim

[Sparky]

Hello John and Mim!

Many thanks for the kind welcome. I would dearly have liked to attend the carol service last Friday.

Since childhood I have always loved Lamorna and the surrounding area and to actually be living there soon,at least for part of the year is truly a dream come true.In fact the whole situation,from almost mystically discovering the property,seemingly by pure chance or fate on my lonely walk on a grey,dark and chilly late autumn afternoon from Mousehole to Carn Du lighthouse and back to the on-going long-distant renovations still has a dreamlike quality. I do not think it will become reality until we actually move in,hopefully in March.

I do believe that some things were meant to happen.

I look forward immensely to meeting you both as I do to meeting up with all the other new friends I have met during the past week in this forum.

Merry Christmas!

Steve.