Family Holiday - Guernsey - Day 1

In the morning, mist and “why didn’t I bring a jumper” were the order of the day.

We cycled over to St Peter Port, along narrow, high-hedged lanes bright with red campions, three cornered leek and pennywort.

In the town, Carenza and I spied beautiful shops and became unpleasant and haughty until the guys eventually shouldered the massive hint and left us alone to browse and drool.  Although, as Nigel said,

“You’ll want us again when there’s shopping to carry.”

Carenza bought a gold and green necklace and I bought a pink and orange dress.  She carried them.

We went en famille and explored the Castle (Castle Cornet) with an amazing tour from the Norm, an islander who recalled the WWII occupation and disliked anybody from Germany.  But not as much as he disliked anybody from Jersey.

After he finished, we enjoyed a scented garden with a chamomile lawn, followed by a dressing up room.  However, some of the historic costumes were too small.  It was almost as if they had been made for children.

By the time we pedalled for home, the sun had finally broken through.

That evening we set off south along the coast beside the drifts of wild gladioli, pink thrift and yellow mustard and dined at the Rocks Restaurant overlooking Cobo Bay, its picturesque rocks and romantic sunset.  The restaurant coped well with both vegetarians and vegans, although they did accidentally serve Nigel The Wrong Pie.

Best of all though was the thunderstorm that broke on our way home in the dark.  We were arrested by the spectacle out to sea and stood watching from the dunes near our house.  Sheets flashed and forks writhed across the sky, turning the whole sea into a mirror.  We oohed and aahed as if it were November 5^th.  

In the electrified blackness, plastic glowed weirdly.  Nigel scooped up in his palms what he thought was a glow worm but turned out to be a plastic sweet wrapper.  Hahaha.

Nazi graffiti, Castle Cornet