Cornish Gold

It was St Piran's Day, the national day of Cornwall, last Monday on March 5th so I thought it about time I celebrated the beauty and rich, ancient culture of this little corner of the UK.

The shot above is maybe 9 or 10 years old, straight out of the shoebox archives and so old that I lost the negative years ago and this image is a scan of a print. This late winter's day we'd driven from spot to spot to spot and never once got in the sea; everywhere was too big, too bumpy and battered by the wind so after a fruitless search we were despondently heading for home. I can't remember who spotted the whitewater out of the right hand side of the car as we took the minor b road along the south coast, but we must've nearly tipped the little car over as all five of us inside surged towards the drivers side trying to look out of the window as we slowed down, hoping to catch another glimpse between the trees. We had less than an hour of light left and after a handful of waves each we paddled back in over the rocks in the dark, our day saved. This spot usually breaks just a couple of times over an average winter, when big southerly swells wrap onto the shallow and jagged reef and back then it was still a secret spot that we'd happened to stumble upon. Proper Cornish gold.

Another shoebox special; Celtic knots on the headstones in Sennen churchyard a mile or so from Land's End down in the far south west of the county.

Squawk squawk, tweet tweet: For a long time I've been adamant that I don't have a lifestyle conducive to engaging with twitter, plus I'm keen to minimise the amount of time that I spend looking at a computer screen and increase the amount of time that I spend outside doing stuff. But I've relented, so you'll be able to follow me here or @matarney if you so wish, where I'll be posting An Tor Orth An Mor updates and occasionally retweeting great images or items of interest. You won't find me tweeting about what I had for breakfast or football scores.