Nostalgia-fest 2012

When I go back to Engerland in a few weeks' time, as well as going to my amazing friend J's wedding, I'm going to be spending a few days in one of my favourite old stomping grounds.

Lantic Bay - image from here

Every year, from when I was eight to 13, my family shipped out, overfilled the car and headed to the south coast of Cornwall for a week. We always stayed in the same cottage, in the teeny seaside village of Polruan.

This year, we're upgrading the cottage a little bit (the old one was '70's-tastic in its decor, and boasted hundreds of slightly damp old comics and annuals from the 1950s and '60s in a cupboard in my bedroom. This one is a lot more shabby chic, as opposed to, well, shabby). But we're going to be in the same village, and I have some nostalgia-inducing plans to:

 - Walk along the cliffs to Lantic Bay, clamber down the super-steep path to the beach, and eat a picnic

 - Catch the tiny ferry across the estuary from Polruan to Fowey, where I'm going to go to the gemstone shop (it's possible I might have outgrown my love for some semi-precious metals, but definitely not fool's gold)

 - Eat fish and chips one-handed, while fending off vicious feral seagulls with the other hand

 - Head to the local pub and eat a banana split. With a sparkler in it. What do you mean, they stopped serving banana splits in restaurants when the '90s ceased to be? Not in Cornwall! At least I hope not...

 - Re-read my Daphne du Maurier stash - Rebecca and The Loving Spirit in particular. This is du Maurier country, dontchaknow.

The only downside is that le famille will be incomplete - baby bro is touring a Spanish town with his university hockey team that week, carousing and competing and doing god knows what else.

This makes me sad, as I have very clear memories of said baby bro getting up at 6am to press his little snub nose to the window of our holiday cottage, shouting 'boat!', 'boat!', 'boat!' repeatedly, in the days when he was in actual fact my baby bro, and not a hulking great 20-year-old hockey playing student.

But still, fun times ahead - I'm just praying for good weather!