St Michael's Hotel and Spa Falmouth - Competiton!

Win a Luxury Spa Break at St Michael's Hotel and Spa with Visit Cornwall!

Visit Cornwall are offering a fantastic competition that can be entered until the 28th Feb 2011 - the prize is a 3 night spa break, for two people, including 2 spa treatments each.

This is a lot of money's worth...the redevelopment programme of this hotel is wonderful; and I can say from personal experience that it is one of the best hotel experiences I've had in Cornwall. This is definately worth visiting so entering the competition is a no-brainer really!

Link to the competition page - http://www.visitcornwall.com/site/win-a-luxury-spa-break-in-cornwall

Enjoy Truro Website

In the unlikely event you haven't seen this Enjoy Truro website as yet - Cornish Life is here to point you in the right direction!

It's a really well designed and intelligent website; packed full of information about Truro and Cornwall in general - including a great Events and What's On guide which unlike many I trawl through is constantly updated and clearly has good user input.

Generally a well designed Cornish website with a eye to the future and development - what I like to see!

Rick Stein Seafood Restaurant Padstow - Lunch Set Menu - £28.50 for 3 Courses

Here's a great chance to sample the amazing cuisine of Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow for a relatively small price. Of course, the Seafood Restaurant is normally out of the price range of most people and is visited for special occasions only - however it is worth splashing out the cash for this lunch...the details of which can be found at Rick Stein's website linked here:

http://www.rickstein.com/The-Seafood-Restaurant.html 

'The 3-course £28.50 set lunch menu will be running from Monday 1st November 2010 through until Sunday 3rd April 2011. Available everyday between 12pm and 2.30pm.'

The news of the return of this special offer at the Seafood Restaurant comes at a time when the Padstow based establishment was named as one of the fifty best restaurants in the United Kingdom. There has been much talk of Rick Stein's domination of the small town of Padstow; however anywhere in Cornwall with this kind of national recognition has to be appreciated and accepted as a beneficial contribution to the county's economy and reputation.

Save Our Sands in Hayle

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126194807395843&v=wall

For anyone interested in the plight of Hayle's beautiful beaches this is certainly worth a look...Save Our Sands is a fantastic project to raise awareness of the removal of sand from the '3 Miles of Golden Sands.'

Taken from their facebook site (which has been linked above)

'One of the world's most beautiful beaches is under threat. The
extraction of sand to sell off is causing the beach levels to drop,
exposing shingle and rock.'

This is not a specifically "anti-development" movement which unfortunately we have seen rather a lot of recently. Instead, the group is to raise awareness of the need to act now and is truely devoted to preservation and conservation.

If you are interested, they have a meeting in the Passmore Edwards in Hayle on the 11th January.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - WELCOME TO 2011!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Very soon I'll be releasing some info about my plans for this coming year and my blog, photographs as well as some documentary films that I have in the pipeline. Of course I will be continuing to update my blog; and now I'm back from my travels I will be able to update it a lot more regularly and give you up to date and current news about life in the South West. You will hopefully see larger online integration with other Cornish sites and I will of course keep everyone updated!

Wishing everyone a prosperous 2011!

New photographs added to Flickr account here and blogs soon to be updated. Keep up with the action at my website.

BBC - Solomon Browne History

An interesting segment on the Solomon Browne. Don't find much about this in the news anymore but of course it will never be forgotten.

Solomon Browne History

Best Of Cornwall - Fifteen Graudation Day

http://www.mycornwall.tv/?bcpid=64381026001&bclid=76384200001&bctid=589297173001&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Wild+About+Cornwall%3F&utm_source=YMLP&utm_term=HERE

A great little piece about the opportunities being created by Fifteen Restaurant in Newquay.

A Not So Fun-Affair?

Change is a difficult notion to quantify - it's a difficult notion to imagine and an even more difficult notion to put into place. It also isn't helped by the fact that most people's opinions of change vary wildly and within even small enterprises and organisations change can be hindered by the fact that some wanted it and some don't.

I am sure most of you have seen the funfair which has been set up in Penzance for the last few weeks - a funfair which actually completely epitomises the depressing, run-down, desolte cliche of such things we see in the movies. If the people of West Cornwall (I include myself in this) want change so much; then why did we allow such a depressing site to be taken over by an even more depressing attraction - we all know this is not the direction we need in Cornwall - it is reducing us to many more years of economical depression as amongst many other things it reduces the amount of interest from people who have money and want to invest in the area. If Penzance had a CV this would certainly have made some people throw it straight in the bin.

It's a familar situation around the country, but what Penzance and West Cornwall have in general is a far superior POTENTIAL to most other areas. It is a word bandied around far too often - mostly I would imagine by the slightly disappointed tourists who arrive in the area to an overpriced bouncy castle. There are interesting, sophisticated and forward thinking organisations in the area but they do not have a public face - they are reduced to being sidelined and I would imagine many people are now thinking that they would actually want to see these things that make the area unique and beautiful. If there's one thing for sure, a grubby funfair makes this area look a lot more poverty stricken than it actually is - certainly in terms of its culture.

South West Train Prices - UP AGAIN!

It has been announced today that there is a possibility of further hikes in rail fares coming at the start of 2011. Cornwall will be the worst hit, as Transport Secretary Philip Hammond intimated that the 'inflation plus one percent' formula may be used for ticket prices in the coming few months.

It has not gone unnoticed that people in Cornwall have some of the longest and most expensive train journies in the UK, and fares rising even further will again put people who live here on the back-foot - as some of the most underpaid and poor people in the country.