GOING WEST.....

It`s that time of year again when I`m off for a week in Cornwall. Seems ages since my last visit - in September last year - and I`m looking forward to yet another week, this time at Praa Sands on the south coast.

I also look forward to the journey - it`s well over 300 miles from where I live - and it may be because I just love driving. But there`s something within me that automatically points me westward whenever the chance arises. It may be that my roots are deep in the west country and that over the years the only time I have ventured elsewhere for holidays was to Wales, back in 1981, when it rained incessantly. So I`ll be on automatic pilot as I point the car along the M25, the M3, the A303, the A38 and on towards the far west of Cornwall, passing through Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, a little bit of my home county of Dorset, most of Wiltshire, all of Devon and very nearly all of Cornwall.

One place I always like to visit is Sennen Cove (pictured) which is a short but exhilarating walk from Land`s End. A near neighbour of ours moved to Sennen a few years ago and someone else I knew locally dashed down to Sennen most weekends and who can blame them?. There`s something about the place, as there is with so many places in West Penwith - Penzance, Drift, Sancreed, Mousehole, Lamorna, St. Just, Morvah, Zennor, St. Ives. It`s a bit like my visit to the cricket at Canterbury - another world of its own, with its own proud history, tradition, culture, even its own language; another place to explore, breathe in its uniqueness and return again and again - I`ll be there again in September, all being well.

You can keep a daily eye on things at the excellent www.cornwallcam.co.uk - or watch out for me on the webcam at http://www.a1surf.com/surfcheck-praasands.html. (Takes a while to load - be patient.)

I`ll give you a wave.