Poor people like us get to the idyllic island of Tresco on a boat from St Mary’s, rich people fly in helicopters from Penzance. Just to rub in their superiority when their helicopters land the rich people and the rich peoples luggage is unloaded while the poor peasants only path from the boat is closed so we have to wait.
Two helicopters came in one after the other and 50 or 60 peasants had to stand in the rain and wait for 20 minutes. Next time I will fly in. (I did look it up when we got home, the fare is £250 return from Penzance, as our flights from Lands End were £180 this does not seem unreasonable).
After that annoyance we arrived very wet in the Tresco Abbey gardens, the rain stopped, the sun came out and the gardens were lovely so a few hours later we felt a little better.
Some pictures of plants are below, no idea what they are but the look good.
We also took about 100 pictures of red squirrels. I would like you to think that we carefully stalked them to get the best pictures but the gardeners put out nuts so they are as easy to photograph as grey squirrels at home.
Tresco has some picturesque beaches and a walk across one of these got us to the Ruin cafe whose prices are aimed squarely at rich people but the food was very good, so good we have booked to go back again next week.
Walking across a nice sandy beach to a restaurant, it could be the Caribbean except for the screams of the swimmers encountering the freezing cold water.
Wheres Wally?
An expert has been brought to the islands to try and mitigate the conflict between walrus lovers and boat owners. Apparently a walrus likes to lean against another walrus and in their absence a nice rubber dinghy will do until it gets punctured by a tusk.
The solution is to build a rubber platform with three sides, it is easy for Wally to pull his 1½ ton body up the open side and he can lean on the other three. Amazingly it works, our cats and dogs would never use the baskets or boxes we bought for them but Wally looks as happy as a walrus on his new raft.
The weather is set fair from now on, watch this blog for news.