Cornwall

We arrived in the town of Penzance near the western coast of Cornwall (basically the southwest of England). This would be a time of healing, and looking for more stones and beautiful coastlines. Near St. Ives, at Cape Cornwall, on a very windy and rainy day, Winnie snapped this picture of the remains of an early Christian church, circa 700AD. Rowan was asleep in the car.

The following day, when it was less rainy, we looked out for other fascinating sites, like Lanyon Quoit above, a small neolithic tomb marked with 3 standing stones with another larger one placed on top.

Baba pauses in front of a patch of bluebells with Rowan in tow (who is getting very heavy these days, hence my expression). Here, we're on our way to another stone site, the Men-an-tol.

The Men-an-tol is a holed stone with two standing stones, one on either side of it, so that they form a perfect line. It probably used to be part of a larger site, for one can see other large stones buried around it at some distance from it. Although no one has any idea as to its purpose, a number of superstitions arose regarding its curative properties (passing children through the holed stone reportedly could cure them of rickets or scabies) and ability to make women pregnant.

No more rickets! Hurray!

Another site not too far from St. Ives, the Merry Maidens, a complete circle of 19 stones out in a field, surrounded by German tourists poking at the base of the stones for no apparent reason. I can imagine people of this day and age standing at the center, absorbing its special energies, though we have no idea what this circle was for, nor any of the numerous other stone circles in the area (all of which also consisted of 19 stones).

Finally sick of stones (well, Winnie was anyway), we headed to the southern coast of Cornwall near Lizard Cove to take a look at a beautiful beach surrounded by massive cliffs. Winnie and Rowan pause on the way down to the beach, both clad in their specs, sheep in hand.

Rowan reflects on the scene while cradling his sheep. We're gonna send this one in to J. Crew for their summer 2010 catalogue.

Behold, the Sea! This was the first time, I believe, that Rowan was on a real beach (at least as far as he can remember). The waters are extremely rough, and swimming is extremely treacherous.

Rowan meets a friend, who introduces him to the joys of digging in the sand (a pleasure he hasn't had since last Christmas). He still hasn't taken off his shoes, because he doesn't want his feet to get sandy. It's only a matter of time, though.

"What did I say?" Rowan looks after the girls as they run off to play in the extremely cold water. He ponders taking off his shoes.

Ah, finally, Rowan removes his shoes, hikes up his pants, and sets out with Baba into the water, with the waves rushing forth frothy white between craggy rocks cutting into the beach. What a great place!

Now back to the tick. After trying things like vaseline and butter to suffocate the thing (which probably did the trick), we went to another doctor in Penzance who prescribed Amox and sent us on our merry way. Problem was, this Amox (which was free, by the way), came in a large bottle and had to be given three times a day (it was a dreadful milky substance), and Rowan did NOT like the stuff (I mean, he screamed after every milliliter). We almost gave up, but I insisted we keep going until the bottle was empty. Thus Rowan was introduced to the concept of medicine.