'At the far end of England, a land of rocks and mooreland stretches itself out into a blue-green sea'. So begins the story 'The Mousehole Cat' by Antonia Barber, which we have been listening to on CD since we first arrived in the UK. It's about a cat called Mowser and his master Old Tom who save the village of Mousehole (Mowsell - in the local idiom) from a raging Storm cat (a giant storm). We've listened to it so often now that Tom (ours that is) gave us a full recitation today as we drove along. We were always planning to visit Cornwall as it is the ancestral home of Ian's forebears on the Tregenza side (yes, the name's Cornish, not Italian as is sometimes assumed). We are staying in the town of Marazion just a few miles from Penzance (haven't spotted any pirates) and opposite the glorious St. Michael's Mount - originally a Benedictine monastry on an island just off the beach. It is now the home of Lord St. Leven, but the grounds and building are open to the public. Ian's ancestors originated from Marazion in the late nineteenth century to work the mines as most Cornish migrants did. Wandering around this idyllic village, which is one of the oldest towns in England, you wonder why people left. But it's one thing to visit as a tourist on a balmy sunny day, quite another to spend most of your life down a nearby mine.
We spent the morning in Marazion, enjoying a Cornish tea with clotted cream (a local specialty) before driving over to Mousehole on the other side of Penzance. We were hoping to track down one of the fish recipes that it is mentioned in the story of the Mousehole cat - we particularly like the sound of the Star-gazey pie. But we discovered that it's only made on the 23rd December (apparently in memory of Old Tom - the relation between history and folk memory/myth is not entirely clear here) so we settled on a pastie and a vegetable flan. We did, however, come across a few cats which we like to think might have some connection with Mowser in the story (again, you can see how myths are generated).
