We’ve been to Heligan today for the first time in about eighteen months or so. For those who haven’t heard of Heligan, the story is remarkable and you can see it at their website….or a potted history told in my language can be seen here.

The day has been an utter joy – partly because the weather has been glorious – even more so than yesterday. Heligan was pretty close to being our own private playground because there were only a handful of other people in there and, given its size, it was easy to avoid other people and feel as though we had the place to ourselves so that could certainly be classed as a joy.

Three of the four of us have been snapping away at all sorts of beautiful plants and vistas. While we were in the ‘jungle’ – a sheltered valley with a series of ponds leading down towards the sea, filled with amazing, delicate, non-hardy plants that have survived the ravages of our winters for more than a hundred years, we were amazed at the friendliness of the local robin population who seemed almost to be begging to get snapped. Here is my go at that!

I’m not sure that it’s possible to feel happier or more contented than at a time like this. Now I’m definitely beginning to feel at home here and starting to feel less stressed.

I was feeling as though I would struggle to get any nice shots with the low light levels at this time of year and a hand-held camera waving around in the air making shallow depth of field shots a bit hit and miss but actually there are some fine ones among the hundred or so I took – it’ll take me a bit of sorting but I’m confident of a few goodies.

Sometimes I think it’ll take us forever to explore Cornwall – especially as when we find something fab, we keep returning with all our friends from up-country…..but then we’ve got forever now. We can amble about and take the time to really see when we look….if you know what I mean by that. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than that.

Not only that, but we’ve discovered that a history of feeding the birds in our garden by our predecessor means that we now have queues of beautiful birds waiting each morning to be fed outside the kitchen window. When we oblige them by piling up our bird table with all sorts of goodies, we are repaid by a succession of gorgeous things coming in, selecting their preferred meal then drifting off again to return later. I have a strong suspicion that I’ll be spending hours shooting them too as time moves on!

Last year on this day I took one of my favourite foodie shots ever....and it used that wonderful pestle amd mortar!