I do love a good, old-fashioned English pub. There is nothing like them (in my view). This is a lovely example. Full of what we’d probably, in any other environment think of as a load of old tat, because it’s pinned to the walls and ceiling of a pub somehow it’s all fabulous. I don’t know why that is but it’s certainly true.

The Turk’s Head has a fine selection of beer, including their own ‘special brew’, made for them by the good folks of St Austell Brewery, a wonderful atmosphere and lovely, friendly bar staff.

The Turk’s head is on St Agnes, the ‘out-lying’ of the inhabited islands – it’s separated from the rest by the deep water channel that the ferry and other big boats come and go through. We can see it, as we can all of the others in fact, from our bedroom with its 360º view of Scilly – that’s the one thing about this decidedly basic place we’re staying that we’ll really miss.

In our newly fledged ‘frugal’ lifestyle we’ve hardly touched any booze since we’ve been here and I’ve even been in a pub a few times and drunk water – unheard of for me. I’m still feeling rough and the cold is getting worse so that’s not helping at all. Today is one of those days and, following a fabby boat trip puffin watching, we landed on St Agnes for a walk and lunch. The Turk provided us with very nice Ploughman’s Lunches and coffee, while the doooogs got pork scratchings and water. Delicious and ‘just what the doctor ordered’.

It’s something of a shame that we’ve eaten here twice this week and the first occasion was marred by a fairly common oversight by the chef. DM as you may know, has a nut allergy – thankfully not a severe one and unusually restricted to certain types of nut – he can eat peanuts, cashews, hazel nuts and pine nuts without worry but if he eats a brazil, a pecan or a walnut, he gets sick. The only veggie dish on the menu the other night was a pasta dish with pesto, which, of course, uses pine nuts so we assumed it would be OK for him. When it arrived, it had chopped walnuts in it too so he got sick. I do wish that in restaurants you could be sure that things are as described – it’d make life much easier for allergy sufferers.

Last year, a rusty old lock was my subject.