Yesterday began to go wrong with our decision to go to plan B.  It was the day before we were leaving Falmouth for our next stay in Wales.  Since we would need time to pack and get ready to leave we figured that it was the perfect day to take our long delayed ferry trip over to St. Mawes where we could view a castle and settle into one of the several notable pubs.  We had been hoping to do this for the last ten days but the ferry was always cancelled due to winds and high seas.  Unfortunately, yesterday was another day where the ferry was to be a weather wimp.  We thought that maybe we should just hang around Falmouth and leisurely pack but Craig had the brilliant idea to go see a town, St. Ives, that is high on the tourist rota but which we had not seen.  Phyllis followed this with the brilliant idea of having a second cream tea since she was not completely sure that the first one was a "proper" cream tea.  Thus was plan B born.

Accordingly we made a late start to St. Ives with the intent of starting at the Olives Cafe which reputedly had a very good cream tea.  Following Sheila's directions we ended up in St. Ives and on the route to Olives which put us on one-lane cobblestone streets filled with packs of tourists just off the bus wondering why they had to move off the street for a car.  We will admit it looked for all the world like a pedestrian-only street but we saw a local beater truck in front of us and assumed we were legit, if not entirely comfortable.  There was no parking anywhere on the streets so Craig quickly fired up Google maps and found a tortuous way to the main parking lot, plan C.  The lot happily let us in and gave us a ticket, but there we no spaces open and about five cars already prowling around.  We found a different parking lot, plan D, but the route ended in a small dead end battered street.  A six-point road turn later we were off to a new parking lot suggestion.  It was of course full and we ended up on another dead end road.  Our next effort put us in an employees-only lot so we made a final effort where we found one of the last two parking spaces available in the lot (and maybe in the town).  Success at plan G.  It was fools gold. 

We walked downtown and, using Google reviews as our guide, tried in succession Olives (not open), our second choice (no longer does cream teas), our third choice (closing in 10 minutes and in any event does not do cream teas anymore), and finally our fourth choice, the Yellow Canary.  Plan K.  They were open, they sold cream teas, and their cream tea was terrible.  Thoroughly defeated, we put our tails between our legs and slunk back to Falmouth where we found solace in our bottle of gin.

Before we leave Cornwall we would be remiss not to describe the most singular impression of our stay . . . daffodils.  As we drove out the peninsula on that first day, we began to see huge expanses of bright yellow which on closer view we realized were daffodils.  The next several days as we explored out past Falmouth, we saw more and more of such fields.  A bit of research revealed that Cornwall is a hot bed for commercial daffodils, and they are sold all over Europe as well as the UK.  It is high daffodil season from March to May.  More than once we passed a sign "Daffodil Pickers Wanted", which suggested picking is done by hand but we never managed to see any in process.  During our two weeks however, the dense "yellowness" abated in some fields, so someone was picking them, though who knows when.  We also learned that this is not a new thing, Cornwall has been a big deal in the daffodil world forever and not just as a business.

Daffodils were everywhere we turned.  Not only in the fields and in people's yards, but randomly in places along the road where we assumed they would have never have been deliberately planted.  We believed these to be opportunistic escapees from other plantings, and that is likely true in many cases, but Phyllis' research revealed that this may not always be their origin.   When World War II belt-tightening on the home front required all farming land be put to raising vegetables to feed people, the daffodil fields participated but the locals took many of their prize daffodil bulbs and planted them in hedgerows to save them.  Thus, today when one drives around and sees daffodils in the most unexpected settings, they may be random escapees but some will have undoubtedly originated as a byproduct of WWII.  The daffodils of Cornwall were a joy to behold and it made us determined to see if any can be grown in a microclimate part of our yard in Anchorage.  The huge yellow fields also always made Phyllis smile and think of one of her favorite poems from growing up, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by Wordsworth.  The only poem she can still recite from memory, in fact.  

Today is moving day; we change our base from Falmouth in Cornwall to Llandeilo in Wales, a 266-mile drive to the northwest.  We thought about taking a picnic lunch for the drive but looked at the forecast rain over the entire route and decided that might not be a pleasant experience.  Indeed, as we drove back up through the Bodmin Moor, we stopped briefly at the Jamaica Inn, a notorious smuggler stronghold in the mid-1700s to mid-1800s (and the subject of a Daphne du Maurier novel), which is now all gussied up for tourists.  However, it was misting and raining, so definitely not a good picnic site.  Thus we decided to go with our old standby, lunch at Costco.  There are two Costcos on the route, one in Bristol, England and one in Cardiff, Wales.  Bristol worked best for timing as we would get there around lunchtime and also it would be about as far as we would want to go without putting more gas in the car.  Like most places, gas at Costco in the UK is much cheaper than other stations, in this case about $.40 a gallon.  For this reason the Costco gas lines in the UK, as in Hawaii, are quite long.  Oddly the lines at the Costco food courts here are also very long, maybe 20 to 30 minutes to place an order.  In a fit of inspiration we decided to split the tasks; Phyllis went and gassed the car while Craig stood in line for food.  She finished and we joined up in the food line just before as it was our turn to order.

While in the food line Craig noticed an olive tree in the checkout line.  This was not a baby tree but a mature one with a trunk probably about a foot in diameter.  We then saw a bunch of other olive trees with a range of sizes. We are always curious to see what interesting products Costco has to offer in different countries but this one was new to us.  Also, olive trees in the UK seems a bit of a stretch; cold and wet is not your typical climate for such.  The trees were apparently selling well, probably because who can resist a bargain?  Phyllis talked to a person in line who said that the young trees were selling for $400-600 in local nurseries; Costco was selling them for $110.  Craig was envious but Phyllis reminded him of our luggage capacity issues.  Anyway, a couple of Aberdeen angus cottage pies later we were back on the road and soon into Wales.  We reached our new home in Llandeilo without problems and just before the hard rains came.