Listening To The Radio: The Flower Fields of Cornwall

Sorry, but I am a bit remiss in the Blog department at the moment. Not helped by continuous mists, rain, fog and the gloom that do accompany it all. Today, for the moment, the sun do shine. So it be all hands to the pumps for the washing to get it out there to dry (no tumble dryer here).

And that do lead to burying the dead rat I do find in the pathway... Yes you did read that right. Dead rat. Rural life. And probl'y despatched by a neighbours' cat...

Then I do clear up the layers of "Cornish palm" leaves lying about from the last few days of bad weather.... What with washing up, mopping the floor.... here I am. Well what I really mean to say is... that I come in from my rat-burying duties to find I am missing a programme on BBC Radio4 about "The Flower Fields of Cornwall". Very interesting it be too. (So I must go along to the website and catch up on the whole thing.) Because in part it is talking about the tiny patchwork fields that were made at the very edge of the land above the sea. You can still see a few (and some are allotments) over at Mousehole where they were recording. But I remember, in my youthy days in Carbis Bay, my friend and I would walk the lower footpath towards St. Ives. And I did wonder about these tiny sloping patches directly above the rocky shore, hedged and somehow looking deliberate. I did see the remnants of cultivated violet crops there, no longer tended and picked, but still growing... the dark purple, large flowered and fragrant variety that would be sold in little bunches. So,  I am really pleased to find out that I was not mistaken and that these must have been the remnants of  "quillets", the name given to these tiny strip fields.