Travel: Winter Break in St Ives, Cornwall

In the brief respite between Lockdown 2.0 and Lockdown 3.0, we escaped for a night to St Ives to celebrate my birthday*. St Ives is one of those places where the light is said to be magical, and you can see how it attracted so many artists. They weren't wrong.

Even in the short, dark days of December the light was stunning - moving from a bright blue, reflected in the tidal pools to the warm grey of the mizzle in the morning, and the deepest blue of the winter night.

We arrived in the rain on a Sunday and still had to wait for an available long stay car park space, but it was a short walk from there to our first destination: The Tate, St Ives where we began with a comforting lunch of the most wonderful Thai inspired Carrot, Ginger and Coconut soup. The Tate was interesting but small, however it was great to see the local artists Alfred Wallis, Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. There was also an intriguing exhibition by the South Korean artist Haegue Yang, whose work incorporates traditional craft techniques - the kind of thing that you really want to touch, but know that you shouldn't!

The rain ceased and the clouds parted as we left the Tate and we walked on a near deserted Porthmeor beach, before heading to our hotel, The Lifeboat Inn. This consisted of some beautiful rooms above a St Austell brewery pub overlooking the harbour.

It was lovely to just walk around the steep cobbled streets of the town and plough a little bit of money back into the local economy, supporting small businesses (whilst obviously keeping safe and sanitised in the process).

Our dinner (back in the the Lifeboat) was exceptionally quiet (just one other table occupied on the weekend before Christmas) and perfectly adequate (I don't mean that as a disservice, it was exactly what you expect from a small pub chain - not a gourmet meal but still delicious). We walked again around the harbour, the tide having now come in and reflecting the Christmas lights in the water.

24 hours in another place, not too far from home was exactly the tonic I needed.

Love Mrs Jones x

*Travel and overnight stay was permitted under the government guidelines between these tiers at that time.