Welcombe to Morwenstow, October 2003

Dwight Peck's personal website

Late summer 2003 -- A few weeks in Devon and Cornwall

Welcombe to Morwenstow

Welcome to you, too. But Welcombe is a little ravine beach just near Golden Park in Cornwall, and now we're going to have, on our last hiking day here, a good walk along to see the Old Church of St Somebody's in Morwenstow, the village (not the church) named after St Morwen.

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Morwen, in case this is weighing upon your mind, is a Christian Saint, but not one of OUR Christian saints. There were plenty of good Christian saints around long before our Roman hagiography half got started and Mother Theresa got fast-tracked by the recent pope. St Morwen was a nice lady from the region who held out for the faith and refused to consent to do this or that nasty abomination and got venerated a century before the legions of the Roman Church flooded the area and started venerating their own saints, like James, John, Christopher, Agnes, Sebastian, Maurice and what not.

Welcombe beach, very soon to disappear under the tides

Rocks, some of which are soon to disappear with the tides

The view northward

Near Morwenstowe, the church of St John (superimposed sainthoods)

Coincidentally, Kristin ran into the church's organist in the pub in the evening, and gleaned 'intel', not so much on organs as on the church itself.

The picturesque church, with dead people tucked away neatly nearby. Very nice inside.

More scenes near the church at Morwenstow

More dead folks and the church in the background

Cows assembling for a little dance to welcome the tourists

Back near Welcombe in late afternoon

Sundown near Welcombe, Cornwall

Kristin marching briskly up the last headland to the car at Welcombe

View of the sun, from near Welcombe, Cornwall

And the end of October 2003 arrives, not half as bad as it could have been, ain't it! At least we're not in the US Army Reserves, PLUCKED from our dinners and sitcoms and trips to the mall at the weekends with the pre-teens banging soup-pans together and clamoring for barbie dolls and GWBush action figure dolls in heroic flight jackets.

What a nice place, that north Devon and Cornwall coast! At least out of high season. We'll be back -- but in the meantime, we fold into the hired car and drive on the wrong side of the road to Heathrow, Kristin off again to Boston, the narrator spending a few hours trying to read the newspaper whilst waiting on multiple Heathrow lines for the opportunity to remove his shoes and smile graciously at the security goobers, who are grateful at least to have a job even if such a demeaning one.

And with that -- summer's officially over -- Let Winter 2003-2004 begin.