July 17 Reflections at the halfway stage

I have driven 3,500 miles, stayed at 28 campsites, played 284 holes of golf, chalked up 17 new breweries and visited goodness knows how many new pubs. Yet, despite the fact that my route has taken me down virtually the entire western seaboard of the British Isles, and included scores of beautiful beaches, I have been swimming only seven times, and surfed (feebly) but thrice. From that you will gather that, whilst the weather has been fine, it has only occasionally been what you might call “beach weather” and not once baking hot.

Which, of course, is precisely what one should expect on the Celtic coast. If I’d wanted unbroken sunshine, and a warm sea that laps rather pathetically at one’s feet, then I would have gone to the Mediterranean. If there’s been a disappointment, it’s not been the weather conditions, so much as the sea conditions. In Scotland and Ireland, the wind was mostly from the East. There was no Atlantic swell to speak of. Wales provided one spectacular storm, but then there was no subsequent offshore breeze to smooth the churning waters into slick-backed, lace-crested rollers. The Cornish waves offered the most promise, but conditions never really progressed beyond what the serious surfers call “messy”.

So, have I enjoyed it? For the most part, undoubtedly. I have to confess that there were one or two days, when the rain beat down remorselessly, and the forecast offered little prospect of an improvement, and I was being bitten to death by midges, that I wished myself back at my cottage in Langport. But the weather was only seriously bad for a handful of days, and never for more than a day at a time. To be able to see the Scottish Highlands in bright sunshine was a particular joy.

What it has been is an experience. Even at this halfway stage, I have been to so many beautiful places, travelled through so much magnificently wild and wonderful countryside, explored the physical remains of so much real or imagined history, as to leave me with memories to last a lifetime.

What have I learnt? That Carmen is longer than she appears, especially when you’re reversing into a parking space! That I really can’t putt! That camper-vanners wave to each other when passing on the roads. That Irish roads are the worst in Europe. That, for all the gloss of re-invented cuisines, the food of the western seaboard of the British Isles is mostly pretty dire. And that the Celtic communities of western Britain really do have a lot in common. One thinks immediately of their spirituality; a fondness for religion and the supernatural; a tendency to excess; an inexhaustible sense of humour; and something of a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the English! To what extent these shared characteristics are the result of a shared racial background, or a shared harsh and elemental physical environment is a matter for debate. My money would be on the latter.

In these terms, the Irish are the most “Celtic” and the Scots the least. Cornwall’s genuinely Celtic characteristics – as distinct from heritage – are now largely confined to the far West. The Welsh are almost a race apart: the senior Celtic nation, particularly in the context of Celtic Christianity. It was from Wales that the missionaries travelled – led by St. Patrick – to convert the heathen Irish. And it was then the Irish, having embraced the new religion with a quite astonishing fervour, who invaded the West of Cornwall, bringing their missionaries with them, many of whom subsequently moved on to Brittany. That seems to have been the rough sequence of events and it does give credence to the theory that the last stand of the old “British” people against the Saxons – which produced the legends of Arthur – took place in Wales, rather than Cornwall.

Anyway, that’s quite enough idle theorising and cod history to be going on with. I have, as I said, hugely enjoyed the trip so far, and am looking forward enormously to the start of the next stage, in Brittany at the end of August.

The best day? Well, that would have to be the Isles of Scilly.

The never before visited place to which I would most like to return? That would be a toss up between remote Durness and the silver sands of Camusdarach. The Isle of Arran was beautiful as well, as indeed were the Aran Islands.

The best golf? Unquestionably, Machrihanish, a truly glorious golf course, although for value for money, you probably couldn’t beat the 15 euros it cost to play at Achill.

The best pub? The Porterhouse Brewery in Dublin, which brewed its own good beer, and stood out from the ocean of keg porter and bitter that surrounds it like a good deed in a naughty world.

The worst day? Aberdaron in the storm was pretty bad, and so was St. Ives in the downpour. But undoubtedly the greatest disappointment was the foul weather that stopped the boats going to the Skelligs on the one day when I could have made the trip.

And Carmen? She was as Rosinante to Don Quixote – faithful, dependable; a constant companion. She’ll now be taking a well-earned rest, before we set off for Plymouth and the Roscoff ferry on August 24. Further reports from then on.