This trip, I learned how to tie down the plane after the housekeeper at our Bed and Breakfast warned us of an upcoming hurricane.
“It’s really a hurricane?” I asked Lynne.

“Yes, tail-end of one. Which one is it?”

“Gordon,” piped up someone in the corner of the room.

“No, not Gordon,” said Lynne. “That was last Thursday. This one is a woman’s name.”

In the end, it was a bit blustery but the only real damage was to my hairdo. If anyone happens to know the name of the hurricane that passed by the Scillies on Wednesday, though, let me know. ;)

(oh, and a warm welcome to visitors from Time Goes By! Do say hello. :))

The Isles of Scilly are said to be the most isolated islands in Britain, which I have a hard time believing — in England maybe, but in Britain? It’s a total of 150 islands (five inhabited) but in line with my other destinations, I’m staying on the chunk of land with the airfield on it.

The Cornwall Wildlife Trust (www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk) do some great PDF pamphlets including “An identification guild to the Carnivores of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly” which I immediately downloaded with excitement. “There are six species of Carnivore found in Cornwall,” is said in the introduction, continuing on to say “None of the Carnivore species are found on the Isles of Scilly.”

Ah well.

There are half a dozen small mammals though, including the “Scilly shrew” which apparently isn’t a reference to the women, and I have a recording form in case I should stumble across one (hopefully not in the hotel room). As far as I know, it’s too late to see puffins but I’d like to go seal watching and maybe even search for orcas. I’ve packed a bathing suit in hopes of experiencing the “sparkling white beaches” and St Mary’s has enough prehistoric sites to keep me occupied for months. And then there’s the intriguing mystery of Lyonesse.
I’m quite looking forward to this!

Finally have confirmed the trip to St Mary’s and the Isles of Scilly for next week. Looking forward to this, especially as I did all the leg-work last month. The flight in looks a bit confusing; I might go a bit of a roundabout route.

I was a bit amused by the local online news, reassuring me that “The proposed strike by air traffic controllers at St Mary’s airport has been averted.”

Well, that’s okay then. :)

I thought I’d do one last search on “alderney milk” to check for any theories as to where the tradition of Milk-o-Punch came from. Top hit was this site. Ooops.

So for the next person who does that search and lands here, let me clarify that it is Milk-o-Punch, not with an “a” as I spelled it. Si’s list of pubs is very useful although I should mention that it’s the Marais not the Murray. And no, I never did find out why it’s appropriate to steal dairy products and add rum on the first Sunday of May.