It had been my intention to take the blog on vacation with me to see what — in a very restrictive sense — ubiquitous computing might feel like. And to see whether a travelogue should ever form part of this miscellany. I bought a 3G dongle (not from a spam email…) and carried more digital and optical equipment than you can point a telescope at. The only things lacking were the skill to use it all and a guarantee of internet connection.

The immediate consequence of an absence of wireless reception beside the remote estuary where we perched for the duration of last week was that for the first little while there was not much to do but stand still. This was a good thing, but as the Knackered family has not stood still for well more than six months of rolling crisis, it was only natural that some of the tangled thoughts of grief found an opportunity to unwind and, for those few early days, occasionally overwhelm.

Road to Nancenoy

But the Cornish peninsula is nothing if not varied. And would a geographer pick an argument with me if I said it may be one of the most fractal landscapes on earth? — whether one is talking about the trees, the rugged coastline, the self-similarities of those flooded river-valley creeks, or the surf as the Gulf Stream makes landfall.

Kynance Cove

Within barely a few minutes’ drive the contrasts can be extraordinary. We’re quite happy with beaches out of season and in most weathers, and now — with the necessary neoprene — the option of body-boarding (and, someday soon, surfing) before supper presents itself.

Kynance Cove

In true amateur form, much of our expedition was inspired by reading Simon Barnes’ book, How to be a Bad Birdwatcher. And with a much diminished self-consciousness, this point-and-shoot ethos carried us through birdwatching itself, astronomy, body-boarding, rowing our own boat up the muddy creek (with paddles, thankfully), and much lower-maintenance-than-usual holiday gastronomy (pasties and fish pies from Gear Farm in St Martin).

Nancenoy

Serpentine rock at Kynance (on the Lizard peninsula)

Helford River

Stonechat

Photo credits: stonechat, Andrew Pescod; aerial view of Helford River, Google ;the rest, Knackered Hack

Welcome to the Knackered Hack. If you're visiting in search of my paleo lunch with Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, you'll find it in three parts here. If you enjoy what you see don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed. Alternatively, so you don't miss an important update and can more easily forward those salient posts to your friends and business contacts, sign up for my regular email service. You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here. Thanks for visiting!

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