We headed north today, becoming increasingly aware of just how many cars there are per mile of Guernsey road space. Having said that, the drivers are very polite and we do our share of ‘filtering in turn’ across yellow road markings, which is reminiscent of New Zealand’s ‘make like a zip’ but is not an official system in England. There are heavy showers forecast again today and this time it looks like they might be right. We utilize our National Trust membership to gain free entrance to the Folk Museum at Saumarez Park. I was faintly amused that the girl on the entrance spent time looking for the expiry date on my life membership card. I felt like pointing out that, though I might not look very lively, I was indeed still above ground, so therefore it had not expired.

The Museum was small but interesting, although I did think it was a shame that many of the people in the dioramas were featureless shop dummies. We learned about the National Trust for Guernsey’s restoration of the fifteenth century Les Caches Farmhouse. We may add that to our list of places to visit. There was a display of Guernsey jumpers, showing the different family patterns. These could be used to help to identify drowned fishermen. I was also particularly taken with the traditional ‘Cobo Alice’ dolls. These were originally made in the 1870s by a lady called Alice from Cobo (obvious really). She used the old sails from her husband’s boat for the bodies. There were a number of recreated tradesmen’s workshops, which were stuffed full of old tools; handy for researching family history occupations. Last time I visited Guernsey, nearly forty years ago, I went on a tour of a tomato producing business and I was shocked to read, at the museum, that large scale commercial tomato growing collapsed in the early 1980s when a dockers’ strike made exporting virtually impossible. Later, we did see several derelict hothouses, which may well be the remnants of this industry.

We dodged the showers to visit the nearby walled garden, which is run by volunteers. Their herb collection was very impressive; Mistress Agnes was very envious. We then drove on to the north coast but the weather didn’t make strolling along the beach an appealing prospect so we returned to St. Peter Port. There may be a superfluity of cars on Guernsey but their parking system is good value for money. We have purchased an ‘everlasting’ disc for about £4 and that allows us to park in any designated car park or parking space for however long we choose, up to the maximum number of hours stated for that particular space. We park on the quay. My companion gets all the local fishing gossip from an unsuspecting passer by and we learn how salt used to be unloaded on this part of the quay. Fortunately, I managed to curtail the conversation before our designated two hours parking is up. We have parked here so that I can skulk in doorways taking sneaky photos of the houses where my children’s ancestors lived in the nineteenth century so next up is our walk round the back streets of St Peter Port to fulfill this mission. This went better than such ventures often do. I found all the properties on my list, although the photographs were somewhat spoiled by satellite dishes, cars and recycling bins.

Albany Apartments

The final photograph on our list was nearer to where we are staying, at the top of the town and we walk along to secure that photograph before spending the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the apartment.