So, having spent some time in the most north-easterly county of England, we headed instead for the most south-westerly. Both are in my top three English counties. It seemed everyone else had the same idea and traffic was heavy in western Cornwall. I realised that I had inadvertently booked a site with only ‘hot-spot’ internet. Last time we were lucky enough to pitch on one of only three spaces where there was signal. Will we be as lucky again? If not I am going to spend much of my time balancing on one leg in a field trying to log on, as the job we must not mention requires wi-fi and is not yet over.

On arrival, we chose a pleasant, shady pitch (which had wi-fi – yay!) and sited the caravan, skilfully lining up with the marker peg as required. Pleasant and shady it may have been, flat it was not, even our super-dooper, self-levelling legs (that’s the caravan’s legs not our own) couldn’t cope with the incline. It was clear from the marks on the grass that a previous resident of this pitch had parked considerably to the left of the marker, so we did the same. The legs could cope with this so the van was no longer reminiscent of the Crooked House (Blackgang Chine aficionados will understand what I mean). In order to comply with the ‘park with the back corner to the peg’ regulation we judiciously moved the peg.

The next issue was the water pump, or lack of the same. There are two operative words here – ‘water’ – yes, ‘pump’ – no. The helpful warden took a look. We dismantled bits of the van. We summoned a mobile caravan water pump fixing person. Hurrah! We had running water once again – probably just as well as the temperatures are soaring.

In between all the pump fixing we drove a couple of miles to Marazion. We passed a horse rider who commented that the road was melting. She was not wrong, as there were clear impressions of horseshoes on the tarmac. We wandered through Marazion’s narrow street in beautiful sunshine. Mount’s Bay was looking glorious. Marazion’s name was once thought to originate from ‘Market Jew’ and there is a Market Jew Street in the town. It is now thought that the name comes from ‘Marghas Yow’ or Thursday Market. Until Medieval times, when Penzance became dominant, Marazion was the principal town in the area. It is an ancient settlement, whose economic activity was centred on tin smelting. It is held out to be one of the oldest charter towns in England, having been granted a charter by Henry III in 1257. It is forty years since my first visit to Mount’s Bay, when I stayed in a Penzance guest house. The abiding memory of that trip is the whitebait that was served for breakfast each day; I have not eaten whitebait since.