The fixing the water pump thing requires us to make a trip to a nearby electrical accessories store, which we do. Paying the water pump-fixing man means we also need to find a cash point and we manage that too. Then it is back to Marazion in time for the causeway to St Michael’s Mount to become passable on foot. St Michael’s Mount is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the country and it seems that most people have chosen today. It is quite a slog up the steps to the castle, folk making the ascent are getting a tad warm. We are then squished into small rooms in the castle in close proximity with said fellow visitors, hmm. Eau de sweaty humanity is not pleasant.

St Michael’s Mount is iconic and its similarity to France’s Mont St Michel is not a coincidence, as monks from Normandy, settled on the Cornish version, building a priory here in the twelfth century. The steep rocky island is just off-shore from Marazion and is cut off by the tide for half the day. A Medieval Castle dominates the island, which, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, passed into the hands of the Crown. It was briefly owned by Elizabeth I’s favourite Robert Cecil and then by the Bassets, who strengthened its defences when fighting for the Royalist cause during the English Civil War. When the garrison surrendered to the Parliamentarian forces, the St Aubyns took up residence and became the owners in 1659. Almost every generation was John St Aubyn but although they shared a name, the temperaments of the various Sir John’s varied from one who was hailed as ‘the least corruptible Member of Parliament’ and another who fathered seventeen children on three women, none of whom were, at the time, his wife. In the nineteenth century the St Aubyns took the title Lord St Levan and they still inhabit the island today.

We hear the story of the eighteenth century clock, which shows the state of the tides as well as the time. A Medieval skeleton of a man, seven feet in height, was found buried in the chapel. The remains were re-interred in the churchyard. There are several ‘giants’ legends associated with the island. If ascending the steep, uneven stone steps and cobbled paths was hard work, the descent was more difficult, not helped by wearing varifocals but I reach the bottom relatively unscathed.

On previous visits to the mount, I seem to have missed touring the gardens. These are a huge challenge for the gardeners, who have to adapt to steep slopes, very little soil and salt-laden winds. They have nonetheless done a great job. My legs have barely recovered from walking steep Devon streets and ‘racing’ for life so up and down the rocky paths in the heat of the day was somewhat strenuous but worth the effort. We then return to the van to take part in that rare activity ‘relaxation’, whatever that is. Felt obliged to sample the wares of the site’s mobile fish and chip van.