Getting the tides wrong. I had a bit of planning failure here – having decided to go to St Michael’s Mount on a day when I couldn’t use the tidal causeway in either direction so I was obliged to ride in the small passenger ferry.

I had a quick scramble up the hill to the house and enjoyed my free visit courtesy of my National Trust for Scotland membership. I was amused to learn that is was a sister property to Mont st Michel in France as that was the descriptor I had used the previous evening to my brother.

After visiting the house I had cram tea for lunch (what else) and set off to walk to Penzance. I enjoyed my poodle along the coastal path so much that I decided to carry on so I walked past the Art Deco jubilee lido, Newlyn harbour, and the Penlee lifeboat memorial garden eventually stopping in Mousehole. I had a lovely pint of refreshing Cornish cider and then toddled off to get the bus back to Penzance. At the Penzance bus station I was delighted to discover the St Ives service was late leaving so had no wait at all and was soon whizzing on my way back to the hotel.

Bad forecast so I elected to stay local and “do” Tate St Ives.

This was a bit disappointing – it is really quite small although the exhibition was interesting but my enjoyment was mostly dimmed by the very loud 3 year old who screamed most of the way round the gallery in a way that would no doubt have made Jake Chapman bang his gavel even louder.

I’m afraid despite enjoying taking the borrowed children into Tate Modern I judged, one child should not be allowed to disturb the enjoyment of so many paying punters by inconsiderate middle class parents delighted in their child’s precocity.

In a grump I had a cake and retreated to the Barbara Hepworth house but en route I stumbled on the cemetery where I had read that Alfred Wallis was buried in a grave marked with Bernard Leach tiles, unsurprisingly I went those if I could find it and was rewarded. It is simple but beautiful.

The Hepworth house is. A strange dichotomy of place (or should that be Place) and content. The placement of her works in her garden was moving and special. Thereafter I retreated to the hotel for an afternoon of knitting. The weather was foul.