As I was going to St. Ives . . .

As I was going to St Ives,Upon the road I met seven wives;
Every wife had seven sacks,
Every sack had seven cats,
Every cat had seven kits:
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were going to St Ives?

That was the nursery rhyme as it was published in 1779 although there are other versions including one with the second line "I met a man with seven wives".  The suggestion of polygamy implicit in the line is generally absent from the earliest publications but is present by 1837.  

I remember learning the rhyme as a child and I am pretty sure I learned the "polygamy" version.  

There are a number of places called St. Ives in England and elsewhere but it is generally thought that the rhyme refers to St. Ives in Cornwall when it was a busy fishing port and had many cats to stop the rats and mice destroying the fishing gear.  However, some people argue it was St Ives, Cambridgeshire as this was an ancient market town and, therefore, an equally plausible destination.  There are also several solutions offered to the rhyme based on whether, if one is going to St. Ives, any of the others were going or coming.  So, the answer may be just one - or many!  However, enough about that!

Wednesday we left Falmouth with the intent of exploring the Lizard Peninsula on our way south and west to Penzance.  Well, at least that was the plan.  When we left the lovely Anacapri Guest House, it was clear that we would not exploring much.  There was a heavy fog which made driving a challenge - the description pea soup comes to mind.  Our first destination on the eastern side of the peninsula was Coverack.  Below is a photo of the cove before we drove into the village after the ones from our Falmouth accommodation.  

Coverack

We continued to Lizard on the tip of the peninsula and its lighthouse.  It was a pretty pitiful scene as we were right next to it and could barely see it - but we could certainly hear the fog horn!  I had hoped to also visit Kynance Cove and Mullion Cove which I had stopped at 4 years ago when I was in this area with my sister.  However, we could barely see the turnoffs for them so there was no point in driving down the narrow lanes to see them.  Below are two photos I took from the last time I was here and they sure would not have looked like that yesterday!  You can see the contrast with the Coverack photo. 

So, we continued on which meant we got to Penzance just before 2 pm although we had told the owner we would be arriving about 4.  Thankfully, when we arrived, our rooms were ready and she was more than ready to help us out.  So, we settled into Camilla House which will be our home for the next four nights.  Then, we just spent the afternoon in Penzance having lunch at a pub that dates from the 13th century (1233, to be specific) and wandered along the High Street.

Thursday, amazingly, the fog had completely gone and it was warm and sunny (well, at least it started that way!)  After breakfast, we drove to St. Ives, about 25 minutes away.  We did manage to get a photo of St. Michael's Mount in the distance.  Our plan was to visit this famous site on Saturday but the tides won't be cooperating.  Last time, my sister and I walked along the cobble-stoned causeway there.  This time, we would need to take a boat so I am not sure that will happen.

We continued on to St. Ives which, I am certain, would be an absolute nightmare to visit in the summer time.  As it was, we got the last parking spot in the Porthmeor Beach parking lot and we were there before 10 am!  You could see that the beach was getting crowded and there were already some surfing lessons in progress.  

St Ives has some fabulous narrow Cornish lanes.  Unfortunately, I didn't capture many of them in photos.
The town is also filled with art galleries and restaurants.

We had read about two interesting art exhibits to see here.  One was the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden.  The other was a Tate Museum.  Our first stop was the former.

The Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden preserves this 20th-century sculptor's studio and garden much as they were when she lived and worked there. She purchased the site in 1949 and lived and worked there for 26 years until her death in a fire on the premises in 1975.  Here are some of the photos I took on our visit to the garden.

After our visit to the garden, we moved on (well, actually up and up) over the hill and down to Porthmeor Beach where the Tate Gallery is located.  

Here, the main exhibition is by a Lebanese artist named Huguette Caland.  Her work is very interesting and, after watching a film about her life, we were much better informed, and impressed, about her work.  This is what we learned:

Shifting between figuration and abstraction, Caland's large, colourful canvases and detailed drawings from the 1970s and 1980s will offer a delicate balance between the suggestive and the explicit.  After moving to Paris from Beirut in 1970, Caland achieved artistic recognition with her exuberant and erotically charged paintings that challenged traditional conventions of beauty and desire. The female physique is a recurrent motif in her work, often painted like landscapes with voids and mountain-like forms.  She was born in Lebanon in 1931 and studied art at the American University of Beirut.  She lived in Paris and California for many years.  In 2013, she relocated to Lebanon where she currently lives.

When we watched the film about her, we learned that, as a child and the daughter of the president, she was overweight and consistently criticized about her looks.  So, her art often reflects some of that angst.  She also became a fashion designer in Paris.  The most compelling thing about her, from my perspective, is that she knew who she wanted to be and followed her own path to get there.  Her strength and determination in the face of all that criticism is inspiring!

When we left the gallery, the beach in front of it was packed, in spite of the clouds gathering overhead.  I don't go to the beach much (or ever) anymore so maybe I am out of touch.  However, I had never seen the kind of beach "set-ups" that were here.  They were sort of little fenced enclosures that people set up with chairs, towels and picnic baskets in them.  They were great to protect against the wind but the "princess" in me wondered what the benefit was when you could stay at home on your patio with all of the conveniences and no sand!  Guess this proves I have become old!