Teddy Hits the Highway

Dear Kids,
I'm glad I don't have to drive a car here! For one thing, the British drive on the OTHER side of the road -- and their cars have the steering wheels on the other side of the car. Miss Elaine tried to drive in England once, but she kept driving up the curb! Fortunately, Miss Zoe is a very good driver. Even though she had a driver's license in Oklahoma, she had to take driving lessons here.

Some of the roads are very narrow -- like this one. You have to take turns going -- and if you're coming through and you meet someone, one of you has to back up! This road is in Mousehole. They pronounce it Mou (like ouch) zul. It's about five miles from Penzance and also on the coast. Here's a picture of the harbor -- or, harbour, as they spell it here.


Another day we went to a cider farm and mill near Gweek. The names sound funny to us but they probably mean something in Cornish -- the language people used to speak here. I know a few words. Pol is pool, tre is town and pen is head. Penzance actually means Holy Head. Lots of people have names that start with those words -- there's a rhyme that says "Tre, Pol and Pen, by these you know true Cornish men." Here are some of my other favorite town names -- Water Ma Trout and Praze-an-Beeble.

Anyway, back to the cider farm. We took a tractor ride through the apple orchards -- they were in bloom and very pretty. They have about 3000 trees -- a lot of different kinds of apples, too. They make apple juice and cider (I wonder what the difference is) and fermented beverages and jams, jellies, chutneys and mustards.





This is me in a barrel of apple juice bottles. Miss Elaine didn't let me drink any. I think she was afraid I would spill it on my shirt.


Here's one thing I've noticed. English people love animals -- particularly dogs. We see lots of dogs everywhere we go -- but they're all very polite and people keep them on their leashes so they don't run loose and scare children and small bears.


Love,

Teddy