Garden Cottage is a close as I could rent to the place we stayed on our first / last / only other visit to Polperro. Well, almost as close as. One other was too large, another seemed a little too small. The original -- as far as I can identify from vague memories -- is not available for rent.
This one is a compromise. An excellent cottage :-) Not quite the wide open view that I was hoping for.
It seems to be two cottages joined. Part of a row of terrace cottages, originally three or four of them. Hard by Talland Hill (the road) and facing the Polperro harbour.
The cottage comes with its own carpark -- a huge bonus. It's a tight fit for the car... took me a while to reverse in. And then to try again, to get within the white lines. I think it's a two-way road from the car up the hill... just not sure whether I'm game to try it. In case I meet a car coming down.
On the other hand... It's a one-way road going down the hill. And very narrow! Just six feet, according to signs... I wish I knew how wide our rented car is. And I wish I knew how to tuck in our wing mirrors. Then, after the one-way stretch -- there's the two-way, quite busy, still quite narrow road through the village! I hope to not move the car very often.
From our carpark it's uphill -- about ten steep metres -- to our front door.
Come in the front door, into the living room. (Careful going out again -- it's one step into the road.) Through the living room is the bathroom / toilet. All quite modern. There's a door out back, to the garden. With a sofa in front, to discourage use of that door. Another sofa, both are comfortable and big enough for two people. A tv, dvd player. A few lights, none particularly good for reading.
Up a flight of open wood stairs, to the kitchen / dining room. Sink, stove, table, cupboards. And a washing machine. The cold water tap is exciting... It powers out and tries to splash everywhere!
Plenty of crockery, cutlery, pots and pans. A reasonably large dining table. (The one at Boat Cottage was barely enough for two... with all our junk.) There's a translucent window by the table. The road is directly outside. We can see the shapes of cars and people as they pass by.
We're up a flight of stairs. The road is still up here, level with us.
There's a door out to the back garden. Plenty of room for a garden table and chairs. And enough plants to be pleasant. The view from the garden is blocked by the roof of the house directly in front... But we can see sea to the left and the harbour to the right.
In the garden is a little lean-to, a closed-in room with enough space for two people to sit comfortably. Four would fit but be crowded. We realise the benefits on the very first day: The sun is shining, we decide to drink tea in the garden. The chill wind is blowing, we finish our tea in the shelter.
At night, I look out into the garden and see a light -- a light that I didn't see during daylight. Turns out that it's a jar of LEDs, powered by a solar cell on the lid of the jar. Looks like a string of fairy lights. Very pretty! Quite bright, too.
Back to the kitchen, back to the stairs. And up another short flight -- to the main bedroom. There's a view over the sea, very pleasant.
Up another half flight, to a second bedroom. A single bed and a bunk bed. This cottage is child (and dog) friendly. We leave our cases in this second bedroom. Close enough to get to, leaves plenty of room in our bedroom.
I also found a drawer with spare blankets. Found it too late... We had already pulled the covers off the spare beds, to get blankets to use as rugs when we sit around.
The best view in the house is from the bunk bed in this second bedroom!
Back to our own bedroom. And it's still a flight and a half of stairs down to the bathroom. Which is a bit tiring, for those of us who use toilets in the middle of the night!
There's a heated towel rail in the bathroom... Directly in front of the toilet. Which does make for a pleasant experience in this chilly weather :-)
Also in the bathroom, I found a couple of woolen jumpers. One fits me quite well. (Though I doubt that Deb wants me to wear it in public.) It's thick and chunky and very very warm! I'd forgotten how warm wool can be... Forget the windcheater, I'll be carrying my woolen jumper (I did bring one) on walks from now on.
The shower is... interesting! Instantaneous electric. There's a dial on front, set to the required temperature. Then just press the on/off button and the shower is on. There are three other buttons: full, economy, low (words like that, anyway). I tested them... once. The buttons switch water temperature, from hot to warm to cold. Interesting...
And that's Garden Cottage, Polperro. Very nice. Very, very nice :-)
If I think of anything else, I'll add it later...
Later: a couple of negative points...
Every appliance is electric. There is a coin-in-the-slot electricity meter which needs one pound coins. We've pumped in ten pounds so far -- in two full days. Okay, we did use the washing machine on day one. My main niggle is that we have no idea how many coins we could require for the week. So I'm constantly building the supply, just in case.
The cottage is quite spacious -- yet somehow small. Not very high ceilings, with exposed beams making it even lower. There is no point where I would actually hit my head -- but I find myself flinching at certain points... Just a reflex reaction to an obstacle spotted out of the corner of my eye. Safe -- but it makes the cottage feel smaller than it is!
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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Agamedes Consulting
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"The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." — William Arthur Ward.
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