Up early to take the dogs for a last walk before we abandon them for 18 days. It was raining, which is relevant because I had my phone in my coat pocket and apprently it got wet and now doesn’t work. It is in pieces in front of me on the train.

Yes the train! We made it, not without stresses, wrong turns, lots of traffic, and a final diversion that meant you couldn’t actually arrive at Paddington Station. We (Bob Lay who very kindly drove us and our clobber) parked illegally, unloaded our bikes, put on our panniers, found a place for my iPad, which hadn’t been packed (walking the dogs), and ran off.

In fact, we arrived in time enough to load our bikes and carry our panniers most of the way back to our carriage and settle in. A slightly grumpy elderly (more than me) man has my seat going forward, so I am sitting backwards and hoping not to get sick. Husband had very carefully booked a forward seat, but we are much too polite to insist. We did, though, grumble a lot when he got off.

However, to offset grumpy man, as we were taking our bikes off the train in Penzance, a very kind older man asked if we were cycling End to End, said he had done it with his son and had a magnificent time.

We got on our bikes, went the wrong way, asked a very nice person for directions and up we went, to Sennen, a mile from Lands End. Only we are staying at Sennen Cove. Coves are at the bottom of cliffs. Which is fine until we need to get to the top tomorrow morning.

Still, it is very beautiful here in the cove and the cycle ride reminded me how much I love Cornwall-green fields with hedges and yellow gorse, daffodil farms ( had no idea they grew daffodils in Cornwall), and rolling hills (thank you Sevenoaks for all of those hills on our training rides).

Tomorrow we begin.