Last night’s B&B was run by a lady who never stopped talking. Not loudly but just an endless wittering punctuated by giggles. We heard all about her allotment, her blackcurrants in particular and her new oven: its price, its provenance, its size, the delivery difficulties etc. Jon and I left Stephen being shown the utensil in detail whilst we popped out to fetch Cornish pasties for lunch and rest our ears.

The walk today was glorious. Out of Newquay and over a short headland to a very smart hotel where we had coffee. Like all really good hotels they paid not the slightest attention to our dishevelled state but served us like royalty.

Then over miles of headlands, mainly flat with huge views both north and south. The weather was fantastic. Hot sun, but a stiff breeze, the sea turquoise with flecks of brilliant white. We saw so many peregrine falcons we are becoming quite blasé about them. Twice we saw them hovering almost above us and had a wonderful view as they swooped down.

We stopped for our pasties – very fine, from Warrens, allegedly the oldest pasty makers in Cornwall. Then we had ice cream at Mawgan-in-Pyndar – honeycomb with strawberries & clotted cream. Yum!

We reached Porthcothan around five, and are in a really lovely B&B, set a good mile back from the coast. The village is very small, just a hamlet really, with no shops, other than a beach café, and a pub on the outskirts. We covered a gentle 16.3km (just over 10 miles) on probably one of my top 10 days of the whole walk so far.