Of Cornwall and Hockings

I've been nattering on about Cornwall, and it occurs to me that you might have no clue... This will explain it rather succinctly:

There sits Cornwall, in the very Southwest corner of the city.  The white mass directly above it being Wales, where we'll head tomorrow.  Here is the peninsula in greater detail.

We flew into Newquay and made the short drive to Rock, located just across from Padstow in North Cornwall.   Per the People's Encyclopedia:

Cornwall (/ˈkɔːrnwɔːlˌ -wəl/,[1] locally /ˈkɔːnwɔːl, -wəl/; Cornish: Kernow [ˈkɛrnɔʊ]) is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea,[2] to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of 556,000 and covers an area of 3,563 km2 (1,376 sq mi).[3][4] The administrative centre, and only city in Cornwall, is Truro, although the town of Falmouth has the largest population.[5][6]

The Cornwallians (sic) are Celts, along with the Welsh:

Cornwall is recognised by several organisations, including the Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow, the Celtic League and the International Celtic Congress, as one of the six Celtic nations, alongside Brittany, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales.[78][79][80][81] Alongside Asturias and Galicia, Cornwall is also recognised as one of the eight Celtic nations by the Isle of Man Governmentand the Welsh Government.[82][83] Cornwall is represented, as one of the Celtic nations, at the Festival Interceltique de Lorient, an annual celebration of Celtic culture held in Brittany.[84]

This is the critical bit, though:

Cornwall is one of the poorest parts of the United Kingdom in terms of per capita GDP and average household incomes. At the same time, parts of the county, especially on the coast, have high house prices, driven up by demand from relatively wealthy retired people and second-home owners.[96] The GVA per head was 65% of the UK average for 2004.[97] The GDP per head for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was 79.2% of the EU-27 average for 2004, the UK per head average was 123.0%.[98] In 2011, the latest available figures, Cornwall's (including the Isles of Scilly) measure of wealth was 64% of the European average per capita.[99]

Alas, that's an unfortunately competitive category....This, though, is the most surprising bit, conflicting as it does with m experience on the ground:

Internet[edit]

Cornwall is the landing point for one of the world's fastest high-speed transatlantic fibre optic cables, making Cornwall an important hub within Europe's Internet infrastructure.[113] The Superfast Cornwall project completed in 2015,[114] and saw 95% of Cornish houses and businesses connected to a fibre-based broadband network, with over 90% of properties able to connect with speeds above 24Mbit/s.[115]

Perhaps next visit.

Cornwall is interestingly home to two of my favorite fictional characters.  First, the legendary Gabriel Allon, wayward son of Israeli Intelligence.   Allon has a house in fictional Gunwalloc Cove, where he restores Cravaggio's and the like and waits the appearance of Shamron to draw him back into The Office.  If none of this is known to you, start with The Kill Artist and buckle in.  Similarly, Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley's family is from Cornwall, and bad things happen when he comes to visit.  

But we have left Cornwall and are now in Devon, North Devon to be specific.  We are near Barnstable on that map above, in the tiny village of Instow.  The Commodore Hotel is located right on the harbor, and the photo below is from our after dinner stroll on the beach.  The tide was out, so we felt we could walk across to the equally picturesque Appledore, which we walked today.

My great discovery has been Hockings ice cream, well not  so much ice cream as dairy cream ices.

I naturally sought out the truck as we made our way off the beach, surprised to learn that their choice of flavors ran the gamut from vanilla to....err...well, vanilla.  Granted it's a small truck, but not even chocolate?

After careful consideration I selected the vanilla, and well.....  Those that denigrate vanilla are those that have not tasted real VANILLA, and this cannot be described.  Three scoops of heaven on earth, even the bride begrudgingly agreed.

This morning the truck was already in place as we took a walk on the beach after breakfast.  That photo was taken then, and I pumped the young man for additional details.  The  ice cream is indeed produced in the village of Appledore, and sold largely through a fleet of 22 trucks.  All sell exclusively the vanilla, except for one mythical van on the beach of Westward Ho! that has, gasp, a selection of flavors.  Now bear with me as I've not yet explained that strange village name, but off we went...  Theresa to see the local countryside, Scott in search of his Great White Whale.

The photo below was unintentionally set on an artistic setting accounting for the sepia-toned photo, but the Hocker's truck is clearly visible in the foreground of Appledore.

Next we found the desired village, and if one Hocker's truck is heaven, then two side-by-side are.....

But alas, these were still the vanilla-only sub-species....I'm please to report that we found our whale, and it was well worth it.  I did try to take a picture of that larger truck, but my camera's lens cap was jammed at that moment and the dairy cream ices were screaming my names.  The salted caramel was especially memorable, though I'm guessing that I'll enjoy my vanilla dessert this evening as well.

Don't you enjoy a story with a happy ending?