The story of St Enodoc's church is relatively well known. Located in the village of Trebetherick, a short wander inland from the sandy beach of Daymer Bay, it's an intriguing destination for visitors to Padstow and Rock. Centuries earlier the wind-blown dunes had virtually swallowed the church until its excavation and renovation in the mid 19th century. These days the site is best-known for being the final resting place of former poet laureate Sir John Betjeman, whose funeral party had to struggle across the adjoining golf course in heavy rain.
But if you head in the opposite direction - turn right when you get off the Padstow ferry and walk east along the seafront at Rock - you'll find a lesser-known church with an equally fascinating story. And a much gentler walk, too.
In many ways, St Michael's church is the older sibling of St Enodoc. Both are close to the coast, with St Michael's church sitting alongside the shore of Porthilly Cove. Both are within the parish of St Minver and were known originally as the North and South chapels of the parish. Both were restored substantially during the Victorian era. Both even have a similar font; the one in St Michael's is a copy of the font at St Enodoc's.
St Michael's was originally built in the 12th century, possibly as a chapel for monks who lived at a nearby farm. The medieval four-holed granite cross outside may be even older; it was moved from the west side to the south side of the church in the 19th century.
Today the church is generally a quiet place, hosting Sunday services and summer weddings. It's usually open to visitors from around 9am until early evening.
Last year Apple used its Worldwide Developer Conference as an opportunity to announce a new intelligent loudspeaker for the home, a new iPad and new desktop computers.
This year it’s all about the software: iOS 12, which is a new version of software for iPhones and iPads.
Apple iOS 12 is all about being faster, more secure and more reliable. Apple says applications will generally be quicker to start and the camera will be ready up to 70% faster. You can train Siri, the voice activated assistant on your iPhone, to work with apps. And it’s better at working things out itself, so if you’re running late for a meeting it’ll offer to send apologetic messages and if you’re in the cinema it’ll remind you to turn the ringer off.
But the big thing that’s grabbed a lot of attention is the opposite of this: the Do Not Disturb option, which has been improved to make it easier for you to ignore your phone. You can make this time-based or location-based, so it’ll go quiet when you’re visiting the library and will switch the alerts back on when you leave. There’s also a timer to limit access for children and perhaps for yourself, along with reports to see what you’re using your phone for and when you’re using it most.
iOS 12 is available this month as a beta version for people who fancy testing it - and for everyone else it’ll be online in the Autumn as a free download for everything from the iPhone 5s and iPad version 5 onwards.
While Apple and its many competitors are busy making devices with bright, colourful screens, Sony is one of the few manufacturers that hasn’t given up with what are often called electronic ink or e-ink displays.
These look like paper and actually feel a bit like paper, because the screen isn’t glossy but has a slightly rough texture.
What’s the point? Well, a screen that isn’t shiny is much easier to see in the sun. Great for reading electronic books, for example. And if you’re relying on ambient light rather than a backlit display, it’s often easier on your eyes, too.
The new Sony CP1 is pretty much the digital equivalent of an A5 piece of paper; with a 10.3 inch screen that has a resolution of 1,404 pixels by 1,872 pixels. The whole thing is less than 6mm thick and, because it doesn't have a colour display, the battery is likely to last for over a week between charges.
It’s got 16GB of storage and can share pdf document files with Apple, Android and Windows devices via an app. But it’s not just a reader: you can also write on it with a stylus, either creating new documents or making notes on existing documents.
It’s on sale in Japan and America for $599.99 [just over €500].
ASUS ZenBook Pro 15
A new laptop isn’t generally all that exciting. But there’s an innovation on this the new ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 that’s worth talking about. And, indeed, on the ZenBook Pro 14, which is similar but a bit smaller. The Pro 15 model has a 15.6-inch 4K ultraHD display that’s said to be particularly good at rendering colours accurately. On the back is a new type of hinge design that ASUS calls ErgoLift, which slightly raises the laptop keyboard to make typing easier. And inside is an Intel Core i9 processor, a 1TB solid state disc and a copy of Windows. It’s less than 2cm thick, it weighs less than 2kg and it’s expected to sell for around $2,299 [€2000] when it goes on sale next month.
So far, so good.
But the interesting part is the touchpad. Usually you’d expect a grey touch-sensitive pad below the keyboard.
On here there’s a 5½-inch colour touch screen, so it looks like a mobile phone embedded in your laptop. It works as a mouse substitute – and it can also work as a tiny laptop screen, perhaps for messaging, as a calculator, for playing music or for checking your diary.
Whether you’re going on holiday or on a business trip, dragging a suitcase behind you can be – well, a bit of a pain. If only your suitcase had some kind of robot brain to steer itself alongside you as you walked.
Believe it or not, that’s exactly what is being offered here. It’s a self-driving hands-free intelligent suitcase created by a Chinese company called ForwardX Robotics.
Unlike a regular suitcase, this one has a camera connected to a Qualcomm processor running an artificial neural network that does its best to understand what it sees. It's the same kind of technology you get in self-driving cars. The case keeps up with you at a speed of 3 metres per second but when you grab the handle it cuts the motor automatically and turns into a conventional suitcase. That’s also good news if you forget to charge it because, as you’d expect, it runs from rechargeable batteries. If you’re worried about security, there’s a wristband you wear that vibrates when your case is more than a couple of metres away from you and also lets you know when the battery is running down. You also have the option of GPS tracking for an extra cost.
It’s not perfect: it can only handle a slope of up to 6 degrees and it doesn’t cope well in very crowded places, but that’s no great surprise, really.
Shipping for the first batch is expected by the end of the year: at the moment you can find it on crowd-funding site Indiegogo, where you can pledge $319 [€275] for a single suitcase.
The last time we came to Truro, it was a rainy day in the middle of our holiday and we were accompanied by a grumpy teenager. We visited the cathedral, had lunch at a little cafe and ended up in Marks & Spencer, where the teenager asked me to buy him five pairs of socks. I think that was his highlight. Everyone was pretty miserable.
Today, we have no teenager. He's grown up. But I'm slightly grumpy before we've even started, mainly because I've been reading a city guide that's peppered with greengrocers' apostrophes [yes, many greengrocers] and poorly-explained historical references. It's also raining. Again.
Time to leave the frustrating guide behind. We've come to the city because we want to give Truro a second chance. Theoretically a city - with stunning architecture, shops, cafes and galleries - is a good place to be on holiday when a sunny coastal walk is out of the question.
In reality, it's not. Not in the rain. Our first stop, the cathedral cafe, is struggling to cope with the number of visitors. We escape to 108 Coffee House, where the quality of the coffee, the friendly service and the honest food deliver a welcome respite from the grim weather. Later we drop into the Arts Cafe, which seems similarly cheering (although we didn't stop to eat). Lemon Street provides an attractive Georgian view. But overall it's a bit too practical, especially on a rainy Wednesday. If you want mystery and magic, stories of fishing and mermaids, druids and dragons, Cornwall is the right place. If you need to go shopping, Truro is undoubtedly a sensible destination. But if you're looking for an escape from damp reality, this isn't where you want to be. Sorry, Truro, maybe when the sun's out. Third time lucky?
I could well be breathing the same air as my great-grandparents. I've walked the streets of Tenterden, where they once lived, and may even be enjoying the same type of lunch my great-grandfather regularly ate. (It's a cheese-and-pickle roll, accompanied by a half-pint of Kentish bitter, since you ask.) In fact, this space between the bar and the fireplace in the William Caxton pub might have been his favourite spot. The pub was called the Black Horse back in 1891, when great-grandfather was listed as 'innkeeper' on a census form, but I'm sure he'd recognise the place.
Researching your relatives is pretty easy if you're only looking back at the past hundred years or so. Thanks to online records, I've found the pub where great-granddad Richard once lived. (It's also where my grandfather lived for a while, perhaps unsurprisingly.) However, innkeeping wasn't a career that Richard followed for long. Although he was at the Black Horse in 1891, ten years later he appears to have followed his father's footsteps into the building and decorating trade.
Sometimes research can make you feel closer to your relatives. In this case, despite my proximity to the historic Richard Bridge, I'm not feeling any emotional attachment. Time to move on. I've already had a wander round the graveyard of St Mildred's church without any success, so I'm going to visit Cranbrook Road cemetery. It opened in 1887 and is at the same end of town as the pub, which fills me with some hope.
Much to my surprise, I discover a double-width plot that contains Richard, his wife Kate and two of their children. Four deaths in ten years. And a few rows back, I discover a headstone for Richard's parents, my great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather. A passer-by tells me that Ashford Borough Council are very good at providing information about the location of burial plots. On this occasion, I didn't need anyone else's help. I reckon that's a family trait... and maybe even the lineal connection I'm looking for.
