A great book to read on holiday was something I was pondering over before my recent trip to Cornwall. Well I did find almost the perfect book as it happens. I wouldn't normally have chosen it but I learnt that Daphne Du Maurier's romantic tale "Frenchman's Creek" was set in the very area that we had planned to start our holiday. Apart from being a great old fashioned story about an eighteenth century posh lady falling in love with a dastardly, but dashing and daring, pirate who was causing havoc around the coves and harbours of the South of Cornwall it provides the reader with wonderful descriptions of the beauty of the Helford river. In fact I did become more than a little obsessed with visiting the places which are described in the book and trying to guess which paths and roads the characters must have travelled along. We went to Gweek, Porthleven, Helford Village, Helford Passage, Constantine and other places mentioned really just because they were mentioned. My family went along with my obsessions for the most part including a six mile trek along a woodland path which takes you right along the Frenchman's Creek itself. Later on we hired a small boat to explore the Helford river and sailed right into the Creek; at high tide we were able to explore pretty much the whole inlet. I imagined, just like the character at the beginning of Du Maurier's book, a beautifully colourful, yet camoflaged, sailing ship, La Mouette, (not pictured) anchored there hidden in the trees, awaiting its next mission, a daring raid of a ship in Fowey Haven further up the coast. Like I said I did get a little carried away but it did make for one of the best holiday reads I've ever had....
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