Castle Cornet dates back originally to the 13th century, and the present castle is largely from the 16th century. It’s one of the most attractive features on the St. Peter Port harbour. It’s a fair walk out to the castle, and since I was in no great hurry I took it slowly. Although as a general rule I tend to feel the cold and therefore wear a nice warm coat, I was pleased that I’d risked just wearing my Guernsey instead … I’d worked up quite a sweat (sorry Mother, I mean a “glow”) by the time I got out to Castle Cornet.

You know, having mentioned my Guernsey; I don’t think I’ve described those here on my blog (still getting used to that word, it sounds a little vulgar somehow)!

Guernseys are a particular type of jumper (sweater for you Americans who might be reading this). Traditionally they’re made from a wool that’s lightly oiled, and they’re knitted very tightly. The result is a very warm jumper which is somewhat water-resistant, and they were originally worn by fishermen. The classic Guernsey is a very dark blue, but nowadays they’re made in a very wide variety of colors. I’m a traditionalist, so personally I stick to the dark blue … it’s a little late in life for me to be making changes of direction in fashion.

As I said, it was a pretty fair walk out to the Castle, so it was very pleasant to see my daughter walking towards her car in the parking lot outside. I had no particular need to actually visit the castle, so I gladly accepted her offer of a ride home (via a stop for a very pleasant cup of tea in one of the cafes by the waterfront).

All in all a very nice day.

St. Peter Port is largely a pleasure harbour now, and the marina is packed with private yachts and other recreational boats. There are still fisherman who land their catch here, and the ferries from England and France dock here too. But most of the cargo comes through the harbour in St. Sampson, about three miles up the coast from here. There’s always been a slightly gritty quality to that part of the island compared with St. Peter Port, although there are charming spots there too.

Today on my walk to the harbour I watched a mackerel fishing boat returning. This particular boat makes at least as much money from tourism as it does from fishing; visitors to the island can go out on the boat and get to enjoy a very relaxing form of fishing. When I was younger we’d often go with friends when they visited from the mainland and we always enjoyed ourselves.

You let our a long line with hooks baited every couple of feet along the line. Each line carries … ooh, I don’t know … about 18 or 24 hooks if I remember correctly (it’s been a few years since I went). The line is trailed behind the boat while you continue to putter around, and after 45 minutes or so you drag in the line, landing a dozen fish or more on a good day.

When these boats return to port, they often have an excess of fish which is sold cheaply on the spot, because the visitors can’t really make use of them if they’re staying in a hotel. That was the case today, so I bought two very nice little mackerel that are baking as I type this. I’ve boiled some new potatoes, and am looking forward to a lovely dinner.

Although I wasn’t particularly interested in eating while I was ill, my children came by several times and made sure that I had anything that I needed. It is nice to have them close by, particularly when I feel a little under the weather.

I didn’t have enough energy to read very much, so I spent a lot of time listening to the radio. Here in Britain we are very lucky to have a good quality public broadcasting system which includes a wide range of channels — news, music, chat shows, — that kind of thing.

Personally, I enjoy listening to Radio 4. They have the best news coverage, and they also have a lot of interviews and panel discussions about politics, art, books, and other interesting things. Here in Guernsey, we are some distance from the centre of the theatre world, but every so often I do rather wish I lived close to London; I heard reviews of several plays that I would very much like to see. Perhaps I’ll have the chance to travel there next year and spend a little time going to shows.

The concerts are held in the St James concert hall, in the middle of St Peter Port. They perform a nice mix of older and newer classical music; nothing too jarring, but they do try and introduce old-timers like me to some music that I may not have heard before. It’s always a pleasure to go to the concerts; several of my friends attend them also and we try and go out for dinner beforehand.

This time we ate in a small new Italian restaurant which specialises in seafood. I don’t usually associate seafood with Italian cuisine, but everything was quite delicious. It’s a little too expensive to go there regularly. But I think that for special occasions, it’s rather a nice new place to have on my list.

I’m still tired from last night’s activities, so I’m going to go and lay down and take a nap now. Later in the afternoon, there’s a play on BBC radio that I would like to listen to, so I don’t plan to sleep for very long.

So in the meantime, let me talk a little bit more about how I spend my day. I’m not an early riser, so I tend to wake up at around eight and the first thing on my mind is a cup of tea. I have a very pleasant chair in the bay window of my sitting room from where I can look out across the St Peter Port harbour, and that’s where I sit and enjoy my cup of tea. Our local newspaper, the Guernsey Press, usually arrives before I wake up, and that gives me a chance to catch up on local news. Truth be told this to really isn’t a great deal of news in the Guernsey press, but it is nice to see what’s going on.

Most days I walk down to the market to do my daily shopping. I don’t eat a great deal of meat, but I do enjoy chicken. And of course, since I live so close to the coast, I eat fish quite often. A lot of the vegetables we eat here on Guernsey are grown locally, many of them in glass houses. Tomatoes and peppers are amongst the biggest of our agricultural exports, along with flowers. There are a huge number of flowers grown in Guernsey, and we’ve even been known to export tulips to Holland, if you can believe that.

There are some lovely shops and bakeries in St Peter Port, and I often treat myself to a croissant and a cup of coffee. Many of my friends do the same thing, and on a quiet morning with nothing much else to do, we can spend hours sitting and chatting.

Having mentioned flowers, I realise that I’d love to write a little about the Battle of Flowers, a big fair that’s held each summer. I have soem nice photographs of parade floats from years past, but I just don’t know how to put them onto the computer. I’ll have to call my granddaughter and mention those Hobnobs again.

In case she is reading this; yes dear, I’ll be sure to buy some chocolate digestives, or perhaps even some hobnobs, as a special thank you for helping me!

She and her younger brother are my daughter’s children, and they have a very unusual life because they live in a small hotel. My daughter owns and manages the hotel and she and her family live there also. It is quite small, only 20 rooms or so, but very luxurious. They’ve had some quite famous people stay there, but of course, I couldn’t possibly mention any of their names. (Quite a few celebrities, writers, musicians, actors and business people live on Guernsey… partly because it’s very beautiful, and partly because it’s something of a tax shelter.)

Anyway as I was saying, the grandchildren who live in the hotel lead a very unusual life. Although their part of the hotel is quite private and guests never, or very rarely, go back there, they do have to be very conscious of their behaviour a lot of the time. And when the hotel is very busy, or when there is a staff shortage, they are both quite capable of pitching in and making sure that the guests enjoy their stay in comfort.

My home is in St Peter Port, Guernsey’s capital. Since we have a large deep-water harbour here, St Peter Port has served sailors since Roman times. There’s quite a mix of buildings around St Peter Port, mostly Georgian and Regency. But of course there is also a strong French influence. At one time the famous French writer Victor Hugo lived here in exile.

I live in a small house in the middle of town with a beautiful view of the harbour. And my family lives on Guernsey also; my daughter manages a large hotel, while my son is in charge of the islands branch of a large investment firm. Because we have a particularly favourable tax system, many banks and investment firms and other financial institutions have branches on Guernsey.

I don’t walk as well as I once did, but I’m still able to go into town and shop at the lovely market where I can buy wonderful seafood, fresh from the ocean. Before my husband’s death some years ago, he and I ran a small store in the middle of St Peter Port, where we sold Guernsey jumpers, a type of sweater traditionally worn by fishermen. They are one of the classic symbols of Guernsey, made from a wool that has a high level of natural oil, which makes them somewhat resistant to rain and the sea spray. They’re warm and comfortable, and people here wear them often.

Why? Well, I’ve always enjoyed writing, and it seems like a good way of keeping in touch with some of my friends and family around the world. No-one seems to write letters anymore (or at least, I find that mine are going unanswered more often), while email lacks the permanency of a letter. A blog feels more substantial than that, and hopefully there’ll be some opportunity for a discussion occasionally.

I think with my next post I’ll start to talk a little about my life, the unusual place I live, and some of the people around me.