And here it is, the last day. Many congratulations to you if you read the whole holiday blog extravaganza and I’m sure the irony of it ending the day of the London Marathon will not be lost on you! I’m not looking forward to tomorrow, up early to load the car and sort stuff out then grab a couple of hours of holiday while you still can to put off the inevitable and then in the car for the long ride home, which this year will be more difficult than normal owing to me having crocked myself good and proper today. I did my industrial experience today and most enjoyable it was too but on my way out of the Levant mine I remembered that I’d inadvertantly come away with the little tour sheet which they ask you to return, I’d had a fun couple of hours there and decided to return it, on the way down I lost my footing on the gravel path and fell down the hill, landed hard on my knee and bent my big toe back further than I think it is supposed to go. Yes it did hurt, quite a lot, my knee is significantly larger than it ought to be and even doped up with ibuprofen it throbs a bit and my toe out and out hurts like buggery. I’m a bit worried that when I wake up in the morning I may be unable to move, which could be a bit of a bollocks. Nuff respect to Minolta tho’, the camera survived the fall despite being out of it’s case dangling round my neck.

That aside I enjoyed today, went underground in a hand-excavated 17th century tin mine, very small and low, just as well you had to wear a hard hat because I clanged 7 bells of shite out of mine! All very interesting stuff went quite mad on the photo front and took some good film of the steaming beam engine, ah the sights and sounds of steam, call me an anorak, I don’t care I’m over 30 and it’s allowed!

Consoled myself after the tours with coming back to the Queen’s hotel on the prom and having a fine cream tea, solid silver service etc., very posh and cheaper than the tea places in town which I’ve never understood. Lovely hotel that in times gone by was probably quite the hub of activity, it seems sadly a little quiet now. I hear that when it was a long trek down to Pz it was something of a status symbol to get this far as it showed that you had plenty of money and time on your hands to be able to afford such a holiday. I suspect in those days the Queens was your proper Jeeves and Wooster type establishment.

So the lights go out for the last time in Regent House, I was just getting rather used to it here, in a nice way. Ho-hum.