This isn't a mine...

My mother's house is, strictly speaking, in Devon, not Cornwall, but it is close enough to Cornwall to fall into what it is tempting to call the Cornish Emmenthal Zone - ie, the area that is riddled with subterranean tunnels all over the place.  So, of course when she bought her house, she had a mining search done, to check it wasn't on a mineshaft.  Unfortunately,  the gamble you take when you live on a Swiss cheese, is that your house isn't on a mine that was dug before about 1820, when it occurred to someone that actually making records of where all the holes were might be a good idea.    Anything dug before that time is mostly unrecorded, and may leap out and bite you on the bum.

The parking area outside her house had 'sunk' a bit, and been filled in, and now it has 'sunk' again, and she was all poised to have it filled again, when a helpful relative of the builder pointed out that actually, when the ground keeps disappearing in Swiss Cheese land, it might be worth investigating.  So, she got the Cornish Mining guy round, and he has poked spikes into the ground, and thinks there is probably a Shaft.

So now she is being advised that she needs to get the Cornish mining people to come and drill, at a cost of two grand (plus a skip for the debris, and making good afterwards, whatever THAT is likely to involve).  And her insurance company say 'do nothing as the shaft is not actually under the house' - which seems something of a leap of faith, and surely an area right outside the house and surrounded by it on two sides, that you walk past to get to the front door, is close *enough* to the house to be at the very least, something of a worry.   The mining bloke has told her not to walk over it!

Note to self: find out name of insurance company so that if my Mum and her house disappear into the Shaft, I will know who to blame.  

Berrification

This weekend, I have made four jars of blackberry jelly, and am in the process of making rowan jelly too.   I have also made some blackberry whiskey.

The fig tree continues to be wildly productive, and had two more ripe fruit today, although I think the rate of ripening is slackening off now that the weather is getting a little cooler.

The apple trees have not done well this year.  I think I'm going to prune them fairly heavily this autumn, in the hope of bringing them back to productive life. 

Saltash sunset

We decided to go and explore the river Lynher, down where she widens before she joins the big river Tamar, just above Plymouth.

( Four photos )

In other news, Helga Saab got ANOTHER puncture - split tyre.  Dratted potholes.  Foolishly, I did not have my mobile phone with me, but thankfully a helpful lady leaped to my assistance and ferried me and the hounds home, and then the equally-helpful local tyre shop came out, picked me up, took me (but not the hounds) back to Helga, swapped on the space saver, and then I drove back to their garage to get a new tyre.  Must. Carry. Phone. *bangs head*