When you go to Cornwall for the day there is something you really must try… an honest-to-goodness real Cornish pasty! Don’t worry, you can’t miss them because there are pasty shops at every turn. We were starving after our drive into foreign territory, and it was lunchtime, so Roland bought ours from the first pasty shop we came across. And very delicious they were, not too big nor too small, the pastry was crisp and buttery; and inside of each was a perfect ratio of steak to potato, onion and swede; and the steak was tasty and tender, without any hint gristle or bone (as sometimes detected in inferior pasty shops here in Devon).

In fact, our pasties were so appetising that a seagull landed on the roof of a car close to us and plotted his methods for appropriation. It was clear that he was a nice seagull and not experienced or interested in using the tactics of many a nasty seagull in Dawlish – like dive-bombing or swooping down with an open beak; he was more timid and even turned away when we glanced at him, no doubt feigning a lack of intent. He wasn’t a very good actor. At last he summoned the courage to step forward and appeal by dint of his youthful good looks and a charming bashfulness; I was nearly taken in – I stood up and approached him with an outstretched arm holding a juicy morsel of pasty… He moved another step closer… And…

“Don’t do it,” warned Roland, “Or next he’ll be taking food from children’s mouths.”

“Quite true,” I withdrew my hand, remembering the incident, years ago, of a sausage roll being pecked right out of my nephew’s hands when I was taking him out in his pram through Dawlish Brook (I hope James can’t remember – bet he is terrified of Hitchcock’s film, “The Birds”).

But I threw the tidbit onto the ground and the seagull had a nice mouthful of Cornish pasty. Well, you can’t go to Cornwall and not try a Cornish pasty.