Visiting Doc Martin

Ohmigosh. I’m going to Cornwall. After traveling nowhere farther away than Harrisonburg for the past year, this is huge.

We’d originally talked about visiting England and Scotland in the summer of 2020. Then the pandemic began, and almost all overseas travel was canceled. We told ourselves we’d go in the summer of 2021 instead. But the pandemic is still spreading, and the UK has a particularly virulent mutation, so we reluctantly decided that U.K. travel this summer, while not technically prohibited, may not be a good idea. Also, my son’s passport needs renewing, and we might not be able to get it in time. It looked like we’d have to put off our trip until summer 2022.

We had resigned ourselves to that, but yesterday Bob voiced something I’d been thinking. What about a shorter trip this fall? Instead of three weeks driving around England and Scotland, could we do a smaller trip to just part of that itinerary? Today I was watching a travel show about Cornwall, and it clicked. We want to see Cornwall, but it is rather remote from some of the other destinations we had in mind for our more extensive trip. Would it make sense to go only to Cornwall, for about a week, and to do it in the fall? Cornwall has a mild climate — unlike Scotland, which makes more sense in July.

One thing I’ve had my heart set on for Cornwall is to visit Port Isaac. This is the real coastal village that stands in for the fictional village of Portwenn on the television series Doc Martin, which we both love. In fact, the house Doc Martin lives in is actually a guest house. I checked availability, and found that there were some days open in the fall. I immediately booked a four-night stay.

When I told Bob what I was thinking of, he asked if we could go to Wales, too — specifically, to a town some of his ancestors came from, Penybont.

I checked the map and decided that we could, but we’d need more time, maybe 11 or 12 days total instead of the 8 days I’d been closing in on.

One regret: Our son won’t be able to come with us. We could get his passport renewed by then, but he’ll be in the middle of the fall semester of his sophomore year at college. The big UK road trip we’d been talking about was supposed to be for all three of us. We’ve decided we’re doing it anyway, and we’ll assure him that we’ll do some recon on this trip, and then we’ll all take the longer trip next summer.

We’ll plan to do some of the things on this trip that our son wouldn’t have much patience with, especially some long, rambling walks, which he would surely complain about, or opt out of entirely.