A perhaps foolish (and Scilly) boat trip

We are on the Scilly Islands (or Isles of Scilly as the locals prefer them to be called).   The main Island is called St Mary's, and today I am going "off island" to visit two other Scillies, Bryher and the abandoned Samson. Grant doesn't fancy it so I go down to the quay alone. It is a cloudy, windy day and we cut across the dark waster on our small boat. Rather to my alarm everybody except me gets off at our first stop, Bryher, and I go on alone to Samson, now the home of only seabirds. The boatmen seem less perturbed than I am at the thought of leaving a solitary old lady on an abandoned island for four hours. "What if it rains" I ask. "It probably won't" says the deckhand as he gives me a helpful shove over the side of the black dinghy on to the sandy beach.

I have to say there is a lovely Robinson Crusoe moment when the boat pulls away leaving you alone. After tramping around for a bit, I climb up to a a cluster of rocks and am, all at once, so glad to be here with the sea all around and the wild flowers. It is beautiful with crying gulls and the whisper of waves below. I decide to write longhand in my diary.

"There are pathetic lichen covered remains of cottages that were inhabited until the 1850s when poverty drove their owners off. They used to live on pilchards when they could get them. The next leasee decided deer were a better bet and built a long white rock wall enclosure but the deer got out and disappeared, they say. Where to?  The sea? Now shoulder high bracken fills the deer meadow.  It is windy here but not forlorn because of all the flowers, foxgloves, wild orchids, stinking iris and coltsfoot. Thor ground is slightly spongey and I wish I had more than sandals between me and it. I tumble once and lie looking up at the sky through a web of fern leaves. The clouds are darkening above but it feels protected down here amongst the vegetation.

I had my Man Friday moment after about two hours of tramping only there were ten of them, laconic Dutchmen who'd come in canoes. I think they were a bit sorry to see me too. There are prehistoric tombs here.  What on earth did they do in the mesolithic times, I wonder, and then think not much more than what I'm doing now which is very peaceful and blessed.

It's coming close to pick up time and I'm now hoping that I'm at the beach the boatmen said they'd pick me up. I'm a bit disoriented after all the walking and the tide has changed the look of the place. Cleverly I spot a footprint and put my sandal in it and it fits so I relax a bit. Appparently Harold Wilson meanly once held a press conference here so the camera men would have to walk a wobbly plank with all their gear, to film him. Lady Wilson died this week at a hundred and something. They both lived on the Scillies in the end.

There have been heaps of shipwrecks here. In the museum you can see bits and pieces  that have been picked up and one cove is called Bead Cove because you can still find beads in the sand from one laden ship. From where I am sitting at low tide you can see pointy black rocks all around. One small mistake in a storm and that would be it. The great Torrey Canyon tanker was a more recent casualty and had to be bombed in the end to get rid of it.  Meanwhile the Cornish coast and its birds got all oily.  The museum has all sorts of evocative stuff including a heap of little clay pipes that even children smoked.

The Scillies attract some families with children and buckets and spades but it's overwhelmingly old people who like to come here. They are unperturbed by shortfalls in the internet and the lack of a disco or two and relish the serene, even sedate ambiance of the little grey cottages streets. We had a very good meal in a hotel last night and every table was full. Between us silver haired lot we must have clocked up tens of centuries of living.  We were a merry bunch just the same and chatted to each other before G and I set off up the hill to Bylet, our B and B. The others were residents and paying two hundred and fifty pounds a night.

A word on B and Bs so far. Their breakfasts are all magnificent. I had haddock and eggs today.  Each place, however has its own feel. Penzance Whiteways was a little melancholy with plastic flowers and a kind landlady, widowed and wanting to retire but unable to sell the pace even though the price is a steal - two hundred thousand pounds.  Penzance itself seems a little hard pressed - several charity shops and perhaps not so many tourists. Our B and B in St Mary's has fresh flowers everywhere and seems a happy place.

I feel very windburn andI fancy a little snooze in the heather out of the wind but I don't want to miss my boat. I have a can of water with a resealable tat. No plastic bottles any more....."

I got quite anxious when there was no rescue five minutes after the time arranged. Could there be more than one person with my foot size? Is there indeed another beach where I ought to be? Is 999 what you ring in an emergency in the UK?  It always used to be.  Then - praise the lord, the little black dinghy hoves into view to take me Bryher for an hour before going home to St Mary's.  Despite the lack of sun my face is burning hot.  I had a marvellous cup of tea and a crab sandwich in a cafe on Bryher and felt rather pleased with everything before crowding into the little bouncy boat to go back to St Mary's.