Currently on the most unappealing six-hour train journey of my life – it is so sunny outside and I have had at least three texts from different people exclaiming about how GLORIOUS and BOILING it is and how they are having a PRICELESS TIME in Jephson gardens. Every metre it advances, another wisp of cloud appears – there is about 78% sky coverage now. I think this is an appropriate time for a visual expression of my own emotions: :( . I do, however, have a seat on this hideous metal…tube? Is a train tubular?...which is some lucky, as I was preparing myself for the classic floor of vestibule by overflowing bin and popular toilet combo. ‘Vestibule’ is a big contender in the list of exotic but insignificant words that give off the impression of belonging to the vocabulary of only the intellectual elite, but in actual fact have very little place in the majority of chat. ‘Deciduous tree’ is another. So is ‘chasm’. The other, more significant, reason why I have not yet thrown myself out of the window (yes, this is one of those West Country glories that doesn’t feature the electronic door, instead leaving you to flounder with your arm bent awkwardly out the window in the never ending war of man versus handle. The handle opens up a whole new world of rant, as it is only located on the outside of the door - why? Why not just stick to the classic door design of two handles? WHY, CROSS COUNTRY TRAINS?) is that I am going hooooommeeee. This means many things, but the shortlist of positive aspects stands at 1) seeing my fam and mentally incomplete dogs, 2) surfing, and 3) delicious food/sinky cosy bed/more than one room that is not my bedroom/a shower that doesn’t trickle/a car/television licence/lots of tomato ketchup in brilliant time as I just yesterday ran out/all the other merits of living in a proper house, so it should be a top few days (especially as, during the time it has taken me to write this (which is quite a long time as I got massively distracted by iTunes and the awkward politics of whether you should move seat if a free set of two arises, in order to give both yourself and the person you are seated next to a more comfortable rest of journey whilst also running the risk of them thinking you don’t like sitting next to them for personal reasons and then having a secret vendetta against you for the remaining hours) the clouds have fled and the sun is back and technically it should be even hotter here because it’s closer to the equator.)

That was all spew and no substance, so down to the juicy bits now. The recipe of choice today is à la mother Gregson and is a healthy yet hearty alternative to the Classic Salad:

1 garlic clove
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 avocado
3 largish tomatoes
1 apple
a third of a bushel of sultanas or raisins
1 lime
some fresh rocket leaves
some pine nuts

1) Crush the garlic with some salt (in a pestle and mortar, if you are so well equipped. At uni I possess a chopping board and a saucepan and some hideous hedgerow plates unearthed from the loft of my aunt, so coming home and finding a pestle and mortar at my disposal is just lush) until it forms a gloop

2) Mix in the olive oil and more salt and pepper

3) Chop avocados, tomatoes and apple, bung together in a bowl

4) Add garlic/olive oil to the bowl and get involved with your hands, making sure the seasoning is EVENLY DISTRIBUTED over the ambiguous fruit or veg (what is avocado - surely a vegetable, no?)

5) Lightly roast the pine nuts and then add them to the bowl, along with the rocket and the sultanas

6) Squeeze the lime over it all. The best bit about this salad is that you have the three C key components to a texture experience: crunch in the apple, chew in the sultanas and...well I can't think of a third that begins with c, but it's basically the softness of the avo and tomato.

Family Gregson ate this with sausages and burgers on the BBQ in the still evening air, with only this tune (and bird song, and Tom nasal warbling like Nina Simone does at the end of Feeling Good, and the dogs barking at a cow, and the the farmer quadding over to check on his pheasants) interrupting the tranquility: Truro Agricultural Show by Ian Marshal. Only to be listened to if you come from Cornwall, or else the novelty will not compensate for the insufferable plod of the melody. People from all over the globe, however, should be able to appreciate this piece of regional gold: Cornish Acid by Aphex Twin. The novel of today is typically location appropriate Cornish classic, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Apparently, last night she dreamt she went to Manderley again. The nameless narrator recounts her relationship with Maxim de Winter, and also apparently her relationship with his dead ex-wife, who constantly haunts the present with her reputation. Permanently in her ghostly shadow, Mrs de Winter the second also has to battle it out with the bitchiest female character ever, the housekeeper Mrs Danvers. Much like the salad, this book ticks all the criteria of an English novel - a big house, a bit of a twist, some romance - big up C'Wall, pard.