Secrets about Cornwall

Cornwall is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful parts of England. It's coastline is famous for christ sake. But there are, however, a few little secrets that you probably won't know unless you live here.

I have lived here for around 9 months and I'm going to share what I have learned, starting with the bad.

1) The cornish don't fucking like you.

2) If you're from anywhere other than Cornwall or Devon at a push, you're considered from up country. I'm originally from slap bang in the middle of England, and to these guys, I'm a northerner. Kind of annoying.

3) When I say they don't like you, I mean, they do kind of have their reasons. There is a growing housing edpidemic down here that keeps being ignored. For those of you who are fortunate enough to be able to splash the cash and buy a holiday home or a rental home down here, think of the consequences a little. House prices are far too high, forcing the youth out. Literally, no one can afford to get on the property ladder here. Also, there aren't really houses on the property ladder anyway, and if there are, they are snapped up by cash buyers and investors with offers well over the asking price. Come down in the winter and take a walk around, you will notice that at least 30% if not more of the perfectly suitable homes are empty as shit. That's because no one lives there. People only come in the summer. So here you have the homeless, the young, the old, the people with families, the regular joe blogg struggling to get a home, and there are homes, EMPTY.

4) Also tourists kind of suck. The beaches are so overcrowded and riddled with you that the locals miss out on their summers. Trust me, people who live here do not go to the beaches in the summer and if we do, it's at like 8am so we can leave before the swarms of messy, drunk, loud people get there.

5) It's near on impossible to make friends down here. People will be friendly sure, I've met the most lovely people, BUT it's an old boys club. Everyone down here grew up together in their tiny towns with nothing to do. They are tight as hell with one another. So while they might be friendly, in fact they might even like you, for some reason, their friendship group has an impenetrable wall around it that you will never infiltrate. You will never be asked to hang out socially, never be introduced to anyone and most likely never make a real best friend, unless you try, really, really hard. This one sucks the most for me and my boyfriend, who are both ridiculously social people who have handfuls of friends back home and around the world. It really has knocked my confidence. But then we go to another part of the country and meet people, who are open and gasp.. invite us out and into their crowds and our sense of self is restored. So remember, it's not you, it's definitely them. And even people who claim to want to hang out with you, will make plans but then bail at the last minute or just stop communication altogether. Like, what the fuck?

6) The service down here is beyond shit. Like, beyond. You will either be served by tweens who don't know what they're doing or couldn't give a fuck, or by old locals who still don't seem to know what they're doing or give a fuck. We went to a Tesco's, A TESCO'S, a big, mainstream shop, on a Saturday night at 8pm to get some beers. The fucker was closed, despite it saying both online and on their fricken shop window that they stay open till 11. What the hell. And I wish I could say this was a special event, it's constant. You have to wait ages for service, it sucks, they don't care, they're slow, they have a good old chat with their mate while the cue builds up. They don't seem in any rush to help you. If you ask a question about something, instead of saying 'no but we do have this, or this person does this' LIKE YOU WOULD EXPECT, they just say 'no' and look at you with glazed eyes.

7) It's expensive as hell down here.

8) Unless you like getting in the sea, there is nothing to do. As my boyfriend said before I moved here with him, it's like the land that time forgot. They don't even have a Cineworld or a Hollywood Bowl or a Nandos, what?

9) Unless you drive, don't bother.

Okay I've moaned enough, time for the good parts

1) It's so god damn beautiful here. I've never been outside so much in my life. I can not compare the life style to anywhere else in England. Major plus points. It's good for your physical and mental health, I love it.

2) The slow pace of life is actually kind of nice really. There's no rush to be anywhere, do anything, be anyone. The hustle and bustle of a city is just non existant here and again, for an anxious person like me, it's bloody great.

3) You're never too far away from the sea, you can drive 40 minutes in all directions and be at a different coast line/beach. Heaven.

4) The walks here are amazing. Amazingly long, epic, dramatic, poetic, whatever, they are incredible. It tyes into the whole outside life thing. I never walked back home, here? I walk most days.

5) The van life opportunities. If you love the ultimate freedom of staying in a van, staying on a beach in a van, staying on a cliff in a van, staying in the woods in a van, then Cornwall is just the ticket. We often camp out for no real reason other than because we can. Never in my life have I been able to drive 15 minutes, get to a beach, park up a van, have a bonfire, sleep and wake up to the waves.

6) There are some cool venues here, if you know about them,

7) The people are quite chatty. They may want to know immediately where you're originally from and why you're here but they are chatty. Unless you count people my age or younger, they definitely don't chat.

8) It's never as hot here as inland, also if it is, beach boi.

9)There's just something magic about living here. It's kind of like being on holiday all the time, but you're less hungover and stressed about everything.

10) Despite everything I have moaned about, I would no longer choose to live anywhere other than the southwest coast. Except maybe Scotland. Who knows.