Never look back! It’s an adage that makes a lot of sense. It also characterises a certain stage of mystical development – a point at which the aspirant comes to realise that the only place of reality in our lives is within the moment; and that our history is simply a container that has conditioned how we react to experience. A skill-maker, certainly, but also a straitjacket…

The kindly man with a right arm full of tattoos takes our six pounds for the car park fee, and suggests that, in view of the thick mist, and our early arrival (there are only three other cars in the Land’s End parking area) we might like to explore the southern loop of paths and the artisan workshops before returning to the main buildings, which by then will be open…

There is something wonderfully Cornish about all this – the great care with which the tattooed ticket man helps us; the gentle way in which he offsets the possible late arrival of some of the staff in the thick sea-mist that is the hangover of a night of torrential rain at the end of the first day of our holiday.

Continue reading: Never look Back? – The Silent Eye