October 2012
It had all started a long time ago, or so it seemed to Julie. She had always been a quiet child but also a very curious child. She read an awful lot and had what her school teachers described as an inquiring mind, or more to the point what her mother thought was being nosey. And finally they told her that she had been adopted as a baby; this came as no surprise to Julie. She had already guessed this for herself, having ginger hair, blue eyes and freckles when nobody else in the family had, she thought was quite a giveaway. She knew her parents loved her to bits and she them; Julie had no desire to seek out her birth parents.
They had told her all that they knew which seemed to her precious little. They had a photo of her birth mother who was only just sixteen when she had given birth. Apparently her mother had been born of very staunch catholic parents so there was no question of her keeping her baby. Agnes her mother had been parcelled off to an aunt in the country. The adoption papers had been signed without discussion and Agnes had returned to her life some eight months later without her daughter. The photo and a patchwork bedspread were the only two items that came with Julie, apart from the clothes that she had worn on the day of exchange.
Julie was comfortable with being adopted yet had always felt that part of her was missing. She could not quite put her finger on it. The patchwork quilt had been on her bed as long as she could remember. It was beautifully made; she loved the quilt and always had folded it neatly before she got into bed. Her father had made up lots of stories from the scenes as he tucked her in for the night. He had told her about pirates and smugglers, farms and lighthouses, ferry trips and tin mines. She had inherited from him his love of literature and had now written these bedtime stories down for other children. Soon her book would be published she had designed the front cover based on a cartoon depiction of the quilt. She was particularly pleased with her drawings of the babies and dogs that were seen to run crawl and scamper around the bedspread.
Julie on her final meeting with her editor had had her imagination triggered when she had pointed out to her that the treasure map, whilst looking as a treasure map, was clearly a good representation of the Cornish coastline and its boundary with Devon, there were many tiny little crosses sewn into the map. This to the editor made it seem very intriguing. On her return home Julie sat with the quilt spread out before her then, taking many detailed photos of the patches, she downloaded these into her laptop. She traced the map from the photograph and using her atlas she realised that the coastal outline matched Cornwall and many of the little crosses appeared to represent many Cornish places of interest.
Julie had promised herself a holiday when her book was finished and now that it was she decided that Cornwall was as good a place as any. She had always wanted to visit the Lost Gardens on Helligan and the Eden Project and she would visit them on her travels. She told her friends and publisher that she would be contactable on her mobile, loaded up her car and set off on her journey of adventures.