AT the weekend the Love Of My Life took me for a three-day break in my favourite place in the world – Polruan, near Fowey, Cornwall.

Our trip had been planned for some time and, largely thanks to the persuasive charms of the LOML, mum had agreed to look after The Child and The Dog while we were away.

Excited at being released from real-life responsibility for 68 hours and knowing the pull of the sunshine and the promise of surf to thousands of townies can add at least two hours on any journey to the west, I was packed and ready to leave at round about dawn.

When the LOML finally pitched up at my house at 9am, he had other things on his mind – namely his stomach.

And so he held me hostage in Ringwood while he cooked salmon and scrambled eggs, all the while assuring me we would be in Polruan sometime in the early afternoon.

As I had suspected, within minutes of turning on to the A31 we hit the traffic, which extended further than the eye could see.

When calculating the miles per hour, it was clear the LOML had been looking through rose-tinted spectacles and not the terrible cut-price England football sunglasses he was sporting.

Or he thought his Vauxhall was really a magic carpet.

It may have been quicker to walk. When we got there it was closer to night than it was to the promised early afternoon.

However, once the beauty of the Cornish coastline hit me, I didn’t care about how long it had taken to get there, I was just happy I was.

Nor was I bothered about the LOML’s incessant bleating about my heavy bag in which, he claimed, I had packed rocks – or possibly a Dartmoor sheep picked up en route.

What did unnerve me slightly was the number of dead seagulls we stumbled upon as we wound our way to our B&B, which I thought was a little strange.

As we sipped our Moet on the veranda, a local teenager called Johnnie proudly showed us a|harpoon he uses for fishing.

“There’s someone in the village who hates the gulls,” he said in answer to our bird queries, his tone one of mixed awe and dread. “He kills them.”

“Oh no, that’s awful,” exclaimed the LOML in horror.

"It’s not very nice,” Johnnie agreed. “But seagulls carry rabies,” he added knowledgeably.

Now, I’m not overly fond of seagulls, but I’ve never heard talk of them carrying rabies, and|stories of a gun-toting villager seemed a little on the far-fetched side. Besides, surely shooting them is illegal, however annoying they might be?

How intriguing.

LOML and I glanced at each other, then at a nearby flock of seagulls before our eyes finally alighted on Johnnie’s harpoon.

The LOML asked the question about the weapon’s range. However, an ensuing|demonstration of its ‘firepower’ suggested that Johnnie could probably only take out a seagull’s eye at a distance of about eight inches – and then only if it stood very still – so he was quickly|dismissed from our inquiries to find The Polruan Seagull Slayer.

But the following morning yielded a new clue. As we were drinking yet more Moet, this time near the harbour, we spotted a shaven-headed man carrying a dead seagull chick.

We looked excitedly at each other. Could this be our seagull slayer?

“I found this chick earlier,” he assured us, perhaps catching our suspicious looks. “It had fallen from its nest.”

A likely story, we thought, as we peered at him.

Over breakfast, the LOML remarked to Johnnie that he thought he had seen the bird killer carrying what we were referring to as Exhibit A.

“Was he bald?” Johnnie|questioned. “Did he jump into|a taxi boat?”

“Yes!” we cried. “Yes, that was him!”

Johnnie looked rather disappointed. “Oh, that was just Stubbles. He wrings their necks because he doesn’t like them on his boat.”

Was this the answer to the mystery or was there another killer still at large?

Maybe, we’ll never know…