CORNWALL, DAY 4, 6th JULY 2020...

Monday 6th July:

Lovely sunny and breezy morning and a walk into the village to collect a newspaper and the all-important brown sauce for a bacon meal this evening… 

A local veteran was sitting on a bench at the edge of a car-park, wearing a woolly hat and winter clothes, with one shoe and sock off, his bared foot white and exposed to the morning sun. I thought of Monty Python’s ‘Life Of Brian’… The lady in the shop had spoken to me near the harbour yesterday, or so I thought because she had asked: “Martin, were you in the cemetery yesterday?” Clearly this was wrong and I looked to my left to see who she was talking to but all I saw was the rail overlooking the quay. Hmm…

Last night she and her husband were walking their dogs and she had thought I had ignored her earlier in the day… Ah, but I’m Pete, not Martin, so it was all sorted. Well, perhaps… She called me Phil, this morning… “No, I’m Martin…” I replied, before asserting that Pete was my name… She told me that someone always used to call her Lucy for no apparent reason, so I bade Lucy farewell and she bade Martin farewell. Odd, but slightly amusing…

One elderly chap has been walking round the caravan site in a long blue dressing gown this morning, which worries me slightly and makes me feel that social distancing of 9 metres should be introduced here.

A second walk into Mousehole was eventful mainly for the pleasant weather and checking out the best shop there: Coast… Lunch preceded a drive through Newlyn and out via St Buryan and a busy Porthcurno to park alongside St Levan Church and walk out to the coast path and Porth Chapel beach. It looked glorious and we made our way carefully down the rocky obstacles to find a place on the sand. 

The sea was a clash of dark blue, turquoise and white, as some decent waves threw surfers about but only for short distances towards the slope that is the beach there. Thrilling surges of surf smashed against rocks and many cameras were clicking.

My bodyboard was at home but I took a dip anyway, being chucked about by the strength of the tide, even surfing using my body. Really enjoyed that but we were amused by a small dog which refused to follow its owner into the sea but then it nicked one of an elderly couple’s boules. The old guy was so brown that he must have been sunning himself for weeks and he did not look great but his swimming trunks were similar to a naff pair my dad wore in 1967… 

Four young Japanese folks then made a real spectacle of climbing down onto the beach, loud military commands snapped by one of the two guys being uneasily followed by the others, whilst he was attempting to guide his dog down the craggy path too. The pantomime season had started early in Cornwall… They paddled, made noise, snapped pictures, took a while to replace their shoes and were gone in fifteen minutes… 

Our climb back to the cliff path was more acceptable than the hairy descent, but the tide had been racing in, displaying greens as well as turquoise and blue, making for a striking scene, as ever at Porth Chapel.

Drove back to Mousehole and I strolled down to the sea wall to sit and simply watch… A number of fishing boats left Newlyn’s harbour on the high tide and gannets were in plunge mode, making for a spectacular sight.

The evening wind-down was also pleasant, despite a breeze and for once here, at 9.11pm, the sky promises a lovely day tomorrow, unless of course the BBC weather app reports it to be so…