Truro Beckons, Sunday July 21st

We are due in Truro for a birthday lunch. That is one of the wonderful things about Cornwall, everywhere is so close together on this little peninsula. Two tin cans and a bit of string are all you need for communicating from South to North, East to West.
As we enter Truro we are delighted to see there is 'A New Hydrotherapy Suit' at the local vets. Surely this augurs well. Is it a one-size-fits-all suit? Come Cornish creatures great and small - gerbils, giraffes, guinea pigs, Great Danes. What wonderful new material shrinks and stretches like this? Perhaps the magic suit came out of the same stable as the robotic milker, another amazing new invention.
Listen to this, and I swear it's true, I heard it on Radio 4, and if that isn't Gospel these days, what is? No longer does the dairy farmer have to be up at the crack of dawn for his cows. They now have their very own milking parlour on tap 24 hours a day. Whenever they feel the urge to be milked, they wander into the robotic milking parlour, check in at the desk, and get milked by robots who never sleep - or smell of tobacco. The milk is pumped straight into containers, all without a human hand in sight. This means they often get milked thrice a day, and the net result, as any lactating mother knows, is an increase in milk production. How about that for a spot of genius? There has to be a dark side to this little ray of freedom for cows, but I have yet to discover what it is. Will they wear out quicker? Answers on a postcard.

We are received with joy at the birthday lunch, feasted, entertained, and then given a challenge working on the knotty problem of cats and seagulls. What problem and whats is the link between fur and and feathers - other than the usual sneak and squawk afflicting this charming town? It all comes down to the bins. Well, to be precise, the lack of them. Truro does not provide these handy items for its residents. Want a bin? Buy it yourself. No doubt the well-healed think nothing of buying a few bins, but for the rest of the town it is a weekly fight to keep black bin bags from the claws and beaks of night time marauders. An old curtain is recommended as a deterrent, but who has an old curtain? Not many it seems. To add insult to injury the Esteemed Council not only refuses to en-bin its residents, it also prosecutes them if their bags are ripped. There is something reminiscent of Pol Pot in this thinking, which is further seen in evidence at the local Tesco's - what is it about this otherwise delightful town?
To wit: would-be shoppers are instructed in large print that genuine Tesco customers can park for the first two hours for free. Regulation Superstore practice, so far so good. But this is stretching the truth from here to John O Groats: the small print below advises the shopper that free parking is only available for those who pay £3 shopping in-store.
'What!' we cry. 'What's free about that?'
Nothing, it turns out. The small print further reveals that your number plate is automatically recorded, so should you fail to spend £3 in Tesco and receive a parking ticket from the checkout, then feed this into a machine before you leave, they will fine you £40 rising to £70.

Now on this in auspicious day I was introducing BB to the delights of shopping with a scanner, something he has never had the good fortune to experience. As a result we are not issued with the requisite parking ticket at all: you have to go to Customer Service and request one. We rage helplessly. It is only by the merest good fortune that BB's suspicious ferrets insisted he investigate further. He got out the binoculars to read the smallest print before we left the car park and spotted the trap. Those less wary are tracked down via a Satanic pact with the DVLA. All very sinister. BB trots off, cursing, into Tesco again, has to find a man to issue a ticket, feed the parking meter and finally, out we go, never to return. From now on it's Sainsbury's, Aldi, anywhere - except Big Bully.
Don't get me wrong, Truro is a delightful town to visit, just steer clear of this car park. Sainsbury's on the other hand has genuinely free parking for 2.5 hours, no catches. They even let us park the Duchess sideways across three bays to avoid her delicate proboscis sticking out and blocking the lane - what more can you ask?
Right, back to the seagulls...
The task is to design a poster for local residents to encourage them to cover their bin bags. We need a simple catch phrase. BB says, why fix what ain't broke?
'Cats and Seagulls spread diseases, Cover up your bin bags please!'
I wanted to write Pleases, to rhyme, but was outvoted.
So that's the words, now the pictures.

This is the result: one happy host, two chuffed guests and a partridge in a bin bag.

Sunset calls along the river below the house, and photos are taken...