Ely, Which Rhymes with Feely August 25th 2013

Day dawns with clopping feet. A horse has got loose in the yard. The gates are open onto the road, but little red riding hood appears in the nick of time to catch the wayward beast and return it to its stall. She tells me her red felt dressing gown is as old as her marriage. They don't make them like that any more - dressing gowns that is. I believe there is still a thriving business in marriages, and in cousins, especially amongst the removed ones. They are always much more productive than their parents, you can tell by the semi-detatched sprogs that follow them about from tent to toilet.

40 years is just a start

Today is the day we go to visit Ely, but first there is breakfast in a kitchen that shows no signs whatsoever there were a hundreds of grazing guests a few hours earlier. I just knew there was a genie involved. The cleanliness and order is slightly disorientating, did we imagine the whole party? I check for Le Booze, the tent is still there.

Is it a welcome or a warning?

100 cards are opened, toast consumed, invitations issued, goodbyes are said and we ask the Duchess to take us away, past balloons with wrinkly skins from their prolonged overnight bath, and on across the fens to Ely. (It rhymes with touchy feely, not the Old Testament prophet, Eli who rhymes with steel eye.)

Silly me, its a war trophy, what else in front of a Cathedral?

Although a tiny city of 18,000 souls, bodies, and attendant clutter, it supports an entire cathedral, complete with canon.(probably both kinds, but the human one was not on show.)
You feel welcomed by the free car parking on Sundays, and free access to the cathedral, and simultaneously warned by the shot that might be fired across your bonnet. It is obviously a town with a tough past. This whole area is so thick with Saxon, Danish and Invasive History you can feel it in the air. Old buildings date back a thousand years, which as I begin to do the same thing, fills me with newfound respect.
 What is it about getting on a bit that makes you want to read biographies, study local history and dig out, or dig up your ancestors? I suspect it is seeing the light at the end of that tunnel.
At ten, that tunnel is a scary black hole, at twenty it's an adventure, at thirty you're too busy bringing up baby to care.  At forty, it might be an escape hatch. At fifty it's a route to grab the best years of your life before they escape you, and at sixty there is no going back. The tunnel has a visible end so you'd better read up about places, the past and cultures along the route before you reach the terminus. There is a refreshing urgency to this quest. Everyone works better to a deadline, and this line definitely has dead at the end of it, so get a move on, cram your head whilst you still have one with working parts.

Ely cathedral is a surprise, probably  because it is the centre of such a small town. Most towns earn their cathedral after a good long apprenticeship. This cathedral recruited it's own town and remained more interested in quality than quantity.
It owes a lot to Aethelreda, virgin bride, and later nun, who founded a monastry here in 673 AD before the cathedral was a twinkle in the eye of an architect in 1170.

Aethelreda, founder of  Ely monastry

 From the outside it's somewhat like the Boston Stump, a square tower dominating the skyline for miles around. From the inside, the square turns out to be an octagon lighting the centre of the nave, all eight panels painted in the 19th century with angels,(sadly not by angels)
 The nave ceiling was subsequently, after many twists and turns of history painted by a 19th century artist, Parry, hanging from the roof so he may well have resembled an angel. He got paid nothing. He came for a year, stayed twelve years and was still paid nothing, so perhaps he was a sort

Happy Birthday Aethelreda

of angel.
Internships it seems are nothing new...

The Original Octagon - don't confuse with Sheffield

I like painted churches, not that you can see the detail of paintings fifty feet above your head, but it is vivid proof that all things, even those beyond normal 20/20 human vision, are worth doing well. To me, a large expanse of ceiling or wall is an invitation for some  giant colouring-in, as BB will attest - so it makes complete sense.  I'd probably like the Parthenon in full colour - apologies to those sucking air through their dentures. It is astonishing what detail, time, and presumably money was thrown into this one cathedral whilst its creators probably lived impoverished lives with little or no pay. I find the evidence of this both sad and extraordinary. In our own secular age such dedication of wealth, and devotion to something purely imagined is a little disturbing, but then the same could be said of our vast temples to retail therapy. What is it that we imagine these days? And what will it be next I hear you ask? Well it's funny you should bring that up because James Burke's latest predictions tell us that in 40 years there will be the most profound human revolution since walking on two feet. He predicts that nano technology will give us all the ability to produce whatever we want from a bit of earth and water in our own personal nano factories. This, he says will cause us to be able to leave the vast

Last tango

cities where the jobs currently are, and live wherever we want, atop a mountain. He predicts society moving back into smaller groupings, as in medieval times, and life as we have always known it - the struggle for sufficiency, for endless stuff, that either keeps us alive or keeps us in luxury, will be a thing of the past. ( The struggle that is, we'll be awash with stuff churned out by our individual little factories.) Self-sufficiency lies ahead on a mammoth scale according to Prophet Burke. I just wish his name inspired more confidence. Ironic really that this plethora of 'stuff' will be created by things too small to see. I find it hard to imagine such a condition of existence. Every part of my life has been dictated by what I can and can't afford. That scarcity has defined my choices, provided the end of the pool to kick off - although sadly not the pool itself. Earning money will be a thing of the past.

Walking in the air

Will it stop wars? He didn't say. Currently they seem to be as popular as ever. Will the different gods still influence our stuff-choices, so we limit what to make for ourselves, or will everyone go nuts and stockpile weapons of mass destruction just because they can? I can't help feeling that Mr Burke speaks for how we might distribute ourselves geographically in the UK reverting to the countryside, especially as earth is the main ingredient for all the stuff we'll be manufacturing, but will it work with sand? And what about old rivalries, tribes, ancient behaviours. Hands up who wants to let go of a perfectly seviceable five hundred year-old vendetta?
I won't be there to see it even if the nano factories could re-manufacture every single part of the Duchess including her engine, bodywork and bathroom  and every single organ of my current body - especially knees.  Echoes of Moses here. The Promised Land and all that. His idea of the Promised Land was milk and honey, mine is replacement body parts.
How about a five thousand year-prediction for mankind Mr Burke?

All this rumination, plus the after-effects of being social animals the day before, have sapped our strength for any further adventures today. What we seek is a place to pull over and chill. We set off in the direction of Cambridge across the fens, aiming for The Five Miles From Nowhere Pub. It sounds just the job.  It is certainly five miles from anywhere, but unfortunately so are the combined populations of Ely and Cambridge. The car park heaves, so do we and we leave for quieter pastures.

There is a tiny road ahead that should do the trick. We take it. After a mile, grass begins to poke through  the tarmac. Quaint. The Duchess is high off the ground so no worries. Then we remember the exhaust pipe, a finer candidate for nano-replacement I cannot imagine - and it lurks only a few inches above even a high-spec road.  This track is now a series of interlinked potholes. We lurch from peak to trough and ahead lies an infinite stretch of pits, pots and patches. As far as Molly Navigator is concerned we are floating above unmarked virgin soil, she's even given up telling us to do a U-turn - a serious state of affairs.

The fields have recently been harvested, so we could perhaps drive across the stubble, but the soil is thick black peat, the sort that John Innes sells in bags, soft and yielding to the tyre, not that we often drive across our compost. We daren't go further, but dare we return? This place is too exposed, no trees for miles, it is not a place to relax. We turn and bump back from whence we came, and somehow that dangling tube - self-evidently very exhausted - remains attached to the Duchess. It isn't even stuffed with peat. Perhaps the Old Girl was a Sumo Wrestler in a past incarnation and retracts it when threatened.

Cambridgeshire Ent Gives the Duchess the Once Over

We find a lay-by, overhung by friendly trees, alongside a field of leeks. One of the Ents checks us out through the side window...

Bikes at the ready - shame we're too tired to use them

Half of the leeks have been slain, and lie like dying soldiers on the killing field. White stems shine as if covered with a light dusting of snow. The caravan that sits in the field centre is eerily empty. Have the inhabitants met the same fate as the leeks? Ent fodder? Good thing we're a bit on the tough side.




This is the place to chill. We curl up with books and enjoy the simple pleasure of the cessation of all things, bar breathing, eating and drinking.

Party Time! August 23rd-24th 2013

FRIDAY AUGUST 23rd - BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND  - in spite of the fact it isn't the last weekend in August.  Bureaucrats have a lot to answer for, would anyone really have minded if the Monday had snuck into September? Of course not.
There are some things you have to do to avoid worse things, so we left home on Friday evening to duck the Saturday traffic, but we forgot that the days had shrunk since Cornwall. Like the price of a loaf in old money, the length of a day is now only worth half what it was 8 weeks ago, so by 8.30 dusk hadn't just fallen, it had thundered down leaving the Duchess and some giant combine harvesters struggling in the dark. They had a whole field to play in and floodlights borrowed from Mansfield FC. On our side we were wondering how we'd tell a  layby from a ditch. We came on a long straight single track road with wide cropped verges, and by unusual good fortune managed to find the short flat bit. There is nothing worse than a tipsy Duchess in the night, feet or neck braced against her ribs. The trick is to put water in the sink and see which way it tilts, then use the rear stabilisers ( nothing to do with tiny bike wheels) to level the Old Girl off. But do we do that? We didn't get where we are today by winching metal legs in the dark, and should we need to move on in the night it would be impossible to retract them whilst in flight. There is nothing more embarrassing than driving off with your legs carving chunks of turf out of a field.

We pull over, hoping those combine harvesters really are transformers and can squeeze past. Too tired to care, we make a picnic and feel pleased. There is something very liberating about just stopping in your snail shell, with everything you need for comfort through the night. Perhaps it is the closest we get to being cows. There is also an added feeling of Christmas Eve when you stop in the dark - what will you find in the morning? If a cow, with luck, plenty of grass. We found a rural traffic jam.

Rural Okey Cokey 

We had narrowly avoided parking across a crossroad, and watched as a giant hay lorry reversed up the road, brushing our windows in deference to an approaching Leviathan. They did a mechanical dance at the crossroad whilst we ate toast. It was a very satisfying start to the day, the view was fields, sadly no windmills to liven it up, but we felt suitably smug that we'd Done the Right Thing in choosing this particular 20 foot strip of verge out of the millions of other feet that were angled towards bogs and fens.

Now on to the party, a Ruby-do!  I had downloaded the address and postcode into my gizmo's contacts - something I announce with some pride as a demonstration of forethought and competence. BB is suitably impressed - until we find there is no such entry under Contacts, not a whiff of our hosts to be found. BB's expression is quizzical. (That is a polite way of putting it - I can see he doubts my memory, and probably my gizmoid ability,) but I'd had to write out the address on paper ( yes, paper) in order to transfer it from the invitation  email to the address book, so I know it is true Why, you may well ask. The email was cunningly devised with an icon, which when clicked revealed its contents. A genius idea until you tried to copy and paste this coded information. Probably owing to high security needs for  a Ruby-do, copying and pasting just achieved the trans-location of the icon itself, with no content, hence the need to resort to pen and paper. What should have taken me five seconds to achieve took a full five minutes, and then I'd forgotten to press 'save' before exiting. So now we must trawl through a month of emails, but only the first week is visible onscreen. The Duchess is no more equipped with WiFi than she is with a crinoline. Therefore we must align the mobile with the gizmo, something akin to aligning Mercury with the moon, and hope ancient emails will reveal themselves. They do, but the icon - sadly not Byzantine- still refuses to reveal its content.  Molly, our long-suffering navigator prefers a standard Post Code  to mere prayer and supplication so BB is forced into some intricate technical astrology, something he is very good at owing to his legendary patience and intricate knowledge of Ipad-ology ( pronounced ippidology) and WiFi-nautics (pronounced whiffinautics). A connection is finally made via our friends in space, the icon is cracked and we have a Rosetta Stone epiphany as the Post Code is revealed.
Molly is primed, but then we read the rest of the  invitation which says the party runs from 12 noon till 12 midnight. We don't want to outstay our welcome, and since we would like to stay overnight, we need to arrive in time for tea, not lunch, so we make for Stamford, home of those Players from the Minack Theatre.
If you haven't been to Stamford, go. It is a charming town along a river: Continental in that the buildings are all made from the same colour stone, but quintessentially English in design.


Not one building jars, and there's a river, a secondhand bookshop, an entire street of interesting shops with a selection of the very best reflections to be found on this Sceptered Isle. Not the sort of reflection that involves navel-gazing and non-rhyming lyricism, no, the sort that's found in a pond, the very best sort of pond, clear, shiny, and duckfree.
 We are simple folk. We see a reflection and before you can say 'shutter,' our cameras are firing from the hip. How often do you get a compositions like these without spending whole days arranging objets d'arts and waiting for the right light?

They are big on flowers, big on buildings in Stamford

Insideout

If you aren't enchanted then please consider becoming so in the next few seconds because our Gallery of Unusual Reflections is about to  be revealed.

This might be a Stamford nude

As you can see, you get double value from a Truly Reflective Town. The buildings and their doubles, juxtapose things that will never make sense, but enhance life in the way that marshmallow enhances a pointy stick and a bonfire. A ludicrous idea of course, but it somehow makes getting a cold bum and frosty fingers seem brilliant fun. We guess that window cleaners retire to this town just to enjoy the gleam of glass they haven't had to polish themselves.

Possibly lifted from a church

 Like marshmallows on sticks Stamford manages to enhance an already visual feast into a photographic symphony of unexpected fireworks.

Town & Gown

If you can follow that analogy you deserve a mug of hot chocolate.  Please feel free to make one before the next chapter. I would offer a Twix or a Bourbon Download to go with it, but Ipadology has yet to make itself really useful. Online shopping I am sorry to tell you isn't really what it says on the tin. There are postmen involved, and banks, Bank Holidays almost certainly, and the small matter of actually being at home when your delivery arrives. So you're better off nipping out to the offline shop if you need a biccky for that mug of cocoa. If you don't want one, let this fella have it. He's as old as the houses, and as you can see, is the New Look of Stamford.

Fortified by a really rewarding afternoon we set off for the rest of the day. Molly takes us to where still perky balloons hang from a lonely gate post in the depths of God's Flatland. We have a theory He stood here whilst fashioning the bumpy bits further West, and He was heavy. We suspect He also liked a good view with no distraction. For those who live near the Bumps, it is a naked experience this land, nothing betwixt you and the horizon. A full 180 degrees of sky. Good thing we like naked, and clouds. Because yes, it is overcast. Sun yesterday, sun tomorrow, never sun today.
So here we are, crunching up the gravel drive, wondering who and what we will find. There is space for a whole tiara of Duchesses, stables for horses, ( damn why didn't we come in the phaeton?) two little dogs and an invisible cat. How do we know? We have a cat detector on board. BB has the best cat-detecting nose in the business and he wastes no time in setting it to work. A fine run of sneezes and a pill later we are in the bosom of the family. My family, the plains dwelling Sauroses are grazing happily amongst the plates. Magic plates actually. No sooner do they empty than the same food reappears. The sheer genius of endless profiteroles manifesting next to Coronation chicken, coleslaw and strawberries is something intriguing. I never see how the trick is done. Whoever is responsible probably has a relative with a turban in the brass lamp business.

Cousins are a wonderful invention. You can either admit to having them, or pretend you have none. They are the optional extra of family life. Now I happen to collect them, yea truly until the 4th generation ( once removed. ) And, in case you are one of those people who doesn't understand how cousins work, let me first say, they work very hard, and second, anyone who is your own generation is either a first, second or third cousin, etc, their kids however, are all once removed. How hard was that? If you need further clarification ask someone else.
So here we are, BB knows almost no one, but is putting a brave face on it. After greeting those I am actually related to, I make my way towards people I have never met, ask what connection they have to our hosts, explain I am a first cousin of the 40-year-bride. If they look confused, I point to a handsome black and white photo and say, 'my uncle, her father.' Then we're in business. The other guests are a good deal more interesting than me, so I extract information about their lives, careers, specialities and then introduce them to BB. There is the one who is a vet - well there's a small tribe of these, the ones who hail from north of the border who refuse an invitation to spar with BB over Independence, the one who declares himself socially inept but is happy to chat away about his mathematical research and demonstrate a nifty ability to sketch on my iPad. And no, it isn't me, but the lass from Scotland.
There are the ones who go to Cheltenham for religion not racing, the smiling young lovers, the man who trips down the stairs into my arms, and looks horrified. (I try not to mind.) There are those who ride horses, those who'd never dare, those who are band members not only from the sixties, but in their sixties, a sort of square root of musicians, but none brought their instruments so we have only their word for this musical pedigree. There are those who are coming, those who are going, the very young, the very old and the very firmly in the middle - although most with rather less-than-firm middles. There's the  one who buries the atheist dead, the one who regrets buying a laptop, the one who gave birth to a Chihuahua. She is a bitch. A Yorkiehaha by all accounts. Her son is a Security Guard, he has an American accent and a vest to prove it.

Yorkiehaha Mother

And  Son (Once removed)

The variety keeps us intrigued for hours before it is time to repair to our luxurious bed aboard She Who Motors. As we curl up, the heavens having been quite restrained all day - a Good Thing since Le Booze was in a tent thirty yards from the house - decided it was time to drench late drinkers. The rains gallops across our tin roof for hours with a steady reassuring drumbeat. Under canvas it's the one sound which will drive you to sell your tent and trade it in for something more substantial. That is why we are not just smug, but gratified, knowing we didn't waste our money after all. Sorry campers, but this is just the way we all evolve: In adolescence we camp in a tent no bigger than ourselves, in our twenties we acquire rucksacks, a cooking stove and a partner, in our thirties we acquire children to go with the equipment, cooking stove and partner. Our tent now becomes a three bedroomed sprawl with tables, chairs, and a porch. And we need a trailer for all the gear. With relief we now move on to glamping where someone else puts up the tent, provides the beds, fridge, sun loungers, and swimming pool. After a few more fraught summers dealing with teenage parties in the one-man tents next door we finally lose the sprogs, pull a muscle crawling about on all fours and surrender to the very grown up idea of an entirely furnished and equipped house on wheels. That way, if we don't like our neighbours we can up-gearsticks and drive off. Therefore rain has for us a particular sweetness that never fails to make us feel snug. (If you read that as smug, well done.)

So many bulbs on the roses!

 

Kings may come and kings may go, but the sea goes on forever - July 25th/26th 2013

Is there something about Ginsters Pasties we ought to know? We are heading East, following a huge tanker full of them.

Note the pasty-sized opening at the back

A delightful conception. No we don't want corrections, explanations, nor balloon-popping ideas on a postcard, thanks. Some things are best left to the true scientists among us. There's a chemical process involved see? You pour liquids in the top and pump pasties out the bottom. Perfect.

We still haven't cracked the white camper conundrum. A Google search is out of reach whilst travelling, but we suspect filthy lucre is at the bottom of the white van plot.
The Duchess falls somewhere between vintage and old. (We have so many things in common.) Her value is therefore purely sentimental, so we could contemplate violating the white coda, painting her some other shade of pale. It is harder than you think to buck the norm. Blue? Yellow? Orange? (Don't get me started...)
What if no one wants to buy her when she's painted ?
We aren't selling are we?
Just asking...
Are we enjoying our trip? we ask each other this, just to check.
Yes we are. Very much.
Well that's your answer then.
Mmm. Lilac?
Maybe a few swirls, not just plain. Swirls are in fashion. New carpets, curtains, paint the cupboards, give the old girl a revamp.
When this will happen is not specified. It would take me a good month,
And which good month would that be?
The spare one between August and September, slightly left of summer - that one.
Oh well, that's all right then.

We have no idea where we are going today - apart from Devon by teatime. A quick stop at St Michael's Mount for a unisex wee - the tide is in, so we can't cross the causeway. The carpark features a bizarre outbuilding hosting three toilet cubicles, outside of which two coachloads of cross-legged OAPs are queuing. Faint yells for help are heard from inside, and two husky surfers appear from the nearby cafe. they obviously know the drill and wrench at the door until it bursts open. A very relieved  old lady exits, complaining about the state of the lock, sees who has rescued her and flutters her eyelashes. The queue shuffles over to mingle with the other two ever-increasing lines. We praise the Lord for delivering us a campervan with indoor amenities, and after taking a few pics set off once more.

 Soon the road signs tell us we are approaching Perranporth.  The Duchess must have had memories of holidays here with previous owners because we hadn't planned this visit. She takes us to a car park and we climb out to give her time to catch her breath. It is possibly Cornish Mablethorpe. A man and his ten year old son stride by with brand-new full-sized galvanised buckets and garden spades. I like an obsessive father, and try to get a photo, but they are gone too fast; sand waits for no man. The town is overrun with parents and sprogs in various states of stickiness, all heading for the beach - safe for sandcastles - careful of the sea though. Two flags stuck in the sand allow you fifty yards of water to swim in out of a calm blue mile. There's even a little rocky island for the kids to climb up and fall off. The very stuff of family fun, but even more essential is the multiplication (no, not a multiplicity) of shops. The original shop was cloned and now has at least twenty offspring. They all sell a rich pick and mix of all things sweet, pencils, beach gear, plasters, nougat and clotted cream, No one knows why this happened, The Roslin Institute refuses to take responsibility, but all of them have made a life for themselves on the hospitable shores of North Cornwall.
Unlike Carne Bay, Perranporth is heaving with bodies and windbreakers, all on the right side of it for some reason. Is the left side pre-booked  by a coach-load from Scunthorpe? Or is something more sinister afoot? We hope the local dragon will enter stage left and whip off the nearest uninformed maiden as she bends over her sandcastle in a floaty white chemise. We like a drama - and are disappointed. Here might be no dragons but there's certainly something very Looking Glass going on. Things are backwards that should be forwards. We are standing in front of the hotel on the cliff overlooking the sunbathers.
'Why's everyone staring at us?' BB asks, embarrassed.

'What do you mean?' I'd been looking at the sea, that's what you do at a beach.  You don't come to ogle the other punters revealing huge white baps and rolls of the non-wheaty variety, which they butter in plain view. That sort of staring would normally be rude.
 Apparently not in Perranporth. For some reason the buttered bathers are gazing up at us with uniform adoration. They should be gazing, as we are, out to sea so what is going on? 

We notice something else.
 Almost without exception the family windbreakers are set up to obscure their view of the sea.

'Now I know why I prefer the South coast,' mutters BB, no sunbather he, but smart as a whippydoodle. 'Sun's in the wrong place on this coast.'
He is right, but I'd never thought about the two coasts in those terms before. Everyone knows the North coast has bigger surf - like the spectacular six inch breakers today. The south, notoriously lacks waves of any kind, but at least you can see the sea whilst you roast and baste.
I'd never thought of us as sunflowers before, turning our faces, windbreakers  and pop-up tents as the sun wheels through the sky. If I was Van Gogh I'd whip out my paintbrush and do justice to this bizarre sight. But I'm not, so you'll have to make do with a photo.

We are standing here, on the cliff

Personally I can think of better things to do than roast my body under a big orange microwave. I'm with Canute on that one, the sea is for remonstrating with, head-on challenges, not hiding behind canvas barricades and blushing pink.
I seem to remember him roaring, 'Oh sea, North Sea, just listen to me!' Immortal words learned at Primary School, so they must be true.
Afraid I've had to add a line or two to patch the holes in my memory, but at least I've made it scan. The bits where it doesn't are original, although by whom, no one seems to know. Here goes....

One sunny day in early May one thousand and thirty three
King Canute took his bathing suit, and came down to the sea.
The sea was cold - the King was old, and he very soon changed his mind 
He sat down there in an old deck chair and his courtiers stood behind.

"Although I am King, not a single thing is ever done to please me
My bath was not what I'd call hot, and now you try to freeze me?"
"It is not we, your Majesty the fault it is the sea's
We told it precisely to heat itself nicely to sixty-five degrees!"

"If it declines, though the sun still shines, the remedy, Sire, is yours.
Speak to it strongly for acting so wrongly, and banish it from your shores."
"Thank you my man, an excellent plan - I'll show it I'm not afraid
A king should swim when it pleases him and never be disobeyed!"

"Oh Sea, North Sea just listen to me, My orders are clear and plain!
You will leave this beach at the end of my speech and never come here again!"
From far and wide they watched the tide to see the retreat begin
And got ready to shout as the sea moved out - but still the sea moved in

"Oh sire we beseech, repeat your speech, the sea could not have heard."
But King Canute stood firm and mute, refusing to say a word
The sea crept on till the beach was gone, advancing upon his toes
But still he remained in obstinate vein as the water relentlessly rose.

When his Majesty felt it reach up to his belt he shouted out firm and clear
In spite of the cold and the fact he was old there wasn't a sign of his fear.
"Oh Sea, North Sea! Just listen to me, my orders are firm and plain
Come right in shore as you did before, and then go out again!"

The folk on the pier raised cheer upon cheer, It was marvellous to behold them,
As the waves rolled in, and in, and in, Exactly as he had told them.

On this one occasion corrections will be happily accepted on a postcard, and if anyone wants to add the final couplet, be my guest. Rumour has it that the original included
'Kings may come and kings may go, but  the sea goes on forever'
When I was six I personally thought this rather ruined his magnificent stand, but it turns out this was the only line that came near to the truth. Canute only wanted stop his courtiers brown-nosing and prove the Almighty was, well, almightier than he. This poem was the standard teaching of History back in the day. No doubt our current esteemed educational Fuhrer, Michael Gove would reinstate it into our modern curricula along with Our Island Story given the chance. If you don't remember that version of Our Glorious Past, and maps of the world being Predominantly Pink, just be grateful.

There is a limit to how much fun you can have with no galvanized bucket and spade in Perranporth. So we buy the clotted cream, sit at the hotel picnic table to write postcards. We ask the Duchess if she'd enjoyed her trip down memory lane. She's a bit overwhelmed. Last time she'd been it was a small fishing village. She mutteres something about a pier, a deck chair, and a shouty man, but she does get her beaches confused.

Where next? Whilst the Duchess grumbles, Molly, our intrepid Navigator advises us to get a move on and chooses Trago Mills as the next Station Stop. (Why did British Rail cease using that term? Mocked it then; miss it now.)

I malign Molly, in fact 'twas I that chose Trago. Thought I too would relive some fond memories - maybe find a birdbath for our plant-sitter. Found neither memories fond, nor birdbath in any form. The place is stuck in the 80's, the chips reconstituted sticks of potato flour; statues once politically topical, now say more about their creator. Feels like BNP country. Was it always so and we just didn't notice because the goods were so cheap?
The duchess snorts. We suspect that is our answer.

Moving swiftly on past the one modern statue we could relate to, we enter England over the Tamar bridge, a sense of loss always accompanying this transition. Loss of something timeless, not because Cornwall is beyond time, because our time now has boundaries. Being on the road, driving the Duchess without plan or purpose, is an adventure. Now we see dust kicking up as the Devon farmers gallop towards us across the wide open range, fences in hand. I begin to understand Oklahoma. (Keep up: The musical, not the State.) The farmer and the cowman can't be friends. Ever. Don't even sing about it.


 We suppress our sadness and drive into England, home of small fields, high hedges and and even higher house prices.
A feast awaits in Ivybridge with Old Best Friends. We catch one of them trying to escape as we approach, cheered on by one of those Cornish piskies.
'None of that Dipsy!' we cry, hauling her back just in time. 'We haven't had tea yet!' She is a famous cook, so no wonder those damned piskies wanted to lead her into the bushes.

We discuss youth, an eternal source of amusement to all born during the Pink Map years.
'Back in the day, when my lad left school I made him get up at 7, dig my garden. Then dig his Gran's, then his auntie's, then the neighbours'. Proper 8 hour shift he did till he got a job. Soon sorted him out.' Buggerlugs gives an evil chuckle.
Ah, those were the days to be back in. Imagine trying that now....
They'll have you up for child abuse if you don't pay pocket money at the going rate.  Kids no longer do chores as part of being a family, they get paid per chore for their pocket money. Official Radio 4 stats, honest. By the way....If you aren't one of those kids, it might be worth trying the European Courts of Human Rights.
If that fails, remember, Things Move On, by the time you are a parent, you will not only still be paying off your student loans, your mortgage, your parents care bills, you will also be legally required to pay pocket money to your sprogs at the going Minimum Wage rate.
We set off to find our last wild campsite, up towards the moors, through Cornwood. There is an open space overlooking Plymouth and we park up, batten down, and later regret our choice. Too many night time callers pull in for ten minutes, leave their engine running, and then shoot off again.
 'What are they doing?' I whisper, twitching the curtains to no avail.
 I have it on authority from He who shall be Nameless, May He Live Forever,  that nookie requires killing the engine.
'Perhaps things have speeded up,' I say, 'This is the age of Speed Dating, fast Broadband, all that. Maybe it isn't just mobile Libraries that park up and leave their motor running.'
He frowns.
'Don't ever recall having sex in one of those.'
'You weren't ever a Librarian.'
Innocence is a wonderful thing. I doubt he'll look at those mobile vans in quite the same way again, all those dear old ladies queuing up with Great Expectations not only in their hands but in their eyes.

 Next time we'll choose a space for one vehicle, not five fast bonks.
 However, waiting out the early morning rush hour was worth it. The view across the Vale of Plymouth is lovely, complete with one wild pony. (No I know it's not called the Vale of Plymouth, but it should be, from where we are viewing.)
'Unusual to see one pony on its own, wonder if it needs a vet.' Apparently not. The reeds shake and a foal stands up. Mother and daughter approach for apples -  a bit of Dartmoor magic before we drive back into town to pick up the Diddly - ready for the journey home.

Anne Boleyn and the German Hand Cream July 24th 2013

We sleep, decide to walk to the Minack Theatre. We are assured it is only about 15 minutes across the cliffs. There was a clue I probably should have heeded in that description:
 Cliffs.
'Could we bike over?' I ask the OAP taking our money.
'Well, I suppose you could, yes. Might be a little steep in places.'
She obviously hasn't walked that route since The Ark Ages. She might have given Noah good advice on boat building, but there is something about her 1950's perm that makes us opt for Shanks's pony. A Shetland would have been better, but in the absence of that my pannier is loaded up instead: picnic, two sticks, a brolly and waterproofs. BB has his camera. It weighs a lot. Rain is forecast for exactly when the performance of  Anne Boleyn starts.
Never mind, we're British.

Over the numerous stone styles made from giant boulders, topped with signalling arms Dr Beeching donated in the 60's. We lift and lower - just the job for electric bikes weighing as much as a pair of pensioners. A twisty-turny path with little coloured arrows lies ahead, no signs to indicate that we might (or might not) be going in the right direction. They point us both ways along the cliff, and in the absence of either a map or compass, we head down to what should be the beach. Still no signs, but there are some foreign people to ask,
'Is this the way to the theatre, please?
'Yes, it is, but I'm afraid you're too late!' The accent is guttural.
'Oh no!'
'Yes! It is now shut!' They smile, pleased to be so helpful.
Our faces fall, we wonder if a tornado is forecast. The theatre only cancels in the event of an act of war, God, or both.
'They haff shut it for the performance this afternoon! We tried to buy tickets! There were none left!'
You will notice there are a lot of exclamation marks in this exchange. What you might miss is the slight intimation that we have only got what we deserved for being late risers. Obviously only the early bird catches worms in their country. But we are in ours.

The view from BB's Rabbit Run

 'Good job we've got some tickets then,' says BB waving the distinctive Minack envelope. Seems we are better organised than they are after all - a bit of a cultural shock to all parties. They nod their heads with a new-found respect. We smile, and feeling ever-so slightly smug move along the increasingly busy path towards the sea, giant cliff looming. There is a faint scent of hubris in the air, but we are too near to our goal to heed it.
Still no signs for the theatre. BB thinks it might be up a random hill path, a 1 in 3 rabbit run.



He nips up, I stand with sticks, cluttering the narrow path but unable to take a single leap up this vertical bank. Attempting it will tip me backwards into the forest of Gunneras behind, and there is already a dead elephant ear on the path showing what a foible that would be.

I note that a toddler perished at this spot too, its dummy adorns a thistle. Very poignant. I need to proceed with caution.


BB appears at length, miles above me, and we agree I will follow the more orthodox route along the lower path. Relieved that I am not required to be a rabbit, I round the corner to discover four legs, a bleat and a pair of horns might help more than two legs and a pair of sticks. My squawk is more hen than goat.
Think 200 foot cliff, gibbon country, steps for giants, no handrails and the need for spring-loaded knees. I look at this amazing staircase rising up above my head, can't even see where it ends. The words, rock, hard place, and idiot spring to mind. The walk back to the car park and road is now too far behind me, there is nothing for it - up I go. At the first step I abandon my sticks and revert to being a toddler. Should've nicked that dummy when I had the chance. Hands still work, knees could do better. Young people skip past me, chattering, happy, some stop to ask if I am all right. Of course I am. I wave them on, resting on a step the height of a kitchen stool. This one I can't even rock myself up; I have to ask the Chinese girl behind me if she could give me a push.
'Every little helps!' I say merrily, slapping my bottom. She is flustered, turns out she doesn't understand a word of English, least of all a puffing old toddler enacting TV adverts. Suddenly I get a good old heave from behind, her mother has taken over bum duty. I thank them, recognizing there is only so much of this one can expect, or want, from a visitor to our shores. Pausing to catch my breath  I wonder what has happened to BB. I peer up, and peer down. I am equally stranded twixt top and bottom, unless a handy helicopter flies by. (Oh me, oh my!) I know it will, should I fall the hundred feet to the beach below, but then I'd miss the play. Perhaps I had the look of a jumper, because with more and more people streaming past, two young men ask if they can carry something. I want to reply, 'Yes, me!' but hand over my rucksack and the sticks with relief. Now I won't get tipped backwards by the weight on my back which is marginally heavier than the weight on my front. Must remember that for future mountaineering- a lighter pony pack. The lads kindly see me to the top as BB saunters down the path wondering where I had got to.
'Just be grateful you weren't there to see me crawl up this cliff,' I say. And looking at my red face, he is very grateful indeed.
 Sorry no pics of this episode. For some reason I forgot to ask those nice Chinese ladies if they could snap my arse before heaving it.

Having climbed 90 steps up, there is now a steep descent down to our seats in the stone amphitheatre, but a handrail is a wonderful thing. I mutter a prayer of thanks to their  patron saint. We are seated only a few rows from the stage, on hired cushions with backrests - £1 each, great value. The tickets were only £9, so apart from the marathon getting here, this is proving to be a great day out. The sea is churning not waving, the sky lowering not raining.  And we can eat our picnic overlooking the stage whilst waiting for the performance to begin. It is a spectacular venue, well worth getting scraped knees and soaked for.
The row in front of us is empty, but fifteen minutes before the show starts a coach load of young German students piles in to block our view. We are now sitting behind three tall jokers. A beautiful black boy, Chriss, who looks like he might advertise aftershave, or Calvin Klein knickers; a fair-haired crew-cut lad; and a standard spotty one. Chriss gets out his phone, puts it on video to film himself, checks and adjusts his already perfect hair. We watch this act of super-vanity with disbelieving delight. The wind is quite brisk, it undoes his manoeuvre with a nonchalant toss of the quiff, but fortunately Chriss is distracted by a strange demand.
'Chriss! Hand cream!' comes the shout, in English. We soon learn this is not because they speak perfect English, there is apparently no German word for this essential item.. 'Hand Cream!' the shout echoes amongst the boys in the group.
Are your mates taking the piss, Chriss? Apparently not: Chriss obligingly opens his little manicure bag, out comes a tube of hand cream and it is dispatched along the row of boys. Please note, this tube is not suncream, which might be sensible given that we are facing due south and should the sun come out we will all bake into a rows of crispy fried noodles faster than you can say Peking Duck.
Four times the cry goes up for hand cream. Chriss supplies four different varieties. What a star. These German lads must have the softest hands that do dishes in the whole theatre - while the rest of us have torn nails and grubby fingers from scaling those damned cliffs. I consider asking for a squirt myself, but Chriss and his admiring lads don't really do English, they giggle through the first half of the play, not at the words or actions, at their own  extraordinary wit. I keep thinking I will ask them to pipe down soon, but they are now effectively part of the show. Wouldn't want to miss any of it. We suspect they are here for reasons other than Thespian, and sure enough they don't reappear after the interval. Possibly the wind chapped their hands. The German girls, looking windswept and ordinary follow the whole play, laugh and clap in all the right places, no doubt with under-nourished hands, and are models of stoicism. What, we ask ourselves has happened to the German Male?

Dancing Queens

The play itself is very well acted by a theatre group from Stamford in Lincolnshire, and inspires us to actually read Wolf Hall on our iPads instead of keeping it for a rainy day.

One short shower of rain threatens our fun, but like good little campers we do not erect our brollies, oh no, but huddle under £1 macs from Poundsaver and a £1 tarpaulin. There is something oddly bracing about watching a play in the rain. If the actors can do it, so can we. Makes you proud.

Now it's time to ascend those very steep steps up the theatre and walk back to the campsite. Clouds are banking up, the sun a thing of distant memory. We take the main road down to the beach as the heavens open. By the time we reach the cliff tops on the far side, via numerous wrong turnings since those pesky piskies have stolen all the signs, we are leaking wet. But we don't care. We have waterproof skin under our macs, and the performance wasn't cancelled. We suspect the evening one will be declared null and void, an act of not just one God, but the whole damned raft of them.. It lashed down on the Duchess all night, but by this time we were in a paid-for electric hook-up site feeling we deserved that bottle of red and a fry up.

Carne, Candyfloss and Piskies- July 22nd - 23rd 2013

Carne, Candyfloss and Piskies- July 22nd - 23rd 2013

Onto our bikes, and into Truro to behave like grockles: shop, eat ice-cream, and stand around gawping at the town's touristy splendour in such a way as to block pavements, roads and generally get in everyone's way.



Our first task is to photograph the Cathedral. We are forced to do this from the outside. For some reason Exeter University is holding its graduation ceremony in Truro's Cathedral. Why can't it use it's own?  We never find out. It is hot, we are photographically thwarted and find a delicious-looking baker's shop to compensate.
'We'd like one of those wriggly loaves in the window please,' I say, feeling slightly cheered at the thought of this treat for our hosts. The man looks nonplussed.
'It looks like worms,' I add helpfully, realising a bit too late that my description isn't flattering. He extricates himself from his counter, goes to the window and looks at the mouth-watering display. Evidently my description has him very puzzled. He peers into the window as if this was some other fella's display
'Oh, a German pull-apart! Sorry, none of those left.'
What a liar. We can see it. Perhaps he doesn't like tourists. He points to the shelves behind the counter. There is a single plain loaf displayed.
'All we've got left.'
'Why display such tempting loaves if you don't sell them?' I ask, feeling doubly thwarted now.
'We've all sold out - those at the front aren't for sale, they're fake.'
I forbear to ask why, at midday, he has only got a fake bread and only a single real loaf left. Does no one in Truro buy bread in the afternoon? Perhaps this is a form of Cornish Logik. We are mere visitors and feel slightly wrong-footed by unfamiliar local custom. We wander off in search of something more emmet-friendly.
Ah, just the thing: buskers, they like anyone with cash. As we get closer it seems not only Green Flag men are still in short pants, so are buskers.

Their mum probably wants them out the house,
'Go fleece a few emmets!' she cries. Never mind her little darlings are so shy we can barely hear them sing or play, but they do get E for Effort and some pennies in the hat.



We buy a cupboard shelf for the Duchess, wonderful idea, utterly useless, find a tiny gypsy van that makes us actually feel tall - a strange experience. No doubt this diddy home is ideal for a Cornish Piskie. Perhaps it belongs to our under-age buskers. Either way, it's for sale. Would the Duchess like a sprog of her own, or is she post menopause? We could tow it behind her, use it for stray cats, seagulls, orphans...

We cycle back along the river, but the sun has a pressing date elsewhere. BB gets some nice shots across the river to that elusive Cathedral in the fading sun, I fall onto my bum, and  we return to our hosts for a perfectly, but unintentionally barbecued fish supper.

Monday 22nd July
We set off for Veryan, reputedly a very pretty beach. The road is Duchess-width; she gets her ribs tickled by hedgerows that should know better, vanquishes lesser beasts on every bend, but faced with a giant pantechnicon we finally surrender the idea of our chosen destination and divert the Old Girl to Carne Bay instead.

Here is a big unmonitored car park, (£2 donation in a granite tombstone), access to a wide sandy beach with ramp and handrail, no shops, some shallow rock pools, hardly any humans - probably because of a lack of retail therapy, and a few strikingly purple jellyfish.

Idyllic. Sun shines, all is happiness, and there are woolly rocks as well. Must be sundried candyfloss.
We find a whole bunch of those pesky piskies mocking us on the sand. We never see more than their feet of course, and their shadows. They are the reverse of Vampires, much kinder on the throat.

It is time to move on, leave our lovely hosts, and make our way down to Land's End. We try Sennen cove, but the car park there says no overnight parking. Why are they missing such a wonderful opportunity for a bit more easy revenue? Perhaps unspeakable things happen on the Cornish coast at night. With a history of smugglers, wreckers and the like, a few tourist sacrifices would surely be the stuff of future legends... But no, they don't want either our money or the Duchess anywhere near this bleak promontory, so we drive on towards Porth Curno and the Minack Theatre. We are surprised just how many possible laybys there are on the way. Cornwall is turning out to be an good place to wild camp, but we are becoming fussy. This is Corrnwall for God's sake, we want a sea view. On to Treen where there is not only a grassy car park that welcomes overnight Motorhomes for £3.50, but has a distant view of the sea as well. Perfect - until another camper parks right alongside us.
Why? A whole field the size of two football grounds, accommodating only four motorhomes (all regulation white), and you snuggle up to us, you silver-blue newbie. I will say that white campervan owners have better manners. Their prides-and-joy might be lacking in colour, but they wave at you on the road, speak to you off it, and leave you as much space as possible when parked up. We suspect it is the herding instinct that makes this shiny surfing van creep so close, safety in numbers in a soporific Cornish village obviously crawling with lethal piskies. The moon wishes us goodnight, and we curl up, looking forwards to the day ahead.