the cornish riviera

On a wee holiday visiting a good friend stationed in deepest darkest Cornwall. Actually there is nothing deep or dark about Cornwall (apart from the weather). It is lovely and friendly and rather old timey. And you can't exactly take a place too seriously that calls itself the 'cornish riviera' and where train conductors sound like pirates. This is a place that feels like time stops and life is lived in harbour walks, long pub stopovers and pasties consumed in teashops. While this is a rather fortuitous phenomenon for people (like me) who are trying to avoid their 'real' life and cocoon themselves from the hectic displacement that is about the occur....it is also disconcerting. Time might slow down for a moment in a sleepy place to sit and appreciate a hot cuppa with a friend, but it doesn't actually stop. On the contrary it keeps flying by. Speaking of flying, that's me on a plane in just 2 sleeps. No, I'm not freaking out or anything. Of course not...that would be silly...

I also got the chance to attend my first British fireworks night down at Swanpool Beach in Falmouth. Really fab. Not exactly for the fireworks...but as a reminder of why I love being British and want to call this place home. All of these people gathered in the cold looking over the water with a sense of foregone disappointment. Finally a few crackers go off...really mediocre, unexciting stuff and there is this collective sigh of yes, of course they are shite, what else were we expecting. Amazing really. They did get better...I mean nothing on the scale of anything you'd see at even the smallest North American display....but so much the sweeter for the humble, low expectations. I'm not really sure why I love that so much, but there we are.