The Sennen Cove Diary
June 30th - Monday
Oooh, sunshine. How very grand. It took a little while to remember how to do the shining thing that it does, but by the middle of the day the sun was splitting the hedges. By the middle of the afternoon the mist was forming again, and a thickening layer of cloud slipped over the top of us. At least it was a few hours longer sunshine than yesterday.
We are seeing some lively early morning trade these last few days. It is the run out for newspapers and breakfast goods and lasts for the during of the time I might normally have a bit of breakfast. Also, for the last few days, things go very quiet until the end of the morning when we might see a small revival in visits. I wondered if it was the heat and humidity making our visitors lethargic and unwilling to potter about in shops. If it is, there is not a great deal I can do about it and it is making pasty ordering (sorry, MS) very tricky.
What it is also doing is making gymnasium going very sticky. I said a few weeks ago that it was pleasantly cooler in my alternate room. I clearly spoke too soon as today it was just as warm and humid in there as it was outside and perhaps more so. It made my blistering session even more blistering than usual and, obtusely, I had a better time today on the rowing machine than I had achieved in a while.
ABH, who would normally wait in the shop while I gymnasiumed, decided that she was better off staying put upstairs. She was still keen to come for a walk after I got back, and we headed for the Harbour beach because there was some today. It was quite busy down there with people variously swimming and settled on the beach. Moments after I let her off the lead to go and join them, the Harbour tractor sprung into life and I had to get her back on the lead again. I concluded that we were better off walking around the block but having been chased off the beach, we had trouble getting across the car park because the sewage maintenance lorry was manoeuvring. Yesterday, there were people sitting in the grass square that she likes to sniff around. Life is getting just a touch awkward for the poor girl.
There was no tarrying today, partly because we had been chased off of everywhere and much to do with the Missus having to take Mother for a hearing appointment in town. I asked, since she was going, if she could drop my broken left false ear into the other optician that does ears across the street. I wrote a note to go with it explaining that it was precisely the same fault as before – because they would have detailed records, of course – and could I have a new one that worked, please.
She was gone for some time. With notable exceptions, it was another quiet day in the shop and in between customers I was all alone in the world. ABH had again elected to stay upstairs in the comfort of the living room. I cannot say that I really blame her. Other than being on her own she has the advantage that she can move about, look out of the window and shout at passing dogs or snooze in any one of her several favourite places. Gosh, was I sounding envious. I really did not mean to, honest guv.
When eventually the Missus returned to the shop to collect ABH and head to The Farm, she threw my false ear on the counter and told me it was working. I said something like, ‘not you too’ as she told me she could hear it binging when it switched on and the feedback it emitted when in close proximity to another ferrous object. All these things it does. What it does not do is amplify sound in the manner that it is supposed to in order to improve my ability to hear things. In short, it is broken.
The obstreperous, besuited, self-important prig who I had argued with last time had once again stuck his unnecessary and ignorant oar in and scotched the whole repair idea. As he had convinced the Missus as well that there was nothing wrong with it, she brought it back. As luck would have it, soon after receiving my false ear back again, we had a quiet period. Before I telephoned, I took the left false ear and rigged it so that I could use it in the right ear ’ole. This would then compare like with like, ruling out an issue with my left ear. It was clearly not performing as it should.
I will not share too much detail of the ensuing telephone conversation. In the battle of was it or was it not working, I had to remind our shop boy that perhaps I was best placed to determine which it was. I also had to remind him that twice previously I had been told it was working when it wasn’t, a fact that seemed to be borne out by whoever they send it to for repair, identifying a fault, repairing it, and sending it back working again. He told me that he had run diagnostics which proved it was working, so I told him that turning it on and holding it to his ear did not constitute diagnostics. Putting it in my ear and discovering that I still could not hear any better was a more certain way of determining its malfunction.
Although he reluctantly said to drop it in, and he would send it off, I explained that dropping it in required quite a quite a bit of planning since the shop is open for ten hours and the Missus has work to do elsewhere. His refusal to send it off as requested probably meant that I could not get it back there until the end of the summer. I decided there was little point in persisting with this outfit if all they could do is argue to toss about who knew best about the operation of my false ears. I will drop a formal complaint to the commissioning body, a contact kindly provided by the other reader – what it is to have friends in high places, well, places that are useful, anyway – and see if I can change to the other supplier.
Alright, I did share too much detail. I just could not help myself.
All the while during my telephone conversation, a very pleasant lady who looks after our surf jewellery stand was looking after our surf jewellery stand. We had plenty of over-stock to fill the gaps and although I felt bad about using her to restock our display, I brought it out so she could work through it. I salved my conscience by acknowledging that she did offer. It did not even result in a sale at the end, but I asked her to come back just before the school holiday to do it again, then organise a purchase that would see us through August month. I do hope that she was not too traumatised by my berating of the optician that does ears – very badly – but perhaps it was encouragement for her to do surf jewellery very well.
We had some more busyness during the run up to closing. It is beginning to look like beach days when people come to us on the way off the beach. Indeed, two regular visitors whom we have known for years, a twin, both said that the beach had been lovely even if the sun had beggered off halfway through the afternoon. They also told me that the swell was just right for surfing as they waves had initially looked big, but had turned out to be quite moderate.
The big swell of the last few days had very much moderated, although it was enough to thump a bit over the near end of the Harbour wall late in the tide. When we walked after tea along the sea wall in the Harbour car park, there was still some crashing waves on the rocks to admire as well, and the car park was busy again.
The mist does not seem to want to leave us alone and while yesterday evening it was on the water at the edges of the bay, tonight it hung low above the water as if to demonstrate its vast portfolio of artistic arrangements. I think we are pretty much guaranteed to see more of it tomorrow, so hold on to your hats.
June 29th - Sunday
Well, I was right about the mist; it was nearly all gone by the end of the day. As for sunshine, it looked like we would have to wait a bit longer to be reminded what the sun looked like. Although, if you had not blinked at the wrong time, you might have seen a fleeting and tantalising glimpse of it in the middle of the afternoon.
The Sennen Fun Day went ahead as planned. I knew that because the fizzy pop we donated was picked up first thing. Later, a young lady appeared with artistically drawn butterflies on her cheeks came into the shop. She was non-committal when I asked her if she had indeed had a fun day, so I guessed that having butterflies on her cheeks was a somewhat commonplace experience.
It was not particularly inspiring weather to be bringing people flocking to The Cove. In fact, it looked like it might rain any minute and the sea looked a bleak, dark grey. Yesterday, the swell had perked up at high water and it did the same this morning. One of the fishing boats went out early and was caught out in it. It was not ideal conditions to be pulling pots, but he had little choice having gone out before it got a bit nasty. The second fisherman had waited and went out after the tide and the swell peaked.
While the major swell that affected the middle of the bay eased off at low water, it kept banging in over at North Rocks and Gwenver throughout the tide. There were a number of surfers out the back at North Rocks, where, I noticed the Lifeguards had red-flagged the beach, but I cannot say that the waves looked very useful. My eyes then picked up another dozen or so out the back over towards Gwenver. There is either a statistically abnormal number of optimistic surfers here today, or they knew something I did not.
I had only stopped to notice the surfers at a quiet moment at around two o’clock. My reverie was suddenly disturbed by a sudden rush of pasty buyers (sorry, MS). I had started with a full pasty warmer and because I had not seen any proper pasty action for a while, did not have any in the oven warming up. I noticed the signs pretty quickly and managed to get another warmer’s full into the oven sharpish. Unfortunately, the rush continued rather longer than I had anticipated and I found that I was out of pasties with ten minutes to run on the oven timer.
It is an invidious position to be in, pastyless in the middle of a pasty rush. There is nothing worse. Happily for me, the disappointed customers were alright waiting for the pasties to come ready. We then went through nearly the entire supply in very quick order. Now, to some, it might seem that I had been very sensible in putting another warmer load in the oven when I extracted the ones I needed immediately. Not at all, dear reader. This is, in fact, what we call a school boy error because despite there only being a few pasties left in the warmer, the rush had come to a sudden and cataclysmic end. If we sold another couple of pasties in the rest of the day, I would be very lucky. I will learn one day.
We had another rush at around five o’clock. The five minutes to closing rush had missed its mark by nearly an hour and I was kept on my toes for half an hour until it naturally faded out. During that time, I had two visits from people who wanted to chat, one of which was the Highly Professional Craftsperson and family, whom I now very rarely see and the other an old pal from years back. The Highly Professional Craftsperson ducked out having seen my predicament and the old pal hung back until the rush was over.
The old pal was a colleague from 30 years ago. We had kept vaguely in touch since going separate work ways and he has visited The Cove on several occasions since we have been down here. It is a point of embarrassment that while I have been visited by various friends and acquaintances over the years, I have never bothered my behind to venture away to meet them. There is an advantage, of course, to being visited in that if I am found to be a disappointment, there is always The Cove to explore.
My pal had come particularly because he thought he had read in The Diary that I was to hang my virtual brown housecoat on the back of the door and retire this year. If anyone else read that, I apologise, as it was completely inadvertent. My means of a happy retirement are sitting above our heads in the form of a new roof. Sorry to disappoint, but I will be clinging to the shop counter until the man in a black coat comes to prise my rigored fingers from the till. Even then, I will fight him gum and nail.
On a happier note, for me at least, we sat and watched the waves misbehave toward high water. The Harbour was the place to be for the young and fit well into the evening, being thumped off the Harbour wall by powerful waves. The spray from the crashing waves was mingling with the mist and at last knockings of the day, a layer of white cloud lay across the bottom of the cliffs from Gwenver to Cape Cornwall. When we walked through the car park after tea, it was half-filled with avid sea watchers, observing the lumpy, dancing waves thunder around the rocks and lumber over the Harbour wall.
A number of late shoppers had told me that the forecast showed sunshine for tomorrow. They sounded hopeful until I pointed out that the forecast for today has also been sunshine. It is the sort of thing that you expect from your friendly and helpful local grumpy shopkeeper.
June 28th - Saturday
Well, it did not look or feel much like my idea of a heatwave that Radio Pasty had been banging on about all week. The weather turned to pants last night and it was still pants this morning. We could not see the bay again so thick was the mist and there was damp with it, too. The mizzle was not worthy of a rain jacket; it was too light. The best I could offer was that it was comfortably temperate first thing in the morning. It turned very humid in the afternoon. Well, it would with all that fog.
I made an effort to get downstairs early again today to meet the cash and carry driver. It was a different one today and he was half an hour earlier than the last. A cheerful and young chap, capable of carrying in two cases of water at a time – 24 kilos – and I was cheerful enough to let him. We had the sizeable order done in ten minutes. It would take me the rest of the day and more to clear the store room again.
For the last two weeks we have had the exit bubble. Pasties (sorry, MS) have been flying out from early on as people gathered for the last precious moments in The Cove. I was ready for them today. I do not know when we sold our first pasty of the day, but it was not before ten o’clock and neither was it before eleven o’clock. There was no exit bubble and who can blame them. All the seats opposite were wet from the mizzle that still hung in the air well into the morning.
I should have guessed that it was never likely to be a full day of attendance in The Cove. It was Mazey Day in Penzance, and it would have attracted a major crowd from all about West Cornwall. It was probably just as well because at twelve o’clock, just as I was putting wet wipes on the shelf, my pager went off suggesting I might like to go and launch the Lifeboat.
A cruise liner had spotted an empty RIB floating with its engine in the working position in the north bound Traffic Separation System out to the northwest of us. It was an hour out and drifting southwards. The Coastguard has libraries worth of data from which it can calculate drift rates and positions and given that it took the Lifeboat less than half an hour to find it, the data and calculations must be fairly accurate. It was exceedingly fortunate that the Coastguard also had a prior report of a lost RIB from the Isle of Scilly and were able to match that to the one found. Had no such report existed, the Lifeboat and very possibly other resources would have been deployed to conduct searches to ensure no one had fallen out of it and rather hoping for a rescue.
I had been on my own for a bit initially and had every expectation of having to send the boat down the slip on my solo. At the last minute I was joined by a another two and the boat was launched on its way in a timely manner. Since we were not sure what was going on, we hung about waiting on information. After we established that the shortest time that the tasking might take was quite long, I returned to reopen the shop and told everyone I would message when we knew more.
We began to get a little busier after I returned to the shop. Trying to work through the cash and carry order became a lot slower but I had made good progress. I will need to set aside some time to rearrange the back of the store room to squeeze in the cases of water otherwise they will remain in the middle of the store room floor until they are used.
When the call came through from the Coastguard to stand down, the shop was still buzzing with customers. I managed to send out a message calling all available to arms at half past one o’clock. As the hour arrived, the shop was emptying out naturally. I had to shut the first electric sliding door in The Cove to prevent any more coming in and made it to my own appointed time at the station after the last person left. When I arrived, there were already five kitted up and deploying the winch cable to the end of the long slip. Noticing immediately that I was supernumerary, surplus to requirements and very much a spare wheel, I bowed out disgracefully and left them to it.
The boat arrived back on schedule, and I watched as it unloaded the lost RIB from the drop door at the back of the boat. One crew member steered it ashore while the boat returned to the slipway and a textbook recovery up the long slip not long after low water. There was a washdown and a refuelling – we had only just refuelled at the end of Thursday’s training – before the boat was made ready for its next service. We are, after all, a very consistent, very excellent Shore Crew.
I checked with the Missus, the keeper of the fund, then made pasties ready for all the crew. This is only made possible by the generous donations of our customers to the crew comfort fund, so we thank you very much.
Had I only known earlier, I might have made ready a completely different package for our crew. It was one of the last customers of the day who informed me that it was National Cream Tea Day. I mean, who knew. The National Cream Tea Association or whoever demanded such a thing could have made a bit of an effort letting people know. With a bit of advanced warning, I might have broken out the cream tea bunting and put some posters around the place. As it was, I had been selling cream teas, or at least in component form, all afternoon without the slightest inkling of its significance.
I try not to let such things unsettle me and instead concentrated on making the store room look a little more operational. Part of the order was four cases of pop for the Sennen Fun Day, which is tomorrow, and they will be picked up tomorrow. The delivery had been just in time, and I was only asked at the beginning of the week if we could donate them. The collection will give me some more space and I can work on clearing the cases of water. Other than that, I managed to clear the whole delivery in a day which was not bad going.
The mist that had filled the bay in the morning had receded a little during the day. It had come and gone in varying degrees of thickness and position and at the end of the day was thickening again but confining itself to the farthest reaches of the bay and the tops of the cliffs. The cloud cover had been with us all day and, naturally, I had been starting to get reports of it being clear and sunny in Penzance.
I hold out a little hope that we might see some improvement tomorrow and may actually see some sunshine because the southwesterly wind is dropping out. I can’t say much about the cloud, but the mist should go away. We will settle for that.
June 27th - Friday
The main purpose for today was to empty the store room of everything unnecessary to make room for the big cash and carry delivery. Somehow, I managed to spend most of the day filling it up.
I had a call from the cash and carry company not long after I came back from my blistering session at the gymnasium. The very pleasant man wanted to clarify if we were picking up our order. I told him, no, and that we nearly always have it delivered and expected it to be so tomorrow morning. I do not know why the query came up at all because on the website there is a clear option at the top to deliver or click and collect and I had definitely chosen the delivery button. I am now slightly nervous about our delivery tomorrow.
We had a wealth of deliveries in the morning including an extra big pasty one (sorry, MS) to see us through the weekend. It is always a bit of a game trying to find room for it if the fridge has not been emptied from the day before. It is also a jolly wheeze trying to clear the previous deliveries before they arrive. Fortunately, at the moment, the pasties are coming in a little later, which gives me extra time to clear everything else. This will work against us, however, when we are really busy as they will arrive to a shop full of customers and mayhem will ensue.
ABH had me up half an hour early this morning. I remained half an hour ahead, which was some sort of miracle, and decided not to waste it. I went down to the shop early with the aim of clearing the fishing tackle and rest of the sunglasses. Once I had finished the soft drinks, the beers and the early deliveries, there was not much of my extra half and hour left. I had not dawdled but there was just quite a bit to do. I managed to finish the fishing tackle after we opened and before the pasties arrived, but the sunglasses would have to wait.
Happily, the Missus said she would do the sunglasses when I went to the gymnasium. I was gone an hour, and she was still doing them when I came back. It was gratifying to note that I was not just being slow removing the packaging. The next problem I had was where to put them. There were a lot, and they did not fit in the boxes reserved for them. When I used some bigger boxes, the boxes did not fit in the space on the shelf that was reserved for those, either. I had to move things about and be a bit creative with the space, all taking time. Given that the sunglasses have been in the same place for more than five years, there is a grave likelihood that I will forget where the new places are.
As I arrived back from the gymnasium, the food service delivery arrived. I gave a hand to unload the cases of soft drinks and bottles of cider. Most of these are over-stock and needed to be secreted in the store room. They occupy the floor at the very end of the store room and should not be in the way but I piled them up as tightly as possible. When they arrive, however, they are placed at the top end of the store room meaning they would all need to be moved later.
The day had started quite gloomy and overcast. It was not the start of the very warm and sunny weekend Radio Pasty had bleated on about that I expected. I was very glad later in the morning when the sun broke through and some blue skies emerged. They stayed with us until the middle of the afternoon, when the cloud started fighting back. Unfortunately, it looked like it was winning and eventually, the sun went out.
Our half day of glorious sunshine, marred by a brisk breeze from somewhere vaguely southwesterly, brought forth a wealth of visitors. We enjoyed some business selling them going home presents in the main and leaving me with an extra topping up job in the morning. Either the incomers were not arriving and we had just experienced a busy flash in the pan week, or the gathering cloud had not inspired them to come out in numbers.
It meant that when three large boxes of hooded sweatshirts arrived, I had some time between customers to stick the little size labels on them and put them away. The delivery filled the gaps in the store room we had created by clearing the fishing gear, sunglasses and food service deliveries, so it could not be left for another day. I had printed the labels in advance, to make the job quicker, and by printing the exact number, I was able to check the delivery at the same time.
Nearing the end of the job, I was a bit alarmed to note that there was no additional stock of medium navy sweatshirts. I checked my order to make sure that these had not been forgotten and noted that I had not ordered any. It seems that between placing the order and receiving it, we had sold nearly all of that size and colour. I had not ordered any because we apparently had enough.
Having finished off the last of the sweatshirts and broken up the cardboard, I felt that I had earned my right to a cup of tea and to rest on my laurels. There were only two things standing in my way, one being I did not have any laurels to rest on and the other was the smiling delivery man with a large box in his arms asking where I wanted it. I did not voice the response I wanted to give him, but I did give up any thought of a cup of tea.
Happily, most of the delivery of Cornish savoury biscuits fitted out on the shop shelves as I had intended when I ordered them. There were only two smaller boxes that I needed to find room for in the store room, which after a bit of shuffling, I managed to do.
This brought me up to the time of starting to close down the shop for the night and the arrival of our, erm, idiosyncratic tourism leaflet lady. Her arrival reminds me of the child snatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which gave me some discomfort as a child, in an aging Citroen motorcar, sitting low on its suspension with the weight of leaflets in the boot. It takes a little time to become, erm, accustomed to her presence and when she leaves, you are left with the strange notion of not being entirely sure whether the intervening conversation had been real or not. Whatever the case, it put me back on getting tomorrows orders done of which, fortunately, there are few.
The Missus had decided to clear the old growing area up at The Farm which meant moving some potatoes to the new growing area. The transplant seemed successful, but she came back with a small tub of small new potatoes, enough to go with our fish for tea. They night have been small, but they were bleddy ’ansum. There was enough left to have cold for breakfast, too.
While that was a surprise, it was a disappointment to see the mist gathering again the evening when I took ABH around for her afternoon tea walk. It was warm and humid, so the breeze, I am sure would have been reasonably welcome through the day. Our International Correspondent, from not so frozen Vermont, very far west of Camborne tells me that in her mountain home the temperature is reaching into the thirties. It would be expected to be much hotter in the lower lying areas, so we should consider ourselves lucky, perhaps.
June 26th - Thursday
We were due to launch the Lifeboat today at around eleven o’clock. It was the day that the engineers had chosen to come along and shorten the winch cable on the long slip. Despite the recommendation the cable be swapped out, higher powers determined that the issues we had with pulling it out and it looking like a bird’s nest on the drum when it was wound in, were immaterial. The important thing was that the cable would sit central on the drum when the boat was stropped up so that it did not place undue strain on the sliphook as it had for the last six months.
I had arranged cover from the Missus so that I could attend but before I did so, one of the deputy launching authorities dropped by. He told me that it was chaos over there and the engineers had decided to run the cable off the drum with the boat in the station. I went over to confirm what was happening and found that the boat would launch at some point but no one knew when. I could not ask the Missus to hang around for an indeterminate amount of time – because it might hurt – so I stood her down, so she could head up to The Farm.
Before she went, she bagged up another sixteen bags of lettuce and while she was about that we had a Lifeboat shout for the Inshore boat. Cape Cornwall NCI had spotted some foreign object in the water to the northwest of them – they have very good eyesight – and had called it in. There were enough bodies around to make the launch without me. The Inshore crew very quickly established that it was nothing more sinister than an inflated air bag, one used for shipping, and brought it back to the station.
The tide was so low that the boat had to be recovered from the big beach. This ticks another newly mandated requirement that the Inshore boat must be launched and recovered from an alternative place from the normal every six months or it might have been eighteen months, I cannot quite remember. It also means that the Inshore head launcher and banksman have to be reasonably fleet of foot for the best part of half a mile – or longer if the Tooltrak driver does not like them very much.
At least they had a walk in the sunshine, although in full kit that might have been a tad uncomfortable. We had started the day not being able to see the bay again, even after I had opened my eyes. The bay was filled with mist for a while during the early part of the morning but even as I took ABH out for a spin, it had started to clear away. By mid morning, the cloud had gone, and the sun was out in force. It did not take long after that for crowds to gather and customers to start buying things. Fortunately, I remembered what to do.
The Missus left for The Farm, and I started on some of the boxes in the store room. One of the bigger tasks was unpacking and finding space for the sunglasses. It is a ballsaching task as there are more than 300 of them and each one has its own plastic bag that needs to be removed. It is time consuming, repetitive and liable to drive a grumpy shopkeeper to his wits’ end. Eventually, I finished half of them before giving up for the day and migrating to pricing and distributing the fishing tackle, which is equally tedious and time consuming. I did not finish the fishing tackle, either.
The launch of the Lifeboat coincided with a short lull in our busyness. It had been announced with very short notice. I slipped across the road to see who was there and very quickly determined that there were enough very excellent Shore Crew to do the job, made my excuses and left again. I watched the boat launch and sit out in the bay while the slipway was made ready for recovery. The only purpose of launching was to rewind the winch cable with a load on it, although there would still be some cable left on the drum as the tide had come in a bit since the original time we were to do it. I did not see, but the head launcher reported that it was a textbook recovery up the long slip, and I saw no reason to think otherwise.
Our end of The Cove very quickly slipped back into its normal sunny day rhythm and I went back to undressing sunglasses and later, pricing fishing gear. We were busier than we had been for the last two day and indeed the last two days combined. It meant that trying to clear the stock was not progressing at a pace that was likely to have it finished anytime soon. I am under the clock because the store room needs to be clear by Saturday morning. It was therefore not particularly good news to discover that the latest order of hooded sweatshirts will be arriving tomorrow. It is unlikely that I will have much time in the morning before the shop opens either. At the end of a busy day, I had to call in orders for milk and greengrocery which will take any spare time I might have tomorrow before the fight starts.
It was a bit of a rush at the end of today as well. There was an early launch of the Lifeboat for training which meant getting my orders done and cramming some tea before the shop shut so that I could attend in a timely manner.
Part of the reason for getting to the station early is to allocated roles for the evening based on who did what less recently. It takes time to go back over the records, and I could not help thinking that there must be an easier way. While the boats were out, I spent some time thinking about it and came up with a spreadsheet that would allow me to see at a glace when each person did which role. It will never be possible to allocate the roles in advance because not everyone turns up for each exercise, shouts will affect the planning and events may intervene. It will, make it much quicker on the night, however.
As if to prove my point, at the appointed muster time we were very thin on the ground and roles had to be allocated as necessary. Even as we were dispersing to carry out our jobs, more crew arrived, and I had to allocated role changes on the fly. We had both boats away as planned at around quarter to seven o’clock into rough conditions in the bay.
The sea state had deteriorated very quickly into the afternoon as the tide increased and by the time the boats launched, the swell was particularly heavy and feisty. The original plan had been for both boat to emulated landing kit at Longships but as the Inshore boat stood off outside the Harbour, it became very apparent that was not going to happen. From the shore, the small boat was disappearing between waves. It stayed out for a short time, but it was soon clear that even inshore training was risky, and it called in to say they required recovery.
The big boat stayed out as planned and returned to the bay on time. We had set up the slip for recovery with waves washing across the toe. We always wait until the last minute before deploying the ‘fishing rod’ on the last available step down the slipway. Even then, the dispensable crewman who we sent down to do it was getting his wellies wet.
The swell in the Harbour was moderate and the boat came back on the toe in good order. We then performed what was clearly a textbook recovery up the short slip with an adequate number of bodies washing down, refuelling and strapping the boat onto the cradle for its next service. We are, after all, a very orderly, very excellent Shore Crew.
June 25th - Wednesday
There was a good chunk of mizzle in the air during the morning. Once again, ABH and I got away with it when we ventured down to the Harbour beach and afterwards headed around the block. The tide was just on its way out and offered us just enough beach to wander on, which is probably why she elected to head around the block.
As noted, the weather got worse before it got better and even then, there were varying degrees of better. The wet went away quite quickly but the mist was exceedingly stubborn, at first thinning with blue breaks above, then thickening on the cliff tops and eventually going all together but leaving us overcast with medium height cloud and a bit more rain at the end. It became very humid, at least in the shop it did.
It was another hell for leather morning, but I knew that it would be. I had to abandon any hope of topping up the drinks fridge for all but the most needy brands of which there were but a couple. The greengrocery, newspaper, dairy and pasties (sorry, MS) all came quickly after each other but at least I did not have customers at the door and no major rush along with the pasty delivery.
The business day did not kick in until halfway through the morning and even then, it was half-hearted. I had plenty of time to collect myself after the manic bit of the morning and plenty of time later on to consider why we did not have any customers all day and why I had elected to become a grumpy shopkeeper and why pasties are always crimped on the right side. It does seem that one day in the week is reserved for mass desertion. How all the visitors come to decide on the same day will forever be a mystery to me, but I imagine it is weather based. I would guess that St Ives and Penzance benefitted from our mass abandonment.
I was not the only one having a bad day. The driver from one of the first buses in The Cove today told me he had broken down and was waiting on his recovery team. He was looking for a coffee and I pointed him at the OS as the most likely place. Later, a customer told me that the lady driver of the bus he was about to board found that reverse gear did not work. Some naughty wag might have surmised that it had been disabled on purpose but, of course, that sort of thing has no place in The Diary. It was resolved by turning the bus off and back on again – there is a master switch, apparently – which I found as amusing as I found it incredible.
The lack of customer activity meant that I could continue and conclude our cash and carry order largely uninterrupted. It is still a slow process of checking and rechecking. Some of the items are price marked and some not and it is important to select the right ones. Then there are the items no longer available for which an alternative must be selected, or a decision made to discontinue the line altogether. One such item or group is the small pots of spices, which is immensely irritating as I cannot find them anywhere else. I also had to remember to add the cans of pop for the Sennen Fun Day. We had purchased these last year just ahead of it being cancelled due to bad weather and had eventually to dispose of the cans on the Lifeboat crew. I hope they take them away this year even if it is cancelled.
The Missus spent much of the day away shopping and taking Mother for another dental appointment. They were gone for hours. This meant that ABH had to behave herself for around four hours sitting on her bed in the shop. She did very well but I must remember that she is still only two years old and she tends to shout at other dogs that do not look like her. She was even very good when 40 boxes of beachware were delivered in the middle of the afternoon. Perhaps she also noticed that it was the only time during the day, apart from a five minutes to closing rush, that we had any customers.
There was nothing much I could do with the delivery other than leave it where it was, in the way. Nearly all of it needed to be shipped up to The Farm as over-stock for the six weeks summer holidays. It is surprising how much we get through in such a short time. It was not long after that we had the missing gin arrive along with the fishing gear.
I probably had time to unpack and price the fishing gear but as usually tends to be the case, the lack of being busy in the shop fosters an equal level of idleness in the grumpy shopkeeper. I will get to it tomorrow morning because there will not be any deliveries of note on the basis we did not sell very much. The only exception was the lettuce leaves which I had to send message to the Missus asking for more. She got Mother on the case, but they will need to be bagged tomorrow.
The day had turned overcast and grey again for the end of the day but quite warm for our after tea walk around the block. At least it had stopped raining. We narrowly missed a potential playmate on the sliver of beach left by the tide, which was disappointing and when we got down there, we found the candidate had just left. We did not tarry after that and headed around the block. The seaside daisies have come through, which are always a pretty sight amongst the proliferation of straggly, white mustard plants – although it might be rape. The tree mallow are enormous and in flower and dominate between the yellow of the mustard plants. Sadly, there are not many rock daisies on our walk because I think they are my favourites. They are mainly along the main road under the railings.
Out the back of the shop we have an abundance of calendula officinalis, pot or common marigolds. I find it amazing that they close up and night and spring to life during the day. There is white mustard there too. That is a lot of yellow to cope with back there when the sun is shining.
Pot or common marigolds amongst the white mustard.
June 24th - Tuesday
There was a hint of mizzle in the air this morning. You might also say there was a hint of mist as well because it was very thin. ABH and I were very lucky in choosing a time before the wet became much wetter and the mist much, erm, mistier. In fact, it rained quite heavily shortly before the shop opened and, indeed, after it opened. It led to a deserted street for the most part of the morning and we did not see very much trade before the middle of the day.
Radio Pasty very helpfully announced that the mist and poor weather would clear and lead to a rip gribbling afternoon. Alright, they did not exactly use those words, but the implication was very clear. Sadly, the bay was not, even halfway through the afternoon we could barely see the beach let alone Cape Cornwall. I had a sneaking impression that Radio Past were talking about everywhere except The Cove.
This gave rise to one of the more curious, very possibly bizarre occurrences I have witnessed in recent times. Shortly after the rain cleared away, a school of artists arrived and set themselves up around the tables of the café next door. Quite apart from the commandeering of two tables, they set up easels and started to practise some landscape painting. I watched in wonder over the next few hours as brightly coloured representations of the bay developed on the canvasses.
I have heard of liberties artists take to enhance the subjects they are painting but the views they were painting was nothing like the one I was seeing. Even I could have painted that by presenting a grey sheet of paper to the teacher and would have had full marks. It begged the question why they had bothered coming out at all. If they were painting from their imaginations, which clearly they were, they could have done it in the back room of a pub somewhere. On the bright side, what they had painted was very pretty and no one had thought the view was best represented by painting a lady with an eye where her ear should be and a nose on her forehead.
While the shop was quiet during the morning, I made the effort to compile the cash and carry shopping list. I know that the Missus does it differently, but I favour topping up the shelves as I go along. In this way I can see the state of the stock we have for each item and order accordingly. I managed to get as far and the end of the drinks and the non-food items before I had to give up in favour of serving customers. There is a disadvantage of doing the list this early in the week and that is of course, it is a moving target; some items not ordered may have run out since. The advantage of doing it this early is that it gets done in time.
Earlier, I had squeezed in the fishing tackle order too. I had noticed the deficiency in our stock yesterday quite by chance when I headed down that aisle to look at something else. It was one of the things that I had no time for yesterday, but I had printed out a stock list that would help today in identifying what we needed. A couple of years ago the very helpful man at the supplier recommended some lures when I asked for assistance. I do not know how well they work on the fish, but they seem to attract a good number of customers, and we have been doing very well with fishing tackle since. The company is also very efficient and within a couple of hours of placing an order, I had notification from the courier company that it was on its way. This is the same courier company that delivered my gin to the wrong address, so I am not counting my chickens just yet.
I would report what the sea state was, but I did not see it all day. I caught a glimpse at around four o’clock and it seemed much the same as yesterday. There was fairly robust swell, but it was only apparent at the shore and then I could hear it when the crowds thinned out and the street became quieter. It did not seem to be coming over the wall, not the bit I could see, anyway. It cannot have been too ferocious because one of the fishing fleet was out on it all day.
For all the fog and mist and dampness, it was not a bad business day. There were even moments of brightness to cheer things along a bit. Our lettuce and rocket have also started to gain traction and appreciation. We have had several returning customers singing its praises. There is still plenty to come but the Missus reports that some of the plants are going to seed and will need to be replaced. She is wondering if we will now have enough to see us through a busy August.
It is clearly much work at The Farm and picking is very labour intensive and takes a lot of time. Mother has been trained and will be left up there overnight as she says she does not sleep much anyway. If she wears out, there seems to be a number of pre-school age children about. I am sure they can be trained, and they are certainly going to be cheap and the parents glad to be rid of them for a day here and there.
Signalling that all is well with the world, we had another five minutes to closing rush. These are proper, full-on jobs, not just a few stragglers in for a last minute bottle of milk. It keeps the till jangling right to the bitter end of opening and at least I can collapse in a ragged, satisfied heap when I eventually go upstairs. Even that was delayed today as there was more ordering to do. That has now set the stage for another manic morning.
The mist was starting to break up as we approached closing time but came back in a hearty reprise a bit later. It was starting to go away again when we walked around the block, but the sunset was a disappointment to those waiting for it in the car park. Life is full of them – sunsets and disappointments.
June 23rd - Monday
The change in the weather was very apparent as I walked down the corridor to the front room. We had left the front windows open overnight and a strong cool breeze was barrelling through the flat. Dressed only in my silk negligee and feather boa, the wind felt rather keen, so I rapidly closed the offending window.
Having stepped outside with ABH a short while later, the wind did not feel so bad at all. The sun was variously hiding behind cloud and peeking through it, but the wind seemed a little less cutting while we were out. There was one lone lady on the beach ahead of us which is, of course, unusual for that time in the morning. ABH thought she was obviously there for her entertainment and ran across to be entertained. Fortunately, the young lady gave our girl some attention until ABH became distracted by the small birds that cling impossibly to the granite walls of the Lifeboat station.
After that we repaired to the shop to put out the outside display and to fetch the recycling suite from the back of the building. That was the last normal thing that happened around the shop until late into the morning.
I had thought that I would head down to the shop earlier than usual because I had avoided topping up all the drinks yesterday because of the fridge plug problem. I knew there would be extra to do today and with several other big orders coming, I thought I had best get ahead of the posse.
Sure enough, there were plenty of gaps in the soft drink display to rectify. If the fridge is switched the noise is sufficient to block out all other sounds around me but with it off, I can just about hear the newspaper box at the front being filled, even with a broken false ear. Therefore, I was aware of some commotion at the front and went to discover that the greengrocery had arrived. Today, the delivery came in two plastic crates that I would struggle to accommodate in the store room. Since they had only just been delivered, I reckoned I would have a fighting chance of emptying them before the driver went away. I made it – just – by dumping the contents of the two crates on top of the freezer. This did not help later when it was one extra thing to do.
I returned to the soft drinks and finished those off and then went back to clear the greengrocery. I had just finished pricing the strawberries when I saw that the milkman had was delivering. Throwing caution to the wind, I left the first electric sliding door open with the shopping trolley in the doorway for the milk and went and put the strawberries in the fridge. When I got back, the milkman had already gone. He had come to us first and left everything in the newspaper box outside. I had already cleared the bread and newspapers, so there was plenty of room in there for the milk, dairy products and a big case of eggs. I set to with these next. Leaving the remaining greengrocery to do after the milk.
I had barely started on the milk with very little time left before we opened when there was some more noise from the front of the shop. Our local provider of loose change chose today and that very moment to deliver the change I had asked for. I broke away from my work to sort that out and because the first electric sliding door in The Cove was now open, we were fair game for passing visitors assuming that we were open. I managed to serve one regular customer and batted away another and when we had finished with the change exchange, I returned to sorting out the milk with only a few minutes to go and half the greengrocery still on top of the ice cream freezer.
I piled the greengrocery into the store room and proceeded to take down the shop blinds and pronounce the shop open. There was now a race on to finish the greengrocery before the pasties arrived (sorry, MS) because they were occupying the same space I would use to put the pasties in the fridge.
Abandoning the bananas for now, I had just finished everything else and served a few customers when the pasties arrived. Along with those came a five minutes after opening rush and two or three groups of customers piled into the shop. Somehow, I managed to alternate my attention between getting the pasties into the fridge and serving the customers. When the time came for the Missus to come down, I was grateful to get away to the gymnasium for a rest.
At some point during the morning, the sun had triumphed over the cloud and for the most part of the day, we had good sunshine. The strong breeze coming from either the west or southwest depending on which weather station you looked at and when, continued into the day. It did not seem to bother folk much as the breeze was relatively warm, although we seem to have lost the heat from before the weekend for now. The sea that had been near flat calm for several days was transformed. Wind blown and choppy with some swell making for big waves on the shore break. There did not seem to be many people in the water, but I did not have time to see if the Lifeguards had red flagged the beach.
From that, you may surmise that we had a reasonably busy day. It certainly prevented me from organising a couple of orders and every time I started one, something would happen to divert me onto doing something else. I ended up the entire day firefighting one thing or another and largely getting nothing done at all. We had a couple of deliveries, and I am beginning to think that the only reliable delivery methods are Royal Mail and people who come and deliver for themselves.
I had a telephone call halfway through the morning from a very pleasant man over at Germoe, about 20 miles away. He said that he had been delivered a heavy parcel addressed to us. I guessed that it was the new gin from Mount’s Bay Distillery, about ten miles from us. How a professional courier company can fail to deliver a package, clearly labelled, just ten miles will forever be a mystery. I told our man that there was no way I could come and collect it but if he could open the package to determine where it came from and give me a call back, I would arrange for it to be collected, He did call back but it was to tell me that the courier had somehow contact him to say that the collection was in hand. It should be noted that the supplier had not yet contacted me to explain the delay.
The day continued in chaotic manner and ended with the Missus taking her leave of me just before the shop closed to take a couple of chums off for a birthday meal in far flung Porthleven. ABH and I would have to feed and entertain ourselves this evening, which we managed to do including a very pleasant after tea stroll in the last of the day’s sunshine. Obviously, we shall not let on and leave the Missus to believe we suffered greatly in her absence. I cannot say I was unhappy to leave this day behind, but unfortunately, I still have the things not done to do tomorrow – if I get the chance.
June 22nd - Sunday
I telephoned the duty refrigeration engineer this morning, leaving it to a reasonable hour of seven o’clock. “Yes, no problem. I’ll drop down and have a look.”
When he got to the shop at quarter to nine o’clock, I said the duty engineer the previous day did not sound a happy bunny. Today’s engineer, who we know quite well, told me that he was newly qualified, and it was his first on-call duty and had picked up eight calls in a short space of time. He was clearly over-stressed and inexperienced, which is not a good combination. Our fridge was working again by ten o’clock, luckily it was just a fault in the plug wiring.
It took a while for things to get going today. I blame the lack of exit bubble, but it seems the visitors and trippers were here in abundance again. It might have been a surprise had I paid any attention to the weather forecast that warned of cloudy skies and a few showers. Our showers had all gone by the time we opened, and the cloudy skies dissipated and gave over to warm sunshine for the rest of the day from the middle of the morning. I am told that it was cooler than yesterday, but it did not appear that anyone was much concerned about it.
There were enough gaps in the traffic, especially early on, to top up a few shelves here and there. Most of the outgoing had been sweets and snacks, however, so there was not a great deal to do on the main grocery shelves. I had topped up the drinks fridge in the morning but only for the drinks in greatest needs. Most of the cans and bottles were still chilled from before the fridge failure in the middle of yesterday. I did not want to put warm drinks in front of cold ones unless it was necessary. I am sure no one worried, anyway, or at least no one said anything.
If I needed a reminder just how quickly time appears to fly by, it was having people dressed as pirates flying by our window. I had noticed the signs going up yesterday warning runners to stick to the pavement. They obviously did not have a sign at the other end of the street saying the same thing because all the returning runners piled down the middle of the road. The run starts and finishes at Land’s End and runs out to Cape Cornwall, where they turn around and come back. Just for fun, the participants must run up and down the steps at Gwenver on the way out and on the way back. There is a reason why they dress as pirates but for the life of me I cannot remember what it is.
A man of mature years came into the shop in the middle of the afternoon. He was wearing a t-shirt with a motif of a seabird on the front, one with a wide colourful beak. I asked him if he was part of the run this afternoon and he looked at me strangely and asked me what made me think that he was. I pointed to his t-shirt and said, ‘your puffin’. No, he did not laugh, either.
That might have been the reason it clouded over in the afternoon: punishment. We had several hours of bright sunshine, but the cloud gradually moved in and thickened and by half past three o’clock, our clouding over was complete. I do not think that it was wholly to blame for the thinning out of the crowds but the two were uncomfortably coincidental. The latter part of the afternoon also saw an increase in the number of local families gathering on the Harbour beach. It is a common occurrence when the weather is good, and the weekend draws to a close. We see many of the children dashing up for snacks and drinks between frolics in the Harbour waters. The most regular thing about that is they all go home at teatime on a school day.
For the first time in a while, we had a five minutes to closing rush. The customers did not over-stay their welcome, however, and we closed on time, for which I was grateful. It had not been quite as busy as the day before, but it was not that far off and it left me with a fair bit of ordering to do after we closed. It was not possible to do the farm shop cash and carry during the day and that takes a little while to note and collate. I took it upstairs to do later. I do not like doing that because often I have forgotten things and need to check. That is far easier when I am already downstairs.
The pasty order (sorry, MS) had been a pretty wild guess as very often people will avoid pasties on hot days. I knew I had a substantial pre-order to remember and included that, but the rest was guesswork. At the end of Sunday, it transpired that I had the Cornish pasties almost spot on, but I had to fall back on baking cheese pasties from our frozen stock on Sunday morning before we opened. Hopefully I have managed to pull the same rabbit out of the hat for Monday when we are told the weather is going to change.
Talking of bunnies, the Missus has almost completed her rabbit fence on the outside growing area. I made a mistake thinking it was complete on Saturday but there were gaps where they got in. At the end of Sunday, the wire fencing was in place but just needs stapling to the fence posts. The few bunnies that got in on Saturday night did not cause too much damage, thankfully.
In the meanwhile, lettuce production continues from the Missus’ 800 lettuce planting. We now have salad with each meal, no matter what it is and as long as the café is busy next door, they will take a lump of it too. The tomatoes are coming on and today, the Missus brought back some blackcurrants and one logan berry. I don’t think the volumes are commercial, but it is easier now to ask what the Missus has not planted up there.
The Missus and Mother were reasonably late coming back again but because Mother needs to be taken home after tea, ABH get her after tea walk. It was definitely less warm walking around the block and a jacket was needed to remain comfortable. A breeze had struck up from somewhere in the west and was starting to be quite noticeable. I believe it will be feature of the next few days, which will be welcome after the long hot days of summer – all both of them.
June 21st - Saturday
I have to hand it to the Radio Pasty presenter this morning, brave lad. As he introduced the weather lady, he asked the question I am sure most of us would wish we could have asked. To give him further credit, he dressed it up well, saying he knew how complicated weather forecasting was, the science involved, the uncertainty. Yes, we were thinking, go on, my son. We all knew it was coming: the big question. “You know how you were saying earlier in the week, how it was going to be one stonker of a weekend, temperatures in the 30s and wall to wall sunshine? Well, erm, how come its raining cats and bleddy dogs, my ‘ansum?” Oh, what sweet joy that moment was for all of us.
Alright, he was much more polite and circumspect than that, but we knew that is what he wanted to say.
The mist was still with us in the morning. It was not that thick but completely filled the bay, but I could see one of our fishing boats cutting its way through it from quite far out. The sea was like glass; not a wave or ripple sullied its surface and the Lifeboat channel markers barely wavered in the breezeless air. Down on the big beach there was fifty yards of shoreline where the water was moving a little bit. Into that small area, two surf schools squeezed 25 student surfers for an intensive session of how to surf on a six inch wave.
I had found myself a little pressed in the time before the shop opened and I am not entirely sure why. There were some complexities to deal with largely brought about by bread not selling as expected and having to rotate expiring best before dates which contributed to the general mayhem. It had started to rain a little before I came down but as soon as I opened, so did the heavens. According to the Radio Pasty forecaster in the conversation earlier, this was not proper rain. It was falling from mid-level cloud, which makes for big raindrops and was therefore not classed as rain but something else, the name of which I cannot remember. The Radio Pasty presenter was sceptical, too, so please feel free to feel the same, dear reader.
Almost immediately after the rain cleared up, we became very busy very quickly. It took me rather by surprise especially as first up was a request for multiple pasties (sorry, MS), which were sitting in the fridge at the time. Our man, one of a crew of canoeists, said he would come back in 20 minutes when they were hot. That set the theme for the day and I was selling pasties until late in the afternoon.
In the meanwhile, I was flooded with breakfast good requests, last minute going home gifts and newspaper purchases. It was a proper exit bubble and while the cut and thrust of it all had me in full grumpy shopkeeper flight, I had failed to appreciate the declining ratio of newspaper volumes to newspaper purchases. That would not have been so important had I not also failed to ensure that I had extracted two pre-orders for the newspapers I was about to sell out of. It led to two exceedingly embarrassing moments when the people who had ordered those newspapers came to collect them.
While those customers went away quietly cursing me, I was distracted from my self-loathing by a host of other customers, many requiring pasties as well. Fortunately, I had taken the precaution of putting more pasties than I needed in the oven and was well stocked as the demand took off. Very soon though, even they were not enough and for the next few hours I was sequentially heating an oven full of pasties one after the other. The pasty fest was interspersed with sales of gifts and groceries all the way into the afternoon.
I suspect that the exit bubble merged with trippers and visitors keen to get to the beach and it was well into the middle of the afternoon before the constant flow slowed to a trickle. Not long before that, half the power in the shop suddenly stopped. The first thing to notice when that happens is the silence. It is incredible how much din five freezers and five fridges make. The pasty oven was going as well, just to add to it and it suddenly all stopped.
Retrieving the mobile step from the darkened store room, I headed to the end of the shop to check the consumer unit. There was a smell of electrical burning at that end of the shop, which was a tad concerning, but it was not at obvious what was at the centre of it. The only way to identify the fault, and restore power to the pasty oven, was to reset the breaker and see what goes pop first. Sadly, nothing went pop but the soft drinks fridge did not come back on.
At first, I thought it might be the wifi switch not activated but it would not switch in via the app on my smart mobile telephone. Relying on the old fashioned way of turning it on at the switch, I held onto the three-pin plug for purchase and promptly burnt my finger. This was not surprising because when I looked closer at it, the plug was melted. It had also melted onto the wifi unit and wrecked that as well.
Fortunately, I thought, I pay a maintenance company a king’s ransom each year so that I can call up at any time of the day and night to seek assistance with such calamities. I duly telephoned the emergency number and was greeted by a gruff, ‘ello’. Confident that I had not misdialled, I assumed I had caught the duty engineer off-guard and proceeded to explain that I needed his help as soon as he could provide it. I was severely taken aback when he told me that he was too busy to attend my fault today. Assuming that he would schedule me in for another day, I was deeply disappointed – which may be translated as ‘exceedingly miffed’ – when he said I would have to call tomorrow’s duty engineer and try my luck then. He went on to add insult to injury by warning me to expect to be turned down again then as his co-worker was also booked up already.
I did not think it wholly unreasonable that having contracted and paid for twenty-four hour emergency cover, I might actually get some. Perhaps, I expect too much. I shall put it to the company on Monday just to see if I have the wrong end of the stick. In the meantime, we have soft drinks, but they may not be cold for very much longer.
It had taken until the middle of the day for the mist to clear and the sun to hold court over us. Our visitors must have had faith, however, because they were thronging in The Cove from early doors and they were thronging in the shop for much of the day. It was the sort of thronging that we might expect on a sunny day in the middle of school holidays, and it gave me great joy. You might say that I had a throng in my heart.
My, it was a tough haul through the day. Notwithstanding the drinks fridge drama, we had been ravaged across a wide cross section of our stock. There had been a constant flow of customers for several hours with no let up. It was a decent practice session for the school holidays and demonstrated the robustness of our procedures and processes … it says ’ere. It did not, however, necessarily demonstrate the robustness of the grumpy shopkeeper performing them and only time will tell if that single point of failure will hold true until the end of the season.
Someone dropped by late in the day and reminded me that it was the longest day. I told him it certainly felt like it.
Business tailed off after four o’clock but there were still frequent customer visits until near closing time. We escaped a five minutes to closing rush again and I cannot say I was displeased. Amongst the other sales of the day, quite a few of our Boathouse Farm bags of mixed lettuce and rocket had gone out the door. The Missus, now with more lettuce than we know what to do with, brought back some more when she eventually arrived back.
She was back in The Cove shortly after we closed and dumped the crates of lettuce in the shop. She repaired upstairs to prepare tea, then as that was cooking, went back down to bag a dozen bags of rocket and a similar number of bags of mixed leaf. Some of this will go to the café next door for their use.
Since the Missus was late, ABH did not get a walk out until last knockings. The sun was still well above the horizon at nine o’clock and there were still a few dozen people milling about on the big beach. The Harbour car park was busy enough and we met several small groups wandering about. The Cove was still maintaining the impression that we were in the middle of the holidays, which was a very odd feeling in the middle of June. Radio Pasty suggest it is all change with the weather tomorrow, stepping even further back from their earlier in the week forecast for the weekend. We could do without the thunder and lightning we had in the morning, although not necessarily in that order, and the heavy rain – or whatever the wet stuff that fell from the sky was called - that went with it. Since the forecast cannot be relied upon, I will stick my head out in the morning and go from there.
Ooops.
June 20th - Friday
We were very kindly thrown another rip gribbler to play with today. It stuttered a bit early on with some high level cloud out to the east but it soon got a grip and beat down on us for the rest of the day. Radio Pasty, first thing, had told us on the coast that we would not see temperatures beyond the high teens and if we really wanted to roast, we should head for Bodmin.
Towards the middle of the day, the other reader popped in for some succour – we did not have any, so she had water instead – and before she left, told me that the temperature gauge on her motorcar reported that it was 25 degrees here. I checked to see what Land’s End and St Ives were recording and both were in the 20s. It was Gwennap Head, windiest place in the universe, and the only place to play ball with Radio Pasty’s assertion that the coast was going to be short changed in the temperate stakes. Bodmin was 27 in case you were wondering.
In the wee hours of the morning, the rain belted down for half an hour. I think it was half an hour because the noise of it on the skylight above my head woke me up. There was scant evidence of it when I stepped out with ABH just short of six o’clock, although there was some rain the gutter opposite the café. It was a bit early for them to be sluicing out the kitchen, so I assumed it was rain. It did not last long.
The combination of too much sunshine and a change-over day kept us relatively quiet for most of the day. We were busier in the morning, bolstered by going home presents, and the last hour of the day, but the rest passed by without really being noticed. After the initial round of deliveries, there was nothing much to be getting stuck into, either. I did manage to finish off the beachware order which I kept on finding things to add to. The last element was having the Missus check what changing robes we had left in the store, then it was away. Hopefully, the delivery will not arrive until next Wednesday when we will be prepared for it.
I was quite pleased to find that it was a couple of degrees cooler in my temporary gymnasium accommodation. It was not very noticeable ten minutes after I started but at least I could have a blistering session in the knowledge that I could have been much hotter. I was, in fact, much hotter when I put on two layers to take ABH out for a spin afterwards. The day had not really got into its stride by then, but I was in no danger of getting sun tanned, well, apart from my legs. We did not stay out long as the Missus was keen to get away to do more planting up at The Farm.
When she came back in the late afternoon with Mother, she said that she had planted 80 turnips – yellow turnips, or swede – which we will no doubt have fun finding recipes for when they are ready for digging up towards the end of the year. We may not have to bother, though. Just before we headed to bed, the Missus turned the camera around to monitor the growing patch to find bunnies in the enclosure again. She had refortified the fence with wire, but the determined little critters had clearly found a way around it and were busy munching through the new treats left out for them.
I could spend the night up there with my shotgun, but I suspect shots in the dark might cause some local concern even if we are half a mile away from any neighbour. I feel a session with an internet browser coming on to see if there are any effective deterrents around.
With the arrival of a bit of sunshine and heat, our lager beer is at last starting to move. I had been forced to change the brand that we sold and with the assistance of a local alcoholic Lifeboat mechanic – no, not really – we established that I should try two different brands to see which went better than the other. After the first week, it was clear that the Spanish sounding one – it is probably made in Reading by some conglomerate – was favourite as none of the famous Dutch brand had gone at all. I duly ordered more of the Spanish one on the next cash and carry order and, yes, of course, the Dutch one sold out of its socks for the next week and the Spanish did not move at all.
It rather looks like I will have to maintain a supply of both, which is a pain in the bottom for managing stock, but if we run out of one, we will always have the other or at least that is the plan. If all else fails, and they are just as popular as the national brands, we have cans of locally made lager and bitter.
For the first time in a week, there was no five minutes to closing rush. The street, which had been quite busy for most of the day, emptied out with just a few taking tea at the tables opposite and admiring the view. I told one couple that they should quickly memorise the view because it looked like it would not be there much longer. A bank of mist has rolled in across the bay during the latter part of the afternoon. Some more had formed in discrete clouds on the cliffs and in the valleys but they never really coalesced into a united front and remained fairly thin.
It had not changed much when I took ABH out, neither after tea nor at the last knockings and there was enough brightness to make it a very pleasant evening. I thought that there might be a few barbeques going on, but I guess people were either preparing to go home or just arrived. It did not look like the mist was going to go away overnight, so it is a guess what tomorrow will look like. Our heatwave could be over before it properly began. I will not put the barbeque coals out front just yet, then.
June 19th - Thursday
We need to be so careful when we ask for sunshine. Today we had sunshine, well for half a day, anyway, but because we had been lax in our specification, it came with a 30 miles per hour easterly. From a personal perspective, this was very welcome as it kept me cool behind the counter. The clouding over in the afternoon was a mixed blessing. It encouraged people off the beach to a certain extent, but it did not seem to drive them in our direction.
Earlier, we had seen some busyness as people prepared for the beach or their walks. The sensible ones stocked up on suncream and we will see the others tomorrow for aftersun lotion, because ‘it did not feel that hot while we were out’. We even sold a few parasols that would probably be halfway to the Islands by now but curiously, no windbreaks.
The busyness came in fits and starts into the afternoon with, eventually, some long periods of not a great deal. In the late morning, the Missus had gone off to Land’s End to negotiate terms for the Lifeboat Christmas party. We were let down last year, so she had some weight on her side and hopefully got a good deal. I had looked after the little girl while she was gone who attracted more attention than our stock. I will have to move her to the back of the shop if that carried on.
When the Missus returned, she reported back to the Lifeboat station and then she was gone again to run some errands in town including getting some correct tubes for my false ears. Interestingly, I had a chance conversation with a customer who told me that her husband had a similar experience with his high street supplier. He kicked up a mammoth fuss and managed to switch in the end. If I was not so close to the end of my three year sentence with the current supplier, I would do the same. I still may be forced to because my left false ear stopped working again today. Oddly, it came back to life again at the end of the day and now I am wondering if I imagined it.
The last thing on the Missus’ list of things to do was to collect the fish I had ordered. We had not had the call to say it was ready and I think she had to wait half an hour for it, but it was worth the wait to get it earlier than we would had it been delivered.
It is very easy to underestimate the amount of effort it takes to process the fish. This becomes exponentially more tricky if the shop is open and even more so if it is a busy time of the year. It took me more than three hours to complete, and we were not that busy during the effort. However, each time a customer comes in, it means stopping and removing my gloves if I am in the middle of packing. I pack each type of fish in a batch. If I have completed a batch and progressed to operating the vacuum machine, I can get away with rushing out to serve customers while the machine is sucking and sealing.
Initially, I thought that I had made a mistake as I will usually get twice the amount of hake that I ordered this time. I am glad that I did not because it was heading towards seven o’clock by the time I finished everything.
It did not help that I had agreed to see a gin salesman today. I had agreed to see him in the early part of the afternoon, but he turned up at four o’clock, right in the middle of processing the fish. He represented the Mount’s Bay Distillery, and I had earlier ignored the message he sent. When he called, I put him on the spot asking why I should buy his gin over one of the other local suppliers without any forgoing pleasantries. He did stumble a bit but recovered well, and it seems that they use a lot of local botanicals, and use a quality base spirit, although they do not make their own.
I had to hurry him a bit and discounted any of the rums he was touting. We do not do so well on rum. There were two gins, one very toothsome and smooth but expensive and the other, still palatable, but a little less so. They come in ceramic bottles, which was a nice touch, so I agreed to have a couple of case. We also will not hit the issue of a minimum order preventing us from re-ordering one product if the other has not run out.
With a couple of shots of gin inside me, I returned to my fish packing with renewed vigour. I am pretty sure the hake is labelled as hake, but I would not guarantee it. Fortunately, there is no mistaking the lemon soles I got for a change nor the huge plaice. I should have portioned the plaice as on its own, it is a bit pricey but would easily serve two or three people – or Mother if we cannot sell it.
Despite being late, I still managed to get ABH around the block after tea. The breeze had dropped out a little bit and was exceedingly pleasant against the ambient warmth still present in The Cove. We stopped for a chat with the ladies at the end of Coastguard Row. They have a proper little sun trap there in an easterly nestled against the side of the building. The sun was reemerging now and then while I was there, making it an exceeding pleasant interlude. The ground they have planted next to the Coast Path has exploded into a green wonder and blends in well with the natural environment there.
Later, at the last knockings, the sun was just poking through the cloud on the horizon. I have no idea what we have for tomorrow, but Radio Pasty said the weekend would be a marvel. I did err on the side of caution and call in additional soft drinks – we have enough beer – so I will wait with interest.
June 18th - Wednesday
There was no mistaking today’s status as a proper rip gribbler of a day. It had started out a little cloudy, as far as I recall – it was a long time ago from penning these words. By the time I came down to get the shop ready for opening, the sun was already splitting the hedges. The day took off from there.
It was still just a normal day when I headed for the gymnasium a couple of hours later, albeit a sunny one. Perhaps there were a few more people about but nothing much interrupted my morning labours. If you remember, dear reader, the Missus dropped off some stock last yesterday and I had dropped it onto the store room floor. The shop elves are clearly still on strike because it was all still there in the morning.
There had been quite a lot to do before I tackled the new stock. The somewhat miniature heatwave that we had yesterday clearly encourage some beer drinkers out of the woodwork and there were some serious holes in the beer fridge to repair. The non-alcoholics had done a similar job on the soft drinks fridge and that needed topping up too. We were nearly open by the time I got around to the delivered stock and much of that needed pricing before it went out.
I had hoped to get all the cardboard boxes that the stock was in, ready before the cardboard recycling truck came along. I managed to do quite a bit of it but the extra large box of ladies flip flops was never going to get done in time. Each pair of shoes is in a plastic bag that needs to be opened, and the toe post protector removed. It is a labour of tedium that I left for the quiet of the afternoon – assuming I would have a quiet afternoon, which indeed I did.
When I emerged into the sunshine from the gymnasium after a blistering session, the place had been transformed. There were people in abundance all over the place. This included the beach which might have been busier than Monday or it might have been just that the tide was further in. It certainly discombobulated the little girl who was not sure where to go and who to see first. She had slowed down considerably in the heat, which is still only 16 degrees here. Heaven knows how she will cope when it gets warmer. The Missus gave her a haircut last night, so hopefully, that will help.
It did not seem to be working on the beach, so I took her around the block instead. She seemed to be better off taking the air with fewer people around to confuse her. Normally, when I go to the gymnasium, she will come down to the shop with the Missus but today she would not budge from the windowsill with her nose out of the window. She took a little encouragement to come out for the walk in the first place. At least she has her pool up at The Farm to dive into when she is feeling a little hot under the collar. By all accounts she will need it by the end of the week.
The Missus had been busy during my absence, and I was busy too when I took over in the late morning. This continued until the middle of the afternoon when it all went quiet on me. This is most likely because everyone had hit the beach and were too hot to move away. It is a phenomenon and a known problem with rip gribbling sunny days. They could do with a shower in the middle of them to get people moving about. I am just pointing out an irritating fact, dear reader; I would not wish you to get the impression that we are at all fussy about what sort of good weather we get.
It was therefore quiet when the windbreak order I had placed earlier in the week arrived. Because they are heavy and bulky, they arrive on a pallet. Because the Missus was at The Farm, the pallet had to sit on the pavement blocking everyone’s passage for the duration of the afternoon. Ordinarily, she would have been late coming back but I needed to close smartly on time tonight, so I urged her to come back a little earlier so that we could load the delivery into the truck.
While it was still quiet, I managed to unbox the flip flops. The majority of the flip flops we have sold have been size five and size six with a reasonable proportion of size sevens to boot. What we have left in some abundance, are size fours. It is not like having a size four sale is going to help very much; ladies with size six feet are not going to suddenly buy size four flip flops because they are cheaper. Well, they might. If you see a bunch of medium built ladies hobbling around, you will know I was wrong.
No, what we really need is an influx of ladies with small feet. Perhaps a best looking small foot competition. Trouble is I would have to fork out for a prize. If anyone out there knows a way to attract small footed (feeted?) ladies to The Cove – on the cheap, please let me know.
The reason I wanted to close to so promptly was because we had another Wednesday Lifeboat launch organised for the evening. Wednesday was chosen again because the trainers were here today and not tomorrow.
We duly gathered at the muster time of quarter to seven o’clock. In fact, many of the crew were there earlier, including myself. I need to get there early to allot very excellent Shore Crew roles. In the past we have waited until everyone is there and then allowed the crew to slot into whichever role they felt they had not done for a while. I had noticed that some people ended up in the same roles week after week or at least there was not a fair rotation.
What really tipped it, was the necessity to allocate three people to the Inshore launch, two of which are tedious beyond measure. I now get there ahead of time and look at the record books to see who did what and when and try and put in place a fairer allocation. To make things even harder, the Inshore had been out twice already training crew and in the late afternoon, was required to go and rescue our winchman whose boat had broken down over by Brisons.
Having looked at the position of the tide on the long slip at the appropriate time in the morning, I estimated that it would be feasible that we could recover there as long as the boat was back before half past eight. On the evening, the Coxswain recommended the short slip, so, after the launch, we set up for short slip. We were thin on the ground tonight, which made allocating roles even harder, and we needed the Inshore party to return and help set up.
The tide was still well out when we set up. This made estimating cable length a bit tricky but when the time came, we had not done a bad job and only minor adjustment was required. We waited until we had a call from the boat to say they were coming back before deploying the fishing rod on the walkway as near to the tideline as possible. I noted that a long slip recovery would have been possible but had the boat been half an hour late, we would have needed to change slipways at the last minute.
As it was, the boat came and sat on the moorings for twenty minutes. It coincided with a spurt in tide movement, and we had to hurriedly bring the fishing rod back one step to stop it being swamped. Even there, I gauged that the position was probably the lowest we could comfortably have it and not risk the boat bottoming out on the sand. We were just securing the fishing rod in its new location when the boat swept into the Harbour, going astern into position and allowing us a textbook recovery at the lowest extent of the tide on that slipway. We pulled the boat up and washed down before securing and making it ready for the next service, finishing at around quarter past nine o’clock. We are, after all, a very responsive, very excellent Shore Crew.
June 17th - Tuesday
The sun was shining righteously down upon us as we stepped out early doors for the first walk of the day. It was glorious down on the Harbour beach with the reflection of the sun across the placid waters and between the supports of the Lifeboat slips. When I came down to start in the shop an hour later, there was a big black cloud out to the east, but the sun was still peeking out from above it. That was the last we saw of it for most of the day because the cloud moved in and that was that.
It certainly did not stop it being warm. Radio Pasty revelled in the suggestion that as the week progressed it would get warmer and warmer until we were all begging for mercy. A customer told me that it was already scorching in Suffolk. It is unlikely that we will get to the promised 30 degrees in the South East but no doubt when it is our turn we will be told to stay indoors and behave ourselves to save us all perishing in the heat.
During the afternoon, I had one lady ask what I had done with the sunshine. I told her that it was done on purpose as a health and safety measure, so people did not get too affected by the direct sunshine. Tantalisingly, there was a line of blue on the northern horizon for a while where the sunshine was clearly having a ball. I should have had more faith because by three o’clock, the skies above us cleared and we had sunshine – for an hour and a half.
There were no great crowds around today to be affected one way or another. We had customers throughout the day, but they were light in numbers and there were plenty of gaps between them. Unusually quiet it may be but notwithstanding the effect of the better weather, it is generally busier than this time last week. It should be of some comfort that we are heading in the right direction. It is just that I am hard to please.
Between customer visits I took time to prepare another beachware order. I had given the Missus a list of things that I needed from our store at The Farm. It highlighted some deficiencies that will need to be rectified before the fight starts, which is frighteningly close at hand. If the heatwave is to be believed we will need additional parasols and beach tents and the like. I already did an ice cream order earlier in the morning as the freezer stock was looking a bit thin. The beachware order, however, takes a bit more effort and we need to check existing stock much of which is up at The Farm.
There was a bit of to and fro with the Missus as she took the store apart checking existing stock. I left her to check a few more items while I went through the list and will finalise that tonight so that it can be sent off tomorrow. We are bound to miss a few things, but we hope they are not important ones, but they probably will be.
The Missus duly arrived back with Mother in tow and a truck full of the items that I had requested. There will be more tomorrow as I forgot a few things. She also refreshed my stock of aloe vera, the plant that keeps on giving. Perhaps we should have an aloe vera business instead. While it is a pain in the bottom having to bring them in and out, they are not there long enough now for me to worry about having to water them. I will have to worry about all the new stock as I only had time to dump it on the store room floor. Hopefully, I will clear that tomorrow.
For the third day running, I was collared at the last minute of closing. This is taking a five minutes to closing rush to extreme by seeing just how close to the actual time a customer can arrive at the first electric sliding door in The Cove before I close it. Tonight, our late customers had some bonus time because as I carried out the last two refuse sacks of rubbish from the shop for collection tomorrow, the bottom of one of them fell out. I have noticed that as rubbish sacks go, the latest delivery of them is, well, rubbish. I had one that was half sized and open at the bottom and another that was closed at both ends. I had to go and get another bag and a pair of gloves and pick up all the rubbish that the errant bag had deposited on the pavement.
I managed to get ABH out for an after tea walk today. We were overcast again but still warm with a cooling breeze coming off a lively sea. Later, it was floshing over the near end of the Harbour wall. We met up with the ladies from the corner house on Coastguard Row who were just arriving back from a day on Gyllyngvase Beach in Falmouth. They told me that it had been sunny all day down there – naturally.
As we walked by the two thatched cottages on the opposite side of Coastguard Row, I was reminded that the owner of one had told me that it dated back to 1604, one of the oldest buildings in The Cove. I had guessed they were a bit younger based on the age of the OS which became an ale house in 1671. It struck me immediately that the original inhabitants would have lived there for 70 years without a pub. Even the F&L was only established in 1620. No beer and no wifi. Gisson.
June 16th - Monday
I am lucky enough on occasion to meet people who, for one reason or another, put a little smile on my face for the rest of the day. Alright, it is an inside smile on my face. Today, it was a lady of senior years who, at a quiet moment in the day – there were several – stopped by in search of some painkillers, stronger than the ones we sell. I apologised for being so remiss and told her that there was a pharmacy in St Just that would help her if she could get there.
She told me that she was indeed trying to get to St Just because she had spent her honeymoon there in 1956. That would place her in the same age group as the Aged Parent I supposed. I told her that there was no bus in that direction anymore and somehow we got to talk about walking. She recalled that she and her husband did rather a lot of it back then. I suggested that since she was so practised, perhaps it would not be too far to walk to St Just, to which she laughed and told me that it would probably take the rest of her holiday now.
It happened that she was staying in Penzance, so I explained how to get to St Just from there and where the pharmacy was. She pointed out that there was probably a pharmacy in Penzance if she could only get to the top of the hill. She said that her husband and her walked so much on the honeymoon that his legs swelled up and he had to spend the rest of the honeymoon in bed. ‘Of course, he did,’ I said and added, ‘you naughty things’. I could still hear her giggling as she went off down the road.
The day turned out to be quite a good one for being happy, if you like that sort of thing. First, though, we had to claw our way through an overcast morning such as the afternoon and evening we had yesterday. We are back to quiet mornings again, with somewhat more upbeat afternoons. It is changing slowly; there are a few more coming around for breakfast goods and some more early walkers are picking up things for the trail. Once all our clawing was done, and we had to wait until the middle of the afternoon for that, the sun broke through and we entered the realm of summer.
How splendid things looked in the brilliant sunshine. I had quite forgotten. The sea was that pastel azure colour with lighter and darker streaks maybe caused by currents or the breeze. The sea being calm, the only breaking waves were close in on the beach, and the white lit up starkly against the blue behind it. Then the beach, bright, yellow beige and blotted by weed covered rocks of the reef under The Beach car park. The air was clear, all the way out to Cape Cornwall and Brisons, the greens, browns and greys of the cliffs standing out in sharp relief. All it needed was a few dolphins cutting across the bay.
Having skipped the gymnasium on Friday in favour of testing some Lifeboat type things, I thought that I had better not demure today. Once again, it was not my best performance, but I have no time to be concerned about that at this time of year. I had a blistering session nevertheless and came back to take ABH down to a crowded Harbour Beach. We normally have it to ourselves but today there were three people swimming and another about to join them, two ladies collecting sea glass and another couple exercising a dog. The dog was not interested and before ABH could decide whether to make her interested or not, two other dogs she is familiar with joined the party down the western slip. One is a bit of a bully, or at least plays a bit rough, and she got tumbled over. She was less inclined to join in after that and took herself off for a swim.
We did not hang around much after that and scurried back to relief the Missus behind the counter. While we were down in the Harbour, I had a call from the local greengrocer who had two shops in town we often use. The chef from the café next door told me that they do deliveries and I made enquiries on both our behaves. On the face of it, the offering was not a good fit for us – it looked like they only did big volumes.
Not to be rude, I wrote back and explained that we probably would not be using them and sent an example of the sort of orders that we made, just in case I was wrong about their volumes. I could not take the call on the beach, so I told the very pleasant man that I would call him back in ten minutes. I did try on numerous occasions throughout the day, but the number was always engaged. I suspect a problem at their end rather than them being busy all day. I will write again in the morning and hope for the best.
I mentioned that a good number of our customers at this time of year are walkers. They are of all ages and in any combination of numbers and genders and from all the regions of the world. Occasionally, they leave things behind but mostly realise before they get very far. Today, we had some walking poles left behind from not long after I started my second shift. By the late afternoon, I concluded that whoever had left them behind must have reached their destination without them, suggesting that perhaps they were not as necessary a walking aid as the owner thought they were.
We were very late into the afternoon when I received a telephone call with a Netherlands pretext code. I do not to answer international calls unless I am expecting them as they tend to be, how shall we say, wrong ‘ens. Usually, the wrong ‘ens tend to be put off by the automated receptionist but if they have broken through that, then I let the answering system take it and review the message if one had been left which usually it is not. Today’s caller left a message asking if I had her walking poles.
The only problem with not answering international calls is if they are genuine and require a response, the return call is going to be costly. Since the caller used a mobile telephone, calling it would have been very costly, so I used the free data messaging service on my smart mobile telephone to send her a message – for free. She was most delighted that we had her sticks safely stored and she will pick them up in the morning.
At the last knocking yesterday evening, while I entertained our Finnish family, one of the ladies asked if I could open the first electric sliding door in The Cove so that she could knock some sand out her child’s shoes. I told her that we probably would not notice if she knocked them out on the industrial welcome mat that we arrange in front of the till it already being full of sand. The rug needed bashing out anyway and I resolved to do it this morning, and I noted what a dreadful state it was in.
Ideally, it needs to be replaced but until then, I should bash it out a little more regularly than once every three months. The process is to take it across the road and hang it over the railing where I alternately beat it and brush it with a stiff broom. It is best done when there is a stiff easterly or westerly breeze – at least definitely not a northwesterly - as the clouds of dust would put a Saharan sand storm to shame. That which does not blow east or west falls to the ground leaving a small sand dune behind. It is a short pile mat but the amount of sand and dust it collects is a wonder of modern science. I could have carried on another half an hour and it still would have been shedding dust.
I stopped because I had other things to do in the shop. Nevertheless, the mat was transformed as it had started to look exceedingly shabby. It now looks just shabby, and I almost admired it when I went out to put away the outside display before we closed.
Once again I had a late customer, but I stayed my hand about closing the first electric sliding door in The Cove with a lone lady in the shop lest she take fright. In the meanwhile, I busied myself with some tidying up and by and by a couple of other customers, assuming we were still open, came in to buy ice creams. After they left, and having seen nor heard anything of the lady I had seen perusing our shelves, I had a geek down the aisle. She was nowhere to be seen. I had not seen her leave and I was in and around the counter all the while she was there. It appears that she had already taken fright and evaporated into the ether at the end of the shop. I will be giving up drinking tomorrow.
June 15th - Sunday
I was out with ABH before six o’clock again with sunglasses on. I then looked ridiculous at six o'clock as we headed back as the sun had risen into some thick cloud and everything was gloomy again. I carried it with my best aplomb and there was no one around in any case to say that I had not. At some point in the morning, the sun broke free again – or the cloud went away – and we were bathed in summer-like sunshine.
I believe that I was right about the early busyness yesterday. It was most probably those leaving and having a last fling in the sunshine. The phenomenon should have a name, so we shall call it the exit bubble. There was no exit bubble this morning, which rather proved the point despite it being just as sunny, and we had to wait until the later part of the morning before we saw any serious action.
While we had an almost constant, if thin, stream of customers from late morning until the later afternoon, it did not seem as busy as yesterday and proved not to be.. We saw a good number of the people who arrived last night, but many were absent. When I walked through the Harbour car park first thing with the little girl, it was almost empty. I had assumed that most of the people we had seen were staying in The Cove, but perhaps not if the car park was empty.
The surfers on holiday had been treated to some classic surf since Thursday. Today, and probably yesterday too if I had thought about it, they had to work a bit harder to find some decent waves. The breaks were a bit closer into shore but there were some reasonable waves to be had over towards North Rocks. I imagine Gwenver would probably have been better. In the last few hours of the flood there were at least a dozen surfers out there bobbing about with one of two having a decent run in.
It had taken a while for there to be some beach for anyone wanting to spend some time down there today. The eight o’clock high water took a while to go out but certainly in the afternoon there was a reasonable gathering at the top of the beach of windbreaks and beach tents. It was a shame, therefore, that the sun went and hid behind some clouds for the majority of the afternoon. Someone told me that the weather today was better than the forecast. I took their word for that since I had not looked at a forecast. Someone else a little later on said that she had heard it would be better towards the end of the week. I think she must have been listening to Radio Pasty.
As the day became quieter, I reverted to finish off the cash and carry delivery. I may not have this luxury for the next time as hopefully we will be too busy. In any case, there was not great deal to do but all of it was distributed to the shelves in the store room, so I had to do it when the shop was empty. I am still left, as I have been for the previous deliveries, with cases of water and big bottles of coke and lemonade piled up on the floor with nowhere else to put them. At the other end is a pile of cases of beer cans that do not fit in the beer cupboard. Frankly, the pile of beer is unnecessary and points to over ordering. If the last few weeks had been sunny and warm, we might have got through some of that volume. If I reduce it, the weather will dramatically improve, and I will be caught out which has been my concern that has led to the pile. The trouble with both the beer and the water is if I get it wrong, it is two weeks worst case before I can correct it.
I was definitely caught out by a literal five minutes to closing rush when a couple of Germans and a Finnish family arrived late. There was actually no rush involved and the groups took their time so much it turned into a five minutes past closing rush. The German couple realised that we were closing when I closed the first electric sliding door in The Cove to prevent any further late shoppers arriving and hurriedly brought their reasonably significant purchases to the counter.
I am generally happy to let the late customers continue to browse unhindered but would prefer not to exacerbate it but having more arrive. Unfortunately, closing the first electric sliding door in The Cove tends to send a message which might be construed as a bit rude. It cannot be helped, however, unless I want to risk being there all night.
The Finnish family, however, seemed oblivious and continued to browse the whole shop – slowly. They then spent a while selecting postcards while their two little treasures played mayhem throwing moon balls around the middle aisle unchecked. I normally point out to foreign nationals the exorbitant price of international stamps but on this occasion, the hurry things along, I simply added the six stamps that they asked for to the till. They looked wide eyed at the total at the till and asked if I might have made a mistake. I explained the price of stamps at which point they decided not to send postcards home to their not so loved and cherished friends and family at home. I fully understand. It is £3.20 per stamp, which is ridiculous. After spending twenty minutes in the shop, half of which was after we had closed, they left with a £1.50 spend. Ah well, that is shopkeeping for you.
There were flecks of rain in the air when I took ABH for an after tea stroll. The rain radar showed nothing at all, so this was phantom rain. It was not heavy nor was it unpleasant in the summer evening warmth. We took our time, and I had not realised that we were later than normal. When it came to last walk it was not that much later on, and she was not keen. There was no rain then, but it was still not a summer evening. Better by the end of the week, no doubt.
June 14th - Saturday
Those small gods of grumpy shopkeepers played me an absolute blinder this morning. They must have been saving it up. It was very cleverly executed you might actually admire them if you were not on the receiving end.
It all started very innocuously, lulling me into a false sense of security and wellbeing. The sun was trying to break through when I stepped out with ABH first thing, but I did have the sense that the rain had not long stopped from overnight. Along with the sunshine there was a decent amount of warmth, even at that time in the morning – before six o’clock – and all looked well with our world.
It was still looking good when the cash and carry order arrived. I explained last time he is a little later than I would like, which does not leave much room for error. The first press came when the newspapers turned up while the driver and I were unloading the groceries. Between us, we had blocked off access to the newspaper box, so we had to stand off while the newspaper man did his thing. Just before the newspaper man came, the greengrocery arrived. This was before we had started unloading the cages but not so early that I could clear any of it away.
The unloading did not take all that long. Really, at this time of year we should have much more, but it has been unusually slow. The delivery may have finished but I still needed to clear the greengrocery from the top of the ice cream freezer where I had dumped it and stuff the newspapers with their magazines and supplements. With the delivery being later than I would like, it left me precious little time to clear the newspapers and that still left the greengrocery.
It had been a bit of a struggle this cash and carry Saturday, but we still opened the shop on time. Mindful that the milkman was due to arrive, I went to the store room to empty the shopping trolley. I had used it to collate a bunch of small items from the cash and carry delivery cages. I use the trolley to take the milk down to the dairy fridge. I had only just emptied it when the milkman arrived.
The milkman was not the only person to arrive. With the shop open only for a matter of seconds, customers started to pour in*. This prevented me from taking the milk down to the fridge for a while. It was not until I got to the fridge a little while later that I remembered that the Missus had brought down two crates of lettuce for next door. It would not fit in the fridge at the back, so I had put it in the dairy fridge overnight. I finished off putting the milk away and took the salad around next door.
Yesterday, I had taken an order from a couple of walkers for pasties (sorry, MS) earlier than we would ordinarily have had them available. I had remembered the order but with all the other things going on, had only just managed to get the pasties into the oven in time. While they were cooking, I had another request for pasties a little later, so I decided – quite rightly it turned out – to put the normal starting supply in the oven for general sale. So far during the morning I has been busier than I had been all the previous week.
You may think, dear reader, that all this was hardly the sort of drubbing from the small gods of grumpy shopkeepers that I had led you to believe. Au contrair, and non de plume, I tell you, dear reader. Do not be too hasty to judge me harshly, for the denouement is close at hand.
Eventually, I made it back into the store room to make a start on the cash and carry order. The first thing to do is to try and move as much beer as possible into the beer cupboard to get it out of the way. It was only then that I noticed the small pool of wet on the floor. Hoping it was water but knowing really that at least one of the beer cans had been holed. I thought at first that it was the case at the bottom and started to move the four above it. Of course, it was not the one at the bottom, it was the one at the top.
The can was obviously holed when it was delivered. Had I not had the dairy to put away, the pasties to cook, the newspapers to do, a rush of customer to serve, the greengrocery to move out of the way and the lettuce to take around next door, I would have caught it sooner. As it was, it had filled the polythene case and leaked down every case below it and spread out on the floor and under the case on the bottom. It was cider, so it will leave a stickiness everywhere it was not cleaned up.
I took the case with the damaged can, fortunately just the one, outside and methodically wiped each pack and can within it. Between serving customers, I cleaned the floor then every case that was in the tower underneath the affected one. It took ages and just when I thought I had finished, I would lift another case and find that the cider had run under that as well. I was not happy.
The improving weather and the continued busyness took some of the edge of my emotional morning. The first wave of business was more than likely the exiting contingent for the week just gone. Suggesting that was true, we had a period of quiet for an hour or so before the day started to gain a little traction again. By the middle of the afternoon, we had enjoyed quite the busiest bit of day we had in a while. It was very much promoted and bolstered by a day that appeared every morsel as glorious as the last glorious day we had seen, whenever that was.
There were also a few incoming familiar faces that made up for, in some degree, the losses we had endured by those leaving. At the risk of labouring a repetition, it is every bit as personal as seeing treasured family members come and go. Some a little more familial than others but nearly all treasured. Towards the end of the day, there appeared to be a overwhelming number of recognisable faces appearing in the shop. Some just popped in to say hello and gather a quick update, which amply demonstrates my point about the family feel.
The season, however, would not be the same without new faces and new personalities to know and admire. Today we had Americans and South Africans amongst the exotic creatures entering our world as well as Germans and a couple from Essex, which is east of Camborne. Chief amongst these was a couple from Nashville, I have never met anyone from Nashville before. The lady, however, was English and the man did not appear to fit my imagined image of a country and western star. We was indeed a travelling musician, but when I enthused about the Grand Ole Opry House, he seemed not to share my excitement. Most disappointing.
It was not quite five minutes to closing rush because it has started much earlier but we were busy until the end of the day. The Missus was late back from The Farm and too late to unload the stock I had asked her to bring back. She looked glum and I asked what misfortune had befallen her. It seems that the bunnies have broken into the outside growing area and had eaten all the sprouting brussels and courgettes. They had somehow got through the fence installed to keep them out, but the Missus had checked it and could not see how.
When I closed the shop and before tea, I arranged the camera to monitor the area for movement. Later, while I was dozing, the Missus spotted the bunnies inside the enclosure again. There was also a fox about, so we were hoping for some natural justice and retribution, or at least an encouragement to get out of Dodge with some speed. I am thinking a better fence might be next on the agenda.
*pour in: a term used in a way relative to the absolute absence of customers at that time in the morning for the last few months and may therefore seem to be an exaggeration of the actual numbers involved.
June 13th - Friday
If you had been abroad in The Cove before six o’clock this morning, as I was thanks to ABH, you would have delighted under a broad, blue sky. There was not a cloud in sight from the sun rising over wherever it is it is rising over all the way to the roof of the public toilets at the end of the Harbour car park. I revelled in the loveliness of it all, which was just as well because by the time I came down to open the shop, cloud was building from the east. I had thought that Radio Pasty must be right for just one day of its optimistic forecasting but that was scotched in the middle of the morning when it started to rain.
I had spurned my gymnasium session in favour of some testing work in the Lifeboat station. There is a new steel pull cord to launch the boat and we have been using this for a week or two. On a rare occasion, we have launched from inside the house, which is slightly quicker than launching from the slip. The new cable, however, precludes its use from the boat and a new way needed to be found. Previously, I had a dry run by pulling the cable into the winch room. It looked awkward and at the wrong angle, so we felt it best to test it further, which we scheduled for today.
We discovered that it is awkward and at the wrong angle, but with the boat stropped down on the cradle, it worked. It took all of ten minutes and I donated twenty minutes rowing for that. I will have to make amends next time.
Given that it was only a couple of days ago that we had the whole conversation about dolphins in the bay, the last thing I was expecting today was dolphins in the bay. Our friends from The North, or one of them at least, came running from his abode to tell me that the dolphins were indeed in the bay again and I should cast my gaze northwards if I did not wish to miss them.
Naturally, in a day of otherwise desolation, it was the only time the shop was busy, and I was pinned behind the counter. I had resigned myself to missing them again but when I looked after all the customers had gone, they were still there just the other side of the store pots. They were there for some time, playing and jumping, and someone said it appeared to be a family group with young ones. I am not sure what they were doing but it did seem that there was no porpoise.
It was the last time that I saw the dolphins today and it was the last time I saw a crowd of visitors as well who had gathered to watch them. We had moments of busyness but with the rain coming and going all day, it did nothing to encourage anyone in. It was just as well that I was kept busy with deliveries as I had nothing else to do.
I had missed the arrival of the pasties (sorry, MS) in a master stroke of timing when I went across to the Lifeboat station. I was however back for the delivery of the scallops and had plenty of time to vacuum pack and price them. The delivery came with quite an abundance of smoked fish including the ‘trio’ which is a small amount of mackerel, salmon and bass. It is top quality gear but quite reasonably priced. I know that it is quiet at present but it is the sort of thing that might interest the visitors of this time of the year. It is just that there are not very many of them. I can meet a minimum order with a combination of 15 of the trio, salmon and mackerel, which I will do at the outset of the school holidays – all supposing there is some interest in the first lot.
The scallops required me to break out the weighing scales and the vacuum machine, which takes a bit of effort to set up and put away and clean. I had not long finished with that when the preserves and chutneys that I had ordered last week turned up. Now this does take a while, slicing open the individual boxes and filling the shelves as I went. I had also used the space in the store room where the excess goes, so I had to clear that as well. The store room floor needed to be kept clear for the cash and carry delivery, which was an added complication. I was a little way into clearing those boxes when the postcard fudge boxes arrived.
It took me a couple of hours to clear everything and bag up the cardboard for our Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company driver in the morning. He is not keen on taking it at the weekends because of the volume of newspapers but it was only a small bag, and I will not be there to hear him curse me. Thankfully, I had left the space for the postcard boxes empty which was one less thing to do. I was all done by four o’clock and just in time to remember to send the bread order off. If I had forgotten it again, I think I would have had to not open in the morning as I could not face the derision.
I took a trip down the road to bid farewell to our friends from The North who are leaving tomorrow. I was under strict instructions to take ABH who the Missus and I insisted take a bleddy toy carrot with her for effect. It was a very pleasant interlude at the end of a long day. The Missus and I do not get out much and I was quite surprised that I had not entirely lost my social skills, although that might well be a subjective opinion. Perhaps also, it was a very convivial environment to be in, which I wish we could have done more of.
It had stopped raining when I closed the shop at six o’clock, mainly because I had remembered to take a rain jacket down with me. The moment I left the company of our friends from The North, the rain started again – presumably a message. I translated it as ‘you are going to get wet on the way home’ which we duly did because it was the sort of thin rain that soaks through whatever protection you are wearing to drown you.
The rain was still going at it when I took the girl out for her last spin, which was mercifully very brief. I was not listening to Radio Pasty, but I am sure they would have said it will be fine tomorrow.
June 12th - Thursday
I can hardly believe that Radio Pasty is still clinging on to its good weather tomorrow script. They would have more of an idea by reading The Diary as my forecast turned out to be a tad more accurate than theirs. Sure enough, I might have glossed over the heavy mizzle and lingering mist until the middle of the day, but I was spot on about the geet lump of rain starting at Camborne and even down to the fact that St Ives was collateral damage.
I had put the aloe vera plants out in the rain we had during the first hour or so of shop opening. It really cannot have rained that much despite what it looked like because the plants were not appreciably wetter than when I put them out. The cardboard box that they were in was a different story.
The weather forecasts may have been a little bit off but the Coxswain’s swell prediction for the bay was bang on. I met one of our neighbour’s coming back from the beach this morning with his surf board who told me it was far too big for him. He had to find a spot where the waves were not too big and since he was there before the Lifeguards in the morning, he had his pick. On the face of it, the bay looked quite flat at higher water. It was not until the afternoon as the tide pushed back in again that it became quite obvious. Big curling waves were running away from the north of Cowloe, big white water was exploding up the cliff at Aire Point and waves running in on the beach from a couple of hundred yards out.
The surf was big enough to keep out all but the most serious surfer. A big surf school contingent, there must have been fifty of them, spent most of their lesson on the beach. Late in the afternoon and well on in the tide, things got serious and with a decent offshore breeze, the proper surfers had a whale of a time. Big clean waves running in from a way out. It looked a little messy out on Gwenver, but it was difficult to be sure from where I stood.
After some encouraging busyness yesterday, we were back in the doldrums again today. I am sure that most people would have looked out of the window in the morning and written off the day. It was time to head to the shops where at least you could dive in and out and stay clear of the weather. The sun did not break through in The Cove until well into the afternoon and even then, the mist hung about for a good deal longer. It might have been dry and warm for the most part, but it was hardly a beach day.
This idling is doing me no good at all. I tend to get distracted far too easily onto other things and forget some of the things I am supposed to be doing. I forgot a customer’s crab order which should have been with us today and later on, I forgot to send off the bread order that I had meticulously listed. The message was there on my smart mobile telephone ready to send but something had disturbed me, and I did not press the send button. This is particularly irritating because I will have to do it for Saturday arrival when the cash and carry is due.
Fortunately, I remembered to order the milk and the greengrocery. I had been cleared out of all the strawberries and blueberries that had arrived an hour earlier in the morning. While it is good that they all sold, it is frustrating because the delivery before that had sat so long in the fridge that they had gone mouldy and needed to be thrown away. It is just the time of year.
Another conundrum lies with the fantastic smoked fish that is available from the St Ives Smokehouse, part of a larger fish merchant. We use this supplier very rarely because they have a £50 minimum order, which makes life difficult. I will not buy fish from them because they only cut it to restaurant portions, which is no good for us. I was only able to order today because we need scallops, and they are nearly £50 by themselves. I took the opportunity to add some smoked mackerel, which is exceptional.
While I was on the telephone, the very pleasant lady taking my call tempted me with small retail packs of smoked salmon and a smoked trio. I am sure that these would sell well in the shop once people got to know we did them but that £50 minimum order is a curse. We would never sell that much on a regular basis and then one item would run out before another. I could freeze it, but it would be less attractive as an impulse buy, so I think we are stuffed with that as a plan. We have some coming tomorrow, so if you are quick, you will be able to buy some of what we could have had all the time. In the meanwhile, I will have smoked mackerel for breakfast.
ABH was in no mood for a walk out during the earlier evening and we waited until last knockings. Even then, she was less than pleased at being disturbed and we had teeth, snarling and mayhem in the attempt. It was quite scary when she first started doing it, but it is a bit of a sham and as soon as her lead is on, she is away to the door as if nothing happened.
The bright bit of the day had long evaporated, and we were back to overcast with a few spots of rain in the air. Along with Radio Pasty, we hope for better tomorrow.
June 11th - Wednesday
Alright, enough is enough, now. You can all just stop right there. Our friends from The North came to collect their newspapers this morning and gleefully announced that they had seen dolphins in the bay this morning. Given that the bay was as flat as a dish, I am sure they would have made a majestic sight. Apparently, they traversed the bay from east to west and took off close by Cowloe. It is the second reported sighting in three days. The last time there were dolphins in the bay on numerous occasions, I was always two scats behind. Everyone else saw them and I got to know about it the following day.
The dolphin sightings are starting to enter the realm of the chough where I have bitterly suggested that the observer has spotted them alongside unicorns. Of course, no self-respecting unicorn would be seen getting its feet wet. The other reader who has recently been to Scotland, which is north of Camborne, tells me that the mythical beast of choice there is the kelpie. These are to be found in water, so would aptly replace unicorns alongside side debatable sightings of dolphins. It is said that when on land, kelpies disguise themselves as an oss. I would not wish to be too sceptical in front of the fearsome Scots, but I would say that, on the balance of probability, seeing something on the land that looks like an oss is probably an oss.
The day, despite being overcast again, started with greater hope than yesterday. It might have been the flatness of the sea, but I think it was brighter than yesterday and the sky less threatening. Also, the absence of mist. My, it was warm though. It had been warm in our bedroom through the night which I think had ABH restless in the small hours. That was all smartly cancelled by the arrival of a strengthening south easterly breeze that had me chilled behind the counter for the latter part of the afternoon.
I was not alone in expecting the weather to improve. A lady came in while the cloud cover was still complete and asked when the sunshine was due as she had seen it in a forecast. She had planned a day on the beach. I cannot remember what time the sun did come through, but I think our visitor had to wait a while for her beach day to be sunny.
It was certainly pleasant enough when I finished my blistering session at the gymnasium and headed to the Harbour with ABH. There was plenty of Harbour to run around on at near low water. There was a senior gentleman getting changed to go in for a swim, but ABH beat him to it and had a swim around in the placid waters. She was only in for a few minutes, but it must have been some relief from the heat and it is not even properly hot yet.
I had not long got back when the Missus took off to take Mother to the dentist. I think she has a couple of sessions to be fitted out for her new teeth. She left ABH behind for some more user friendliness training and me to clean up the mess when she was not. They were gone several hours by which time ABH became a little restless. I took her out the back for a little stroll at one point and put her into the shopping trolley when we came back. The shopping trolley keeps her out of reach of other dogs passing the door and gives us both a rest.
In the meanwhile, I finished off the cash and carry order. I was stumped right at the end when I came to fill a small hole in our vapes where one flavour has outsold all the others. When I looked at the cash and carry website, the product that we were stocking was not available in any flavour let alone the one we had sold out of. Having been to the lengths of calling the cash and carry and seeking out advice on which product I should buy, I now could not get replacements. I was somewhat miffed. I called again to find out what was going on but there was no one there who could help.
Even the small range of products that our cash and carry has is sufficient to confuse. There are kits and prefilled pods for some brands. I rather assumed that you buy the kit and then buy refillable pods thereafter. That is all very well but if I only sell the prefilled pods, I can only sell them to people with the corresponding kit. This roughly means that I can only sell kits, but it still excludes customers who have a kit already and are just looking for a refill. Fortunately, the kits and refills are the same price, which is helpful but means someone is making a great deal of money out of it all.
Outside of the holidays, we do not get much demand for them, so I really should not be too bothered. Now that the disposables have been banned, the locals have gone back to real cigarettes and roll-ups. I think that I just find it irritating that I have to leave such a conundrum unsolved.
Business had been quite upbeat since I had returned from the gymnasium and only really died away after four o’clock when the café closed. We had been especially busy when I first came back and tried eating a breakfast, which I had to eventually abandon. We had gone through sufficient pasties (sorry, MS) by just before the order deadline to force me into ordering again for tomorrow. I had intended to skip a day but not only did we clear out all the pasties, but I had omitted to order any saffron cake yesterday and we had a rush which cleared us out of those too. Thursday tends to be a bit of a day on the saffron cake as people take them home for cat and garden duty thanks.
Very similar to the weekend, a yellow warning for rain has been issued for the greater South West. I was not entirely sure how that dovetailed with Radio Pasty’s insistence all week that the weather would be better tomorrow, but I am sure they will be right one day. The weather warning stops at Camborne as indeed it did at the weekend, although I think that the edges bleed a little, so there may be a splatter or two in St Ives, for example.
While we may not be directly affected by the weather warning, it is expected to bring a decent swell into the bay tomorrow and therefore interfere with Lifeboat practise on Thursday evening. Being a forward thinking and all around clever sort of person, our Coxswain decided to bring forward tomorrow’s exercise to this evening when we would only have to contend with a 30 miles per hour southeasterly instead.
We duly gathered at the station at the appointed time and handed out roles for the evening. We were a little short on the shore side, but a couple of the Boat Crew were surplus to requirements and lent a hand. This was just as well because on top of our normal duties, we were to assist in setting up for a breeches buoy deployment. I had assumed that this would entail a willing volunteer dangling precariously at height between the boat and, perhaps, the Harbour wall. Instead, the system was set up between the boat anchored to the breasting buoy and the slipway. This meant that the transferee, was dragged through the water rather than suspended above it. I guess it proved the theory.
Just before I closed the shop, I was visited by two ladies who had booked for the Minack Theatre. They were mainly concerned that their seats would be too hard and did we have any cushions for sale. We did not but they purchased a picnic rug with waterproof underside that might suffice. Just before they left, they asked about the weather. I had not considered or heard that it might rain, although our brightness of the day had been replaced by heavy, grey cloud. I looked at one forecast that promised rain at the crucial hour and another that said that it would stay dry. That is the good thing about forecasts: they are so many to choose from. I did look at the rain radar and it did not look encouraging. There was a geet lump of heavy rain off to the west, generally moving northwest but edging to the northeast as it did so. If it did not run out of lump, it would come across us at some point during the night.
It was disappointing, therefore, for our theatre goers and the members of the very excellent Shore Crew on the slipway who started to get wet before the boat had finished its exercises. Quite by chance, it was my turn to operate the winch from the nice dry and windless winch room. It was immaterial that I had distributed the roles earlier in the evening. It is done an a very fair rotation, and I had not done winch for a while, and I will fight anyone who says different. I would not, obviously. I would run away but there is no need to tell them that.
We are, after all, a very egalitarian, very excellent Shore Crew – as long as Head Launcher is in charge.
June 10th - Tuesday
Tuesday 10th June did try very hard to be a nice day, I will give it that. It just took a while to get there and then collapsed in a heap after a bit of effort. It led us, for a while, to be a little more upbeat on the business front and brightened the place up no end. The day had started in the same grim greyness that we had endured for the last few days. I do not think that anyone was sad to see the back of it.
The early part of the day was just overcast and very similar to the day before. Radio Pasty had mentioned mist or low cloud but had specified it was inland, so it took me by surprise when it started to form on the cliffs and hills above the beach. Over an hour or two it expanded and lowered then highered then lowered, as it does. We were halfway through the day when it cleared off and it brightened from the west, the cloud started to break up and then some sunshine appeared.
Almost as if our visitors were tracking the weather, the numbers in The Cove increased in line with the improvement in the weather. It was a pleasing sight, especially as quite a few of them felt the need to come into the shop to buy things. The brighter it became, the more visitors and the more customers that came into the shop. We do love it when a plan comes together.
The excitement must have turned my head because when the farm shop delivery arrived in the middle of the afternoon, it took me by surprise. As well as serving customers, I had been immersed in the main cash and carry order which I had started earlier when it was quiet. I had it finished apart from the alcohol and the tobacco, which only takes a minute, but will not press the go button until the end of tomorrow lest I remember something else to add to it. Having forgotten the dog treats two orders running, I made an effort to remember them this time around as I had been getting comments from disappointed dog owners. It is because the treats are not with all the other groceries and a bit out of sight.
It had been quite cool in the morning, but the arrival of the mist marked the onset of a change in temperature. At one stage the mist filled The Cove and it mizzled heavily for a short while. After that, the mizzle cleared, the mist sat atop the cliffs for a while and the air became warmer and more humid. It set the scene for a warmer afternoon and the increase in business that I described earlier. That busyness went on into the later afternoon and culminated in a major mobbing at around four o’clock, which was very welcome. Sadly, that was a last hoorah, and it all went flat after that and so did our sunny day.
Yesterday, I had seen off the last of the tomato and cucumber plants that had plagued my beginning and end of shop days by variously being in the way, requiring watering and being in the way. The last customer showed some interest in one of the few remaining plants and I had to bribe them heavily to take the rest as well. Today, I enjoyed a plant free opening and did not have to move them out of the way once all day. Clearly, I had enjoyed it far too much and the Missus spoilt my entire day by bringing down half a dozen aloe vera plants. Not only that but she had omitted to put them in a tray, and I had to move them all individually. I found a box for them, but it is cardboard and will last a couple of days before needing to be changed.
The fact that I found a cardboard box at all was a minor miracle. I have been taken advantage of the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company recycling collection and bagging the cardboard generated each day for collection in the morning. If it were not for the farm shop cash and carry delivery, I would have had none at all. It is well worth the £3.99 a week that I shell out for it and because I stopped the service during the winter, I was treated like a new customer this year and get three weeks free. Bargain.
I was late taking ABH around the block for an after tea walk because of a meeting at the Lifeboat station. The cloud had covered us again in the late afternoon and when I stepped out from my meeting, there was light drizzle in the air. Since it was humid, the moisture in the air was quite refreshing but I think we all would prefer to have the sunshine back. So far, Radio Pasty has been all mouth and no trousers. Perhaps they will have better luck with their guess tomorrow.
June 9th - Monday
Our friends from The North arrived late on Saturday, well, some of them did. The other half of the party either had more sense and moved closer or are treacherous turncoats who turned their back on their homeland. I am not much fussed either way as it is a pleasure to see them again. They are only here for a week, once a year, so they, and we, make the most of it.
They mark their arrival with a present for ABH. This year’s present is a ‘carrot patch’. It is a soft and thick base with twelve wells into which snugly fit twelve soft carrots. The idea is to place a treat in each of the wells and plug them with a carrot. ABH sort of got the idea, although I did hear drumming on the floor above me signifying that she had reached the end of her tether with it once or twice.
So far, she has extracted nine of the twelve carrots. We know this because they are everywhere, which has made us think that there is possibly more than twelve. One of her idiosyncrasies is to bring you a gift every now and then, sometimes a chew, a toy or your own slipper if you have been foolhardy enough to leave it within reach. Since she has had the new toy, it is a carrot. I was offered one when I came back from the gymnasium, Mother has had them forced upon her, because obviously she really wants one while she is sitting doing her knitting, there is one in the kitchen and the bathroom, and I woke up with one under my chin this morning. So, to our friends from the North: thank you so much.
At least I was not woken pre half past five o’clock this morning. I had to do my own waking up as ABH had decided on a lie in. I had already dropped down to the shop to get the gear out the front and to go around to the back to bring the recycling boxes down. I had been meaning to get rid of some old vest type t-shirts that were clogging up my t-shirt drawer and the much maligned council tells me that as long as I place them in our black box with the glass, textiles will be taken away. It also asked that they are clean, which they were, and placed in a plastic bag to keep them dry. Given that it was not raining, I dispensed with the plastic bag.
The recycling boys are tardy about the collections and despite getting our boxes and bags out before seven o’clock as instructed, they did not turn up until after I had conducted my blistering session at the gymnasium and taken ABH around the block for a spin. I saw them down the road as I took her back upstairs again. Quite what it is that prevents them from putting the bags back neatly into the box after they are done, it is hard to fathom, as is why they find it necessary to scat the handle off the food waste bin every time. Perhaps it is a tedious job, and they have to find some fun in it.
When I came down later to tidy the mess and take the box and bags around to the back of the shop, I discovered that they had not taken my t-shirts. I will never know why. At least they took the rest of the contents of the box. I noticed on one of our walks around the block that on one occasion they had condemned the whole bag because of one non-compliant item in it. That is just plain petty.
Pettiness or no, it was the most excitement that I had all day. We were a little busier than last Monday, but it does seem the first day of the working week seems a little lacklustre. It was not the most inspiring weather and if I could remember what last Monday looked like I would have made a comparison. People were wearing jackets, so I am guessing that it was quite cool and there was no sunshine or brightness to speak of. There was a bit of a breeze coming up from the southwest which might have cooled things down a bit.
It is our main cash and carry delivery again next week – how quickly it comes around. With nothing better to do, I made a start on the list but soon found myself having to go back to the till as I had triggered a minor rush by doing so. It was soon after that I became distracted by the tractor tyre man calling up. I had called the office again in the morning to see when they had rescheduled our flat tyre change for. The very pleasant man on the other end of the telephone told me he could find no record of my request, so we started again. I thought that we might have to wait another day, but the tyre man turned up in the middle of the afternoon and fixed it in a jiffy.
He told the Missus that it was a blackthorn thorn that had gone through the wall of the tyre and the inner tube. He recommended that we change the tyres to tubeless ones – of course he did – which we could fix ourselves. We might be able to fix the tyre but pumping it up would be a whole different matter. I would have to drag the compressor up there and get the generator working that has not been used in several years.
The Missus wasted no time in running the tractor around some of the field. The grass had grown so long it was impossible to see ABH running through it and she was not very inclined to do so. During the spring and summer, everything grows exceptionally quickly. When I went up to change the buckets on the digger, I noticed that the nettles around the tractor shed had grown almost out of control.
The lane too will need to be trimmed soon as well. I mentioned this to the Missus who railed a bit at the thought. We have a growing number of neighbours up there now who also use the lane as much as we do. Her point was why should we bear the entire cost of doing the cutting when there are others using the lane as frequently as us. I suspect that the answer to that is that it will not get done if we do not do it and I am not sure I wish to play a game of attrition to see if the other party do something about it first.
Mother, fed up with being fed carrots, went home today and did not go to The Farm. She enjoys staying with us but also likes to look after her own place and keep her garden up to spec. She will be back tomorrow evening for the regular visit and it is good to know she can make up her own mind when she comes and goes.
Down in the shop, we had a bit of a late afternoon revival. It was not what you would call a five minutes to closing rush but we are seeing the people who regularly visit at this time of year. A good proportion of our customers have been people we know. There are still a good many walkers, many of them foreign and they are still buying £3.20 stamps for their postcards which has raised an eyebrow or two but largely has been shrugged off, which has surprised me. I am also pleased that a good many of our postcard sales have included the new ones that we had printed.
ABH had a visit from her best pal when she was up at The Farm today. This time they were able to run around and play properly. Consequently, we had an evening of sleeping hound who was not in the slightest interested in an after tea walk. Instead, we left it until last knockings when she insisted on going around the block. It was till overcast, cool in the breeze and not exactly a summer evening. We are told of improvements as the week goes on but we were told that last week about today, so I will not get overly excited about it just yet.
June 8th - Sunday
Just before I head into the meat of today in The Cove, I need to make a small amendment to yesterday’s Diary. I mentioned, possibly at length, the wildfires in Canada. I suggested that they had affected a few hundred miles at least. I just found data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites that tell me that up to 5th June this year, wildfires have affected 10,000 square miles of Canada, an area larger than not so frozen Vermont, very far west of Camborne.
Today in The Cove, there were no wildfires but there was quite a bit of cloud. It was considerably brighter and very possibly warmer than yesterday, which was a big help all around. Possibly because of that, we were much busier today with the day starting a little later than halfway through the morning.
Since it had been quite quiet to start with, I got the farm shop cash and carry order out of the way. I had deferred the order from last week, so it was a little more substantial this week. We also had a gap in the shelf to consider having decided not to replace the tinned potatoes. I noted that our popular vegetable chilli was back in stock having been out of stock for many weeks. This was no help at all, as the tinned meals are on a different shelf to the tinned vegetables. I did want the tinned vegetable chilli back because it was popular, but I had replaced it with a vegetable curry which now filled the space the vegetable chilli went in. I will have to rearrange things on that shelf to fit it in. All of that contemplation, of course, was entirely no help in filling the gap on the shelf above it and I am now wondering why I mentioned it at all.
The Missus had spent a good deal of time yesterday cooking onions, chopping vegetables for coleslaw and preparing sauces, plates and condiments for the Lifeboat barbeque today. It was set for five o’clock but some of the help turned up at ten o'clock. It was more like they were available to help as Sunday mornings in the season tends to be a bit of a gathering time outside the station anyway. Unfortunately, by the time the Missus was ready, and she made a bit of an effort to be ready earlier because the boys were there, most of them had gone home.
Those who were left helped load the truck with all the required items and the Missus will reverse it down the slipway when it was time to start in earnest. The launch was set for three o’clock, so after that there would be plenty of very excellent Shore Crew willing and able to lend a hand, unless they were very good at hiding. There was some mild panic earlier when I asked the Missus if she had any charcoal. Apparently, she was relying on the shop having some. I had placed an order in the middle of last week, but it had not shown up. I thought that I might have one bag on top of the freezer at the end of the shop, which would not have been enough. Luckily, there were two bags lurking there. I will need to call the supplier again but will wait until Monday when I can speak with someone rather than leaving a message like I did last time.
In the meanwhile, we were quite busy in a comparative to yesterday sort of way. There were customers coming and going in small numbers reasonably consistently from the late morning and through the first half of the afternoon. They were buying many things but sadly pasties (sorry, MS) were not one of them. I had drastically reduced the numbers for the weekend but even then, we had too many and I had allowed for a washout yesterday. At least I have room in the freezer again after all the food for the barbeque was taken out.
Just before three o’clock in the afternoon, a crowd gathered for the launching of the Lifeboat. They might actually have been there for the grand lighting of the barbeque, we will never know. Both boats went out and came back just before half past four o’clock to coincide with the start of the barbeque at five o’clock. I did not witness it myself because I was in the shop serving, potentially, customers and the boat came back onto the short slip. I am told and was assured that it was a textbook recovery up the short slip in a moderate rolling swell. It was done in a very timely manner, as well. We are, after all, a very hungry, very excellent Shore Crew.
There seemed to be a good gathering on the beach and around the barbeque afterwards I noted from the Harbour CCTV. The Missus had headed down there shortly before the boat launched and was more than ready for the hordes when they arrived. I went down a while after the shop closed and having taken ABH around first. Much of the mountain of food had been consumed. Many of the crew now are young adults and still at the stage of eating in abundance. There were also many children who did their bit especially when it came to marshmallows and something called s’mores, which is two biscuits with marshmallow and Nutella chocolate spread in the middle.
I arrived just when the event was starting to fold up. I had not intended to stay long anyway as my mission was to claim some food to bring back for tea. My visit also served to start bringing back all the paraphernalia taken down in the truck earlier. I was well into heating up some of the haul I had returned with when the youngsters on the crew piled up the slipway with the remaining clutter. They are keen and willing bunch and we eager to help more if we needed it. Had I realised the amount of washing up required, I would have ushered them all into the kitchen and shut the door behind me.
The Missus took the brunt of the lions’ share of the cleaning up after I had filled the dishwasher with what I could and cleaned the tea things. The food left over looks a lot but when compared with what we started with, the Missus did well. It is a lot of effort but well worth it given the crowd of crew who gathered. It is financed largely by our customers, so we thank you all very much for your support.
Wildfire smoke over Vermont, which is what I will call my new bodice ripper novel when I write it. Photo courtesy of our friend from not so frozen Vermont, very far west of Camborne,
June 7th - Saturday
When Radio Pasty take to the airwaves to warn of impending doom, rain so hard and prolonged it would make the biblical flood look like a leak in kettle, you take notice. I was about to run and get my wellies and head for higher ground but decided to have a geek at the rain radar instead. There was no rain, well, nothing close by to be concerned about and certainly nothing on scale that Radio Pasty had screeched about.
Yesterday, I had looked at today’s forecast and it had been moderated from the full day of rain to sunny spells. It was this, too, that made me doubt the fuss that Radio Pasty was making. I was mindful that they had also mentioned a gale of wind, so it was entirely possible the rain was not visible on the radar yet. So, I waited.
We did get some rain eventually, but it was not even close to being severe. Most of the big stuff went by north of us and caused problems for East Cornwall up to Bristol. True enough Radio Pasty made clear that the weather warning was in place for everywhere south of Birmingham, which is north of Camborne, except for the western part of Cornwall. Nevertheless, they had said enough to give all our visitors the heebie jeebees and if they had stayed in the Far West they would have been better off than heading beyond Penzance.
We struggled on regardless and we even had some bright spells here and there. What we did not have was visitors and I barely had to lift a finger to use the till so I needed something to fill the time. It had come to my attention over the last few weeks that we had sold quite a few hooded sweatshirts, and our stock was getting a bit thin in places. With a bit of time on my hands I decided to do a stock count so that I could order a top-up.
I have done quite a few interim stock counts of the hooded sweatshirts now and have arranged the stock in the store room in a way that simplifies the process. It is now far less of a chore, and I can get it done in half and hour, which I duly did. I only had a couple of customer interruptions in that time – or I just missed them altogether because I did not hear people come into the shop. It did not take much longer after that to update the spreadsheet and create the order list and send it off.
Despite the improved weather of the afternoon, we still struggled to attract many customers. Even the gale of wind that we were warned of yesterday turned out to be no more than Force 6, a strong breeze, although we did feel its full force being in the northwest. There were a few more people wandering about in the later afternoon but there was not a great deal to be done to revive what had been ordained as a rubbish business day before it had even begun.
The tedium of the day got so bad I was forced to go and top up some shelves. Yes, I know, I know, it is supposed to be part of the job. If I leave it long enough, I am sure the elves step in or something.
It was while I was doing it that I recalled the tinned potatoes went out of date at the end of May. I have a list and remember most of it – eventually. Tinned potatoes are a wonder. I remember loving them when I was young. The Aged Parent used to buy them when we went on holiday, bringing a box of groceries with us. It was the only time we had them, so naturally I associate them with being away and us all being together. If I had known then what I know now, I would have berated the Aged Parent for not buying local. The thing was, this was before Tesmorburys and all the food was locally bought anyway – at home. Fred Sully’s in the high street as I recall.
As a small aside, I remember the Aged Parent slowly reducing the amount we bought from the high street as the prices at the new supermarket became increasingly more attractive. It was nothing to do with convenience because Fred delivered in an old grey Bedord van. She was too embarrassed to stop altogether. In the end she was struggling to make up a list of groceries that looked half decent. I think she breathed a huge sigh of relief when Sully’s eventually closed.
Sorry, I digress. Now, where was I. Ah yes, tinned potatoes. You should, dear reader, dismiss any thoughts of acquiring tinned potatoes from us in future; they will not be coming back. I was going to stop stocking them before we purchased the ones I just threw away, but we had a little run of people buying them that fooled me into buying more. I was not going to fall for that again. I predict a season of enquiries regarding tins of potatoes.
Also helping to pass the time in the afternoon, I had a submission from our International Correspondent, our friend from not so frozen Vermont, very far west of Camborne. Since our awake time zones corresponded, we took the opportunity to, erm, correspond. It still strikes me as fantastical that two people thousands of miles apart can have a chat almost like we were in the same room. She tells me that the wildfires in Canada persist and due to wind direction and atmospherics, Vermont air quality is affected. She is currently in an ‘orange zone’ and told to stay indoors, so she went to the farmers market instead. I am guessing it is indoors apart from the getting there bit.
There is not much in the news here regarding the fires, so I had a little geek to see what I can find out. The main bulk of the fires, which look to be covering several hundred square miles, are to the northwest of Lake Winnipeg with some more to the northwest of Alberta, where I am told the weather is good there in the fall. The Diary used to have another International Correspondent out that way, but he has not filed copy in a while. It is more likely, although what do I know, that the ones affecting Vermont will be two on the Canadian border just to the north of the state near Ottawa. Please do not quote me, dear reader, as this is no more than an educated guess, with probably more guess than education.
Moving swiftly back to The Cove, as this is The Sennen Cove Diary, I can tell you that we did get our rain in the end. Various people arriving from the east or had travelled out that way today, told me of passing through some very heavy lumps of rain. If anyone needed a further reason not to go to St Ives, it rained heavily there too. We got ours as we sat down to tea when a very heavy squall breezed through The Cove. Then it was gone.
I watched a very subdued red ball of a sun sink into the clouds of the horizon when I took ABH out last thing. We are hoping that it will rise, fully refreshed, tomorrow to give Lifeboat barbeque day the sunshine it deserves.
June 6th - Friday
I cleared the last of the invoices this morning before I went down to the shop. After all, I had plenty of time having been got out of bed at five o’clock by an insistent ABH. I made the mistake of stopping to clean my teeth and by the time I finished, she was back in bed again.
I was well ahead of the posse downstairs getting the shop ready for opening, too. Mind, there was not a great deal to do. Since we are not selling very much, there is not much to top up. I am regretting not doing a farm shop order this week as there are some gaps. It did not look that way on Sunday when I would have placed the order, so I guess we are selling things, after all. All my efforts were largely wasted because we were dead quiet all the way until the middle of the morning.
My blistering session at the gymnasium was on about the same par as the one on Wednesday, which will do, and I followed it up walking ABH around. We went around the big block for a change rather than down to the Harbour beach. We had been down to the Harbour first thing, so I think she just decided upon a change. This was knocking on towards the middle of the day and the car park was still near enough empty. It was not an encouraging picture.
There had been some early sunshine, but Radio Pasty warned on rain before the end of the day. That would probably account for the increase of cloud during the day and the slow decline in the number of visitors. The wind was present from first thing and was quite punchy. As the morning progressed, it scaled back a bit but was still bringing a chill across us for the rest of the day and particularly when we lost the sunshine. This was June, but not as we know it.
A few days ago, we came across our first occurrence of missing the garage at the top of the hill. The tractor has a flat tyre. The garage closed at the end of March, and I spoke to the lead man there just a couple of weeks ago who told me that he and the team had just finished clearing up. It is their commercial waste bin we have, smelling of oil. Before the garage closed, we would have thrown ourselves on the mercy of the chief mechanic who would eventually have breezed on up to The Farm and fixed the problem. Now that we have a flat tyre on the tractor’s front end, we had nowhere to turn to.
As luck would have it, our man turned up at the shop flogging space in the St Buryan Rally programme. I asked him if he had any recommendations, not just for tyres but mechanics in general. He gave me a name and number, which I sought out after I came back from the gymnasium this morning. The very pleasant man told me that he was indeed good for mechanics, but he did not do tyres. He was able to give me a couple of numbers to try, one of which told me they no longer supplier the service after their tyre fitter had retired.
The other was more hopeful. A very pleasant lady who answered told me that there was nothing doing until Monday or Tuesday as both their fitters were at the Royal Cornall Show. I was quite surprised that the call out fee was very reasonable especially as the firm was in Liskeard, way to the east of Camborne. I said I would call back if I found no better offer.
With no other recommendations to take up I called the tyre company we use for the truck tyres. They could not help but gave me the number of a Redruth company that did mobile tyre fitting for tractors. Success! Their drivers were out on the road and if they finished earlier enough with the calls they had on their books already, they would call the Missus and arrange to do it late today. Noting that it was Friday, I did not think that was likely at all and it turned out not to be.
The Missus had headed for town as soon as I got back to the shop. This was the grand buying for the Lifeboat crew and families’ barbeque. I do not know how many stations are tuning up, but there will be no problem about feeding them all – twice over. Rather than just relying on the lure of free food one bright spark decided that an exercise launch first would guarantee a good number of crew being in The Cove already. The barbeque will follow on and I will be able to attend neither.
I spent the latter part of the afternoon waiting for the rain to arrive. Radio Pasty announced that we would get some at the end of the day and they were not wrong. Everyone else expected it as well and made themselves scarce, which was why I was waiting for the rain rather than serving customers. It arrived by stealth; a few light sprinkles just before we closed, then it stopped and started again. I got the impression that it never really got into its stride and when we went out later, it was constant but so light it was hardly worth worrying about.
By the time I took the little girl out for her last run, it was no more than some damp in the air. On the rain radar, it looked like there were some heavier bits, but they missed us if they made landfall at all. It is set to continue through the night and into the morning, which is just as well because as it stood, it would have been little use at all.
June 5th - Thursday
So much for celebrating our escape from the rain yesterday morning. We, ABH and I, stepped out into the remains of the showers first thing in the morning and I endured being rained on while ABH took her time traversing the Harbour beach. When I came down later to get the shop ready for opening, it had stopped but came back a couple of times when I went back outside to put some containers back into our newspaper box outside.
The day continued bright then gloomy in turn well into the late morning. It was good enough for people to sit on the benches across the road, so I guess that it was not all bad. Sadly, that was very short lived, and the business day keeled over and expired pretty much after that.
We had a geet pile of books delivered today. These are second-hand ones we keep in the shop and for which we seek a donation to the crew comfort fund. The fund provides for a wide range of activities and benefits such as support for the crew barbeque rearranged from last week and perhaps a beer or two for special events. Possibly because we have been so quiet recently, the stock of books is as full as it has ever been. The delivery today will add to that and by the end of the summer, we are very likely to be needing more.
The books today were very kindly donated by a local couple one of whom is MS, who, happily, seems to be in a forgiving mood regarding her mentions in The Diary. Many of the books were novels which form the majority of our collection and the rest were local interest. One of these was a pamphlet about the St Buryan church and its history. Since I had begger all else to do today, I read the pamphlet from cover to cover. Also, since nothing of particular note happened today and this Diarist is not too proud to grasp at the thinnest of straws, you, dear reader, will get to know some of it too.
The church and parish take their name from Bruniec, the daughter of an Irish King who was part of the Irish invasion of West Cornwall in about 400 AD. It is said that the king came over on the same millstone as St Piran – which, of course is nonsense; the millstone would have sunk with that many people on it. There is an opposing view: the name Bury-an appears in the Domesday tax records and refers to a place for burying humans. Hals of Truro, who made the assertion, states that at the time of the Domesday not one church is Cornwall carried the name of a saint. His view was that Bruniec took her name from the village, Buriana meaning woman of Buryan.
There are other hypotheses too, meaning very roughly that no on has a bleddy clue how St Buryan got its name.
There is a cross in the churchyard where it is thought that the original 5th century oratory stood. Athelstan, the Saxon king, took communion there in 930 AD before dashing off to fight the rotten Danes on the Isles of Scilly. Quite what the Danes were doing on the Isles of Scilly is another matter, unless they were inventing gig racing in their long boats. Anyway, Athelstan promised to put a few bob St Buryan’s way to build a new church if he won, which he did. I assume that the somewhat aggrieved Danes went off to conquer Greenland especially so that they could mug off the Americans a millennium and a bit later. Athelstan made good on his promise and built a bigger church when he got back. Our pamphlet tells us that the arches are still visible in the north side sanctuary today.
A new larger church was built and consecrated in 1238 which lasted two hundred years at the end of which it is reported that it was in a deplorable state. That church was itself replaced in the 15th century; the tower being built before the old church was replaced. The pamphlet also states that in the mediaeval fashion, the tower does not line up with the nave. Clearly, it was this embedded tradition that I was subconsciously channelling when I build greenhouse up at The Farm.
The pamphlet obviously describes a good deal more and if you would like to know the detail, come and give a donation for it. The last thing I will mention is the bells. They have come and gone but more recent efforts have restored six bells, I think that the church had originally eight. I have already read the pamphlet twice, I do not intend to go back and check it again. I also do not pretend to understand completely the descriptions of the peals but it is very clear that it once had the first peal of eight in the world and now has the heaviest peal of six in the world. I am sure you knew that already, dear reader.
Back in The Cove, nothing of note had happened some more. In fact, nothing much of anything had happened at all. We had a salesman turn up halfway through the afternoon who was definitely on a hiding to nothing. It was about the same time that we had the only mini rush of the day and, seeing that I was suddenly busy for five minutes, left after dropping off a catalogue.
Our rush lasted all of ten minutes, and we reverted to being quiet. This was broken by a very welcome couple who purchased half a dozen of our posh mugs between them. This probably accounted for twenty percent of our revenue today.
To add insult to injury, my Lifeboat pager went off just as my bread order was due and, more to the point, forcing me to eject money paying customers from the shop. The Inshore boat was tasked to investigate an unidentified object in the water at Land’s End. Another Tooltrak driver beat me to the hot seat and very quickly the requisite two others for an Inshore launch were on the scene. Having establish that I was no surplus to requirements, I headed back to the shop to see if I could recover my customers.
The Inshore boat was not gone very long either. It came back with a bag of rubbish that someone had either launched over the cliff or jettisoned from a passing boat.
We launched again a few hours later, this time on exercise and with both boats. We try and rotate roles on the shore and today was my turn for the dreaded head launcher of the Inshore boat. It is a job that consists of doing absolutely nothing other than watching everyone else do something.
It is not often that we can affect a simultaneous launch of both boats but today the two hit the water in perfect synchronicity and at the same moment both together. Hat it been last week when there were a few people around, that would have evoked a spontaneous cheer with top hats being thrown into the air. I doubt that the three people running a dog and looking for sea glass today scarcely noticed.
There was much kicking of heels, drinking of tea and discussing the state of this and that. There were also signs of the impending naming ceremony for the new Inshore boat in a week or two. I would tell you the name but obviously, it has not been named yet, so I cannot. It is, of course, not at all to do with not being able to remember what it will be, at all, honest guv.
We on the Inshore team had to leap into early action as the boat in question came back halfway through the exercise for a crew change. We occasionally do this when there are excess numbers of Inshore crew, and it gives everyone a chance to get through the various training units they need. Having made this brief interlude we retired again for more tea and biscuits until half an hour later both boats were ready to be brought in.
From the Harbour beach where I was stationed, it was possible to note the textbook recovery up the long slip not long after low water on a neap tide. I did not have time to observe the conclusion as I was too busy observing the recovery of the Inshore boat that happened soon after. We are, after all, a very dissociate, very excellent Shore Crew.
Lastly, big happy thoughts for the Aged Parent who is feeling a brae bit under the weather.
June 4th - Wednesday
The day did not look all that inviting when I threw back the virtual curtains this morning. We had some light rain a little later in the morning but first thing, ABH and I got away with it. It was perfectly pleasant down on the Harbour beach once I had managed to drag her out. Once that little bit of rain passed through mid-morning, it was even more perfectly pleasant with sunshine and all sorts to admire. I had the sense that even the northwesterly breeze had moderated some.
I took the time to check the local weather stations a little later. Both Gwennap Head, windiest place in the universe, and St Ives both had the wind in the west or west nor’west. Conversely, Land’s End had the wind in the southwest. I had looked at Land’s End first and since the Lifeboat channel markers were showing a northwesterly and was bemused, so I checked the other two. Something strange happening down at the corner, obviously.
The remaining small pile of invoices glared up at me from next to the shop laptop when I took up my station behind the counter first thing. It seemed churlish the leave these last few dozen to the Missus, so I started working my way through them between the few customers we had. I had nearly finished them when the Missus came down, surprisingly early, to let me go to the gymnasium. Mother, who will stay for a few days, told her that she had better bring me a glass of water. When the Missus queried why, Mother suggested that seeing her downstairs so early, might cause me to faint. Mother is as sharp as ever.
Having recovered, I enjoyed a blistering session. I still have not been able to drive down to a better time on my row. It has been several weeks now, and I cannot seem to get off the ground floor. It may be that I have set up the machine differently or I am just ten seconds weaker than I was a couple of months ago. I am not going to be losing sleep over it, I still get plenty of exercise, but I will not give in on it just yet, either.
The sun broke through while ABH and I were down on the beach keeping yet another cold water swimmer company. The swimmer had to wind her way through the oar weed that continues to build up on the beach. We have seen it much worse down there, but it is still nuisance. ABH is just happy to eat some of it, usually picked from the most remote an awkward spot on the beach and dragged with some effort to a spot where she can lie down and enjoy it.
We seemed a little busier than we were yesterday, for which I was grateful. We were not so busy that I could not finish off the invoices though. I was going to leave the segregated cash invoices to the Missus, but, having now done all the others, it seemed churlish since I had the time and with reluctance, the inclination. I am sure there are some stragglers. For example, I have not had sight of the digger invoices and the Missus usually has a few petrol receipts in her purse. When we are happy that they are all included, the Missus will file them and take them to the accountant in Penzance. I have yet to download all the statements and prepare the summary sheet I send in.
Our general waste was collected first thing this morning as usual. I had been told that the bin would be gathered up along with the waste and taken away and a new bin left in its place. Obviously, there is a gulf between what I am told and what actually happens. This proved to be the case when halfway through the afternoon, the bin repair man turned up. I said that I had been told it would be replaced and he told me his work sheet was just to examine it and try and repair. He spent twenty minutes knocking the rust off with a big hammer, part of which was the brake. He then came and told me he was done.
I said that I was somewhat disappointed. The bin itself is in reasonable condition, it is just the wheels that are a problem. Knocking the rust off was just a short-term solution and he would need to come back in three to six months. I asked if they could replace the wheels, which would provide a longer term fix. He told me he would report back but that was the best he could do.
It was not half an hour later that he came back again. He said that he had been up to the garage at the top to collect their bin and he could swap it out for ours, if that was acceptable. It was plastic instead of metal but should do the job just as well. Ten minutes later we had our new bin as promised, although a bit by the back door.
I decided that we could do without a pasty order (sorry, MS) tomorrow as we had accumulated quite enough from the last two orders and insufficient sales. We would likely run out of scones, but I could not order those just on their own and ordering more pasties just to make up a minimum order seemed sheer folly. Naturally, ten minutes after the ordering deadline, the world, its wife, the third cousins and the darts team from the Duck and Flute all wanted bleddy pasties all afternoon. We will be alright because I have some in the freezer, but I will hang fire on getting them out before I see what occurs tomorrow.
It is a news story I missed, possibly because it seems that it may not affect us. I had a message from the International Correspondent, our friend from not so frozen Vermont, very far west of Camborne, telling me of the wildfire smoke that they have had to contend with. It seems that Canada is ablaze – the fires really are quite substantial – and the smoke is drifting south cause problems for some of the northern states of America. Vermont had had cloudy skies and from I can determine, Minnesota is even more badly affected. A few areas have reach ‘maroon status’ which means everyone is affected not just those vulnerable to air quality issues – I had to look it up and there are other colours, too.
The International Correspondent warns that the smoke is on its way across the Atlantic, so I checked a few news websites to see what I could garner. It seems that the smoke has already reached our side of the ocean but so far only the eastern Mediterranean is seeing any of it and the smoke is high enough not to create health issues. Europeans have been told to expect hazy light and red-orange sunsets. There you go, a Brexit benefit.
We had sunshine through until the end of the day when it turned a bit cloudy. Later in the afternoon, some light rain made it through, but I do not think it was even enough to water the last few remaining tomato plants outside the shop. The aloe vera continues to sell well but the tomatoes and cucumber have ceased to be of interest, and I will ask if the Missus if I can now dump them in our new bin.
I was clearly a little more focused when it came to closing the shop at the end of the day because I remembered to pack up the newspapers. I had forgotten yesterday. I get a day’s grace, so all was not lost but I cannot do it two days running. I also had magazines in the morning. The Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company almost immediately acted on my request to unsurpress my account. They had not bothered to tell me that they had nor acknowledged my request, I just found out by trying it. It seems that something else was wrong because although I had ordered magazines, none had turned up, so I wrote again.
This time I started my message asking is the inbox was monitored, citing that I had no response last time I wrote. This seemed to do the trick as I had an immediate reply telling me it was not their fault; it was another department. You have to just love a helpdesk that abdicates responsibility right from the outset. I was told that they would pass on my message but if it still did not work, I would have to contact the other department, not the, erm, ‘help’ desk.
While the sun had gone, it was still pleasant walking around the block shortly before last run out time. ABH was not interested in an after tea walk, possibly because tea was late, so we combined the after tea walk with last walk of the day and set out earlier than the last walk but later than the after tea walk. I hope I have made that clear.
She has some affinity to one of the ladies in the end house, mainly based on level of fuss given and provision of treats, so she was happy to see her outside when we went past. Otherwise, she was a brae bit under the weather, notable from her consumption of weeds the second we went out. She had some medicine when she came back but was keen for her bed after that. Come to mention it, so was I.
June 3rd - Tuesday
Well, the forecast that the Missus looked at was spot on. I did not look at any other, so I could not possibly comment. Radio Pasty was also spot on about the wind because as I headed down the steps to get the shop frontage out, I noted that our wheely bin was on its side. This is the wheely bin you will recall, dear reader, that I had unstrapped from its anchorage to facilitate the collection of our commercial bin yesterday. Yes, I forgot to strap it down again.
ABH was not all that keen about stepping out this morning, in fact I had to get myself out of bed. She only stirred herself after I had gone downstairs to sort out the shop and had got ready for the day. Had we gone a little earlier we might have avoided the rain that hit us when we did go out. It was not very heavy rain and did not last very long. I think it was the tail end of the rain that had been promised, and it was on its way to clearing up.
It was not the greatest day for weather we have ever had but there were some bright spots somewhere near the middle of it. The wind, however, was blowing in from the northwest and kept up a chill all day long. Several people made comment upon it, and it seemed that sweatshirt and woolly hat was dress of choice for most of the day.
The Missus left to head to Redruth and the dentist with Mother at around half past eleven o’clock. She had decided that it was a good plan to feed Mother before she went to the dentist just in case she could not eat afterwards. It meant leaving ABH with me on the welcome seat in the shop.
It was the longest that she had done sitting in the bed and lasted out until gone four o’clock. The only reason it had gone pear shaped was that her best pal, the one who visits up at The Farm, came along. It was mayhem for ten minutes while they chased each other around and blocked the entrance to the shop. After they went, ABH kept getting out of her seat to try and follow, stretching her lead across the shop doorway in the process. In the end I had to take her upstairs out of harm's way.
The end of our financial quarter has come upon us. For the last few days, I have been placing more invoices into the invoice box I keep in the shop and looking at the pile with trepidation. At the end of the first month, I managed to key the 118 invoices we had thus far collected with the notion that I could stay ahead of the posse that way. Since then, I had not keyed in another invoice and the pile looked very deep indeed. It looked like it would be another quiet day, so I capitulated and set to with the work at hand.
It took at least an hour to organise them into date order, which you would imagine would have been a formality since they were put into the box in the order that they arrived. The problem is that some arrive on the day they were issued and some arrive electronically sometimes a few days after they were issued. Sometimes, I only print them a few days after that, too. The upshot is that although many are in roughly date order, there are others that need to be rearranged. Also, all the statements and cash invoices need to be extracted and done separately.
For most of the rest of the day, I keyed invoices into the system. Some are pretty straight forward but many have to be split into their component parts, such as beer and soft drinks, and those recorded separately. This takes some time as the numbers must match up with the invoice totals for VAT and net values. By the time the bun fight started with ABH and her pal, I had completed some 150 invoices. It really was not a busy day at all.
Flushed with such success, I decided to give my poor brain a rest and do begger all for the rest of the afternoon. There was not much left of it, after all. Sadly, my brain decided it had other ideas and alerted me to the fact that our bin had not been collected – again. While I was not particularly bothered by the fact, it did seem unreasonable that the company should get away with it without censure, so I called again at the last knockings of the business day. This time I had no customers to distract me, and the very pleasant lady managed to get hold of the depot a little more quickly than yesterday. There followed a raft of excuses from the depot and an apology from the very pleasant lady I was speaking to. Apparently, it will all happen tomorrow. I shall not be holding my breath.
The Missus arrived late with Mother and a mouthful of gaps. She was still numb from the injections but managed some soft things for tea. Mother is resilient and uncomplaining like many of her generation, but I am sure she was in some discomfort. Hopefully, the worst of it will be gone by morning.
Once again, I left ABH until the last knockings and took her out then. She had endured a very lazy day but had at least had five minutes with her best pal. The Missus took her down to the beach when she came home but was unable to let her off the lead. The little girl did not seem too bothered by it and I am sure she will be up at The Farm for the day tomorrow. I hope so because we need more lettuce in the shop.
June 2nd - Monday
The fact that the sun was shining, the birds singing and all being well with the balance of nature paled into insignificance beside the arrival of my business electricity bill this morning. Thanks to the decision to invest some remaining shekels we had not spent on the building works, on solar panels, we reduced our usage by one third on the same time last year. The previous month, it was just under a third and as an added bonus, we do not have to pay the Climate Change Levy of five percent. This is applied on businesses using more than 33 kilowatts per average day.
It was indeed a very fine day. When we stepped out at half past five o’clock - ABH, bless her – and we headed for the beach, the sun had broken over the cliff. It is now closer to Tregiffian than Escalls from where we are looking. The skies were blue then and they continued through the greater part of the day. It was not until the middle of the afternoon when the large cumulus cloud started interfering a bit.
I almost had to ditch the gymnasium this morning as the Missus was late coming down. She was trying to make an appointment at the dentist for Mother. Getting an appointment at a dentist down here is harder than winning the lottery. If you have already won the lottery, you can afford to go private. Even then, the private dentists have waiting lists if you wish to become a member. Personally, I could never belong to a dentist that would have me as a member.
It is a perverse world where you are better off not being registered with an NHS dentist at all. Neither the Missus nor Mother are registered, and, in an emergency, they have access to the emergency dentist. If I have an emergency, I am not allowed to use the emergency dentist, because I am registered with the NHS practice in Penzance. Neither can I go to the NHS dentist in Penzance because I cannot get an appointment. Unless I know precisely what the problem is, I must get an appointment with the private hygienist first who will determine the problem. Once the private hygienist had identified the problem, I cannot then go and have it fixed by the NHS. I must book a private appointment.
The Missus waited on the telephone for one and a half hours and was then speaking with a receptionist for two minutes. They will get an appointment in Redruth tomorrow but had to wait for a call back that eventually came in the afternoon. Mother now will be seen by the emergency dentist. There is no finesse with the emergency dentist; errant teeth are removed.
Despite being late, I still went over to the gymnasium for a blistering session. My temporary accommodation does not have a tin roof that has holes in it and is therefore a tad warmer that I am used to. I will refrain from describing the effect. I was still very warm when I took ABH down to the big beach again. The tide had not long turned to go out and there was still a good swell bouncing around in the bay. The fishermen had come down when we were there first thing but had taken one look and decided to come back later. There was water floshing over the wall still as one lady took her time swimming just out of reach of it.
It seems that we are still destined to amble our way through the business day after the holidays. There were people about, just not very many of them. This left me with not an awful lot to do. Rather than stare at the walls and scratch my behind, I resolved to order a top up of our local preserves and chutneys.
This is the most unresponsive company and despite my best efforts to get them to at least acknowledge my orders, they stalwartly remain uncommunicative. The only way I know that they have received my order is that at some stage after I have sent it, preserves and chutneys arrive by courier. They never answer the telephone and if I leave a message, it is usually some while later I get a reply – if at all.
Last time they did not have any mustard for the lack of availability of mustard seeds. I was bitterly disappointed as I consume quite a bit of their mustard – we sell some, too. Having now run out, if the company was still short of mustard seeds, I would have to look elsewhere, at the very least for a personal supply. To this end I asked them to respond by return to let me know what the current situation was. At the close of play, I still have not heard from them. I know that they do not work every day of the working week, but surely they would work on a Monday or at least check their messages.
The other disappointment was the lack of appearance of our commercial general waste collection. The company had sent me a message during last week telling me that our normal collection on 2nd June was cancelled and would be replaced by a one-off collection on 2nd June. The letter had the dates mixed up, but not wishing to be pedantic, I assumed they meant the normal collection on Wednesday 4th June was cancelled in favour of one today. I also assumed that it was something to do with the request I had made to have the bin replaced, as I had received no response to that submission, either.
The change had not caused me much inconvenience other than doing my rushing around to get all the rubbish I could muster on Sunday rather than Tuesday. Closing in on the end of the business day, no collection had taken place, so I called the company to find out what was happening. Naturally, as soon as I picked up the telephone and got connected, customers appeared out of nowhere. I could not close down the call because it was too close to their closing time to call back again. I had to carefully balance explaining the details of my issue with serving customers. To make matters more complicated, one of the customers had questions to ask.
Thankfully, the very pleasant lady on the telephone had to put me on hold while she consulted with the depot, and that helped tremendously. I was able to deal with the customer query while I waited with one ear listening out for the music on the telephone to stop. Just as a quick aside, they used to call the incidental music played in lifts and in the background of public places, Muzak. I always thought that it was a generic name thought up by someone to describe the banal soundscape. It was years later that I discovered that it was the brand name used by the company that produced it.
Sorry, I digress. Now, where was I. Ah, yes, the lady customer who had returned from earlier told me that she had spotted a book called, ‘Remarkable Women of Cornwall’, but now could not find it. She told me it was a very small book. There are times when the small gods of grumpy shopkeepers step in at moments such as these and I found myself saying that I would help her look for it instead of, ‘well it would be’, which was on the tip of my tongue.
I managed to help my customer and finish my telephone call quite seamlessly. I discovered that the change in collection day was indeed because the depot was going to replace our bin but would now be collecting the bin and the waste at the same time tomorrow. I would then get a new bin delivered on Wednesday. What joy.
The cloud that had slipped slowly across our skies in the later afternoon soon blotted out the sun altogether. We are told by Radio Pasty to expect rain tomorrow, which after such a glorious day with hardly any customers does not bode well at all for business. There is also a gale of wind with it so I should strap down our domestic bin that I had earlier unstrapped from the commercial bin that anchors it in place for the collection that never happened to take place.
ABH had clearly exhausted herself at The Farm during the day and was not in the least interested in an after tea walk. It also did not help that the Missus was late returning, and tea itself was late. Instead, we walked the big block as our last run out which seemed to suit both of us. The sea state had calmed a bit, but waves were still just about topping the wall. There was enough beach for a run, but we avoided it anyway. There were very few cars in the car park as we passed through and not a soul in sight. Oh very dear.
June 1st - Sunday
The early morning – and it was early, too, thanks to ABH – looked a little iffy to me. I thought we had been assured of a good weekend’s weather by Radio Pasty, but it did not seem to be living up to expectations. There was a big dark cloud to the north and more out to the east. Up above looked alright but the sun was not in it and with a northwesterly draft, it was not the summer day it was made out to be. By the time I opened the shop, it looked pretty gloomy indeed and chilly to go with it. The cloud had won the fight and was over us like a duvet.
There was a bit of action in the morning as the early walkers prepared to set off for the day. Then some late leavers left us taking with them a smattering of going home gifts between then. Finally, there were some breakfasteers disappointed that we had run out of white bread and rolls. Clearly that was all we were useful for, and we were left alone until well into the afternoon.
That northwest wind did us in. The beach was empty and only a couple of very keen surfers were out there without waves to surf on. There was not a windbreak or a beach tent in sight, so I removed myself to the store room to do some clearing up.
The clearing up had been prompted by a proliferation of hangers and accumulated things in an area of shelf that I place the excess bread waiting to be put out on the shelf. It gets used for other things when the bread is not there but this time the other things did not get moved on for some reason. Amazingly, I found space in the hanger boxes for the hangers, put the flannels out in the shop where they should have been put originally during last season and threw everything else away.
While doing that, I spotted a box of pencils that I had mistakenly ordered last year but had no room in the stationery box for. I thought that I had better check to see if they could go out in the shop before I put them anywhere else. While I was looking, I noticed that a few stationery items could do with topping up, so I did those first and then found some room for the pencils. One of the items missing was the UK travel plugs that allow people from other countries to plus their two pin devices into a UK three pin socket. They sell well but are bulky and we can only fit four out on the shelf at any one time. Also because they are bulky, I have to find a big space in the store room for the box they are in. This means just about anywhere but most often, on the top shelf. Here, they immediately become invisible.
I spent far too looking for the adapters mainly because I concentrated my search in the old place I kept them. Our top shelf is not that long, so you would think I would have found the box that I had carefully marked with ‘UK Travel Adapter” in large black marker a little sooner. I only found it when I stopped looking and looked for something else instead. I put them back where I found them. The chance of remembering that they are there for next time is very slim.
There were a few remnants of the cash and carry order to put away, so I did that and topped up a few grocery items that I saw were wanting. After I had finished, the store room did not look significantly tidier than it did before I started, which was disappointing. Alright, the store room did not look like I had been in there at all, which was even more disappointing but at least by the time I had finished, there were a few more customers around.
While I was engaged in my fruitless cleaning, I remembered that one of the wheels on the windbreak stand was acting up. At rest, the wheel looked to be at an angle and the assembly would not rotate as the stand changed direction. It had only been obvious since yesterday, but it was making it nearly impossible to bring the stand in and out. Given that it was quiet – although I knew it risked immediate busyness – I emptied the stand so that I could turn it on its side on the newspaper box to see what the problem was. It was immediately obvious that the plate on which the wheel assembly is attached to the frame – by just three of the four bolts by necessity – was bent on the unbolted corner. The wheel assembly was catching on the bolts that were in place.
It was also immediately obvious that the solution to the problem was to hit the offending article smartly with a hammer. The only problem with that was I did not have a hammer; all my tools are up at The Farm. I did not want to put it all back together and wait for the missus to bring a hammer down. The opportunity to empty the stand again may not arise and the level of enthusiasm I was demonstrating during the morning was even less likely to re-emerge. The only thing I had to hand was a windbreak mallet, which did a good enough job for now. All the wheel bolts will need some fine adjustment with an angle grinder but that will have to wait until winter. In the meanwhile, I shall just have to be careful how I move the stand around.
The second half of the afternoon was busier than the rest of the day. Quite where the crowds had drifted in from would have been interesting to find out but one family at least, were from St Ives. They had driven because no one in their right mind would have taken the bus. Mind, they were staying in St Ives, so …
The crowds of the afternoon, and I use the term loosely, basked in the sunshine and warmth that had broken through eventually. The warmth was determined by how much shelter you could find from the wind that was variously northwest then westerly. It was not that robust but it quite fresh standing out in it. From where I was standing behind the counter, it looked very pretty, and I am sure others felt so too because they spent some time looking at it from the benches opposite.
As the tide went on the flood, it started to get a bit agitated. White water started boiling up around Cowloe and waves were dashing up the rocks along the cliffs opposite. Great arcs of white topped, rolling waves ran in towards the beach and the sea in the bay was flecked with foam. The whole ensemble was lit at an angle by the setting sun that put on a proper setting performance later, but for now just highlighted the white in the bay against the perfect blues of water in between. Our windows were open and the cacophony of crashing waves near drowned out our teatime conversation.
ABH was keen for a post teatime walk around the block this evening. We avoided the Harbour where the waves were ramping up to come over the Harbour wall. They were not quite there yet but were happily floshing over the wall when we went out later. I was grateful for my new sunglasses as the sun was right in our eyes as we went around the now much quieter route through the harbour car park. Later there were just two people there to record the setting of the sun that promised to be a proper display tonight. Again, we did not stop to find out.