Love, Port Eliot and Penzance Literary Festival

I am in love. You know - that heart racing, toe tapping sensation that lifts you several inches off the ground. Sharpens all your senses. Leaves a beatific smile on your face and gives you a warm, Ready Brek glow that touches everyone you pass.

But before you get excited, this is due to no man. This is because of the Port Eliot festival which I went to for the first time on Sunday. As it’s fairly laid back, I thought I’d enjoy it but was unprepared for the sheer depth and scope of the place. The setting is wonderful to start off with – a hidden estate nestled next door to the mystical-sounding Menheniot, yet not far from blustering, sprawling Plymouth.

We arrived by train and followed others to a doorway in an old stone wall. Port Eliot Estate, it read, and we entered a world of magic. There was so much to see – first in the Walled Garden, then we stumbled through a fairytale garden with whirls of colour and books. The scent of cooking wafted towards us tingling our taste buds. Next door clothes of all kinds were displayed in rows of jangling colour, next door to secret stalls of jewellery, and short wellies called Spats. A Flower Garden; a maze, a Hulaboloo play area for kids. Around every corner was a different exploration that roused and bombarded, soothed and seduced the senses.

Further on we found a path through elegant beech trees winding down to the river, watched those jumping in, cavorting with glee on the mud banks. Emerging shivering, wrapped in towels, by a stall selling Bellinis. The house itself was straight from a fairy tale – quiet, turreted splendour with towers for Rapunzel. A Round Room with amazing murals by Lenkiewicz. And who knows what else? I ran out of time to explore.

“I had Kate Winslet for breakfast,” said Phil longingly – for Kate read from the book Mr Gum to a rapt audience (of mostly men, for she was wearing black shorts, revealing muscular thighs, and shiny, pristine Hunter boots). Even Jilly’s rapacious mosquito bites didn’t deter her enthusiasm as we sat in the sunshine with a well earned beer.

From a bench we watched as a horse drawn cart conveyed luggage to and from the campsites, gypsy caravans snuggled next to a horse box where you could discover a New You, and we sampled a selection of eateries on the lawn by the stunning house offering everything from Pimms, ice cream and falafels to pork baps, haloumi sarnies and Thai curries.

Us music lovers were drawn to the Big Top where we listened to all kinds of bands under hot lights that rotated green, blue and pink, while the music pounded against my breastbone like hot adrenaline, making even my cup shake.

I emerged pixillated and speechless, longing to share my experiences with those friends that would have loved it but couldn’t make it. But how? I sat on the train scribbling, texting, but mere words couldn’t convey my experience of this amazing day.

Now I need another music fix – fast – and unfortunately our choir is having a summer break. Then I remember it’s our lovely musical director’s birthday this Saturday, so we are all meeting for tea, cakes and a Big Sing. So think of us with crumbs on our laps and music in our heads, singing our hearts out for Claire.

And back to matters literary - if anyone is in Penzance this Thursday 28th, Fi Read and I are giving our talk for the Penzance Literary Festival at 2pm at the Acorn Theatre. Come and give us some moral support!

Big Trouble

We're talking trouble here. As in, marriage in trouble.
Himself is in love. Again.
The recent object of his affections is not me, not Mollie – but a woman in Gweek. She is 25 foot long, she's called Golf Kilo. And she lives in the boatyard.

To be fair, Himself has always loved boats first, way before we met, but he had to sell his last darling about six years ago. Since then he has tried to distract himself with music (another love), making model aeroplanes, and countless other projects. He even decided he was going to write a novel (no comment there) – but at the heart of it all is a man in love with the sea. It really is in his blood.

Last week while I was walking Molls I watched a boat go out to sea, thinking, “Pip should be doing that, instead of sitting at home prowling the internet looking at boats”.

Well, the next day we had a phone call from a company interested in buying his engraving machine. They rang back on Saturday to reinforce this offer, and to talk about Payment and Delivery.

If they buy this machine, it would pay for most of Golf Kilo. So you see why this is so important.

It's now Wednesday and we're still awaiting the email so that he can send an invoice in order that they can send a cheque. I've told him On No Account is he to take the machine up there until they've paid up.

And that's the other thing. In order to get a bit more money, he's going to drive the machine all the way up to Sheffield, and sleep in the van overnight. He's nearly 70, has bad lungs, feels the cold terribly because of his cancer medication, and hasn't been feeling well for about a month now. But he refuses to go and stay in a B&B. I've offered to pay for it, I've threatened divorce, but he is Adamant. So what can a girl do?

Oh, and the other thing. He let slip that he's actually made an offer on the boat already.......

But he has a purpose again. He's a Man with a Mission. He has a smile on his face.

And he's in love.

Printers and Group Sex

First of all, many thanks to everyone for their very helpful comments regarding printers. I now have a Xerox Workcentre 3119 laser printer which I am in love with. It printed the entire novel in under half an hour, and is also a printer and a scanner, so at the moment it can do no wrong. It was also in my price range which is even better.

On the other hand, I am unable to receive emails at the moment - a problem with BT I believe - so if you're wondering why I haven't responded, blame it on BT.

But to other matters. A few weeks ago – in the days when we weren’t awash with rain and gale force winds; when we could count on walking our dogs in a degree of comfort, and warmth. When I started getting a brown face from the sun, so that no matter how wobbly I felt inside, people said, “you do look WELL.”

As I was saying, back in those clement days, I walked Moll up from the beach at Swanpool along the coastal footpath and up to Stack Point.

It should be noted that, according to my hairdresser Jill, who grew up in Falmouth, if you wanted to indulge in teenage fumblings, you would go Up Stack as it was known. Being an innocent, I didn’t know that at the time of my walk. And as I’m a long way from being a teenager, it doesn’t count.

So Moll and I strolled along in the sunshine, she sniffed the ground and bounded along and I picked honeysuckle and watched the ships anchored out in Falmouth Bay. The sea was ruffled with the gentlest of breeze, and the ships looked like items on a wedding cake, cemented by icing.

Then I came to a hawthorn bush with a small message pinned to it. It was written in uneven capitals, and said something along the lines of
ME AND MY WIFE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO HAVE FUN SEX
HERE IS PICTURE OF MY WIFE. SHE 53 AND LIKE FUN WITH OTHER PEOPLE.
YOU LIKE FUN TOO?
RING THIS NUMBER – WE LIKE TO HAVE FUN WITH YOU!!!!

I picked up the paper and looked closely at the wife. Frankly, she didn’t look as if she was having fun. She was clad in – well, not very much from what I could see, but the photograph wasn’t very clear. Her smile seemed somewhat strained. As if she was saying, “Oh God, not again”. Or perhaps she was shy and didn’t want to admit how much she did like sex with strangers. Or perhaps she’d just had one orgasm too many and was wiped out… Or perhaps she had indigestion, or was worried about how to pay the electricity bill.

After some consideration, I put her back on the hawthorn bush. And started wondering. Did the husband really pin that message to that bush? If so, why there? True, there’s a certain amount of passing traffic, but most of those passing are Serious Walkers – though of course that doesn’t preclude them being into Serious Sex. Or even Fun Sex with Strangers.

Perhaps the husband had pinned the message somewhere different, and someone picked it up and put it on the bush for a laugh. Or he was walking along the coastal path (prior to group sex) and it fell out of his pocket – and someone put it on the bush for a laugh.

I wonder if anyone did ring her, and what happened. I don’t suppose I shall ever know, but that doesn’t matter. I have enough material for several novels by now.

The next time I walked along there, she’d gone. Not that I was checking, of course.

Not Another One..

Hold this thought:

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is
exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different
kinds of good weather.

John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900).

Yesterday the latest cornet arrived. Himself has been in a fervour of anticipation, pacing up and down the flat all yesterday, insisting that one of us was at home in case it arrived. He even went up to the post office on the corner to ask how long it would take, given the Christmas post.

Of course it arrived yesterday morning when we were out at a hospital appointment, but he was able to go up to the sorting office and collect it.

The new cornet is in fact an old, treasured cornet that has been playing in brass bands since the 1930s. It looks rather tarnished to me, like someone who’s stayed up all night. But I would never dare say so.

The case was shabby which he has now stripped with a hot air gun (why?) to reveal battered black leather.

He spent all afternoon cleaning it, polishing it and playing it (I’m learning to work while he practises). And he’s now happy.

“This is THE ONE, Pop.”

Now where have I heard that before?