Wednesday 26 October 2016

The good the bad and the ugly

My favourite beach, I think, where I went to pick mussels last week. It was such a brilliant day we wore shorts and t shirts and bare feet - in Mid October - and picked enough mussels to feed an army!

Since then the boat has been broken into though it appears nothing has been stolen. It looks as if someone spent the night (or more) there, having forced the lock and got into the cabin, and left behind a memento of a syringe. Thanks to Tony I have notified the marine part of the police, although there are often thefts in our area, he says.

On Monday I went down to Geevor tin mine for Poldark day to sign some books and met a lovely marketing lady there, Sonja, who is not only brilliant at her job but bursting with energy, and her band of so friendly volunteers. Being half term, the mine was packed with visitors doing underground trips, and afterwards - dodging the torrential rain - Moll and I walked from Levant towards Pendeen which is truly stunning.


Unfortunately there were flash floods in Falmouth - and other places - so my journey home took two and a half hours, as Falmouth was flooded in places and the traffic gridlocked at rush hour. I then discovered that the kitchen had flooded again - thankfully the new flooring hasn't arrived. My architect friend Al came round last night and diagnosed the problem, the insurance people are coming next week, so hopefully it can all be sorted.

The good news, however, is that I had a meeting yesterday and got some really interesting work out of it. Hooray!

Wednesday 12 October 2016

Mums and audiences

This was Gribbin - taken a few weekends ago, on a perfect Sunday....

Apologies for absence - life has been very busy recently with a mixture of good and no so good events, as per usual.

The only good thing about difficult times is that it really makes you realise what good friends are all about. When Pip was so poorly, just before he died, what kept me going was the kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity of my mates. You know who you are, so thank you. I hope I can always be as good a friend to you as you have been to me.

Recently I got to the point of thinking I would burst if I didn’t have a break, but the night before we were due to go away, C got a phone call to say his very elderly mum was incredibly poorly and didn’t have long to live. So of course he had to shoot up there.

Meanwhile my mum had had a fall needing stitches. So I went up to see her.

His mum is a little better, though still very frail, but I’m glad to say my mum has had her stitches out and although badly shaken, and her confidence has taken a bad knock, came for a couple of little walks. And was very glad to see me.

For those of us who still have elderly parents, it’s a reminder of how important they are. We can’t replace them so it’s good to keep in touch and see them when we can.

And talking of how lovely people can be - I went to give a talk in Redruth yesterday. Got there to find the laptop provided wouldn’t read my memory stick with the presentation on. Finally it did, got the slides loaded up - and then found the laptop had started running updates so I couldn’t use my presentation.

I did say to the audience would they rather I came back, and do the talk with slides, but they said no, so I got up and started talking. And what a fabulous audience! They were so interested, asked loads of questions, laughed, shared fabulous stories and bought lots of books, too.

They were such a lovely bunch of people that my faith in humanity was quite restored. And the only snoring came from two dogs for the blind…