Cornwall

I've been away; hence lack of blogging.  I went to Cornwall for a week with my mother and elder brother, to celebrate Mum’s 80^th birthday.  Cornwall was beautiful, as always, the weather was variable, again as always, and the peace and quiet and fresh air were all blissful. 

The journey down did not go well.  It had all looked straightforward on paper.  Mum and I were to meet at Paddington and get a morning train to Exeter, Stephen would meet us there with his car, and we would drive on as far as Plymouth, picnic at Jennycliff, then drive on to Polruan in the afternoon.  Simple!  Except Mum and I managed to get on the wrong train.

I’m still not sure how we managed to do it.  I really thought we were on the right one.  But we were spotted, and thrown off, because our tickets weren’t valid on the service in question.  The train was extremely crowded and by the time we had managed to get back on to the platform the train we should have been on had left.  Just to add insult to injury (at least in my own mind) one of my favourite actors was on the train and very sweetly helped us with our luggage, and I failed to recognise him and growled “No, no, I can manage, honestly what a bloody cock-up”, when I should have been smiling and saying “Thank you” courteously.  What a cock-up, indeed.  Hopefully not being recognised is a pleasure rather than a pain for the chap in question. 

No, not that actor, alas.  This was the lovely Samuel West.  Who turns out to be rather taller than I had imagined, and in fact damnably attractive in person.  Lovely brown eyes with crinkles at the corners.  Bah humbug.  If I had recognised him I would probably have made a perfect bally fool of myself all the way to Exeter, so I guess it was all for the best.

All this meant we were running late; Stephen rearranged his journey, and was able to meet the next train without undue trouble, but as this meant we arrived at lunch time instead of well before, we went down to have our picnic lunch beside the Exe instead of overlooking Plymouth Sound.  We parked outside St Clement’s church, below Powderham Castle; and Stephen promptly reversed into the church collecting box.  Which was built into a large granite pillar.  So the starboard stern bumper of the car looks as though it's been attacked (though luckily none of the rear lights were damaged).  Poor little Volkswagen; but at least it gave as good as it got - the collecting box looks as though someone tried to stage a smash-and-grab raid on it...

Then we went down to the foreshore with our food, and I sat in a large lump of tar.  Large enough, and warm enough (it was a very sunny day, and tar melts in the sun) that it went through my trousers, through my underpants, and onto me.

I now know one can get tar off one’s backside quite efficiently with a good squirt of WD40, so I learned something useful from this; but still, it was not a good start to a holiday.

From then on, though, things were okay.  It was almost like the old theatrical adage about a bad dress rehearsal meaning a good first night.  Nothing else went wrong, and pretty much everything went right.  We all caught up on some sleep, walked on the coast path and along the Fowey River and its assorted creeks, got a lot of wonderful fresh air, talked to cows, visited country churches, bird-watched, ship-watched, paddled, went to the Eden Project (fascinating but very expensive!), talked our heads off, drank a lot of gin and tonic, and ate too much.  Perfect family holiday, I think.

Sadly I didn’t manage to do much writing, as I was too busy doing all of the above (& too tired by the time I went to bed each evening).  But I’ve got stuck into it again since I’ve been back.  Only I do wish I were still in Polruan, with that clean, clean air to breathe.

Is being a romantic a sign of a weak mind? Discuss.

I should say straight away that my reaction to this question is an instant, and indignant, “No!” – but then it would be, because I am a romantic. I am a hopeless romantic; not so much in the sense of dreaming I’m going to meet Mr Right (although I wouldn’t complain at all if I were to bump into him some sunny day, at the London Wetland Centre, say!) as in the sense that I am determined never to become hardened inside into a complete cynic.

I still believe in human nature, and the human capacity to choose to do good, to be kind, show hope and compassion and put the past behind one.  I still believe in love, friendship and loyalty.  I do not think we are all going to the dogs; and I am depressed by those who do.

If we were all going to the dogs, and the world were really nothing but a bottomless pit, where the wisest seals gambol in piles of sh*t, as Alfred de Musset put it so charmingly (okay, I’m both translating and paraphrasing there, but you get the idea), then John McCarthy, Terry Waite, Terry Anderson and Brian Keenan would all have died in captivity - and Nelson Mandela too, for that matter.  The Good Friday Agreement would never have been signed.  The Old City of Dubrovnik and the Great Bridge at Mostar would still lie in ruins.  God knows the world is imperfect, and human character desperately flawed, but good things do happen, and to ignore them or dismiss them as inconsequential is bitterly cynical, and fundamentally false. 

Life is too complicated for everything to be terrible, after all.  “It’s all going to the dogs” is just as much of a crude oversimplification as “Everything’s good and everyone’s happy!” 

I’m prompted to these rather banal reflections by my enjoyment of a new television series called “Eternal Law”.  It’s a fantasy, and it is profoundly romantic.  The premise, at least as explained so far, is that angels are being sent down to earth, all the time; they take human form and try to help humankind at times of personal need.  The main focus of the series is on two angels who have become lawyers in York, and the people they encounter through their work.  The cast is excellent, the story arc is batty but interesting, there is a basic internal logic (most of the time, at least) and a complicated but touching love story going on; and the ancient city of York is beautiful.

The TV critics have mostly hated it, right from the outset.  I don’t think they can handle its complete lack of cynicism.  The only character they all like is the unpleasant one; yet I’m sure none of them would like him if they met him in real life – he’s a bastard.  It’s a very clever piece of acting, true, but dear me, give me the angels any day!  The actors playing them (Ukweli Roach and the ever-watchable Sam West) are also both giving very good performances, and in much trickier roles – making virtue interesting cannot be easy, much less a character who wants to rebel and indulge himself and chooses not to do so - because he believes it would be wrong.  Good grief, he's got morals, no less...

Mind you, they do indulge a bit; it appears that angels are immune to the ill-effects of drinking and smoking, and our two heroes drink like fish and smoke like smouldering banksias.  On top of York Minster, no less.

Given that this is written by the team who came up with “Life on Mars” and “Ashes to Ashes”, both of which sprang the odd twist on us, the eager viewers, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if things didn’t take the odd twist here, too.  I have some theories, which range from the tear-jerkingly soppy to the unsettlingly cynical (I’m not immune, I’m only human!).  But I’m enjoying it far too much to do anything but wait and see what happens.  And thank the gods that someone is prepared to make, and some other someones are prepared to act in, a story this romantic.

Okay - now I'm off to have supper with friends; to lament our woes, celebrate our joys, plan creative activities, and drink too much.  But not on top of York Minster.