Up a Hill and Down Again
After waking up this morning to a steady drizzle running down the windows of my parents house, any plans to repeat our trip to the beach went out of the window. Instead we made packed lunches, filled day bags with waterproofs and snacks, and set off across the headland to the nearby fishing village.
There was a moment – half way up the steep climb out of Talland – when our eldest had a falling down moment of sorts, but after a few minutes she got over it, and we started the descent into Polperro.
For anybody reading this on the other side of the world, Polperro is straight of Poldark. An ancient fishing village nestling in the foot of a river valley as it meets the sea – with a maze of narrow streets, and houses leaning over each other. For the majority of our walk we saw nobody, but making the final turn into the fishing village, we met the sea of holiday makers.
It's funny really – as soon as we saw the holiday makers, I thought “ah crap”, but then realised that we too were holiday makers just like everybody else. We don't normally visit in the summer – we visit in the winter, and get to walk the streets of the villages and towns among the people who live here. We walk into pubs in the winter and can find a table. We also see normal prices, instead of the gouging that goes on at this time of year.
We stopped at a pub in a quiet alleyway called “The Three Pilchards” (how Tolkein is that?), and after navigating through a series of vertical stone steps and 5ft doorways, found our way to the roof garden, where we partook glasses of Coca Cola, wine, and cider. The roof garden looked out over the rooftops of the fishing village, and gave grandstand viewing of a sleepy seagull chick, living in a world of excrement above a skylight on the roof of the pub.
The walk home was much less eventful. I think this might have something to do with the fizzy drinks and penny sweets we acquired en-route. Miss 15 inherits super-powers when she drinks fizzy drinks or eats sweets – she ran up the steepest part of the journey back while laughing hysterically. No, really.
Tonight was all about fish and chips, wine, TV, and a ridiculous card game called “Dobble”. Tomorrow will be a return to the beach if the weather co-operates.
In other news, Iknow I'm massively behind with reading blogs – I'll do my best to catch up when I return. I'm sitting at the dining table of my parents house writing this while my other half fights to get the younger children into bed. Some old TV show is playing in the lounge, and our eldest is sitting next to me with her hand-me-down Macbook – I just gave her the WiFi network password. She's looking at earrings on Amazon.