My Cornwall Bubble

Diary Extracts from The Flower House, Penzance, Cornwall.


My mini -break....more of a maxi journey into a self I thought I was losing.....

Monday 28th April

 First sunshine lunch on arrival late afternoon sitting in the courtyard of The Flower House,

in the company of the owner's Chinchilla pussy cat. Restless evening - first night blues - watch a DVD, tired, uncertain - wonder what I'm doing here, afraid I'll waste this precious time for me.

Tuesday 29th April.

 Morning - dissolve into heap of tears during my yoga exercises - my knees hurt, the floor boards are too hard, everything hurts, it's too hard, I can't do, it I'm tired of trying to be good all the time, I want my mummy.....   I open The Course in Miracles and  read "God is the strength in which I trust and There is nothing to fear." I sleep for a long time curled up in a corner of the deep sofa.

 Much later I walk along the deserted beach at Marazion, with St Michael's Mount always in my sights. The last time I was here it was the summer I was 16  -  hitching round Cornwall with 2 girlfriends from school waiting for the results of our A levels - on the cusp of my life.....

I sit and watch the waves for along time  - no one waiting for me at home.  I walk into the sea and let the cold water wash over my feet in honour of my brother who says put your bare feet on the earth every day.... or in the sea if you can....and today I can. 

 After supper I open this gift of Booja Booja chocolates from my cousin and his partner - probably the most pure, silky, nutty mouthfuls of  heaven I've ever tasted and which make me feel like a goddess... 

Wednesday 30th April

 I stay in bed till noon reading Brene Brown's  book on  shame and how to develop resilience to it (by being vulnerable) .....It triggers me to jump into the maelstrom of my past....and back to how it is now.... and I write and write.....write it all out into my notebook with its cover of painted butterflies..

My late breakfast - a joyful juice of apple and celery, carrot, lime and ginger stained  pink by allotment Swiss chard.

I set off for St Ives but can't face  the thought of crowds or finding parking and it's raining so I divert to Hayle and buy this vegetarian pasty - vaguely cheesy, stuffed with gluey potato and onion but hot and comforting.

 I eat it in the car, dropping flaky pastry crumbs on the upholstery, watching the workmen dredging the river beyond the carpark.....watched by this crow hoping for some of my pasty crumbs.

I spend a wonderful leisurely afternoon wandering through Trengwainton Gardens taking photos of raindrops on the azaleas,

 transfixed by the grub-like unfurling of ferns, 

and the sun coming out briefly.....taking as long as I like with my camera and in the gift shop,

with just me to please.

Thursday 1st May

At Sennen Cove I walk to the far end of the beach and start scrambling over the rocks to reach the next bay which is totally deserted.

The rocks are huge and green with seaweed. I slip several times and my shoes fill with water.

 I'm fascinated by these sea anemones like fat burnished rubies and spend a long time taking photos so when I decide to turn back, thinking that if I fell no-one would know I was there,  I  find that the tide has come in and cut off my beach route. So I continue slowly over the rocks in my squelchy shoes and feel very relieved to finally put my feet on wet sand and see some families in the distance

and these birds wading in the shallows on their delicate spindle legs.

When I get back to the car park I find a yellow and black parking ticket taped to my windscreen. I know I parked badly with one wheel over the white line into the next parking bay but as there were so few cars I thought I'd be safe. I feel stupid and cross and upset. The fine is £100 reduced to £60 if you pay within 14 days. I open my purse to put the ticket in it and find a cheque for £40 tucked into one of the pockets from a dental insurance claim that I'd forgotten to pay in. It feels like a miracle and I stop feeling so bad about my mistake.

When I talk to my husband on the phone later he says he really wanted to talk to me today but he thought he wasn't supposed to ring me. I didn't say he couldn't ring me - just that I'd talk to him every day. After a while I stop feeling guilty but feel unsettled that it's my last day tomorrow and my precious Cornwall bubble is coming to an end.

Friday 2nd May

Wake up feeling sad and read more Brene Brown.....very struck by something she says about the difference between parenting and caregiving.

The energy we need to take care of children is fuelled by promise.

Taking care of another adult who is sick or near the end of life is steeped in fear and grief. Fear and grief don't fuel us they drain us.

I drive out to Lamorna Cove where a  small colony of artists and painters was based at the end of the nineteenth century. Yesterday I watched a DVD about a tragic love triangle between three of them  called Summer in February.

It's late afternoon, the cafe is closed and I'm the only one in the car park but I  still park very carefully between the lines and pay the fee.

It's bleak and windy and I only walk for half an hour following the very steep and stony path along the edge of the cliff,

wondering at the tenacity of the wild flowers clinging on to the vertical slope with the sea smashing on the rocks below,

loving it that bluebells have found their way up here too.

My last supper - a thin triangular slice of fried onion polenta from the Hen Deli in Penzance, and a wedge of chocolate almond cake - not as good as mine though.

 I don't want to go home and I do want to go home . I don't know how to knit the feeling of this peaceful respite time into the frantic busyness of my everyday life.....maybe I can't and I just have to hold it in my memory like a burnished ruby anemone and leave it there clinging to its rock till it's time for another visit.