Our new feature is a daily (hopefully) look at Sennen life. Largely based on fact or when nothing's happened completely fabricated. We'll let you decide what's what and what's salacious gossip and what should be deleted prior to libel action.
Previous Months:
September 4th - Saturday
When I retired last night I was comforted by the forecast's big sunny day ahead of me. At least that's what I thought those little yellow icons meant, running from dawn to dusk. Oddly I woke to the pitter patter of raindrops against the window. What trickery is this, I thought: A major multi million pound (our multi million pounds, incidentally) organisation couldn't possibly get a forecast so monumentally wrong, surely? Then I broke out of my half sleep state and remembered that it was the Met Office's forecast I had slept on last night. It was a forgivable error: I mean they had, after all, attempted to forecast the weather a full 12 hours into the future. We have always been aware that we have a cosmopolitan set of visitors in this part of the world. Yesterday we were visited by the Russians, or so I thought. They took ages and ages deciding on the gifts they wanted so they weren't Russian at all. We had a Spanish party fishing in the bay today trying to cast a net. And, of course the Frenchman who had his car clamped in the Beach car park. He had to pay £80 to let 'is car go. The Dutch were here in vast numbers to see our circuitous routes across the countryside. Yes, the Dutch like a road that will wind miles. Quite unbelievably we haven't seen any Italians this year. Perhaps its because they stopped doing pizza down The Beach on a Sunday night. They ought to apply some pressure on the manageress down there because, as we know, you have to lean on to 'er for pizza. I think I'll stop there before anyone gets hurt.
September 4th - Saturday
We had a bit of the wet stuff come hurtling through early on this morning but the heavy stuff we were promised for the afternoon never materialised. The first ever weather forecast appeared in The Times on this day in 1860. You'd think after 150 years they'd have got a little better at it. Still, the Easterly has died off a bit and all in all quite a decent day. A boat appeared in the distance across the bay today. Before we knew it she was in the harbour. Yes, it was TG, the fastest fisherman in the west. There was no bow wave to be seen, as the bow wasn't in the water and neither was most of the keel, just a huge wake stretching out towards Aire Point. He has a sail wrapped up at the stern. This is not a sail for the wind to blow him along, oh no, this is only there as an emergency braking device. He spurns the use of a tractor to recover his boat preferring instead to aim the prow at his spot on the slip and let momentum carry him up. 'Course, at high water, that puts him on the doorstep of Myrtle Cottage. Lifeboat exercise this morning: Saturday is usually a bad day for an exercise as many of the crew are busy. True to form there weren't many of us around shore side or boat side for that matter. Our new slipway, wide enough to provide the walker with a sense of confidence, is dish shaped to guide the boat into the keelway on recovery. Pretty though it be, it acts as a magnet for weed. First job this morning, ahead of the launch was to clear a geet pile of the slimly stuff from the lower end of the long slip. We now understand why it is called a slip. At this stage I presume there is no need to explain the order of events for this evening. Creature of habit? Moi?
September 3rd - Friday
I telephoned my publisher today and cancelled the publication of my memoirs. I told him that a book containing a pack of lies, that stabbed my erstwhile friends in the back, was close to a work of sensationalist fiction and served only to further stuff my overflowing coffers had no place in the modern literary world. I can't see a book like that selling anyway. So I'll concentrate on the Diary for now and see what fortune has in store for all of us. I've said it before that some things over time change very little. For example, dictates from Europe being one of them. Today Brussels comes up with some spiffing idea and France and Germany generally implement them first, although very softly. After a lengthy argument and promises from politicians that they'll never happen over here we normally find them buried in the statute and irreversibly embedded in our culture quicker than you can cook a snail. In 1582 most of Catholic Europe adopted the Gregorian calendar. We sturdy Brits robustly resisted this Euro-lunacy, thanks in no little part to good King Henry VIII, a principled Euro-sceptic, who kicked into touch the European Union President of the time, namely Pope Paul III, in terms of laying down the law in this sceptred isle. By 1752 the Europhiles had inveigled themselves back into favour under George II. I mean, what do you expect, he was German for heaven's sake, and best pals with Pope Extraneous the 93rd (look I'm on a roll here and don't want to dash off looking up who was Pope in 1752 - oh alright, it was Benedict XIV). So, guess what? September 3rd 1752 (a notable date too, when 187 years later we were minded to stand against European foes) became September 11th as we capitulated and adopted the Gregorian calendar. The bottom line, dear readers, is that if it wasn't for all this Euro malarkey we'd still be sitting in August 21st, sun shining, kids off school and the Old Boathouse tills trilling to the sound of a thousand shillings dropping into the coffers. But here we are instead. A day when Penlee launched and Sennen Cove Lifeboat was getting ready to launch for an aircraft. The hapless aeroplane developed an engine fault returning from the Scillies but landed safely at LEA. Both boats were stood down. And a day when the little boat got called out, several minutes later, to a venerated local fisherman and ex-Lifeboatman when his engine failed in a brisk Sou' Easterly in the bay. Such is this man's mettle that he ensured his box was full of 'ansum fish before he issued the call for assistance; he is the stuff of legend, no less.
September 2nd - Thursday
Another sparkly day but getting a little hazy down this end. Any danger of getting overly warm knocked on the head by that, almost icy, Easterly blowing through. You'd think we would be sheltered from it this side of the peninsular but it seems to channel down the valley, pick up speed and squirt down the road. This week has been something of a bonus, or more appropriately a consolation. While there was a noticeable drop in visitors at the end of Bank Holiday we have been quite buoyant all week. Long may it last. Took the bleddy hound down to the b-e-a-c-h last night to mess around as the Misses was off getting her toes painted or some such. As soon as we got down there she found a comedy fish carcass. You know the sort, head and tail intact, joined by the skeleton. Knowing it would be confiscated she led me and a bunch of local children a merry chase up and down the beach for about half an hour. Laugh? I nearly strangled the little so and so when I caught her. I wish I had the ability to draw cartoons to add to these pages, as that would have made a cracker. So, any budding Giles, Cummings or Scarfe out there The Sennen Cove Diary needs you to illuminate its gloomy pages.
September 1st - Wednesday
I'd thought about calling this August 32nd to try and eke out the summer season a little longer now the good weather's here. However the march of time is not something to be trifled with. So I'm afraid August has been consigned to the pages of the Archive. 141 cyclists left LE this morning on a Great British Cycle ride. How do I know there were 141? Well they all arrived yesterday in preparation and I painstakingly overtook every single one of them on my way back from Penzance. I don't know if we're getting a little too sensitive or some customers are just getting a tad sillier. We shall enlighten you using two examples of silliness that, naturally, have been concocted for this illumination. Obviously no real person would be this silly. First, a customer starts loading her shopping onto the counter as she collects items from around the shop. Despite a friendly suggestion that she might be better off using a shopping basket, she will refuse, preferring to clutter the counter. When the long suffering shopkeepers, in our made up example, can't see over the counter any longer they helpful move all the shopping to a basket, where it would have been better in the first place. The customer, noticing that her shopping is no longer causing an obstruction, remedies the situation by picking up the basket and promptly placing it on the floor in front of the counter and wandering off leaving two other customers to trip over it. Wouldn't happen in a million years, now would it? What an imagination we do have, thinking up these crazy incidents. Here's another. This gentleman comes in seeking medical advice, clearly unaware that this is neither a doctor's surgery or a hospital. I shall spare you the detail because, frankly, it was distasteful (er, I mean in this completely fictitious example), and I am keen to avoid distress among my readership. Now, I'm not a doctor (although there was that doctors and nurses incident with Alice Mayband when I was six), but the product he is after is clearly inappropriate. So he spurns my advice, buys them anyway and complains that there should be some sort of drop in centre where these problems could be resolved. I, of course, suggest Cape Surgery. He replies that he would have to wait two weeks for an appointment back home. At this point I consider pointing out that he isn't at home but conclude my breath would be wasted. He continues that the problem has reoccurred over several months. Well, yup, I guess if you continue to apply the wrong solutions and won't seek professional medical help then there's a fairly strong chance that the problem will persist. All I can say is thank goodness these things don't happen for real. It would be enough to make a poor shopkeeper give up and go wurzel farming in Devon.
The Old Boathouse
