The Sennen Cove Diary
May 2nd - Thursday
Oh, well, that was disappointing. Our little taste of better weather yesterday was fleeting, a mere tease. Today we were back to grey and the breeze from the northwest was chilly though mercifully light. It was a good job I had not cast any clouts, well, not permanently anyway.
Just for added measure we got a shower of rain at the end of the morning. Mother had told me the forecast that she had seen suggested rain for yesterday and today. The Meteorological Office had decided it was not going to rain on either day, so between them they got it bang on.
It certainly did not help encourage anyone into The Cove and we were quiet the whole day long. There were a few more people around in the afternoon but through the morning I was denied any human interaction at all – and no customers, either.
I thought that I had better do something rather than nothing and finished off the barcodes for the jewellery stand. I then went around the shop to see if I had missed anything and discovered that of the few things we have been selling, the fishing lures had taken a bit of a beating. It is mainly a small group of local boys responsible for the depletion. They are in several times a week when the sea state is suitable and head off to the end of the Harbour wall. It is heartening to see a group like that finding some harmless pastime to consume their free time and they are all good and amiable lads. I saw them later in the evening. One had grabbed a spider crab by hand, no snorkel and mask, just dived down and got it. Pleased as punch he was and told me his mother was mortified.
The last time I placed an order for lures and jigs, the supplier stepped in to recommend some. It was a bit of a risk, but it paid off and the ones they sent have been very popular. It is comforting to know that there are still suppliers out there who know what they are about and have their customers’ best interests at heart. I reordered a bunch of them to replace our missing stock.
The afternoon saw a clearing of our cloud blanket and a broad arrangement of blue sky and white fluffy clouds. It apparently offered not the slightest encouragement to visitors to come and enjoy it and we were just as quiet as we had been for most of the day. By the afternoon, I had also run out of things to do, or things that I felt I needed to do and found myself at the bottom of a bored stupor. I was not even compelled to rage at the thirty percent mark-up our pet insurer had deemed necessary to levy onto next year’s cover for ABH. She has not materially changed much in the twelve months since I commissioned it, although conceivably she might be thirty percent bigger. I will consider this overnight and just pay up because it will be much easier than filling out numerous online quotes and forever more batting away the ensuing avalanche of messages and telephone calls asking why I did not sign up with the companies I enquired with plus all the one they sold my details on to.
It was a good job that someone had organised a launch of the Lifeboat for a spot of Thursday evening training. At the very least it was something constructive to do and made me feel so much more valued – even if it was me doing the valuing. Mind, I probably get a better rate that way.
We launched both boats into the calm bay and a rising tide at around seven o’clock for them to go tearing off in two different directions. We have not got quite as far as full spring tide, in fact we are halfway between neaps and spring, so there was plenty of water in the Harbour to launch the Inshore boat. For a change and because we were a little light on numbers on the shore, I took the Tooltrak out. It was perfectly mild for a change and I eschewed any additional layer when I went out to launch the boat. Unfortunately, I thought the same when it came to recovery when the temperature had dropped some and the northwestly breeze had kicked back in again. I was down there in the cab for some time, too, waiting on the boat because someone said it was coming in when it was not.
Aside from that we fell into our respective roles and executed our duties with calm professionalism. We even managed to maintain some decorum when the boat arrived back in the bay, enough so to carry out what looked like a textbook recovery up the long slipway at around a quarter to my bedtime. This extended a bit because there was some fuelling up to do and I eventually got away as it was going dark at around half past nine o’clock when I took ABH for her last walk. We are, after all, a very dedicated, very excellent Shore Crew.
A textbook recovery underway taken from the cab of the Tooltrak. You can see the 'span' cables off the back of the boat. The Inshore just arriving around the pointy end of the big boat.
Spring is here up Mayon Cliff with a blankets of tri-cornered leek everywhere. The smell of garlic in the air is intense downwind of it.
May 1st - Wednesday
The scaffolders and the builders turned up this morning to make a start after a two week hiatus. The builders were here to move all the various bits building materials they had carelessly left where the scaffolders wanted to put scaffolding and the scaffolders to reconfigure the scaffolding into the bits the builders had vacated. Fortunately, no horseshoe bats had moved in during the break and the collared doves were quietly taken away and murdered. (Not really, Mr Packham, if you are reading. They were asked politely to move on.)
It was a cracking morning for such things, too. The sun was shining from the very off and it stayed dry and reasonably temperate. Almost miraculously, The Cove filled with trekkers passing through and more casual visitors mooching about and occupying the tables of the café opposite. Quite what they made of the merry sound of power drivers undoing bolts is anyone’s guess, but it was soon very testing on my false ear enhanced hearing.
I called the cash and carry people early to try and resolve our outstanding credit and got to speak with the elusive lady in accounts. I did not fully understand what she was saying at the time, but it amounted to the issue having been resolved and I should no longer worry. What passed for ‘resolved’ was two further invoices for services that had hitherto not been raised for both orders amounting, very roughly to what they owed me for goods not delivered. Both invoices detailed ‘handball’ charges, that is the carrying of stock from the cages into the shop. Of course, had I known that this was being charged, I would have sat back and watched our man bring the delivery in by himself.
One of the invoices had a ‘delivery’ charge on it, which was odd because the company adds delivery to the price of each item and therefore I had effectively been charged twice for it. Being a somewhat cynical grumpy shopkeeper, it struck me that these charges that had never been raised before on our deliveries, had been added to avoid paying the credit. Furthermore, one of the invoices related to the order placed at the start of April and was therefore an afterthought. Naturally, our lady in accounts was unavailable when I called back to discuss the matter. I am now very glad that our original supplier has come good, else we would be stuck with these crooks.
The boys really cracked on with the scaffolding. The new lengths at the back of the property will wait until Friday, they told me, but all the rest was nearly all taken away. We are left with one storey at the front and similar halfway down the side opposite our steps. It looks very strange indeed without and I had a sudden sense of insecurity with it gone. I told one of the boys it was like having a bushy beard for 40 years then shaving it off.
It had not been a particularly quiet morning and getting away for the afternoon would have been pleasant had it not been to a shuffling off ceremony. Two of us had been asked to represent the station for our ex-winchman whose turn it was up at the venue in Camborne. I took one of our neighbours who was short of a ride. On balance, I think it would have been preferable not to take the truck which has not been washed for some time. I know that we were not exactly going to be part of the motorcade, but it seemed embarrassing, nonetheless. I was going to park a little distance from everyone else but when we arrived, we had no choice. Our man was very popular and had known a lot of people in a number of jobs over the years.
We congregated at the place where they take our man away and replace him with fond memories, and they did it very well. As it turned out there were at least a dozen Lifeboat crew there, past and present, and together we formed a guard of honour and one of our number joined the pall bearers. All very nicely done even if not one us knew what we were doing.
I had not realised when we left that the truck was low on fuel. My plan to fill up on the way was scotched when we fell in behind two tractors at the top of the hill and followed one all the way into town. It necessitated a detour through Hayle on the way back to a small independent fuel station that I favour. I also had plans to stop at the post office when we got back to post a parcel to Brittany where a regular visitor had discovered that we sell goods on our website shop. You may have seen labels for it, dear reader as you pass by on your way to read The Diary each day. Just thought that I would mention it in case it had eluded you.
With two additional stops we were already behind everyone else leaving the event. We were further delayed by heavy traffic along the route and narrowly avoided being involved in some sort of incident that had blocked the Longrock bypass. In all it took us much longer to get back than our fellow mourners for which I was roundly admonished. Well, that is life being a grumpy shopkeeper.
Despite it all, it was quite a lovely day and warmer than we had had it since the middle of December. We had been in short sleeve order up at Camborne and walking around The Cove later in the evening it was still perfectly temperate. We do rather hope that this is no flash in the pan.
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