The Sennen Cove Diary
September 4th - Friday
Well, that was a bit unwelcome. As usual I poked my head out of the door first thing ready to take the girls for a spin and noted that there was still some mizzle floating in the air. I was in two minds, because it did not seem that heavy, but discretion won the day and I stopped to put on my light rain jacket. We were halfway down the slipway when the light drizzle got a little heavier, but it was still not too bad and bound to get better in a minute, I thought. A minute later and the rain was lashing in, charged with a bleddy geet squall of wind behind it. We were all drenched in seconds while we made a bolt for home.
The culprit was a pencil thin line of rain heading southwest across us and was gone almost before it arrived. Ten minutes either side and we would have avoided it. As it was, the girls suggested that we go down again because their run out had been so brief they had not had a chance to run around. We were not there for long, but it was a far more enjoyable experience the second time around.
The rain was not the only thing to stick the boot into an otherwise unremarkable morning. The milk had arrived just ahead of the shop opening and I had milk bottles strewn across the floor in front of the fridge when the first customer came in. I left the milk where it was to go and serve the lady only to find out that the card machine was not working for the lack of a wireless Internet connection.
As a stop-gap, I connected the machine to next door’s wireless signal and was about to return to the milk when the pasties (sorry, MS) turned up. They had been late all week and the one day when being late would have been helpful, they were early. I stopped to help bring them in and then left them while I returned to the milk.
I was fortunate enough to be able to finish putting the dairy away when the next customer turned up. Again, the card machine failed to process the payment. It had reverted to our own, not working, network because it was the stronger signal. It took a few moments to sort that out after which I had to go and sort out the pasties. That done, I went off to reset our main router which would normally resolve any glitch, but the wireless was still not working after that.
Since there was still the greengrocery to pack and weigh, I settled on that to rest my brain from trying to work out what might be causing the issue. Our wireless signal is provided by a matrix of small access points arranged up high around the shop and store room. We also connect to it in the flat above and usually it works well providing a strong signal throughout the building. All units had working lights indicating that there was no fault, indeed, I had signal from them, there was just no Internet in the signal.
In the end, I traced it to the master unit that connects by wire to the router. Once I had replaced that, the wireless Internet sprung back into life – just in time for me to head off to the gymnasium for a major blistering session.
I returned to the shop. There was no running the girls out again as the Missus was heading off to The Farm straight away. It will not be too long before I can get up there myself and start with the long and getting longer list of tasks and projects.
Being change-over day again we were faced with another round of goodbyes with people who had been frequent customers for the last week or, occasionally, two. One of the departing groups were led by a lady we have known for some years. Her pals were first time visitors, hailing from somewhere transatlantic by the sound of it. They had obviously brought their smarts with them because they won last night’s quiz in the OS and were most chuffed about it to. It had fetched them a handsome purse which they very kindly donated to the crew comfort fund. Thank you very much.
Change-over day was one of the reasons it was quiet today and I imagine that the weather was the other. It was a cheerless and dull day with nothing much to commend it. The surfers would have been happy with some swell in the bay, but I had to warn off a gentleman and two young girls from fishing in the early morning. He had already worked out that the Harbour wall would be off limits but asked about casting off the beach. At near high water, the waves were quite merrily thumping in on the sand and standing anywhere near it would have been fraught. I sent them to Newlyn and Penzance to the harbours there which would be more sheltered and much safer.
One of the advantages of not being busy behind the counter is that I have time to keep the shelves topped up. I set to along the grocery aisle in the late afternoon filling all the gaps. It took about ten minutes. That is the other thing about not being too busy: we are not selling anything.
There were, however, enough gaps to warrant thinking about a cash and carry order which, if we follow the pattern of the last couple of months, is due next weekend. There are now two considerations, the first being would there be enough of an order for a delivery. The second, which is far more tricky, is that from now we need to be running down our perishable stock while still keeping enough to avoid disappointing our remaining customers. I suspect that we will either skip a week or send the Missus out for a shorter list of essentials.
I had plenty of time to consider that too because we were quiet for the rest of the afternoon until around five o’clock. It was around this time we started to see arrivals though many fewer than in previous weeks. Despite that we still managed a bit of a five minutes to closing rush, so how about that, then.
It is still light enough to sit and watch the beach as we gather for tea with Mother. There were, even at that time, plenty of people on the beach and more still enjoying the delights of the sea. Where these people were during the day, I do not know but I shall be asking questions when I see them, that is for sure.
The other thing that is certain is that there was no one to ask any questions of when we went for our last walk. There were a few less lights on in holiday lets, although it might be that people had not arrived yet, and there was more of that out of season feel. I shall have to restrain myself from being too demob happy over the coming weeks as there is much to do – including replacing our benches across the road. I can do that now as the Pavement Licence arrived last thing.
The much maligned council even managed to mess that up. I was sent a message telling me that the licence and its conditions were attached. They were not and I had to go back and ask for the documents. I should be impressed, though, that there was someone there to ask at near six o’clock. I bet that will cost me.
September 3rd - Thursday
We must have been later to the beach this morning because it was much lighter than yesterday. It was also foggier. The returning mist had closed in from every quarter, and we could scarcely see the top of the cliff. It was also not advisable to look up because it was drizzling harder than it had all day yesterday. When we got back, I had to hurriedly find a towel with which to wipe down the girls before I let them back up on the bed again; the mizzle soaked their coats as much as it did mine.
There is far less to do in the shop during the morning now. During the season it was a fairly consistent amount of work that I could allocate the same time to each day. Now, some days will require more effort and time than others. Quite fortuitously, today needed little time or effort which put me in good position to respond to the Lifeboat pager going off at twenty past eight o’clock.
A Newlyn fishing boat had lost its steering and was essentially adrift close by the Runnel Stone, a semi-submerged rock pinnacle off Gwennap Head, windiest place in the universe. Skipper had the added advantage of being pals with most of the local crew being a family raised in The Cove. This would explain that when I got to the station a few minutes after the pagers went off, most of the Boat Crew were dressed and waiting to go out.
We launched with just two crew in quick time and other very excellent Shore Crew not far behind. Assuming the likely outcome to be a tow to Newlyn, we closed up shop and started heading for the door. It then became apparent that the fishing boat skipper thought that he could fix the problem, and before we could entirely retire, we had the message that the Lifeboat had been stood down.
By this time, we had a full complement of experienced crew to hand and set up the short slip just ahead of the boat coming back into the bay. Of course, we only had the Coxswain’s word for that as we could see no further than the end of the Harbour wall. We could not even hear the boat’s engines, muffled as they were by the fog. It loomed out of the mist almost in the Harbour to be brought up the short slip in what was clearly a textbook recovery. It was something of a surprise that I remembered what to do having been absent for the last six weeks. We are, after all, a very remarkable, very excellent Shore Crew.
The Missus had covered the shop in my absence, although she had very little to do, I did not want to miss the pasty delivery (sorry, MS). As it happened, we did not as the driver services St Ives first and comes to us late. It did not really matter; there was very little doing pasties or otherwise for the whole of the morning.
We had to wait until the middle of the day before we saw any serious action. Today was a pasty day. It is exceeding difficult to manage the supply of pasties on a daily basis. One day we will hardly sell any and, like today, we will sell more than we might expect of a dull and misty day out of season. It is impossible to predict numbers, so the best we can manage is a rolling two day supply and hoping the average works out. And as for ordering for the weekend, forget it. That is pure guesswork.
I was asked in the morning if the mist would clear later. My assumption was that as long as the breeze was in the southwest, it would persist. Radio Pasty had already told us that it would be warm and humid from last night and they were not wrong. They had also said that the afternoon would be clear and sunny, and they were wrong about that.
I had not heard any of the predictions for the day, so I told the customer the mist was with us all day. An hour or so later, the misty promptly lifted and sat above us, letting is some bright sunshine. I was actually rather pleased that it came back again an hour later on and was just as thick as it was in the morning, otherwise I would have looked dafter than I usually do.
The second time the mist cleared at around four o’clock, I could see enough of the beach to note that there was a host of surfers sitting just off the shallows in the middle. At the time, there were a few waves closer in and the occasional surfer occasionally caught one. The rest could be more accurately described as bobbers. The ones out the back were probably waiting on the tide and the sea to build up. I never did get to find out because I ran out of time – or interest – to watch them any longer.
What I have been watching is one of those expensive water bottles people carry around with them or, in this case, someone not carrying it around with them; it was left behind more than a week ago. It is not the first time. I think this is the fourth this year. This one is worth between £12 and £20 depending on where you shop for it, so it is not cheap trinket. I left it in a prominent position on the counter; customers can easily see it when they leave and it is clear that I can see it too. Despite that, every other customer seems compelled to tell me it is there. It has happened so often now it has surpassed irritation. If one more person tells me it is there, I will feel compelled to heave it over the sea wall.
I managed to contain myself for the remainder of the afternoon. We had been relatively busy on groceries and there were orders to place. I got these out of the way early because I had to go straight off to Lifeboat training after we closed.
Since I had already performed my head launcher role once in the day, I allocated myself to the winch operation. Earlier, we had some issues with the turntable not raising and we were tentative about how it might perform in the evening given that it would be another short slip recovery. We would test it when the boat was out and also train the newer members on the emergency procedures for the turntable.
Without the weight of the boat on it, the cradle lifted and turned without issue. The emergency procedures involve using the buttons on the hydraulic pump mechanism rather than the remote controller. It was during this process that we spotted a leak on one of the seals and thus the root of the problem.
The boats returned at around eight o’clock. With rather less fog about than earlier in the day, we were able to see it come in across the bay in the fading light. From my vantage point in the winch room, it was abundantly clear that we carried out a textbook recovery up the short slip, followed swiftly by a washdown and a haul back onto the cradle. We were lucky that the hydraulics held because as the pump kicked in to push the boat up to level on the cradle, a fountain of hydraulic fluid spouted from the leaky seal. The station mechanic will look at it in the morning.
Having released our collectively held breaths, we strapped down the boat, closed the doors and made ready for the next service. We are, after all, a very relieved, very excellent Shore Crew.
September 2nd - Wednesday
There was mizzle this morning when we set out. It looked like it had been raining more heavily during the night or perhaps it had just been mizzling for a long time. It was no trouble at all for us and no rain jacket was required. After we got around the Lifeboat station corner and halfway down the slipway, we were sheltered from any wind that I think had gone around to the southwest.
The mizzle came and went in heavier waves during the morning and completely removed any likelihood of any decent trade. Customers were coming out of necessity for bread and milk. It is the difference between in and out of the main season. During the peak, a bit of mizzle would have slowed things down a little not removed business altogether.
It did at least allow me a worry free trip to the gymnasium where I resumed my normal length blistering sessions. In previous years I would have gradually worked back up to the full session. I guess that I really had not clipped the sessions by that much as extending the session did not bother me at all.
So much so that I took the girls for a spin as soon as I got back. I took them down to the Harbour beach that we had almost to ourselves. We had avoided it during the season so as not to annoy the various other users down there. Earlier, we had gone down in the dark with my headtorch. It was more intensely gloomy that proper dark and I was able to track the girls by the reflective strips on their harnesses. That became a little tricky when they did their normal thing of wanting to be at opposite end of the beach.
The quietness ended around the middle of the day when the mizzle cleared a little, and the cloud seemed to break up a bit. It remained dry, sort of, for the rest of the afternoon but the mist came back and sat above us like a big warm duvet. It really was the last thing we wanted as the warm, wet southwesterly brought humidity that eventually had us feeling like we were walking through glue.
Into this arrived our hooded sweatshirts. I had asked that the delivery be deferred until the first week of September when I might have more time to process it. As it turned out, I had plenty of time to process it; I had nothing else to do. I do not know how long it took but I was able to devote most of my time to it with very few interruptions.
The deferment did not introduce too much of a delay to the normal delivery time but even so, I still managed to sell an unexpected number of one size that has now left me short of 2XL garments in that colour. It may not matter as it could be weeks before we sell another hooded sweatshirt in that size and colour but there again …
Towards the middle of the afternoon, I had given up trying to fill the empty hours with any meaningful work. Over the last few days, I had completed several orders that will see us into next year. Our man from our main beachware supplier called to tell me he will be coming next week to show me the new season’s custom gifts. These will be emblazoned with the name of The Cove so all those little mites who have been named after it can have lots of goodies with their name on it. Trouble is that we will need to do a stock check of all the custom goods we bought last year.
The buying of Cove named goods for children named after The Cove has been going on for some while and some of the little mites must be getting on a bit. Perhaps we should be looking at more grown up gifts with the name on, such as Cove beer bottles and Cove steering wheel covers – surely dads still get them for Christmas. I really think we should be planning ahead with Cove Zimmer frames and Cove incontinence pants.
Quite amazingly, we had a five minutes to closing rush after being quiet all day. Last minute presents for the children you left at home and, having been enjoying yourself without them, suddenly remember you should take home gifts before you leave, I can sort of understand. Why you suddenly need flip flops at six o’clock defeats me.
I watched some television in the evening for the first time in six weeks. I discovered that I had not missed it. I also had tea on my lap instead of at my desk and only realised later that I forgot to place an order. Unlike the summer rush, it will wait another day.
The girls required a last run out in the evening since the Missus had not been up to The Farm late. I think the likelihood of that is now gone for the winter. The mizzle had returned in a very light way and the mist was getting thicker. I have no idea what the forecast is for tomorrow but, with the wind staying in the southwest, I imagine some more mist to come.
September 1st - Tuesday
You can instantly tell that the holidays are over: the wind dropped and the sun came out; blue skies, fluffy white clouds and mermaids frolicking on the rocks, no doubt. Last week and before, during the morning twenty or thirty people would be gathered around outside, dropping in for breakfast goods or going in next door to have it made for them. We now have a few groups of five or so milling about. It is a new world.
It is a world where there is more opportunity to have a little fun to make the day run along in a more delightful way. Well, it does for the grumpy shopkeeper; the customer may feel differently. For example, a lady approached the counter with a punnet of mushrooms that she did not expect to find in our little backwater store. Delighted though she was, she felt it necessary to query why they had to come from Poland. Eager not to stray into such a political territory I told her that they were not, in fact, from Poland. The signage indicated that there were our very finest mushrooms and I had taken care to ensure that each individual mushroom looked its best. The label merely indicated that they had polish.
We move swiftly along to an errant shower of rain that swept through The Cove in the middle of the morning, just as things were beginning to bump along quite nicely. I was blissfully unaware of it until a bunch of very wet people pressed into the shop. The shower, while brief, had been unexpectedly heavy and had caught a number of people out. It produced an unexpected flurry of activity in the shop which dissipated as quickly as it had formed.
It was not the last flurry of activity but all the others we had during the day were not rain induced. It was nowhere near as busy as the same time last week, even in poorer weather, but for an ‘out of season’ day, it was reasonably respectable. What was not respectable was the level of pasty sales (sorry, MS) that have dropped through the floor. I have noted before just how difficult the transition to quiet is and pasty ordering is one of the hardest things to achieve.
Over the last six weeks or so ordering 50 to 60 pasties a day is normal. Any less and the world comes to an end. It is very hard to switch to ten pasties a day and be convinced that it will not. With minimum ordering, the pasties now need to be ordered every other day, which makes it even harder.
With customer visits turning sporadic, I was able to have a good geek at the big beach during the day. Midway into the afternoon, under a bright sky, the beach, still showing off its spring tide sandbars, was busy at both top and bottom. There was a small host of paddlers, swimmers and surfers roughly in the middle, doing what those respective parties do in the water. Up by the dunes, quite a few more than yesterday, was a sprawling collection of camps stretching out as far as The Valley. Down the middle of the beach was dotted with several perambulators widely dispersed. It was certainly that sort of day.
Business petered out after about four o’clock. By five o’clock our end of The Cove had gone peculiarly quiet. The only thing to shatter the silence apart from the occasional passing car or motorcycle was the incessant cry of a young herring gull. I do not know if it was a distress call, but it was certainly distressing me. It has been having a go for the best part of a week. Because only my right false ear is operational it has given the effect that the squeak from coming from one of the chillers at the far end of the shop. It was only a chance conversation this morning that confirmed it was the gull. If it carries on, it will be more than bleddy distressed.
Part of the silence was the absence of any waves breaking on the rocks or the shore. We had gone from waves breaking over the Harbour all 24 hours ago to hardly a ripple on the bay at all. There must have been some underlying swell still because there were some surfers having a good time on the waves breaking slightly offshore on the main beach. There were also a few more, lower in the tide, around the sandbars. A couple of hours before high water, they had nearly all disappeared.
We all sat down to tea, a roast dinner at that, for the first time in six weeks. Very pleasant it was too as we gazed out over the bay. There were still a couple of wall jumpers, stalwart until the end and, the Missus noticed, two boarders paddling out to the northwest. As we watched they kept going and then going some more. Probably nothing to it as they looked confident, but I sent a message out on the crew gossip page for an eye to be kept.
They eventually stopped around a quarter mile off the north of Cowloe and started handlining. Slowly, they drifted back into the bay when I called off the watch. It did not look like they had caught anything which was an awful lot of effort for an empty dinner plate.
The Missus went back up to The Farm after she had taken Mother home. She was back again before half past eight as the light was failing and it can be a bit spooky up there in the gloom. It underlines the shortening of the days, and the end of season will be on us before we know it. It also meant I did not have to take the girls around last thing, so I took myself off to bed instead.