The Sennen Cove Diary

September 10th - Tuesday

The day started out a lot better than it ended up. Even by the middle of the day it was looking grey and feeling cold. Once again, it looked like we missed the bulk of the rain, although it was not very heavy, that cut across the middle of the duchy all east of us.

The sea was in some turmoil early with the tide high. It was rough and sizeable waves were pushing in with a good bit of nothwesterly wind behind them and did not look all that inviting. Even at low water, it looked pretty disorderly and the whole of the beach front was just a mess of white water. It was good enough to allow some swimmers into the shallows but only one or two suffers thought it good enough to try the waves further out.

Our man from that end said that most of the jellyfish have moved off now and up the north coast to St Agnes and Newquay. We wish them well in their new home.

I had not ordered much the previous evening and therefore had little to do in the shop in the morning. I have not done any soft drinks bottling up in the last couple of days as not much has shifted. I was also keen to avoid bringing more into the store room while matey from the solar company was working in there. Things are not moving fast enough to keep topping them up and I leave it now until a line of product is starting to look a little thin just to make the endeavour worthwhile.

One line of products looking very thin to the point of us not having any is the spades. Another is the windbreaks, although we would have enough of those to see us through until the end of the season. The common factor between the two is that they come from the same supplier and if we are to place an order, best do it for everything. I had not quite anticipated running out so close to the end of the season, but they are somewhat essential for a shop in our location and not having them would be a bit of an embarrassment – along with all the other embarrassments.

The rain did not hold off forever for us at the western tip. A wave of mizzle blew through and cleared the street. It improved for an hour or more despite the Meteorological Office’s insistence that it was raining in a mediocre way all afternoon. I spent the last couple of hours almost on my own which gave me plenty of time to finalise the order for spades and windbreaks. It is quite a substantial order and will arrive on a pallet. Just when we thought we had finished with all our heavy lifting for the season.

I really am going to have to find a project to occupy me that I can carry out in the shop between customers. It is only going to get quieter now in the run down to half term and our eventual closing for the season. It was terminally tedious just the few hours in the late afternoon today, so I will have to rack my pitiful excuse for brains before they cease from lack of use. Something physical would be best, although I might find myself not being fagged to do whatever it was. I did have a think by wondering around the shop floor for inspiration and all I came up with was the gaps in the stock, particularly the greetings cards and surf jewellery – again – both of which cost money. I will need to do something about both of those but I still need to find something cheaper to do. Suggestions on a postcard, please, because at least it would give me something to do reading them.

I was called to our regular Operations Team meeting across the road at the Lifeboat station tonight. It had stopped raining by then and was trying hard to stop mizzling too. It achieved both by the time the meeting was finished. I am convinced even more that my false ears are not working because I heard very little of what was discussed at the meeting, although that could equally be because I was not listening. I am having my ears checked at the doctor’s on Monday, which will be a welcome distraction while they empty my arm of blood. I will know more then, if I am still conscious.

By the time I took ABH out for her last spin, the mizzle had cleared up completely. Despite a bit of breeze from the northwest that was still hanging on, it was comfortably temperate. Just a shame it could not have been there earlier.

September 9th - Monday

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water …

ABH and I met up with a couple of keen cold water swimmers on the Harbour beach. They were looking tentatively at the rather stormy looking waves crashing in front of their feet but were distracted by the arrival of ABH who went over to say hello. I caught up a few moments later and discovered that it was the jellyfish soup that was putting them off. One lady said that she had been stung a few days earlier and was not keen to repeat the experience.

On further enquiry, the lady was convinced it was a compass jelly fish that got her as it was brown. I repeated what I had read from the MSC, and we looked around at some of the jellyfish being washed in. We did not see any compass jellyfish but there were some moon jellyfish and a few of what we presumed to be the mauve stinger, being as they were mauve – I was told. We made an assumption about the stinging part.

The lady told me that, on reflection, they probably would not swim today.

I think that they would have struggled to swim very far against the very robust northwesterly that had found its feet during the night. It brought a deep chill with it that had me wondering about the advisability of continuing to wear shorts. Some warmth seeped into the day a little later as the sunshine took hold, but it was never going to get the better of that wind that refused to let up.

It took a while for our visitors to consider stepping out to brave the world. To begin with, we were very slow right up to the point when I needed to order pasties (sorry, MS) for the following day. Estimating what we might sell today I struggled to put a minimum order together for tomorrow. The only way I could resolve it was to place an order for the next two days and miss out tomorrow, which is what I did. Cue the world, her boyfriend, his great uncle Gertrude, the family cat and its adopted gerbils all turning up over the next few hours demanding pasties, cheese pasties and sausage rolls to beat the band. We are now in a position that we do have too many pasties for tomorrow but not enough for the day after. There is not enough slack for a minimum order and we are in the same position that we started in but a day later. I really should not tinker with nature like that.

Our solar man turned up as promised this morning. I had expected him to cast an eye around the place and perhaps install the back board for the inverter in the store room. Instead, he was here the whole day drilling holes in walls to accommodate the cable runs and generally making good all the groundwork for the full install a little later. If for nothing else, his visit was immensely valuable for discerning that he could tap into the shop’s supply upstairs and that the only disruption downstairs would be the installation of the inverter and its feed cables into the store room. The shop would not need to be disturbed at all. The only toenail in the bechamel sauce would be that the Missus would have top give up a small part of her book cupboard to accommodate the switch gear upstairs. A small price to pay – unless you are the Missus. She will need to be told, preferably when I am somewhere else and even more preferably, by someone else.

Starting somewhere near the end of the morning, business took off. We were busy throughout most of the rest of the afternoon and were, as I noted, cleared out of pasties. Everything went from groceries as expected to gifts, hooded sweatshirts and t-shirts and several of our expensive Dunoon mugs. It was a day that met my expectations for where we are in the year but given the weather forecasts - regardless of the actual weather – we will be poorly served for the rest of the week. It still amazes, and to some degree, irritates, that each week I am being told that next week is looking good. Our pasty man had the decency to tell me that a cold snap was coming and, at the time, it seemed like it had already arrived. I had already noticed that a cold front was due to sweep down from the north during tomorrow, so that was probably spot on.

The last hour of opening was pretty quiet. We sold mainly logs and kindling that fortunately our supplier had been good enough to deliver on the same day that I had ordered. Otherwise, most people had dashed for the warmth of their billets and I could probably not blame them. ABH and I took a stroll out after tea and the wind and the chill, while refreshing after a day in the shop, were not the best for wandering about in at length and with little purpose. Even those walking to a destination I doubt were overly delighted by it.

Definitely, time to call it a day.

September 8th - Sunday

I think that dusk enjoyed itself so much last night that it decided to come back and have another go this morning. I am not sure that I recall such a dark and dour morning in the early days of September before and is representative of the weather in general this year.

It seems that we were lucky despite the grim start. Rain descended from the north and piled through the Duchy from mid Cornwall to the border and beyond. We endured some mist and dampness, but it warmed up from the chill we had in the morning and was largely only slightly breezy and rain free.

My main focus of the day was to clear the remainder of the cash and carry order and then clear the back end of the store room. The surveyor from the solar company is arriving tomorrow morning and I am informed that he will also be doing some pre-installation work. I had been mindful of not loading too much into the space ever since we agree that the inverter was going to go there. This paid off to a degree because most of what was there were larger discrete units like cases of water and toilet tissue and very little in the way of small bits and pieces.

Through careful diligence and also by not having much left to do, alright, it was mainly not having much left to do, I managed to finish off by the middle of the afternoon. I am hoping it is sufficient for what our man wants to do but it should not take too long to empty the shelves that sit alongside the rear wall. It has meant, however, that the carefully cleared floor of the store room is piled high with cases of water and toilet tissue. It might well be used on a game show to represent a thesis written about a famous 1812 battle, perhaps*.

For the last several days I have been hearing reports of number of jellyfish gathering on the big beach. I saw one down on the Harbour beach, but it had been otherwise unaffected. It has become an increasing issue and led yesterday to the beach being closed off by the Lifeguards. The predominant species is thought to be Pelagia Noctiluca or mauve stinger, because they give a nasty sting. I have no idea what colour they are. One of the Lifeguards told me about them and said that a sting he had received a few days earlier was still making his hand numb. The Marine Conservation Society, where I had the information from, is aware and suggests the invasion is due to persistent south westerly currents bring them from warmer waters.

I spoke with a local lad toward the end of the day after he finished his shift in the café next door. He told me that the Harbour beach was now full of them, too. ABH had not long come back and seemed unaffected, and the Missus never said anything. Perhaps they did not notice them and ABH is immune. I doubt it and I shall be very careful if we head down there in the next few mornings.

Those small gods of grumpy shopkeepers must be rolling around on their marble floors, laughing their bleddy heads off. Poor weather, fewer visitors, bus strikes – and buses not running, much maligned council bin removal and now bleddy jellyfish – oh, and poor weather. Never kick a man when he is down; he might get up again, although it is not looking all that likely just at the moment.

I usually have my ear to the ground to be able to hear the distant rumbling of most things heading our way that may affect our business. However, it was a customer who alerted me to a forthcoming increase in the price of postage stamps. I quickly looked up on the Internet and the price of first class stamps is set to rise by a whopping 22 percent to £1.65 from its current £1.35 at the beginning of October. The price of international stamps will increase to £2.80 from £2.50, a price that already raises a few eyebrows amongst our foreign visitors.

I was already poised to order some second class stamps, which are not going up but I added some first class to cushion the blow a bit. I had been about to buy quite a pile of international stamps, too, but was glad that I checked first. I ordered one sheet and will probably run out but better than then being left with them as they have the price marked on them whereas the first and second do not.

The problem with postage is only likely to get worse. Several times this year I have reminded people that reel at the price of a stamp, the cost of the ‘last mile’. It is the bit that none of the competitors want to do for ordinary mail and the most expensive bit. The postie cannot easily be replaced by automation, like much else in the process. It seems that the vicious cycle is set to continue: fewer people post letters as the price rises and the price rises because fewer people post letters.

Our day was not the most inspiring, neither the weather nor the business we had despite both probably being better than that east of Camborne. There was not much ordering to do at the end of the day, although quite pleasingly, fresh fruit and vegetables are selling well. I have yet to stabilise the milk volumes but that really is not so much of an issue and I am beginning to get to grips with pasty sales (sorry, MS). Logs are the new best seller as the evenings become chilly and I must remember to order some more.

I took ABH down to the Harbour beach in the evening, on the lead to begin with. There was no evidence of jellyfish on the sand, but we had arrived just short of high water so none had the opportunity to be stranded. We wandered around the block after that, blown around by an increasing northerly breeze and yes, it is getting chilly either end of the day.

September 7th - Saturday

We had a call yesterday from one of the organisers of the Sennen village community fun day telling us that it would not be such a fun day in the weather they had been told to expect and had therefore postponed it. We had purchased some fizzy pop to donate for the event that would have been picked up tomorrow. We shall now hang on to it until the rearrangement.

The weather forecast subsequently changed. It still looked a bit mucky for tomorrow but not as bad as first advertised, which did not surprise me at all. Instead, it appeared that we would get a guts of rain from the middle of the afternoon today when previously the whole day would be clear. Up until that point we had enjoyed a fairly benign morning of bland alrightness and hardly any customers. Since we had hardly any customers when the weather was dry and reasonably inviting, I had no great expectations for the later afternoon in the rain and was not disappointed.

One thing that did disappoint me was the first customer of the day wanting to return a loaf of bread. It was one of our plastic loaves, so full of preservatives that they would outlast the pyramids if not consumed first. The lady had bought it yesterday with its best before date due to expire at the end of the day. She wanted to change it because the best before date was now today and it would clearly become putrid and inedible by midnight.

I tried hard to explain the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘sell by’ and that by eating the bread even a few days hence would not lay her out in bed with food poisoning. I suggested that the difference in taste and flavour from three days previous would, in all likelihood, be completely undetectable. She was unconvinced and asked again to change it to which I agreed should she cover the cost of the new loaf – which incidentally had the same best before date. I do not think I have won a repeat customer, somehow.

Our big cash and carry delivery arrived a little later than I anticipated but since the order was smaller than during the summer and the start of the shop day almost inevitably slow, there was no problem with it. As usual, I moved half the delivery and the delivery driver the heavy half. I was thankful that they sent a big strapping lad who could carry two cases of water at a time. Having seen that, I let him take all the heavy stuff rather than show myself up by trying to compete. I made a mental note to blister a bit more in my blistering sessions at the gymnasium.

At the close of last weekend I was very aware that our customer numbers would drop dramatically. Being a very forward looking smart Alec, I dropped the volumes of newspapers across the board in anticipation. Having seen out the week with the new numbers, it seems that I am not quite as clever as I thought I was, which should not have surprised me since it had been a regular feature of my life thus far. What I failed to comprehend that while there was indeed a drop in the overall numbers of customers, the ratio of Daily Mail readers saw a marked increase. I recognised my mistake during the week but through various distractions I failed to make the appropriate amendments to our order and thus I was today embarrassed by running out of Daily Mails again but much earlier than the rest of the week. I will say in my defence, the other titles were perfectly arranged, it was just the Mail. It is done now but will take until Tuesday before being in force – if, of course, the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company do not change it themselves in the meanwhile.

Our rain arrived around four o’clock. Looking at the rain radar, it had come close several times from around two o’clock but had parted at just the right moment to let us be. When it did arrive, it was reasonably heavy and pretty much killed off trade for the evening. It was not too upsetting as we had squeezed what was possible out of a particularly poor business day. There had been some sort of event down on the beach that a neighbour and I thought might have been the annual end of season surfing shindig they have down there, but were not sure. That too would have pulled people in that direction rather than ours.

I decided it was not worth taking ABH around after tea as it was still raining heavily. I took her around last thing, and it was still raining but not so heavily as earlier. It looked set in for the night, so it was best to shut it out for the night and retire.

September 6th - Friday

Those people at the Meteorological Office are naughty tinkers. They had us on with three days of weather warnings to frighten the pants off us then, ho, ho, ho, it was all a jolly jape. Sure enough, the good folk in the Cotswolds got a bit damp for a while but there again you cannot expect to live in picture postcard villages and not have a bit of bad luck. No, we basked in sunshine today, and when it was not proper sunshine, it was bright enough and positively warm through the light northeasterly breeze.

Along with our improved weather came improved numbers of customers. There were not so many that I could not squeeze in clearlng the store room bit by bit and the remainder of the stationery order left from yesterday. The wine I ordered in a bit of a hurry yesterday morning, hoping to catch the delivery that day, came today. It was very good of them because I had clearly missed the orders for that day, so they made a special trip with no fuss at all.

I cannot say that for all our customers, however. There seems to be a bit of anguish over the expectation of receipts. Those few people who want them, seem to be affronted when they are not automatically forthcoming. Most complainers use the term, ‘do I get a receipt?’ to which I politely enquire whether they want one or couch it as, ‘if you ask for one, you do’. The fact of the matter is that hardly anyone wants a receipt, and it seems pointless producing one if the customer is simply going to ask me to put it in the bin. So, when I was told today that, ‘it seems that receipts are a thing of the past’, I explained to the customer the hard facts about it. I suggested that it he wanted a receipt he should politely request one and we would be more than happy to provide it and that there was no need for oblique comments. If he expected it automatically, he would, more often than not, be sorely disappointed. It seems that asking, ‘can I have a receipt, please’ is a thing of the past.

While not fighting with unruly customers, I set to on clearing some shelves in the store room. It seemed safe now to get the stock out onto the shop shelves where there is less of a chance now of them selling and therefore we would not have the fag of having to order more. This is not such a problem with the perishable goods that if left long enough, go out of date and can be thrown away. I managed to sustain this proper work for a couple of hours until it became tedious, and I had to stop for the good of my health. I left clearing the last few items on the floor until later when I could panic and have to do it all in a rush.

I had been looking forward to spending some time setting up my new, previously used, smart mobile telephone but the good people at Doing Parcels Dreadfully decided that they would not deliver it today. They did not say when they would deliver it, so I shall have to remain on tenterhooks until then. The case for it also did not arrive as expected, which was a relief because it would just have rubbed my nose in the telephone’s absence.

Clearly, this was not the most pressing problem when the Missus could not find her lamb stock cubes. When I went up for a cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon, I was pressed into searching a high cupboard for them. They were not there, and I did not have time to stop and search other high cupboards. The Missus concluded that she would need her folding stool so that she could continue to search by herself.

When we had the new porch built, we asked specifically that one window be large enough to climb in and out of so that we might more easily access the flat roof, where the Missus some years ago laid plastic turf. Do not believe the traditionalists who tell you that it is not remotely like the real thing; we have weeds growing all over the roof. Anyway, I digress. To access the outside, we need to use the folding stool. Three guesses where the folding stool is.

The afternoon saw some broadly better weather than the morning. The warmth had really settled in, and it was generally brighter too. There was hardly a ripple in the bay which concentrated an army of hopeful surfers on the tip of the large sandbank that strikes out from the beach car park end. There, an occasional wave broke the monotony of the wait and allowed a gentle roll in on a board if you were lucky enough to be in the right place.

Up at the top of the beach was a small line of windbreaks and tents. It was a pretty pleasant day to be lazing on the beach, if you like that sort of thing and well done to those who did not put too much store in a forecast that was patently wrong yesterday. How much it affected our trade today is debatable, but it would have put some people off, no doubt.

We had a little bit of a rush in the later part of the afternoon but too soon to be a five minute to closing rush. The ice cream kiosk was closed again today, so we had a stream of refugees come ice cream time. I spoke with our neighbour later in the day and it seems, like us, they are juggling priorities with other businesses and family. Not everyone is content to swap a local scoop ice cream with a national brand lolly, but we sold quite a few ice creams, nevertheless.

At this time of year there are fewer people that we know turning up. It is always good to see them, of course, because they are part of the fabric of life here in The Cove. Earlier in the year, we had our friends from The North and today, after a longer absence, we had our friends from so far north of Camborne you would have to stand on a chair to see it. They arrive later in the year, at least two years apart, because obviously it takes longer to get here. They are hoping to get back home by Christmas.

What with meeting people and last minute shoppers, I found myself sorely pressed to close the shop on time. I also had not done the newspapers and remembered just in time. Having usually only time to criticise the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company, I have to say that the recycling collections have been worth every penny I have not paid for them – the first six weeks were free. Even if I had, it was a mere bagatelle against having to cope with excess cardboard piled up in the store room. The acid test will be stopping the service and restarting it next year when I anticipate a gruesome battle of wills.

The tides are still restraining our use of the beach in the mornings and the evenings. Walking around the block is just not the same as being able to range on the beach and there still is no one to play with. Even when there is, with bigger dogs she usually blots her copy book by leaping at them and barking instead of being polite. She seemed quite keen to rush home this evening and completely missed the cat sticking its tongue out at her from the wall above. She met face to face with it once, which resulted in a shocked 30 second stand off before the cat came to its senses and made a quick exit. I am not sure ABH knows what it is or what to do with it. Ah, the innocence of youth. She will soon learn about age and cynicism.

September 5th - Thursday

My forecast appeared to be entirely accurate, and I even did it yesterday rather waiting for today. The wind had gone around to the northeast and plagued me all morning. It was not a particularly cold wind, just colder than it would have been if it had not been blowing at all or coming from somewhere in the south. When it started coming in laced with a bit of rain, as it did during the morning, I decided the sensible thing to do was to give up and close the first electric sliding door in The Cove. It dropped out some in the afternoon and probably went a little further to the east and was not half so keen, allowing me to set the first electric sliding door in The Cove back to open again.

Despite the dire weather forecast for today – go build an ark if you can afford the timber – we were quite upbeat for the morning. I had taken fright and put a rain jacket on for the morning walk with ABH. It was not until I got out that I realised that the little lumps of rain on the rain radar were going the other way and had already missed us. Oddly, I do not recall it being that breezy, but perhaps I am just used to it now. It was later in the morning that everyone else took fright and disappeared for the day – probably to St Ives; it always rains in St Ives.

I had not had very much time in the last day or two for distractions, but I was aware that my smart mobile telephone was showing signs of last leggedness. It was a hand-me-down from a Lifeboat chum who very kindly donated an old one of his. That was a few years ago, I think. I did manage to identify that new smart mobile telephones worth having were an awful lot of money and in a year when things are a little tight, that was not helpful.

Today, given that we ended up being extremely quiet and I was left with not a great deal to do, I looked a bit closer. There were a couple of telephones at the lower end of the market with a just about affordable price, but they did not exactly have rave reviews. I was painfully aware of the age old saying that grumpy shopkeepers at the tail end of rubbish years have to be grateful for the smart mobile telephones they can afford, but I was keen to explore a bit further.

There are so many different types and models even within a single manufacturer’s range that I decided to look at one supplier’s website for more information. It was as I was scanning down the list of telephones they supply, which was legion, that I noticed the inclusion of ‘certified refurbished’ telephones at half the cost of the originals. Most were a couple of years old, but provided I could make telephone calls, take photographs and it would run the programs that I use to order and pay for things, I was not particularly bothered. Bingo. It arrives tomorrow.

The promised rain appeared in the afternoon, although it did not appear to be as heavy as advertised. It did look like a good pasting was following north of the Thames from London and ended up somewhere in South Wales. Quite what they had done to deserve that we can only guess at.

The rain did not stop trade completely and we had visitors come and go, wrapped up for the weather. One visitor that I thought would have been better prepared was a walker, sporting all the kit from decent walking boots to expensive and bulging backpack. He came in for one of our plastic kagouls, already wearing a flimsy cheap affair. You might imagine that a good set of waterproofs were de rigueur for such people. Another was a man planning to jog from Land’s End to John O’Groats. He told me he had postponed his start because of the weather. The run might take him a while if he is only going to do it when the sun is shining, especially this year.

Ordinarily, it would have been an afternoon of boredom and scrabbling around for things to occupy me. Although there was a bit of that, I managed to top up the fridge magnets the lack of which was irritating me, we also had two deliveries in the afternoon. They came together in the same van, the first being the postcard fudge boxes that I had let run down to nearly nothing and the other was the stationery order in rather more boxes than I was anticipating. The stationery order was not going anywhere, so I dealt with the postcard fudge boxes and filled the shop shelves to completion and found space on the reserved shelves for them in the store room.

The reason for their being more cases than expected for the stationery order soon became apparent. There were 18 cases of shampoo. I suspect a key bounce that I did not notice but the company has a charge for restocking, plus the cost of sending them back would be preventative. Fortunately, there is no sell by date on such products as I think we will have them for a very long time. I do think that using it myself will help much, either. I took out what we might reasonably use before the end of the year in the shop, and packed the rest up for The Farm.

The rain was refusing to let up through to the end of the shop day and I dragged in the display items to let them drip dry on the shop floor. Later, I headed for the Lifeboat station for a meeting. Given that we launched yesterday, there was no planned launch in the evening, so we discussed training instead. There is a new regime and training system in place that has some major glitches. They will be ironed out in time but, meanwhile, we were instructed how to work the system to get around them.

We were in the station long enough for the rain, that had reached crescendo as I came across, to ease off again. When I took ABH around for her last run out just after nine o’clock, the rain had ceased completely. The tail end of it was coming through the channel north of us. The Meteorological Office promised more for tomorrow from mid-morning but a customer told me that the forecast she had seen was for a good day. I am glad we have that clear, then.

September 4th - Wednesday

There was a fair breeze blowing through The Cove from the very outset of the day. It brought a bit of a chill if you were standing in the wrong place, but the ambient temperature seemed still reasonable. The wind stayed with us for the rest of the day, all of it from the northwest, but at least it dropped down a little later in the day and in the sunshine it was very warm.

At least the forecast had little sunshines all over it when I had a geek for someone a little later. No one looks at the wind, so we had a wealth of visitors arrive and tell us how windy it was. We sold a few windbreaks on the strength of it. Occasionally, we are asked questions about the windbreaks such as how wide they are and how tall they are – erm, how tall does it look. Also, will my family fit in it and will it fit in my car. Today’s question was even more vague, which one should we choose? At times like that I fall back on the rule of thumb that if you are sitting on the sand, the short one is right and if you are in a deckchair, the taller one is more appropriate. I do not mention that it would also depend on how many people it is to cover. Why complicate matters.

We had made a quiet start, but it did not take long for some busyness to make itself apparent. There were a few people milling about when the Missus came down to let me go to the gymnasium and more still when I came back an hour later. ABH and I were unable to get down to the beach earlier in the morning on the grounds that it was dark and quite possibly, if I could see it in the dark, the tide was in. We would also have been caught up with the tractors moving about, so we were better off going around the block. I made amends by taking her down to the beach on my return from the gymnasium when we had plenty of room to run about and play. Sadly, she only really gets animated when there is another dog around to play with and we are nothing more than second best.

When I returned to the shop, we were busy. I do love September days because they are generally a bit busier than my expectations. It is not always the case, and each day is strongly weather led. It was therefore much of a disappointment when a lady, late in the day, asked about the storm being threatened for tomorrow. Since I do not look at the forecast, I had no idea. I also had no idea that today was equally yellow flagged, apparently a neighbour revealed later on. Once again, we are being told of cataclysmic rain, which I firmly believe will be no more than a few showers here and there, for us at least. They also made no mention of the wind that looks like being quite severe from the northeast. I might have to make use of the first electric sliding door in The Cove for a couple of days – if it has not ceased up through lack of use.

The RNLI grand raffle still continues to reverberate around the vicinity. I think the Missus has finished her thank you letters and the number of people collecting prizes has diminished. There are, however, two big pictures to send out at the discretion of the winners. Today, while I was about my blistering session at the gymnasium, the Missus wrapped up the prints with the plan to take them up to the post office to get a quote on how much it might cost to send. The information would be provided to the winners to see if they wished to shell out to have their prizes sent to them.

The wrapping had been done and the Missus was about to head off to get the truck when a Cornwall glazier’s van stopped outside the shop. It stopped for quite a while before the Missus could get there. It was a right pane in the glass, which sounded so much better in my head.

I had, momentarily, thought to cancel my trip to the gymnasium because a couple of hours after I got back, I was off to the Lifeboat station to wait on an exercise. The Royal Marines, here on their annual two weeks Mountain Leaders Course had suggested a joint exercise with the Lifeboat. They would have a casualty at the bottom of the cliff somewhere convenient and we would go and assist with a casualty care team and the Inshore boat to take them off. The casualty would be transferred to the big boat and all would be over by five o’clock.

We gathered at three o’clock but did not launch until forty minutes later while the Marines made themselves ready and called in their emergency. We were aware that the burgeoning swell around the cliffs may make a proper transfer unsafe for a practise and used a ‘dead Fred’ to simulate the casualty. It is not the done thing to half drown a perfectly healthy Marine just to see how we do it, apparently.

The boat was gone a little more than an hour after a successful exercise. In the meantime we had made ready in the boathouse and were suitably arranged when the boat steamed back into the bay. In fact, I was suitably arranged in the shop and had to hurry over to meet the rest of the crew. Our head launcher in training took the reins today and from where I was standing he conducted what was clearly a textbook recovery up the short slip with a pronounced swell of a couple of metres swirling about. The boat was washed down and put away without issue. We are, after all, a very efficient, very excellent Shore Crew.

Having hurried to the station, I hurried back again in time to shutdown the shop for the day. It has gone quiet by that time but we still had a five minute to closing rush, just to keep things real. I had also had to hurry the cash and carry order. I still had not properly completed it by close of play and the Missus keyed it in after I had shut my eyes for the night. It will need to be tied up and finished off tomorrow morning.

Phew, what a helter skelter of a day that was, even without a whole heap of customers.

September 3rd - Tuesday

Perhaps I should not lambast the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company quite so much. I waited until almost ten o’clock for our newspapers today. He told me the van had broken down – which would not have surprised me – but I knew I was just being punished. It missed its mark because no one came and asked for a newspaper until after they had been.

I was not the only one being punished and the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company not the only punisher. The First Bus Company were doing admirably themselves at upsetting a few customers. As usual this year, they are tardy at sending someone around to change the timetable at the bus stop. Why they cannot ask the bus driver to do it, is beyond me, probably because it is not his job and would require a change of job description and more money. They are already striking for more. I would see that as an opportunity.

Not only were there lines of people waiting for buses that would not arrive at the time advertised, the problem was exacerbated by various buses being dropped out. The biggest issue with that is that no one is quite sure if it is just late or not coming at all. From the comfort of my home I am able to see where buses are in real time, provided they have a satellite signal. Strangely, that service is not available on the First Bus app and anyway, you would need a signal on your mobile telephone which would not necessarily be available everywhere on the route. I am going to have to write to them at the end of the season to explain the errors of their various ways this year – for all the good it will do. Ah yes, it will make me feel better.

The weather was a marked improvement on yesterday. It seesawed between sunny and bright and cloudy and was warm enough. It had started out with a bit of a wind and the sea state was such that it kept the fleet in the Harbour until a bit later in the day. The wind dropped out a bit later and we enjoyed a day that we could at least be proud of.

It was gone the middle of the day before we started to see any action. It suddenly came together with the arrival of a German tour bus and its passengers, mainly ladies. The tour buses normally drop off here and the passengers head off to Land’s End without so much as a guten tag. Today, they poured into the shop for ice creams having established that the ice cream kiosk next door was closed. It reminded me that I should have placed an ice cream order earlier in the day and that I should do it before we closed unless we wanted to completely run out.

It was a day for treats. Yesterday, I had delivered to the café next door some near liquid bananas that our greengrocer company thought that I might not notice before selling them to our customers. They embarrassedly credited all of them and I took them next door to see if they could use them rather than throwing them away. Wind forward to today and the governor next door brought around some banana bread laced with walnuts. I am fond of neither product, but the fellow is a master chef and I thought it churlish not to try some at least. I was very pleasantly surprised because the flavour of neither was obvious in the eating. I was even more pleasantly surprised when I added butted to each slice and consumed rather more than was good for me.

The story does not end there, either. As with us all, the sudden end of busyness catches us all out in some way or other. For the café, it was bread which they suddenly found themselves with an abundance of that they had no use for. The Missus took it off their hands and made bread pudding which she returned after slicing off a tithe for ourselves. I now have banana bread and bread pudding to weigh me down when I stopped eating cake a few years ago. I have slipped a bit in that regard, but I suspect much of what I now have will have to be binned.

Our day turned out to be much busier than I anticipated. The charge was led by the German ladies and coincided with our farm shop cash and carry delivery. I was expecting to help the driver carry it in, but I was immediately distracted and he had to do much of it by himself. I found time to get most of it out of the shelves during the course of the afternoon. The drinks that came with it will wait until tomorrow, which will make a change since I have not had to do the bottling up since the weekend.

It crossed my mind that I could reset my alarm for a later time, but I am nervous that I might be pressed, although I probably would not be. ABH gets me up around that time anyway, but not always. I will change it by and by when I discover I am in the shop with nothing to do of a morning. It came close on Monday when I found I had time to sweep the floor. No wonder the beach is lacking sand here and there; it was all in the shop.

Perhaps I can use some of the time to clear the back of the store room. I have been communicating with the solar people and we have a surveyor arriving on Monday. I had suggested they have another look as things have changed a bit since they last looked. I had a reply that said the surveyor would also like to get ahead of the posse on the installation and do some of the preparatory work while he was here.

I was all for it, but it means having the back of the store room cleared two days after the cash and carry delivery. It will be a small order but even then, getting the back of the store clear with a pile of stock in the way will also be a tall order. I will direct the Missus to help but must make sure she does not do any of the heavy lifting which will be like asking the tide not to come in.

Talking of which, there was only a sliver of sand for us down on the Harbour beach in the evening for our walk, ABH and me. She insisted on going down anyway and since the sea state was not dangerously vigorous, I let her loose. She discovered that there was not enough sand down there to play on – told you so – and we continued our walk around the block.

We met a family at the top of the western slip looking at the rough seas floshing over the Harbour walls. ABH wanted to see what they were looking at, so I lifted her up and I fell into conversation with them who were regular visitors but ones I did not know that well. During the season and often outside it, we often meet people, either local or visitor and our walks are extended accordingly, which is great unless we are in a hurry, and I am far too polite to end the conversation prematurely. I try to make sure I am not in a hurry.

I was definitely in a hurry to get to bed when I got home; my eyes were closing. Perhaps I should set my alarm a little later, after all.

September 2nd - Monday

A better demonstration of the suddenness of the end of the holiday season, you could not have had. Today, it was like turning off switch. The weather did not help, and the weather forecast still less. There was a fair bit of rain in the mist this morning and once that had cleared out, the mist largely remained. At one point it looked like it was lifting and the sunshine taking over, but it was short lived.

At least the recycling truck made it past the bus turning point and we had our recycling collected that we carefully compiled into its appropriate bags and our food waste disposed of. Our neighbour up the hill, whose family had been down all week, had left theirs out for collection too. They asked if I could go and scoop up the empty bags and glass bin as they would be gone before the collection, and I agreed that I would do it when I took ABH around.

They had left it halfway down Stone Chair Lane, quite against the much maligned council rules that it should be left at the boundary of their property. I sense a dichotomy between the much maligned council desk jockeys and the boys on the ground. If that recycling had been left at the boundary of their property, no way in a year of recycling collections would it have been collected. As it happens, all the other recycling had gone but the bottles remained. It is unclear why they were left. Some boxes and bags next to it had been left but that had a much maligned naughty sticker on it, renouncing it as ‘mixed’. I left the bottles there and suggested our neighbour book a missed collection to see what would happen.

On the topic of waste mismanagement, the new posh public waste bins are becoming a matter of concern. It is rather the lazy waste collecting than the bins themselves. Behind the posh exterior to these units is a shabby recycled wheelie bin that does not precisely fit the space inside. This allows litter to fall between the rim of the wheelie bin and the exterior frame and collect at the bottom. The waste collectors are perfectly aware of this residue and are equally happy to leave it where it is. There is, no doubt, an issue with bending over to pick it up and without the correct picker equipment, they are powerless to act. I presume similar rules prevent them from picking up a telephone and calling a bloke (applies equally to male or female blokes) trained in the use of the appropriate picker equipment. It looks like I will have to do it myself – pick up the telephone, that is. I have an appropriate picker, but my union card is not up to date and there would be hellup.

I am sure that it will come as no surprise to you, dear reader, that despite the long list of outstanding tasks I delivered the other day, today I did none of them. In fact, dear reader, I did begger all. After finishing the morning chores and deliveries, the day emerged as a de factor day off with the exception of serving the few customers we had. I did go off to the gymnasium where I conducted the first full – almost, I knocked 1,000 metres off my row – blistering session in six weeks and, boy, did it feel like it.

The guilt got to me eventually as well as the boredom and I completed an order for our stationery supplier. They are a bit more than just stationery and supply some toiletries we cannot get from the normal cash and carry. As it turned out, I could not get them from this supplier either as they were out of stock – again. It was mainly the toiletries that drove the order but to make minimum order value I had to spread the net wider. Having discovered that the toiletries were absent I had a make a bigger order of the other things, which was not in the least helpful.

Earlier in the day I had the foresight to reduce the number of newspapers we would have delivered commensurate with the drop in customers wanting them. I cannot drop them too much because having a surplus ensures that at least some of them will be dry on wet days. I had postulated that the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company worked in the open air but having consulted with the driver, it is the vans that are the problem. Apparently, more than one of them leak. I had always thought it was the driver’s own vehicle, but it seems the Laurel and Hardy Newspaper Company keep a fleet of aging, decrepit and leaking vans for their drivers to use. The organisation defies comment.

I delivered the last bundle of invoices to the Missus for sorting, keying and filing in the afternoon and she spent the evening sorting them. In truth, I will have the time to do it myself, but having just started her off, I would hate to break the momentum. The pile is as big if not bigger than the last lot and represents only the August invoices, probably around 200 of them. I will do the newspaper tickets tomorrow as penance.

ABH was sleeping the last few times I went upstairs from the shop. I knew what was coming and spent the entire evening being plagued by a bored hound wanting to play and being naughty when I thought that I could get away with reading my book for five minutes. I took her down to the Harbour beach and around the block for a change of scene but that only took half an hour. We could part way exhaust the bleddy hound with a tennis ball and a ball launcher and she would chase it continuously until I was worn out. ABH does not chase a ball, or anything other than other dogs, which are not that easy to find especially now everyone has gone home. I will walk her ragged come winter.

The day ended far better than it began and, after all, we had avoided the big rain and thunderstorms that run up the country the day before. We hope for better in the week, but I think we have a bit of sea and wind to come first.

September 1st - Sunday

Ah, the paradox of the end of busy season. I now have plenty of time to keep the shelves topped up with gifts and goods for the hordes of shoppers who are no longer here – should I find the inclination to do so.

Yes, the bubble definitely burst yesterday with a mass exodus. The weather first thing was not all that encouraging and was not likely to change things much. ABH and I got a little damp as we did a small circuit as there was a mizzle in the air. We avoided the beach because it was dark, and it looked like a small group of kayakers were heading down to launch which would have spooked the little girl. She was already growling with intent as we watched their head torches descend the western slip.

By the time the shop opened, the damp bit had stopped being damp but there was plenty of mist left and that hung around all day, although it got brighter now and again and it was perfectly warm, if you did not mind a bit of humidity with it.

The camps at the top of the beach were a sparse, a well dispersed arrangement of a few tents and windbreaks. The windbreaks were probably superfluous given the very slight draught from the southeast. They were about as effective as the surfboards quite a few unrealistically hopeful surfers took into the water and whose only utility was to prevent the owner sinking below the surface having floated in the same spot in a dead calm sea for an hour.

I did find some enthusiasm first thing. I had all the sweet boxes emptied by half past nine and the display full. Before that I had filled the drinks fridges and done the newspapers. A man on fire you might say. An hour later there was not even an ember left glowing and I coasted all the way until things picked up a little near the middle of the day. I forced myself to order some malt whisky as my stock upstairs has nearly expired. I was not in the mood to be adventurous and stuck with the ones I had ordered before, which are exceedingly palatable and some of them only cost an arm to the elbow and lower leg. I thought to purchase them now as the next ones will have to be made from nettles distilled at The Farm.

The mist thickened in the latter part of the afternoon and the damp returned for a short while. As is often the case, the sun as it dipped lower shone through from under the cloud as it neared the horizon and cheered the place up no end. It did not particularly encourage an influx of excited customers and we stuttered along until it was closing time with the occasional grocery shopper. Later, when I took ABH out after tea, we had blue skies above us as the mist retreated up the valleys all along the cliffs opposite.

It would be wrong of me to say that I regained my enthusiasm for shelf filling toward the end of the day because it was the abject boredom that spurred me on to do it. Nevertheless, the outcome was much the same but with less enjoyment and personal fulfilment, but it did pass the time adequately until I ran out of stock or at least the stock I needed. For some reason, whenever we purchase additional volumes of an item that has flown out in the previous period, it is always something else that we do not have in abundance that flies out in the ensuing period. It is something that grumpy shopkeepers just come to terms with because there is no solution to it.

I am going to have to find pet projects to take up now that we have no customers. Ones that I can do while in the shop and preferably ones that do not coat very much. The first will have to be clearing the back of the store room ahead of the solar inverter installation but that will have to wait until after the cash and carry delivery next weekend. Another will be to tidy the toy shelves at the back of the shop but I will have to wear my brave trousers to even walk down that aisle because there will be carnage, I am sure.

One local lady disappeared down while shopping a few days ago. She was gone for ages – it happens, so I was not concerned. When she emerged, she had very kindly put things back on hangers and shelves that had moved around the shop. I ended up with a bikini top on the counter for which there were no apparent bottoms. That also happens. It is the way of things and best not thought about. A grumpy shopkeeper must protect and maintain his equilibrium or give in to madness. I will not venture which applies to me.

It did not look like this during the day, darnit.

The Old Boathouse