|
|
Subject: NOVEMBER DAYS
Date: Thurs, 12 Nov 1998 21:32:20 -0000
FALMOUTH
But what DO you do all day? is the usual question we are often asked. Well this was today's plan as at yesterday morning.
08.30 Get up late if it's still raining and blowing 35knts as predicted. Turn on Radio Five Live in the chartroom next to our bedroom.
08.45 Shower ashore.
09.30 Breakfast.
09.45 to 10.45 Ships biz. (i.e. everything to do with keeping us fully operational. Change gas bottles, refill water tanks, check battery voltage etc. etc.)
11.00 Tea with the Vicar and his wife on the other pontoon aboard his 32ft. yacht.
12.30 - 13.30 lunch
13.30 - 17.30 walk over to Swanpool and the beaches on the seaward side of Falmouth.
17.30 Meet Steve the shipwright re. the new ventilation covers for our removable forward and stern windows.
18.30 Fae to cook Black-eyed Bean Bake, an experiment with pulses as described in "The Bean Book" and Annie Hills "Voyaging on a small income". Pulses are beans that are dehydrated and thus take up little space, are cheap and can be stored for very long periods. Vital for our new life!
21.30 Retire to port hull to read and use computer etc.
But what ACTUALLY happened.
It was blowing and raining cats and dogs. So much so that by morning the wind generator had boosted the 12 Volt batteries up to 13.3 volts from a low 12.2v. I ran to the showers, some, 500 yards from our outer visitor's berth, and during the course of my ablutions the Vicar arrived to wash. Tea and cucumber sandwiches are off. His wife has a bad cold but invite still on when normal "service is resumed". The Vicar is actually retired and looking forward to some longer distance sailing to the Med. Return to ship to inform spouse not to put on best kit! A meeting convened between us, objective "To revisit today's itinerary". I finish breakfast and go off to find a glass cutting firm as I'm replacing a cracked window. Said firm supposed to be in
Penryn. On with the walking boots and old cracked glass in backpack for the 2 mile walk. Wind still blowing. Arrive
Penryn, Commercial road, and see car shop and decide to ask if they have a battery charger. i.e. one that is at a non marine price. Yes, he has got one. It does all I want and I'm just about to buy it when the manager of the shop says "Ah but its not Monday, Wednesday or Friday." He then says nothing. "What is the problem?" I ask. He informs me that business hereabouts is poor so they are doing promotions.
If I'd come in on a Monday I would have got 5% off any item. If it was Wednesday, and IF I was a pensioner, (I assured him I was as I'm living off a small one, he seemed doubtful!), then it would be 10% off any item. However, on Fridays the manager could choose items that were to be sold at a reduced price. I looked at him, and as it was Thursday decided not to purchase the battery charger. I left the shop and went in search of the glass firm. Great bloke, looked at the glass, told me it was laminated, its weight, its properties "It stops 99% of UV, does that". I thought this is going to be expensive. He quoted £4.50. I ordered three, cut exactly as the old one! He said that was good as he had nothing else to do, would I come back after lunch for them? Yep, would do. Left feeling very satisfied with the deal. No "sorry it will have to be tomorrow" problems in the Cornish glass trade!
Walked on to look for the "Scoop Shop" known to be an excellent supplier of dried pulses. I needed to get some idea of bulk prices for the spring re-supply of the ship's stores. Soon entered the emporium. When she gathered I was from a boat she asked if I had read "Voyaging on a small income" yes I had ...well ... Annie Hill actually goes there for her supplies when setting off on epic trips. Ah, I thought, this must be the right person to deal with. She certainly knew her beans. Would report findings to
Fae. Next door I went into the bakery to get some Tiger bread. Four elderly ladies were watching the shop owner demonstrate her electrical skill as she beat a fluorescent ceiling light with a broom. It came on amid a burst of applause from the audience !! I purchased the bread and left quickly. I wandered out of shop, thinking of golden sands and dessert islands, straight into the Cornish rain! Walking down the hill past some, previously grand, run down stone buildings, one was
scaffolded. At the footpath level was a stone mason. I paused under the dry planked roof of the temporary scaffold.
We struck up a conversation. He explained the different types of stone and where they had come from in the quarry i.e. oxygenated or deep mined, the radioactive qualities and the several ways they had been used, and pointed out examples of the houses around us. He knew what he was talking about and had obviously spent many years repairing the town buildings. A man content in his skill. I continued down the hill past the memorial to the fifteen people who died one evening, early in the second world war, when their row of houses were wiped off the earth. They had lived too close to the little Penryn dock. I walked back to the ship in time to make the lunch. Fae was working on cleaning out the mastic from the port light frame. The Tiger bread was good, shame I over boiled the soup. I don't think Fae noticed or was too nice to point out the strange little brown bits.
Off to the supermarket on my bike to get some cheese and tomato puree for the bean bake. There must be a shortage of people who take their bikes round the shelves and also push a trolley. I thought I did it very well, but I got a lot of strange looks. I put it down to my wearing sea boots. Who knows, who cares.... Got the stores. Had a heck of a job to find the tomato puree, but the deli. lady could see I was an beginner and told me they had some cathedral mature cheddar on offer. I bought a lot but, I guess, negated the benefit of the discount.
Now, off to the Glass Co. up wind, but down hill. Both cancelled each other out! Its odd heading down a slope on a bike with 6 tons of cheese on your back yet seemingly not obeying the laws of physics! At least Falmouth had bike lanes beside the dual lane. Arrive 15.00 hrs, glass cut and waiting. Cost £13.50 - to you £12, he said. Paid up fast, thanked him, then he saw the Strida bike. You'd have thought I had driven the latest Ferrari into his shed. He liked bikes, I needed to get back to the Marina. I compromised with where it came from, who made it etc. etc. and reversed out. Uphill back, but with wind. 15.30 hrs back on boat. Won't bore you more with rest of day but I'm sure the new window will not leak and the mastic will one day wear off the decks!! That was the day so far - nobody asks twice what we do all day. Each day is different and some are great fun others more mundane.
|