It is 1:30pm already, and my bus back to Mullion is arriving soon. I have just spent the last few hours walking and photographing the six miles from Mullion Cove to Porthleven on the Southwest Coast path. I am feeling proud of myself, hot, sweaty, and ready for home.I sit on a rock wall by the main road that skirts the sheltered harbor, eating a freshly grilled burger and onions, bought from the food tent just across the street.
"Real Cornish beef, just caught this morning," said the barbecue cook. "Perfect flame grill, too--12 months of black on it." His enthusiasm as chef is matched by his prowess. The burger is good. Or maybe I’m particularly hungry. The melting Snickers bar I ate an hour ago has worn off.
A local festival is going on, a fundraiser for something called the Porthleven Gig Club. People mill around a small green to buy home-baked breads and cakes, grilled burgers and hot dogs, and--yes--freshly brewed tea poured from teapots instead of an urn. Kids kick footballs around, shoppers flow through a lane of flea-market tents, and toddlers waddle around in the sun with parents in tow.I am across the street from the hubbub, joined on my rock wall by a wiry man with thinning gray hair, my self-appointed companion of the moment. He is wearing an aqua-and-green cravat under a striped long-sleeve shirt. His smile is wide over deeply tartared teeth; I remind myself to floss more often. He holds the last quarter of a blackened hot dog in its bun, undoubtedly obtained at the same tent where I bought the burger.
He had stopped in his sidewalk stroll to ask if I was taking a break. I told him I'd just walked from Mullion Cove.
You should be part of our gig, then," he smiled and sat down beside me. "The gig," he said, indicating the long crewing-like boats and their many oars waiting to be launched in the harbor, "is 300 years old. Used to meet the ships coming into the harbor and steer them in.
"Every port in Cornwall has one, and we all meet at each other's port for an annual race. Helps us raise money for the boats. They cost £15,000. Course the tide's out right now, but later in the evening it'll be in and the race will start."
"The tide is out" is an understatement--every fishing boat and dinghy in the harbor rests in mud.
He asks where I’m from and I tell him the Seattle area.
"My best friend is from America," he offers as I finish my burger and pick the onions from the paper. "Came to spend three years with the Royal Navy here as a transfer. Really fine fellow. Everybody liked him. Went back home. We'll be going to Boston soon for a visit. He lives 300 miles from there. He's going to take us to Civil War sites. Fascinating that. And I want to see the site of the Tea Party.
"He's into computers now, Rick is. I absolutely detest the things. I'd rather have a steam-powered radio, I would."
He is on a roll, and has forgotten the cooling hot dog in his hand. "One thing I hold against the Americans, though."
"What's that?"
"What they did to that British man's body. Dug it up and cut in into pieces so everybody could have one."
"Who was that?" I am expecting some historical figure I'd forgotten; cutting up bodies as relics is an outmoded practice from what I hear.
"Alistair Cooke. Was in all the papers. 'Bout three months ago."
What? Masterpiece Theatre Alistair Cooke? Surely not. I snorted, suspecting that he'd been reading a British version of the National Enquirer. "Sounds like some saint being chopped up for distribution."
"Oh, he wasn't that famous," he says seriously. "He wrote the history books and programs about America. But why they had to do that..."
He trails off, and I turn the topic to Cooke’s contribution to the world, which he warms to. My bus soon arrives, I bid my old friend good luck on the race, and he wishes me well on my travels.
The walk north today was much the same as going south, only with the Atlantic on my left and more signs of civilization to pass by: the Marconi Center and a monument commemorating the first transatlantic telegraph transmission; the Mullion Golf Course, which runs right alongside beach grasses; a Porthleven man cutting his lawn with an electric mower (yes, complete with extension cord) that’s as quiet as a vacuum cleaner; sunbathers--almost fully clad--seeking sand or flat rocks to lay on; a row of lookalike houses cum B&Bs, self-catering units, and holiday rentals along the Porthleven harbor.
The world changed subtly around me on the walk. Cliffs and my distance from them altered the sounds of waves from rolling to foaming to crashing to silence. Smells shifted on the wind--cows and sea and seagulls--and my skin felt hot sun, cool breezes, muggy and sticky sea air, chilled shade from the rare boulder or building. Vast views of the coast dropped to enclosed beaches and a freshwater pond, gave way to rock walls and paved roads between homes on the way into Porthleven. On a footpath, it's always worth looking back as well as up and ahead.
It was a day to notice small things—flowers and butterflies, stones and birds, a kestral hovering on the breeze--none of it the same, each moment newly minted. Granite faces eroded smoother one windsweep at a time. The path eroded deeper from my row of footfalls. The trails moved closer to cliff edges with each blow-off of sand.Arriving back at Mullion, I take cream tea refreshment at Colrogers Creamery, a deli that David and Lisa from Farmborough had said to look for. It is a block from where the bus dropped me off.
There I meet Ann, 73 years old, an amazing historian of British and contemporary events, sharp as a tack. She was born in Hertfordshire (north of London), and moved with her mother to Cornwall in the 1960s. She lives in Mullion now. I ask if I can join her for tea as I wait for fresh scones from the oven. She's about halfway done with hers.
I sugar and cream my tea, and she begins to tell me about the British monarchy and many Scottish skirmishes. I listen attentively, for being in the actual country of these events brings a new life and perspective to otherwise dry historical facts. By the time I am slathering butter, thin homemade raspberry jam, and extra-click clotted cream on my hot scones, she has moved on to World War II and touched on the Romans, with a few American-British tidbits thrown in. "But the best thing that ever happened to Britain was the Ice Age," she proclaims, "when it broke away from the Continent." And that "Edinburgh has one thing wrong with it. It has no river. Every proper city has a river."By now, her pot of tea has diluted to "gnat's pee" from so many refills of hot water. I pour into both our cups from my fresher pot, and she moves on to more personal topics. She used to raise chickens during the war, but didn't live on a farm. "I lived in a psychiatric ward when I was young, and used to run away from the asylum to visit London theatre." She says this with a twinkle in her eye, and I can picture the mischievous girl she once was. "The asylum folks got used to my absences, and they never gave me any trouble for it."
She reminisces about Dorie, a non-egglaying chicken they had for Christmas dinner, and about Charlie, another chicken they ate the next year. "He was a marvelous cockerel. Used to drive Danny [another rooster] all over the yard for the ladies."
Soon both our teapots are empty, my belly is full of jam and scones, and my waistline is filled with another dose of butter fat. I bid this other new old friend goodbye and head back to the cabin, stopping by Julia's shop and happily finding her there (it’s Sunday).
We visit in between customers and have fun making stamped swatches to sew to my visor. I select personally mixed teal and purple paints, flower and sun stamps, and a charming bird stamp inspired by a Mexican pattern Julia had seen on her travels.
We laugh like school girls and make plans to visit the Eden Project (a self-sustaining biodiversity center) together the next time I’m in Cornwall. She’s promised to mail me a hag's stone (a sea pebble that has a natural hole through it) for good health, and I’ve promised to keep in touch over postcards and email.
I walk the remaining quarter mile to my cabin, grateful for a perfect day of solitude plus friendship.Postscript: The Alistair Cooke story apparently has some gruesome truth to it, but it’s more about reputed mortuary-based bone snatchers than grave diggers, and was an event in Dec 2005. Google Alistair Cooke + bones, if you're into that kind of thing.
