Saturday, May 29, 2010
Newquay continued
Leaving the library yesterday, I found that they were as keen on unloading books as the people in Surrey and I could have as much as I could carry for £2 or one hardback for £1. So I went for the £2 option and am now the proud owner of a large if rather elderly text on bio-chemistry, an English-Turkish dictionary and a Welsh-English/English Welsh dictionary. For none of these things would I contemplate paying full price for. But I have already learned something from each one of them. So I now know something about the weak bonds which are important in organic chemicals and something about why water is such a strange and important quantity. On the Turkish front, I know that if you know no Turkish, a dictionary that only works in one direction is not much fun. Quite hard work to learn Turkish factlets when you can't go round and round. On the Welsh front, I am reminded that languages like Welsh are a bit stuffed when one wants to move then on from druids, sea weed and festivals of song. Awash with loan words to cover the contingencies of modern life. And they do not seem to have any word with approximates to our approximates. They have to make do with 'about' and 'towards' which do in some contexts but do not sound anything like as grand.
Library itself, like the town at large, full of thin, brown and slightly scruffy young people. Presumably there is plenty of action in the local DSS office. Up at Fistral beach there were lots of battered campers, by no means all VWs, parked up under the signs saying, quite clearly, 'NO OVERNIGHT PARKING'. I wonder if there was any busy brave enough to challenge them? Would they be challenged in high season? And at least one battered saloon car parked up in the town centre car park overnight, full of maybe four or five of said thin brown people who sounded as if they had been up all night and indulging themselves in something or other. Still quite full of themselves at 0930. I have never been any good at this sort of thing. Staying up all night has always been a penance rather than a pleasure and I would certainly not be very full of myself at 0930 after the event. Don't know how they do it.
Town otherwise normal in that there were maybe 5-10 charity shops. Slightly abnormal in that there were 5-10 churches. The principal church, high CofE was very large, apparently rebuilt after a fire in the nineties of the last century. Big nave, two aisles of nearly the same size, all barrel vaulted and nicely decorated. Thin gray granite columns, new but with early English features. Fancy chancel with rather Romish decorations. Lady chapel. Stations of the cross. But as far as I could make out it was CofE, coming under the Bishop of Truro. See http://www.achurchnearyou.com/newquay-st-michael/. No M&S but one gents. outfitter - which was just as well as I had forgotten to pack certain essential items of clothing. Lady in the shop very understanding. One tobacconist, just to remind us that we were indeed in the provinces. Quite a few people smoking in the street too.
On going back to the beach had a very senior moment. With all these young people bounding around in their swimming costumes and with me wrapped up in trousers, orange windproof jacket (from Millets) and sensible trainers (from Niketown), I suddenly felt old. Did not feel that I could cut the mustard on a beach of this sort any more. Maybe that is why all the older people in the water go in for boards so that they can decently wear a cover-all wet suit.
I thought the right thing to do was play watching the tide come in, a game which necessitates running quickly backwards every few minutes or so if one does not want to get wet socks. Not a bad game at all on a sunny day on the right sort of beach. Accompanied, twenty yards to the right, by the three year old playing the same game with her Mum.
While all this was going on I did learn about a new sort of surf board. A rather wide affair which you stand on holding a long handled paddle. The idea seems to be that you paddle out through the waves and then surf back in. Paddle assisted and standing all the way in both directions. I imagine that an up side is that you can surf for further and faster on quite small waves; a down side that you cannot manage big waves at all. Only two of them to what must have been a hundred or so of the paddle free people.
On the tweet front, lots of herring gulls, crows and starlings, quite a lot of these last being quite young. Some pidgeons. One kestrel, one tern and one skylark. Have to see if we can find some finches before we go.
Library itself, like the town at large, full of thin, brown and slightly scruffy young people. Presumably there is plenty of action in the local DSS office. Up at Fistral beach there were lots of battered campers, by no means all VWs, parked up under the signs saying, quite clearly, 'NO OVERNIGHT PARKING'. I wonder if there was any busy brave enough to challenge them? Would they be challenged in high season? And at least one battered saloon car parked up in the town centre car park overnight, full of maybe four or five of said thin brown people who sounded as if they had been up all night and indulging themselves in something or other. Still quite full of themselves at 0930. I have never been any good at this sort of thing. Staying up all night has always been a penance rather than a pleasure and I would certainly not be very full of myself at 0930 after the event. Don't know how they do it.
Town otherwise normal in that there were maybe 5-10 charity shops. Slightly abnormal in that there were 5-10 churches. The principal church, high CofE was very large, apparently rebuilt after a fire in the nineties of the last century. Big nave, two aisles of nearly the same size, all barrel vaulted and nicely decorated. Thin gray granite columns, new but with early English features. Fancy chancel with rather Romish decorations. Lady chapel. Stations of the cross. But as far as I could make out it was CofE, coming under the Bishop of Truro. See http://www.achurchnearyou.com/newquay-st-michael/. No M&S but one gents. outfitter - which was just as well as I had forgotten to pack certain essential items of clothing. Lady in the shop very understanding. One tobacconist, just to remind us that we were indeed in the provinces. Quite a few people smoking in the street too.
On going back to the beach had a very senior moment. With all these young people bounding around in their swimming costumes and with me wrapped up in trousers, orange windproof jacket (from Millets) and sensible trainers (from Niketown), I suddenly felt old. Did not feel that I could cut the mustard on a beach of this sort any more. Maybe that is why all the older people in the water go in for boards so that they can decently wear a cover-all wet suit.
I thought the right thing to do was play watching the tide come in, a game which necessitates running quickly backwards every few minutes or so if one does not want to get wet socks. Not a bad game at all on a sunny day on the right sort of beach. Accompanied, twenty yards to the right, by the three year old playing the same game with her Mum.
While all this was going on I did learn about a new sort of surf board. A rather wide affair which you stand on holding a long handled paddle. The idea seems to be that you paddle out through the waves and then surf back in. Paddle assisted and standing all the way in both directions. I imagine that an up side is that you can surf for further and faster on quite small waves; a down side that you cannot manage big waves at all. Only two of them to what must have been a hundred or so of the paddle free people.
On the tweet front, lots of herring gulls, crows and starlings, quite a lot of these last being quite young. Some pidgeons. One kestrel, one tern and one skylark. Have to see if we can find some finches before we go.
# posted by Jim @ 1:41 AM 
