We woke up early, mainly due to the light but possible also
some bird song, so by 7 am I had worked out how to use the microwave, cooked
and eaten breakfast, and looked at two or three weather forecasts.
It’s supposed to be wet, even thundery for
most of the day, but for now it is just cloudy.
We drive to the village to check the church times (11am Sung Eucharist),
and while walking around the church the rain begins.
We drive through Port Isaac on the way back,
but by now the rain is hard enough to deter another walk, so it’s back to the
house.
At 9am we are sitting in the
kitchen extension, under the clear roof, listening to the rain – which is quite
loud and strangely soporific.
So a
snooze soon results when I try to read.
10:30 comes, and we get ready for church.
It is still raining, but not so hard
now.
There are streams running down the
side of the roads.
On the way, we come
across a rock in the road.
There is a
driver very close behind, there is too much oncoming traffic and too little
width to swerve, so we hit the rock.
For
now, all is OK, and we arrive at St Endellion in plenty of them. Their car park
is almost full with 15 minutes to go. When we get in the church it is strangely
dim, it turns out there is a power cut, no lights and the leaders must speak
loudly to be heard.
It is a high church
– lots of liturgy (some sung), ‘bells and smells’ and an eight-minute sermon.
The incense has its usual effect, I slowly begin to feel nauseous.
Jo doesn’t like it either.
The service ends with the blessing of a new
bell rope – not made of hemp, as the old ones are.
This will provide better responsiveness and
feedback for the ringer. After the service, the priest is offering drinks to
celebrate his 10 years at the church.
We
are told that Pendogget is in the St Kew parish, so we will go to their All age
service next week.
When we get outside, the rain has stopped, and we immediately
notice that the nearside front is flat.
There are concerned noises from some of the congregation, but there is
little they can do, most of them are well over 10 years my senior. I managed to change the wheel, I’m slightly
proud of myself and slightly surprised that I managed to unscrew the nuts. I
said at the time, ‘I will pay for that in the morning’, but I already have backache. The wheel is in the car, not in
its carrier under the car – first job tomorrow is to get it fixed and hope
there is no damage to the wheel.
We went ‘across the road’ for lunch, to the Trevathan farm
restaurant. It is a strawberry farm. After lunch, we also bought some strawberries, I will report on them later. We were squeezed in to the restaurant and sat at a reserved table, being told we must be
out by 2 pm. That suited me, as I wanted to be
back in the house to watch the Austrian GP by then. It took 5 hand washes to get my hands clean
enough to eat. The food was very good, although I forgot to tell them to hold
the gravy (again!). We arrived back just
in time for the parade lap – that was good enough. I’m not saying anything else about the race.
After the race, we drove to Port Isaac and wandered around the
village for a while, then followed the coastal path westward for about a mile
before turning back at a flight of steps.
I made it to the top, and was breathless, with a thumping heart – more
than enough exercise for 1 day. Jo
stayed at the bottom and waited for my return.
Back in the village, we bought fish and chips from ‘The Slipway’
restaurant. They would not sell me two
fish and one chips and charge me less, so we had fish and chips twice. Nicely packaged, and the fish was lovely, but
the chips were slightly under cooked – not good value for £17.00. We sat on the
quay side, ate our food and watched a young Labrador playing in the water, we missed Brody.
Peril Index +1 - stranded in church car park with a flat tire.
