Cornwall Holiday : Saturday 23 Oct : Last Morning, Car Breakdown, RAC, No N8?, Travelling Home, Atlantic Village Shopping, Amazing Stalls, Rainbow

Morning time to go, checked all the rooms, packed away the toiletries, prepared a small breakfast and ready to go by 9;00 until disaster struck. Deb came to say that she couldn’t get the car to start and she thought the electrics in the boot had shorted out again. Bang went any idea of an early start and Deb went to reception to ring the RAC while I sorted out the kids etc. Deb returned to say the RAC had said they’d be about 45 minutes. They turned up sooner and the mechanic was there at about 09:25. Deb was concerned we would need to get the electrics replaced and it seemed like the extra money I’d earned to get a Nokia N8 might be disappearing into the black hole that is keeping a car on the road. What a fantastic end to our holiday; I was so pissed off at the prospect that I immediately got reception to send round two peasants who I then ritually disemboweled to relieve my frustrations. The RAC man eventually got the car running and confirmed the problem was with the electrics but that the problem was due to them getting wet during the torrential downpour over night. He was hopeful that everything would dry out as we drove and I, for one, kept my fingers crossed that he would be proved correct. Eventually we were sorted and we left the Estate at around 10:00 an hour later than we had planned to.


This wasn’t too much of a delay and it looked as if we could keep to Deb’s journey home plan. She wanted to drive up the west coast parallel to the Celtic Sea passed New Quay and Wadebridge up into Devon eventually arriving at the Atlantic Shopping Village located near the town of Bude.

As we began our journey the weather also began to improve and within an hour it was quite sunny, the clouds had lifted and when we were in sight of it we were able to appreciate the coastline as it passed by on our left.

In the car I kept attempting to get a GPS fix ion both the N82 and the N95 but still wasn’t able to do so. The best I could get, when there was a cellular signal was an approximate position on Google Maps based on the nearest cell tower’s location (note the following day at the Vipers Rugby Ground I got a GPS lock on in less than one minute so the phones were OK).

We arrived at Atlantic Village around mid-day and after discovering the location of and making use of the toilets we went inside. It was a bog standard enclosed shopping mall but with one notable exception. In all of the walk ways, between the shops, there were stalls set up selling local products. Pasty stalls (Devon not Cornish pasties there’s a fearsome rivalry), stalls for local cider and beer producers, exotic cheese stalls, home made soups etc. I’d never seen it’s like and the stalls were fascinating. I sampled pumpkin soup, venison stew, another even nicer stew I can’t recall the name of, samples of cheese and so on. Yes we did go in the actual stores and we did buy some things but the stalls were by far the most interesting thing about the entire place. I managed to get the book of the TV series Geniuses of Britain for £3.99 instead of £20.00. We got some end of line/seconds from the M&S outlet for the kids and me, sweets to take to work, it never happened they all got given away to trick or treat callers on Halloween; however it’s the thought that counts. The giveaways were clever sales tricks; just like at the Cyder farm we ended up spending a fortune of the things we’d tried.

We stayed at Atlantic Village for about two hours before setting off again on the long, by UK standards, trek up through the West Country and back over to the East Midlands. The only notable thing that happened during the rest of our trip was spotting, possibly, the most beautiful fully formed rainbow it’s ever been my fortune to observe. Magnificent, I managed to grab a few photos and a few seconds of film but these don’t do it justice. There weather fluctuated greatly for the rest of the journey from heavy rain to sunny skies. Eventually we made it safely home at about 18:00. Don’t think we did much else so that was…

THE END OF OUR CORNISH ADVENTURE

Last Morning, C Upset, Weeding no Wedding, Jermey Kyle, Alien Abduction, Anal Probe, Baby Jesus, a Muslim Christian like Obama

I can’t really remember much of what happened on Thursday; like most finishing mornings you try to stay up for the rest of the day in order to go to bed later at a more reasonable time; but to be honest, by doing this, you end up too tied to remember what you did when you were keeping yourself awake in the first place! More proof, if any were needed, of the absolute truth of the existence of Sod’s Law.


One thing I do recall now I think about it is, how upset C was when we finished work that morning. Because I had to don my fluorescent jacket and plug in my mobile and switch on a podcast etc I was amongst the last, of our team, to leave. In fact, by the time this was all done, only C and I remained. She was virtually in tears because the other women on the team, with the exception of JB, hadn’t asked her anything about how her Son’s weeding (woops; I know he’s half Afro-Caribbean but I did actually mean wedding) had gone. Given she’s spent the best part of the past year planning it she was very upset by their lack of interest, in fact she was virtually in tears. I made appropriate noises but to be honest she has brought much of this on herself by being so changeable with people and very underhand in her dealings with them. Whilst I don’t agree with much of the Bible the “as you Sow so shall ye Reap” bit seemed somewhat appropriate. But, all this said and done, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

Afterward I cycled Home toward and reached it at about 8:40, I turned on the PC, checked my email, for reasons unknown you can’t access Gmail at work, then read a few tweets before settling down to watch “The Circus of Chavs” that is The Jeremy Kyle Show. I know I bang on about this programme but it has to be seen to be believed. How he gets away with shouting at some of his guests is remarkable; IF HE DID IT TO THEM IN THE STREET HE’D MOST PROBABLY END UP BEING STABBED BY ONE OF THE LITTLE THUGS! Well none of them had “put something on the end of it” so it was the usual parade of teenage mothers and UNEMPLOYABLE, layabout, stay away, spliff smoking, “possible” fathers. Yes, even if there were three, or more, possible fathers, they each APPEARED to enjoy almost identical lifestyles.

After this it all becomes something of a blur and if I were of a more credulous frame of mind I’d be tempted to speculate that I might well have been abducted by Aliens, who had mysteriously induced this period of forgetfulness, in order for them to subject me to their strange bottom probing shenanigans. Of course, because I’m not his credulous I realised, immediately, that, in fact, I’d been in a transcendental state communing with The Baby Jesus…PRAISE BE HIS HOLY NAME! Whoops, that sounds a bit Muslim; better watch that because, gosh darn it; I don’t want to become one of them there Muslim Christians like what President Obama is! So close to five hundred words…Oh Yeah, with the edits I’ve just done it’s no longer the 500 barrier because we’ve just hit 560.