In winter Cornwall can be a mysterious place with damp white fogs and many funny shaped trees looming out of the mist; the eerie trees were long since caught in a wicked wind that froze them in their least attractive pose so that forever they are forced to stretch their outstretched boughs as if in fear – or perhaps in anger – but they will not break when they are visited again by the prevailing Atlantic winds.

It was sunny as we left our home in Devon and began our journey to foreign parts – our neighbouring county. We were full of excitement because we were going to have an unexpected break at Rosie’s fairy-tale cottage in North Cornwall; we had only made up our minds in the morning and we were away around four in the afternoon.

The clouds gathered and a mist was forming before we even reached the border. Once in Cornwall the fog became thicker and wetter, wet enough to require the windscreen wipers, and the headlights were already on. But our mood was happy, not gloomy, and we laughed as we zoomed through the fog in my sporty car (roof on, since the services at Exeter Forest). We passed a clump of trees on a hilltop above a thick blanket of fog.

“Just look at that,” I said, “they form a perfect circle!”

“Have you ever seen Brown Willy?” asked Chris.

“Do you mean Brown Hilly?” I giggled.

“No, Brown Willy. It’s a place in the middle of Bodmin Moor. I laughed, too, when my geography teacher taught us about it.”

“Have you ever been there?” I asked.

“No,” he chuckled.

“Do you want to?” I roared with laughter.

“Certainly not – Brown Willy is right in the middle of the moor,” Chris snorted, “honestly! Besides, we need to get to Rosie’s before dark.”

~~~

The mist recovered itself as we left Port Isaac this afternoon, having had a wonderful time at both Padstow and the little fishing village where the television series “Doc Martin” was filmed.

“Would you like to go to Tintagel and then on to Boscastle?” Chris asked. “It’s a while since I went to Tinagel.”

“I’d love to,” I said, “it’s been a while for me, too.”

We parked in the car park nearest the ruins of Tintagel Castle and looked in vain over the wall. We could see nothing beyond a few yards ahead of us.

“Is it worth going?” Chris had his reservations.

“Oh, come on,” I beckoned.

“It’s £3.00 to park here – flat rate,” he sneered.

“Well let’s just leave the car and check out whether or not we’ll be able to see the castle,” I cajoled.

We risked leaving the car and walked down a path to a sign coming out of the fog.

“My goodness,” said Chris, “now we have to pay to go to the ruins.”

“We didn’t have to pay when I came here last either,” I agreed, “but of course, I haven’t been here for thirty-nine years!”

“It has to be nearer to sixty years for me!” said Chris.

We didn’t fancy a long walk in the fog to see ruins in the fog so we came home… to Rosie’s warm cottage with spring flowers in the garden and a tidal creek flowing beyond the garden wall.

By the way, Chris showed me the map and there really is a place called Brown Willy. Sorry, but it still makes me laugh.

“I just don’t get why everyone wanted Michael and Edwin to see Smugglers Tunnel…” said Chris.

Chris and I were chatting in bed this morning when the topic came up. Indeed, my nephew and his friend, both visiting us from Australia, had been urged by all and sundry to go to Smugglers Tunnel – even I had made the suggestion.

“It seemed quite normal to me,” I admitted.

“Yes, but I wonder what they thought… After all, it’s just a dank, dripping and dark tunnel leading down to a terrible beach – much of it isn’t even that old!” Chris pointed out.

“Yes but…” I paused for a moment to remember the first time I had seen the tunnel with my dad when I was fourteen and new to the country myself, “it’s so exciting to think of all the smugglers who used the tunnel and how they must have felt sneaking back up from the beach with their contraband. The darkness and the drips make it more eerie; anyway, it’s not that dark.”

“Exactly. Where’s the excitement?” Chris persisted.

“You should have gone with my dad – he made everything interesting. He was so good like that. And Mum was good, too – she used to write hilarious stories about the funny things that happened to her,” I paused again and chuckled remembering the story about Mum’s strawberries in the pannier on her bike (they never made it home – you’d have to read it for yourself to understand how funny that was!).

But Chris was in his own reverie…

“I don’t even think that Labrador Beach is a very nice beach,” he said, bringing me back to the original conversation.

“It’s Ness Beach, not Labrador Beach,” I informed Chris rather positively, “that’s a bit further along the coast.”

“Well, Ness Beach isn’t very nice,” he said very positively.

“Did you know that Ness Beach is a nudist beach?” I asked. “Not that I’ve ever seen any naked bodies there.”

“Nor me,” said Chris, “in fact I think it’s a complete phallusy!”

I laughed.

“Ness beach has always given rise to such humour,” my husband added.

After breakfast we drove up to the Obelisk at Mamhead for a walk in the forest and a wonderful view at the end.

According to “The Urban Dictionary”, there really is a word “phallusy” – or is it just a fallacy?

No, I’m not reviewing the film, the musical or the song (which I never liked much when it first came out and which I dislike intensely after exercising to it twice a week for two years at my “Aquacise” classes!). I just thought you might enjoy hearing about my recent attempt at making pasta.

I’m afraid the title is slightly misleading because the closest my mother ever came to making pasta was opening a tin of Heinz spaghetti. Mum was probably typical of most mums in Australia and England during the sixties and early seventies but my friend Sally’s parents were more stylish and “with it” – they cooked real spaghetti. I’ll never forget the time they invited me to a special lunch of real spaghetti… Sally’s family, being modern and expert at fork twirling, finished their meals while my dinner was chased around the plate by my fork until it became cold. Eventually, Mr. Worth (who may have thought I didn’t like Italian cuisine) said, “You don’t have to eat it Sally.” Oh the embarrassment.

Once I had left home to fend for myself in my own kitchen I soon discovered how to boil up dried spaghetti and top it with what I would usually put in a shepherd’s pie (and a tin of tomatoes). And in the privacy of my own home I mastered the technique of actually bringing a laden fork of spaghetti to my mouth. How chic!

Things have moved on in the culinary world and for a good while now, according to the cookery programmes on television, it has become “de rigeur” to make one’s own pasta. On holiday in Florence a few years ago I was awfully tempted by a swanky chrome pasta-making machine in a shop window but I was deterred by the sixty pound price tag and the fact that the machine wouldn’t fit in my Ryan Air cabin luggage. Last year I saw an identical machine in our local Lidl store for only twenty pounds and it has sat on a shelf in my kitchen ever since. Well, I exaggerate – I’ve used it three times.

“What would you like for dinner? You can have shepherd’s pie, cauliflower cheese or lasagne,” I texted my Aussie nephew Michael and his friend Edwin who were on their way from Madrid to stay with us and see all our family in Devon.

At four o’clock in the afternoon I took the pasta machine from the shelf and tried to work out how to attach it to the kitchen table. Chris did the honours while I found a pasta recipe on Google. The recipe called for Italian “00” flour and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found a bag of Sainbury’s “00” plain flour on the back of the top shelf in my cupboards; it didn’t mention Italian but it sounded near enough. I measured out the flour onto the worktop, made a well and added the eggs, salt and olive oil. It was rather dry so I added more oil before kneading the dough and letting it rest for thirty minutes. While it rested I cooked the mince and prepared the tomatoes. Chris made the cheese sauce.

At last the dough was ready, if a tad brown. I cut it into workable pieces and began the lengthy process of rolling them through the machine, reducing the gap between the rollers each time until the pasta dough was thin and elastic – ideally. My dough wasn’t very elastic, or at all elastic. It developed holes and fell to bits. The few bits that made it through to setting “2” were in shreds. I checked the recipe – all done by the book. I tasted the dough. Then I looked at the expiry date on the packet of flour… June 2014. Mamma mia!

“Here I go again,” I thought.

Whilst still around the table after the meal (not a morsel left) I told the young men of my difficulties in making the pasta.

“I only said ‘lasagne’ because I thought it was easy,” laughed Michael.

My, my, how can I resist you?

It was good to walk home; it gave me time for reflection about what I’d done. I felt like a cross between Tony Soprano (the likable fictitious gangster from “The Sopranos”) and Forest Gump (the likable fictitious fool from the movie “Forest Gump”). You see I lost a friend today, a friend who has been with me nearly all my life… Oh, what rot! I can’t say the words “a friend”, especially after what I did today. Now I shall say “Miss G” because that’s very close to “missing”, which describes Miss G perfectly.

Though I can’t profess to have liked her in particular (or at all, really), I genuinely miss Miss G. Miss G had been with me through thick and thin (mostly thick) and became troublesome only about five months ago, which was when I became suspicious. My suspicions were justified, I hasten to add; nevertheless, I gave Miss G the benefit of the doubt during all those worrisome months and even tried my own “quick fix” tactics. Surely there was something to be done (apart from “the final solution”). Why were the results of my efforts so temporary?

The recent trip to Australia added to the problem. I didn’t know the right people and, besides, the job would have been costly. I had to “bite the bullet” and wait.

Earlier today I spat out the bullet and got the bit between my teeth – the wait was over. Yes, I was ruthless like Tony Soprano and even smiled when I gave the order to have Miss G taken out…

But I felt foolish like Forest Gump as I walked home. I didn’t know how to smile back (now the smile was on the other side of my face) when first a lady greeted me, and a little later when a hirsute man opened his big black beard to say hello and reveal his sparkling pearls. “Hello”, I managed twice through lips thrust forward like a goldfish in order to hide the hole where Miss G had been.

I don’t like to make mountains out of molar-hills but Miss G leaves a great big valley. She was at the back, next to a wisdom tooth, however, with a bit of luck the other teeth will move to fill the gap. Now I must admit that I feel the pain of her loss – not so tough after all.

Oh Nipper!

An Australian farmer’s dog goes missing and the farmer is inconsolable. The farmer’s wife is terribly worried about her husband and suggests to him:

“Why don’t you place an ad in the paper to get him back?”

Duly the farmer takes the advice of his wife and places an ad in their local paper “The Peranga Gazette”, published fortnightly, but after two weeks the dog is still missing.

“What did you write in the paper?” asks the dubious wife.

“Here boy,” says the farmer.

It snowed! Drawing back the bedroom curtains I saw, with delight, that it was snowing. Just tiny flakes that seemed like mini parachutes swirling one way and another in the wind before disappearing upon touchdown. It continued to snow when we were in the car on our way to the shops at Newton Abbot but the snow wasn’t heavy enough to settle and nor was it quite cold enough, although we felt freezing.

The temperature dropped from four to two degrees centigrade and when we came out of Lidl’s (Britains’s favourite store according to a newspaper article yesterday) the snow had turned to light sleet – not enough to make you wet but icy cold and damp.

Getting back into the car at Tesco’s car park the temperature seemed to have dropped yet further and the sleet had given way to hail. The hailstones were the size of miniature sherbet pips, not exactly round and hardly worthy of being called hailstones; in fact, so light and small were the specks of ice that, like the snowflakes earlier, they seemed to dance in the wind.

By the time we returned home it was too cold for hail. The bitter wind hit us as Chris and I struggled along the pavement with our many bags of shopping (even heavier than usual because my nephew Michael and his friend are over from Australia and going to stay with us for a few days). Just before reaching our gate I stopped, put down my six carrier bags, and took my mobile phone out of my handbag. A couple walking towards me looked at me quizzically as I was obviously taking photographs of the sidewalk.

“I couldn’t resist,” I said.

They looked down at the pavement and laughed. Surprisingly, in spite of the wind a little leaf had held fast to protect the modesty of the naked figure on the tarmac.

Not a Goliath

I expect you know the old joke:

“Do you know the piano is on my foot?”

“You hum it and I’ll play it!”

I seem to remember some chimpanzees, dressed as removal men, coming out with that one in the PG Tips tea advert many years ago. We all thought it was funny then. Funny how it doesn’t seem so hilarious now. I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if it hadn’t been for a film called “The Piano”, which we watched tonight. You’ll think I’m becoming a self-professed film critic after my recent blog about “The Pianist” but it just so happened that the two were linked by the similar titles and people who enjoyed my blog about the latter recommended that I see the former. Chris is very quick off the mark when there is a suggestion of a good film and the DVD arrived in the post this morning .

“The Piano” is a rather strange and dark, yet beguiling, movie with quite a few worrisome things going on, not least because our heroine was a peculiar Scottish mute (for no apparent reason, unless I missed it because I couldn’t understand the accents) who was sent to New Zealand with her precocious daughter to marry a man (Sam Neil) she had never laid eyes on before. And she brought with her a piano which, being too cumbersome to heave through the muddy forest, was left on a beach at the mercy of the tides.

There were some holes in it – the settlers didn’t clear the trees around their houses and the piano hadn’t suffered from the ravages of the sea (and a piano tuner was on hand) – but if you managed to cast aside such concerns you could enjoy the piano playing and the hole in our leading lady’s stocking, just as Baines (Harvey Keitel) did! I had no idea that Harvey Keitel had a physique of rippling muscles worthy of sculpting but soon I had the feeling he would not be shy to bare all. My pleasure would not have been diminished by a corner of sheet or a pair of underpants.

I was also pleased to learn that I was spot on in recognising Ada as the actress Holly Hunter (from “The Firm”) although she looked completely different with black hair and no clothes on.

Did Ada know the piano was on her foot? Or rather, that the rope would catch around her foot and take her down with the piano? Did the piano take her voice? Did the husband let true lust love take its course? Did Ada grow another finger? Did the rain stop, the mud dry and the sun come out for a happy ending? I’m sorry, I won’t spoil it for you – you’ll just have to “ho hum” or see it for yourself.

“Shall we take an umbrella?” I asked as I put my head out from my studio door.

“Is it raining?” inquired Chris. (He doesn’t like to be cluttered with paraphernalia when out for a walk, in fact he’d prefer to go coat-less unless it’s actually raining.)

“No, but there are these big drips – it has been raining,” I admitted.

Chris agreed it might be prudent to take my pink umbrella and then I remembered that I always get wet when my husband holds the umbrella so I urged him to take his big black umbrella also. He paused, probably remembered my usual complaints about peculiar angles and different heights, and he located his own, grand scale, umbrella. But we didn’t need them at first; on our way out we just used them as jaunty walking sticks.

In truth, it wasn’t the best day to go out walking. Yes, we’d had one false dawn since our arrival back from Australia – on Friday – but the weekend was dismal, cold and wet. Yesterday we didn’t even step out of the house. I put on my new cuddly warm jumper (only size 10 and half-price, maybe because they got the sizing wrong!) and developed a kind of sleeping sickness that made it impossible for me to move from the sofa until bedtime. Chris, too, had sleeping sickness but less severe than mine and he discovered he could muster the energy to use the television remote control. What a terrible day it was, but I managed to stay awake for “The Love Bug” movie and laughed at the same things I found funny as a child.

So you see, we needed to get out for some exercise this morning, no matter the weather; especially as I’m embarking on another new diet – the Dr. Mosely “Eight-Week Diet Plan” (except that I shall have to do it for life because my inclination is always to put on weight!). I call it “The Black-Shirt Diet” because of another famous Mosely. It sounds quite easy because you can eat anything… except for normal bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. Put like that it doesn’t come across as easy but I must “endeavour to persevere”, as Chief George said in the Western, “The Outlaw Josey Wales”. And, thank Heaven, you can eat low GI bread, (which is not to be confused with short American soldiers who might, nonetheless, be quite tasty!).

Of course it rained and we were glad that we’d brought along our individual umbrellas. Chris carried his sturdy umbrella in his unusual, up and forward advance, fashion whilst I opted for the lower, keep dry all-round, method. Chris exaggerated that I nearly had his eye out and caught his ear twice; I couldn’t help it – my smaller umbrella seemed to have more prongs. But it was all said good-naturedly and the wetter it became, the more we laughed; the exercise made us exhilarated and we were rather pleased that, unusually for us, we had come prepared.

We were not the only people walking to and from Dawlish Warren in the rain this morning. Several others greeted us on their morning constitutional. Our comrades with umbrellas were particularly chipper and smiley, one chap raised his umbrella in a grand gesture as if it was a hat; the ones without umbrellas smiled wryly as if to say they would “endeavour to persevere”. All this walking has made me hungry. Now if you’ll excuse me I must try to find something to eat!