The Loss of the Old Coast Path from Porthleven to Loe Bar

We think of the granite cliffs of Cornwall as standing against erosion - but things are fragile in times of storm and climate change ... and not all the cliffs of Cornwall are granite.

Part of one of my favourite local stretches of coastal path (Porthleven to Loe Bar) has disappeared, undercut and fallen away after recent storms. This means it is now too dangerous to walk and has been closed by the National Trust whilst they work out how to reinstate a route by taking it further inland.

So these are a few photos from a walk I can no longer take.

 

Being observed

Bluebells

Grass and sky

Looking west towards Rinsey

Kneehigh Theatre's "The Tin Drum"

At last! Another night out  and a chance to see one of my favourite "local" theatre companies.

Kneehigh Theatre are touring their production of "The Tin Drum" (based on the Gunther Grass novel) and are bringing it to the Hall for Cornwall: November 21st-25th. Written by Carl Grose with music by Charles Hazlewood and directed by Mike Shepherd - they describe it as "a folktale for troubled times: one political, profane and profound" ... and an "extraordinary story of love, war and fizz powder".

Well that sounds like my cup of tea, don't it. So... tickets booked and seeing it soon.

Cornish Interlude

First sight of swallows.
The Old Man and me do drive away to eat pasties and drink tea on Goonhilly Downs. Blackthorn is blossoming, foot high willows at the side of the path have bright yellow "pussy willow" catkins, tiny sedges flower. We do walk along and I hear the skylarks - and see one - singing and singing in the sky. Then two swallows dip and scoop over the dry grass, pools and heath. The gorse is so yellow and lush this year and for the first time I do smell it... coconut. Gorse flowers smell of coconut.

The other day... we walk down to the coast at Rinsey. The lane is narrow. Again, blackthorn and bright deep-yellow gorse in the hedges. And with them - the pale yellow-green of flowering alexanders. They look so good together. And the whole lane smells of honey from the alexanders.

Wild Works And "Wolf's Child" At Trelowarren This Summer

Just like the Doll and The Old Man, I like a bit of theatre. And I like my theatre a bit off the wall and magical. Cornwall is not overflowing with good theatre spaces and this forces local theatre groups to be more... er ... creative in their performance strategies. So - small venues, temporary venues, unusual venues, the streets themselves...anywhere they can set up and go.

Wild Works is a Cornwall-based theatre group which performs their landscape or site-specific projects all over the world. I don't think I've seen any of their work yet but I found this preview trailer on Cornish Stuff  previewing their "Wolf's Child" which they developed for Felbrigg Estate in Norfolk and which they are due to bring to the Trelowarren Estate near Helston in July 2017.

That's within reach for me so I shall get my waterproofs out and wait with anticipation.

The Man Engine Puppet At King Edward Mining Museum, Cornwall

We have finally caught sight of The Man Engine Puppet.

Sadly, we haven't managed to see his transformation to his full 10 metre or so standing height, he has proved so popular ... 16,000 people in Camborne by all accounts, we just haven't got anywhere near seeing this marvelous trick of theatre.
We thought we would try to do so at a venue nearby. But we did a reccy and found that the roads around would be closed from 3 - 8 pm. A rural venue, we just couldn't be doing the miles of walking required and the potential crowds in a small space. So we opted to watch his procession and "crouching" performance at The King Edward Mining Museum near Troon... on Wednesday afternoon.

Oh, I do likes a bit of theatre. And this is a jolly fine thing. Lots of work. Made in Camborne, dreamed up by Will Coleman of Golden Tree Productions.
It would appear there are hoped-for plans take His Mechanical Marvelousness  across the seas ... to follow the diaspora of the Cornish miners in the 19th century... Mexico, America, Australia? Where they be going I do wonder?

Some of The Old Man's ancestors were Cornish miners. One of his great grandmothers was born in Brazil. But you wouldn't know to look at him, would you. Me? Sorry my dears... I am not Cornish, so I shall just hush up now.

Hoping To Catch Sight Of "The Man Engine"

sometime soon ...cos who can resist the prospect of being in the presence of a 40 foot high mechanical puppet?

Well. Not I.

This marvelous, powered, puppet of a Cornish miner started its tour of heritage mining sites and towns, from West Devon to Cornwall, earlier on this week and the tour finishes at Geevor on Sat 6th August. Unfortunately it won't be "transforming" to full height at all of its stopping places precisely because of the mining history it celebrates ... some sites won't bear its weight because of the underlying tunnels and workings. But plenty of celebrations are planned for its route ... with Penzance throwing in a Steam Punk fancy dress theme for spectators. Find out more about its progress at The Man Engine site.

The Old Man and me wish it well and hope to clap eyes on its noisy, fumy glory.

Events In The Post Referendum Café

"Can I get you any more *pork pies, Sir and Madam?"

"No, thank you. We couldn't eat another crumb."

* Pork Pies - rhyming slang for lies. 

   Hence ... "telling porkies".

Bet you can guess how this household feels about the Referendum result. And the absence of any leadership in Parliament. And the self-destructive nature of the Opposition. And whatever is to come now.

But one thing has started already.
As we drove out of Penzance this morning we followed a car with a shattered rear window. It looked as though someone had put a brick through it, frankly. The car's license plate was Lithuanian.


Welcome to The Post Referendum Café.

Greydoll's Criminal Reading: "Wolf Winter" by Cecilia Ekbäck

I've been catching up on my foreign crime fiction; books I missed when they first came out, or simply didn't know about.
I came across this one on the shelves of my local bookshop - The Edge Of The World Bookshop - for which I should truly thank them.

"Wolf Winter" by Cecilia Ekbäck (Paperback, 2015, Hodder). 
Imagine you are a woman come to a remote new country with two daughters, a few goats, a cow - and crops to grow and harvest. Imagine mountains where you have known only marshland and lakes; new neighbours whose ways you don't know... and a husband who has to leave for a job on the coast many miles away. It is 1717 in Northern Sweden, territory newly claimed from the native, nomadic, Sami reindeer-herders. It is a bitterly harsh winter; one the local settlers call a "wolf winter".
One day your young daughters find the body of man in a forest glade. Everyone says wolves killed him. But you don't think so. You are stubborn and curious and you want to know the answer to the mystery. But it is so cold that you don't know where to begin to feed yourself and your daughters. One day the wolves start to howl and move closer. And then the dead man begins to appear to your adolescent daughter Frederika. Welcome to the story of Finnish settler Maija and her family.

Historical Nordic Noir? I have never tried that one before. I couldn't resist this blend of crime, historical fiction and the tingle of the supernatural.This is not only a gripping and beautifully written story but a first novel, a very impressive one. Swedish-born Ekbäck currently lives in Canada. But her family roots lie in the country where she sets this novel. Her writing and prose plunged me straight into the bitter cold of the "Wolf Winter" of the title; spelling out rules for survival in this harsh land in all their necessary detail. She also gives us insight into the life of a settler community in 18th century Swedish Lapland where the Church not only records and educates individuals but makes and enforces the law. Mutual distrust between the new settlers and the Sami (Lapp) reindeer-herders gives more room for suspense as the stubborn Maija sets out to find out who killed the man in the forest - and why. Against the background of poverty and hardship during a time of perpetual war, Ekbäck has created a blend of frontier-Western and Nordic-noir; a tense whodunit which combines the dangers of the spirit world with the privations and threats of frontier life. It is peopled by characters well-realised if not always likeable and I think it is an exciting, beautifully written and impressive first novel.

Ekbäck has said that she decided against creating a series based on Maija but came to wonder about the country itself through the passage of time, the Blackasen Mountains. I shall certainly be on the look-out for her second novel - In the Month of the Midnight Sun - to be published later this year and set in the same area of the far north of Sweden, this time in 1856 and during the heat and daylight of the Northern summer.

The Doll Is Listening To - The Flames Of Hell

... her retro technology find of the vinyl kind.

The Old Man is hard at work washing the old 33s that I do find in Truro ... in the record shop in Pannier Market quite rightly called "Music Nostalgia".
I found some culture from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert but, setting my feet thumping and my own voice howling along, perhaps even more joyful is the find of Swamp Music Vol 1 - Les Flemmes d'Enfer aka Flames of Hell. Being a collection of Cajun - Zydeco music from Louisiana released on a German label around 1989.
You can get a flavour with this video over on YouTube.

Bang those feet on the floor...

Springtime: The Bird That Wants To Make A Phone Call

It's definitely spring. The Old Man and I get in the car to go walking .. as you do. A short drive to Penrose Estate and cars are decanting children, dogs, and walkers with sticks. The car park is packed and The Old Man do attract some attention trying to park in the last slot. His frustration at the current car do infuriate and defeat him, causing some outraged stares at an accidental horn beep. We give up and turn round to leave for another car park in Helston, at the lower end of the "trail". That's when I realise that quite some of the sniggering walkers are marshaling their sticks, children and dogs to walk out onto the road again and not into the wooded estate. So it dawns on me that they are parking up here to walk down to Porthleven for the Food Festival (sorry folks, last day today) which by all accounts has been packed out this year

But we manage our walk along the Cober and the woods of Penrose Estate. The first thing I see when I get out of the car ...  are swallows flying above the river. In the woods themselves birds are singing fit to bust: robins, wrens, blackbirds, chiffchaffs. Something more melodious. Blackcap? And then a song I don't know, probably some kind of warbler. I heard once that if you are trying to remember a bird's song then concentrate on catching the rhythmn and make up a phrase that echoes the rhythmn. So I do.
Definitely it's: "I gotta make a phone call, brrrr, brrrr."

I rushed (or hobbled) home and do try out the thing on the internet, starting with warbler songs. Maybe a reed warbler? But I am not convinced. So if anyone knows which bird sings "I gotta make a phone call, brrrr, brrrr." - I'd like help with the answer.

A Night At The Opera: English Touring Opera "Iphigenie en Tauride"

It's time for me to creep out of my wintry shell and kick a best foot forward into the night. I've booked tickets for the opera, the opera what visits Truro's Hall for Cornwall that is. So thank heavens for the English Touring Opera and its annual visit to the HFC. Two nights only, a different production each night, bless them.

Seats are popular for their Mozart's "Don Giovanni" on March 15th  but we have opted for the considerably less well known "Iphigenie En Tauride" by Gluck... on the basis we don't know it and we might never get the chance to see it again. A risky policy this one... but when the walking frame looms... why not give it a whirl. So we are off in a few weeks time to sample the fleshpots of Truro. Erm...

I'd have liked to share a sample video with you but there isn't one. So let me just quote the blurb/plot: "Vampire-like villains and human sacrifice form a bloodthirsty backdrop to this timeless tale from Greek myth. A brother and sister are thrown together at the end of the Trojan War, and find their path to redemption. One of the most refined and perfect of operas, from a composer who influenced future
generations from Mozart to Wagner..."
Oh la-di-da says I. Better put my best frock on.

Graphic Passions: Getting Hold Of "Red Thorn"

Just before Christmas The Old Man read in his daily paper about a new, Vertigo/DC, Glasgow-set comic "Red Thorn" - created by Scot David Baillie who has written for 2000 AD and Judge Dredd.

And he do become obsessed with getting his hands on an issue. But from where? There are not many comic shops in this far-westerly outpost and so, on his next visit to Truro, The Old Man enters the one and only comic shop (it shall remain nameless as far as I be concerned). He asks after the new comic, although all he can remember is "Red something..." by way of a title. The young comic geek assistant (cough-cough) looks at him.
"Never heard of it," he do say... and turns his back to continue his enthralling shelving of superhero comics.

Crushed and crestfallen, The Old Man do return home, comic-less and feeling ... discarded. In vain he next enquires in local book shops and newsagents but with no luck... no-one is able to order single issues of comics for him. He do weep and bemoan our out-of-the-way residence, longing for his London days of browsing the shelves of such shops as Gosh!

And so it falls to me to take to the internet and find him a kind store that will send him a copy. Which I do. And he do duly get a couple of neat packages courtesy of Forbidden Planet via the Royal Mail and do sit down to read, content at last.

Madame Deficit On Literacy And Language In Cornwall

Bonjours, mes amis... Je suis desolated that I have not been paying attention to you recently. Instead, I have been tending my pretty lambs. After all, hard times are depressing times. Better to dress prettily and dance in the meadows, I think. No. Really. Let us not discuss the price of bread.

But on the subject of financial management.... Cornwall Council have taken a leaf out of the Good Government's book. If you can't pay for something... delegate payment to those beneath you. And so they propose that libraries and the accompanying luxury of books and reading (to be accessed by all) be the privilege and financial responsibility of local and parish councils or "volunteer groups". (After all, my dears, there is nothing to this business of running libraries but the timely application of duster to book and keeping shelves tidy, n'est-ce pas?)

Meanwhile they do intend to place serious emphasis on their campaign to promote the Cornish language. (Why not remove all books in English from the library shelves, I do wonder? And replace them with books in Cornish? This will save space also, I believe.) Mais Non. They intend to encourage their staff to answer the phones in Cornish. Wonderful. A great move towards understanding all round.
However... for my silly self... I do neither speak nor understand Cornish and may have to move to Oxford and encourage council staff to greet me in Latin...

Discussing St Ives

A friend says how much she would like to visit St. Ives... although she knows I don't like it much. I do explain again the changes it is undergoing in the building rush, etc., etc. She do look at me and say:
"But I thought the light is supposed to be so special in St Ives."

I explain that this is not a property of St. Ives per se. West Cornwall is a narrow peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean and as such is surrounded by sea... it is this that effects the quality of the light in the region.

Later... an image.... "The Myth of The Serotisation of The Light of St. Ives" do conjure up before my eyes.

Nights Out in West Cornwall

Last night I went to Manderley... and did thoroughly enjoy Emma Rice's production of "Rebecca" at the Hall for Cornwall. The Kneehigh approach, working well, makes for a wonderful ensemble piece - and so it was. I admit that you might be lost if you have never read the book or seen the classic 1940 Olivier/Joan Fontaine film of same name. With this dramatic but quite rollicking production there is music, lights, flashes, booms, spirited dancing (Aah! The wonderful Katy Owen as houseboy Robert... I did love her... as did the whole audience, I think.) and a puppet dog. No. I said "puppet" not "puppy". I was not so sure about Emma Rice's final vision of the post-traumatic heroine, the ever nameless second Mrs De Winter, though. The set - an already partially ruined Manderley which embraces both boat and cove - worked well. The Old Man do ask why it was part-ruined already. And I was a bit puzzled... but decided to meself that in some ways the book/work is a recounting of memories... so a ruin is OK. Lord knows what the set designer thought... but contemplating what one has seen is about pondering what is/was communicated as much as having a good time. And I did have a good time. It be all good stuff. Give it a go if you can. It's still touring the country until Dec 5th.

So what's next for us furious gadabouts (more furious than gadding) confine to West Cornwall? Ah! That be a touch of the live relay opera again at our local cinema. Soon... early October... "Marriage of Figaro" from the Royal Opera House. Jolly good!

The Old Man As A Dog...

Today we have walked about on Long Rock beach... which is full of activity. People jog, run and cycle along the path and the air above the waves be full of surfing kites and waves be covered in  kite-surfers and wind-surfers. The tide is out, the sand is firm and so above all the place is full of dogs... running, ball-catching, meeting each other, trotting, jumping the waves... it looks like Lowry on sea out there.
So of course I ogle dogs. Part of me is a frustrated dog owner but the other part is the irresponsible flibbertigibbet that can fantasize about owning one... without taking the little critter for a walk or in any way looking after it. My latest passion has been a French Bull dog... and these must be "the thing" cos I saw two more on the beach today.

But it is all academic cos The Old Man be not keen. And the reason is, I do believe, that he be a dog himself. All the signs are there. The rushing to the door when someone knocks... followed by frequent growling and snapping if it is a stranger... and possibly over enthusiastic greeting if it be friend. Frequent requests for walks and an overwhelming interest in food do complete the picture... and the rushing out into the garden when he do spot a cat. So you see... there can be no competition indoors.

We come home. I bake a cake. And we indulge in an Incredible String Band fest.
Old curmudgeons... we try to make life sweeter.

The Doll's Dander Is Up And She Do Agree: "Save Treloyhan Woods"

I have posted before about the pace of development in St Ives in Cornwall.... yes it may be nostalgia... but I really do think this is now beyond fond memories of the past.
I don't often write a post like this.... but an area close to my teenage-years heart is about to get the natural stuffing knocked out of it.
So I ask you to watch this film and consider contributing to the GoFundMe:Treloyhan Appeal against Cornwall Council's planning approval for 16 houses to be built in the wooded grounds of Treloyhan Manor owned by Methodist Guild Holidays Ltd. These woods form an important "green corridor" for St Ives/Carbis Bay and a stopping place and breeding ground for nationally rare bird species.
The campaign has launched a judicial appeal .... which costs money.

Concert-Going : The IMS Prussia Cove Season

And another musical outing be coming up. The September chamber music concerts from the International Musicians Seminar.
Got to book some tickets soon. The concerts take place 11th to 27th September and are pretty local to us. No way of knowing yet what they will be playing but we look forward.

Coming to Cornwall soon: Kneehigh Theatre's "Rebecca"

It's time for me to book tickets for an outing to the Theayter.
My favourites, Kneehigh, are bringing "Rebecca" to the Hall For Cornwall next month. We shall be there.
Emma Rice, who has adapted and directed for Kneehigh since time immemorial, be moving on to take up the role of artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe in London next year. This is her version of Du Maurier's classic. I be ever so pleased for the chance to see it because sadly we do find Kneehigh's current summer venue (Heligan) for their lovely, tented Asylum project be a step too far for us old uns of an evening. We can just about manage Truro though. And so we shall.





Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca - adapted and directed by Emma Rice - a new production by Kneehigh Theatre | Kneehigh

Miracle Theatre Comes To Town : "The Magnificent Three"

Well.... After having enjoyed the filmic version of Miracle Theatre's production "Tin" (see here).... I do notice that they are playing a new production "The Magnificent Three" for two nights later this week down the road at The Stables on Penrose Estate... midway between Helston and Porthleven.
It be billed as a "saloon-door swingin', double-cross-dressin', Hoe-down-dancin', quick-draw slingin', Spaghetti Western Adventure..."
Shall we go perhaps? It's tempting...

Though it be open air and my old bones be somewhat stiffened these days for sitting on damp grass and so on. I dunno. But as I say... I be very tempted...


'The Magnificent Three' Open Air Theatre Touring Across the Wild South West 5 June to 29 August 2015 from Miracle Theatre on Vimeo.