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It’s our last full day in Cornwall and we had to make use of the bucket and spade we’d bought, so we headed for Porthpean beach. To be fair to Porthpean it wasn’t the best day to go there. The sun was mainly behind the clouds and it was a bit chilly, but it wasn’t the first proper beach experience that I’d been hoping for. The beach looked sandy, but was largely made up of tiny stones (which made building sandcastles tricky) and there was lots of flotsam or jetsam on the beach (jetsam, right? Cos flotsam has to be floating, but by that logic jetsam has to be in an aeroplane). Only one other family were dumb enough to be there today and we sat a bit up the beach from them. The mother walked up to us and asked if we’d spotted the jellyfish stranded on the sand about four feet from where we were sitting. We hadn’t, but as Phoebe was now asleep in her pram we stayed put for a while and tried to do some reading. On the holidays before the baby I would get through a book a day most days, but on this holiday I only managed a few pages of SPQR by Mary Beard and realised latterly that I was re-reading a bit that I had already read. It’s a great book, but you need to have had some sleep and be really paying attention to take it all in.
Phoebe woke up too early and we moved away from the dangerous jellyfish and we played in the shale a little bit. Phoebe fell face first off the beach blanket and got a mouthful of little pebbles which might have put her off the sea for life, so we decided to call it a day for Porthpean and head out for some lunch and hope the weather would be better this afternoon.
We drove out of St Austell looking for a pub and saw signs for the Polgooth Inn and took a chance on it. It was serendipitous as it turned out to be a lovely 16th Century pub with friendly staff and customers and terrific food. Phoebe and fish fingers but threw most of them on the floor. A nearby dog looked at the crumbs under her table with longing.
Revived and warmed up and now with the sun shining we found a more sandy beach and I had a fun her playing with my daughter. We walked to the sea, which was out a fair distance and Phoebe paddled in the shallow waves for the first time in her life. What a joy and privilege it is to share these new experiences.
She seemed to like it, but she is bold and curious and had already happily stomped through some freezing cold rivulets on the way down. Then we walked back, she quite insistent on doing it alone and only falling bum first into puddles a couple of times. We then played in the sand, me building sand castles and she immediately and gleefully destroying them and laughing when I looked upset. I would try and distract her so I could build a little community of sand dwellings, but this happy Godzilla would storm into town and smash them before I could get four bucket loads upturned. I pretended to be the villages, offering prayers to this tiny God that she might spare them. But she didn’t spare them. Like a rubbish episode of rubbish old Star Trek I had discovered that God is probably a petulant baby with no real understanding of what he or she is doing. Or like Milton’s Satan, only in destroying finds she ease.
It was much more fun than the morning and in truth I like all this stuff as much as Phoebe. It’s great to have the excuse to do all this baby stuff again, partly because you forget having done it the first time, but mainly because it’s genuinely fantastic fun. If I was a 48 year old man on a beach alone making and smashing sandcastles people would call the police, but with a baby with me it’s fine.
I’ve sorted out guests for the first RHLSTP on 6th June. I will be joined by Iain Lee and Tony Law. It’s selling fast so book here.There's also a great additional guest for 18th July (alongside Russell Kane). Monthly badge subs know who it is and it’s selling fast. I will let the rest of you know on Monday, but worth a punt,
