The Great Departure

The slow extrapolation on myself from Penryn life was and act of endurance. There are a lot of things currently going in in my life that might cloud how I feel about this particular phase of my life. It's a crazy thing the massive decisions that we make and how there meaning can be altered years even decades on. 

the main thing is that even now I feel and know it was the best decision that I have ever made. it had a tremendous impact on my life and I wonder what decisions I could have made differently since I moved here. Not many. isn't it funny when you feel that you are on a singular trajectory. What I can say is the one thing that I feel that have almost mastered once moving to South Africa is the emotional space that I occupy. It's hard to know if that stability is the result of the relationship that I am in or as a result of getting older and having continually engaged in my own personal growth. though the last few month have been particularly challenging. 

That summer was permeated by a deep sense of anxiety and loss as I attempted to fit my life into a 25 kg bag so much was given away and lost and I now fully understand how much I invested. Maybe too much. At the time though I could see another way and we are not clear to see all the information that we have been given at any one time. It becomes clear much later. Now I see how much I have still to learn and understand where i may have gotten in the way of my own happiness. There is a hope sometimes that when we take great risks that we get great rewards. And maybe we do. Though it maybe premised on how much more anybody else might expect from us. Am I being cryptic? 

I sold almost all my stuff and what I didn't sell I gave away to start a new life. I got one. Maybe one day I'll be in the mood to write this all down and record all the changes. All the synchronicities and all the massive spiritual gifts. If I believed in God I might wonder if they can see into the future. I might wonder what the plan is and I might wonder where do I fit in. I have great hopes still even though I stand on the brink of being old. I wonder what change the universe is going to give me. If I keep writing I'm sure we will find out.

Christian

Christian was born on Christmas Day, hence the name. I don't know all of his story. I do know parts of it. I met Christian the previous summer drinking in Number 20 with Bill. They both used to live down in Church Beach on Boats. There were both skint and were trying to make money out of scrapping boats by burning the metal out of them. No word of a lie they spent a whole week burning and old wooden boat on Muddy Beach. They set a fire on the beach and stuck the bow into and ever fe hours had burned enough wood to drag the boat a little further into the fire. They had managed to float the boat from Gweek. I'd gone down there to hang out one night and Christian had eluded to his alien stories. He wouldn't tell me anything though. He had predicted the end of the world in 2012 accompanied by global floods. Which there were.

The Day that Christian died Bill had been working on his own boat, he's managed to buy the radio he had needed from the scrap money he and Christian had pulled together. He literally just connected it when he heard a mayday call on the radio that was coming from over on the Helford. Christian had been moored up there for a few days at his favourite spot just off Durgan. Bill had stayed over there with him at the weekend, it was one of those glorious summers days that never seemed to end. I forget the exact details however some how Bill just knew it was Christian got in his car and headed over there. To find a search party and Amber Christians new girlfriend on the beach. 

Nobody really knows what happened. Amber had come back to the boat after a day at work. She was trying to get hold of him on the phone and was standing on the beach calling him. She had noticed the boats dinghy drifting down river, when a dog walker emerged from the coastal path saying he had seen someone in the water and had lost sight of him and he had no phone signal. Some how they had managed to relay this message to one othe boats and they had called in the mayday which Bill heard. 

They sat on the beach all night waiting. 

They did eventually find the body about four days later. 

As always in communities there were offerings of information, that the current had been bad. There was speculation too. He might have lost the dinghy and dived in hoping to get hold of it. He had been beaten up by his brother badly a few weeks before. Maybe his fractured rib had broken. In the end it was confirmed he died of drowning. 

It wouldn't be fair to write much more about the aftermath of his death. The last time I saw him was on the main street in Penryn. Somewhere near the Temperance Hall, we spoke about the community cafe and I can't remember the last of it now, we had said something slightly amusing. How much is lost. 

Christian's Dad summed it up best. Christian always said that "2012 will be the end of the world and for him it was."

Friday 13th & St Valentines Day

Now there's a match made in heaven. Just think you get all your bad luck out of the way one day, in the hope that the next day, you'll be lucky enough to pull. Realistic? I think not.

Friday 13th. Yes I've managed to add another a Friday 13th story to my repertoire. I've only got one other and that was to do with the occurance of 13p change for a train that left 13 minutes past the hour, from platform 13. I was seventeen at the time it was enough to give me a bit of the heebie jeebies. Not as much as my mate though.

Friday had been uneventful, I'd barely left the boat, Kathy came round for a cup of tea and then so did Michael. Living on the boat gives the term fair-weather friend a whole new meaning. So for example it was sunny on Friday which equals visitors. No sun equals no visitors. Anyway I'd hidden away on the boat, I'd been considering going out earlier to meet up with Brendan, Pete and Joyce but never quite made it. Until finally at about 11 o'clock I thought oooh I might just make it in for last orders. Made the appropriate phone call to Brendan, they were still in the pub got up and out in 5 and headed for the corner. Now having been given the tip off by The Great Queen Melwyn  over the last few weeks I've been following her lead with the hitchhiking from Penryn to Falmouth. At £3.60 return for a two mile trip on the bus who's going to argue with me? So there I was on the corner of Exchequer Quay waiting on a quiet late night road for a ride into Falmouth. Nothing was doing for quite sometime until this guy pulled up after having caught my eye on the other side of the road outside Duchy Kitchens in a black Honda. There was no other traffic and I thought. This looks really dodgy but not to be a girl put off by such things I cautiously approached the car crossing the road, half expecting him to accelerate off as soon as I got near enough to open the door. I went to the drivers side first as he rolled down the window. I leant in and explained to him I was going in to Falmouth. I thought he might just be the helpful sort not wanting to see a girl stranded and might offer to take me there, as it wasn't that far. He then explained that he was going to pick something up in Ponsanooth and I might as well come with him rather than wait for him to get out there and turn round and pick me up on the way back. I looked up and down Commercial Road, still no traffic. Ponsanooth was only four miles I thought no big detour and maybe it could be a bit of an adventure. It was Friday 13th after all. If you can't get these kind of kicks any other night of the year? I moved round the back of the car to get in the passenger seat. The car was really low on the ground despite being mounted on the kerb. The seats were really low and set back in the car as well. The foot well was filled with junk. You know car junk? All that useless shit that can end up taking over your glove compartment and if you don't sort it out explodes into the rest of the car. God I'm glad I don't have a car anymore. So I had to shuffle my feet around in the junk until I felt comfortable.

The minute i was in and the door was shut, the guy hit the accelerator full force, the noise and the vibration of the engine filling the space and my brain with the intimidation intended. All of sudden I had arrived in somebody elses world and was on a road however short into the unknown. This is my high, my hook, my adrenaline driven addiction for true adventure. Placed directly into somebody else's control and power. It's a bit sick isn't it. Car drives like that, when your not listening to the person in the car next to you and the only focus is on the road is amazing. It's such a buzz to have all your focus on just one thing. You go form being inside a steel box on wheels onto a road and the road becomes like any other road in the world. You could be anywhere. The person driving the car is having competition with the road, faster better tighter except the road has the power to kill. That's what driving fast cars is all about. We made some small talk. As we made it up Treluswell Hill the guy overtook someone at the very spot I had written off my car nearly a year earlier. It was a dangerous place to overtake it was intended to be. As we went out towards Ponsanooth I realised the village was closer than I had thought and especially the way he drove. The excitement grew as he drove through Ponsanooth past what was intended to be our turning point, which was I had been expecting. This guy was not a straight customer. We got to the Stithians turning point before I asked where we were actually going. He said three more miles, I challenged him and said that he had said Ponsanooth. Three miles came and went and I wondered down what dark lane this adventure or misadventure, as it may turn out would end. His driving was erratic as he tried to hold a conversation while driving as fast as possible, two things not instantly compatible. We were on the straight road into Lanner now. The accelerator pedal now even further to the floor. Should I call someone? Dave Eddie knew people in Lanner. Would I be having a third encounter with the police in the space of two weeks? I pointedly pointed out that we were now in Lanner. The guy, who's name I still didn't know stated that we would be there in 30 seconds. I then inquired as to why he would say he was going to Ponsanooth, when we were actually going to Lanner? He said " your Scottish I didn't think you'd know where Lanner was". That was a fair comment. However give the fact I knew where Ponsanooth was maybe it should have been assumed I would know where Lanner was?

True to his word we arrived at the intended spot within 30 seconds. He had pulled into a lane at the top of the hill beside a house with a newly constructed wooden fence. It could have been a newly constructed house. He got out the car. I didn't look to see where he was going. I assumed he was going into the house. Next to us on the left was a plot of scrubland. It was then looking out over the scrubland that disappeared into the black of Cornish farmland that I say him in the side mirror. He had a torch with a bluish light and was scrabbiling around in the grass on the corner of the plot, looking for something at the bottom of a wooden sign. I didn't think the sign held any clues as to what he was looking for. I didn't read it. I decided not to watch I don't know if he found what he was looking for. He was back in the car within minutes. He started up the engine and we drove up the lane in front of us. I didn't say anything. The lane came to a T junction and we turned left down the lane that had met us back to what I was hoping to be the main road back to Falmouth. It was. If he was going to kill me that would have been his opportunity. Back on the main road Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Relax came across the car speakers I asked him to turn it up. No bolts barred he was off. I could feel the G's upon my face and neck. I looked at the speedometer. We had hit 100. As drove the winding road back to civilisation mainly somewhere up in the 6o's he barely crossed the central white lines. All the time music blaring out. I was exhilarated. I brought back memories of New Zealand. It made me feel like I could be anywhere.

Now back in Penryn, to what I thought relative safety, another twist. Instead of following the road round towards Ponsharden, he turned right and then left towards the reservoir. Maybe I hadn't got away with it, or maybe he was just looking for the expression on my face. I lost my casual tone. "Where are we going?" "Falmouth" "This way?" "It's quicker". Again accelerating up the hill, he took a sharp left, simultaneously throwing something small brown and wrapped in clingfilm out the window on to the grass verge. I had got my bearings and we were now heading back into town. I had almost definitely missed last orders by now. Though I knew that no matter what happened next this was certainly to be the highlight of the evening. As we came down Kimberley Park Road, he pointed too pointed out that I would have missed the pub. I lied and said my fiends were waiting for me. They had bought me a drink. He asked if I might like to go to Helston for a drink. I said I couldn't as I had work in the morning (which was a half truth) as I did have an appointment. As we drove into town his driving slowed, there were loads of people out he took me to The Grapes, everyone was leaving. I knew Brendan wouldn't be there. I got out of the car and walked into the pub, no one was there except some stragglers. Looked like it had been a good night. On leaving the pub I hesitated, I suddenly thought, what if he's outside waiting? What if he's watching? Then I remember that Church Street was one way and there had been a road block outside. He wouldn't be able to get back down the street without having to go all the way round the one way system. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who would leave his car unless absolutely necessary.

I phoned Brendan, he was back home at the flat. I walked there and on my later departure I decided to get a taxi home. The taxi driver was nice. I told him what happened. I think it was the most interesting thing he'd heard all night...........

Valentines, I think that this was the first Valentines in my history that I didn't wake up with a feeling of dread. What causes it? I don't know? Or maybe I do know. It's the reason everyone hates Valentines but won't admit it. The fear of being unloved. Well I'm unloved, though the guy in the bike shop did oil my bike for free, that's as good a Valentines gets as far as I'm concerned. So the dread was weakened not only by that but by having somewhere to go. I've been having a lot of early Saturdays of late. Yes training for Falmouth & Penryn Community Radio Station: The Source . I couldn't pull myself from bed, then I did have a shower and was as the say running late. I started to run up Penryn High Street. I got to the zebra crossing and saw Cheryl in her nice red car. She pulled over and asked if I needed a lift. She always asks that and for some reason I mainly refuse, I don't know why but not this morning. I practically leapt into the car. She picked up some money, we dropped off Taylor and I was early. Matt was there, so was Dave. Dave is my Scottish compadre, even though he's from Edinburgh. There was a a lot of banter in the end Dave and I made a 15min programme about being Scottish in Cornwall. We didn't keep a copy.

Dave gave me a lift back to the boat. The windmill nearest the end of the quay had been laid down on it's side for inspection, as it had not been working properly. It looked a lot bigger laid out on the horizontal. The propeller standing quite a bit higher than both Andrew and the windmill engineer. The quay had been cordoned off and the steps removed from Miss Peapods entrance. The building design made more sense now. I asked for permission to gain entrance. Andrew never actually answered as to whether I could but I assumed from his jovial answer that the cord was merely a health and safety proviso and therefore the de-stabilised windmill posed no real threat. I was going to into Miss Peapods for tea, it was packed. I decided to cook breakfast (poached eggs on toast) on the boat, which I then promptly catapulted onto the floor. The eggs burst but the meal on the whole was retrievable. It didn't even taste of diesel. I napped, took my bike, Prudence, to the bike shop, then napped some more, collected Prudence from the bike shop, agonised over sending a valentine to Chris, spoke to mother, napped some more, went to get chips, started to get ready to go out. Decided on Rosie and the Goldbugs and meet up with Kathy and Matt. Went to hitch couldn't get a hitch. That is surprising because I was wearing a very short raspberry coloured dress and brown knee high boots. Matt from The Source pulled over changed my mind completely and decided to go to Crasken Farm, with Alice, Belle (who I'd never met) and Matt. It was good it was a party. There was an outside fire. Beer was £2 a can. The floorboards bounced when everyone was dancing. We got home around 4.

the spell check is not working- pah