Day 28: Adventures in Fruit Pickin' and Park-n-Floatin'

We started today with a trip to Chyreen Farm, a pick-your-own fruit farm with an abundant bounty of black currants and gooseberries. Luckily it wasn't raining, so we were able to pick almost 3 pounds (or was it kilograms?) of both fruits, which you can see me carrying below :)

Then we went down into Falmouth and rented a small boat to take out for four hours. We (my dad, mostly) drove the poor little 6-horsepower thing all over the bay (in the freezing wind) to Smuggler's Cottage, the cute little coastline pub we've been coming to forever. Recently, though, it has changed hands and lost some of its homey charm, though the food was still good. The significance of the place, actually, is that Eisenhower stopped there to have a meeting when all the boats converged there to set out for D-Day. So that was nice. Then we took it back, trying desperately to beat the high tide. We made it.

When we got home, my grandmother and I made black currant jam. It's actually not difficult. Just a cup and a half of water boiling with a pound of black currants for twenty minutes, then for ten minutes after adding four cups of sugar. We put them into four hot jam jars, and tomorrow they will be cool and ready to eat! I will also be taking some home with me, of course. :)

And that's about it. I have four busy days left before I take the train up to London for a night and leave the next day. Phew! It'll be nice to be home. :)

Day 27: Shopping in Falmouth Town

First of all, I would like everyone to join me in admiring the new shoes I bought at ASDA (UK's WalMart), as long as you ignore my horrible TOMS tan. I am glad to welcome a pair of floral flats to my admittedly large (shut up) shoe collection. Yay! I feel cute! :D Maybe I will actually fit in with the classily floral-clad youth over here instead of my usual bedraggled (but practical!) vacation attire that I am so sick of.

I also bought a new swimsuit at ASDA, as I do almost every time I come here, because swimsuits over here fit my figure so much better than American ones. American swimsuits seem to be blind to the fact that some of us do actually have boobs and need more than just little fabric triangles to be comfortable. So thanks, Britain, for your innovative swimsuit designs! Huzzah!

Thirdly, I bought yet another book for under three pounds. This will be my fourth book purchase of this trip and I'm beginning to be concerned about space, but not concerned enough to not read anything for the next week when I'm on such a roll! I have read five books so far -- FIVE books in three weeks, four of them in the last five days! Oh my god, I had almost forgotten what it was like to have time to read. The book I bought is called Her Fearful Symmetry and it's by Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote Time Traveler's Wife. That's honestly the only reason I picked it up (it was fate, I swear - I walked into the shop, picked up a book, saw her name, and was out of there in three minutes, prize in hand), but I trust her completely to have written another brilliant read.

Other than that, we wandered around Falmouth's High Street, looking in Cornish shops and watching the water. At one point we found the Falmouth Theatre Company's rehearsal space, and we went in and talked to the three people who were building the set for their upcoming show, Theft. Too bad I won't be around to see it, but their program seemed remarkably -- and charmingly -- similar to Denton's Campus Theatre. They were very cute, though. One old man who was talking to us must have lit five matches to light his pipe but each time they'd burn out before he'd stopped talking long enough to use it, so he'd just throw it on the floor and light up another one. It was very quaint. :)

Unfortunately I couldn't take pictures of any of this because my phone was dead. So just use your imagination, I guess.

Then we went to the beach for a while. Enjoy these pictures.

Day 26: Baileys Reunite! Maenporth At Last! (attempt no. 2)

So for the record, this is my second time writing this post, so I am quite frustrated. The first one was long and detailed and interesting and written in my new foldable bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone. But when I was finished, said iPhone failed to save the post, and all of my glorious work was lost. Due to my general anger at this piece of machinery, I'm not even going to attempt to replicate it, and just highlight the important bits.

1) I'm with my family again! And yesterday our relations, Jennifer and Roger, visited, and it was very nice to meet them - such interesting people!

2) I'm having fun but looking forward to coming home in a week. Maenporth is my last stop on this glorious journey, and a good last stop at that. But it will be nice to get back in the swing of things, focus on college, and makeup for missing hanging out with my dear friends and boyfriend for a month.

3) Stuff about how Maenporth is awesome. See picture below. Also, credit goes to the grandparents for owning the house and letting us come here basically all my life.

4) Sea kayaking. We did it in Maenporth bay. Saw the shipwreck (decaying but still extant), a purple cave-tunnel, and fluorescent blue seaweed that turned brown outside of the water.

5) Was accosted by a small Siamese cat with bells on to be his personal masseuse until further notice.

6) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Ohmygod just read it. I probably wrote an entire page about this book and now that's gone and I want to cry so just read the freaking book and be amazed by how beautiful and intense and well-written and deliciously long it is, and be confirmed in your humanity and blah blah blah whatever else I said it would do to you. Especially if you're Anna or Laura. And then come talk to me about it. And no, I don't give a crap if you've seen the movie. Just do it.

7) Books are amazing and I wish I could just read books all day and make money instead of getting a job. Oh wait, that's why I'm becoming a publisher. Cool. We're good.