Fair exchange, no robbery

I’m in the Seven Stars with Ruth. It’s Ladies’ Pamper Night. Verity has tried to disguise the pool table with a large green tablecloth on which her Aloe Vera products are displayed. I’ve never seen Verity before; nor have I seen most of this multitude of women who have turned up to Lisa’s latest venture. Also present is a manicurist and a mobile hairdresser. The main bar contains very few men and those that are present are cowering. Phil the Tooth remains resolute.

Ruth is a cheese-maker. When she’s not making cheese, she’s paid to collect wild garlic leaves to cover the Cornish Yarg she makes. Her back is playing up due to all the bending down involved in picking the leaves. Tis the season for garlic. In the summer, she’ll get extra money for collecting nettles. A colleague ripped their jeans and Ruth has repaired them, giving them an in vogue distressed look. For this chore, she has received half a dozen eggs and a jar of home-made jam. Fair exchange, no robbery says Ruth, an immigrant from the North Country and a master of incomprehensible idioms. I ask her about her new man who claims to be a professional pool player. They only come along once in a Preston Guild she says.

Lisa has put on a Ladies Night special: a glass of wine for two quid. It’s French, not that nasty Spanish stuff she was off-loading earlier in the year. Some strangers come in and enquire about the special offer. Ask Alison they’re told; she’s a wine expert. It’s going down very well and the Aloe Vera lady, who was very nervous at the start of the proceedings, is overwhelmed by sales despite the fact that not many of the ladies are paying attention to her advice to drink more water.

Lisa brings me a copy of the local paper, The West Briton…as if there are others claiming to be Britons of alternative geographical origin. There’s a photo of her dad in it today, taken in the 60’s when he worked for a company that, even then, supported the remnants of the mining enterprises. Lisa, who lives her pub life at a superficial level, has a lot of historical knowledge of Camborne and Redruth. Sadly, this is lost for the evening in the midst of a loud crash. We expect the rugby boys to be boisterous but the ladies have fallen into the manicurist’s table and the floor is covered in nail varnish.

I took Josh down to Penryn earlier. He’s off to the Hyde Park protests before heading home for Easter. It’s unlikely I’ll ever see him again. Ruth gives me a hug just in case I don’t make it back in for the quiz on Sunday. It’s the start of the farewells. Once in a Preston Guild…….

Testing

The car and I are due a service and an MOT. Both of us bear the scars of a year in France and too many journeys back and forth to West Barbary. And the two of us boast an intermittent tinny rattle to the rear. The car’s going in tomorrow. Today was my turn. I complimented the doctor on his bright green shirt and told him I’d abandoned the Statins.

Any particular reason why he asked?
Well, I’ve read they disturb your sleep patterns I answered. I didn’t tell him my sleep has no patterns or that I’ve been au fait with the BBC World Service throughout the night for some years.

Anything else he asked?
Well, I’ve heard that they can enhance depression and I’ve been feeling a bit down lately. I didn’t tell him that I live in Cornwall.

And?
Well, I’ve also read that cholesterol is not a sound indicator of potential stroke in women.
Damn the media came the reply.

Hmmmm. Since when was information the resource of a privileged few I think.

He reads my mind and gets the scales out in retaliation. Fortuitously, they register weight in EU standards so I have no idea how fat I am apart from the fact that none of my clothes fit me.

Your cholesterol is too high he says.
Your blood pressure is too high he says.
I’m giving up smoking on April 4th I say in an effort to negotiate a sense of well-being
How many do you smoke he asks?
Does it matter? You try doing the A30 I don’t reply.

I went to the hospital two weeks ago to have my ears sorted out.

How many cigarettes do you smoke asked the consultant?
Sorry, I can’t hear you. My ears are full of smoke.

Fasting blood tests are the order of the day. Hope it’s a bit more positive with the car.

And shall Trelawny live?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

St Piran’s Day in Cornwall began badly in Redruth. Personally speaking, it’s my impression that all things start and end badly in Redruth. I hadn’t even left the car-park when I was accosted by a woman sporting a black eye and speaking in tongues. It transpired that she wanted to know whether I was in the habit of buying from a gypsy. Saw me coming. I can never say no to a gypsy…too scared of the fall-out. So, having purchased my shell for £2 she then wanted to read my palm. Said she knew the name of my husband and told me I shouldn’t worry so much. Despite the fact I don’t have a husband, she was right on the second count. I worry a lot about gypsies.

I went to the rugby club to watch the festivities. If you’ve ever seen that episode of Phoenix Nights where Brian holds a fete in the car-park, you’ll know what St Piran’s Day in Redruth was like. I didn’t even wait for the procession.

In the evening we went to Perranporth to watch the re-enactment of the saint arriving on the beach. He originally landed on a mill-stone and set up a church in the dunes. You might think it a blessing that the mill-stone didn’t sink. I thought it was a result that he hadn’t landed via Redruth….we wouldn’t be celebrating thousands of years later were that the case. It was freezing. Every child in the vicinity was there and there was a lot of dancing to a Celtic band that only knew one tune. I wanted fish but half of Cornwall was crammed into the chip shop.

Later, I went to the Seven Stars in Stithians. Trust Lisa to get it right. It was another mission to ensure a collective village Sunday-morning hang-over. A St Piran’s quiz with the answers secreted round the pub ensured that everyone mingled with everyone: even the young folk who only go there to play pool got their iPhones out to Google the missing answers for the decrepit oldies bumbling out of their comfort zones in the front bar. The rugby boys were in fine fettle and the Aussies who’ve swapped lives with a Cornish couple were suitably bemused. There were free pasties and saffron cake and a woman who’d called in thinking this was a place of high culture gave us free tomes for World Book Night. Even Phil the Tooth was observed to be laughing.

The Seagull Singers, supposedly dropping in on their way to the high-spots of Falmouth stayed all night to provide choral entertainment. Not much in the way of Cornish songs to begin with but it’s been a long time since I’ve heard My Grandfather’s Clock and Sloop John B was more than welcome. With much vigour, we all banged on the bar to the Irish Rover and, having given up the cheap Spanish plonk, but much inspired by the French Shiraz, I conducted a threatening and very successful collection for the village school.

Finally, the Seagulls, having remembered why they were there, performed their piece de resistance and those of us who’d forgotten that we hate Cornwall sung along with tears in our eyes….and shall Trelawny die? There’s 20,000 Cornishmen will know the reason why! Superb.

Field trip

We gather outside the luggage room in the servants’ quarters waiting hopefully for a guest appearance of the regency ghost: any sense of animation would be welcome. This is a house of architectural class and gender divisions; everyone in their place but no-one present. Unlike other stately homes which are still partially inhabited, Lanhydrock aches of the dead. The loss of a cherished son in the trenches was the catalyst for the disintegration and dispersal of a dynasty. The twentieth century commenced only after the first two decades of the 1900’s. With no further generations to push the place along, the house became a cold Edwardian mausoleum, frozen in time.

I am fascinated by the abundance of animals all of which are one way or another, happily enmeshed in the memory of those who are themselves now absent. It begins in the kitchen where the spits in front of the range are large enough to cook a couple of rhinos and ends in the gallery whose ceiling is deliciously carved with every bird and beast imaginable. In between, is the casserole dish. Made from Staffordshire caneware, I covet this beautiful object which is embossed with deer and ducks that leap and fly freely between vine leaves. As the rabbit handle was lifted, releasing the game-induced aroma, those sat amongst the claret crystal at the ivy-dressed dining table would speak contentedly of the killing fields.

We wander along an antler-lined corridor towards a large moose head which peers through red velvet drapes. Before we can reach out to stroke its lovely nose however, our attention is distracted by the discovery of the missing choughs which have been caught, stuffed and placed in a glass box on a hidden window-sill. A mere introduction, they preface a nightmare of taxidermy. In the smoking room, the scent of phantom cigars is overtaken by the rot of death: a redundant fox leaps across the fireplace whilst the remains of a tiger glare timidly from the floor. Along with the rules of the Eton Society and a selection of deceased birds, the walls are hung with pictures of the hunt. When a volunteer arrives with a small watering can, it’s perplexing to imagine what can possibly remain alive in this gloomy room; but, there on the sideboard, a small plant is indeed waging a battle for survival.

In her ladyship’s bedroom, things are a little calmer. Pristine white linen is laid out on the bed having been recently returned from the home for fallen women at Lostwithiel who are paying for their sins by washing the clothes of the gentry. On the dressing table, along with the eau de colognes, sits a small embroidered cushion bearing the legend welcome little stranger. Apparently, it served to mark the imminent arrival of yet another of the ten children my lady gave birth to. Usefully, it could have doubled up as a greeting to any one of them that was brought along from another part of the house for a brief meeting with their mother but I keep this thought to myself. I don’t want to upset the charming ladies who are proudly displaying the cut glass dish designed to hold the spare hair that accumulated in her ladyship’s brush.

We pass through the boudoir, gaze at the drawing room and follow the sounds of the Steinway emanating from the library. It’s a robust accompaniment to our neck-breaking examination of the ceiling. There are written explanations and mirrors but no smoking guns. With Adam and Eve displayed in so many interesting poses amongst the romping fauna, I forget to look for the grey lady who haunts this part of Lanhydrock. I’m too busy following Genesis to worry any longer about the dead.