David's Daily Diversions

I'm Back...

Well, the computer never made it into the shop, as I didn't realise that they were closed on Saturday. However, we went to Cornwall on holiday in the meantime.

The day after we arrived, so did the flood that destroyed the village of Boscastle, just 10 miles up the coast from where we were staying. Boscastle is noted for its Witchcraft Museum. Mrs H and I were speculating that perhaps this flood reflected the judgment of God, but it appears that the museum was one of the survivors of the deluge. All of the cars in the car park, swept by the torrent down the main street and into the harbour, were not.

The only direct effect of the Boscastle flood was that we happened to be on the main highway in the area at the time and got stuck in traffic for two hours. Despite Abby crying her eyes out the whole time, our situation was not really comparable to the one up the road.

It was a rainy week generally. This limited some of our activities. Often we stayed inside expecting it to rain any minute or we ventured out only to get drenched.

Still, it was good to get away and have a change of scenery.

We stayed in the village of Port Isaac - not named for the biblical patriarch, but rather mutated from the Cornish word for corn - yzak. It is built on the side of a cliff, so as you might guess there is a lot of climbing involved in just getting around. The streets are so narrow that cars can only go one way at a time. However, they are so winding that entire queues of cars are travelling in opposite directions oblivious to each other until the lead vehicles come to an abrupt meeting. Even then, the occupants of cars further back in the pack may have no idea why things have come to a standstill - or stand off.

Travelling to other villages, we discovered this situation was not unique to Port Isaac, so each time we ended up in one of these queues we dubbed it a "Cornish situation". The one thing for which Cornwall does not seem suited is lots of visitors in cars. Unfortunately, owing to the natural beauty of its coastline, this is the one thing it possesses in abundance.