I'm quite worried about moving to Falmouth. I've lived in London for nine years, after all, and before that I lived in Slough, which is practically in Zone 6, and before that I lived in Windsor, which is practically in Slough, so all told I've lived in the Greater London area since about 1873, which is one of the reasons I find the idea of moving to the other end of the country quite alarming.
Here are some of the things I worry might happen in Cornwall:
1. I will be lynched by Cornish Nationalists, paraded through the streets of Mawnan Smith and then burnt at the stake, naked and tied by the tongue to Jamie Oliver, while the Owlman of Portreath recites ancient incantations as our flesh starts to melt and combine.
2. No one will give me any work, and I will become penniless and eventually starve to death in Costa Coffee, slumped over a nice flowery notebook from Becky Biddle's Notebook and Lampshade Emporium, in which I will have made copious notes for my never-to-be-published anti-chicklit novel.
3. The lovely Mr BC will go to seek his fortune in Hollywood, leaving me to fend for myself. After ten years he will return to find that the Owlman of Portreath has claimed me for his bride, and that I have borne five owl-children and grown old and pock-marked.
4. I will turn into some sort of hippy.
5. After four months without access to a Caffe Nero, I will suddenly snap, leg it back to London for a grande skinny latte and an almond pain au chocolat, and never come back.
6. A seagull will make off with me in its beak.
7. That's enough bad things that could happen in Cornwall now.
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24 comments:
It's the Owlman of Mawnan Smith, I keep telling you.
Was Richard Gere not in that Owlman film? I thought that was in America.
Wait. You can get almond pain au chocolat?
I *knew* I wasn't making the most of this whole London experience.
It could be worse. Wales...
I always thought it was "Caffe Nerd" not "Nero". The D is funny in the logo.
Good luck with the move.
Re: number 4 *gasp* The horror!
Tsk, what nonsense. What's the point of being Queen of the Internet if you can't work anywhere?
Can we have a 'farewell Patroclus' London blogmeet before you go?
Is number one a worry about Cornwall or a sexual fantasy?
Tea-spurting-out-of-nose moment, thanks to Annie Rhiannon...
James: Yes you do, but this is a different Owlman, I've decided.
Wyndham: I imagine the Owlman of Portreath (not to be confused with the Owlman of Mawnan Smith) could be played by Tony Robinson - the 1995-era version with the straggly hair and baseball cap.
Scroobious: Yes indeed - Caffe Nero's almond pain au chocolat is king of buns.
Tim: Apparently the Welsh for 'where's the food?' is very similar to the Cornish for 'where's the toilet?'. Make of that what you will.
Annie R: I think I would like it even better if it *was* called Caffe Nerd.
Annie: I don't like 'farewell' things, but I'm always up for blogmeets, and I imagine I'll be back in town quite often (for the buns).
Ian: Ooh god, I don't know - they say fear and sexual desire go hand in hand...eurgh.
You wake up one day realising the local primary school head looks awfully familiar, and the grumpy GP seems terribly like a jowly Martin Clunes, and everyone is almost manically eccentric, and then the truth dawns ... you're living in "Doc Martin" and are doomed to spend the rest of your life living out genial family entertainment related anectodal experiences.
You've obviously written this post in the hope that loads of commenters will say "there there - it's all going to be alright! Everything will work out for the best!"
Of course they would all be WRONG. Within months you'll be forced to open a hut selling fish by some remote cove, then within a year you'll be penniless.
Still, better to be down and out in beautiful Cornwall than anywhere else in the UK, eh? Well, during the all too short summer months, at any rate ... and the winters are so terribly, terribly cold ...
You'll have to start surfing.
That's what people do down there, i'm told. Even in the winter. Brr.
I had to drive 15 miles out of the city on Friday night and that gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.
Good Luck!
Stef: I have a horrible feeling this might be quite an accurate prediction.
Spin: I was advised by one of the younger members of staff at my (now former) place of work that I should take up body boarding. Frankly I can't think of anything I'm less likely to do.
I quite like Betty's idea, though, although I might try selling cakes rather than fish*. I'll call it the Remote Cove Cake Hut. By the end of next year I'll have a column in the Observer Food Monthly and a lucrative contract with Waitrose, just you see if I don't.
* If only there was such a thing as a cake made of fish, eh?
I thought the Owlman was from Wales. Mind you, round her you have Springheeled Jack.
Ooh, we were just talking about Spring-Heeled Jack the other day. Does he leap about on snowy roofs on cloven hoof? And isn't there a Sherlock Holmes story about that?
Your right to be worried about the seagulls, when my daughter was about 6 months old and sitting in a back carrier eating an ice cream, one swopped down and nicked it out of her hand!
"you'll be forced to open a hut selling fish by some remote cove"
I presume Mr BC is not the remote cove in question? He's always seemed a friendly and thoroughly decent sort to me.
You could take up knitting! That would be interesting.....
Have a happy life. It'll be fine.
Do crows attack in Cornwall as well? I'd watch out for those.
Compare and contrast with ten things that could happen in London..
Drive by shooting, crack-adict burglaries, terminal tube failure where you spend the rest of your days in a shabby brick tunnel, penury brought on by addiction to almond pastries, trampled by japanese shoppers, stampede of pikeys (sorry- not very PC) in the queue for a grotty sofa, squished in extraordianry accident with bendy bus, whacked over the head by man with hammer, terminal boredom brought on by visit to opera, or incarcerated on basis of lunacy after visit to godawaful west end stage show revival staffed entierly by fatties.
Bring on the pasties and the floral dance.
Yes they could happen, especially #6. But try not to worry. Think of all the fudge.
You could always set up a new cottage industry. Say, "East London Pastry Company". Import handmade almond breads from docklands. Open a coffee shop on the side, to sell secondhand books...
No. It'll never catch on.
any one of those would make a fine plot for your not-chicklit novel! i'd be more worried about there only being one marks and spencer in the whole county!
You'll come back talking funny.
Just eat plenty of wurzels (no not the band!) and West Country Pasties to train for the food you'll see there. And wear a smock and straw hat. And chew straw.
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