Mousehole

A very comfortable bed, the sea breeze through the wide open window, squawking seagulls nesting on the roof just outside and the smell of the sea..... what a lovely way to wake up.

This morning while we hung the washing on a rack in front of the open bedroom window on the top floor we saw a cruise ship over the rooftops of the other houses.  We quickly got organised and walked down to the harbour to watch it go by.  It cruised past St Michael's Mount, turned and went on its way again.  A bit of sightseeing it seems.

We walked up and down almost every street in Mousehole, checking out all the little shops and eateries.  I bought a few little knick knacks for my nieces and we came back to the cottage for coffee.  For lunch we bought a cornish pasty and sat in the sun overlooking the harbour.  We were amazed to see there were "stop planks" for the entrance to the harbour.  They weren't exactly planks but huge thick beams. 

This afternoon I worked, to catch up on what I missed in the couple of days of sorting out the boat.  Mick went for another walk and then came back to get me to sit by the harbour people watching.  We spent a very pleasant hour and a half chatting with a lady who lived a mile away in Newlyn and liked to walk to Mousehole to buy a coffee and sit by the harbour.  What an idyllic lifestyle!  She was telling us about once sitting at that very spot and chatting to a father and his sone who ended up inviting her back to the cottage they were staying in for dinner.  She said it was the most ridiculously small little place on a very steep hill.  It was over three floors and had absurd steep stairs.  The bedroom was on the top floor and the bathroom was on the bottom floor so there were two sets of steep steps to negotiate to go to the loo in the night.  This was sounding very, very familiar to us.  It was the cottage we are staying in!  We all had a laugh at that.

Mick called Peter, at home, who had kindly offered to come and collect us from the airport..... at 5.30am!!  I took a photo of him standing in front of the harbour chatting to someone more than 10,000 miles away.  It is so strange to be arranging this.  In a way it feels like we're on holiday and soon we'll be back on the boat.  That is, after all, the only home we've had for nearly 2 years.  Actually, it feels like we're moving house, which I guess we are.  I keep looking at photos of our old house.... and the new house.... and its all a jumble.  The old house doesn't feel like home any more really and the new one doesn't either.  Maybe the caravan will feel home when we get there.  I'm sure by the time we get some of our belongings into the house it will be fine.  I think we've been away so long that without having lived in that house I don't have familiar memories of it.  We only spent time up there to clean or paint or garden.  We didn't even have a chair to sit on in all the time we spent up there before the tenants moved in.  We would sit on paint tins or stacks of timber.