WARNING contains: me, french fried potato chips, gross generalizations about whole countries of people, fast cars, weather, steamed mussels, cows and ice cream.
Recently, my family went 'on holiday' to Northern Cornwall in the hopes my husband could relive a bit of his childhood and take our boys rock pooling. For those unfamiliar with the British coast, let me explain that there are three kinds of beaches. There are pebble ones, sandy ones, and rocky/sandy combos. There are also cliffs. Lots of cliffs. The coast here is often very dramatic. The land just ends. Drops off into sea and craggy outcroppings of pointy hard things. It's fairly spectacularly beautiful. But it isn't relaxing per se. Not a coast line that screams "come, lie down, relax, and have a drink." Not that every beach needs to be a soft place for drunken sun worship, there's a time and a place for gorgeous geology porn.
North Cornwall has all three kinds of beach. I particularly enjoyed one where a steep decent led to a rocky area that also had a lovely sandy stretch at low tide. It reminded me a lot of the coast line in Goonies aka the American North West. And at every beach we went to there were some opportunities for rock pooling otherwise known as staring into pools or tepid salt water and shoving nets and sticks at things. We poked a lot of limpets, found several anemones, spotted retreating crabs, and admired large groups of mussels (which made my hub and I hungry quite frankly).
It is the end of May and in most of the US this means summer. But in the UK it is still sorta spring and the temperatures even in the far south of the country are by no means sweaty. The warmest day was about 68F. This does not stop Brits from dressing and acting like it is summer at the seaside though. On one beach, where my family and I were all in windbreakers and long pants, I saw people in bathing suits, bikinis included, and shorts/t-shirts. Then again, many people also had set up windbreaks. If you don't know what this is, it is essentially a long strip of plastic with sticks at intervals that one can set up in a semi-circle (or nearly a full circle for the privacy driven) to shield you and your family/friends from the cool, relentless blowing wind off the sea. Perhaps in there it feels much warmer. But these only work on the sandy beaches. I saw a few people making do with them sort of propped up by rocks on one rocky beach. More often though, on the rocky beaches, people put down towels, lie down, and then proceed to pretend that they are some how comfortable. It is astonishing to see someone lying on rocks, cigarette in hand, lounging as though they might be totally relaxed while rocks jut in to their every bone and muscle.
One thing they've got going for them though is that there is ice cream everywhere. At one point, I could see four different ice cream dispensaries. That's dedication to dairy my friends. Which isn't hard because I also saw in excess of a thousand cows over four days.
In one seaside village, that's known as a foodie spot, I was told there would a forty minute wait to sit at the locally famous fish and chips place. I didn't wait. Not because I had to two hungry kids but because whilst I'm sure it was good, I cannot image fried fish and potato to be worth such a lengthy wait. I've waited forty minutes for profiteroles that literally made me cry with delight. I've waited forty minutes for all you can eat crab legs. But I've never waited that long for food readily available on the high street of every village in Britain. Ok, maybe if they'd had hushpuppies, I'd have at least gotten take out!
Things overheard:
At a remote tea house on a cliff, miles from anywhere, a woman asked, "Do you do chips?" When she was told they did not, she asked if anywhere nearby did. I found this hysterical for numerous reasons. The Brits and their chips. The idea that you'd come all the way out to a wild, remote beach only to be foiled for lack of fried potato. And the knowledge that the British think anything over a two hour drive is half a day's journey when many American commute that distance TWICE a day. The closest chips would be a twenty minute drive.
A conversation across a local cafe between scruffy old men about Formula One racing. I didn't understand half of what they said but it made me smile because if they'd just been talking about NASCAR, it could've been the North Carolina coast instead.
Some pre-teens talking about the weather. Not tv or film. Not celebrities or video games. Grousing about the timing of the rain, the type of rain, the slant of the rain like old people. I guess the British can discuss the weather, in depth, at any age.
Not an overheard thing, but I spent a lot of the trip trying to figure out how to say the names of places. Growing up in America, I took for granted that Cherokee is pronounced CHAIR-oh-Kee. I giggled at foreigners twisting it every which way but "right," Just as I was laughed at when I assumed that Tintagel would be pronounced Tint-AH-gail or gull rather than the "right" way of Ten-TAH-gle. I like place names in Cornwall. Lots of them sound like pirate insults - you Pendogett, Budey, Pounstocker!
Overall, I now understand why the Brits love a Florida holiday the way so many Americans love to go to the Bahamas or Mexico. It's far warmer, softer, and closer to chips.
No comments:
Post a Comment