Harlyn Bay
I took the above photo from the beach at Harlyn Bay on the north coast of Cornwall. It shows the gap between Cataclews Point and Gulland Rock – or rather it shows the apparent gap. The rock is 3.5 km from the camera while the headland is little more than 500 metres away – yet the two appear at first sight to be facing each other across the water.
Likewise the stars in constellations appear to form groups or patterns – though some are many light years further away than others. More distant stars may be intrinsically brighter than nearer ones, which confuses the issue. Similarly with seascapes the eye has no way of knowing the true sizes of rocks and islands.
See this clip from Father Ted for further clarification.
Two German boys are gathering handfuls of sand in an attempt to dam a stream that flows into the bay. One of them shouts stauen and then wiederholen. I think back to my own dam-building childhood. To deter us, a farmer once warned us we’d catch polio from the stream water. I haven’t seen any dam-building English boys – or girls – for many years.
A man and a woman are swimming in the turquoise water in a cove far below the cliff path. I can’t see how they could have walked there from the main beach. Did they swim round the headland – or climb down the cliff? Did they arrive in a boat perhaps? I spot a lifeboat station a couple of hundred metres away. At least their rescuers won’t take long to reach them.
The charmless huts of a holiday park sprawl across many hectares near Harlyn Bay. You approach the park via a narrow lane flanked by tamarisk bushes and blown sand. A golf course extends into the distance on the other side – with the dunes and sea beyond. Up close, the park promises fun for all the family. From a distance – on the coastal path – it stands out as a prosaic patch of little white blocks. Call me an aesthetic snob if you like, but – be honest – you come to Cornwall hoping to see the natural and the lichen-covered, don’t you?
A stile on the coastal path east of the hotel is a vertical piece of slate that you need long legs to step over. (Or if you had immense upper-body strength you might be able to lift yourself and swing them over.) I imagine this barrier could even prevent a person from completing the South West Coastal Path – or at least necessitate a detour. Cliffs lie on the seaward side and an overgrown dyke on the landward. We can find no way around it.
The Hotel
Much of the structure of this old house dates back to the 1600s. It has interior stone, dark bare boards and antique furniture. Tall grasses, thistles and big daisies grow in the grounds – and there’s a kitchen garden smelling of vegetables for the dinner table. A TripAdvisor reviewer has written that the hotel – though nice – is not special enough, or words to that effect. I guess they’d expected a more formal experience for their money – but I like the youthful staff and informality. The hotel combines historic fabric with an unpretentious modern vibe.
Two American couples are sitting at a table in the hotel lounge and all four people contribute to the lively conversation. Earlier today I read that American academics seated at dinner will often say Let’s have a table discussion! Everybody at the table is then supposed to contribute to a learned debate about a chosen topic. The American author of this piece said she’d tried this in the UK and it hadn’t gone down well. The introverted Brit academics had wanted to relax while eating and maybe chat with their immediate neighbours.
Yet the following evening two middle-class English couples are having a discussion that sounds similar to the earlier American one. Bang goes my theory that Americans are different. These are the English chattering classes – but everybody chatters more in a group of four.
Blackthorn 