we left St Austell, on the south coast of Cornwall, with some degree of sadness, though that lasted til the sun came out and we hit some really fab roads heading towards North Cornwall. And Padstow. The most lovely, quaint, pretty, picturesque little fishing village in the world. Well, in this part of the world certainly and quite frankly that’s all that matters currently. The entire trip, south coast to north; 25 miles. About 40 minutes. Would have been 30 minutes but these Cornish locals insist that every time they pass a school or a 3 house village, they should slow down? I mean; why?

Anyway, Padstow’s so fab that as soon as we arrived we took a ferry somewhere else. Though not a very far somewhere else, just across the bay to a place called ‘Rock’. That’s it; Rock. A very good description of the place really. Though I reckon ‘Sand’ would have been even more appropriate because I’ve never seen a bigger ‘beach’ anywhere. And I’ve seen a few. Even Aussies would go ‘strewth!!!! that’s some fucking beach, mate’. Its half a mile wide and goes on forever. (Normal tolerances apply to all measurements).

The photo is of Mel, in her new dress, on this amazing beach, which we walked for about 6 hours and didn’t reach the end.

The dress was an act of necessity. When packing for ‘a holiday in England’, regardless of the time of year or season, you pack sweaters, coats, jackets, sweat shirts, quilts, scarves, gloves. What you skimp on is sundresses. I know I did. She brought one. And we had another sunny day. In fact every day until today has been fabulously, wonderfully hot and sunny. So we stopped at an Asda, the supermarket. And we bought the dress. For a tenner. Ten quid. Best not to ask how they can do that. Considerations of Chinese children working 17 hours a day in sweat shops in Shanghai or Bolton, for $3 a month are way secondary.

Asda is like the diametric opposite of the Eden Project. They don’t sell sundresses at Eden. But if they did they’d be made of sustainable cotton grown in eco-friendly communes from organically reared whatever-cotton-comes-from things, woven by a workers co-operative who stop work for 30 minutes every hour to meditate and chant, eat home-grown vegetables and perform local dances for each other in prayer. And they’d cost £745 each dress. And be only available in natural beige, as artificial colourings are the devil’s work.

Meanwhile, the World Cup is progressing nicely, there’s a gorgeous Canadian girl in the wimbledon final and Andy (fucking) Murray returned with a vengeance to type. Whinging Scottish misery, stamping his feet and throwing his racquet to the ground. Loser.

Onwards and seawards

Happy friday

A xxxx