I spent this afternoon playing cricket. We had drinks breaks every 10 overs (due to the INTENSE heat), and our tea-break included bread pudding, scones, sandwiches, ginger beer, chocolate cake etc. The gorgeous ground has nestled in Perranarworthal for 120 years and Maria came along to sun-bathe and do her knitting. The fact that one team won and the other one didn't is basically incidental - cricket is more a complex metaphor than a sport in any case - because the truth is, in our quiet way, we were living out the fantasies of countless caged urbanites.
Whenever we tell people we live in Cornwall (eg. last weekend, in SE London and Kent) we are generally greeted with jealous sighs and 'oh lucky you's. They, doubtless, are remembering halcyon childhood holidays pottering around in rock pools and on bodyboards, or maybe just episodes of Coast or Countryfile. Living here is not really like that - frankly, it's often difficult, limiting or boring - but there are occasions, like this weekend, when it would be foolish not to stop and recognise the Holy Grail while you're drinking from it. So many people long for what we have, often working their whole lives in the forlorn hope of maybe someday retiring down here.
Yesterday morning, Maria taught an exercise class while I walked on the beach. Later, we sat out on the grass in front of Epiphany House eating a celebratory (free) lunch due to our friend's ordination. Then we went to another fabulous home to eat a cream tea (plus wine, plus cake, plus raffle in which we won some Prosecco) in order to raise money for our friend Georgie working with orphans in Kenya (the fact that the house over-looked a creek on which a 100 year old regatta was taking place is just just by-the-by). In between we walked in the fields, talked to the horses, and generally communed with creation.
It's idyllic, it's wonderful. Nature is glorious, the gentle peace is epic, and the food is worth writing lengthy mouth-watering descriptions of. Not a bad life. And yet we are also (effectively) homeless, and severely lacking in income; life is often so stressful that we don't know what to do with ourselves. This little blog-post is an attempt to wallow in the goodness, milking it rather than rushing on to the next important, anxiety-inducing thing.
"The fact that one team won and the other one didn't is basically incidental - cricket is more a complex metaphor than a sport in any case"
You lost then?
Posted by: Charlie | July 04, 2011 at 09:16 PM
No, we won actually, even though I didn't get a chance to bat.
BECAUSE I didn't get a chance to bat.
Posted by: misterdavid | July 17, 2011 at 08:53 AM