The Stories Behind the Pictures
May. 13th, 2004 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonOkay, I guess I'll stop blabbing about this trip soon. I was quieting down, but the pictures got me stirred up again, the new batch I posted today especially.
After driving out of Looe, we decided we might drive down the coast to Mousehole or Penzance for our next stop, but we were concerned about getting there late and finding a place to stay, so we decided to detour through the Bodmin Moor to the town of Bodmin. They had a Tourist Information Bureau there and we thought we'd book a room with them and continue driving. But once we got to Bodmin we fell in-love with it. Such a quaint little town and we got rooms at a lovely bed and breakfast high on a hill above the town looking out to the distant hill where the town erected a obelisk in honor of a man who'd done a lot of good things for the town. Bodmin turned out to be a perfect place to stay to explore the moors and we wound up staying two nights. We would have stayed a third night if they hadn't been booked up. We had a lovely meal at a restaurant in town called La Providence, with lots of London panache because it was run by a London chef, Simon, who'd gotten fed up with London and moved back home to Cornwall. He gave us hints on a lot of nice local sights we might have otherwise missed.
But before that meal, since we got to Bodmin early, we decided to drive around the countryside. There was a place called Golitha Falls we'd seen in the photographs of a friend and we asked our hosts at the B&B how to get there. They gave us instructions, but well, those country roads can be a bit confusing. We were winding through hedgerows and country lanes and dirt roads and we thought we were on track--and we were, but we were also kind of . . . not lost exactly . . . more like finding an unplanned adventurous route to our chosen destination. The way I look at it, even if you're wandering blind down country roads, you're always headed somewhere, so you're never really lost. We came to a lovely crossroads that sort of kind of pointed us where we were going, but the land around it was so beautiful, we pulled over by the side of the road to take pictures.
It wasn't until we pulled over and got out of the car that we noticed someone was already parked by one of the hedgerows. It was a gent in a tiny red car, not looking at the scenery, not reading, not sleeping—just sitting there staring out the windshield at nothing. Or maybe he was concentrating. On something else. That we couldn't see. Anyway, he wore one of those blank, internal looks. We should have been creeped out, I suppose. Unfortunately, we got a fit of the giggles and, well, once that kind of behavior starts there's just no stopping until it's run it's sorry course, no matter how much you shush yourself or tell yourself it's not the appropriate time. We didn't look at him, pretended he wasn't there in fact, and pointed at the scenery, and snapped away. We weren't talking in loud, obnoxious American voices, but we were speculating rather a lot in whispers about what he might be doing, and that only added to the giggles, I'm afraid. Which I suppose was rather obnoxious.
"He's come to the most remote location he could find to commit suicide," we speculated merrily. "He was sure no one would bother him here."
"He's pondering the meaning of his life and finding it wanting, wondering why he was ever born."
"He's got a house full of relatives from America who've descended on him and he just needs a little bloody peace and quiet."
After about five minutes of our giggling and snapping the poor man started his car and drove away at a rather rapid clip. We were not a balm to his rattled spirit, I'm afraid. I have nothing to say in our defense. All we did was laugh rather more loudly after that. We did feel bad about it afterwards, though. Sort of.
Then we got back on the road—knowing our way the whole time, of course—and reached the tiny, sweet village of St. Neot, which hadn't exactly been in the directions we'd been given. We decided to stop and take a look at the church. You know, I'm not a big fan of most cathedrals, but little country churches really move me. You can feel the human dimensions in them, the centuries of people spending time there, and St. Neot was not a disappointment. Wonderful, elaborate Medieval wooden arches inside, quiet, peaceful, imbued with spirit. As a project someone had done needlepoint pillows with the names of all the parishioners to kneel on and left them in their favorite pews. Just a lovely place.
No tiny red cars with solitary gents hanging about.
Eventually, we got back in amongst the hedgerows and Ann said, "I don't think this is the way. I think we're lost." And that's when I saw the sign pointing the way to Golitha Falls. See, we knew the way all the time. We pulled into the car park and noticed the highway about fifty yards further up the windy, bumpy road we'd just traversed. The highway our hosts at the B&B had directed us to take. It made the drive back to Bodmin ever so much quicker and more straightforward.
Maybe as punishment for our appalling behavior with the solitary gent, I snapped one picture at Golitha then it was time to reload. My camera jammed—my lovely, ancient, manual Canon AE1. I couldn't get the film to advance no matter what I did and I only had the one roll of new film in my pack. Ann did manage to get some good shots of the Falls—very rugged and quite beautiful. We did a lot of clamoring over rocks and through muddy paths to get to them, but it was well worth the effort. The locals out walking their lovely puppies were amazed people had come all the way from Los Angeles to see their local falls. Everyone was so nice. Hopefully, they weren't related to the gent in the red car.
And fortunately, my problem with the camera turned out to be temporary, due to a bad roll of film and not my camera itself. I took lots more pictures after that. Six more rolls, in fact.
After driving out of Looe, we decided we might drive down the coast to Mousehole or Penzance for our next stop, but we were concerned about getting there late and finding a place to stay, so we decided to detour through the Bodmin Moor to the town of Bodmin. They had a Tourist Information Bureau there and we thought we'd book a room with them and continue driving. But once we got to Bodmin we fell in-love with it. Such a quaint little town and we got rooms at a lovely bed and breakfast high on a hill above the town looking out to the distant hill where the town erected a obelisk in honor of a man who'd done a lot of good things for the town. Bodmin turned out to be a perfect place to stay to explore the moors and we wound up staying two nights. We would have stayed a third night if they hadn't been booked up. We had a lovely meal at a restaurant in town called La Providence, with lots of London panache because it was run by a London chef, Simon, who'd gotten fed up with London and moved back home to Cornwall. He gave us hints on a lot of nice local sights we might have otherwise missed.
But before that meal, since we got to Bodmin early, we decided to drive around the countryside. There was a place called Golitha Falls we'd seen in the photographs of a friend and we asked our hosts at the B&B how to get there. They gave us instructions, but well, those country roads can be a bit confusing. We were winding through hedgerows and country lanes and dirt roads and we thought we were on track--and we were, but we were also kind of . . . not lost exactly . . . more like finding an unplanned adventurous route to our chosen destination. The way I look at it, even if you're wandering blind down country roads, you're always headed somewhere, so you're never really lost. We came to a lovely crossroads that sort of kind of pointed us where we were going, but the land around it was so beautiful, we pulled over by the side of the road to take pictures.
It wasn't until we pulled over and got out of the car that we noticed someone was already parked by one of the hedgerows. It was a gent in a tiny red car, not looking at the scenery, not reading, not sleeping—just sitting there staring out the windshield at nothing. Or maybe he was concentrating. On something else. That we couldn't see. Anyway, he wore one of those blank, internal looks. We should have been creeped out, I suppose. Unfortunately, we got a fit of the giggles and, well, once that kind of behavior starts there's just no stopping until it's run it's sorry course, no matter how much you shush yourself or tell yourself it's not the appropriate time. We didn't look at him, pretended he wasn't there in fact, and pointed at the scenery, and snapped away. We weren't talking in loud, obnoxious American voices, but we were speculating rather a lot in whispers about what he might be doing, and that only added to the giggles, I'm afraid. Which I suppose was rather obnoxious.
"He's come to the most remote location he could find to commit suicide," we speculated merrily. "He was sure no one would bother him here."
"He's pondering the meaning of his life and finding it wanting, wondering why he was ever born."
"He's got a house full of relatives from America who've descended on him and he just needs a little bloody peace and quiet."
After about five minutes of our giggling and snapping the poor man started his car and drove away at a rather rapid clip. We were not a balm to his rattled spirit, I'm afraid. I have nothing to say in our defense. All we did was laugh rather more loudly after that. We did feel bad about it afterwards, though. Sort of.
Then we got back on the road—knowing our way the whole time, of course—and reached the tiny, sweet village of St. Neot, which hadn't exactly been in the directions we'd been given. We decided to stop and take a look at the church. You know, I'm not a big fan of most cathedrals, but little country churches really move me. You can feel the human dimensions in them, the centuries of people spending time there, and St. Neot was not a disappointment. Wonderful, elaborate Medieval wooden arches inside, quiet, peaceful, imbued with spirit. As a project someone had done needlepoint pillows with the names of all the parishioners to kneel on and left them in their favorite pews. Just a lovely place.
No tiny red cars with solitary gents hanging about.
Eventually, we got back in amongst the hedgerows and Ann said, "I don't think this is the way. I think we're lost." And that's when I saw the sign pointing the way to Golitha Falls. See, we knew the way all the time. We pulled into the car park and noticed the highway about fifty yards further up the windy, bumpy road we'd just traversed. The highway our hosts at the B&B had directed us to take. It made the drive back to Bodmin ever so much quicker and more straightforward.
Maybe as punishment for our appalling behavior with the solitary gent, I snapped one picture at Golitha then it was time to reload. My camera jammed—my lovely, ancient, manual Canon AE1. I couldn't get the film to advance no matter what I did and I only had the one roll of new film in my pack. Ann did manage to get some good shots of the Falls—very rugged and quite beautiful. We did a lot of clamoring over rocks and through muddy paths to get to them, but it was well worth the effort. The locals out walking their lovely puppies were amazed people had come all the way from Los Angeles to see their local falls. Everyone was so nice. Hopefully, they weren't related to the gent in the red car.
And fortunately, my problem with the camera turned out to be temporary, due to a bad roll of film and not my camera itself. I took lots more pictures after that. Six more rolls, in fact.