waiting with Sir John ...

although i have lived here for four years now, I still havent unpacked all the boxes I moved with ... so I have had to ransack them all to find my poetry books ... and yes, it was in the last box that I found what I was looking for ...

I thought I had the collected works of Sir John B, but I can find only The Best of so perhaps I will have to buy a copy of the Collected Works on this journey to St Enedoc

... my bags are packed ... I even ironed a shirt or two, whatever next ... and i am now waiting for the car-hireman to arrive and hand over the car in return for a substantial amount of cash ...

actually, I should already have picked the car up, but the man from the car-hire firm rang me very apologetically to say that the car they had allocated to me would not now be available at the allotted hour and they were going to get a replacement vehicle from another, geographically obscure, branch ...

he was clearly expecting a torrent of obscenity and abuse, so he sounded very relieved when he was met by my "hey thats not a problem" response ... perhaps he will give me a reduction in the substantial amount of cash i will shortly be handing over ... or perhaps not

then Benedict rang ... "are we going on holiday today then?" ... i have visions of him stood phone in hand by the front door eagerly waiting for the knock on the door ...

so I explain the delay and tell him that we may be leaving later that I had imagined but even if we get stuck in endless traffic jams between Leeds and Brum, we will have music, radio, conversation and the expectation of the places and events that lie ahead ... i dont think he sounded convinced ...

"When I first came to Cornwall over fifty years ago as a small boy, we drove the seven miles from the station in a horse-brake; there was only one motor-car in the parish and this could not attempt the steeper hills ... Everyone in the village had oil lamps and candles. A journey to the nearest town and back was a day's expedition ... Visitors to Cornwall, 'foreigners' as they are rightly called by the Cornish, were mostly fishermen, golfers and artists. My own father, in his leisure from business in London, was all three." Betjeman, Cornwall, A Shell Guide 1964

I am neither fisherman nor golfer, nor was my father. But in my own way I am an artist, and when I look at my father, I recognise in him that trait too ...

So lets go to Cornwall as an artist ... and, of course, as an archaeologist ...