03.16.04
Asleep at the castle
Sun, rain, wind and thunder rarely arrive in the correct order, but they timed their arrivals and departures perfectly this weekend.
We were down in Cornwall, for once. Distance and ignorance had suggested that Bude would be a good base for the stay. It turned out to be a Cornish version of Swanage, all amusement arcades on the front and sorry excuses for cheerful eateries. Still, we pitched up in a clifftop hotel well removed from all of that, and from the desperately polite town beach. Instead, we had a full eye-span of slate sharp cliffs and surf surging endlessly up rocky corridors of pebbles. That, if you ask me, is a proper beach.
The sun came on the morning journey to Tintagel. The castle and the headland were quiet enough for us to stretch ourselves out on the grass and fall asleep under the faint warmth.
The rain came later: all afternoon, all evening and all night. Proper rain, the sort you’d pay extra for. Made for watching through windows in the hours after getting in from a long, wet walk.
The wind saved itself mainly for the walking. The sort of ebullient wind where, in the end, you decide that a hood is causing more problems than it’s solving.
The thunder came on Sunday, all the way from the West Indies, courtesy of strapping Steve Harmison, the Durham digger, skittling the Windies in one of the greatest spells of fast bowling of the modern game.