Here I am again! The repetitions of daily life in these seven months are less tedious to us (me and Pauline) than to the vast majority of you because our years in retirement since our return from our years in Greece have been filled with many similar days. Be not deceived! We miss and bewail intimate contact with the family. And friends. Lack of overseas holidays. This is the first year in which we have not been to Greece since 1989. We have more recently fallen in love with Paris. Amsterdam. But no go. A couple of stays with a friend in Wiltshire. An overnight stay in Weymouth. (One must be happy with small mercies). Such are the few crumbs of comfort we have had. Until our stay on the Scillies.
As I said in my previous verbal eructation, unwilling to risk a visit to Karpathos, with the attendant journeys on plane and ferry, Pauline found a cottage on the island of St Agnes. As our neighbour observed when I informed her ‘Uh, ferry! Train!’ Which was true but in both cases we felt that we could exercise more personal control on less crowded trains and a ferry loaded with compatriots rather than Greeks, whose discipline we know from a host of ferry journeys falls apart as soon as the ship arrives and it then becomes ‘Devil take the hindmost!’
The train was very empty. We had to stay at a hotel in Penzance, where the Covid observing rules were very reassuring. The ferry was a noisy old nightmare but the passengers were well corralled. The small boat that then immediately took us to St Agnes had plenty of room for social distancing. And arriving at our cottage was a dream. It could not have been more perfect. Large kitchen with an Everhot cooker, the foibles of which Pauline is fully aware, lovely lounge with two settees and a log burner, three bedrooms, sea view from the double where we slept on a comfortable mattress and a nice bathroom.
St A is very small. A walk around its coast is around three miles. Lots of coves/inlets with white sandy beaches. Near our cottage a narrow neck of land, covered at high tide but accessible at low tide, leading to Gugh, a near uninhabited island, albeit a part time island. We walked every day along, in the main easily navigated paths, walking in the opposite direction to yesterday but, of course, turning up at the same points. A single shop/post office which was admirably stocked. At a price but everything has to be shipped in. And they ran a ‘slate’ for settlement at the end of the holiday, which minimised contact. There was a coffee shop that opened when the weather allowed and a dairy which made delightful ice cream!! And a pub, whose staff we found sullen during our single visit, but our treasure of a landlady, Rosie, who made us delicious pizzas one evening, told us that they were normally pleasant and sociable so maybe our experience was the result of a torrid year, fraught with anxieties and frustrations. Which must be afflicting all the hospitality trade.
It was so peaceful. And we walked by the sea every day. It feels even better telling you now than it felt at the time, which I think is always a good thing.
And we decided to cap our holiday with two extra nights in St Ives, a short train or bus ride from Penzance, and a part of our lives from before we were married. In our case a bus ride, which was free and along the north coast of West Penwith, so familiar to us and our children and their children. The forecast was not good. It was the same period when parts of the country had thirty six hours of rain. But we had it only intermittently and were treated, from the Saturday evening to Sunday morning, to a storm that produced huge waves that crashed into the quayside with spectacular results and wind so strong on Sunday morning that almost swept us off our feet and made walking around the Island too dangerous to attempt.
But my walk this morning and the resulting impulse to write did not spring from memories of a good time away. Yesterday’s Guardian contained an article stating that the increase in house prices in Easton over the past ten years has been the highest in the country and another that Easton and St George are now the most up and coming areas of the city for ‘young professionals’, a city now seen as the most vibrant and attractive place to live in in England. Easton and St George having overtaken Southville and North Street in this regard.
As it happens, Pauline and I are well qualified to observe this ‘gentrification’ (I know. Horrible word. Pejorative. But it is what it is.) I grew up close to Bedminster so knew North Street sixty years ago and I lived in Southville for five years in the late sixties. And my wife’s early years were spent in St George and, as I mentioned in Park twelve, used to swing on the large black lamp that stands at the head of the avenue of planes in St George park. So we have seen these changes by personal experience rather than through anecdotal snippets.
We remember these areas filled with small shops. Wool shops. Cobblers. Radio and gramophone shops. Grocers. Butchers. The less filled pavements of housewives doing their shopping, workmen of various sorts, coal men, dust men etc. You get the picture. Working class. Look at the voting record of the relevant wards. Staunch Labour supporters. On the back of which families were raised in these houses, many without bathrooms, no hot water. Children grow up, move on. Finally, house is occupied by oldest survivor. General condition of house runs down. Last survivor dies. New occupants immediately start to have the house ripped apart. Bathroom, new kitchen, central heating. Often scaffolding up. New loft. Proper civilised living. We have seen his syndrome many times in the twenty years since we came here. Indeed, we followed the pattern. New kitchen. New bathroom. New windows. And we have witnessed the influx of younger blood which was epitomised in those people I encountered today.
I walked a little later than usual, 11:15 to 12:00. Sunday morning, fine(ish). A little sun. Groups of four, five, six people. Socially distanced. Many with children. Some attached to parent. Some parents with their vacuum flask coffee cups. All clothed in items with no previous acquaintance with Primark. And dogs. Dogs everywhere. Pets or fashion accessories?! I fear many the latter. Prams and pushchairs. Sorry! Buggies? What do you call these six, seven, eight hundred, one thousand pound devices? Many of which have the occupant facing forwards. I know there is an argument for the child seeing more, but surely constant sight of and contact with the driver, pusher, parent is better? Some braver souls exercising, sporting those tattoos. And, of course, phones everywhere. Demanding attention. Answer me! I’ve just made a noise. Answer me!
A totally different ambience. I spring from the no bathroom, cold water band of old. Tin bath on the back wall, carried into the house on Friday evening, filled with water heated in saucepans/kettles, carefully checked for temperature before immersion. A tedious emptying process. Then the whole thing again. Or in some households, mother following father into the same water, topped up with extra hot and young kids thereafter. Oh those happy days! So there is almost a reverse snobbery in seeing how things have changed. You soft buggers! Think you have problems? I remember the days when .... You know the script.
But underneath this is the enjoyment of what these social changes have brought. Coffee shops. Bijou restaurants. Artisan bakers. Delicatessens. People who may actually know who Yorick was. Ain’t life grand? These are the thoughts that percolated through my mind as I walked the paths today, although because there were so many people, I often had to set off across the grass to minimise my effects on the progress of bicycles, scooters, leg pumping toddlers, ducks, runners. All I need now is for this nightmare we are all in to ease, just a little. No! A lot. Oh for a full football stadium! Oh to sit once more in the Globe and see that Muse of fire set the stage alight! Board a bus without trepidation! Never mind. It could be worse. I could be an American!