Monday, August 15, 2005

I visited a friend in Cornwall this weekend. He's a retired fireman (retired out of the service with an injury) and has chosen a to settle down in the West Country with his wife and their daughter. They're wonderful people, they have an enormous, rambling old house and acres of land, they're generous, fun loving and enjoy having their friends around them. So we came from all over and set up camp on their lawn.

It was a moving feast. Some people arrived earlier in the week, (I arrived on Friday and left on Sunday), others stayed for much longer and a quite a few of the local villagers came out for the evenings, many of them are the parents of his daughter who has made lots of new friends in school.

Most people would be content to simply let it roll, but our hosts had really gone to town, They'd hired a trampoline (for the kids), a swimming pool, porta loos and outside showers, and a marquee where whoever was there enjoyed breakfasts when they emerged in the morning - and long boozy dinners that went on until the early hours each day.

We fished, rode on Dartmoor, body boarded in huge waves and pouring rain (did you know that Mako sharks have been spotted off the coast?!!), bbq'd, got drunk, talked rubbish, made new friends and generally chilled out until our bottoms dropped off. The children played until they dropped, and everybody chipped in with the chores, nobody threw even the remotest of peeves.

I came home on the bike, (there's plenty of time to think on a motorbike) and I was wondering, if I had what they'd managed to create, an idyll in the countryside, whether I would be so generous with it.

5 comments:

Katya Coldheart said...

i'm sure you would, its that kind of life down there, everyone knows everyone and gets on with each other...it sounds brilliant...i wish I knew more of our neighbours but they look a bit scary...lol

:0)

Anonymous said...

That sounds fantastic. I am soooo jealous!

leesepea said...

Now I KNOW you don't live in Southern California.

The most contact I have with my neighbors is when there is an issue with parking out in front of our unit, or if we've forgotten to bring in the morning paper and they ring the bell to be sure we're not going to leave it there to make it look like no one's home and welcome a robbery.

Sounds like a great weekend.

Emily said...

So, I feel totally deceived -- all this time I thought you were a fish on an ACTUAL bicycle (no matter how you spell it) -- and here I come to find out that it's a motorcycle?! Lame ass.

Anyway... I'll get past it.
Just long enough to laugh at the fact that this guy's daughter had so many parents -- I'm sure you meant his daughter's friends parents. At least that's what I'll choose to believe. :)

Sounds like a blast.

Mostly I wish I lived in a place where there were "local villagers" that just sounds so quaint. Lovely.

Miladysa said...

Loved this post! I felt as if I was there. Dartmoor, beautiful and wild Dartmoor, close your eyes and you can feel it! They are the kind of parties that our extensive family have :)