Why they decided not to shoot Friends in Truro

I always longed for untameable corkscrew ringlets. But my hair is just sort of medium-curly.

However, I have noticed that I'm definitely curlier in Cornwall.

The humidity and frequent mizzle are a delight for mosses and fungi.
And for my hair.

But this brings me to my main point.

This was the main reason why they decided not to shoot the hit comedy show Friends in Cornwall after all.

It is likely that the first attempt to film the series Friends took place in Truro (the glittering metropolis).

Every day the glamorous set would be ready – a flat in an ex-warehouse overlooking the Truro River.  Phoebe, Joey etc would be standing around bantering about the tourist traffic on the A30. Ross would be waiting for Rachel to arrive with an armful of scones for a proper cream tea (jam first). 

But where would Rachel be?

At length somebody would go to find her and she would finally arrive. She would be crying but it would be hard to see the tears as her head would be surrounded by a cloud of magnificent curls.

“My hair,” she would sob, “It just won’t stay straight.”

So it is purely down to Jennifer Aniston’s unreasonable attitude to curly hair that the whole show had to be moved to New York.

A sad loss.

Just think how much better Friends would have been if Central Perk had served pasties.

Better to light a single candle

In October, I wrote that I had been out protesting/demonstrating and that it made me feel empowered in the face of a scary world.

Things have since got even scarier. 

But: “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”

So in the days running up to the election, in between working hours, I leafleted a couple of streets on behalf of the People’s Vote Campaign (suggesting tactical voting) and another four streets on behalf of the Lib Dems.  I also helped to collect dozens of letters aimed at stopping the expansion of our local airport (if it happens, it will greatly increase carbon emissions) and also sewed logos on a few tee shirts for Extinction Rebellion.

It was better to be doing something than sitting and fretting.  Or at least it would have been, if I hadn’t run myself into the ground and succumbed to a heavy cold.

And now, the national election has gone against everything I’d prayed for. 

As Annabel said “Woe, woe, and three times woe”.

But on the bright side, in St Albans we got a brilliant new Lib Dem MP, Daisy Cooper.

And concerning the National Tragedy, all the campaigning work I put in means I now have a copper- bottomed excuse to ‘curse the darkness’ or grumble.

But being a positive person, I’ll probably do something more constructive instead…

…like tunneling all the way to the Continent and leading the rest of my life there.

The Dove and the Passion Flower

The last few weeks have been about trying again.

A year ago we attempted to establish our own flock of doves but failed to source bonded pairs of birds as we should have. 

Over winter we appeared to be running an all-you-can-eat buffet for the local sparrowhawk. In the spring the two remaining pairs nested but magpies raided them persistently. Finally they drifted off to join a bigger flock just down the road.

Three weeks ago we got new birds and netted them in so they would learn to think of our dove cote as home. Then on the night of a dear friend's funeral, a fox broke in, killed one dove and made a hole big enough for others to get out.

Now we are trying once more with four new pairs of doves.

Meanwhile in the back garden, we just planted a passion flower for the fourth time. We're usually good with flowers, but clearly not passion flowers. Maybe this time.

In both cases, we think it's worth trying again because we have a vision. A flock of doves wheeling above our house and landing on the roof.  A sunny back wall bursting into life with the exotic green and violet blooms of the passion flower.

With both flowers and birds, we've taken note of what went wrong and tried to improve our chances of success this time.

Wish us luck

The one good thing about an eight hour drive

I visit my parents in Cornwall as often as I can.  I seem to be good at choosing a time to drive down, but bad at picking a moment to come back. 

My last two homeward journeys have been interrupted by crashes on the M5.  (I haven’t investigated to discover the nature of the accidents – I don’t want to know.)

Each time, Google maps has routed me across country to the A303.

I have travelled through thatched hamlets on narrow tracks that appeared to have been adopted only recently by the council.  I have followed a caravan which was perilously scraping the hedges on both sides.  And then I have ground to a halt detained by a new traffic jam created by all the other drivers who have been following Google’s whimsical advice.

I have often felt that Google is toying with me.  Perhaps even that my cross-country struggles are being observed by some super-villain at the heart of an IT hub, cackling “Mwah-hah-hah!”

But if there is one thing that has made the massive detours worthwhile, it is the moment on the A303 when, from around a hillock appears the magnificent, square-shouldered grey monument of Stonehenge.  It lifts my heart with its ancient presence, and the engineering achievement it represents makes me proud to be British.

Which is just as well, because if Brexit goes through, we’ll be right back to the Stone Age.

A Cure for Cabin Fever

I’m currently spending the long summer holiday with a foot in plaster.  I mustn’t put any weight on it.

Nigel has wheeled me out on several occasions and pushed me around manfully.

However, I had given up on the idea of a girls’ outing and a giggle.  And I was getting cabin fever.

But then Jennie had an idea.

She researched attractions and accessibility and recruited two other heroes – Ann and Gill.

We were going to Kew Gardens.

I am hefty and my borrowed wheelchair primitive, so I packed a novel, ready for the moment when they could push me no more.  Frankly, I was expecting to be parked.

However, we had a glorious day, trundling past a grove of giant sequoias, a shady border of toad lilies, a pond floating delicate waterlilies.

My friends helped me to get close enough to smell the roses, to stroke the pom-pom centres of echinacea. Above, we could hear the kazoo squawks of parakeets, and in between that feast for my senses, I enjoyed the chat.

Even in the face of uphill gradient and difficult camber, the ladies refused to park me until right at the very end, when the waterlily house was just too challenging. 

Naturally I spent the journey home complaining that I hadn’t had time to finish my novel.

A couple of palm trees that Ann found unaccountably amusing.

Generation Sandwich

Being in the Sandwich generation leads me into absurdity.

To my children, I seem “unutterably old”.

At least, that’s what Perran said when I asked if I might go with him to a Mr Scruff gig.

I try not to tell too many back-in-the-day stories as I hate to see the incredulity on their faces.

I can’t possibly have been the girl who danced in the street during a thunder storm, or who experimented with home-made fireworks and set off all those fire alarms.

Yet to my parents, I am forever young.  

When my mother leans on my arm for support, she doesn’t realise that my back hurts.  She thinks the walking stick in the boot of the car is a spare for when she forgets hers, not an aid that I use when I go walking.

But there are advantages to being in my mid-fifties.  

At my age people are reported to be at our most content.  We have achieved some of our goals and relinquished our most unrealistic ambitions.

Better enjoy the view from the top of the hill while I’m still at the summit.