Cap'n Bex: 91. Catch a small plum

(a doodle I fancied doing, the word is rather satisfying. Looks a tad like dragons eggs).

Bonjour!

Another week at YHA Golant has passed, and it’s actually been a rather good one on the whole – apart from a few customers who decided to attempt to make my morning hell one of the days (“Is there any more bread? Toast?” “I’m afraid not, it’s all gone now!” “But that’s just not good enough! What are my children to eat?!” or “But we’re going on a long journey today! What are we to eat?!”
Here let me point out that for breakfasts (between 7:30am & 9:00am) we serve tea, coffee (including milk & sugar), croissants and bread rolls (both white & brown often), 3 different types of cereal, cheese portions (when they’re in), sliced meats, an array of fruit, fruit juice stuff, 2 different types of butter / spread to put on bread stuffs – as well as different jams, and then a full English breakfast which is bacon, sausage (sometimes veggie sausage too, if we have any), mushrooms, scrambled egg, cooked tomatoes, hash browns (sometimes fried potatoes), and baked beans. That’s a fair load of food, yes? We will always put out enough for everyone, and often have to restock on things like the eggs, beans, and sausages… if you’re really worried that you won’t be able to get enough bread to shove in your mouth, then try coming down earlier than right at the last minute (nearing 9am). I’m sure your children will be able to eat everything else – like any other normal child they may just want a simple bowl of cereal, and don’t tell me that the service isn’t good enough because I know I NEVER said to you that the female dorm only had 10 beds rather than 20! I very well know (due to cleaning the said dorm on most days) that it does not have only 10 beds so why would I say such a thing… pah! Apologies for the rant, however some folks really should learn that us working people are not aliens, we do have hearts, and we do not appreciate being treated like shit just because you yourself are in a grump. If we have no more bread, we have no more bread. We are not magic, we can not just create some from scratch in a matter of seconds – if we DO have some left, it’ll still be frozen and so yes! It will take a little bit of time to defrost and be cooked!
THANKFULLY there are also a wonderful Dutch couple staying, the chap is apparently a musician and enjoys winking, and the lady enjoys grinning at me and holding my arm / patting pretty much my bum. They’re relatively old (well… 50’s?), she calls him her friend, he calls her his girlfriend. They’re camping at the end of the garden. On that morning of demanding bread munchers, the Dutch couple were the only people who were really genuinely nice to me – due to this I made it my mission to often be the one to serve their meals to them, ask them how their day was, exchange good natterings, and make them a small picture painting briefly mentioning “thank you for being such wonderful guests, especially on a day when everyone else seemed to fail to be so”. Correct, I may be a suck up, but if you’re going to be such pleasant people then you may as well be rewarded for being so – maybe more people will start being nicer.

Nice happy thoughts!!!

Currently in the countryside about the hostel the baby cows are all growing up, and so the field below my window is full of really weird cow noises (more like dinosaur noises if we’re to be honest), there’s swallows darting about all over the place – the other evening I almost knocked one off of it’s perch in the hostel courtyard whilst wielding the mop to empty a bucket of kitchen floor water! It was so very close! Apparently their legs are really weak and so once they’re “down” they’ll stay down for quite a while until they really want to fly (information gathered from Mr Arnold).
I also had a run in with a bat that same day, broad daylight! I went into the cleaning supplies etc room and their was a bat just flapping about! It landed in a few places, and I was quiet enough to be able to get 2 hastily drawn pencil sketches of it. THEY’RE SOOOO CYOOOOT! Fluffsome fluffers. A few other folks came and watched it with me for a while, including the Dutch couple and my manager Paul.

The fields of oats and barley and wheat etc are in the process of being munched up by tractors, and hay bales rolled and so the hills are a fantastic array of patchwork colours in multiple different textures and patterns. Black blackberrys are slowly but surely arriving (especially outside my kitchen window), and I’ve been pointed to a crop of chestnuts right next to where I park my van. I’ve been continuing to steal the eggs from the chickens, and occasionally forgetting to wear proper foot coverage and so ending up having chickens pecking my feet.

The weather? Well… Cornwall! Today it is mostly bright grey cloud with the occasional patch of blue sky; it is relatively still (only the odd breeze here and there) and really rather stuffy – sweaty! It’s been a bit like this for days now, I’m hoping that soon (perhaps on my next weekend?) the actual summer decides to appear! But this will do for now, at least it is not cold like it was last week.

Yesterday on my “Saturday” I went to the Luxulyan valley which is a beautiful area a short drive from here. It was once really rather industrial – you can see the remains of a huge water wheel, an aqueduct (it still works on the whole – you can walk across it! I never really quite worked out how they work before… once I was shown that I could see water under my feet beneath the stones I suddenly felt a little as if I was walking on the sugar crust of a crème brulee, and that it could crack at any minute and myself and the tonnes of rock would go smashing through to the valley floor). The weather was indeed pleasant yesturday, the sun shone for the simple picnic of a “French stick”, salted butter, parma ham, and orange juice (with juicy bits), and splashing about water in the stream was really rather nice. I clambered from rock to rock in the stream (riverish stream), and ended up on a good round one which was coated in a carpet of fluffy moss.

In the evening, I caught the bus to Fowey where I ate with Mr Arnold at Sams restaurant (there is also one in Polkerris). After a 50 minute wait of drinking apple Rattler (whoops! Goes straight to my blood!!), I chomped upon 4 yummy yummy scallops with garlic butter drizzle and added lemon, salad, a chunk of French stick with plenty of butter, and then for mains I had the ¼ pound beef burger with blue cheese bacon and salad, as well as skinny fries and a good selection of dips. As much as I enjoy burgers, I always forget that I shouldn’t order them when there are other tastier options as they always make me turn into a GIANT BALL OF BLOATED GAS!!! Catching a late bus home, walked down from Castledore to the YHA in minimal light (about 10:15pm). Stars were out in part, and on the hill in the distance a person was lamping for rabbits.

Today I am just getting a few little things done, I hope to saw up the mattress for my van (I’ve been meaning to do it for AGES now).

So that’s that! Next Monday, Rachel & I are having a GIRLS DAY and shall go to St Austell to finally watch the new Harry Potter mooooovie. Otherwise, from what I can tell, the next week is just another week of scrubbing toilets, cooking food, and invading the chickens. Almost ¼ of the time through my stay at Golant YHA, though!

Ahhh… oh! Sunshine!!