Falmouth Oscar's and Oscar

I'm still in Cornwall, although in Falmouth, until tomorrow. I have photos but can't get them uploaded. I'm using the library computer to connect briefly with the outside world. I've been walking around the headlands and some sub-tropical gardens. I just had a lovely lunch of Cornish mussels in a creamy broth, with my three aunts and promised myself I'll be back again soon.
Last night I had dinner with a complete stranger, after a serendipitous meeting on the street outside. My mother played piano for a while in a restaurant named Oscar's. When I checked into my hotel there was a card advertising Oscar's and I thought that would be a good choice for dinner. I didn't check the address, sure that I knew where to go. The old Oscar's is a Thai place now and I was walking along towards the part of town that now is home to a spiffy yachting crowd, when I saw a woman with an old golden retriever and hesitated whether to ask her or not. "Come on Oscar!" she said to her dog, so I told her what I was looking for. Half way through our sidewalk exchange of life-stories, with travel, artists, dogs and even our first names in common, her dog was tired and needed a rest. She took him to a friends house around the corner and bounced back to appear in the alternate eating place I'd chosen after giving up the search for Oscar's. I'm off to visit her daughter's art show in a minute.
The librarian is shutting us down. Paris tomorrow. Aurevoir!

The Logistics are Killing Me

Now that my, previously simple, plans to spend two weeks in England, hanging out with my sister, have changed, I've been spending hours plotting and planning in my head and trying out different itineraries on a variety of online sites.
I have drawn out a calendar of my dates and I have small post-it notes with individual items written on them so that I can move them around and decide how best to use my time. I've already thinned the herd and tossed out some things that just won't fit.
I still intend to visit Penzance, in Cornwall. That and Falmouth, a mere forty miles away, yet on a different coast, are where I'm from; they're the main anchors to my childhood memories. Both are down at England's tippy-toe, inconvenient as all get-out. It's probably why they've kept their identities and are relatively unspoiled.
I'll arrive in London, jet-lagged but happy that I have a hotel room rather than an onward journey by bus and train that would last another ten hours. The one saving grace of the long trek south west to Penzance is that one can fall asleep without fear of missing one's station. Penzance is as far as it goes. When the train slides into it's berth, the seagulls scream and whirl, and the air is fresh off Mounts Bay. As much as I relate to that symbolic, homecoming, assault on the senses, it is so often accompanied by the gritty, sand beneath the eyelids feeling, that has nothing to do with a party at the beach, that I am doing things differently this time.
I will spend a couple of nights in London, see Warhorse as planned, with or without familiar faces in the two seats next to me and visit the things that interest me for a day or two before stepping onto the train, northbound this time, for Glasgow. I am taking my Aunt Nessie (my Dad's sister) out to Sunday afternoon tea and there are some cousins who are making the effort to join us.
My childhood and youth were full of cringe-responses every time someone stated how much I resembled my Father. Much as I loved him, I was mistaken for a boy enough times that my Mother had my baby hair gathered up like a little whale's spout on top of my head in all my photos. On this trip, if it brings Aunt Nessie pleasure to see her brother's likeness in me, I can live with that.
The next day I'll be airport bound to take a flight down to Bristol and rent a car for the drive down to Cornwall. A, now unaccustomed, stick-shift on the left hand side of the road is much more approachable without a sleep-deprivation factor. It shouldn't take more than three hours to reach Penzance this way. I'll be staying with a friend's Mother. Our families have been interchangeably connected for so long, it's a good solution to my aborted stay with my sister.
I had been really looking forward to riding every day in England. I helped the owner of the barn where my sister rides and boards her horse, at my sister's request, when she came to San Francisco and was desperately disappointed that Alcatraz tickets were sold out. I contacted the concierge of a large Hotel and found a back-door solution for her. and her family. I know that I could call or email her and connect for some horse-time. I can predict the potential fireworks that may result from my sister at this perceived encroachment. I'm still pondering what to do there.
I'll have a few family-like days with Lucie. Even her daughter, my peer, has always called her mother by her given name and Lucie is the only person I've ever met at San Francisco airport who was carrying a home-made Sacher-torte, which we had with champagne immediately upon arriving home. There will be shared memories and gossip for sure.
I just wrestled with the next phase of my plan. I've booked a hotel room in Falmouth, overlooking the beach where I learned to swim. Three of my Mother's sisters are still alive. I'll meet them for lunch and go for long walks around familiar sights. My grandfather's house, atop beacon Hill, where I was born and where, up until now, the light-blue and white color scheme has remained, despite many years under new ownership. The view from outside, much like that from the kitchen window, across the tidal estuary and down to the docks where he worked and was Choirmaster for the traditional male voice choir.
Rain or shine, I'll walk around Castle Drive in the early morning and take the cliff path across to Swan-pool Beach. If the guest house doesn't have great coffee, I know just the place. There's only one tea-room that's open early enough for me. It's been four years since I was there last. It better still be there. I'm not too worried. These are not places that change much.
Back to Bristol and a flight to Paris. I only have two hours on a Sunday evening, to change airports and catch a plane south to Toulon where I'll spend a couple of days with my "step-daughter", who is  few days older than me. Two hours is barely enough and any kind of delay will mean I may end up sleeping in a hotel and getting a flight the next morning.
Chantal's home is set back from the Mediterranean, on a rise surrounded by her olive orchard. Her horse Pegase (Pegasus) is now 34 years old and has the run of the place. He has wandered into the living room a couple of times, as the big sliding doors are rarely closed. He personifies the term "Things that go bump in the night".
I have plane tickets for the French detour but I'll let them fly without me if there's any sign that I can spend time with my sister.

The Docks' Choir.

My Grandfather was choir master for the Falmouth Docks' Choir. My Mother was a pianist, accompanying a large Dance Band Orchestra during and after WWII. Somehow it took me years and years of my adulthood to stop taking those facts for granted and to realize that my Mother's name "Carmen"; completely unusual and incongruous in rural England; was bestowed upon her in an uncharacteristically romantic nod to Grandfather's passion for music.
Grandad worked as a Marine Carpenter at Falmouth Docks. There was an honest to goodness wood-shed in his back yard where he stored remnants and off-cuts that he brought home from work. As kids we were allowed to play with hammers and nails and to split wood with an axe to make kindling bundles for the neighbors, all in the clean aroma of fresh wood chips and damp sea air.
In a corner of the wood-shed was the outdoor lavatory, which had been added to a house originally built without plumbing. Rain or shine, when we stayed at our Grandparents' house, we would follow the call of Nature through the kitchen, down the outside back stairs and into the woodshed, which closely hugged the house, although lower down the hillside. There were a couple of concrete steps and a wood plank door, always freshly painted. The water cistern was high above the toilet and we were always delighted to pull that dangling chain.
Sitting on the throne for more than a moment, we would notice another door facing us. This had been a space dug under the house, into the hillside, to serve as a bomb shelter during the war. Now used to store books, we could rarely resist opening it up, just to see.
33 Beacon Road, is the address, on Beacon Hill. It is where I was born. My parents had flown home from West Africa to make sure I was born on British soil. My Grandparents raised five daughters there, were a mecca for returning grandchildren and Grandad was still looking after himself and living there, independently, when he died in his ninety-sixth year.
Beacon Hill is so named because it is the highest point for miles around. This was one of many Beacon Hills in England. If the Spanish Armada or other invaders were sighted arriving from the sea, beacon fires would be hastily lit and the warning would reach London, hundreds of miles away, in a very short time.
Falmouth is an estuary, the mouth of the river Fal spills out here into Carrick Roads, all protected from wind and weather by the jutting headlands, still crowned by centuries old Pendennis Castle. The ebb and flow of salt and fresh water encourage the oyster beds and the oyster boats are distinctive with their red-brown sails. For preservation purposes the boats cannot be bought, only handed down generation to generation and a moving boat is the only legal way to collect the oysters.
The Port and Dock area of Falmouth is the third deepest natural harbour in the World. Not suprising how a tradition of boat building and repair would grow here. The local Coast Guard coordinates search and rescue missions over the whole Atlantic Ocean and there are huge ocean-going salvage tugs lurking all year round for news of a ship in distress. If they rescue a ship then the old maritime laws of salvage apply. This is the reason that a Captain tries his hardest to stay with his ship until the end.
Falmouth has one main shopping street. The High Street runs parallel to the water, with shops on each side. The street is narrow with barely room for one-way traffic and, when a delivery truck drives slowly through, pedestrians must retreat into shop doorways. When I was a kid this was still a two way street.
The feeling in town is festive and friendly, many people know one another, having grown up and spent their whole lives right there. There are almost as many Pubs as Tea rooms; you must have somewhere to sit and refresh from all that Christmas shopping; peeling off layers of raincoats and headscarves; surrounded by crinkly paper bags of last minute gifts.
Christmas Eve afternoon is a "not to be missed" part of getting into the spirit of the holidays. The men of The Dock's Choir begin carol singing at one end of High Street and work their way along; stopping on the church steps and at several pubs along the way to entertain an appreciative crowd and raise money for charity.
I was looking for a breath of home; visiting the home town newspaper online, and was rewarded by the following snippet about a local tradition that I can visit in my mind's eye, even if I won't be there in person.

Falmouth will ring out to the Harmony Choir on Christmas Eve. by Stephan Ivall

Thousands of people are expected in Falmouth on Christmas Eve to listen and take part in the singing by the Harmony Choir.
The choir, once known as the Falmouth Docks' Choir and now made up of singers from choirs all over the area, always muster in the town on Christmas Eve to raise money for local charities and to bring a festive cheer to the town.
As usual the choir will be getting together near Trago before making their way through town to Market Strand and ending up outside The Seven Stars pub on the Moor. From there, the choir will move to the Falmouth Rugby Club which will be providing a pint and a pasty and where everyone is welcome to join further singing of carols and songs.