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.

Life stories converge in a marketplace, not an urban legend.

As a result of having lived a significant portion of his three-quarter century as a bit of a rogue, in cahoots with other hot-stuff, naughty rogues, The French One has a repertoire of high-jinks stories that can entertain a table full of dinner guests. There are a lot of these tales that I find interesting and amusing, as well as confirmation of how happy I am that I did not know him at the time.
One of the legends that TFO has told on occasion took on a new punchline yesterday, just as I was getting irritated that he was telling it to me again, without the benefit of other listeners.
When TFO was in his late twenties (I was in kindergarten), he had moved, with his wife and first child, from Lyon to Toulon, in the South of France, and somehow ended up with a boat building business.
"The Office" tended to be a Cafe Terrace on the harbor-side; shirtless, to better show tan and muscles; drinking the ubiquitous Pastis and hanging out in the company of other tanned and arrogant young Moustachios; with a constant eye on the passage of pretty girls.
TFO built sail-boats and his buddy Roman built speed-boats. They both had crews working away making the fiberglass hulls and planing and varnishing any woodwork, as the two entrepreneurs chatted with potential clients at "The Office", where they each had examples of their craft moored to the quayside.
Roman had hooked an interested party and set out on a test drive, bringing along his friend and partner in crime, TFO, for the ride. Three men in a speed-boat, showing off under the warm Mediterranean sun, can you visualize? I don't know the technical boating equivalent of "pulling donuts and wheelies" but you have to imagine there were slaloms and wakes and loud engine noises.
Roman spotted a flat-bottomed fishing boat dead ahead and accelerated towards it, intending to swerve at the last minute, to prove (his manhood) his maneuverability, and probably to swamp the two older men peacefully fishing. Unfortunately, the cable necessary for the flawless execution of this daring trick got stuck at the last minute and our two heroes and their passenger went airborne; gliding up and over the other boat. One safety feature that saved this from being a blood bath is that the huge outboard motor was rigged to instantly lift up if it came in contact with anything. Still, the scene they struggled to return to with their now impaired steering, had the potential to be grim. One man in the water, vociferously sharing his opinion of aforementioned manhood and boating skills and the other lying still, in the bottom of his boat.
The man in the boat, owner of the town's central pharmacy, claimed paralysis and was hospitalized. He attended the subsequent court hearings in a wheel chair and was headed towards a significant monetary settlement from Roman's insurance. By the way, the prospective client did not purchase a boat that fateful day.
Weeks and months had passed and this time Roman, TFO and two back seat passengers, whose identity has not been deemed relevant in any of the tellings that I have heard, were headed out by car, on the road to St. Tropez. Gas/petrol was required, even that long ago, so they pulled in to a gas station, just behind another vehicle. The other driver jumped out and jogged to find the owner. (All full-service back then). When he came back to his car he had our dynamic duo and their two companion-witnesses waiting to confront him and congratulate him on his miraculous recovery.
That's usually the end of this story, but wait...

We've been in California for twenty-five years, TFO continues to paint many landscapes and seascapes of France. One of his favorite scenes is of Toulon's marketplace, Cour Lafayette. Vendors, fruit, flowers, vibrant colors and dappled sunlight through the leaves of the flanking plane trees. He reproduces his remembered happy place from time to time in different ways. One such painting was purchased by the gentleman who is our shipping broker for the containers we bring in from Europe. Pierre is Swiss and doing quite well for himself. He has a house in Spain, one in Los Angeles, a third in Switzerland and all now contain examples of TFO's artwork. He recently commissioned three new paintings to give to his son now that he has moved into his own place. TFO has done one sea-scape, one landscape with olive trees and lavender and called Pierre for inspiration number three. Toulon Marketplace was the requested subject. TFO asked Pierre why he was so enamored with that image that he would want two paintings of the same place. Pierre said that he had spent summers there as a kid and had many fond memories. He used to stay with his uncle every year, The Pharmacist.