At Boscastle church fete

Just as I was nodding off to sleep last night, Helena told me she wanted to visit Boscastle today. The sleep was rather restless, as the wind was still flapping tents and plastic covers, but at least the rain held off. When we woke, there was a lighter atmosphere and even some blue sky high up between the scudding clouds.

Helena cooked another hot breakfast to kickstart the day. I made several cups of strong coffee, and we even had visitors, when Andrew arrived to say goodbye to his brother and his family.

We set off for Boscastle by car, which turned out tom be only 6 miles away. It is similarly positioned at the outflow of a large stream into the sea. But at Boscastle, the valley is much more deeply and narrowly etched into a nearly a gorge, at the end of which a couple of sea walls were built centuries ago to keep the sea waves from flooding back up the stream.

There was a catastrophe here in 2004, when a flash flood brought several million tonnes of water down from the hills and destroyed many of the small buildings in the village near the harbour. All is now repaired and in fact the village, and its valley, were heaving with people, tourists mingling with the locals who were enjoying the Church fete. I met the chaplain and had an interesting talk about his extensive parish, in physical terms, whilst his parishioners potentially numbered only several thousand.

It was fun to visit the traditional stalls and games, in particular the sponge-throwing contest at the 'man-in-the-stocks' He got very wet on his face, when I photographed a young girl who was throwing the large sponge with glee. Raffles, the bottle tombola, secondhand books and plants were all examined.

I liked the man on stilts who was circulating round the churchyard, which was right at the heart of the village beside the stream and just above the harbour. He was shouting out news of what was happening, and would lean down and poke his head in to the various tents and gazebos. I wondered here whether he was also being a ventriloquist for his dog, so that he could amuse this lady's pooch. When he walked, it seemed a bit precarious and was very amusing with the hugely exaggerated movements juxtaposed against the people at the fete tickling my fancy! I nearly blipped one of those, but in the end I liked having this lady in the shot too.

We got back to Crackington Haven, (see blip 2 days ago) by 3pm and the sun was now shining, so we went to the beach for a couple of hours to play with the kids. I met some keen frisbee players and managed a few throws with Andrew on the sandy beach. We are hoping to return here again, as Helena really likes this type of old-fashioned, simple coastal world, hardly tainted by any tat. Families and surfers were free to mingle enjoying the sea, sand, rockpools, cliffs and sunshine, in thew end.

We then went to pack up the tent, and were home in Stroud, by 8pm. What fun.