The journey

Buses are for people without cars: the poor, the old, students. So buses travel mainly on the roads between the places these people live, campuses and town centres. Of these roads, 10% have a refuse lorry stopping every 10 metres, 15% are being dug up and have temporary traffic lights, 25% are too narrow for two buses to pass each other ever, and another 50% are too narrow for buses to pass each other when modern (over-wide) cars are parked down the street. Obviously, it is in the nature of buses to stop often. As a result of all these things, the 26 miles I travelled this morning between Falmouth and St Ives via Redruth took two hours 55 minutes, an average of 9 mph. Not all that much faster than a good marathon runner. If I had a car, it would have taken two hours less and I'd still have seen the glorious daffodil fields and laughed at place names like 'Come-to-Good' and 'Playing Place' and Feock's Breton twin town called Hôpital Camfrout (joke for Veronica and Livresse).

However, because I woke far too early, I discovered that in Cornwall old people's bus passes are accepted "all day, every day," and I reached St Ives in good time to be able to visit both the places I wanted to see: Barbara Hepworth's house and garden, and Tate St Ives. Barbara Hepworth's garden was smaller than I expected but I loved the way the sculptures had been placed in relation to each other (extra 2). I also chanced upon an interesting 40-minute talk about her and her work by a member of the Tate staff.

Tate St Ives is a great building - it looks 1930s but was built in the early 1990s - overlooking the windiest beach in St Ives (at least today) - but there was very little in the collection that made me stop and look. Coming out, I braved the wind to walk up to St Ives Head and the moment I got onto the path the sun vanished and it started to pour. I found my jacket hood, nestled under it and trudged on. As I stepped off the peninsula on the other side, the rain stopped. #shrug.

Questions for the day
Scenario One - At one of my bus changes this morning, two very noisy, jumpy dogs, were yapping at a much better behaved dog. The woman 'in charge' of the yappy dogs seemed to think it was all very sweet, and made excuses for their charging around and their noise, obviously assuming that everyone else would love them too, off and then on the bus.
Scenario Two - In the Barbara Hepworth garden, a mother repeatedly apologised for her adult son's non-mainstream behaviour. He clearly had (euphemism alert) 'learning difficulties' of some sort but was actually fine, deeply immersed in his phone and not engaging with her or anyone else. Each time she apologised, very embarrassed, I reassured her that it was fine. Or I tried to - I seemed to have little effect.

What must it be like to feel constantly apologetic to the world?
What must it be like to hear yourself constantly apologised about?
What must it be like to be exactly the entitled opposite?