With a fresh notebook, a pen or two and my walking boots I set out for Penzance, feeling my usual excitement as the train crossed over the Tamar from Devon via the Brunel Bridge. Operational since 1859, it enabled an influx of tourists to explore the delights of Cornwall. Later, my tiny Penzance B&B room was perfect for weather watching: here is the sea mist rolling across Mounts Bay, obscuring Mousehole and Trungle.
I walked to Marazion, painted with seawater, explored round Gulval, visited galleries and Newlyn’s Filmhouse to see a film of The Royal Opera House’s Cinderella. I couldn’t afford a seat at the actual ballet but this was splendid, with close-ups and interviews. I also watched Palmason’s film Godland, and stumbled back late. My head reeling from watching powerful Icelandic landscapes and the intense relationships in the film, I walked by the sea in darkness under a dizzying display of stars.
In Gulval I met delightful M, the only other person I’ve ever met who once rode the mechanical horse at Newmarket. She told me her ambition is to swim on horseback round the Bay at her next birthday. She will be 90.
At Penlee House I bumped into a man who was staying at my B&B. Over cups of tea he told me in his youth he had been a tree in Birnam Wood, in Polanski’s film of Macbeth, shot in Northumbria. ‘We had to bring plastic bags for our feet as the ground was very soggy,’ he said, ‘I never saw Polanski. It was cold and wet. We were given pork pies for our lunch,’ he remembered.
