Day 8- Thursday26th. Another day in Penzance.

It blew like they said it would during the night, but Newlyn is very sheltered. Dave the harbour master pleasantly relieved me of some more money. We're all called Dave down here he said. he told me about his first night as watchman and how the local Chinese owner came up and asked whilst rubbing his thumb and forefinger togther whether and fish ever go missing. Dave gave him short shrift, which is not a name for a local catch!

Well my list of things lost overboard now runs to:- a boat hook (Fowey), a fork ( falmouth) and a pair of scissors (Newlyn). So whilst having complained about the amount of stuff I have with me, fickle fate is trying to lighten my load.

last night I was reading some of Libby Purves's stories about her sailing life.She talked about the impossibility of planning a cruise. It took her and Paul Heiney 4 months to get around the UK. It comforts me that I am not making better progress. In the bigger scheme of things,it really does not matter whether I have to give up because I run out of time, money or something breaks, but at the moment there is an anxiety to get on. I knew it would be like this to start with. Its a bit like when you go on holiday and it takes a few days to get in the doing less mode. However, when you are at your mooring and others arrive or leave it gives me the feeling that they are doing this cruising thing better than me and I should be out there too.

So what do I spend my time doing when not at sea? Well as a potter and town planner its bound to involve a lot of looking at buildings and galleries. I had thought that a theme for this trip might be visiting the newish galleries at St. Ives,Margate,Ilfracombe and wherever else. As a start there is a great one in Newlyn. It's main gallery has now been made into a cafe and it has a fabulous panoramic view of the bay.

As I pondered the current laptop/smart phone life we have moved into I thought the audio visual installation by Pheobe Cummings quite interesting . It combined hydrophonic recordings from under the sea near landsend with a clay model of a tropical forest. The sound is meant to be symbolic of the importance of the use of the sea bed to lay telegraph/phone cables and the  forest the Gutta trees ,whose sap was used as a natural resin to provide insulation for the cables.I took a picture of the world map of such cables in 1876.

Her installation was less interesting than the ideas behind it:-

Another audio experience was by Chris Watson who had spent a lot of time in Australia recording the various noses the wind blowing in telegraph wires. Well how else would you spend your time in the outback?My impression was that the cafe now took more importance that the art.

 Outside there is a bronze of a fishermen trowing a lifeline as a memorial to the fishermen lost at sea. It looks right there and the line would be aimed at the entrance to Newlyn harbour,

The cafe served up a white ceramic spoon with chocolate in the shape of coffee beans. I felt it mad e a better picture than a lot of the other stuff there.I

Before returning to Drecklys for lunch I took some more pictures of the town. For the first tme I wandered into an area where there were some pleasant mews houses. Maybe if and when it is built Sherford might look like this !

There are some great litle terraces as well.

However they don't seem to want to upload. You'd have thought that if they managed to place several cables across the atlantic i would be able to put a photo in the right place wouldn't you?

There are alos to very defining buldings and sites in the town, which I will post for the benefit of those who haven't been here.

In the Guardian there today there were some pictures of Price William meeting Obama. What is it about the way that family hold there hands?Can't he or us dad bend his fingers?