53. Notes from my first few weeks in Cornwall

Sea swims, a little bread disaster, and finding joy in the ordinary

Leaving London

I watched two slow clouds roll across the sky until they kissed and became one as I lay in the Cornish grass.

I’d forgotten how something so small, so ordinary, so quiet, could feel like such an extraordinary act of joy.

Only twenty-four hours earlier, I’d left West London just after sunrise in my newly acquired, beaten up, twenty-five-year-old Toyota Yaris, that I’ve affectionately named Peggie. She’s small but mighty and only has a cassette player.

My head was thumping and sweat dripped down my skin as I loaded her up with a handful of my possessions. The gross, sticky swell of a London heatwave hadn’t subsided, even at that hour of the morning. And the one or two pints I’d had the night before were, now in hindsight, perhaps not the wisest decision for a five-hour drive down the motorway.

Alone in my car, that in some stroke of luck has excellent air conditioning, my tiredness slipped away the further I escaped the city. A smile sucker-punched my face in an almost sickening way, as I felt as if my life was starting again.

This move wasn’t exactly planned. In fact, it was a four-week turnaround. Somewhere between living out of a suitcase and travelling around Italy, an opportunity had presented itself to me - to spend the summer baking on a farm in Cornwall with one of my closest friends.

Now here I am, recreating the same bedroom I’ve been building since I was thirteen. It started at boarding school, then university, then rented flats. Mugs full of pens. Neatly stacked notebooks. Folded crates overflowing with kitchen utensils. Little rituals that help convince me, no matter where I am, this place will become home.

Peggie's already going through the wars - I reversed into a large rock lol, and a bag of chocolates melted into the door compartment during the drive down to Cornwall, accidentally creating a sort of built-in pick 'n' mix.

Once I’ve unpacked, I head straight for the sea.

I slip into the still water of the harbour. The sun is warm but the water still has bite. Around me are houses for witches, men fishing from the harbour wall, kids pushing each other in, some even somersaulting.

A little girl in a wetsuit floats past me on a spongy pool noodle, and shouts to her dad, “I don’t ever want to get out!”

She steals the words from my head, bringing them into existence.

Welcome to Cornwall.

Welcome to my new life for the summer.

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Finding My Feet

A friend and I walk the rocky coastline, afraid of the ticks that might burrow themselves on our skin as we brush through the wild overgrowth. The sun beats down fiercely beneath the wind, the deceptive kind that makes you think you don’t need to wear suncream, until it’s too late and your skin is throbbing.

We scramble down through uneven, steep surfaces to the crystal clear water of the cove. I can see the Moon jellyfish dancing beneath the surface, effortlessly dodging the occasional kick of a swimmer’s foot.

We get so caught up trying to capture the moment on our phones that we almost forget to actually experience it. As though framing the photograph somehow matters more than the swim. Perhaps that’s a London habit we’ll slowly unlearn.

Eventually we do, and I feel spoiled that this is ours, paddling in the borrowed blue tide that’s slowly coming in.

Epphaven Cove

After clambering back up the cliff, we find a place to stop for a pizza and a pint. We order a pizza so unbelievably large that we burst into laughter, and the waitress does too.

I carry back the slices we can’t bear to finish in a pizza box along the coastal path. I try to keep it flat but I can feel the slices slipping and the cheese congealing to the sides of the box.

How can this be my life?

One minute I’m in the midst of a London heatwave, which had this funny way of making me feel unbelievably sexy. I’d leave the house with a flirtatious strut, hoping the sweat will be mistaken for a mysteriously healthy glow, waiting for the brief validation of a stranger’s glance. Somehow it even gave me the gumption to seduce someone for the night (or two).

Now, I’m here. The urgency and the need to be validated has completely evaporated.

The only people paying me any attention are the locals in Tesco, who can sniff me out from an aisle away.

It’s quiet here too. I haven’t heard a single siren, or even the distant hum of a low-flying jumbo jet. The first night, the silence was a little unnerving. Now, there’s space to hear everything else.

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Handling Wet Dough

The dough is wet. On the edge of soupy, even, but we like to call it juicy. It’s delicate and sticks to my fingertips as I try to stitch it together. It stretches lazily on the wooden boards, some even downward to the floor.

I can’t seem to get to grips with it.

Inside the bakery, I’m having to learn a new rhythm. A dance everyone else can do on autopilot. I watch their hands, the way they shuffle their feet, even the way they wipe down the table, in the hope that I can absorb something through osmosis.

I manage to get the dough everywhere. My t-shirt, my socks, my hair. The dough dries into little pockets of crust against my skin, my legs constantly dusted with a creamy sand.

I love it. I love feeling a bit grubby. It feels like honest work.

At two o’clock in the morning, I learn how to load the loaves into the oven. We knock the dough from its banneton onto the canvas, score each loaf, then slide twelve at a time onto the hot stone floor of the oven. My scoring isn’t long or deep enough, leaving the baked loaves more like rugby balls.

I’m handed the loading reins, and start to load the loaves into the top deck. As I pull the loader away from the oven, it jolts. The resistance is unnerving. From then everything slows.

I pull hard, dragging all twelve loaves with me (which is very much not meant to happen). Hot dough slowly drips down the face of the oven like snot. The loader oozes too. It’s a horror film. Fuck!

Eight years working in bakeries and I’m still humbled by the smallest of mistakes.

A reminder that you’re never greater than this thing alive in front of you.

Or, sleep deprivation.

part way through the melting dough incident

By the time the sun comes up, we’ve cleaned up, but the top deck is deemed out of action. We have to wait for the squashed loaves to char so we can scrape away the ashes.

RIP to the loaves, and my ego.

A few years ago, something like this would have sent my anxiety spiralling. Instead it disappears almost as quickly as it arrives. I chalk it up as a reminder that fucking up is always the best way to learn.

I jump into the sea. My extra skin of flour dissolves away.

The joy I’d been chasing in the city was like a firework. Loud, bright and momentary. Always leaving me wondering whether I was where I’m supposed to be. This feels different.

I bob on the waves letting the water carry me without question.

I really don’t want to get out.