farmdoc's blog post number 313

Last 30 December I wrote that my first date with Sweetheart Vivienne was in August 1961, when we saw the Pirates of Penzance at Melbourne High School. Ah, the romance of the inlets and coves of far west England. In 1973 I think it was, we rented a cottage in a tiny fishing village called Flushing (pictured), just across from Falmouth, and we drove in our dark ochre Ford Cortina along narrow Cornish country lanes lined with gorse (not a weed there as it is in Tasmania), through tiny villages and past quaint churches, visiting bigger towns including Penzance, travelling over 1-lane bridges, and crossing estuaries on small ferry-barges (King Harry Ferry’s one whose name’s stuck in my memory). My darling Mum, then a youthful 50-year-old, came to stay and travel with us and our then only child Kate. It was a truly joyous time. In 1998, some 25 years later, our epic tandem odyssey began at Lands End in Cornwall, and the same day we lunched in Penzance. We sat on a quay eating Cornish pasties, and a daring seagull snatched some from Sweetheart Vivienne’s hand. Yes, I have fond memories of Cornwall and Penzance. Last week’s ‘Tears on Toast’ opera was Madama Butterfly. This week’s is, you guessed it, the Pirates of Penzance. Oh Joy, Oh, Rapture!