Simon Cowell

Don’t let the sun go down on me

This week we’re camping in Cornwall at Trevellas Manor Farm campsite. What incredible sunsets are provided for us over the Celtic Sea! I don’t remember a sunset that good in the UK. But when the sun does go down it a) gets very dark and b) gets rather cold.

We’re sitting in the tent, the light is fading and the chill factor hits me.

Me: “When the sun goes down it’s not very warm.”

Helena: “I know. It’s funny that.” (I detect a hint of sarcasm).

Living in a tent makes you realise what you take for granted back home. Like having light or heating available at the flick of a switch. I’m now sat here, with a lantern in one hand and book in the other, wondering how I’m going to turn the page. Turns out it’s impossible, so I switch to the Kindle app on my phone. Thanks to technology, I now don’t have to go to bed at 8pm, I can go crazy and go to bed at 9pm.

Sun, Sea, Seals, Surfers Against Sewage and Seasickness

Wow that’s a lot of Ss. Today we’re on a sea kayaking tour from St Agnes with Koru Kayaking. Helena is in the front of the kayak and I’m in the back. That’s just the way we roll, or should I say float. It means I can kick back, relax and get away with it, while she does all the paddling. Read on and you will see that that is not the case.

Our tour guide points out a hole on the cliff wall where the sewage outlet used to be. In 1990 Surfers Against Sewage lobbied the government and managed to get it closed off. I guess then, the people of St Agnes have been holding it in ever since. Seriously though, I think it’s a good movement (no pun intended), who doesn’t want cleaner seas and beaches!

We’re half way into the tour and I notice it’s gone a bit quiet from up front. That’s a sure sign that something’s not quite right. There’s a pretty big swell in the ocean and Helena is now feeling rather ropey. Our Koru Kayaking guide advises her to take a sip of water and then take a dip in the water. After getting back in the kayak, Helena still feels rough. I’ve been seasick before and I know how bad it makes you feel, so I feel for her! A seal has just been spotted close by in the water, but I’m sure Helena would rather be anywhere else right now.

As we round the final cliff face, we aim for the shore, I put the power on and paddle us both in. I ask her if she wants to savour this moment, with what is possibly our last ever sea kayak together. I get a mumbled response. That’s probably a no then. I see a wave coming up behind us, and I time my paddling so that we ride a final wave in.

We’re on the wave and we’re surfing it in like true pros. The RNLI lifeguards are looking on from the beach and no doubt wishing everyone was as good as us, giving them an easy life. Then a second later the back of the kayak starts to catch up with the front until the kayak is parallel to the wave. Yes we’re both going for a dip, the wave tips the boat over and we smash headfirst into the beach. I check to see that Helena is still alive. She’s hit her head and moaning about it slightly, so that’s a positive sign (it’s the silent ones you need to be worried about). 

After a (World Champion winning) pasty followed by a (no awards declared) YumYum we are both back to full strength and looking for the next activity. Pasties seem to be so competitive, all competing for world championships left, right and centre.

Lost Gardens of Heligan

Following a trip to The Eden Project we make our way to the nearby Lost Gardens of Heligan. Monty Don would be proud of us.

“Welcome to the jungle”, says the sign. 

The jungle is a dense, lush area of the garden in a central valley, with a stream and ponds running down the middle. It contains plants more at home in the tropics, but they are thriving here in Cornwall. Giant Gunnera plants, looking like an overgrown spiky rhubarb, that tower over your head with leaves 2 metres across. And magnificent ferns that make you feel as though you’ve stepped back in time to prehistoric days.

Me: “I wasn’t expecting it be, well so jungly…”

Helena: “I mean, it’s called the jungle.”

She has a point. What I’m really saying is that I’m surprised that all of these plants are growing here. It is certainly not your typical English Country Garden, it feels more akin to prime rainforest. Like a scene you’d see on TV, narrated by David Attenborough where a bird of paradise comes out of the lush undergrowth and does a ridiculous dance, somehow managing to win over his bird.

The First and Last Pasty England

Ok so I’ve had a few pasties this week (don’t judge me) and here’s what I’ve learned. Ginsters pasties from the supermarket really are quite mediocre once you’ve tried the real deal. I just checked their website and it says they are the Nation’s favourite pasty, well I don’t remember being given the vote.

The Vegan and vegetarian pasties I’ve had this week have also been decent!

We make a trip to Land’s End, walking from Sennen Cove south along the cliffs until the land, well, ends. At Land’s End what I find odd is that people are travelling thousands of miles, flying across continents to go there (well they were until COVID-19). And what does Great Britain give them when they finally get there? A Wallace and Gromit experience and a greasy teenager selling pasties. I have to give it to said teen though, his pasty was the best I had all week. I could eat that crust all day. Whether I should or not is another matter.

Why would you wanna live anywhere else?

The Cornish people are a patriotic bunch. I don’t know of any other county in the UK that has its own flag or its own language. They really like to bang on about their pasties and cream teas. Well let them bang on I say, because I bloody love them. But can we have the jam on top of the cream in the Devonshire way please. Sorry Cornwall you’re not perfect.

Recently we watched a series called “Devon and Cornwall”, the title is pretty self-explanatory. It consists of a few characters talking about their lives, with scenic backdrops and they all say “Why would you wanna live anywhere else?” I’m guessing they haven’t lived anywhere else and I like that they don’t think the grass is greener, but they do drill the point home. We get it! Devon and Cornwall are pretty darn good and that’s why we flock there in the Summer, even more so now that foreign travel is basically off the cards.

We visited a nice little town on the South Cornwall coast called Coverack and hired a tandem Stand Up Paddleboard. That is a helluva way to test a relationship. As we were SUPing across the shallow turquoise waters, fringed by white sandy beach, I announced, “I can think of worse places to live.” Paused for a second, while thinking of such a place “Like Slough.”

Now no offence to Slough, I’m sure it has its good points. Random fact for you – I learned to ice skate there. Until the Guildford Spectrum leisure comples was built and Slough was then dead to me.

Back at the campsite we take a walk along the cliffs to Perranporth. We see some choughs, which are endangered birds and a symbol of Cornwall. Basically a crow with an orange beak. It’s pronounced “chuff”. And good luck to anyone learning English, given that Slough, Chough, Cough and Dough are all pronounced differently! I wonder if Cornish is easier to learn than English…

If in doubt. Surf.

I never really got on board with surfing as a kid. If I’m honest, I found bodyboarding a bit scary. Getting smashed by the waves, tumbling around under the water and wondering if I’d be released by the force of the sea to take a breath.

In Polzeath, the sign outside the surf shop makes my mind up for me “If in doubt, surf.” I am slightly in doubt, so I take heed of the sign and surf. Nothing beats time in/on/under the water for improving. Even if you’re good (which sadly I’m not yet), you can always get better on the small stuff. Just don’t sweat it.

Even now when the waves are just a few feet high, I still take a beating from the incoming waves and still get the feeling of being in a washing machine when I wipeoue. It’s as if Mother Nature is keeping me in limbo as to when I’ll get my head above water and take my next breath. Sometimes we’re reminded of our insignificance on this planet when the sea or the weather shows its immense power.

The problem with Cornwall (apart from the jam on top of cream scone strategy) is that it’s quite far away for a lot of us. It’s hard to justify popping down to Cornwall just for a pasty or a surf. I guess Gregg’s will have to suffice for the pasties, or do they only do slices?

So long Kernow (Cornish for Cornwall innit)

On the drive home we pass through “Britain’s best kept village 1997”, so the sign tells us. Quite the accolade. This is followed by a sign for “Barometer World”, I didn’t feel any pressure to stop. Sorry. Moving on.

I stop by my parents’ house to deliver them a Minnack Theatre tea towel. They are not certain whether the tea towel will be shredded by (Arnie) the dog in the first ten minutes or not. Oh good, £8 well spent then! More and more I think it is for the best that Arnie has been rehomed since his previous guide dog career. And a fantastic pet he is in his retirement too (despite his taste for tea towels and portable speakers).

There is a parcel from Land’s End by the parents’ front door and I really hope it’s a delivery full of those delicious pasties. There must be at least 50 moreish parcels of meat, vegetable and gravy goodness in there. Sadly it’s not full of pasties, anyway Arnie would have wolfed them down already if they were. I guess we will have to pop back to Cornwall for a pasty again soon.

I’m not that into getting haircuts at the best of times. So take me to a new city in a foreign land and it’ll be even further down my list of priorities of things I want to do. But the time had come, before I developed a mullet or went back to the ‘90s curtains look, when I probably did need to bump it up my priority list.

I googled “barber in Dunedin”, and even in a small city I was hit with a bewildering array of results to choose from. Smartphone in hand, we headed out into the city to scope out some of these places, to see who would be getting my business. First off we walked past ‘Michael Shanks – Hair Design for Men’, which doubled as a convenience store at the front. I imagine it’d be like walking into a Co-op for your bread & milk, then once you were at the checkout deciding to get your haircut too (Would you like a hair cut with that, or just a 5p bag?). The Google rating was less than 4 stars and I didn’t need any groceries for now, so I decided to give this one a miss and continued to see what other hairdressers Dunedin had to offer me.

Next up was a fancy joint called ‘Schaartje | Barber’, it literally translates to ‘a barbershop that is a little bit fancy’ and checking on their website I saw that they were also on facebook, instagram and spotify. If you ask me this is way more online media than the kind of humble barbershop that I’d be looking for. A full blown audit of barbershops might seem a bit over the top, but back home it’s an easy decision.

Back in the UK I’d just go with the Turkish Barbers in Egham, where they’ll cut your hair, trim your nose hair and eyebrows (whether you need it or not), place a flamethrower to yours ears (again last time I checked my ears weren’t that hairy) AND throw in a cup of tea, all for less than the price of a round of drinks. Oh and they smother your face with a scalding hot towel at the end to freshen you up and suffocate you slightly (steaming your face without burning your balls). Quite a bargain if you ask me.

Then I came across ‘Bloke barber – where men come first’, now this one sounded a bit rough and ready for me and I had visions of coming out of there with a grade 1 all round and possibly even a tattoo. Helena was getting a little restless and said “You men have it so easy with haircuts, you just rock up and get one. Women have to book an appointment way in advance.”

A problem that I can’t really do much about, anyway I was trying to focus on the problem in hand of selecting the finest barber in all of the South Island. “Will you just hurry up and pick one?!” she said, clearly not wanting to spend the whole day in Dunedin just perusing various barbershops. Really I was looking for something in between Bloke and Schaartje, but Helena was probably right I just needed to pick one, we didn’t come 18,000km round the world just to get a haircut for me.

I decided to go with Bloke barbers and entered the front door, ready to take on my new Maori tattoo or whatever they were going to hit me with. There was a coffee shop at the front, which I aimed to walk past and headed straight to where people were sat having their hair cut, before a woman in the coffee shop asked “Are you here for a haircut?” I then saw that the coffee and barbers are one and the same.

“Yes I am” I say

“Do you have a reservation?”

“No” 

“OK it’s going to be a bit of wait.”

It’s clearly a thing in New Zealand to combine multiple outlets in one unit. If the next shop I went into to buy Fish & Chips had also offered to do my dry cleaning in the back, I swear I would not have batted an eyelid. And what was that about men not needing an appointment? I agreed to wait.

Amongst the people already having their haircut, one of the Maori staff was talking with a customer about the rugby on TV last night. Helena offered her support with the rugby chat if I needed it, to which I responded that I knew what rugby was, I just chose not to follow it. Maybe she could just stand there and talk to the guy while he cut my hair, it would at least save the small talk about where I was going on holiday next. As it happens I was more talkative than my barber, just a short conversation about our tour around NZ, with no mention of rucks, mauls and hakas.

At the end the barber showed me the back of my head from three different angles and like any British person does I just nodded and said “Yes that’s good…..mhmm…..yep fine.” Like I’m going to say anything else when he’s already chopped and shaved most of my hair off the back of my head. I settled up, went outside the shop and got a photo with the sign, sure in the knowledge that I was a man and I came first (apart from those men who had booked appointments in front of me).

We are all now aware of the dangers of coronavirus and what we should be doing (or not doing) to beat it, but on this trip (and in my life to date) I’ve come across other dangers, which I’ll go into here.

In Japan, Helena developed carpal tunnel syndrome, she’d been overusing her right wrist, most likely from using her ski poles to push herself along. It’s a conundrum – do you be a snowboarder with no poles who fears the flat sections or do you be a skier with a set of poles for propulsion and risk injury? It’s probably safer just working in an office and getting a mild case of RSI from using your mouse all day. The carpal tunnel syndrome woke her up in the middle of the night with a feeling of pins and needles, sometimes she had to stand up several times and shake it off – did Taylor Swift suffer from the same medical affliction I wonder. Helena googled her symptoms and diagnosed herself with carpal tunnel syndrome (as any good Doctor would recommend you do), the best treatment for which is rest and keeping it straight in a splint. We created a makeshift splint for her out of a long wooden spoon and electrical tape. It seemed to keep her wrist stationery and straight, but I wondered if I’d just cut off the circulation to her hand and it was only going to add to her list of ailments. 

Towards the end of February we were out ski touring one day, aiming to complete our first successful ski tour together when Helena got a nose bleed. I said “We can just head back to the mountain centre,” but no, Helena is a determined human and wanted to carry on. Besides, we’d gone through a fair amount of faffing just to get to this point in the day, getting all our ski equipment together and setting it up. I offered her my Buff neck warmer to stem the flow of bleeding and after saying “I couldn’t possibly take that”, she took it. I was getting brownie points for this I thought.

20 years ago on a ski holiday with family and friends and I got carried away on the first night out and had one too many beers. I put it down to the effect of the altitude on my body and the fact I was a lightweight. The following morning on the bus ride up to the ski resort and I was feeling ropey to say the least. It was a windy road and a packed out bus, full of heavily clothed humans radiating heat. I staved off the thoughts for as long as I could before announcing “I’m going to be sick,” after which followed a moment of panic when the people around me realised there wasn’t a sick bag and they were about to get rained on by the projectile vomiter. My Mum standing nearby did what Mums do best, offered her love in the form of a ski hat from on top of her head, thrusting it into my hands. It acted much like a sieve, but beggars can’t be choosers and it did manage to save those around me from full blown disaster. So in a sense, me offering up my piece of ski clothing to help Helena, I feel in some way reprieved from the shame of  this historical episode. 

The person in charge of sign writing at Kiroro Tribute resort liked to write in first person; English was probably not their first language, but it could be amusing nonetheless. Signs by the swimming pool displayed “I hope I do not run”. I hope he didn’t run either, but as for me making my way to the outside pool in the snow, I might have picked up the pace to a jog. The last time I ran by a pool was in Turkey in the Summer, when I was mock running to join the aqua aerobics class and my foot smashed through a plastic drain cover. I dropped to my knees but managed to climb out alive and make the aqua aerobics for a laugh.

Also there are signs on the walkway outside saying “Your feet are slippery” – it’s almost like this person had written the signs all the time thinking of me. He was absolutely right, my feet are slippery, especially when they have ice underneath them. Back at Hopi Hills we had a spell of warm weather in mid-February, where the snow melted and then froze again overnight. We walked across the car park in the morning on the way to our house keeping shift and Helena was shuffling her feet 1cm at a time, arms splayed horizontally for balance. I’m laughing at her inability to walk anything like normal in her snow boots when I seem to be managing just fine in my trainers. Five minutes later and I was approaching the Hopi Hills cafe when I stumbled upon a section of ice, and just like a cartoon clip of someone standing on a banana skin, I took off, momentarily my whole body leaving the Earth, feeling like I’d paused in mid-air and subsequently falling to the ground on my side with a big thud. Tessa happened to be nearby, always one to see the funny side of things (no I haven’t just broken my wrist, but thanks for your concern) said with a massive smile on her face “Wait till I tell Helena about this!”

We didn’t have many guests in towards the end of the season, so instead of cooking breakfast I was put on chain sawing duty. I don’t know if it’s a man thing, but there is something about taking a saw to wood and the sound that comes from a petrol-powered chain saw, it’s all a little bit exciting. But obviously also incredibly dangerous if you’re not careful with it. I felled several trees, some up to 50ft in height, while getting the tree to fall the way you planned feels like quite an achievement. Chanele asks if we are to do any more “see sawing” that day in her French accent, mixing up a motorised cutting tool with a long plank of wood that children swing up and down on. She has a good sense of humour and she too sees the funny side of mixing up her words. We talk about words in English that are different but sound very similar; letting her know that “Going to the beach” and “Going to the bitch” are two very different things. The next 24hrs include Chanele walking round the lounge saying “beach….bitch….sheep….ship….sheet….shit…hmmm this is difficult”. Something that an native English speaker takes for granted and may seem obvious, but when we try to say “Gerard Depardieu” with the correct pronunciation we just get laughed at, falling way short on getting the correct amount of rasp into the “ar” of “Gerard” and enough pout with the “dieu” of “Depardieu”. English is hard, so is French, and then Japanese is on another level.

At the pizza shop we were working with an oven that is 500 degrees centigrade; the pizzas take less than 2 minutes to cook in that heat, leave them a few seconds too long and they’ll be cremated and even the human dustbin (moi) will turn his nose up at them. Occasionally I’d touch the searing pizza trays by accident and like any self-respecting chef ended up with a few minor burn marks to my hands. These were not the worst burns I’ve had in my life though. That accolade still rests with the episode of me pouring a bowl of steaming water onto my crotch. I’d like to say this episode happened when I was a mere teenager, but in fact it was a few years after that (late 20s I seem to recall).

I was sitting on the sofa at home with a big bowl of steaming water on my lap, fresh from the kettle. I had a few spots on my face, and the idea was for the steam rising from the bowl to clear up my skin. I steamed my face for a few seconds, head under a tea towel and as I came up for air the whole thing tipped forward, and the entire boiling hot contents of the round bowl spilled onto my lap. It took a second for my mind to register what was happening, then I ran to the bathroom, desperately trying to get off my soaking wet tracksuit bottoms. Before too long my nether regions were under the shower in an attempt to cool the burn. 

Next thing I was in A&E talking to the nurse in triage “I’ve burned my balls,” is essentially what I needed to say. I got seen by the nurse pretty quickly, so I guess they thought it serious enough for me to jump the queue of people. “We’ll have to shave you down there,” says the nurse, Bic razor in hand.

“OK,” I said, now willing her to just get on with it and I looked the other way. My next recollection was waking up in a strange place with people running around me. I soon came around and realised what had happened as I was lying half-naked on the hospital floor, with medical staff running all around me.

After several of the medical staff had left the room and following a second more successful shaving session from the nurse, a gauze dressing was applied to the second-degree burn. “Next time, try going to a steam room,” the nurse said to me. “Also you don’t have many spots, I don’t think you need to be steaming your face”. She was probably right, but I’d heard about this idea and I had just wanted to test it out (the face steaming, not the ball burning). Next time you see on the internet “That one weird trick that fixes so and so”, you must ignore it, there’s a reason it’s weird. The only repercussion from that episode was the piece of gauze dropping out of my trousers and being lost somewhere in the Tesco supermarket near Royal Surrey Hospital that day, my apologies to the cleaner on shift. Everything else is in good working order, I can report.

Stay safe people. Stay at home.

Shingo (one of the Japanese staff at Hopi Hills) is very much looking forward to showing us a good time at a Japanese karaoke bar. Helena is driving us there and she makes it clear she wants us all awake on the drive home so that she doesn’t nod off. Despite my best efforts to get out of it, we arrive at the bar, 8 of us ready to sing some songs in our private karaoke booth. We take a seat in the bar area and after a few minutes of Tessa attempting to order a whisky and coke, I keep it simple and order a bilu (beer). The place is really smoky and it’s almost like we’ve gone back in time to how pubs and bars used to be before the smoking ban.

A microphone and a kind of karaoke tablet turn up at our table, and we soon realise we’re not having our own private booth. Any singing will have to be done in front of all the Japanese people already here, all enjoying a nice quiet drink out at their local. This is my first experience of karaoke, I guess as an introvert it’s just not an activity on the bucket list and it’s something I’ve managed to avoid for 37 years. 

After Tessa kicks us off with an opener, then Helena selects to sing “Pray” by Take That. She is horrified to hear that most people in our group have never even heard of Take That. She is going to educate them on that.

I’m not much of a movie buff as I said, and I’m not much of a music buff either. I float an idea with Helena that I’ll sing some Adele. “Strong choice,” she says, “good luck with that!” Aware of all of the pseudo X-Factor judges sitting around me, for my first gig I opt instead for “Hakuna Matata” from the Lion King. At least I can put on funny voices for Timon and Pumba and I have an excuse if it’s then terrible. The song is the original version, but I somehow manage to throw in some extra words from the Disney animation ad lib “Hey Pumba, not in front of the kids…. Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase…”

As our friend Doirreann once said “Simon is like an extrovert trying to get out of an introvert’s body.” Now whether or not that is true, after the event I do feel quite good and I think about doing another song. Meanwhile the two extroverts team up to deliver the next song. Helena and Tessa give us a rendition of Spice Girls – “Wanna Be”. Helena knows all the moves and all of the words come to think of it. At the end of the song the video screen shows you the amount of calories that you’ve burnt through singing. I don’t think this takes into account Helena’s extra dancing – “slam your body down and wind it all around, slam your body down and wind it all around” is delivered with true gusto. Despite my newfound Spice Girls education, I still don’t have a clue what a “zigazig ah” is.

We each add our song requests to the tablet and they get added to a queue. We alternate songs in the bar between our group and the local Japanese men who are also drinking here. It turns out they haven’t all just come here for a quiet drink. The Japanese men love to sing a ballad and they belt it out like their life depended on it. One man is sitting at the bar singing, the pained expression on his face is something to behold.

Whatever Japanese people do, they seem to do it with passion. Take the guy in the staff canteen blowing his nose directly into the sink that was designed (I assumed) for handwashing. Several good snorts later and he seems to be happy with his freed up nasal situation. I think if there was any coronavirus in him, it’ll now be somewhere in the plumbing system of the building. I catch the eye of someone else in the room and we are just laughing. Clearly and thankfully this public nose clearing is not a custom in Japan. Whether it’s nose blowing or karaoke, they give it their all.

In the bar it’s all you can drink for 20,000 yen, so the bilu keeps on flowing. I order a sake, and it comes in a massive glass, far bigger than any spirit you would get back home. I sip away at it painfully and as I near the end of it, Joe, one of the staff says “Another pint of sake mate?”. “Maybe just a half pint” I say, I’m joking of course, I’ve had enough Japanese rice wine for one night.

One of the French volunteers, Chanelle, takes the microphone and sings along. Except this time the song is in Japanese. This kind of blows us away as we hadn’t realized her Japanese was this good! As she finishes, the locals in the bar break into rapturous applause, with a few bowed heads thrown in for good measure. My rendition of Hakuna Matata did not receive a standing ovation like this. Sad times.

As the karaoke draws to a close, Shingo takes us to a bar nearby. Pretty much all the people in here appear to be young Australian men, barely out of high school. One of the girls points out that all the guys have moustaches and that they look the same. We’re not in November so they haven’t even grown the taches for charity. Earlier in the day I had shaved my beard, leaving just the moustache to see how it looked. For some reason this did make me look a bit Australian; perhaps it was just posing with a shovel on my shoulder that gave me that rugged Aussie look. After introducing myself to one of the European guests staying at Hopi Hills, from my accent they did not believe that I was from the UK and that I must be Australian. Crikey I thought! My moustache had to go, for fear of Immigration not letting me back in to Blighty.

On the drive home, Helena has her wish granted and everyone is very much awake all the way home. Somebody starts a game “There were two on the back seat of the bus…”, eventually this song builds up to six people on the back seat of the bus. It’s all turned a bit raucous and while Helena keeps her steely attention on the road, I think she wishes everyone was asleep now. We get back to Hopi Hills way past our bedtime and we’re glad to be scheduled for a day off. The French staff have to be up at the crack of dawn to clean out the ducks. C’est la vie.