Tuesday

I sat talking to George and Pat for about an hour after breakfast.  They were planning to go back home, but we solved the problems of the world before they left.  They both have very proper feelings (which means they agree with me) about immigration laws, general world financial outlooks, reality shows and gun laws.  I avoided politics because I didn't want to embarrass my self or my country with my abysmal ignorance.  He has retired from the airlines and they have traveled to the states (Blue Ridge Parkway and Washington), Kenya, South Africa, and on and on.  They are the best type of conversationalists - they talk a lot and listen a lot.  They recommend New Zealand as the perfect holiday spot.

Back down into the town for me.  I needed to get toothpaste (Marks and Spencer) and check out the local laundry coin-op facilities.  I finally found the only one in town - way on the other side of town so it would be about an hour's walk for me, and it would cost 8.80 pounds for washing, detergent and drying.  I think I'll splurge and get the hotel to do mine for me tomorrow.  I could recycle all my clothes again for a third wearing each, but I didn't come prepared for 14 days undie-wise so I have to do something.

I tried Boots first for the toothpaste and then ended up at Marks and Spencer.  I didn't want to get Crest or Colgate.  I ended up with something called Totalcare.  It was the cheapest (1.5 pounds) and I can pretend it is official English toothpaste.  I refuse to read the small print on the tube and find it is made in India!

The other errand I had assigned myself today was to buy a legitimate rain hat.  I looked onllne before I left home and found several for  about $20, so I decided that I would wait and buy one when I got here.  Well.  Apparently we are in the "summer hat" series, and no waterproof ones were to be found in all of Truro except for one that was too small to stay on my big head if the wind blows, and another one that cost 62 pounds!  I withstood all the salesman's persuasive arguments and decided that even if that particular hat looked great on me and was fully insured and replaceable at half price for the life of the hat (?) that I would do without.  Oh well.  It didn't rain today anyway despite the forecast so I'll just take my chances.

I did have one other errand - I went to the Post Office and checked into the costs of shipping a box back home.  I haven't bought anything except the GPS and the key chain, but my luggage has grown.  It must be the 5,000 brochures I have collected.  Needless to say, the mailing costs are prohibitive.  I will be better off throwing away some clothes if I can't get my suitcase zipped when the time comes.  Since I have the car until the night before my flight, I won't worry about anything until the last minute.

The line at the post office was very long.  There were six windows open, and I still stood in the line, 'scuse me - the queue - for about 20 minutes.  When I got up to the window I happened to get the branch manager, and neither of had any clue of the conversion of 10 pounds to x kilograms.  I have a conversion program downloaded onto my US phone that doesn't have to be connected to the internet so it is working, but I didn't figure that out until later.  I kept thinking "14 pounds equals 1 stone" which is true enough, but unhelpful.  The man in the next queue finally heard us and knew the conversion rate, the postmaster was able to give the correct unwelcome approximate cost.

In all the stores I went into (and there were many, looking for that #$^^&^ rain hat) there were lots of store clerks roaming and offering to help.  I would like to think it is the terrific British courtesy, but I have seen and heard so many safeguards against theft I think they are really looking out for shoplifters.  I have not heard an American accent the entire time I've been here,  including in London, so that works in my favor in getting attention and help when I need it.

I sat in the library for about an hour this afternoon.  There is a room with a large window looking out over the street where 7 or 8 men sat in comfortable chairs reading the newspapers.  The bathroom (always called "the toilet", never the restroom or the bathroom) was off that newspaper room, and I went it in.  I was as nasty as you's expect a toilet to be when used mostly by men.  I left and found another one on the next floor that the men were apparently too lazy to walk up to, and it was very decent.  Several of the toilets I have used here have attendants on duty and they sort of hover around while you are using the facilities.    I had looked up the tipping etiquette before I cam, but now I can't remember it.  I have never yet tipped at a restaurant - I have been watching others to see what they do, and no tips!   One of the really great things is there is no tax added on to items.  The price listed on the tag already has the VAT (value added tax) included, so if something (goods or food) is listed at 2.5 pounds, that is exactly what you pay.

I visited the Cathedral this afternoon and it is staggeringly beautiful.  It is the Mother Church of Cornwall.  It incorporates St Mary's Church (1200's), has a "world renowned" pipe organ, 76 stained glass windows and the arched ceiling is about 200' tall throughout!  As you look up at the high altar you see the carved reredos and huge stained glass windows behind that.  There are intricate panels telling various biblical stories, and there is one rather large (maybe 4") piece of blindingly blue patch inappropriately in the center of one of the panels.  This was the only damage done to the cathedral during WWII and it was done by a local boy playing with a rifle!

The Royal Cornwall Museum was interesting but not fantastic as I had hoped.  For five pounds I got an annual pass that is good for one year.  I told the curator I only wasted a pass for two hours, but it was a year or nothing.  I doubt if I would go again even if I lived a little closer than I do.  There were some marvelous paintings of fishing boats and women and village life in St Ives, a terrific doll's house with wonderful Victorian furnishings, and a lot of artifacts from the bronze age through the early 1900's.  Nothing on smuggling, however, which I was a little disappointed in.  They had a space for a biscuit from the siege of Mafeking, with one bite taken out, but it had been removed because the watercolour done by the soldier that saved his biscuit was starting to fade.

I spent a lot of time today sitting on benches through the town and eavesdropping on conversations and heard some more things that I am familiar with through books or movies but enjoyed hearing in real life:  cigarettes are "fags", "..about five years....ish".  Conversations were about children, lack of work, and how to get rid of the pigeons constantly underfoot.

I went to Charlotte's Tea House for high tea at 4:00 - the proper tea time.  A cream tea would be tea with milk or lemon, scones, jam and clotted cream.  For high tea you get a sandwich too, so that's what I had for supper - crab pate and cucumber sandwiches, tea, scones etc.  I have wanted to taste clotted cream forever, and I was a little disappointed.  It tastes halfway between butter and heavy cream.  The presentation was beautiful - a little two tiered serving dish, a pot of tea (including a strainer), a pot of hot water to dilute the tea, a little pitcher of milk, and a glass and silver bowl with irregular lumps of brown and white sugar.  Apparently Cornwall and Devon have on ongoing battle for the best clotted cream and I will have it again but I was not as impressed as I hoped I would be with this Cornish version.  The tea house I went to is probably a little touristy, but it is also the place locals go to for a special occasion so I suppose that was a fair trial.

The last thing I wanted to see in Truro was the Assembly Hall.  Old exterior with an interior that was not maintained and is now a pasty shop downstairs and offices upstairs.  I couldn't find it and had forgotten to take my notes on its location with me, and it wasn't mentioned on the map of Truro streets, so I asked in the shops and the old gentlemen walking their dogs around town.  Nobody had any idea!  I finally went to the tourist bureau in City Hall and they told me where it was.  Turns out it was the Warren's shop I had visited my first day here!

On getting back to the hotel I followed my now-familiar routine.  Bathroom (everything is backwards - the flushing mechanism is on the right instead of the left!), check to see what needs recharging and start cycling those items through my two adapters, purr out all receipts and record them, shower and tooth brush, plan the next day's trips, and then go online and check bank, email and blog.  The bank and email are very frustrating because they seem to run a couple of hours behind (email) and a couple of days behind (bank) so I am sort of operating blind.

Another wonderful day, and I am peaceful and content at the end of it.

Goodnight.