Diary of a St Ivean

Walking along Wharf Road I detect on the wind the presence somewhere of the man who seriously overdoses on bathing products. But I'm mistaken. This time the same odour is coming from an elderly lady I've seen around the town before. She's sitting enjoying the Spring sunshine on a bench at the Fishermen's Lodge. This lady always dresses in startling colours, seeming to specialise in what I should call the Romany Style - bright embroidered voluminous dresses with beads and bangles. This morning the eye-catching piece of her wardrobe is a very long scarf of Rastafarian colours and design.

On the bus from Penzance to St Ives yesterday was the Small Woman with the Loud Voice. Her usual modus operandi is to board the bus with her Iceland shopping, but to continue to converse via a series of shouted statements with her obese daughter left standing on the pavement (she must live in Penzance), as we wait to depart the bus station. This shouting exchange usually continues even as the bus departs the station.

On one occasion I had to endure this for several minutes as the bus was late in departing, so I was mightily relieved when the bus at last moved off and the woman fell silent and her daughter shrank into a tiny speck in the distance. Then, just as I settled down to enjoy a tranquil journey, she produced an ancient mobile phone from her pocket and resumed the conversation with her daughter at full volume for several long miles. Later, as we approached Lelant, she took a call from her son anxiously enquiring if she had purchased a goldfish bowl and food for the goldfish and that he would meet her at the Malakoff. In fact, it took until the Malakoff to establish that the said bowl and food ("it cost me a pound"), had indeed been safely purchased and accompanied her on the bus.

At the Malakoff, the Small Woman with the Loud Voice was met by her goldfish owning son whom I estimated to be about forty years old.