Living by a harbour things feel transient. Groups of tourists mingle with waterside industry. Tall ships, small ships, yachts and tenders. Passing through, never sticking. Until the winter storms come and wash away all trace for another year.
It starts early, more often than I'd like in a fitful half-dream, maybe 6am, the first train of the day, leaving for that London. Dipping on to and off the south coast for 5 or 6 hours, past beach huts and ice cream parlours, before hanging a left and hitting Paddington, the big city. Ever the melancholic, Hank Williams and his lonely whistle is my morning ear worm ...
From my bedroom I can see trawlers, beams sometimes down in anticipation, heading off for a week's slaving. Leaving. And the small day boats and tripper boats, heading out for mackerel or spotting seals and dolphins who never stick round.
Once I'm up and about with my coffee - macchiato, one sugar per shot, cheers - 9.15 The Scillonian sounds her horn, tip-toeing astern, meekly at first. Then full-ahead in to the relative calm of the bay before hitting the swells of three seas off Lands End. I hear the roar of her engines. A flat-bottomed, stomach pump of a boat. They'll be on the islands for lunch time, hundreds of them, left with little appetite and even less for the homeward journey.
In the distance is Culdrose. A naval airfield with a constant change over of helicopters and small jets, from who knows where and carrying who knows what.
And over the bay are the jet streams from the real big planes, visiting the world.
Usually when I'm asleep, but oftentimes awake too, my imagination takes me to another place and someone else's life.
But this is my life, surrounded by leaving. And here I am. Staying.
