The Gastronomes - Part 1 - a photo on Flickriver

            This morning I had three message requests on my Instagram profile.  Firstly, the correspondent had noticed my keen interest in angling and wanted to know whether I’d like to test some of their gear.  How they knew this I’ve really no idea, because I’ve never touched a fishing rod in my life.  The only enthusiasm I’ve ever displayed for fishing is watching Whitehouse and Mortimer on the BBC and ordering cod and chips at the local once in a while.  The second potential suitor was bursting with enthusiasm at my love of fashion and wondered whether I’d like to do a bit of modelling for them.  Again…..well if you’ve seen me, you may well have noticed that my chances of taking to the catwalks of London, Milan and Paris are pretty slim.  The likelihood of me actually wanting to take to the catwalks of London, Milan and Paris are, if anything, even more remote.  Thirdly, a young lady - oh so shy and awkward she was - wanted to “get to know me better.”  She’d seen my profile and knew I was the one.  The fact that she was nineteen and I was more than three times her age didn’t appear to dampen her ardour.  “My parents still look at my phone,” she told me coyly, “so could we hook up on Snapchat?”

But this wasn’t a day for fishing, fashion or erm, consorting with Nigerian “businessmen” - I mean charming young ladies - so I passed up on the opportunity to go angling in the Fal wearing Jodhpurs and a Bolero jacket with a teenage beauty queen cheering me on from the riverbank, deleted the messages - yes, even that one! - and prepared for a date with a very slightly more mature lady.  Oh yes, the one I live with, for better or worse, for richer and quite a lot poorer after paying the balance on the autumn holiday in Rhodes and all that.  Because we were going out on a Monday afternoon jolly to Mousehole of all places - that’s Mowzle to you - rhyming with Tousle not Mosul.  Keeping up?  And what’s more, we have a voucher.  Or rather a voucher code.  Or perhaps just a long string of alphanumeric text that Ali’s niece says is a voucher.  

Where does Ali’s niece come into it?  Well Lowenna does love the finer things in life.  And she wants us to love them too.  If we tell her we’re having lunch in a supermarket cafe, she’ll pull a face and say she’d prefer to starve.  She’d rather dine at the posh nosh place on the waterfront and pay fifty quid a head for the pleasure, while the waiting staff fawn over her and ask her if everything is perfect.  Which is fine - we applaud this.  We’re glad she does so.  Someone needs to be spending their money to keep the economy rolling.  At the same time she often asks us how we retired in our fifties, and the answer is a simple one.  We don’t eat at the fifty pounds a head bistro.  We never have and we never would.  The thought of being fussed over like a pair of prize winning poodles at Crufts is enough to send us racing for the exits before the aperitifs arrive.  Never mind the prospect of how much it might cost.  But every so often, as a reward for looking after Lowenna’s nine year old son every Wednesday after school, Ali is presented with a voucher.  Or a voucher code.  Or an alphanumeric string which may or may not even work.

The thing is, even with a voucher that will cover most of the bill, we’re still not that keen.  We’ve both looked at the online menu several times and tutted and sighed at the gargantuan prices for a toasted crab sandwich that doesn’t even come with chips.  But today we were going to rise to the challenge, bite the bullet and reach for the rose marie sauce.  Until we stopped at Morrison’s near Penzance as the rain started and abandoned the entire thing in favour of you know where.  Two meals for twelve pounds, with a Meerkat meals membership that’s down to nine pounds, a pot of tea for me and Ali only ever drinks water.  She’s annoyingly virtuous.  If you ever meet her, don’t waste your time offering her tea or coffee because in all the years I’ve known her, I’ve seen her drink half a cup of the latter just once before passing the rest to me.  To my knowledge she’s never touched a cup of tea in her life.  Ten pounds and forty-six pence for the lot, and best of all we were happy.  We hadn’t spent much and nobody was treating us as if we couldn’t even pull a chair from under a table by ourselves.  I’ve long held the belief that people with high standards are going to spend an awful lot more time in life being disappointed than those of us who are easy to please.

But now we were down here, we might as well go on with the second part of today’s plan, which was to park the car on the road into Mousehole, then walk the coast path to Lamorna and back.  I’d forgotten how tough this section was.  If we’d attempted this after a solitary crab sandwich served without chips, I might have refused the first hill out of Mousehole, but fortified by an all day breakfast it was a breeze.  Well, sort of anyway.  I’m still waiting for Morrison’s to get in touch via Instagram with a proposal to promote their cafe.  If that ever happens, then maybe I won’t delete the message and block the sender like I normally do.  Meanwhile, we still have to use that voucher.  “Are you enjoying your crab sandwich sir?” “Not really.  Where's the chips?”

Taken in: UK / England / St. Buryan / Lamorna (show map)

Taken on: June 9, 2025

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Sets appears in: • Off the Beaten Track

Groups appears in: • Cornwall • Outdoor Photographer Magazine (Unofficial) more » • UK Coast and Harbour • Beautiful British Coast • Cornwall Flickr Users • Flickr Social Club • Flickr Social « less

Camera: Nikon Z 7_2, f/10.0, 1 sec, 47mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon Z 7_2
Lens:	NIKKOR Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR
Aperture:	f/10.0
Exposure Time:	1
Focal Length:	47mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 14.4 (Windows)
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