Finding Casa Cornwall

Well eventually, after a few more bumps in the road!

First of all, apologies for the radio silence over Christmas. As everything got very real suddenly, there was much less time to sit down and type and a lot of frantic packing and planning.

So let’s go back to December 2023. We had finally secured somewhere to rent which looked clean, dry and just a little bit idyllic. A four bed cottage style dorm bungalow with a garden, garage and veg patch. It was close to the school that we liked (by Cornish standards anyway at an 8 minute drive) and it was in a popular village close to all our favourite beaches. I thinkthere are 15 separate bays all within 15 minutes drive of the house, one of which has its own tidal pool (but more on cold water swimming later). We felt really lucky - although also poor - to have secured it and things started to feel very real and very imminent. 

Winston had a planning day at his new job so we asked to start the tenancy the day before, thinking we could drive down, pick up the keys and sleep there. However, as Winston still had to be at work in Birmingham the day before, it didn’t work to be able to leave Birmingham during rush hour, drive down to Cornwall and collect the keys that night as it would be around 11pm by the time we arrived. Instead we booked a local Premier Inn near the estate agent’s office (in a separate town to the one we were going to live near, and separate again from where Winston’s new job is) and arrived in the dead of night with two sleepy children and a car packed with what we thought were essentials. As the new house was part furnished, we only needed basics for that weekend to get us through - bedding, something to cook with and something to eat off. Of course about an hour into the journey down to Cornwall, we realised we had forgotten all of the bedding - a key factor in being able to sleep at our new house - but not disastrous as I could go and buy a fresh set during the day whilst Winston was at his planning day. I thought it would be a good activity to fill the day and who doesn’t love a new bedspread?

The morning arrived and we headed down to breakfast. Now I don’t want to say the day was doomed from the start, but it wasn’t exactly off to a flying start. We had booked into the breakfast buffet mostly for ease as there were so many moving parts and quite a tight time schedule it felt like one less thing to think about. As we sat down amongst the usual business men, a few families and the odd couple, we started to browse the offerings. We got the children sorted and then went to get a cooked breakfast each. Just as we sat down, the table next to us who were a family of four, started throwing up. Yep, one by one, each of them started wrenching and throwing up on the table and carpet around them. It was absolutely horrific and all I could think was RUN RUN RUN, I am not dealing with a sickness bug on top of everything else! Breakfast slightly ruined, we packed up and set out to go and pick up the keys which, thankfully, went pretty smoothly and we were ready to drop off Winston at his first day of work at his new job. 

Now, I am notoriously ambitious with my planning but will drop the ball on the most basics of daily life tasks. Moving to Cornwall and organising our lives - easy. Remembering to charge my phone at night - doubtful. Unfortunately, today was one of those days I had completely forgotten to charge up my phone and I was relying heavily on the dodgy car cable to do the heavy lifting. I googled the nearest retail park and headed off to go and pick up a duvet set. Navigating any shop with small children can be a bit tricky, but even more so without a pushchair and when you are trying to purchase, what I now know to be, incredibly bulky duvets, pillows and bed spreads. We all needed a little break half way round at the store cafe but the majority of the items were in the trolly ready to be purchased. As we made our way to the till I realised I hadn’t charged my phone enough on the car cable and there was only 1% battery left. Now I do want to say that all of the people we have met in Cornwall have been so warm and welcoming, so friendly and, well, chatty. As the cashier asked me about my day, the children, why were were buying all new bedding, telling me about how some people she worked with were more annoying than others, how she wouldn’t like to say, but they were absolutely the sort that would stick there nose in where it wasn’t wanted, and she wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble, but that where the new duvets had been placed in the shop really made no sense, and… well I just had to grin, desperately hope I could pay and not shout at her to stop talking and please let me pay. As my phone lifted to the pay terminal, it momentarily froze and died. Right at the bloody till. 

On the whole, at just a few months postpartum, I havnt’t had too many breakdowns about moving, looking after two on my own (which in itself is a huge adjustment) or any of the extra stress we have been under lately. But in that moment, I couldn’t help but get very teary. The kind but chatty, cashier definitely felt a pang of pity for me and assured me that it was fine, shehad already rung it through the till so if I just went and charged my phone, I could come back with this helpful receipt she had for me, pay and head off. Okay, I thought, I can do this, we are just one stumbling block in the way. I’ll go and feed the baby, sit down in the car and charge my phone, go back, pay and be on my way. Well it turns out Im not quick to catch on and 45 minutes later, the dodgy cable was still doing absolutely nothing. We had a few other errands to run, including registering with our new Doctors and dropping off some forms at our son’s new school. I decided to head out, hope that I could find a charger and make it back in time to get to pick up my husband from his new school. 

We arrived, filled out the forms, handed them in and then back out to the primary school. As I was waiting in reception I saw a vacant plug behind the receptionist and doing my best not to feel like a 14 year old who’s forgotten to charge their phone and their mum is absolutely going to be sending them a text every 5 minutes until they reply, asked if I could plug in my charger and hope for some Zeus like lighting bolt to magically charge my phone enough to get directions back to pick up Winston and pay for the bedding. The kind receptionist said of course, and wasn’t it like the world had ended if your phone wasn’t working, and who even carried a credit card now a days anyway? I felt my nervous system begin to settle and my love for the school deepen that very second. 

Charged up and ready, we set back out to go and get Winston as it was too late to go back to the retail park and we would just have to go after with Winston in tow. We hadn’t been to the new house yet as the day had been taken up with the phone/bedding fiasco. As I drove through the green hills, along the costal roads with the glittering sea next to me, I couldn’t help but feel a wash of calm come over me. I turned up the Disney songs and had a little sing along, feeling thankful for our new home and letting out all the emotion I had built up over the past 24 hours. I often think I would be too strong willed to be taken into a cult, but on that drive back if someone had told me there was a Disney Encanto flower parade prayer session happening later and it would only cost me a few hundred pounds to attend, I think I would have signed up there and then. 

Winston collected, we headed back to the retail park, just one task left before we got to see our new home for the very first time. I left everyone in the car this time, sure I would be just a few minutes to pay and bring the trolley out to the car. As I ran up to the till, my faithful cashier was waiting. A smile on her face quickly fell. Oh, she said, she knew I’d be back and she told that one who knows everything that it hadn’t been that long, not when you’ve got two children, and of course you would be back for it all, you’d said you were going to sleep in it all this evening so how could you not be coming back, and I did tell ‘er but she won’t listen to no one she won’t and she always thinks she knows ruddy everything well she went and put it all back so I’m afraid you’re going to have to go and pick it all back out again. I sighed, smiled and did my best supermarket sweep but this time picking up a bunch of roses too. 

Finally, we pulled up at our new home. For a moment I forgot that I was the grown up in this story and felt like a small child seeing the new house their parents had chosen, wondering which bedroom I was going to pick and then (probably) fight my siblings to get. As I was the parent, I remembered I could pick my own room, a fleeting thought as I quickly remembered negotiations with a 4 year old are best left for the fighting fit, which after the emotional rollercoaster we had all had during our first day in our new home, I was not. Alas, we opted to all camp in the same room that first night. To say it felt like Christmas had come early was an understatement. Our new house was lovely, our new bedding was perfect and the new roses looked glorious on the kitchen table.