Return to Cornwall

When I get home I am going to sit at our worn kitchen table with the door still open into the garden. We'll probably all have a cup of tea and Mum will take out an old biscuit tin from the cupboard beneath the sink. She'll open it slowly, as though even she herself doesn't know what's in it. She likes doing this.. it adds a drum-roll and excitement to the occasion. We'll all gasp at the wickedness of the chocolate brownies within, but still give into temptation several times.

Then begins the ceremony of tidying up the crumbs. We'll neaten up that cake because it looks a little wonky. And then we'll debate over whether or not the newly-neatened cake now looks far smaller than the others and that perhaps it would be far better to finish it off altogether.

I cannot wait to get back to my family and to my sea.