It’s Friday before half-term… and we’re meant to be heading off at 5.30pm this afternoon, to drive down to Trevone Bay in Cornwall. This will be our first trip away, as a family, since Lizzie was diagnosed with cancer.
Leaving late afternoon today is the plan anyway. But everywhere, Warwickshire included, is as windy as hell. Trees are falling over around the country, causing untold damage. The headmistress of Annie’s school emailed earlier to say she’d be keeping the kids in at break, so they don’t get hit by debris. All meteorologists are saying the same thing – don’t travel unless it’s ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.
Cornwall has been particularly badly hit by the storm. And so, when 5.30pm finally arrives, we wisely don’t leap into the car to drive down there.
We now spend several hours as a family heatedly discussing whether we should be driving down to Cornwall over the next few days at all. This argument gets resolved by us getting into the car at 8pm, rather than 5.30pm, and driving down to Cornwall at this later time instead.
This, in absolutely no way, is a better idea. If anything, the storm is getting worse… and we’ll be doing a five-hour drive, through the dark and rain, until at least 1am in the morning. But rather than heatedly debate it anymore, putting our lives in peril seems like the less stressful option.
It’s a gruelling drive, particularly over a long bridge near Bristol where I feel sure we’re going to get buffeted into the river below. Mercifully, at 12.45am, we finally pull into the driveway of the house we’re staying at in Trevone Bay. Minutes later, we’re all in bed fast asleep, as the winds continue to howl around us.
The following morning, Lizzie really wants to go for a walk… along the coastal path which joins Trevone Bay to Padstow. But most of the walk is along cliff edges… and the winds outside are still blowing at 70 mph… so even Lizzie admits this might not be a good idea. We go shopping in Truro instead.
The next morning, however, according to Lizzie’s investigations the winds outside are ‘only’ blowing at 60 mph. She’s determined and there’s no escaping it… we’re going on this walk.
As we stagger along the rugged, beautiful coastal path half-an-hour later, it is unbelievably blustery. Annie keeps on stopping and doing ‘trust exercises’ with the wind – seeing how far she can lean into it, before she topples over.
Despite the storm-like conditions, in other ways it feels like things are reassuringly back to normal – on the holiday activity front, at least. Here we are in Cornwall trudging along a muddy path by the sea, despite the continued violent protestations of both children, as we’ve done dozens of times before.
The children’s incessant bickering is familiar too (not really in a reassuring way – more just in an annoying way).
‘If you throw that stone,’ says Jake to Annie, just before she throws a stone over the cliff edge, ‘it might start an avalanche.’
‘If it does,’ Annie replies, ‘I hope the avalanche takes you with it.’ (Annie can be cruel, but in her defence, Jake has been deliberately winding her up for the last quarter hour).
Jake ‘air-punches’ Annie, in response to her previous comment, and I shout at him not to.
My son doesn’t give any indication he’s heard me. Instead, he loudly says ‘we should turn back! The wind’s getting stronger!’
‘That’s one thing we agree on!’ Annie pipes up, over the storm.
They’re both right. The wind is getting stronger.
Cedric is being particularly knocked about, by the vestiges of the storm, and I feel that drawing the kids’ attention to this might be a good way of distracting them.
‘What if the wind catches Cedric,’ I say to Jake, ‘and sends him flying up into the sky?’ I do a twizzling, sycamore seed motion (in reverse) with my finger, to illustrate our dog becoming airborne.
‘You’ll have to hang onto the end of his lead, Jake,’ I continue, ‘to stop him hurtling into space!’
‘People will walk past us and wonder… why is that kite they’re flying so furry? And then they’ll say… that’s not a kite… that’s a DOG!! What is wrong with these people?!’
‘What is wrong with you,’ says Jake.
We’re now going past a huge craggy sinkhole – which has formed between the path and the cliff edge.
Lizzie starts leaning over the edge, precariously, to take photo reference – presumably for a future painting.
‘Idiot!’ shouts Jake. ‘That’s dangerous!’ He grabs Lizzie by the back of her coat and pulls her away from the edge.
‘She’s such a hypocrite,’ says Jake to me afterwards. ‘She’s always telling us not to get too close to cliff edges, because it’s dangerous. But then she does exactly that herself!’
Annie nods. It’s the second thing Jake has said that she’s agreed with, on this walk.
I guess having had their mother survive cancer (so far) – and having survived the stress of that themselves – neither of the children is ready for Lizzie to plummet pointlessly down a sinkhole to her doom, in the name of art.
P. D. Clifton 
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