For those of you that are unaware, I have been in Falmouth for the last few weeks, helping an old chum with a yacht.  As you might expect, in England, it pisses down every day.  So far, just one day without rain but that wasn’t long enough for the puddles to dry up.

So yesterday, I found myself on another walking mission to Trago Mills.  For the uninitiated, Trago Mills is a local phenomenon in Cornwall.  A local and well established small chain of large shops, that, as far as I can tell, sell a little bit of everything.  Their shops are an aladins cave of stuff, shops so big you get lost.  It always reminds me of that scene from Father Ted when all of the priests get ‘lost’ in the lingerie section – the largest in Ireland.

Stay focused now.

A trip to Trago’s is always something to get excited about.  Primarily because you always see something new while you are there but more interestingly because it passes the oldest pasty shop in Cornwall (their claim , not mine).

On this particular day, I called in mid afternoon.  This is a perfect time of day to go into a pasty shop as everything is half price – or, if you are particularly good at maths conversion – two for the price of one!

I have been slowly working my way through their full pasty menu with each trip to Trago, the chicken pasty I had last time was somewhat disappointing.  This time, I think the timeless classic of ‘mature cheddar and onion’ was called for.

Just out of the corner of my eye I spied a sausage roll. Not just a normal, average, run of the mill sausage roll but an all singing, all dancing , art deco, full of twat waffle, designed especially for the london fashionistas, FIGJAMS’s sausage roll.

So I left the shop with the pasty in my pouch pocket and the sausage roll in my hand. It wasn’t bad to be honest. By the time I got to Trago’s door, the roll was gone. Normally, with a pasty, I would have to stand outside for a few minutes while I finished it off.

Not today.  Pasty in my pouch, I went in.  No doubt stinking the place out.  I could see the shop staff, sniffing the air, they could smell a pasty close by, but they knew not where. It was a bit of fun if I am honest, there can be nothing meaner than the tempting waft of a genuine Cornish pasty under the noses of locals while they work.

I bought my electrical connectors and left.  As soon as I was over that threshold, I whipped that pasty out of my pouch and bit the corner off.  I looked back into the shop and they were all zombified, walking round hunting a pasty like a zombie hunts the living.  Hhhhmmmmmmm   paaasty.

It wasn’t over though.

Walking back to the car on this blustery and rainy day, I suddenly felt the force and flapping of what I assumed was a carrier bag blowing in the wind.  Undaunted, I held my pasty and kept walking.  It was only a cheeky fecking seagull trying to steal my pasty.  Brazen as hell, crashed into my shoulder and the side of my head trying to get a beakfull of Cornwalls finest.

I hung on to my pasty though – that gull was getting none of it.  He hovered and circled for a few seconds while I stared at him (without blinking), called him a few names, threw a few insults at him, things like ‘your mamma eats left over KFC’ or ‘you’ll never get a job as a touch typist with that wing span’,  and it seemed to do the trick.  He backed off and let me go on my way.

Food hygiene was my next thought – I had no idea where that beak had been all day.  Easily solved that one, turn the pasty around in the bag and eat it from the other end.

Awesome.

Bird arrives on saturday with the grand daughter – if they are lucky, I might just treat them to a pasty and a trip to trago. Had a Russian ship aground this morning at Gilly beach.

Cornwall Rocks!