Wednesday 3rd July – Penzance but no Pirates

The only pre-booked event for this week was an interview with Sarah Corbett about her newest Craftivist Collective Handbook for Gentle Protests at the Penzance Literary Festival. The interview was at 3.00pm so we had the morning free to explore a bit more of Cornwall.

The distance but most direct roads is 27 miles and Google says a car would take 53 minutes, the train would be 1.5 hours, but in the end we chose the bus which took 2 hours. Not the most direct roads, but the visually most interesting roads.

The narrow roads were a thrill. For my American family and friends speed limits tend to be 30mph if there are street lights and residential area, 60 mph if no street lights on road and single track roads, and 70mph on dual carriage ways/divided highways in you parlance. So the single tracks either passing points in the country side carrying a 60mph speed limit.

Just outside Penzance is the ancient Cornish village of Marazion where the streets got even narrower even the motorcycles had difficulty squeezing past.

But by 12.30 we arrived in Penzance and we had time for our two priorities: first finding the Nationwide Building Society to transfer my pension from the US to the UK, and second to find Wetherspoons for lunch. Then we went off to find The Acorn, a disused church converted to a theatre.

I have to admit to being a super fan of Sarah Corbett.

Her interview talked of her early life in Liverpool in an activist family. So she learned organisation, analysis and how to develop protests at an early age. Her manifesto for Craftivist upholds principles of respect, consideration for your “opponent”. She has included scientific research to back up the methods from colours to be used to sources for sustainable materials to use. It was lovely to see her again, and to learn of how her work continues to develop. The talk was well received and I am sure has added new members to the collective.

When we came out from the Acorn it was like a different day – blue skies and sunshine. We did think of taking the bus back again just to see the journey Ian sunlight, abut the bus did not seem to be running to the published schedule, so we went back on the train. But I was able to get a photo of St. Michael’s in the sunlight,