Looe 3

Our holiday cottage has the obligatory shelf filled with Dick Francis novels that is a requirement of anyone renting out a house on such lets.

There is also a shelf stacked with Agatha Christies. Christie, of course, was known to write about a houseful of people coming together only for them to be bumped off, one by one. A copy of this particular book might come in handy further into the holiday as a survival manual.

I make breakfast. The cottage has an electric cooker, which heats more quickly than gas, and cheap pots and pans, which radiate heat more quickly. I am bathed in sweat in minutes as I throw together a combination of eggs, beans, cheese and fried bread for the vegetarians. And bacon for the dogged meat eater. (Apart from the dog).

We go to Polperro. Our plan is to go via boat. But there are no boat trips as these have been cancelled due to rough seas. Kate questions the cancellation. She has been here all of three days. What do these locals who have been sailing these waters all their lives know about local weather conditions?

The boat trip idea having come to naught, we walk back across the bridge and head for the car. I am accosted halfway across the bridge by an old lady who wants to ask about Sid and tell me her life story including the tale of her Yorkie-Pomeranian cross who died 15 years ago. Only frantic waving of the ‘what the hell are you doing?’ variety by Kate, some 400 yards ahead, saves me. I make my excuses and leave.

Polperro is a traditional Cornish fishing village packed with cafes doing cream teas, shops selling wind chimes and hippy ephemera and occupied by large tourists with inadvisable tattoos. Although, when it comes to tattoos, I’ve yet to see an advisable one.

We make our way down to the harbour, which is crammed with houses. We find a table at a cafe where we stop for coffee. I plonk Sid on the ground and he empties his bladder. A small puddle of urine forms around the feet of the woman sat at the next table.

Leaving Polperro, and dealing with perhaps half a dozen ‘what sort of dog is he?’ interviews, we return to Looe. I drop the others in town and drive up to the beach to park. Returning to the cottage, the TV is on loud, white wine is being drunk, the room is stuffy, there’s a slight smell of puppy piss and the advert on the telly is for treating cracked foot skin. It feels like I’m in a sheltered scheme.

I take the dog and walk to the top of the steep hill on which our cottage is located. I plonk myself down on the park bench while Sid noses through the one patch of grass we’ve seen in Looe.

Barely have I relaxed before a dog appears. His name is Bobby and his owner is Mrs Yorkie-Pomeranian from the bridge this morning. She never did quite finish her life story, and this time there is no escape.