Tuesday 7th: Beach, cooking

I'm not exactly sure what we did this day. I think people were slow getting up. Then we went to the beach.

The carpark. Vital part of many journeys. This carpark was marked with rope. Wow.

This beach has lots of cool rocks.

We went down to the beach and then Amelia, Liddy and I went in. Liddy told us that there was a cool cave you could get to if you swam out a little way. We had to go inbetween two rocks. It was like a tunnel in between the two rocks and the waves were crashing around quite intensely. I think the tide was going out and it was a bit rough. It was a bit scary actually. I don't think I'm as good of a swimmer as I was before and the water is very cold here.

Then we got into this place that was surrounded by tall rocks on three sides with the other side opening into the sea. The waves kind of crashing in a bit. The water was rising and lowering each time by quite a lot. Sometimes it was calm, with just rising and lowering, and other times the water crashed in. Amelia went into the cave because she's quite a good swimmer. She had to swim underwater for about half a metre, although when the water lowered it was just below the roof of the tunnel. I was quite interested in going in as well, but I found the whole thing a little bit scary, and I was a little bit fatigued. I think I forgot that I don't need to push myself around all the time to stay afloat, so I lost a bit of energy. Then a wave crashed over me from behind unexpectedly and i was a bit bothered by it all. So I hung to the rock for a little while to catch my breath. Then another wave crashed into me. I really wanted to have a look at the cave as well. But I realised that it was a bit beyond me and I thought it wasn't really worth it. So I told Amelia I was going back through the corridor of rocks to where i could stand again. Then Liddy was quite worried about Amelia because she said she was going in again for another look. So Liddy and I waited nervously. But Amelia was alright. Then we went out of the water to eat. It was very exciting and cool. I think I'll have to practice swimming more often because I could once swim fairly well.

Where we were just swimming.

I'm not cold. I'm just shaking uncontrollably.

Then I said something that really offended Amanda. Because, after all this recent Osama Bin Laden stuff, I have this interest in what the truth of the 'al qaeda' organisation actually is. I think it's possible that they don't really exist too much at all. That may be false but I think it's an interesting idea to work out why we think they are such a big organisation. So I asked that, but I don't think I explained it very well, and sometimes people assume that if you say something a little bit controversial then you're saying a specific thing that is really bad, when you might just be saying one aspect of it that is not as bad in itself. So then Amanda walked away somewhere. And I felt a bit bad. Maybe I should have been more sensitive.

We played in some mud. Amanda and I covered Amelia in mud up to her knees.

Then we drove to a town nearby.

We got some ice cream here. The others wanted to buy one ice cream and all eat from the same one with shared forks. But, to me that just seems gross. And they argued that I'm fussy. But, I trumped them all. I asked Amanda if she would go up to a stranger in a restaurant and eat from his plate if he thought it was alright. And she said no. So that's the demonstration that sometimes you just need to feel comfortable enough with someone elses germs before you go sharing cutlery. And I'm not there yet.

My knees got a bit cut on the rocks while swimming!

The roads in Cornwall are sometimes really narrow! Actually it was a bit scary driving down these, I thought.

Then we got home and I can't remember what was cooked for dinner. That night I think I drove with Liddy to Truro to pick up Tanja who came in by train. Billie came with us but she fell asleep. We listened to some experimental music on the way there. I thought it was really cool. Liddy didn't think so. There wasn't really any key centre going on I think. It was just some various jazz phrases thrown around and some interesting things were happening with it. While we were gone Amanda and Amelia took some naked photos of each other.