When I was little there was this scary film I saw one night when I'd fallen asleep on the sofa and my mum and dad were watching the telly and couldn't be bothered to take me up to bed. What I remember about it was that there was this little girl who lived in a house that had a poltergeist (now I think about it, the film might well have been called Poltergeist) but the thing that really freaked me out was that it came out of the telly, which was scary enough seeing as I was watching the film on the telly, but the very worst thing about it was that it came out of the telly when it was turned off and the plug was pulled out. You didn't see anything, it wasn't like that woman who crawls out of the telly in that other film with the lighthouse and the scary video that tells you you're going to die if you watch it and drips water all over the floor. But the lttle girl knew, and she just stood there and stared at the fizzing screen and said 'They're here.'
And they are, this week. Emmets everywhere. We've had a family in at ours from Essex. Two kids, a girl about 2 and a boy about 4, blonde mum who looked about 15 from the back and about 40 from the front who seemed to have got a permanent cold all the time they were staying here, and a dad who wore pink shorts and an England replica shirt. I saw them on Porthminster beach yesterday, and the boy was chasing his sister all round the beach pushing her over and kicking sand at her when she fell down. All this went on right under the snivelly mum's nose, but she didn't seem bothered. In the end the little boy ran up to her and threw his arms round her legs and buried his face in the camel foot of her white jeans, while she shouted at the little girl for crying. Compared to the memories of her brother's brutality this little girl will take away with her, Virginia Woolf's memory of being touched up by her cousin on the hall table at Talland House during their childhood holidays in St Ives seems pretty tame to me, and we all know what happened to her. When I saw that film The Hours on dvd recently, I suddenly realised during the scene when the Virgina Woolf character (Nicole Kidman) drowns herself in the river, that Virginia Woolf's last living thought may well have been about bathing at Porthminster in one of those old knitted swimming costumes, a thought triggered by the fizzing sensation you get as your clothes fill up with water when you go into the sea fully dressed.
Anyway, I felt sorry for the little girl and thought it pretty funny a bit later when her bullying brother's beach ball got caught by the wind and carried off down the beach. Instead of stopping it for him (which I easily could of) I gave it a good kick, and watched him chasing off after it as fast as his little legs would carry him, until it blew into the sea and was last seen going round Porthminster Point. And that's what made me think of Virginia Woolf bobbing down the River Ouse remembering her childhood holidays in St Ives.
And they are, this week. Emmets everywhere. We've had a family in at ours from Essex. Two kids, a girl about 2 and a boy about 4, blonde mum who looked about 15 from the back and about 40 from the front who seemed to have got a permanent cold all the time they were staying here, and a dad who wore pink shorts and an England replica shirt. I saw them on Porthminster beach yesterday, and the boy was chasing his sister all round the beach pushing her over and kicking sand at her when she fell down. All this went on right under the snivelly mum's nose, but she didn't seem bothered. In the end the little boy ran up to her and threw his arms round her legs and buried his face in the camel foot of her white jeans, while she shouted at the little girl for crying. Compared to the memories of her brother's brutality this little girl will take away with her, Virginia Woolf's memory of being touched up by her cousin on the hall table at Talland House during their childhood holidays in St Ives seems pretty tame to me, and we all know what happened to her. When I saw that film The Hours on dvd recently, I suddenly realised during the scene when the Virgina Woolf character (Nicole Kidman) drowns herself in the river, that Virginia Woolf's last living thought may well have been about bathing at Porthminster in one of those old knitted swimming costumes, a thought triggered by the fizzing sensation you get as your clothes fill up with water when you go into the sea fully dressed.
Anyway, I felt sorry for the little girl and thought it pretty funny a bit later when her bullying brother's beach ball got caught by the wind and carried off down the beach. Instead of stopping it for him (which I easily could of) I gave it a good kick, and watched him chasing off after it as fast as his little legs would carry him, until it blew into the sea and was last seen going round Porthminster Point. And that's what made me think of Virginia Woolf bobbing down the River Ouse remembering her childhood holidays in St Ives.
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