The other day I was sitting in my usual restaurant by the harbourside; I was feeling replete and relaxed after a good meal; although I was everybody’s friend that day I did say to the owner that the place would be better served if it had one way glass in the windows making it possible to look out at the view without having passing people staring in at us with jealous looks on their faces as we dine. I blame the Trail for this situation. It encourages people who can't afford to own cars to use their bicycles to needlessly visit; the number of the 'Bikey-Pikies', as we in our gang call them, that wander gormlessly about the place do lower the tone of the town.
I fell to thinking about what the Trail could be better used for. A toll road would be a good use for it, an exclusive expressway that avoids holiday traffic for people to use to get to Rock Minor in a hurry (Rock Minor sounds a more acceptable name than 'Wadebridge' don't you think!). As a toll road it could even be used to ship in the domestics and workers that the town needs but is ruined by having them living in cottages that could be sold to more deserving, wealthier, people, or worse still, that live in ghastly council estates on the outskirts of town that ruin the ambience of the place. Surely these people would be happier living in Bodmin, it has got a Lidls and a Discotheque!
I had cause to drive to Launceston that day. It was an interesting journey, as I drove along the A30 across Bodmin Moor I couldn’t help feeling sad and frustrated at all that good building land laying there uselessly. I think that a good way of regenerating this part of Cornwall would be to develop the Bolventor area in the way that Lands End has been improved. If people had a good reason to visit the place, a better reason than to look at a boulder strewn scrubland, then they would go there. ( I remember a North Cornwall Councillor some 15 years ago who said on TV that if the Government wanted to bury Nuclear waste on the Moor he wouldn’t mind as the place was fit for little else...that is what is needed here, leaders with vision and understanding!).
Launceston is quaint, it has a unique atmosphere for a Cornish town; it is almost like you are in a different county! It is unassuming and unpretentious, it doesn’t strive to be interesting. Whether it is because of its character or because all the exciting shops are in its sister towns of Tavistock and Plymouth I am not sure but it retains its sleepiness.
Car parking is a bit of a problem there; trying to get my old jalopy into a space can be a bit awkward. There aught to be separate car parks for the drivers of cars like mine, free car parks that use tokens or ‘loyalty points’ that we can accumulate when we pay our bills at Rick’s or Jamie’s or at the places we use. It would be in the best interest of a town to let us park free because, to be honest, we are going to spend more money in the shops than other people will! Anyway, it was only a quick trip to Launceston...or ‘Langstone’ as we say...because a delivery from IKEA was due later and I didn’t want to miss it and have to pay exorbitant local prices for a doormat that I had ordered.
Since becoming Cornish recently I have listened to many people talking about their love for the place but I am puzzled because when I am driving across the Dunheved Bridge to go somewhere interesting I have noted, on the other carriageway, people crossing the bridge into the county and I can see them waving their arms about and shouting in their cars, I assume it is shouts of horror and sadness that they are making! If you don’t like the place leave it to the likes of me who will take care of it.
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