In fact, the difference between how bad it is, and how amazingly insightful I thought it was at the time, is so hilarious that I feel the need to share it. You are allowed laugh. Here goes (it’s quite long, I’m afraid – do skim over it):

Earth Shattering

Why is today merely an extension of yesterday,

Which, itself, was an unplanned afterthought

To its own yesterday?

Why is there always steely-grey relentless acid rain,

Which, drop by drop, dissolves my defences,

Making me remember, when I’m trying to forget?

Do you remember when each day was an adventure,

Shaped effortlessly, individually?

Remember our field: three orange triangular tents,

Long, yellowing, prickly grass, with angelic daisies,

Two gentle Jersey cows, with eyelashes?

It was three miles to the farmhouse.

One morning, you got up, wrote a note, and cycled to the farm to buy the milk.

You can’t have been gone long when we woke up.

It was a gorgeous day!

The smell of freshly cut grass drifted across from nearby fields.

A sky like the tinted ones on postcards smiled down on us,

And, in the distance, a patch of scarlet

Brightened the golden and green spheres

Of our patchwork quilt.

We made daisy chains for the cows

And waited for you, for the milk.

After an hour, we were beginning to be thirsty and irritable;

You’d probably stopped to swim, or to drink the milk, or simply to sit in a field, being.

Finally, someone cycled off to escort you back.

He was gone slightly too long.

And when he came back,

We didn’t dare ask,

But he told us, all the same .

Then everything was a mockery

Of itself. The childlike sky with its cotton-wool clouds

Closed in on us, chanting

‘I don’t care! I don’t care!’, laughing.

The smell of the grass grew nauseatingly sweet

Until it suffocated us. The Jersey cows

Were facists in their nonchalance.

And on the horizon, poppies were glaring blinding

Blood. All time was there

Time past, time to come.

The world stood still.

And still it stands. Although the summer’s past,

The weather less lethal

(Growing slowly, rather than destroying in a second)

Although I know that ‘life goes on’

And there’s a routine to be adhered to

Although I have officially ‘got over’ you;

There’ll always be a field

With daisies, cows and summer,

Where your friends will wait for the milk.

I hope the emotional impact of that will not affect readers too adversely! I used to write poetry all the time. I don’t any more, and now I know why. Anyone else?

Best of all, though, I get to look out of the window. As we’re on a hillside, there’s always something to see. Outside the window is a tiny train station with no ticket office and one platform, and a freezing August evening with torrential rain, three railway employees stoically had what must have been a long-planned barbecue in the car park. They huddled together, sheltering the barbecue from the weather with their bodies, and made themselves hot dogs. After a while they spotted James, my visiting brother John, and me watching them from our window, and raised a glass to us.

When we moved in, we had a good view of a warship where green screens were erected, partly to ensure that no houses like ours appear in the background of the film World War Z,  which they were filming there. In other words, Brad Pitt was in the area. Then he went home.

Straight after that, I got up early to work one morning and almost dropped my coffee when I looked out of the window and discovered that my normal view had been almost completely eclipsed by a gigantic cruise ship that had appeared overnight. I spent a long time with binoculars, watching people on the hundreds of decks. The holy grail was catching someone looking right back at me with their binoculars. It happened in the end.

I’m writing this now looking out of the window at station, harbour and town. There are lots of seagulls on a roof nearby, and a few pigeons fluttering around. Nothing much is happening. It is utterly hypnotic.

It was perfect: we sat on the jetty on a warm May evening, with boats moored alongside. The food (local mussels) was perfect; the wine just right, and, after 5 years in France, my husband was beside himself with joy over the local ale. We looked at each other and smiled: this move was going to be good.

Parts of the Pandora’s building date from the 13th century. It used to be called the Passage House, as there was a boat beside it that took people across the creek, for a long time the quickest route between Falmouth and Truro. Later it was renamed The Ship, before its name changed again in tribute to the HMS Pandora, a naval ship sent to Tahiti to restore order after the mutiny on the Bounty.

In the three years since our first visit, we have been back to the Pandora many times. We celebrated James’s birthday last August by meeting friends there for lunch, as rain hammered into the creek outside and a quick lunch turned into a leisurely afternoon. The friends were camping nearby, and given the weather conditions, ended up coming home to stay with us, so the lunch actually lasted 28 hours.

My children (along with numerous others) love crabbing down there, tempting the crabs into nets by baiting them with bacon and wondering how crabs can possibly have acquired a taste for bacon in the first place. Once the bucket is filled with the little creatures, the children tip it up and squeal as the crabs scuttle to the edge of the jetty and throw themselves back into the water. I always say that next time I will bring nail varnish and we will dab each crab on the shell, and see if we get the same customers next time.

It is a pub beloved of locals and holidaymakers alike, accessible by boat, by the coast path, and by car, though the car park is not for the fainthearted in summer. Everyone knows the Pandora, and everyone loves it.

This morning, the pub caught fire, the thatched roof collapsed into the building, and 35 firefighters, six fire engines and a lifeboat came to put it out. Although they quickly had it under control, pictures and footage show that it is destroyed: all that remains are the outside walls. Everything inside it, including the huge model ship that stood in a glass case as the centrepiece of a room, has been lost. Early reports suggest it was a chimney fire that spread instantly to the dry thatch of the roof.

It is horribly sad: the loss of a part of Cornwall’s history, the loss of local jobs (they had just put an appeal for summer staff on their facebook page), and the loss of a place that made everyone who stepped inside, or sat outside it, happy.

I hope it is insured to the hilt and rebuilt as soon as possible. The HMS Pandora sank after hitting the Great Barrier Reef in 1791, and Captain Edwards was court martialled, and is thought to have bought the inn. There have been many twists and turns in its history. I look forward to it rising from the ashes and carrying on.