Caitlin in Cambridge: Britain's beach

Last week I was in Devon and Cornwall, the two counties in the "boot" of England - the southwest tip. The first four days were at the British Society for the History of Science conference in Exeter (a beautiful town with hills and a medieval cathedral!), where I gave a talk, chaired a session, attended many many sessions, and slept through only one. What a success! It's a really fun crowd, almost everyone knows each other and is super friendly. I made 7 new facebook friends, if that's a measure of the friendliness of a crowd...
Then came my first UK road trip, in the backseat of a postdoc's car for about 90 minutes from Exeter to Polzeath, Cornwall, a little chunk of cliff on the north Cornish coast, right on the Atlantic. I kind of like road trips in the US and I've been on lots of them, including to New York, Toronto, Texas, and Florida. But the idea of being on the "motorway" (highway) for hours in the tiny flimsy cars this country drives did worry me a little. Themes of the drive included "what does that road sign mean?" (me), "should we trust the SatNav?" (the driver), "are we nearly there?" (her boyfriend, jokingly using the British translation of "are we there yet?"), and "DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?" (the cars are basically not insulated, so you can't hear over the noise of the road. At least that negated any fights over choosing a radio station!). Then we spent 4 lovely days walking the coastal path, drinking tea and Cornish cider, hanging out, splashing on the beach, SURFING.... all in the rain. Cornwall is usually cloudy and cold, so no one seemed surprised but it was inspirational to see how they just kept going and ignored the weather. The guy who rented us our SURFBOARDS was wearing shorts, flipflops, a down jacket and a wool hat. He said we'd be fine in our super awesome borrowed wetsuits because the water was warmer than the air... Who knows if that was true, but we were too busy getting tossed around in the enormous waves and chasing our surfboards and then very briefly riding the waves before getting tumbled under them and scraping the sand to emerge triumphant into the wonderfully salt-free rain to notice our shivers. It was SO FUN. We were out there 1.5 hours and had the best time ever and then ate pasties on the beach (which we bought in our dripping wetsuits, and no one in the shop even looked surprised) and went home to shower and pretend to read while actually passed out with exhaustion. We also read the guidebook's entry for Polzeath, and it described the Polzeath beach as "for wannabe surfers"! We took that to mean "everyone", rather than "losers who can't surf", especially since the guidebook added: "Even the babies are in wetsuits." :) Hooray for holidays!