Pit stops

A cup of tea under a canopy,

on outdoor seating wiped dry,
as you unfold your local map that was rendered
soft and pulpy in that last downpour.
We plan the next stage of the day.
Another cup of tea, tap to pay,
a baby behind us clutches and sucks a strawberry,
you offer a dry seat to the woman next to us.
Lovely day for it, people say,
in that let's-address-the-weather way.
Seagulls fight against the wind, suspended in mid air
while we are
maternally concerned for the teenage boys and girls
padding through the rainy streets of Newquay
in wetsuits
surfboards under arms.
Yesterday's first pit stop had been coffee and breakfast,
drying off from the driving rain,
trying to use the toilet hand-dryers to
sort our sodden jeans.
Then, more walking, up those coastal hills, taking boomerangs of the
booming waves
until another pit stop, of course,
half a pint of Tribute watching the surfers,
little bobbing seal-heads in the foaming waves.
We say how brave they are,
how we could never do it,
and go off to buy local sourdough and jam and think of tomorrow's breakfast.
Last day of the holiday. It's shit again,
the weather that is,
but we laugh and roar against the gale on the headland,
and escape into the soothing instant calm of a hotel
to drink champagne cocktails to toast the first sun we've seen.
It glows gold and chimes through our clinked flutes.
We sit and stare at one of those great blue Cornish skies
that gleams above the turbulent sea.
"Stretches the eyes," you say about the view, the thing your friend always says.
To pit stops, we say,
knowing this is the best one of all.