That morning at the Emerald Victorian, Laetitia contemplated her next move. Cornwall had been delightful, but it was time to move north and east and do the rest of England and Wales and Scotland. She picked up Bailey’s and Hurst’s “Rude” books and looked for some place-names in Devon that might lend themselves to limericks and she found two, but before they went to them, they would go to Plymouth.
Laetitia and her group had a morning walk around Fowey and left town about 10:00 am. Priscilla Prim and Lulu LaFarge were on the trip today. They decided to continue to join the group each day as long as it was in Cornwall. Laetitia observed that Priscilla was not quite as “prim” as she used to be and was beginning to pick up some of Lulu’s coarse language. She also noticed that their conversations were often somewhat less than ladylike. Yesterday, she had overheard Lulu instructing Priscilla on how to squat on the rim of the toilet stool in order to avoid what had happened to her in Flushing.
The group drove over Padstow, a Medieval harbor town, known for its “Doom Bar,” which isn’t a licensed premises where people drink themselves to death but rather a sand bar where many ships have run aground. They visited the church at St. Enodoc, where John Betjeman, once the Poet Laureate of England, is buried. The church has had a struggle to keep itself from being buried too. It is near a surfing beach and has a constant battle to keep from being covered over with wind-blown sand.
Laetitia decided that her group needed to have one last Cornish pasty before leaving Cornwall, so they stopped for lunch at a restaurant that advertised Cornish fare. After lunch there was the usual exodus to the loos. As the group began to assemble to board the bus, the quiet buzz of conversation was interrupted by a loud burst of profanity emanating from the lady’s loo. A short time later, Priscilla Prim emerged with a wet shoe.
That afternoon, they went to the ruined castle at Tintagel. The present ruin is Norman, but there are a number of traditions indicating that there was a previous castle on the spot that was associated with King Arthur, either as his birthplace, or, as the location of Camelot. They made a stop at a large country manor, Lanhydrock House before heading for their hotel in Plymouth for dinner where Laetitia presented the limerick of the day.
Shrieked a delicate lady, Miss Prim,
Who had gone into the loo on a whim,
Words to make a tar blush
When before she could flush
She had slipped from her perch on the brim.