We have a new pet. It’s not a replacement pet, we’ve never had a pet before, unless you count the pet rocks when the children were little. It’s a totally new pet.

What, you might ask, are we doing with a pet after so many years where our pet hate was just that? Especially a pet that was quite expensive to buy. The answer lies in its characteristics. Its demands are minimal, though occasionally it asks to be picked up, and it feeds itself, in the right circumstances. It doesn’t shed hairs all over the place, quite the contrary, though it does require grooming every so often to remove tangles. It’s fearful of stairs, so you’ll never find it unexpectedly in the bedroom. It bimbles unpredictably around the room, sometimes bumping into things, but always very gently. It makes little burbles of delight when it achieves something. It’s downright entertaining to watch.

“What is it, then,” you might pose as a follow up question, “this paragon of pets? It doesn’t sound like any cat or dog I’ve ever heard of, nor tortoise or guinea pig, or fish.”

And you’d be right. It’s not like any of those things, seeing as how they are essentially organic. This is an inorganic pet – a robot. I’ll come clean, which is just what the pet is supposed to do. It’s an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner.

When you set Roombie (as I imaginatively call it) going, it’s very hard to avoid the impression that it is alive as it wanders underneath the sideboard, bumps into the walls and trundles across the carpet. It finds its way into small spaces but then has to bump around until it finds its way out again, with all the strategic awareness of a bee battering against a window pane. The most efficient way to use it is to clear the floor of small things and leave only the sofas and armchairs and other large furniture. The most entertaining is to leave everything where it is, in fact to construct a sort of maze, and see how it gets on.

I expect the novelty will wear off, but even then we’ll have cleaner floors.

The Royal Cornwall Show happens at the Royal Cornwall Showground on the edge of Wadebridge for three days at the beginning of June each year, and the royal attending this year was Princess Anne, who came on Thursday (6th). Being of the non-monarchist tendency, and having studied the weather forecasts, we decided to go on Friday. Judging by the traffic, we chose the least crowded day as well.

We can see the main road from our back windows and on Thursday morning the traffic was stationary at times and on Saturday it was moving slowly all morning, whereas on Friday it kept moving. Of course, the traffic on Saturday could have been worsened by misguided tourists not realising that the Royal Cornwall Show makes the A39 a road to avoid.

We walked up the hill to the showground at about ten o’clock, paid our £16.50 (each) admission fees at the east entrance and strolled into the throng. There were indeed lots of people there (over 118,000 for the three days, I later found out), but there were also lots of food kiosks, stands, stalls, tents, loos, displays, ice cream vans, arenas and entertainments to accommodate them all.

We walked round the flower show tent with professional displays and stalls, and flower arranging and schools competitions. We went through the Wadebridge Chamber of Commerce area (all stalls taken by local tradesmen, including our kitchen installer). We stopped off at the stand selling efficient electric heaters, for whom we were the ideal customers, having an old house and no wish to knock it about to run central heating pipes through. The heaters could even be controlled by an iPhone app. Terrific idea, but the heaters themselves were boxy and ugly, so we’ll try to find someone who has pretty ones.

We marvelled at the combine harvester titled at an angle, or perhaps that was just me. I was sure it was propped up on blocks to look more dramatic, but no – it had hydraulics to tilt itself, presumably to go over sloping ground more safely and efficiently. There was machinery I didn’t recognise (despite coming from a farming family) and tractors much larger than I used to drive. We passed the hospitality tent for farmers only and the Cornwall Young Farmers tent. There was a tent from Newquay Zoo. Our daughter Tris had asked whether there would be elephants and giraffes among the animals at the show, so this was the place to look. They had millipedes and tortoises and then: –

Right at the end was a lake. Well, they call it a lake. My mum has a bigger lake than that.

We came back via the animals. A large tent held sheep, which we didn’t look at, but we did go through the smaller tent with fleeces, shorn in competition the day before, and had a look at what makes a winner – not that I was much the wiser. A wire fence enclosed pig pens filled with pigs: old spot, landrace, large white, tamworth, saddleback – serious pigs for serious pork and bacon production.

We stopped off for lunch, a bacon roll and a roast pork baguette, with never a thought that we had looked upon our food’s cousins a few minutes earlier. (I was going so say ‘on the hoof’, but pigs have trotters and anyway they were lying down out of the sun.) I had a pint of cider – solely to make up for the lack of apple sauce with the roast pork, you understand – and we sat on the grass to eat. We had just about finished when a tanker lorry drew up opposite. There was nothing on the tanker to say what it was, just the company name and the slogan ‘50 years Service and Partnership’. When the driver connected a wide pipe to the loo block, I discerned the words ‘waste management’ (small, like that), which is a polite way of saying ‘pumping poo’. We finished our drinks and left.

We wandered by various motor car stands, looking closely at the Jaguars and BMWs we had no intention of buying. (Diana on the £80k Jaguar F-type, 0-60 in 4.5 seconds: “Where would we fit the surf boards?” Good question.) Diana found a robot lawn mower demonstrating its abilities by trundling around an area of grass the size of a snooker table. Tempting, but we have three small lawns with steps between, so a trundling robot isn’t much use. A robot vacuum cleaner for indoors, though? Very tempting.

We walked through the Radio Cornwall tent and the Cornish crafts tent and by this time we were back near the east entrance, so we headed for home and a cup of tea.

The day after the Woking Writers party Diana and I headed down to Cornwall. We decided that this was the time to take the second car down (as well as the first). Since one car is a large old Mercedes and the other a tiny Toyota Aygo which have very different driving characteristics, especially going uphill, we didn’t drive in convoy. Instead, we arranged to rendezvous at Cartgate picnic area, which is pretty much halfway. Diana set off first in the Aygo. She stopped for petrol, I bought buns to eat at Cartgate. I caught her up at the M3 and went sailing by.

Just short of Stonehenge, I pulled into a layby for a rest. My shoulder and neck start to ache if I drive too long. Six minutes later, Diana went past (yes, I was timing it). I passed her back on a stretch of dual carriageway. At Cartgate I stopped and got out of the car for a stretch and walk around while waiting.

After ten minutes I started to think Diana should have arrived. After fifteen I was thinking she should definitely have arrived and started thinking about invoking the emergency phone call procedure. We had agreed that, since you can’t answer a phone while driving, we should call the other three times, so that they could stop and call back. But then Diana called me. “I think I’ve overshot,” she said. “So do I,” I said. “I’m in the Blackdown Hills,” she said. “You’ve overshot,” I said.

We decided that I should eat my bun and have a cup of coffee from the picnic case, while she stopped at the Little Chef near Honiton for something similar. I drank my coffee in a leisurely way and set off. I thought I might call in at the Little Chef to see if she was still there and as I pulled in I saw through the shrubs a little red car moving off. It was Diana, so I drove through the car park and followed her out onto the road, overtaking on the dual carriageway.

West of Exeter I stopped again (shoulder) and Diana went by again. I overtook, again, and after three hours and fifty minutes of driving time (nearer five hours elapsed) reached Wadebridge. I just had time to drive into the garage door before Diana arrived.

Monday we spent doing very little and on Tuesday we went to the doctor for our initial appointments. This was where, as new patients, we had to explain our current ailments and set up repeat prescriptions. This took some time. With age come ailments. By the time I’d finished explaining what there was, the doctor said I should book another appointment – “In fact, make it a double” – in two weeks to go through a couple of things in full detail.

(Even as I write this first draft, the “with age come ailments” principle is playing itself out in the Mercedes, which has just failed its MOT on the grounds of corroded rear brake pipes, and has a couple of advisory actions on items which are wearing out, but not yet significantly. Maybe it’s time to replace it, an option available on a car but not necessarily on a person.)

Diana started cutting plants back in the herb bed and accumulated a sackful of dead twigs, so we investigated Cornwall Council’s garden waste scheme and ordered a brown bin and a permit up to September. She also went down to yoga class in the town hall.

On Thursday we went to Polzeath. There was little cloud and though the breeze was cool, it was the sunniest day on the beach we had had for a year or two. We strolled across the beach and into the Waterfront bar for lunch. The Waterfront is not quite on the waterfront, except on the very highest tides when the sea floods the road, but it is up stairs so you get a good view across the beach to the sea and cliffs. After lunch we followed the tide out. The water running down the sand from the streams was surprisingly warm, which we surmised came from being shallow and spread out under the sun. Most of the pools left behind by the tide had also warmed, but the sea itself – no. Ten Celsius according to weather websites, which I can quite believe. There weren’t many people in the water; the waves were too low for decent surfing. But three had taken long-handle paddles and were standing on their boards paddling away, and occasionally catching a wave for a few feet.

As we approached the steps up to the cliff, a Kelly’s ice cream van came across from the car park to the foot of the steps to get the custom of the people who had based themselves there. He succeeded, and I came away with my first ’99’ of the year.

On Sunday morning Wadebridge Bowling Club was holding an open morning. I had been talking about joining a bowls club for a while, so this was my opportunity. (Bowls is genetic. My grandma and grandpa Smith played, my father played, my brother plays – all at county level – and my nephew is an under-25 international.) Wadebridge Bowling Club has an interesting website, which I suspect has been developed by its younger members and hasn’t been looked at by its traditionalists. Any club claiming to have been founded a few years prior to the Black Death is worth a try, I thought. (Check it out here.)

Diana came with me, to watch, and we parked in the free-on-Sundays little car park next to the bowling green. Several people were already there. Bowls club members could be identified by white jackets and grey trousers, the rest of by varieties of clothing and colour. A member came up and found me a rink to join and a set of woods. We bowled a few ends, learning a few basic rules and getting an approximate feel for how hard and how wide you have to deliver the woods. One lady was having trouble sending the woods far enough and in trying to put in more effort, kept delivering them off to the left. The other lady proved extremely accurate, hitting the jack several times, but usually with too much weight. I tended to over-adjust between too long and too short. But we all “won” some ends and then the coach called time. I decided to sign up, filled in the form and paid my £10 affiliation fee. The club gives free membership for the first year, apart from this fee, so that new members can use the cash to buy the necessary kit.

I sent off for mid-grey trousers the next day, from an internet bowls supplier. They arrived a couple of days later – not stylish (I haven’t owned a pair of trousers that colour since school uniform), but they fit, with a bit of room for expansion (which I intend not to need), and are teflon-coated to make them water and stain resistant. If you think of them as sports kit rather than clothing there’s no problem. My first club night was Friday, but rain prevented play.

On Monday bank holiday, in a complete change from bowls, Diana and I put on wetsuits and headed for Polzeath with our body boards, which we discovered fit nicely in the little car. The sun was out and the walk across the beach was great. The main risk was overheating. My feet realised first that we had reached the sea. Cold. Coldcoldcold. I waded out, nervously anticipating the first wave to hit the crotch. Having got that over with, it was down to catching waves. As usual, Diana was judging it well and caught a few good ones right into the shallows where the board grounds. I managed a few shorter rides, but never that exhilarating rush all the way. We didn’t stay in long. It was more the principle of the thing. Still in wetsuits, we drank coffee on the rocks (sitting on the rocks, that is, not with ice) while the tide reached its highest point and turned just below us.

On Tuesday I took the car for its MOT, which it failed (see above) but it was then repaired and passed. In the afternoon we went to Trelawney’s Garden Centre and found that they don’t have lawnmowers, but do have a loyalty card. Then we stopped off at the local library to join it.

On Wednesday it rained and we stayed in and read the books from the library. At various times I wrote and re-drafted this blog, which is getting entirely too recursive…

Saturday 27^th April was a significant day for Diana and me. It was the occasion of a party given by the Woking Writers Circle, and hosted by Amanda, to mark our moving to Cornwall and thus ceasing to be active members after seven years for Diana and five for me, the last two and a bit as Chair. It was a fun evening with Peter and Rosie, Dermot, Greg, Keith, Simon, Dave and our hosts Amanda and Rick, and we were very moved by the poems written for us. Thanks to all, and also to Liz, not able to be there, but sending her own card and poetical best wishes.

For a fuller write-up, see the Woking Writers website here and for photos here.

We thoroughly enjoyed being members, not only for the help it gave our writing, nor just for the help we were able to give others, not even for the way every meeting ended in the pub, but for the people who became friends. We shall miss it and them all. We don’t intend to lose touch, though imaginative ideas about skyping in to meetings every third Thursday will probably come to nought.

We haven’t discovered an equivalent group in Wadebridge or the locality yet, but we’ll look some more, and if we don’t succeed maybe we’ll have to found one ourselves, based on the WWC model.