Breakfast in Bude

I’ve talked to plenty of electricians in my time, but never one who’s just paddled out to sea and back in his sit-on kayak and brought back a fresh, line-caught mackerel for his breakfast.

 

Rob Aunger is a man who is Bude born and bred. He’s enjoyed travelling the wider world, but the bewitching charm of this tiny, land-locked Cornish seaside town of has finally and, I suppose, inevitably, pulled him happily back by his roots. I've only been here a day and I'm already hooked.

 

After Ron took his catch home to share with his children, I walked round the sunlit sandy beach before my own breakfast was ready today. I stood listening to Atlantic breakers bringing me coded messages from the New World. A sea breeze played frisbee with my hat. I walked up some steep stone steps to the nearby marine locks, then looked at the multi-coloured dwellings perched on the hillside above me. They seemed as if they’d been sitting up there forever. Time can stand still for a photographer in this part of the world.

 

Checking my watch, I hurried back to meet a shooting deadline. A convoy of parked lorries was about to release nine thousand racing pigeons simultaneously. They were homeward bound for Ireland. A fast flock that size is not an easy target to hit with an iPhone camera. Perhaps I'd have been quicker on the draw if I'd breakfasted beforehand.