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The Surf Shack Café, St Aidan, Cornwall
Slippery slopes and caramel crispies
Friday
‘Hi, I’m Cressy, I’msosorry we’re late.’
Above my head the bunting is flapping against a cornflower blue sky, and across the Surf Shack Café’s hewn plank table I’m looking at three smiling yet expectant faces.
I take it the women round the table all know Diesel, the dog, already as he pretty much wrenched my arm off to get to them. Let’s face it, with his huge grey head and his long lollopy legs that are mostly out of control, he’s quite a local icon in St Aidan. When we finally got here he leaped up the steps so fast my sparkly flipflops barely touched the ground, then he careered across the beachside deck like a guided missile. Now he’s finally come to a standstill in front of the group, he’s shoving his big black nose into each of their faces in turn and giving them the licking of their lives.
As his tail finally slows to a normal wag I can see a major slick on the one in the check shirt, who I think is called Nell. Then his bottom thumps down on my foot and he stares up at me. If a guy were playing me like this I’d push him into the harbour. But with those heart-melting brown eyes I forgive Diesel every time.
Nell swipes a hand across her cheek to clear the slobber and gives his hairy shoulder a last pat. ‘Lovely to see you too, Diesel, I hope you’re being good.’ She turns to me. ‘You’re out of breath, is everything okay?’
Even if these are friends of a friend rather than work, I wassohoping to make a good impression here. I flap my once white T-shirt and pray that the sweat halo around my scalp isn’t turning my carefully prepped hair to frizz as they watch. ‘Don’t worry, I always hyperventilate when I’m excited to meet people.’ Hopefully that explains why I sound like I just finished an iron man.
As for Diesel, I’ve known him since he was a puppy, but when I agreed to look after him and Pancake, the cat, while my brother Charlie and his lovely partner Clemmie go off on an extended trip to Scandinavia, I had no idea he’d be this much of a handful. Charlie and Clemmie’s flat is just along the beach, but the second Diesel’s paws hit the sand he legged it, and we had a wild half hour of chasing before I finally grabbed him again. From Nell’s hard stare it’s almost like she’s guessed.
In the end, wading into the shallows was the only way I was going to catch him. Looking at the tide line on my otherwise pristine belted boyfriend jeans and my long dripping cardigan, you’d never know I spent the best part of this morning getting ready. It might sound over the top to some people, and neat wasn’t my natural state. But since I had success with my internet baking clips, I’m expected to be picture-perfect every time I leave the house.
I’ve no doubt that if the handover had been left to Charlie he would have tossed me the flat keys as he left for the airport saying,You know where everything is,see you in three months’ time.But Clemmie has made me a manual to cover every eventuality. If she missed the bit about how to catch Diesel, it’s because he never normally runs off. I’m guessing Clemmie took charge of the instructions because her part of the top floor where I’ll be staying is vintage with lots of quirks. But she also added an hour-by-hour pet-care log, as well as personality profiles of most people in St Aidan, and then insisted on handing me into the care of her besties, who are welcoming me now with afternoon tea.
It’s lovely of them to treat me, but it’s more looking-after than I need. I’m the youngest of six, and what the family forget is that I’m thirty-two, independent and completely capable of taking care of myself as well as Charlie’s pets.
If ever you want proof that life can flip from good to the worst kind of bad then back again, you only have to look at Charlie. Thirteen years ago, on the eve of their wedding, his wonderful fiancée, Faye, got ill and died. He had ten long, desolate years. Then Clemmie moved into the flat next to his, and made his life happy again.
If I’m a little bit wary of being engulfed by Clemmie’s childhood friend group, it’s because I’ve always hung out with one bestie rather than a crowd. This lot still call themselves ‘the mermaids’ and they haven’t even met me, but they’ve already offered to make me an honorary member.
It would be lovely if that were my kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong – I love the sound of waves crashing on the shore and the higgledy village of St Aidan with its colourful cottages stacked up the hillside and the novelty of a café that’s made out of a thousand bits of driftwood nailed together. But I have no intention of reaching for my own personal mer-persona any time soon.
Spending a few weeks by the sea in early summer is the kind of treat I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t been pet sitting, and I’ve really been looking forward to the change; I’ve bought my Salt-Water sandals and I’ve vowed to eat my body weight in clotted cream while I’m here. But that’s the limit of me turning native because I actually love my life in London. I know it’s gone a bit tits-up lately, which is why I’m extra pleased to have the chance to lie low in Cornwall for a while. Fingers crossed, by the time Charlie and Clemmie come home my troubles will have blown over. Then I’ll head back to civilisation and pick up where I was before everything went wrong.
‘We’ve been so looking forward to meeting you, Cressy. We don’t often get stars in St Aidan.’ The woman speaking now is blonde and her eyes are shining. But her aqua blue top and matching chinos are straight out of Clemmie’s file notes.
Sophie, mum of four, owns a hundred identical T-shirts the colour of mint ice cream, started her multi-million-pound skincare brand making cosmetics on her kitchen table, now owns a castle and rules the world. Hot tip: super-organisational, be prepared to resist her on her forceful days.
However starstruck Sophie sounds today, she shouldn’t be. Most women who breathe and readGood Housekeepinguse her Sophie May products, whereas I got one accidental lucky online break that I ran with and milked for all it was worth.
Nell rubs her nose and nods. ‘Kate Humble once popped in for a sticky toffee pudding at The Yellow Canary, so we know you’re the real deal, Cressy. With celebrity presenters it’s all in the polish.’
I’m not about to share this, but when my career is based on something as flimsy as my on-camera sparkle and a few iced buns, I have to put the hours in. I’m hoping my all-day miracle foundation has withstood the assault of chasing after Diesel.
The woman in the paint-splattered boiler suit chimes in. ‘It’s your superhuman glow that’s the giveaway. When Patrick Grant came to open the Fish Quay Festival he glowed too – but way less than you.’ That has to be Plum, from the gallery on the steep cobbled hill above the bakery. She shakes her dark ponytail and grins straight at me. ‘You’re exactly the same as when you cook on YouTube – except without the pinny and the flour smudges.’
Nell flaps her fingers in front of her face. ‘You’ll have to excuse us having our fan girl moments. At least ten million of your billion views came from us watching your videos when Clemmie was learning to bake.’
Plum’s screwing up her face. ‘Please – before you sit down, could you possibly say what you do at the start of your baking clips?’
People ask me this all the time and I always respond because it acts like an icebreaker; once it’s out of the way we can get back to being normal.
I widen my eyes, lock onto an imaginary selfie stick and fire. ‘Hi, Cressida Cupcake here, bringing love to the world one blondie at a time.’ Given the depth of Plum’s contented sigh, I have to put it into context. ‘It’s a very niche audience, internet fame is very fleeting.’
If anyone knows how fickle social media success is, it’s me. Until recently I’d always have said my ambition in life was to fill the world withcake; but that was before I publicly humiliated myself in front of gazillions of TV viewers.
Plum gives me a sideways smile. ‘We all saw you on the fabulous Channel 5 baking show too, don’t forget.’
