10 Side Effects of Living in Cornwall

2. Summer is now just a blur of hangovers.

When the sun is shining in Cornwall, you crack open a bottle of cider and gather your buddies on the beach for some school-night sundowners. There’s also Boardmasters, Leopallooza, Mazey Day, Flora Day, Porthleven Food Festival, Looe Festival, Harbour Fun Day, the Eden sessions and many, many other excuses to get a little bit silly during the summer months. From May to October, every day is a hangover day.

3. You’ve become a beach snob.

Why go away on a beach holiday to Greece when you can bury your toes in the white sand of Pedn or Porthtowan? Living in Cornwall means that you are spoilt for choice when it comes to where you lay your towel to top up that wonderful, golden Cornish tan and you won’t settle for anything less than perfect.

4. You no longer wear shoes.

Whether you’re popping up town to get a pasty or visiting your nan, your chosen footwear is always as close to nothing as you can socially get away with. Going to the shops? Bare feet will do. Work? ‘Flops until you can kick them off under your desk. Wedding? As soon as you’re pissed enough that you don’t care, shoes will be lost forever.

5. You eat and drink sand.

It gets under your nails, sticks to your scalp and gets into every single crack, corner and seam of everything you own. You eat it, you drink it and you never bother getting rid of it because you’ll just be back on the beach tomorrow anyway. You see it as a sign that you’re living the Cornish dream as it is meant to be lived.

6. Everything you own is somewhat pirate-oriented.

Even if this is your first summer in Cornwall, you now own several pirate outfits that will be perfected from yer boots to the feather out o’ yer ‘at. Whether you’ve joined Penzance in getting as many pirates as possible in one place for the Guinness World Record or have got fucked up with a pirate punk band in the local dive bar, you’ve perfected the art of screaming “Y’aaaaaaaaaarrrrr” as loud and as obnoxiously as possible.

7. You’ve started to talk funny.

You’ll see ‘im in an our, ‘e’ll get you that paasty and it’ll taste bleddy ‘ansome.

Yep — “Hs” soon have become a thing of the past and “As” have gotten longer. Basically, you’re sounding like this ‘ere fella and you use the word cock a lot.

8. You’ve learnt to trust the general Cornwall population.

News headlines don’t usually get much more drastic than a seagull stealing the ice-cream out of the hands of an innocent emmet in St Ives or an old dude having a wank in a slurry pit. You don’t lock the door to your house, car or office and you’ve realised that it’s weird to knock on a friend’s door when you’re going for a visit.

9. Your opinion of what bad traffic is has changed drastically.

A legitimate excuse for turning up late to the office is that you got stuck behind a tractor (or three), a herd of cows were crossing the road or a camper van broke down in the middle of the A30. You’ll take that over the M25 any day.

10. You’ve become as tough and rugged as Cornwall’s landscape.

Being surrounded on three sides by the mighty Atlantic Ocean, Cornwall has its fair share of destructive storms. In the winter of 2014, Cornwall was taken into the ring and pummelled to within an inch of its life by bruising waves and whiplashed winds. The heavy swell wiped out not only harbours and sea defences but Cornwall’s travel links in and out of the Duchy. In addition to nature battering us, our hills and cliffs have been mined and hollowed so much they’re caving in under people’s feet. However, none of this really bothers you at all.