Saving Lives at Sea

I’m back from my week in St Ives. We literally dumped the car in a cliff top car park, checked into a nice AirBnB and didn’t leave the town for a week. Why would you? The sun shone, there are beaches to walk to, there are bars and restaurants, Barbara Hepworth’s House, The Tate gallery, fish, chips and ice creams. Perfect!

One evening we ventured out for a pizza. As we were finishing the pizza (I say we… I ate half of mine then my boys finished the rest of it – they were massive) an alarm went off. Now my eldest doesn’t take to alarms because she has Williams Syndrome and sudden loud noises cause her distress and can set her off shouting and making more noise than the alarm was making in the first place. Reason doesn’t help. “You’re louder than the alarm,” doesn’t cut through and nor does a bollocking – I’ve tried both in my time. You just have to ride out the storm, hold her and avoid eye contact with everyone else until the noise has subsided. The problem was that the alarm was coming from outside. We were right next to the RNLI station and a lifeboat was launching. I braced myself for her shouting. I looked at her and her face was beaming.

“Mum, I know what this alarm is. I’m not frightened. It’s from Saving Lives at Sea on TV”

“Wow Martha, are you OK?”

“Yes. I’m going outside.”

“Are you sure?”

“YES!”

Now, she was still quite anxious about the alarm but felt a level of control, I think, because the noise was a known sound. She went outside and was shouting at the people, not in fear but with confidence.

“Everybody stand back the lifeboat needs to launch.”

Terrifying, I wouldn’t argue. I tell you what though, they all listened and stood back whilst the boat descended the ramp.

The boat launched, we returned to our seats and ordered pudding.

I trust everyone was OK because I’ve not read anything to the contrary, but the waitress said it’s a common occurrence in Summer launching around 3 times a week.  

Here’s a link to the RNLI. They do amazing work.

The Summer Sale’s on the website should you need things too.

Have a lovely week all!