The poet laureate begins a series of reports from the Shore to Shore poetry tour, where she is travelling with Gillian Clarke, Imtiaz Dharker, Jackie Kay and John Sampson
So. Most of us have arrived in Falmouth, this Saturday night before our first event on Sunday: some by train, some by plane, and some still on the road southwards in the tour bus. It’s a gorgeous, warm evening in the Greenbank Hotel right on Falmouth’s harbour front where, we’re pleased to be told, Kenneth Grahame came in 1906 to write The Wind in the Willows. Outside on the terrace, we hear oddly displacing eastern music drifting over the harbour from this weekend’s sea shanty festival, and see the lights of settling boats murmuring to the sleepy waters. Some of us find the bar and order fish and chips while watching Portugal v Austria; the non-footie personnel eat in the restaurant and avoid the howls at Ronaldo’s missed penalty (justice for sneering at Iceland).
Related: 'No drugs on the bus': Carol Ann Duffy takes a road trip
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