Judith Johnson's Blog, page 8

Bella Italia: Verona & Lake Garda

Fisherman, Garda We were heading for southern Italy again! Garda seemed like a good base for exploring Verona and Lake Garda, and it turned out to be a good choice.

It was just under 7€ return on the bus to Verona, and then 20€ for a 5-day Verona Card, which included admission to main museums and churches. We set to enthusiastically! Verona is packed to the gunwhales with fabulous villas, murals, churches etc, and Roman remains, including the original Roman gates to the city, Porta Leoni and the 1st Century Porta dei Borsari. At the Dominican Church of S. Anastasia we saw Pisanello’s fresco of St George & the Princess among a number of wonderful wall paintings; at the Basilica di San Zeno Maggiore, magnificent bronze doors and an Altarpiece by Mantegna.

We explored the magnificent amphitheatre,completed around AD 30 and the third largest in the world, where these days opera is staged, but where it’s easy to imagine the crowds streaming in through the various gates thousands of years ago to watch gladiators, wild animals and mock battles. Crossing the Ponte Pietra over the Adige river, we found the stunning Museo Civico de Storia Naturale. How our son would have loved this when he was a small boy, with its amazing fossils, including those of entire trees, fish, fern leaves and dragonflies, which were found when quarrying north of the city for building stone.

I find tall towers irresistible, and the Torre dei Lamberti was no exception! We toiled up its 368 steps, disdaining to use the lift, and were extremely lucky to notice the huge bell directly above our heads moments before it struck the 10 o’clock chimes, giving us just enough time to stick our fingers in our ears. Being  in Italy, we enjoyed excellent coffee breaks and delicious pizza from a little take-away place, Pizza Doge, in the Via Roma opposite the Castelvecchio Museum. The Casa di Giulietta (of Romeo and Juliet fame) is reached through an archway covered with graffiti and crowded with dozens of young women queueing for the must-have selfie on the balcony. We didn’t tarry!

Back in Garda, there were the summer concerts and exhibitions always available in this land of culture, including a tiny local museum of agricultural and fishing artefacts, and an exhibition of local art in a renovated villa, now used for community activities, where the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio used to stay with the lady of the house. For day outings we bought spinach pastries, ciabatta, ham, olives, tomatoes and peaches in the friendly local shops.

On Ferragosto, Mass was celebrated for the Assumption, and we watched a greasy pole competition and the Palio delle Contrade, the annual boat race at the lake edge, where nine teams of four muscular rowers each competed, standing as they rowed. One of the teams included two brothers, aged 64 and 72, still remarkably strong contenders. The winners strolled nonchalantly up to collect their cup, followed by admiring glances from the ladies.

The odd big thunderstorm and heavy downpour cooled the hot bright days. After early morning swims in the clear waters of the Lake, often accompanied by ducks and swans, walking back to the hotel we sometimes encountered divers, jugglers, cyclists, nuns, dog-walkers, rubbish-collectors, waiters setting up tables, and fisherman gutting their catch and throwing the waste to waiting birds.

Tim Parks’ Italian Neighbours was an enjoyable companion read. He mentions, after some years living near Verona, that he knew he was finally becoming Italianised when he realised that he no longer ground his teeth at finding things closed with no explanation or warning. We, however, felt a degree of good old British exasperation when we took the fast catamaran across the lake one day to Sirmione and, after trekking uphill to the Roman ruins of the Grotte di Catullo, found them suddenly and unexpectedly closed for the day. No matter, we said philosophically, we’ll explore the Rocca Scaligera Castle, only to be confronted with a poster from the Ministry of Culture, announcing its decree that it would also be closed on public holidays and Sundays in August! Oh, never mind! We had a wander round the town then caught the return boat, walking back to Garda via Lazise and Bardolino.

We also caught the bus along the lake to Malcesine and then the cable car up to Monte Baldo for lovely breezes and stunning views of the lake below, the Dolomites to the north, and the wooded slopes either side of the ridge, with pastured cows, bells ringing. We were excited to find  a mark-stone for the former border between the Habsburg empire and the Venetian Republic.

Another day we took the fast boat to Riva del Garda, at the north end of the lake. We bought  a picnic lunch from a great supermarket, Poli, in Viale Lutti, of tasty olive foccaccia, tomatoes, a ‘gamba’ spedione, with breadcrumbs and paprika, and watermelon. For home consumption, we bought some locally roasted coffee-beans from Omkafe, a family firm based locally in Arco. We spent several happy hours in the world-class Museum of Riva del Garda, housed in another former Scaligeri castle, looking at fascinating artefacts of the pre-historic lake community incuding amazing sculpted figures,unlike anything we'd seen before, plus Roman archaeological finds,local history, art and an exhibition of ephemera, photos and ordnance from World War One and World War Two. Many of us in Britain tend to think of World War One only in terms of the Western Front, but the Italian Front was a significant theatre of that conflict. After visiting this museum, I intend to read The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson.

It was great to see another part of Bella Italia!


(I am delighted to have been nominated for a travel blogging award organised by DFDSSeaways - if you enjoyed this blog, you'll find some more on my Travel page, and if you'd like to vote for me, Judith Johnson, it would be greatly appreciated!)

Pompeii and Herculaneum - Wonders of the World

The Forum at Pompeii & Vesuvius In modern times, we can look at a great deal of our planet on screens without even getting out of our chairs, but there's still nothing like actually being at a place in the flesh - for instance, when I've visited a war cemetery and taken a quiet moment to reflect on the man or woman whose remains lay buried there.

Pompeii, because of what occurred in 79AD,  is an altogether different kind of burial place. It had always been on my wish-list as long as I can remember, and when we stayed in Scala, on the Amalfi Coast, we booked for a half-day trip there, which would also include Vesuvius and Herculaneum. This was less than satisfying; our group was made up of British and Italian tourists, our guide had to translate everything twice, and our visit was frustratingly brief. At Vesuvius, we legged it to the summit from the coach as fast as we could, but still had only a couple of minutes there before needing to descend again.  I have to admit that seeing wisps of smoke emanating from the crater made my legs even more wobbly than the climb - scary!

On that holiday we accepted we were a bit too far from Pompeii and Naples for a further whole day visit by public transport, so chose to make the best of where we were, our general habit - why spend hours on a coach driving to a distant beautiful place when you're already in one? Our room in Scala had a breathtaking view of Ravello, across the ravine, and we enjoyed exploring the hills above, and walking down the steps to Amalfi, Minori and Maiori.

We still wanted to see more of Pompeii than the few spots our guide had shown us, so we planned a further stay in Sorrento. Not our favourite place in itself, but it had one major attraction: the Circumvesuviana, a little train that travels along the coast, through both Pompeii and Herculeaneum (Ercolano in modern Italian) to Naples. The superb Arte Card enabled us to travel anywhere in Campania on public transport for 3 days, and gave us free entry to some museums and discounts at others - a great deal. We bought several!

I'd prepared on this second visit by reading Naples '44 by Norman Lewis and Pompeii  - The Living City by Alex Butterworth & Ray Laurence. The wonderful Lindsey Davis books featuring 1st century Roman sleuth Marcus Didius Falco, with her learned research rounding out her characters and backgrounds, also gave me a great feel for the the people who might have been living in Pompeii and Herculaneum at the time of the disaster.

We spent a total of 15 hours in Pompeii over several visits, walking up and down its streets, seeing everything we could: the temples, the houses with their evocative names - the House of the Tragic Poet, the Villa of the Mysteries, the House of the Ancient Hunt , the House of the Fauns etc, the amphitheatre, the gladiators' barracks, markets, the Forum baths, the cemeteries outside the old city limits. In the UK, we have great places like Hadrian's Wall, the walls around Chester, the marvellous fort at Pevensey, Fishbourne  etc, our old Roman roads and mosaics re-discovered under farm land, but there is nothing that quite compares in scale and variety with Pompeii. Especially poignant are the plaster casts of a family lying together where the fumes from Vesuvius overcame them. We were disturbed to find though, that we were sometimes walking on pieces of mosaic that had come loose - it's a huge site to protect, but even so, that was quite shocking. Since then, a major project has been launched to restore and protect Pompeii, a joint Italian government and European Union funded programme worth nearly $150m.

We spent more time at Herculeaneum as well, a far smaller site, but enchanting and with its own unique feel. Above it is the town of Ercolano. After earlier clandestine tunnelling, major excavation began by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1738. It must have been hugely exciting to hack through the lava and find the preserved ancient town below. 75% still remains buried, but discoveries continue to be made: in the 1980s archaeologists discovered several hundred skeletons huddled close together on the former beach and in twelve barrel arches which were facing the sea at that time. They had been hoping to get onto a ship that would take them out into the Bay of Naples, away from the eruption. Work continues on restoring and reading a library of carbonised scrolls found in the library of one of the luxurious villas, once thought to be that of Julius Caesar's father-in-law. Some of my favourites here included the House of the Deer, the separate Men’s and Women's Baths, the Palaestra and the Hall of the Augustals, but there is so much to see.

You can't fail to feel a twinge of sadness at the plight of these people, desperate to save their loved ones from the terror of the oncoming eruption.

Some of the artefacts including musical instruments, cooking utensils, perfume bottles, statues etc (and the 'naughty' room, with phallus charms, including one with wings and bells on it!) from the two towns can be seen at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, and if you get a bus up the hill, you can see, in the Capodimonte, Caravaggio's superb masterpiece The Flagellation of Christ.  We found the inhabitants of Naples exceptionally friendly and helpful, despite the dire warnings of our holiday rep! We didn't have time to visit the catacombs of Naples, but hope to do so another time.

We were also able to use our Arte Cards to visit the marvellous Greek temples of Ceres, Neptune and Hera and adjoining museum at Paestum (train from Sorrento to Naples, and take another to Paestum), mentioned in Norman Lewis' excellent book Naples '44.

Lastly, for a view of the distant Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, you'd find it hard to beat the cable car up to Monte de Faito, leaving from the train station at Castellmare di Stabia. At 1050m up, in the Lattari mountains, there are beautiful woods of chestnut and centuries-old beeches. Walk uphill past herds of goats with little bells round their necks, and you come to a modern reconstruction of a chapel built in the 10th century, after St Michael appeared to two men. From here you look down on Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, which, for us, perfectly counterbalanced the detailed close-ups we'd experienced of its ancient towns. 

Unique, definitely a journey worth making! 

(I am delighted to have been nominated for a travel blogging award organised by DFDS Seaways - if you enjoyed this blog, you'll find some more on my Travel page, and if you'd like to vote for me, Judith Johnson, it would be greatly appreciated!)

Bugged by the Litter Bugs

Fly-tipping at Bough Beech Reservoir We went to see NT Live’s transmission this week of Behind the Beautiful Forevers - the stunning ensemble play based on Katherine Boo’s non-fiction book about Annawadi, the makeshift slum community, near to Mumbai airport, where many make a living from picking and sorting rubbish for recycling. It’s a shocking but deeply worthwhile play and I highly recommend, if you haven’t seen it, you try and catch it at the encore NT Live showing on 2 April, or on stage at the National Theatre (until 5 May). I'll definitely be reading the book now.

There was a reminder, in the news this week, of the high cost of littering in the UK,  when a report was published by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee stating that clearing up costs taxpayers up to £850 million a year. Surely, this problem could be mostly eradicated by simply not dropping litter in the first place?  Our son was brought up to put every single piece of litter in his pocket or a bag and to transport it to the nearest bin, or take it home. Similarly, when we had a dog, we picked up its faeces and disposed of it, rather than leaving it for someone else to come along and step in it!

I work in a beautiful part of the High Weald, and try and get a walk in before I step into work, and at lunchtime. It is lovely countryside, but there is nearly always a trail of fast food packaging, cigarette packets, bottles and cans along the verge, or in the hedgerows  thrown out from passing vehicles. What is their problem?! Occasionally too, some fly-tipper has dumped a mattress, a sofa, or a washing-machine amongst the trees. Somewhere in their heart and soul there must be an obstruction that blocks them from seeing how this defiles the earth that we all share.

I love Wendell Berry’s poem - The Future, and I regularly pick up the litter and take it home in a carrier bag to put in our recycling bin. I hope Mr Berry won’t mind me quoting it here.

THE FUTURE                                 

For God’s sake, be done
with this jabber of ‘a better world.’
What blasphemy! No ‘futuristic’
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do some thing! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise. 

Fake UGGS - a salutary lesson!

If that's sheepskin I'll eat my hat! I've worked with many people who have taken the opportunity, while on holiday in sunnier climes, to buy cheap copies of designer handbags, watches, etc. I guess that marketing and advertising has persuaded them that these are desirable items to possess. 

The elite of human society has, down the ages, always worn expensive goods to signal their status to others of their class, discreetly but clearly, "I am a high net-worth individual, and I want you to know that". I am not a member of the elite, which is perhaps just as well, as I really wouldn’t know what to be looking out for! The designer label is just not on my radar, I'd far rather have a week’s holiday walking the Wales Coastal Path than a Gucci handbag! However, pride before a fall: I recently fell prey to a rip-off website which purported to sell authentic UGGS, the famous Australian brand of sheepskin boots.

I work in a small office that has been converted from an out-building and in the winter months I suffer with cold feet. This year I thought I would treat myself to some sheepskin boots. Having looked round a few shops and not found what I was looking for, I spotted a reduction on the Debenhams web-site. I bought a pair of black sheepskin boots, and when they arrived I buried my face in the beautiful soft cuff -  they were gorgeous! Sadly, though, they were a bit too small, and after wrestling with my wishful thinking, 'Oh I'll manage, they'll be alright', I realised I'd have to return them.

When I went back on the internet, I was, frankly, in a bit too much of a hurry. I found a bargain pair of UGGS on a website which looked like a UK based seller of discounted boots - maybe old stock, I convinced myself.  I didn't take the time to look closely at the site, always a good idea. I hit that 'to buy' button impulsively, without taking the usual wise precaution of showing it to someone else in the family first.

I should have known something was amiss when there was no acknowledgement of my order in my email inbox, and should have become even more suspicious when a few days later I got an email in badly-spelt, wrongly-punctuated English.  I've binned plenty of spam and phishing emails in my time but on this occasion I was ignoring those little mental warning flags going up - I was in denial.

It took over a week for the boots to arrive, (in retrospect, I see that they were not despatched until the payment had been taken, in Shanghai, my bank informs me) and the package was suspiciously light for genuine sheepskin knee boots (just under a kilo). When I opened it I found inside a pair of boots with suedette outers, plastic soles, and the lining - well, if that's sheepskin, then it's a sheep in teddy-bear's clothing! This would be funny, if it were not for several things:

Firstly, I have a modest budget for clothing, and the £73 I spent on these actually hurts - so I'll just have to take this as a salutory lesson, and get on with wearing my other footwear to work this winter.

Secondly, when I went on to the official UGGS Australia website I was horrified to read the following information, which made me feel bad that I may have inadvertently contributed to financing the activities of any of these people:

"Infamous terrorist groups, organized crime rings, and gangs such as the Crips, Florencia 13, White Fence, MS-13, Yi Ging Organization, Lim Organization, Big Circle Boys, 14K, Sun Yee On triads, Camorra, Los Zetas, Gambino family, La Cosa Nostra, Chinese triads, Japanese Yakuza, Italian Camorra, Russian Mafia, Al Queda, and Hezbullah finance their operations—including terrorism, drug, sex, and arms trafficking—through the sale and trafficking of counterfeits."

Lastly, as I've written before on this blog page, I feel quite passionately that cheap goods are not without their cost - in sweat-shop labour, pollution issues, and in undermining the valid good work of designers, craftsmen and honest tradespeople.

I hope that by writing this blog I can possibly head off some other folk from making the same error I did. Incidentally, when I googled for the above-mentioned website for this blog, I discovered it has now been shut down: http://gbcinternetenforcement.net/15-153   

Fascinating London

I went up to London last week to assist a school group visiting the capital, and took the opportunity to take a snail trail from Waterloo Station to the Tate and across the river. I lived in London for 11 years, but there is so, so much of the city I have not seen, and always something worth revisiting. There was an excited crowd of University of the Third Age bods queuing for tickets in front of me at Tonbridge train station - they were  a walking group off to tramp round Kings Cross and Camden. No South Downs for them!

Waterloo Station is full of goodies: beautiful carvings, the memorial to workers who died in the Great War, and a new import from NYC - Kiehl’s Apothecary, with a guest-worker drumming up business outside! There’s always a new high-rise star ascending on the river horizon, but I love the way there are still, as in New York, old buildings to be found nestling at their feet, like the Almshouses in Hopton Street, originally founded 260 years ago by fishmonger Charles Hopton for "poor decayed men of the parish”. 
Visits to art galleries and museums always benefit from a bit of thought beforehand I’ve found, made easier these days by on-line previews, of course. I took the lift at the Tate to see the view of St Paul’s from the sixth floor (100% cheaper than the Shard!), and then headed for a look at, amongst other things, Russian revolutionary posters, Margaret Harrison’s Homeworkers, Meredith Frampton’s portrait of Marguerite Kelsey, and Henry Wessel’s black and white photographs of America’s social landscape.

Walking over the Millennium Bridge on a Tuesday in February is a rare opportunity to find it relatively empty. There were smiling Jehovah’s Witnesses at each end handing out Bible-reading material, and in the middle a man begging , hunched in the biting wind in an old anorak, with a few coins in a cap. I stopped to sit and speak with him, and he told me he had been living in a multi-storey garage for 5 years. I try not to take my warm, safe, quiet home for granted, but after shaking his hand and wishing him well, I went on my way doubly grateful.

Just over the bridge, on the right is Salvation Army International HQ. I’ve written before about my affection for the Army, but I was aiming on this occasion to have lunch in their cafe, about which I’d heard good things. It was bright, airy, WIFI provided, and the fresh wholesome food was very reasonably priced. Recommended, if you’re visiting the Tate, St Paul’s or the Globe Theatre, and want to meet someone for a coffee or light meal in relaxed surroundings.

Back across the Bridge to meet my group for their transfer to Trafalgar Square, and en route saw the house, two doors down from the Globe Theatre, still a private residence, which is the subject of Gillian Tindall’s excellent non-fiction micro-history book The House by the Thames. 

The sixth-form students were studying art and photography, so they were delighted with the Taylor-Wessing Photographic prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, and also excited to see the Grayson Perry work on show, as was I! I’ve seen Mr Perry on the telly, but not had the chance to look closely at his work and appreciate its quality. There was much tittering from schoolchildren in the shop, I noticed, at one particular charm on his limited edition necklace entitled “I am a Man”... ahem!

I also nipped off to look at eminent 18th and 19th century portraits (mostly men) - including Josiah Wedgewood (one of the Lunar Men - for their story, read Jenny Uglow), and an early transvestite, the Chevalier D’Eon, plus a lovely painting of Kitty Fisher. The National Portrait Gallery is  one of my favourites - a manageable visit and a definite must-see whenever the BP Portrait award is on.

It’s my birthday soon, so rather than a present I’ve asked for a day in the Smoke, looking at something new. Can’t wait!

Wotcha readin'?

Cartoon left by son today on kitchen table! I usually read a number of books at one time, although currently ‘reading-lite’ (for me!), having only two on the go: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and AE Housman’s poetry collection A Shropshire Lad. I like to mix up the book buffet, interspersing big guns with thinner volumes, fiction with non-fiction, poetry, the odd graphic novel. I like popular fiction as well as the literary stuff, but there are limits - sorry to her fans, but you won’t find me reading Barbara Cartland....

There’s so much out there! Never mind the steady information stream from Twitter, Facebook, BBC website, daily papers etc etc. They say that a Sunday newspaper alone, with all of its supplements, amounts to what would have been the lifetime input for the average medieval person (had more than a handful been able to read!).

The website par excellence, of course, for keen readers, must surely be Goodreads, and I’ve already had a lot of fun adding my 1300+ reads to my page. I’ve had to withdraw from the conversation threads though - looking at these was taking up too much of my precious reading time!

I drive to work, and have my packed lunch round the table with colleagues, so it seems a bit rude to get a book out. My sister, however, who has 40 minutes each way on the train Monday-Friday, gets through a lot more books than me. She’s currently enjoying Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, having recently returned from holiday in Colombia.

As a confirmed bibliophile, and nosey with it,  one of life’s pleasures is sneaking a look over people’s shoulders to see what they’re reading, so e-readers can frustrate this innocent pastime for me, though there is always the cryptic-crossword-style game of trying to guess, from the page on view, what the book might be!

I thought I’d ask people I met this last week what they’re reading, which turned out to be a wide selection. Here’s a dozen of them (six by the fairer sex - hoorah!):

The Talented Mr Ripley    Patricia Highsmith
 Corvus   Esther Woolfson
 Elizabeth is Missing   Emma Healey
 Germany: Memories of a Nation   Neil MacGregor
 Americanah   Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
 How Music Works    David Byrne
 Le Chapeau de Mitterand   Antoine Laurain
 Rubicon  Tom Holland
 The Diary of Anne Frank’(in Spanish)
 The Private Eye Annual of 2014   Ian Hislop
 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying   Marie Kondo
 The Bone Clocks   David Mitchell

But  if I thought I read a lot of books at once, the rosette must surely go to a running friend, whose current reads I enquired upon (breathlessly) the other evening on our 4 mile mostly uphill jaunt round Tunbridge Wells. Here they are - be impressed!!

Hunters of Dune   Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson
Lila   Marilynne Robinson
Who runs this place?   Anthony Sampson
Greek Political Oratory  Penguin Classics
Stardust  Neil Gaiman (on Kindle)

and has recently finished:

The Peripheral    William Gibson
Liberty    Shami Chakrabati
The Trial of Henry Kissinger   Christopher Hitchens

so no David Baldacci or John Grisham there then ...!

I’ll finish with a plug for my husband’s two books, Niedermayer & Hart, a horror thriller, and psychological thriller Roadrage  - both of which he is not ashamed to admit are popular fiction. I really enjoyed reading them, they are both good yarns with well-drawn characters; in spite of my long-term doula/midwife duties before their births (listening to ideas, encouraging, researching and proof-reading) I still found them thrilling, moving and hard to put down, which is a kind of small amazing miracle in itself!  I won’t go on - you can find reviews (the genuine article!) on Goodreads, Amazon and Martin’s website and decide for yourself, but he has a Kindle offer on over the next week (only available on Amazon UK from 8 am Monday 26 January until 2 February) for Niedermayer & Hart, which might be of interest.

If you haven’t heard of an author but the reviews are good, I guess 99p is an acceptable outlay!

Martin’s website: www.mj-johnson.com

Eva by Peter Dickinson

I used to work in a school that had an excellent library, and in moments of stress I’d wander down to browse the ‘new books’ shelf. There was always a great choice, and it was an opportunity for me to keep up with new writing for children and young adults. I still like to read this age-group as a welcome relief from heavier tomes. I sometimes take children’s books out from the local library, and it’s good to support this wonderful institution - use it or lose it!

I was really pleased to see recently that Southborough Library had some Peter Dickinson and Kevin Crossley-Holland in stock, although sadly no Michelle Paver. I’d recommend these three writers  to any child. I am shocked to see how many bookshops don’t have any of them on sale.

During my own childhood, I loved all the magical worlds I could enter via books - CS Lewis’s Narnia, JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth; other favourites included E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Story of the Amulet, George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin, BB’s  The Little Grey Men.  As I grew, I also enjoyed John Wyndham’s science fiction. It was the beginning of a lifetime’s relationship with reading.

I only discovered Peter Dickinson in the last decade or so. He is a fantastic writer of children’s literature, creating vividly imagined realities, taking you along with him into the minds and lives of others. I particularly like his dystopian novels for children, including the Changes Trilogy.

Eva is a wonderful book. It tells of the changed life of a 13 year old girl, through whose eyes we picture a future, dystopian world. Eva wakes from sleep to find that her essential human self has been implanted into the living body of a chimpanzee. She had been in an irreversible coma, following a car-crash, and her parents had accepted the offer from a pioneering scientist to carry out the procedure. Eva has grown up with chimps in the family, as her father works with them; she is also a girl with deep inner resources, and is able to accept and adapt in a way that most wouldn’t. The book goes on to explore what happens to her, in a world where wild animals and their habitats have been reduced to tiny numbers by the relentless onward march of the human race, which largely puts the highest value on human life before that of every other creature.

There were resonances for me with  William Golding’s book The Inheritors , and indeed, towards the end of Eva, there is a line which possibly indicates a nod by the author to  that earlier work, published 33 years ago. Of course Eva doesn’t fill in all the details which an adult dystopia might, but it features some profound ideas about our relationship to our fellow creatures and the world about us.  Through Eva’s eyes we can appreciate what it might feel like to be more chimp than human: the feeling (echoing Golding’s Neanderthal protagonist) that the forest is a safe, good place, the deep physical connection with the environment and your clan, the strident ways of humans ... and Dickinson does not go for the idyllic happy ending; he leaves you thinking long after you’ve finished reading - this book leaves its mark.

It led me to reflect on how the vestiges of our ape ancestors live on in us - in my case the high-pitched noises I make when I see a new baby, the diaphragm-produced ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-oooh-ooh response to a particularly cute puppy photo, the childhood joys of tree-climbing, the familiar feeling when I hold fruit in the palm of my hand,  the liking for cuddles!

The books that we read as a child are deeply significant - they contribute to our own unique inner map of the world. I’ve occasionally re-read a childhood favourite and met again a principle I’ve lived by. Enid Blyton goes in and out of fashion (though a few  librarians tell me they endure as firm favourites with children!), but the Round the Clock stories still inform some part of my moral compass.

If you don’t know Peter Dickinson’s books, I recommend you take the time to acquaint yourself, or a young friend or relative, with them!

http://peterdickinson.com 

What I Did to the Turkey

Every night, before I go to sleep, I write a diary page and a gratitude list. The latter helps me to practise being content with all the many blessings in my life, and helps head off the twin evils of restlessness and dissatisfaction. More often than not, my husband is on the list - and his kindness, tolerance and patience!

These were all put to the test on Christmas Day. Our son and daughter-in-law-to-be had come over for a jolly Christmas breakfast, and later we'd driven down to Hastings to visit my Mum and collect one of my brothers to stay over. Martin had left the majority of a beautifully-cooked (by his own fair hand!) turkey crown to cool in the oven. It would go in the fridge later ready for our Boxing Day friend-and-family lunch.

We got back home early evening, and while Martin parked the car, my brother and I went into the house. We were all hungry and all I could think about was getting the pizzas on. Martin took a good ten minutes to find a parking space, but when he walked into the kitchen he immediately spotted the oven was pre-heating, quickly whipped out its contents, now heating up nicely, and said, "Don't you think it's a good idea to remove the turkey before turning on the oven?"   

Well, the old man let me off lightly - just this initial barb of exasperated sarcasm (and, later, a degree of good-natured ribbing). But I suspect the man's good nature may have been over-stretched if we hadn't stashed the carefully prepared 4 kg honey-glazed gammon in the fridge. We fought with our consciences before quickly coming to the conclusion that we could not feed a potentially lethal partially re-heated turkey to our loved ones the next day, and, being fortunate enough to have a local branch of a well-known supermarket nearby, were able to buy a replacement cold cooked chicken.

If you require further proof of his forgiving ways -

Some years back, when we had a very large vegetable patch in our former home, and our gardening bible was Geoff Hamilton's Successful Organic Gardening, Martin laboured long and conscientiously to raise a wide selection of good things for the family table. He had gone up to London one day for a television casting, and I thought I would be a good woman and clear the brassica patch for him. I cheerfully dug up the tattered remains of the Brussel-sprouts, cabbage etc, and then went on to the next row of plants. As I was hacking them into manageable pieces ready for the compost, I thought to myself, 'Well, I don't know, this stuff looks good enough to eat...", but nobly carried on with a determined will.  Sgt Johnson, serving ranker in the gardening corps, nothing if not thorough.

Martin appeared late afternoon, home from the Smoke.

"Look," I said, beaming, "I've cleared the brassicas!"

 "Oh, good," said Martin, looking round. "Erm, where's the purple sprouting broccoli?"

Yes, folks, I'd bashed the just-about-ready-for-the-table crop of this delicious vegetable to bits. That which my husband had grown from seed, thinned out, transplanted, de-slugged, tied up, and weeded over a period of months ... and he didn't even shout at me!

Hi ho, Hi ho, to Christmas markets we go!

I didn't know the No 27 went to Rudesheim! When we rose several hours before dawn last Friday from our comfy Premier Inn beds in Dover’s Eastern Docks and saw the waves whooshing up over the seawall we felt a little daunted, and when the ship pulled away into the choppy Channel, although reinforced by an excellent cooked breakfast, we anticipated a rough crossing. But we were fortunate - the ship was well-stabilised, and after about half an hour things settled down. It’s the first time I’ve travelled with DFDS: the staff were friendly and courteous, and the ship, including its loos, clean and comfortable. It’s also the first time I’d sailed to Dunkerque. It was quite a poignant moment, in the light of morning, seeing that coast where so many died in 1940 in the retreat from mainland Europe.

We were on our way to the German Christmas markets in Aachen, Koblenz and Rudesheim, and as usual I had a list of other things I wanted to do. It was rainy all weekend, with an exceptionally  torrential downpour in Aachen, but even this could not dampen our appreciation of this beautiful German town. We just missed the Cathedral unfortunately (I wanted Martin to see it); the determined men on the door were barring sightseers because there was a service due.  We bought some Printen from a bakery and had a peek inside the Rathaus. We ate some wonderful cooked fish from one of the market stalls. I hope to return some time with more than an hour or two to spare, visit the Couven Museum there, and take the Rathaus tour and see the Kaisersaal with its epic 19th century frescoes and statues of fifty German rulers.

So, on to Koblenz! Having researched thoroughly, I knew there was a cable car, so we made a beeline for it on Saturday morning. First though we checked out the Deutsches Eck, where the Rhine joins the Moselle, and the stonking great Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial, then we took the Seilbahn up to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress. It was amazing looking down over the mighty Rhine  and I’m pleased to say I felt safe in the hands of German technology!  The Fortress itself (we got a combined ticket for cable car and fortress) houses  an excellent archeological and Landesmuseum, so we passed a  contented  hour or so wandering round. The highpoints for me included a footprint captured in clay of a Roman soldier in hob-nailed sandals, a  piece of  Neanderthal skull, a stone fragment etched with a frieze of stylised women dancing in a circle, and an original Roman piling from the bridge at Confluentia (original name for the settlement). We were quite awestruck by the multiple arches built into the fortress walls, which must have made them phenomenally strong.  There’s a youth hostel in the fortress, one of over 500 in Germany - one of my dearly-held wishes (okay, somewhat over-ambitious, probably!) is to backpack round Germany and stay in every one of them!

On these fleeting visits, there is always more to see than time allows. I’d like to return one day to see the Church of St Florin, and the Ludwig Museum, housed in what remains of the former headquarters of the Teutonic Knights.

We did an afternoon excursion on our coach to Rudesheim. The last time I was there was in my late teens, when I was an over-enthusiastic partaker at a German wine tasting evening. I faintly recall learning about Spatlese wines, and having to be helped out to the car after drinking all of six glasses of what seemed like a light, fruity, harmless beverage! We took our second cable-car ride here, up over the Christmas stalls and the vineyards on the hills above to the Niederwald Monument high over the Rhine, erected to commemorate Germany’s victory in the Franco-Prussian war, and another example of massive 19th century German architecture.  I heard once of a man whose mission it was to visit every Starbucks wherever he travelled - for me that would be cable-cars, as you might guess from the look of pure happiness on my face!

Cable-car over Rudesheim Back at Koblenz that evening, we were planning to eat a hearty typisch German supper in the highly recommended Altes Brauhaus in the Braugasse, but it was booked out, so, seeing as the shops were open until midnight we concentrated on Christmas shopping and grabbed a bite to eat at a branch of the Nordsee chain. On the walk back to our hotel, which was near the city’s elegant Hauptbahnhof and very handy bus station, we noticed a medieval stone cross, erected in the town wall in 1667 offering  thanks to God for Koblenz’s delivery from an outbreak of plague.

This trip was  enhanced by having recently read Simon Winder’s book Germania and listening to Neil McGregor’s fantastic BBC Radio 4 series Germany: Memories of a Nation - both musts for Germanophiles like myself. 

Our last port of call on the way back to Dunkerque was Bruges, the beautiful,  historic  ‘Venice of the North’, where reportedly the world’s first ever stock exchange was founded, and whose economic importance waned over time as the discovery of sea-routes to the New World moved business away. On a Sunday afternoon so close to Christmas it was inevitably besieged by visitors, and getting about the markets our walking was at times reduced to a shuffle. So after nipping into Hema on the Steenstraat for some chocolate gifts, and scoffing a delicious broadwurst in Simon Stevenplein, we slipped into the quiet sanctuary of the Arentshuis to see its Frank Brangwyn collection. We’ve long been fans of this underrated Welsh artist, who was born and spent his early childhood in Bruges.  I’ve admired his colourful panels on the walls of  Swansea’s eponymous Brangwyn Hall., and the World War One relief in Cardiff Museum, but it was wonderful to see examples of his furniture and ceramics, posters, a carpet, and, last but not least, I was actually moved to tears by his beautiful Stations of the Cross. Brangywn’s representations, for me, move Christ and his mother, the onlookers and  followers, out of the iconic divine and into a very present, human world. Most definitely worth a visit, if you’re in Bruges and you want to see something truly extraordinary.

Speaking in Tongues

'Constant knocking wears away the stone' I'm learning Welsh at the moment, by listening to and following the original BBC Radio Wales series Catchphrase, first aired in the 1990s (Clinton was in the White House and John Major in Downing Street at the time).  We downloaded all the episodes and we've had several gos at getting through them all but life has always intervened, so this is my latest effort! My husband comes from a Welsh-speaking family and did Welsh O-Level, but is not fluent, though he understands a lot. When he was growing up in the 1960s in South Wales many families spoke English with their children, and of course, culturally and politically things were different from today, lessons being taught predominantly in English in state schools then, and no dedicated Welsh TV or radio channels available.
 
I listen to Catchphrase in the car on the way back from work, so if you see a woman talking to herself in Welsh on a country road in the High Weald of Kent, that'll be me! Welsh is beautiful, and my only regret is that I didn't do this earlier in life, when I could have had some enjoyable conversations with my father-in-law, who spoke excellent Welsh. It always amuses me when I hear English people complain that, on entering pubs and shops in some parts of Wales, the locals continue to speak Welsh in their presence. It is their mother-tongue after all! Surely English tourists wouldn't expect the same, when en vacances, of a French person?

I've always loved languages, and, like my siblings, have inherited my mother's ear for picking them up and being able to reproduce their sounds so confidently that it  can cause native speakers to think I know the lingo far better than I do! This can sometimes be embarrassing - that's what comes of being a natural-born parrot and show-off!

Dad, on the other hand, did not really have the language-learning gene, though he spoke English beautifully,  and as a small child in India I believe he spoke both Hindi and Urdu. He spent years learning Spanish in his dressing-room when he toured with My Fair Lady, assiduously practising his pure text-book Castilian, but when he and Mum moved to Alicante in the early 1970s, he found to his dismay he could barely make himself understood. He related that, when going into a posada in the countryside and asking for a beer, his request went something like "Landlord! Bring me a flagon of thy foaming ale, that I may quaff it!"

Mum on the other hand had no truck with text books but picked up the local Valencian dialect in a matter of weeks, as she similarly did with Tyrolean dialect when she worked for several summers in Austria.

My formal language learning stopped at A Level, but early years with German au-pairs and summer holidays playing with a gang of kids from all over Europe in my Aunty Janet's campsite on the Ebre Delta must have given me a good foundation. Although it's decades now since I spent more than a week or two at a time in Spain, Germany or France, I can still dredge up enough basic language to get by. Inevitably, the holes in my vocabulary grow larger as the years flow by, but I dare say a couple of months immersion would restore fluency.

I saw a notice at the local library recently for learning British Sign Language.  I'd like to do that, but maybe learning Welsh, and trying to buff up my German for a forthcoming Rhine Christmas markets trip, may be enough for the time being!

One of my colleagues speaks Arabic, Spanish, French, German and Chinese. I'm envious! And another clever young man I worked with, currently studying German and Russian at university, taught himself Swedish by listening on the internet. Good on them - any British person who makes the effort to learn another language is admirable in my eyes, and combats the deeply embarrassing spectacle of many who do not, including the majority of our politicians!

When I was a teenager, on holiday in Spain, there was nothing more joyous than sitting round with French, German, Spanish and Dutch friends and communicating in a hodge-podge,  from one language to the next. We were young, and relatively free from the fear of getting things wrong. You see this even more in small children, who quickly improvise ways to play together even with no shared language.

It's worthwhile learning another language - it helps break down the barriers of ignorance andimproves mutual understanding and respect between our fellow human beings. If you didn't learn any when you were at school, why not join an evening class and give it a go?

Pob lwc!