ITALY TRIP – Just the Ticket

Monteriggioni was the ideal bite-size Tuscan outing for Nigel, Pascoe and I - a small village contained within a large fortress.  We would get a ticket to walk along the top of the walls.

We calculated that for Nigel and I the ticket price would total eight euros.  We had Pascoe with us too, student card in hand.  But we couldn't tell if there would be a discount.

But in the end we were charged only 7 euros and 50 cents for all of us.

I wondered whether it was because any parents in charge of a student were assumed to need all the help they could get, financial and otherwise.

This ticket would also get us into the nearby Museum of Weaponry.

I confess that I find the topic of mediaeval weaponry seductive.  The splendid and recondite vocabulary attracts me - bombard, arquebus, enfilading ricochets.  However, I will not give in to temptation.  There are other things I need to know about more.

Also included in the ticket price was the monastery at the Abbadia Isola.  Google told us of an ancient Romanesque monastery, whose purpose had been to shelter pilgrims on their way to Rome.

After walking the walls, we drove there and entered the ancient church.

Blocking the back of the church was a wrought iron banister. Next to a gap in the barrier was a very old man.

I presented him with the Monteriggioni ticket.

He pondered it for a long time, turned it over to look at the blank reverse, shook his head and finally muttered something in Italian which sounded …sad.

Frenzied sideways glances between the three of us communicated that we realised this man was not the ticket guy.  Only thing was, he seemed not to concur and continued to grip our ticket and regard it searchingly.  The moment drew out so long that it felt like an entire performance of Waiting for Godot.

Finally, Nigel reached over and firmly reclaimed the ticket. "Grazzie" we chorused and smiled in what we hoped was a reassuring manner, but probably just looked manic.

It was only as we were leaving the monastery that we noticed, in a corner of the courtyard, a small sign to an exhibition about the area's Etruscan past.  I climbed a tight staircase and discovered that it opened out into a large, well-displayed gallery.  This was where our ticket was called for.

The exhibition was fascinating, and whereas I have resisted the arquebus, I am definitely charmed by the Etruscans.

ITALY TRIP - Hoopoe

The natural world is the key to interpreting the metaphors and similes of the past.   

The images through which our ancestors understood the world were often from nature.

Around the Tuscan house we are renting, wildlife is plentiful. 

A highlight has been the hoopoe, a fabulous peach-coloured bird with full Pride crest.  From childhood they have fascinated me.  My bird book tantalised by saying they were a rare visitor to the UK. But I never saw one.

Then, on the first day of our Tuscan holiday, as Nigel, Pascoe and I entered the drive, there was one on the lawn.  It would hop to a new spot and use its long, curved beak to probe for insects.  Industriously and systematically, it did so over and again.

Good looking AND hard working.  What’s not to like?

However, the following story about a hoopoe is recorded by Ovid in Metamorphoses. King Tereus of Thrace rapes Philomela, the sister of his wife Procne.  He then cuts out her tongue so she cannot accuse him. But Procne finds out, and in revenge kills Itys (her son with Tereus), and serves him up to his father for dinner.  When Tereus recognises his son’s head on a platter, he attempts to kill Philomena and Procne.   

But the gods take pity and transform Philomela into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow and Tereus into a hoopoe – perhaps because the bird’s crest looks like a crown.

Although I am a Latin teacher, this is one time when I prefer the Persian story to the Roman.  In Persia, apparently, hoopoes were seen as a symbol of virtue and as a leader of the birds.

Now that’s the hoopoe I recognise.

ITALY TRIP - Ancient Soundscape

Living on the edge of a market town close to London, our evening soundscape is quite meagre. Rustling often turns out to be merely the neighbour watering their plants.

Police/ambulance sirens also feature.

However in a villa on a wooded hill in Tuscany we had a taste of what the soundscape could be.  Perhaps this was how it used to be in our country.

We could hear the chirring of nightjars, the staccato chirping of crickets, the distant liquid song of a nightjar. 

A tawny owl called too-wit too-woo and a fox barked. A badger rustled heavily just beyond the fence.

But the creature which completely defied identification was something which inhabited the bushes near the terrace and at regular intervals uttered a harsh “Pssst!” as if trying to attract our attention.

I did not even know whether it was a bird, reptile or mammal, so went online to research.  I was just playing a wildlife recording when Carenza happened along. (The offspring had joined us for this leg of the journey.)

“What are you doing, Mum?”

“I’m listening to recordings of Tuscan owls.”

“Oh Mum!” she said, turning on her heel. “I’ve never heard anything so middle class in my life!”

And no, I never did find out what went "Pssst".

ITALY TRIP - Run with the hare and hunt with the hounds

We spent our last morning in Ravenna at MAR, the Modern Art Museum. There  was a retrospective of the photographs of Oliviero Toscani.   He takes high quality, undeniably beautiful photos often featuring alluring models of both sexes in a state of undress.  

However, he has stopped people in their tracks with some of his work. He has managed to turn commercial advertising campaigns into social commentary.  For instance, 'United Colours of Benetton' showed jolly pics of happy tots from all races dressed in bright jumpers.

But then they got a bit in your face. His picture of a new born baby, still with its umbilical cord and red and wrinkled made the point that it was hard to know which race it came from. All new babies look the same.

Another famous example of his campaigning were shots that he released during Milan fashion week of a naked anorexic model. He was drawing attention to the way in which the fashion world drove young women to become thinner and thinner.

However, he has earned his living as a commercial photographer.  Some of his campaigns were provocative just to get a particular product noticed rather than for any social benefit, such as his picture of a young woman clad in very skimpy hot pants by Jesus Jeans with the logo “If you love me follow me.” 

Oliviero Toscani is definitely a man who has managed to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

ITALY TRIP - Death is what happens when you're making other plans

Galla Placidia of Ravenna was a powerful Byzantine noblewoman, one of the super-rich of her day. However, in spite of that, she recognised that she was not immortal. 

She devoted time and energy to reconciling herself to the prospect of death.  Her technique was to build the most exquisite tomb. 

She commandeered a small octagonal chapel to St Lawrence in the precincts of the church of San Vitale. Inside she lined it with the most exquisite mosaics, especially of doves. The high point was the deep blue dome lined with a mass of gold stars. And so that St Lawrence would forgive her, she included his image too.

For her body to rest in she commissioned a solemn marble sarcophagus. A warm yellow light penetrated the interior through veined alabaster windows.

If anything might make you ready to meet eternity, it would be this mausoleum.

Yet the history books relate that Galla Placidia died unexpectedly while on a trip to Rome, many miles away, so her remains are unlikely ever to have rested inside.

To paraphrase John Lennon, death is what happens when you're making other plans. 

Yet arguably, the tomb still did its job.  It must have helped Galla Placidia to anticipate death with equanimity.

ITALY TRIP - Coughing during the Creation

What is it about music concerts that makes me want to cough?

We were visiting Ravenna to see the ancient churches with their fabulous mosaics, still bright and gorgeous after one and a half millennia.

It was also the Ravenna Festival.  Each night, tickets were just one euro to attend a short concert of sacred music in one of the most beautiful churches – vespers at San Vitale.

The first time we went, Dimitri Grechi Espinoza played a piece of music he had written about the Creation – Oreb.

It was written for solo sax but he had employed the extraordinary acoustic of  the church.  The magnificent resonance and echoes made the music swell to sound like a whole ensemble.

I was completely captivated.  When a couple of oafs came in late just behind us and talked, I turned and glared.

Then it happened – just when it was most important to be quiet, my throat began to rebel.  I did not even have a cold.  Just my mysterious allergic reaction to serious music.

I held onto it for as long as I could, sipped water from my crinkly plastic bottle, unwrapped the rustly cellophane from a lemon sweet.

There were tears in my eyes when finally, I had to let go one short explosive cough.

The cough reverberated around the angelic architecture and soared heavenward.  It sounded like a whole ensemble of coughers.

At the end of the performance, I took care not to turn and meet the eyes of the people I had glared at and left promptly.

However, Espinoza was performing again the next night.  There we were, back again.  But this time I was sucking a cough sweet.

Nigel outside San Vitale

ITALY TRIP - hard to leave home

I've always said "You need to live where you live."

My philosophy is to build a life that you are happy to inhabit - work which you believe to be worthwhile, community involvement that embeds you and contributes to your identity and satisfaction with life. Hobbies which develop your skills. 

Ideally, instead of fantasizing about the next holiday, one should approach it with a modicum of regret, a disruption to the life you have built up. 

That is certainly how we have felt as we approach our Italian trip this year. 

I am leaving behind my books, my enamelling gear, my thriving pot plants. Nigel is abandoning his fruit bushes where redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries are all coming to maturity, his first tomatoes ripening in the greenhouse. 

Both of us hate leaving our roses in their full glory.

Yet it is our community that has come to our rescue.

A young lad from church has agreed to water our patio pots and restock our bird feeders for the dozens of finches and tits who feed there.

Carole has agreed to be foster mother to my seven orchids in full bloom.

Our neighbours have agreed to empty our mail box and in return we have asked them to help themselves to soft fruit as it ripens.

The garden will have moved on when we return, but hopefully our friends will have everything under control.

Paper magnet

I am a paper magnet. I don't mean a newspaper magnate like Rupert Murdoch. I mean a paper magnet. 

Paper loves me. It is attracted to me and finds its rustly way into every pocket and bag.

Partly it is my fault. I enter second hand bookshops voluntarily.  I treasure the days when I discover that an elderly clergyman has died and his family has shipped out his entire collection of Latin and Greek to Oxfam. I don't feel bad about it. It must be similar to how he built the collection in the first place.

However, recently I decided I was being overwhelmed by paper. I decided to go paperless for work admin. It cuts out filing - something I truly hate. I also use a Kindle and Audible for leisure reading. 

However, books still seek me out. 

After conversations I can't remember, people lend me books . I am too polite to return them unread. So they teeter perilously on my bedside table. 

Recently I was one of the finalists in a Curtis Brown Twitter competition.  What was the prize? Yes. Kate Hamer's latest book. I also won a prize in a free raffle which I did not even choose to enter. A book.

Maybe I should seek professional help. Except I'm not a hoarder. It really is not my fault. Paper just loves me!

Green Fingers

A while ago Hilary opened our discussion at house group with an ice breaker: 'Are you green-fingered?'

It wasn't something I'd considered until I heard other people's tales of woe. Some murdered plants with neglect. Others with kindness. 

Whereas my plants and I have a live-and-let-live attitude to one another.  They tend to just get on with growing and every so often  I propagate from them. 

I also tweak cuttings from the gardens of stately homes and often they sprout roots.

My proudest moment was when Nigel gave me a single red rose and I accidentally rooted it.

But best of all are the plants that remind me of somebody else. 

A number come from Nigel's mother's garden; many more from my father's. 

Then there's the rosemary bush from Jane and the Solomon's seal from Alison.

In return, I give away bright rudbeckia and fragrant oregano.

So maybe having green fingers is no more than treading the path between kindness and neglect - and not thinking about it too much.

Boscawen Park x 3

Boscawen Park is a charming place, but I didn’t expect to visit it three times in two days.

I arrived in Truro Tuesday afternoon and took Mum and Dad straight out to the park for a toddle round the lake.  We spotted swans with seven cygnets (shouldn’t somebody write a popular Christmas song about this?), gave grain to the ducks and even to the glossy purple-black rooks who have muscled in on the act.

That evening, I was meeting Fiona to go to the pub.  I’d assumed somewhere in town, but she’d chosen the Heron at Malpas, so her husband kindly ferried us to Boscawen so we could walk the rest of the way along the tree-rooty footpath beside the river.

In the mean time, ignorant of Fiona’s plan, I’d arranged to meet Jennie on Wednesday, in order to walk to the Heron.  Where were we meeting?  Boscawen Park of course.  Jennie turned up in slingbacks so we chose the road this time.

But even though I’d visited three times, Boscawen Park still managed to spring a surprise on me.  I was watching the surface of the lake, when two beady eyes met mine.  Surfacing to grab a breath of air was a large terrapin.  They are not native to the UK so it must have been an abandoned pet.  Good old Boscawen!

Camp Friends

Who in the world would want to spend a weekend with a single toilet between fourteen people?  Especially as the toilet had no door and its walls were loosely woven and see-through.  One shower too, but only for people who didn't mind cold water and a strong smell of gas.

Let me put it differently. 

Who would want to stay in a tucked-away field, bordered with poplars and a gurgling stream, bounded by a drift of buttercups and lady’s smock? In the distance, the purple haze of a herbal ley.  Over our shoulder, a ploughed field with a hare bounding across it. Beyond, a paddock with a new-born foal.

But whether you see the environment as hell or paradise, really the surroundings are not the main thing.

It's the chance to catch up and debrief with a dozen of our oldest friends. People we met when we were eighteen or so at uni, and still working out who we were.

When we share the food we’ve brought and cooperate over cooking in a cauldron above a firepit, we accidentally recreate the community of our long-ago youth.  And we talk and talk and talk. 

And guess what, we are still working out who we are.

One Funeral and a Road Trip

We went to Wells for my Uncle’s funeral. 

When I first rang to say I would be there, it looked as if it would be a long drive towards sadness.

Then Pascoe agreed to come with me. 

Suddenly it was a road trip that would be companionable instead of lonely.

I had not seen my uncle or his family for a number of years, but wanted to show support.

The funeral was touching and my cousins’ eulogies captured vividly the man I remember.  The excellent final gesture was my Uncle’s coffin being carried out of the church to a spiritual by Elvis – his life-long idol.

At the funeral tea,  I caught up with cousins who for so long had been only "best wishes" in a Christmas card.  Afterwards, Pascoe and I retired to the inn where we were staying.

That evening, we discovered the door of Wells Cathedral still open and we explored the lofty interior where sunset poured in through stained glass.   Wells Cathedral is an epicentre of tourism, but surreally, we were alone in there, drifting about in the airy space between the vast columns.  A once in a lifetime experience.

Next day, we walked Cheddar Gorge together in bright weather.  We saw wild goats and a mass of flowers and birds.  And we caught up with each other’s lives.

It may be that sadly, due to geography, my lovely cousins return to being the senders/recipients of Christmas cards rather than people I am able to see regularly.  But if family was the focus for the trip, then it was a success.  I had time with Pascoe (who currently lives in Edinburgh) to restore the bonds between us.

Back to the Seventies

This week there were news items about mothers marching against climate change with their small children.

But today’s children are not the first generation to have a sharp awakening to our violation of the environment – pollution was a major concern for youngsters of the 1970s. 

As a child my cultural heroes were environmentalists. The Wombles recycled rubbish, singing ‘Pick up the papers and make ‘em into something new. It's what we do.'  Bagpuss was an expert in thrift: ’We wiĺl mend it. We will fix it. We will make it like new, new, new.’

As a teenager, instead of buying new, I embraced the 1970s’ revival of handicrafts and made my own leather bags, floaty skirts and bead jewellery. Cars were a rarity and I travelled by bus, bike or on foot and got to know my neighbours.

Reducing our carbon footprint could take us back to the 1970s.  But would that be completely bad?
Today’s notoriously stressed youngsters might well enjoy the benefits of a less commercial society.  Once we have begun to tackle the emergency of climate change, there may be space for a better way of life.

This blog is taken from a letter I just had published in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/15/if-climate-change-sends-us-back-to-the-70s-would-that-be-so-very-bad

A total white-wash!

Dawn and Steve, it is your fault that we ran out of excuses. 

It was going to be impossible for us to paint the bedrooms at the weekend because we were meeting up with you.

We were saying things like “We would love to paint the upstairs but unfortunately we can’t – we are meeting Dawn and Steve.”  And then we had to try not to look smug.

But then you baled on us.  And ever since, our life has been dominated by the ominous rumble of paint rollers on walls and the stink of white spirit. 

For the last week, our home has been a man-trap of vicious exposed carpet gripper and tacky white gloss.

After an hour or so undercoating skirting, I decided to WhatsApp Pascoe.  He was probably as bored as I was, writing up an academic paper.  But no, he and his pals, Caroline and Ian, had just completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge on unicycles.  Not only that, but they had then discovered a bluebell wood and a magical cave from which ran a spring.

The following morning, I texted Carenza – “Thought you might enjoy a chat while you trudge to work.”

“Not trudging today, Mum.  I’m on holiday in Seville with my girlfriends.”

So, Dawn and Steve, we are the only ones having a bad time.  And it is all your fault.

A Telling Experience

At the local government elections on Thursday, our friend, the Lib Dem Councillor, Robert Donald needed Tellers. 

These are the people who sit outside the Poling Station and ask you for your voter number.  The purpose is so that the candidates can see which of their supporters have not yet voted and might need encouraging.

The slot left to fill was the graveyard shift, 9 – 10 pm.

But we hadn't been tellers before and weren’t sure what it involved.  Plus Nigel had a work event earlier that evening.  And neither of us was keen on me as a woman sitting on my own in the dark outside the polling station late at night. 

In the end, we went along together.  

 It was a cold evening with occasional dramatic downpours and we arrived muffled up to the eyes in ancient wax jackets. Our departing Lib-Dem friend passed on the by-now slightly droopy orange rosette.

There were two other tellers, one Labour and one Conservative, and to our delight, they had inveigled the tellers’ chairs into the porch of the Polling Station, out of the worst of the weather. 

The first thing we learnt was that the other tellers were smartly dressed, unlike us.

The second thing was that we were all politely working together – anybody who obtained a number shouted it out for the other tellers. I needn’t have worried about going along on my own.

The Conservative teller worked in Westminster and was a mine of information on matters procedural – for instance, no rosettes are allowed within the voting hall itself as it could constitute intimidation – also the reason why the tellers are meant to stay outside.  It was also interesting to hear his view of recent controversies.

All in all, it was a privilege to take part in our well-ordered democratic system, to learn more about it.  

And best of all, Robert had a huge win for the Lib Dems.

Why don't we jarp any more?

I have been to Oxfam to buy the vegan fairtrade Easter eggs, including some little ones for the Easter hunt.

The egg hunt may be one of those weird traditions that keeps going because we don’t want to disappoint our (now definitely adult) children and which they persist in requesting simply in order to humour us.

Some family Easter traditions we no longer observe, for instance, jarping.  Nigel’s Northumberland Grandmother was know as a “terror for jarping” – it involved hardboiling eggs and then using yours to whack other people’s – a bit like a game of conkers.  We also used to do egg-rolling – each person decorated a hard boiled egg and set it rolling down a hill (or in our case, the kids’ slide) and see which went furthest.

But wait – I think I can work out which family member is the true motivator for some traditions persisting and others not.

Looks like anything to do with boiled eggs got canned, whereas anything to do with chocolate eggs continues.

Somebody who dislikes hard-boiled eggs but likes chocolate.

Carenza!

God doesn’t have Good Taste

One of the best things about God is that he doesn’t have good taste.

We just visited Copenhagen with shops famous for Danish design.  All that pared-down, smooth-edged beige and grey!  Step outside however, and the contrast actually made me laugh.

What was on offer was ridiculous abundance – armfuls of white and pink cherry blossom, the million tassels of lime-green willow catkins, hosts of bulbs pushing up flowers of scarlet, yellow and purple.  

The first bees humming purposefully and brimstone butterflies flittering through.

Why are there so many yellow flowers at this time of year?  Is it in case we didn’t get the point?  The sun is back!

And the birds burbling incessantly like the cascade of a snow-melt river.

It is going to be the promise that is implied by this encompassing beauty which gets us through the dark moments of Good Friday as we remember Christ’s crucifixion. 

But it’s going to be Easter Sunday when we truly receive the message of the Resurrection – Christ rises up after death.  And all around us, the trees that have looked grey and dead through the winter, and the lifeless stretches of beige earth are suddenly dazzling and brilliant and overwhelmed with colour.

Doctor Pascoe

Since last November, there has been an element of suspense in the Harvey household.

When I started this blog, many moons ago, Pascoe was in the last year of his Biology degree at UEA, and applying for PhDs.

It went well and he went to work for Susan Rosser at Edinburgh University.

We missed Pascoe, being so many miles away, but thanked heavens for Skype.

His first couple of years, he settled into the work, but there was also evidence that he was taking full advantage of the cultural life of Edinburgh and the social life of a postgraduate student.

Over the last year or so, our impression has been that the balance has tipped decisively away from fun and towards PhD write-up, with regular break-outs climbing snowy mountains for the sake of sanity. (Which he doesn’t tell me about until afterwards – for the sake of MY sanity.)

Then in November, he handed his thesis in, landed a temporary job at the Edinburgh Genome Foundry and waited for his viva.

For a long time, not much seemed to be happening, then finally last Friday, we got the news he had passed with flying colours – only minor corrections. 

So now the time of waiting is joyfully over and life will move on again.  The only question is "What next?"

Celebratory doctoral meal

These Boots Weren’t made for Brexit

I’ve been enjoying my new foot recently.  Gradually over the nine months since surgery last summer, it has been becoming more robust.

So Nigel and I were able to chance the second People’s Vote March last Saturday, although we cheated and headed straight to the rally in Parliament Square on the basis there would be something to lean against there.

We straight away found a good stretch of empty railing, but soon realised why it was vacant – it was just behind a small bunch of Brexit demonstrators and it looked as if we were of their number.   Before our faces appeared in the Mail as Brexit supporters, we slunk off.

But, having done what we could by joining the march and the petition and writing to our MP, my feet served quite another purpose the rest of the week.

They have been getting me out of earshot of the incessant roilings of the Brexit debacle.

 I went to Greenwich with friends, climbed the hill to the observatory and revelled in clear blue views across London.  From up there, you would never guess how troubled it is.

And I visited Heartwood with Nigel where we were soothed by the song of skylarks.

It lifted our hearts.   Maybe they should pipe it into the chamber of the House of Commons.

Never Cross a Zebra

I seem to be having a Zebra Moment.

On the news there was one single item that was not about Brexit, and it was that zebras have stripes to confuse  horseflies  – apparently the flies dislike landing on stripes.

Hmmm – you’d think that the strong smell of zebra would still be an attraction to the little insects.

However, lately, I have had a lot of zebra sightings – enough to check the research.

For instance, there's the horse in zebra’s clothing which sits at a café table in Brussels train station. Unlike an ordinary horse, he seems not to be troubled by horseflies.

(Although perhaps he has a sad expression, owing to Brexit.)

At half term in a pub in Ghent, we saw not a horse, but a bull dressed as a zebra.  (Okay, so my picture shows there was ALSO a bull dressed as a tiger, but it’s a zebra theme I’m following here.)  We also ate in a great restaurant on Zebra Street.

In neither place did horseflies ruin our repast.

Our friend John has wood-turned a bowl from zebrano – not a fly to be seen.

Then, last weekend, Carenza turned up wearing a zebra-print jacket.

 

I checked behind her, but there were no horseflies in pursuit, so the research must be correct.

I admit, I doubted the findings, but my own extensive research conclusively proves they are water-tight.

And okay - I can't completely avoid Brexit.  PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION : -

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584