XR and the ants

At Greenbelt, Nigel, Pascoe and I took the opportunity to find out more about Extinction Rebellion (XR).  We don’t want our descendants to live in a world of famine, pollution and social breakdown. 

In order to get motivated to do something about Climate Change, we have to look squarely at the consequences.

And, it’s very frightening. 

So I also soothed myself by going on a nature walk run by Bob Gilbert, aimed at noticing the unnoticed (e.g. a beautiful willowherb flower that had taken root in the crook of a beech).  And by going on a foraging event led by Miles Irving where we learnt why we should gather ribwort, nettle seed and purple ground ivy.

But, the best indication of hope occurred just as we were packing up our tent.  I picked up the gas canister which had been on the ground only three days and discovered that in that brief time, yellow meadow ants  had nested inside its concave base and had filled this new chamber with their pupae.  I had to remove the canister, but we saw worker ants start to pick up the pupae and carry them to safety.

Given a chance, nature will triumph.  But we do have to ensure that Climate Change does not take our last chance away.

photo by Pascoe

Festival on Fire

Each August Bank Holiday, Nigel, Pascoe and I go to Greenbelt Festival and camp with Nick and Jackie (and this year, Mark, Adri and offspring too).  Nick found us all a great spot.

We were close to some portaloos and a stand pipe, but not TOO near.

Even better, we were right next to a large area of grass – presumably one of the campsite fire breaks. 

However, when we got back to our tents on the first night, a large fire was burning in the grassy area.  Worse, campers had begun to sing songs around it.

“Oh you’ll never get to Heaven in a biscuit tin…”

I was indignant:

“Don’t they realise how dangerous fire is on a campsite?  How do I contact the fire marshalls?”

“It’s okay Mum,” said Pascoe, “There’s somebody wearing a yellow gilet that says Fire Marshall…Hold on though – what on earth are they doing?”

The fire marshall was giving the fire a good poke and adding some sticks.

Clearly they had completely misunderstood the role of fire marshall. 

And it wasn’t just a single rogue operator – other fire marshalls joined him and stood warming their hands beside the blaze.

“She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes…”

I was no longer sure who to complain to.

And on the following night, it happened all over again.

It was only on our last night that I thought to check the programme and discovered that it was the official Greenbelt Campfire – open to all festival-goers.

So this Greenbelt was the one where I discovered my inner NIMBY – although I’m not sure I ought to be boasting about it.

The one good thing about an eight hour drive

I visit my parents in Cornwall as often as I can.  I seem to be good at choosing a time to drive down, but bad at picking a moment to come back. 

My last two homeward journeys have been interrupted by crashes on the M5.  (I haven’t investigated to discover the nature of the accidents – I don’t want to know.)

Each time, Google maps has routed me across country to the A303.

I have travelled through thatched hamlets on narrow tracks that appeared to have been adopted only recently by the council.  I have followed a caravan which was perilously scraping the hedges on both sides.  And then I have ground to a halt detained by a new traffic jam created by all the other drivers who have been following Google’s whimsical advice.

I have often felt that Google is toying with me.  Perhaps even that my cross-country struggles are being observed by some super-villain at the heart of an IT hub, cackling “Mwah-hah-hah!”

But if there is one thing that has made the massive detours worthwhile, it is the moment on the A303 when, from around a hillock appears the magnificent, square-shouldered grey monument of Stonehenge.  It lifts my heart with its ancient presence, and the engineering achievement it represents makes me proud to be British.

Which is just as well, because if Brexit goes through, we’ll be right back to the Stone Age.

Lunar eclipse with badgers

Fiona and I had just been for a twilight walk along the river at St Clements and I was dropping her off at her house when I suddenly remembered,

“Ooh, there’s a lunar eclipse tonight, starting around now…I thought we might watch it together.”

“Can’t see anything here – too many trees.”

“So no holding hands in the moonlight?”

“Nope.  Sling your hook.”

So I drove back to my parents’ house, dived in to tell them I’d returned, then back out to the garden to look at the eclipse.  It reminded me of an orange smiley mouth glowing benignly over the town.

Then I noticed that something was coming towards me up the drive.

A cat?

Not unless it was a cat that had been body building.

I realised that I was being approached by my father’s arch enemy, The Badger.  The badger has for years dug up my father’s seedlings because where he watered the soil, it attracted delicious worms.

The handsome yet rather large animal caught me by surprise and I let out an involuntary shriek.  The badger hesitated, then in a leisurely manner, turned and trundled off back down the drive.

Meanwhile, the eclipse was continuing spectacular.  I Whatsapped my family who live in the South to go look.  Nigel ventured outside the pub in St Albans and texted back “Lovely”

But Perran and Carenza were so excited at the prospect of an eclipse, that they ran out into their gritty London street, Carenza without shoes, but reported,

“Oh no, can’t see.  There’s low cloud in London.”

“Never mind that,” I replied, “There’s bloody badgers in Cornwall.”

Shed Roof

Mum and Dad are very independent and are still doing jobs in the house and garden that I would either put off or pay somebody else to do. 

Usually, my offers of help get turned down and I feel I haven’t been terribly useful, apart from driving them on outings.

But last time, I was more insistent and instead of rejecting my offer at once, I could see Dad turning it over: “There is one thing…”

“Good,” I thought.  “Maybe a little weeding in the garden or a touch of spring cleaning in the house.”

 “…The shed needs re-roofing.”

My heart sank.

The garden shed was a large one – ten foot by five.  It was nearly as old as me (i.e. old) and was gradually attaining a rhomboidal profile as it sagged over the years (unlike me, I’d like to point out).

Was re-roofing even feasible?  In many places, the wood was rotten.  Inside lived scary, poisonous false widow spiders.

“That’s fine Dad.  How are we going to do it?”

“Like I’ve done it the last two times.”  He produced a large plastic tarpaulin and together we hauled it over the shed roof. 

He then handed me a rather small staple gun and it was my job to ping in the six million staples needed to attach the tarpaulin round the eaves. 

The staple gun jammed on every tenth shot and nipped my fingers as I fought with it.  The sun came out and made me sweat in the long-sleeved top I’d donned against the spiders.

But when I finally screwed the guttering back into place, I had a definite feeling of satisfaction – this time I really had been useful.

The Ginger Beer Bug - on Radio Verulam

My story The Ginger Beer Bug - about friendship and the inconvenient gift of a ginger beer starter - has been broadcast on Radio Verulam - Rob Pearman's Local Life Show on Wednesday 17th July. It is now available as a podcast.

  Ginger Beer Bug comes just after Nick Churton's hilarious An Unwanted Appearance.

Listen to the podcast here:
Local Life Podcast - Two More Short Stories

I have also written about the ginger beer starter in a previous blog - Of Friends and Fermentation

My thanks to Rob Pearman for an enjoyable recording session.

The kindness of a stranger

Carol had a great itinerary planned for the day.  It was a walk around picturesque Three Peaks Bay.

We anticipated the sight of sea holly, rock samphire and the mass of painted lady butterflies arriving from their migration across the sea.

Caroline drove us, and due to narrow lanes packed full of traffic there was much squeezing into passing places, lots of waiting and a certain amount of reversing.

But we knew it would be worth it.

However, when we got to the carpark at the Three Peaks Campsite, every single space was full.  More cars were arriving behind us.  We were never going to get a place.

Then out of nowhere appeared the campsite owner/manager.  She asked a group of young men who had arrived in two cars to double park with each other and create a space for us.  She then approached the others who were queuing behind us and directed them to another carpark several miles away.

From being the unluckiest walkers in the world, we were now the luckiest.

It didn’t even surprise us when the sun came out and shone on the Three Peaks cliff and the ruins of a Mediaeval Castle in the dunes.

At the end of the day, we returned to the campsite, had a cup of tea at their café and bought gifts to take home to our spouses from their shop.  

And when I spotted the manager again, I thanked her for a very special day.

Walking and Talking

 

Carol, Caroline, Diane and I have a core purpose. It is walking and talking. Coffee might happen but what we most want to do, for the last fifteen years, is go for a walk together.

Yet for a long time we've had to compromise. Each of us in turn has had a foot/ankle injury, some more long-lasting than others.

In hopes all would be well, we'd booked a walking weekend to the Gower Peninsula in August. There was not much else to do there so we fretted we'd not be up to walking.

Carol, undisputed Mistress of the Map, planned a walk of seven miles along the ridge above Rhossili Bay, out to the island and back along the beach. 

In the morning, we creaked into our boots and hitched on our rucksacks apprehensively. Would our dodgy feet stagger that far?

We flapped along the breezy ridge, crowned with a haze of heather and gorse.  Down through dunes, past blue sea holly and a thousand bees. Then on to Burry Holms Island where we watched the invasion of hundreds of painted lady butterflies and devoured our sandwiches. 

The march back took us along the beach studded with razor shells and with surfers providing the entertainment. The steep haul back up the cliff to the Worm's Head Hotel nearly killed us. 

But we'd achieved it -  a long walk.

Better still, next day we got up and did another one.

Welsh Wine Lake

Going off with my mates for a walking weekend to the Gower. I tried to disguise the fact that I'd brought too much stuff by keeping my main suitcase small but putting walking gear and provisions in several carriers that clustered round my suitcase like satellites round the mother ship.

This meant that when Carol and Caroline came to pick me up I had to make two trips between my front door and Caroline's car boot. 

It was in between the first and second trips that The Incident occurred. 

I returned to see a pool of red wine seeping out of one of my bags onto the road. 

At nine in the morning my cul-de-sac was heavy with the scent of fair-trade merlot while a stain reminiscent of Silent Witness spread a surprisingly long way across the road.

None of us recalled clacking the bottle so there may have been a weakness in the glass. 

Being practised domestic goddesses we sprang into action and had the puddle cleaned up in no time. Before my neighbours confirmed their worst suspicions about me.

And would the loss of the merlot ruin our weekend? 

Not a chance. I had a second bottle in one of my other bags.

A Test of Friendship

We have spent many a weekend with our friends the Thompsons. Once we lived in County Durham, in a village next door to theirs, had our first children within a year of one another. Now we live hundreds of miles apart.

All our youngsters are living independently. Hannah even got married. So nowadays it is just us four old codgers meeting up.

We meet in the Peak District since it is half way between.

Since it was July, we decided to camp.

The forecast looked okay. Perhaps a little rain on Sunday.

Not long after we had pitched our tents on Friday, watery clouds began to frown-out the sun.

We checked the forecast – some rain now on Saturday too.

By Saturday afternoon, we had retreated early from our hike.  Wet and listless we explored Bakewell, crowded with damp tourists.  

Then we began to get the hang of it – basically the forecast had been wrong- it was going to rain heavily all weekend.

Well, now we knew.  We made plans for Sunday – we’d go to Haddon Hall where there was also an “Artisan Fair” (like a craft fair but without the teasel hedgehogs and decoupage) and then on to the cinema to see Yesterday.

The guides at Haddon Hall crammed us with interesting anecdotes, the artisans told us their secrets – how to hunt problem gulls with a lanner falcon, how to fly fish for brown trout.  Best of all, we met several alpacas, making their weird humming bleats.

Yesterday was entertaining and its (many) flaws gave us plenty to discuss.

Then on Monday morning, at last the sun shone.  We walked miles, took all our photos and dismantled our tents in the dry.

“Monday will be the day we remember!” said Carolyn.

But I’m not so sure – I’ll always hold onto the memory of good friends who were able to make even a wet weekend in tents fun.

ITALY TRIP - Prepare to meet thy sushi.

Just when we were setting off on our Italy trip, Nigel suggested I buy something nice for lunch on the train.

I bought sushi.

But due to the palaver of packing, it never made it into the rucksack.

At times during the holiday, one of the offspring would ask me why I was looking thoughtful.

I was contemplating the sushi waiting for us in the fridge.  This dish whose essence was freshness would be three weeks old when we got home.

But I would not tell them of this dark secret.  It was not a pleasant image on which to dwell.

Instead: “Oh, I was just considering what memories I would take home from the holiday.”

And now that I’m on my way home, I know that the things I hope to treasure are the honeyed scents of jasmine and lime flowers; the shrill, excited call of swifts barrelling around an ancient square in Ravenna; the taste of truffles at il Pozzo; the sight of a thousand alpine flowers on the Giro del Diabolo footpath at San Pellegrino and the Giotto frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel.

And together, they are very nearly beautiful enough to drive out the prospect of the three-week-old sushi in the fridge.

But not quite.

ITALY TRIP - All's Well that doesn't End Well

At the Basilica San Antonio, people were queuing up just to touch the side of Saint Anthony's tomb.  There in a special chapel, displayed in jewelled glass cases were his preserved tongue and the cartilage from his larynx.

St Anthony is the patron saint of lost things so I may have appealed to him myself on the odd occasion, but this reverence for earthly remains is foreign to me.

A no-entry sign ensuring that people approach the tomb of St Anthony from the correct direction.

Then we went next door to the Oratorio San Giorgio and I saw something else that challenged my perspective.  The vivid fifteenth century frescoes showed the lives of St George (beheaded for his faith), St Catherine (beheaded following torture on a wheel), and St Lucia (also tortured before being stabbed to death by a madman).

Some theologians today point to Jesus as the wellspring of earthly wealth and health.  But that certainly was not the deal that early Christians were signing up to.  No doubt, anybody who took up the Christian faith was confident they would spend eternity with their God in Heaven.  However, they faced up enormously bravely to torture and death in this world.

I still find no comfort in revering the corpses of saints, but I admire utterly the courage and faith of those early martyrs.

Basilica San Antonio, left.  Oratorio San Giorgio, right.

ITALY TRIP - Eighty thousand piece jigsaw

We were in Padua and sussing the must-sees.
"There are Mantegna frescoes at the church of the Eremitani."
"Let's go."

But I'd read my guidebook too hastily.

When we arrived, the chapel with the frescoes was quite dark.

Nearby was a slot machine. Nigel inserted a euro and lights came on.  Which revealed a puzzling scene.

The pictures on the walls showed the life of St Christopher and pulled all the amazing Renaissance tricks of foreshortened anatomy and using architecture to create  perspective. However, they were mainly in black and white with colour appearing only in tiny patches which freckled the surface.

An information board explained.

The church had been bombed by the Allies in World War 2 and the sublime fresco reduced to smithereens.

Using earlier photographs conservators had applied a black and white print of the original pictures to the chapel walls and had done their best to fit in the salvaged fragments.

These were the freckles and there had been 80,000 of them.

I  remembered the concentration it had taken for our family to complete a mere 1000 piece jigsaw at Christmas.

This must have been painstaking and extraordinary work.
However the result made me sad.

Extremely incomplete, it was much more a memorial of the overwhelming destructiveness of war than a reconstruction of the fresco.

ITALY TRIP - What on earth is an Ostrogoth?

I would be lying if I said I had never heard the term 'Ostrogoth' before.

After all, I'm a Classics teacher.

Dinner beside the baptistry of the Ostrogoths

However, I kind of imagined them rather like one of the alien foes who crop up in Star Trek on a semi-regular basis. Their role in the plot is to threaten the Starship Enterprise/the Universe/the Roman Empire.

They are the kind of people that the most devoted Trekkies would have a file on. 

And maybe have invented a complete language for. 

And had plastic surgery in order to resemble. 

But then we visited Ravenna.  

In ancient times, as the city of Rome fell prey to invasions, the capital of the Western Roman Empire moved to Ravenna. 

There it remained until the whole of Italy was taken over by the Ostrogoths under king Theoderic in around 493 AD.

It turns out that Theoderic (although a barbarian, and therefore snubbed by snobbish Romans) was wise and did some good ruling.  He retained many of the institutions of the Roman Empire and promoted culture and prosperity. 

 
So what exactly is an Ostrogoth?
Just means an eastern Goth.

And I'm pretty sure they spoke Klingon.

Tomb of Theoderic

Magnificent porphyry sarcophagus of Theoderic

ITALY TRIP - Why have a peacock on your coffin?

"Why do these people have peacocks on their coffins?" asked Nigel.

In Ravenna and Pisa, there was a mass of marble sarcophagi from very early Christian times (fifth century onwards). 

Many of the symbols were familiar.
There were Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet - because Christ is the beginning and the end. 

There is the cross combined with the Greek letters chi and rho (looking like x & p).  Chi and Rho are the first two letters of Christ's name.

  

Frequent also are lambs - referring to Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who died for our sins.

Carved vines often twine round the coffins - Jesus is the true vine.  And doves - the birds of the holy spirit.

But why on earth were there so many peacocks?
They are vain birds who strut about, shrieking and rattling their tail feathers.

Surely they work better as a symbol for a certain American president than for Jesus?

"Dunno." I replied to  Nigel.  "Maybe all the eyes in their tail imply they are all-seeing; like God." But I knew I was clutching at straws.

Then Nigel did something very unfair. 

He googled it.

Apparently the flesh of the peacock was supposed never to rot. This made it a great symbol for the resurrection of the body after death.

Could also explain why it went out of fashion. 

Sooner or later a few incidents involving rotting peacock carcasses would have thrown the myth into doubt.

ITALY TRIP - The Hot Walls of Lucca

As a tourist, I'm conscientious about the "must-see"s.  

Don't want to get home and sound as if I hadn't really been to the place I claim.

So in Lucca it was a thing to walk the city walls.  

"One of the pleasures of Lucca is strolling along the ramparts - the magnificent city walls, whose tree-lined promenade offers some entrancing views of the city."

The guidebook also suggested the best time was during the midday break when shops were shut.

We set off enjoying the  astonishing wall-top boulevard lined with limes and plane trees.  It was punctuated by the beautiful works of a local sculptor, on the theme, Family Tree.  

"This is lovely."

At each turn in the way, there was a mighty bastion.  We could see down into the elegant garden of the Palazzo Pfanner - once used to film Portrait of a Lady.

"Really enjoyable."

But at 35 degrees of heat, our initial delight soon turned to grim determination to reach each next bastion.

About a quarter of the way round, I finally admitted, "You know, I'm not enjoying this!"
"Neither am I," Nigel agreed immediately.

And that was all it took for us to descend and slink off to a cafe.

And later, if somebody says, "Lucca, eh? So did you walk the walls?", we'll say, "Oh yes!"  

After all, there's no need to give a percentage of wall walked.

ITALY TRIP - Stupid, ignorant tourists

I guess I'm thinking a lot about the nature of tourism.

My friends trot out "Travel broadens the mind."

I think once upon a time, it did.
You had to ask for directions, take help where it was offered.  Accept hospitality from strangers.

But now tourism is a machine which moves the interloper through a series of well-established experiences as if they are gliding on rails.

People go on safari in Africa who have never attended an event at their local wildlife trust.
People stare at frescoes in churches who would never normally darken the doors of an art gallery.

I suppose I'd gotten snobby about all this.

But then I created the biggest tourist gaff of all.

In San Gimignano, we admired the tall towers and the Duomo.  Then we headed for the Convento di Sant' Agostino, looking forward to seeing the fifteenth century frescoes.

As we approached, some Japanese tourists turned back as if they had been refused entry.  Probably because the women were dressed in brief shorts and vest - not approved by the Catholic church.

So, smugly we entered, sat at the back and Nigel began reading from the guidebook.
Then Carenza said, "Why is that man kissing everybody?   He's not going to kiss me is he?  I don't want to kiss him."
I looked up.  A young Italian man was indeed hugging and kissing other people.

It reminded me of something.  Where had I seen behaviour like this recently?

Oh yeah.  My uncle's funeral.

I checked out the front of the church.
A coffin wreathed in flowers.
"Everybody - we're gate-crashing a funeral.  Leg it!"

We never did see the frescoes.
And we proved that, just like everybody else, we are ignorant tourists.