The run up to Christmas.

This has been a really fraught couple of weeks. We had quite a bit on anyway, and then I got some sort of bug which laid me out for three days. So now my preparations are all behind. It all gets done in the end, and if it doesn’t get done no one notices except me, so I don’t know why I’m worried.

I’ve been to see younger grandson as a person living in Bethlehem who visited baby Jesus, and older grandson as a wise man, with a turban and a huge moustache, so that I had trouble identifying him to begin with. They both were really good and I was proud of them. There’s something about nativity plays and young children which still brings a lump to my throat, in spite of sitting through so many of them.

I’ve painted four huge pine cones I brought back from the Sierra de Gredos, in June, and hung them up with ribbon to disguise the  eyelets they’re hung from, and I’ve nearly finished making a string of fabric sort of flags, using different colours of Christmas material and a bit of gold satin. They’re all sewn with beads and I’m very pleased with them, but I’m a bit worried that I’m turning into Kirsty Allsop, so I’ll stop with the home made Christmas stuff now.

Eat your heart out, Kirsty.

I’ve brought the little tree in the pot on the balcony inside and decorated it – it hasn’t grown much since last year, which is good – and assembled the big artificial tree and decorated it. Assembling it is the most tedious job imaginable, but I enjoy decorating it – at least, I do once I’m sure the lights are working.

We’ve been out to the dairy at Long Clawson to buy the half Stilton. They always have the latest flavours on the counter to taste. There was a gingery one which was nice, but by the time we’d got the Stilton, some white Stilton with cranberries, and some mature proper Red Leicester, we decided we had enough. The amaretto and raisins was too sweet, and so was the Christmas pudding cheese.

I’ve done the Christmas cards, and only once been caught out by a card from someone to whom I hadn’t sent one (so far!) And I’ve done most of the shopping and avoided Amazon. I’m quite proud of that. Blackwell’s do books on line, where you have an excellent selection and can get second hand and out of print books, so it’s not been too difficult. I never go near Starbucks anyway, the buckets of warm milk masquerading as coffee see to that, but how to avoid Google?  It’s got to be my project for the New Year, even if it means the end of the blog. Which is sad, because I’ve enjoyed writing it. But I am very conscious that anyone can read it so I have to be careful what I say, particularly about others, even though I’ve very few readers!

The best bit so far was the older grandson telling his mother that he didn't believe in Father Christmas. She warned him not to say anything to his little brother, and then asked, who did he think brings his stocking? Very seriously, he replied that he'd been thinking about that, and had decided it was the government. 

Oxford and too much choice

We’ve had a trip to Oxford, which is somewhere we hadn’t been for about forty years. Last time we weren’t impressed, because it was completely choked with traffic, and we much preferred Cambridge. Now, of course, the traffic is under control, though we each nearly got mown down by a bike. It brings home to you how much you normally rely on your hearing when crossing streets.

Some of the rather horrible insectivorous plants
the botanical gardens seemed to specialise in.

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We had one lovely autumn day and at least it didn’t rain the next day. We visited the Ashmolean, Christ Church picture gallery, the Natural History Museum, and the Pitt Rivers, so I had four opportunities to choose my one object to take home.

Christ Church picture gallery was the most difficult. The picture that really gripped me was Annibale Carracci, “The Butchers.” I liked the way all the characters are concerned with what they are doing, so it’s like a snap shot. I liked the faces, intent and busy, not posing at all. But in spite of the realism, you could read meanings into it, for example the sheep at the forefront awaiting slaughter – was that a reference to Christ? So even after we’d moved on I kept returning for another look. BUT – if I’m going to take it home, am I going to enjoy living with a picture of butchered carcasses?  I don’t think I’ve properly worked out the rules of this game.  Have a look at the link and see what you think. It’s a pretty big painting, so the carcasses are not far off life size, too.

www.chch.ox.ac.uk/gallery/the-collection/paintings/carracci-butchers-shop

Anyway, in the end I decided that I was going to have to choose something else, because you wouldn’t want the Carracci in your lounge. It reminded me of the story of how Frith, of the Frith collection in New York, chose his paintings. They had to be things he liked to live with.  It sounds kind of anti-intellectual, art as interior decoration, but he has a point. You might like a Lucian Freud nude in your picture gallery, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want to look up from your dinner and see it. So in the end I chose a Tintoretto portrait of a young man, but although liveable with, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the Carracci. So not a great decision.

Blackwell's - book heavn

The Divinity schools. Duke Humfrey's library is even better, but I haven't a
good enough camera.

In the Ashmolean, it was easier, although I was torn between a Turkish plate, decorated with carnations, and a set of Indian bird pictures, very accurately done as a natural history rather than as art. I went for the birds, although really nobody much has a house big enough to display the set.

And in the Pitt Rivers, I fell for the Inuit clothing, which was just amazing. I hadn’t realised that a new set was made every year – it wasn’t tanned, because if it was tanned it froze completely solid in the winter temperatures and was unwearable, but that meant it rotted in the summer. The work that went into it!

I really liked the Pitt Rivers; you could spend hours and hours in there, and make hundreds of visits, though there was quite a lot of gruesome stuff, which Phil really didn’t appreciate.  I think I’ve got a childish enjoyment of the gruesome – the cases on head flattening and scarification held me gripped. Surely, scarification occasionally caused septicaemia? I read that Montgomery’s wife died of septicaemia following a mosquito bite, pre antibiotics of course, so surely cutting people all over and rubbing ash and other stuff into the cuts to make sure they produced keloid scars must have killed people, too. It wasn’t discussed in the museum –a rare and disappointing omission.

In the natural history museum, of course we liked the dinosaurs. Our younger grandson spends quite a lot of time being a tyrannosaur, a spinosaurus or a utahraptor. We couldn’t help thinking of how thrilled he would have been to see all this stuff, although we probably shouldn’t encourage him to spend even more time chasing me around the flat, being a velociraptor while I have to be a lamb. He can’t say “l”, so it comes out as “You be a yam, granny.” At first I thought I was in for an easy afternoon, lying on the floor being a vegetable, but no such luck. So it was an easy decision – we’ll take the tyrannosaur skeleton, please.

Swimming and music again.

Going swimming, I’ve been trying to improve my crawl. My style isn’t so bad, but I run out of breath too soon – I am only breathing on one side (the right) and not deeply enough.  Well, how hard can it be to unlearn the habits of a lifetime? Much more difficult than you can imagine, I’m telling you.

After a time, I decided I needed some support in habit breaking, and booked four lessons. My teacher is just about young enough to be my grandson, but I’m not letting that bother me. So after much flogging up and down the bath with floats, either legs only or just one arm working, I have made the following important discoveries.

• My legs are pathetically weak.

• I can’t get the timing right on my left side, and try to breath far too late in the arm movement, with the result that I swallow large quantities of water.

• Swallowing large quantities of water is really unpleasant, and tends to make you feel below par for the rest of the morning.

• It’s really hard to learn to swim, and I have more sympathy than previously with people who’ve never managed it.

• If you don’t breath out under water, after two lengths you  get to the point of being so short of oxygen that your fingers tingle.

• There’s nothing like swimming for making you really starving.

Still, cheering news – today I managed two whole lengths, breathing on alternate sides. I can only manage it if I swim slowly, but, there you are – you can teach an old dog new tricks.

And here’s another update, this time on music. I saw that the Broadway cinema was showing Thomas Ades’ opera The Tempest, as part on the New York Met live series. I’m a bit of a snob about these filmed performances – it’s a lot of money for something that’s a long way from the live experience. But, if I’m going to see The Tempest at all, it’s going to be a filmed one. I can’t see us getting to Covent Garden again, and Opera North isn’t at all likely to put it on.

So I bought myself a ticket and went off, alone, as nobody I know felt they were likely to enjoy it. I wasn’t at all sure I would enjoy it, to be honest. I’ve only listened to Ades’ Asyla and had rather a mixed impression. I’d even promised my husband that I wouldn’t be proud and would leave half way through if I really hated it.

Well, it was great. I loved it. I thought the acting was really good, which is important when it’s filmed because you’re getting much closer to the action than you would in the opera house. Simon Keenlyside (whom I rate highly anyway) was particularly good. He’s hardly off stage. He has an impressive presence, and a wonderful physique and face for Prospero.

I think the music must be very hard to sing, and sometimes I didn’t quite “get” it, but the love duet, Ariel’s music, the trios and quartets, and Prospero’s renunciation of his powers, were gorgeous. The end was really moving. 

So, well worth the ticket, and I shall keep my eyes open for other opera screenings, but what I really want, is to see The Tempest  again.  No chance, I fear.

Nostalgia and remembrance

I went to my grandson’s church parade for Remembrance Sunday today. The cub pack he belongs to meets in the local barracks, so the wreath laying on the monument and the service seemed extra relevant with all these young soldiers present.

I thoroughly enjoyed singing the hymns – they were the old ones that we used to sing every morning in assembly in school. I always enjoyed singing the hymn – usually it was the best bit of the day, because frankly I hated school. I was always bunking off – how I got my O Levels, I don’t know.

Anyway, I heard Alan Bennett on radio 4 and he was waxing nostalgic about hymns in school, and, it seemed to me, the past in general. But I’m sure that children enjoy singing the tunes they sing today, just as much as we enjoyed singing the old hymns, and they may well understand the words better.

I’m very suspicious of nostalgia, which I tend to regard as a particularly English vice; I don’t know that it is especially English, but it seems very prevalent.  In spite of enjoying the hymns, I can’t forget that we were controlled at school by being humiliated and belittled. At my junior school, there was an older boy, who was always kind to me and perhaps not that bright, and often in trouble. I think he was the only one daft enough to get caught. He was caned. I shall never forget my indignation, and how I couldn’t get anyone else to share it. “Well, he must have deserved it. It won’t do him any harm.” But it did me harm, if not him.

When people get nostalgic about days past, when people were more honest and you felt safe on the streets at night, and no one had heard of paedophilia, it drives me mad. It just wasn’t reported. We might have lost some good things, but we’ve also lost an awful lot of horrible stuff. I don’t believe in trying to hang on to what’s past. Things change. Even the best things don’t last forever. But good things are ahead of us too, and changes can be greatly for the better. Let go, and move on. That’s my motto. Not in the American sense of “moving on” after the loss of someone loved. That’s a weird idea, as though you could move on and leave them behind. Of course, that’s just what you can’t do; they are part of you, they helped to make you what you are, even if their life was brief, you can never be the same as you were before you loved them. So that brings us back to Remembrance Sunday.

When I was a child, people were always saying to me, “Of course, you never knew your uncle. He was lovely.” He was killed in 1942, and twenty years later, people who’d known him only slightly were still remembering him. My mother and my granny never got over his death. At least he died in the war against Hitler’s Germany, a war for survival, with few moral complications. How would they feel if he had died in Afghanistan?  How on earth can politicians think they can ever be forgiven for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq, when every loss causes such irreconcilable grief?  

Hallowe'en and other things

Hallowe’en is coming up. Normally this would be of little interest – now we live in a gated community (a block of flats) we don’t have to concern ourselves with trick or treaters. This is a relief because I can’t manage to be polite about it, even when quite young children are involved. As far as I’m concerned, it’s demanding money with menaces and it’s wrong. I blame E.T. However, number three son runs a fancy dress shop, well, two, to be precise, and this is their busiest time of year. So busy, in fact, that I helped. I am a bit dim - you need a thorough knowledge of popular culture to succeed in this business, and I haven’t got it.

“Have you got the black outfit that Sandy wears at the end of Grease?” Wouldn’t know what you are talking about, I’ve never seen Grease.

“It’s  nineties party. What have you got?”  Surely the nineties were just last week. Haven’t a clue who was famous then.

I am quite good on Marvel superheroes.  Watching Only Connect, on BBC4, I’ve only once got the connection between four things after only one has been given, and I’m sorry to say the connection was that the four things all turned someone into a superhero. Sad, I know.

Also, I’m not sure whether I’m nice enough. I find it really hard to be patient with clueless or disrespectful people. Actually hardly anyone in the fancy dress shop is rude, but a quite a lot have absolutely no imagination. Or too much – one of the really frustrating things, fortunately not that common, is when a woman wants to be Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, or My Fair Lady, or try on one of the Marilyn Monroe dresses. When they have them on, they look in the mirror, realise that the dress doesn’t automatically make them look as good as Hepburn or Monroe, and then it’s YOUR fault.

The most popular look this year seems to be Jimmy Saville. We’ve had to do a rush order for more long blond wigs. At one time, Osama Bin Laden was the favourite bogy man, then Colonel Gaddafi, now it’s a paedophile DJ.

After my father died my mother supported us by running an off licence. This was much harder work than the fancy dress shop as it was open for such long hours, and quite a lot of customers had drink on board, which didn’t make them nicer people. But my mother could almost always see the good in people and even when she didn’t like people, she could usually be much kinder than I could have been. She always had a lame duck she was doing her best for, often several of them, and she was able to see the humour in situations. For example the local catholic priest used to go into her shop regularly to buy a bottle of whisky. I think he felt he shouldn’t be doing so – why, I don’t know, because the church doesn’t seem to frown on alcohol. He would always sidle in during a quiet period, hat pulled down and collar turned up, and my mother would amuse herself by humming the Harry Lime theme.

The best story about my mother’s time in her shop, was the one about the well known prostitute, who arrived in the shop and bought some tights, and then said,  “Can I come into the back room and put them on? My shoes are making my feet sore without any.”

Obviously, my mother wasn’t too keen, but said alright, and then went in to the back room to keep an eye on her. To my mother’s surprise, she turned out to be stark naked apart from her coat; and with great perspicacity my mother said, “You’ve got nothing on!”

Her customer embarked on a long and convoluted tale of trouble aboard a ship in the docks. “When that happens, you have to get off quick – you could end up in the water and no one any the wiser until the ship’s left.” The story ended with money being snatched, and the customer shouting indignantly, “Hey, none of that! If you f…… you pay for it!”

Hearing my mother tell the story I was fascinated, and asked what she had replied. My mother said, proudly, “I said, And quite right too!”

Baking the Christmas cake

It’s nearly October half term so I’ve been making Christmas cakes and puddings. That’s my traditional date, ever since I started to make myown. For the first couple of years we were married, my mother used to make us a cake, and then I started to feel guilty because really, she had enough to do. But I use her recipe, which goes back to my great grandmother Nock – my mother’s mother’s mother. It involves one and a half pounds of butter and a dozen eggs. I cut it back to one pound of butter, which still makes a very substantial cake.

I remember my gran making the cakes and puddings. The currants had to be picked over for twiggy bits and then washed, and then, to make sure they didn’t sink, they were dried in bowls in front of the coal fire all day, being turned over by hand regularly. So even getting the currants ready for use was a major task. The almonds were put into a bowl and boiling water poured over and then when the water had cooled, they were slipped out of their brown skins. After  that, they were chopped. When I first started making my own cake, I felt I ought to buy almonds in their skins and do the hot water bit, but after a lot of years, I decided that nostalgia is all very well, but you can indulge in it too much. So now I buy the almonds already skinned. Actually, the chopping takes ages because you don’t want the pieces too small, so it has to be done almond by almond – no food processing. 

My granny used to have to chop the mixed peel, too. Of course nowadays, one uses mixed peel and currants straight from the packet. You have to add a little mace, and it can be quite hard to find nowadays. It isn’t a fashionable spice. How you can make a béchamel without mace beats me, though. Probably everyone’s too busy making Thai curries badly, instead of traditional British food well.

I do use the food processor for beating the sugar and butter and the eggs. My gran used to do it all by hand with a wooden spoon, in a very big earthenware bowl, just like the ones they have in National Trust dairies.  It’s jolly hard work – we all used to take a hand, although I don’t know how much help I was really.  We all got to make a wish with the puddings. I tried to get the kids to have a stir and make a wish on our pudding when they were young, but it didn’t really take – I’m not sure they make a wish on cutting birthday cakes any more, even. Perhaps they are all too cynical, or too scientific, to believe in wishes any more. I remember making a wish on the first star at night, and the new moon, and avoiding seeing the new moon through glass, throwing spilt salt over my shoulder, and loads of other superstitious stuff that the kids have never done. I’m not sure if it’s good that they aren’t superstitious, or whether they’ve missed some sort of folk culture.

I digress. After all the chopping and mixing and beating, the mixture is put into a well buttered and lined cake tin which is still marked  on the bottom “2 shillings and 7 pence”, and cooked in a slow oven for about 8 to 10 hours. (My modern oven switches itself off after about seven hours – it seems to think it knows better than I do. I know about this now, but it still makes me swear.)  As soon as it comes out of the oven, I pour several generous slugs of brown rum over it, and the smell is out of this world. If it doesn’t make your mouth water, you’re probably dead.

Then the cake is wrapped up and put away until Christmas Eve, when it is covered with marzipan (NO white icing!) and decorated with marzipan balls, glace cherries, a Father Christmas driving a sled which predates me, a robin made by my daughter out of Fimo, and a plaque saying “Merry Christmas” which came from Sainsbury’s about twenty years ago. Then it’s served with proper Wensleydale, brought from North Yorkshire.  Merry Christmas! 

Trollope and TV

We’ve spent a lot of time reading Trollope’s series of political novels, six of them all told, although I rather resorted to speed reading for the last two, which were weaker, in my opinion. I enjoyed many of the characters and particularly enjoyed the many different versions of courtship and marriage which Trollope describes.  It really does bring home to you that women were totally in men’s power – even rich ones had little independence, thanks to the pressures of society, and were at terrible risk of being married to bad men who were only interested in their money.

There’s every sort of marriage described – arranged marriages which turn out well, or turn out badly, marriages for love which turn sour, marriages for money and status which turn even more sour – and heavens, do the women who make a bad choice suffer! And to be fair, so do a few of the men.

I had a vague memory of these books being serialised for the BBC as “The Pallisers”, so I looked it up on Amazon, and found that yes, it was available but at a ridiculous price. Anyway, Phil found the whole set of four boxes of DVDs in the library, so we borrowed the first set and started watching. It’s been quite a task as there are, as I said, 4 boxes and 26 hour long episodes. As they are lent for only a week, we’ve had to maintain productivity – one day we had to watch an episode while we ate our lunch!

It was on TV in 1974, when we didn’t actually own a set, and it is filmed at a length and breadth of detail that I am sure could never be repeated nowadays. The books were adapted by Simon Raven, who has made the most of Trollope’s witticisms and added plenty of his own. And the costumes are just magnificent, and as far as I can see, strictly accurate. Again, I don’t think it could ever be repeated nowadays.  They’d never dare to put modern actresses in those desperately ugly hair styles and headgear that they wore in the earlier part of Victoria’s reign. They even have the courage to put quite big little boys in frocks, and some of the men have the sort of facial hair in which you expect to see the odd nest.

Another enjoyment has been spotting actors and actresses, once well known, and wondering if they are still alive. Wikipedia has taken a pounding. “Oh look it’s him / her!”  we exclaim, and then try to remember their name and what else they were in.  It’s kept us happily occupied for hours and hours.

I’ll have to see what other treasures the library possesses. “Poldark”, do you think?

Post Feminism?

The blog has been neglected for some time. The reason for this is that my husband has been ill.  He was quite clearly feeling awful, and was cold all the time, which is so unlike him. Usually, just as I start to feel warm enough, he announces that he’s too hot, and puts the heating off. Also he has lots of aches and pains. So my imagination was running riot, and the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis  was actually a relief. However, this does not mean he’s actually any better, it’s just that we’re both less worried. Which is something.

Anyway, the carpe diem list has suffered. Not that it was ever meant to be a burden or that I intended to get all competitive over it! But I have done one thing – I’ve started to volunteer, just one afternoon a week, at a charity bookshop. The idea was that I would feel I’m contributing in a small way and it wouldn’t be at all stressful or emotionally demanding. Also I’d be doing something a little different and perhaps meeting different people. The job has met all these criteria, and so far I’ve managed to be firm and not bring any books home, which of course is the worry. The price of staying decluttered is eternal vigilance. There are some very tempting books, too. There are insane numbers of knitting books, by which I’m not in the least tempted. I’m a lousy knitter – I did crack it sufficiently to knit a few plain jumpers for the children, but usually by the time I’d finished it, it fitted the next child down to the one it had been intended for. Also, I couldn’t knit and watch TV and if you can’t do that, knitting is really boring.

So this post is really inspired by the fact that there are builders working down the road. They’ve been there for weeks and I’ve never seen them speak to a girl going past. Now, I expect them to ignore a woman of my age, but when I was young, you could never have walked past a building site without whistles and calls. Lorry drivers sounded their horn and waved as they went past. Strangers stared. Middle class ones didn’t comment, others often did. I remember a trip to pick my mother up when she arrived at King’s Cross; it was summer and I was wearing a sleeveless top, and before long my mother was getting really cross with me about the attention I was attracting! 

Life is really different now. No man would behave like that any more and no woman would accept it, as we did. I think even we saw it as “just a bit of fun”. I always disliked being called “dear” by a strange man. “Love” or “blossom” or “hinny” or “me duck” seemed fine, but there was something deeply patronising about “dear”. It used to make me furious. The only other time I remember being really cross was when a totally strange man patted my bottom at a party. I was talking to someone and he was just walking past. That time I was cross enough to pour a glass of wine over his head.  So things have really changed for the better. This is not to say there isn’t still a long way for women to go.

Actually, the modern phenomenon that makes me foam at the mouth with fury is the way mothers treat their girls. Pink, pink pink. They even go out and buy pink pushchairs. The phrase “little princess” ought to get you sent to a re-education camp for a week, where you can learn that becoming a surgeon or astrophysicist are suitable ambitions for little girls, and that dressing them from head to toe in pink, and telling them they are beautiful little princesses, will not help them succeed. 

“Pampering” – now that’s another word that makes me furious. Pampering is what happens to lap dogs who have short and unhappy lives. Grown women do not need pampering, for God’s sake. In spite of the distance we’ve come, there’s still a lot to do, and I really don’t think we need to hold ourselves back.

Summer is over

Summer is over and I have my usual melancholy - another year over. I used to absolutely hate the kids going back to school. Some mums couldn't wait for term to start, whereas I always felt like weeping. Still, lots to look forward to, mustn't get gloomy. Christmas stuff in the shops already.

I’ve been a bit too busy to blog recently, and as I felt I hadn’t been making too much progress with my carpe diem list, I didn’t really have the inclination. However, when I took stock, I have actually done a couple of the things on the list. So here goes:

I got out my mother’s old oak wooden bowl, sanded and sanded, wire wooled and wire wooled (messy), and finally varnished it. It looks great. I don’t know quite why I bothered, because there’s nothing special about it, and my mother was never fond of it (“Well, it was war time, there wasn’t much you could get for wedding presents.”) But I’ve always felt it was a pleasing shape, and it is a good big chunk of English oak. So mending or restoring something was on the list, and it was right that it was, because the end result was very satisfying.

One thing was to attend a sporting event. I’ve half done that – we went to see the Tour of Britain start from the Castle this morning. We saw Wiggins and Cavendish, which was exciting, but I’m not going to tick it off, because really the Castle is so close it would have been pathetic not to go, and also the crowds were such that I really didn’t see very much. 

Then we went to London, to the National Theatre to see Timon of Athens. This is part of our ambition to see every Shakespeare play on stage.  So although Phil has torn the meniscus in his knee, and can’t walk very far, we had a lovely day. The River Festival was on so there was lots of added value in the form of acrobats and barge racing. London looked marvellous, as always, but the tube seemed much cleaner than it used to be. The streets have been clean for ages, but there was a definite difference with the tube. Also there are people walking along the foreshore of the Thames at low tide – we remember it being thickly covered with black smelly sludge. So all that was great.

One can see why Timon is a lesser performed play. The language isn’t generally as gripping, although Timon has a couple of enormously powerful  speeches.   The production made use of imagery of the City and the Occupy movement, and that worked well. I did admire Simon Russell Beale’s movement and body language when he was reduced to a down and out. It was creepy, and somewhat guilt inducing, to recognise the shaky run, the lack of social inhibition, and the shuffling, poorly coordinated movement that you see in street people.  I don’t know how he managed it, but somehow Russell Beale made you see that Timon’s insane generosity when he is rich is because he believes that he is unlovable. So his rejection of everything afterwards makes  sense. So more moving than I expected, and we’re glad we went.

A week in Whitby

I’ve been staying in Whitby, with my husband, the two grandsons and, for part of the week, our middle son, who is amazingly patient with the little boys and very good at distracting them and calming situations. He’ll make a terrific dad, I hope.

Whitby is an excellent holiday spot, but there are considerable contrasts to Swanage. Swanage is definitely more sophisticated, and groomed, whereas even quite smart places here are somehow brasher and in your face. Of course, there are lots of pretty rough establishments too, with bouncers in the evening. 

Beach huts in Whitby

The little boys loved the beach. It is actually a beautiful beach, smooth, firm sand with sweeping tides, so very clean, and just a few good big rock pools at one end. They played defending a castle from the tide – they’d never done it before and had the most tremendous fun. One thing we did notice is the size of the earthworks (“sand castle” just doesn’t do them justice.) People arrive on the beach equipped with garden spades; I was quite envious, especially since Phil kept pointing out how much bigger other people’s castles were. I only managed a bit of a swim because we had to keep an eye on the boys jumping the waves. On the phone to his mum, the older grandson was squeaking "I went in the sea and it was really rough and I was all on my own and the waves were going right over my head and I was all on my own and it was really rough" etc. etc. I had to take the phone and say that it wasn't quite like that, or she'd have been leaping in the car to come and rescue him. 

The other thing the boys really enjoyed was the port and the boats, and the 199 steps. We avoided mention of Dracula as much as possible. We didn’t want nightmares! There are loads of alternative shops – folk instruments and music, straightforward Goth, ironic Goth (sundresses printed with pink and blue skulls) proper antique, vintage, fossils and shells, gifts of all kinds, as well as the jet and jewellery shops.

So now we’re home and our son in law has the week off to look after the boys, so we are having a rest! But we’d definitely do it again.

The Olympics

I’ve been watching the Olympics on television rather obsessively. I did try for tickets but didn’t get any in the first round and then was so fed up with the system I didn’t try again. In any case, Phil was very negative about the idea of the London Olympics, and he is not keen on sport in the first place, so I couldn’t help losing heart. I’m sorry now, because the whole thing looked great – London and the Olympic Park looked marvellous, it all seemed to be very well done, and I won’t get another chance, after all.  Everyone I know who went has said how well organised it was, with lots of added value things like dance performances and explanations of how minority sports work.

Rhythmic gymnastics is a “sport” I thought was pointless, but I began to respect it – I still think the whole thing is a ludicrous endeavour, unless you want to be a circus performer, but the things they can do with their bodies! Similarly with synchronised swimming – it’s the most ridiculous thing, but you know how hard it would be to do anything similar, so you have to respect the swimmers even when wearing full eye make in the pool.

Sports I didn’t come round to are water polo – what’s the point of that? – and Taekwondo. They keep trying to kick their opponent, missing, and falling over. How would that work in a real fight, without a referee to stop your opponent? It’s just stupid. I’ve never been keen on basketball – there’s too many goals and hence, no tension. Handball seemed rather similar. I should think that they are both far more fun to play than watch. 

I had very mixed feelings about the dressage – I admire the horses and the training that has gone into it, but do they have to demean the horse by doing it to terrible arrangements of cheesy music?

I liked all the brilliant colour schemes. It didn’t look nationalistic, more welcoming. I liked the opening ceremony. If you knew absolutely nothing about British history, maybe it would have been confusing, but I think if you were reasonably quick on the uptake, you would have learned quite a lot about Britain. The forging of the Olympic rings and the whole lighting of the cauldron bit, with the young athletes and the”petal”  for every nation,  were exceptionally good. Just put McCartney out to grass please.

The closing ceremony, not so good. Some of the songs were a bt obscure and there weren’t enough sing along ones. You could see how much the athletes enjoyed it when they could. The LED lights round the stadium made a wonderful show. The highlight was Annie Lennox. We were simply staring at the screen in bemusement and we’re British. I thought it had to be a celebration of Whitby Goth weeks, someone else suggested that it was a memorial to the slave trade – it was weird, we all were giggling helplessly, and the commentators clearly had no idea either. Eventually (far too late) they identified the song as being from a Dracula film, which meant that my “celebration of Whitby Goth week” was not so far out. So why on earth did she choose that one? Was it something about celebrating Britain’s literary heritage – something the organisers of both ceremonies seem keen on? It was plain daft, and it will certainly be difficult for Rio de Janeiro to top that.

Through both ceremonies, I did like the determined Britishness, and to hell with anyone else’s over sensibilities. So sod the Pakistani and Saudi ideas about modest dress, sod American ideas about racial mixing and religion, sod the Russians and the Chinese and the Saudis and many others – let’s have paeons to personal freedom. Good stuff!

There are pervading stereotypes of the British as being buttoned up and inhibited. Having travelled around a bit, it seems to me that the British place a high value on privacy, but are much better at letting their hair down and enjoying themselves than, say, the Americans, and much less inhibited by worries about “face” than, say, the French. I hope the Olympics have shown this side of us to the world. And we are dreadful grumblers and very keen to put ourselves down, so maybe they have shown an efficiency and competence, that we didn’t know we had, to ourselves.

Alien America

Mitt Romney has been visiting and managed to offend by criticising the U.K.’s readiness to stage the Olympics. It’s quite funny, because he hasn’t said anything that one of the British newspapers hasn’t said, but we’re all still quite cross.

Well, of course, one can criticise members of one’s own family, and still be deeply offended if an outsider criticises them, and Romney should have had more sense and tact.  But the fuss started me thinking about the differences between the U.S.A. and the U.K.

 The first time I went to the U.S.A., I’d never been anywhere so completely foreign. I think that because Americans speak English, we expect them to think like us, and then are shocked to find this enormous gulf between our values and beliefs and theirs; and on top of this, Americans themselves seem largely unaware of the gulf. Beliefs which appear to them not as a belief, but as an unchallengeable fact, leave us utterly amazed. The two most obvious examples are gun control or the lack of it, and healthcare or the lack of it. There’s just been another mass shooting in Colorado, which sums up, to my European mind, the madness of American attitudes. First, the killer had assault weapons and 60,000 rounds of ammunition. 60, 000!!! What on earth is a civilian doing with this sort of arsenal? It can only be intended for mass murder – that’s the only purpose it can have. I remember the boys finding the signs on public buildings in Kentucky “No Concealed Weapons”,  hysterically funny, and all of us being open mouthed at the sign in Wal-mart, “We are sorry, we may not sell automatic weapons after 11 p.m.” I’m sure any European who reads this will be as staggered by these signs as we were. But Americans just don’t get it – they just don’t appreciate how it stuns non Americans. Apparently, after the latest shooting, the sales of guns in Colorado have greatly increased!  This is when you feel like giving up – they’re aliens, and it’s no good even trying to understand them.

On the health care topic, the newspaper was saying that some of the Colorado wounded  have no health insurance. Apparently American hospitals have to give life saving treatment, but should any of them need further treatment, they won’t get it. Good God, how can you call this a civilised society?  I simply can’t get my head round the fact that the richest nation in the world won’t take basic care of its citizens. It seems that even those who are insured are likely to be refused further tests if their condition is hard to diagnose.

Other issues that one simply can’t broach with most Americans are crime and punishment, the Middle East, and the fact that America’s ban on drugs isn’t working, creates crime, and is wrecking Mexico and much of central America. It’s the complete closed mindedness that’s so frustrating. Well, that and the attitudes that were outdated in Victorian times here.

We’ve just had the Olympic opening ceremony, and I particularly liked the tribute to the N.H.S., the gallop through our cultural history, and idea that it was for everyone. I’m feeling pretty patriotic at present.

The torch

On the day we left Swanage, the Olympic torch came through it.  When we went down to the beach for our swim, the owners of beach huts were all getting ready with bunting, balloons, and red, white and blue clothing for all. The council workers were primping the place – not that it needs it – and all over you could hear people discussing where to go to see it. “ Come over to mine, and I’ll make some scones.”  It was all really touching.

Then when we went down for our valedictory fish and chips, there outside the pub on the corner was one of the torch bearers. I think he must have been there with his mates and his wife for at least four hours and he was three sheets to the wind, but nicely. He was obviously bursting with pride, and rightly so, because he was an ex soldier who had settled in Swanage, and was the president of the local British Legion, and had done loads for the steam railway and lots of other charity work.

I took my older grandson to see the torch come through Nottingham and I’m afraid what he liked best was the Coca Cola bus, and the police motorcycle outriders. But the streets were packed and there were 16, 000 people in Market Square. So I know it’s all a bit rubbish, with the commercialisation and bloody Coca Cola, and the fact that the torch is mostly in a bus, but what I conclude is that it gives people chance to demonstrate a bit of pride in themselves and their country, and that is something good.

I feel exactly the same about the Diamond Jubilee – it is about the Queen, but only in so far as she’s ours, and we’re proud of her and glad to celebrate us – our country. So it’s an excuse for an outburst of patriotism, which is nice because we’re bad at noticing the good things about  Britain.

And a very very good thing about Britain is Dorset in general and Swanage in particular! (I should keep quiet about this – don’t want it turning into Cornwall.) 

Durdle Door

We’re on holiday in Dorset and I have achieved another ambition – today I swam through Durdle Door!  I thought it might not happen because the weather was so bad, but since we got here we’ve had very decent weather and number two son, Will, and I have swum every day. He has a triathlon wet suit, but I don’t think you really need one, if you were brought up in the North East and spent every half way summer Sunday at Saltburn. Although of course he swims faster and much further than me, and stays in the water longer. Yesterday I acted as (air) sea rescue, or maybe Baywatch. I was swimming and saw Phil waving at me, which slightly surprised me, but I waved back, and wondered why the people near him on the beach seemed to be staring so. I carried on swimming for quite a while, then eventually turned to come back into shore and saw something floating. Of course I swam over to investigate, and found a toy panda attached to a parachute. So then it all fell into place, and I towed it back in, much to the satisfaction of the little boy to whom it belonged, and much to the relief of the grandfather who had let go!

Going through - the first head is me, with Will catching up fast.

So today we went to Durdle Door, aiming for slack water at high tide, but it’s really quite windy, so the sea was really choppy. Going out was quite easy, but turning to go round the stack was quite hard; I think I made it harder for myself by giving the rocks an unnecessarily wide berth. Going through the arch itself was really hard work, with the waves apparently coming from all directions. Although I was swimming  hard, it was slow progress, almost all the way back to the beach. The really painful bit was getting out of the water onto the beach, as it’s shingle. I ended up flopping my way out on my tummy like an elephant seal.  But I did it, and I’m really pleased with myself.

The swimming team - Phil is excellent at handing a towel when I emerge from the water. 

Had a second swim in the next bay which was a little sheltered from the wind and had leisure to look down and see the kelp and red seaweed, extremely tall, 30 feet at least, and shaped like a juniper tree. I saw some small fish, too.

Also, as an extra source of happiness, I’ve been able to fly my new birthday present kite, and had all the fun of the company of the kids, their partners and the grandsons. What a wonderful time I’m having.

Henry V

We booked Henry V at the Globe, as we hadn’t seen it on stage, before we went away to Portugal and Spain. When we got home, the first day I had Marc and Tom to look after, which was lovely because we had started to miss the family, and then the next day was the festival of washing. Then the next day was the trip to London and the Globe. So it all seemed a bit hectic and we felt we might have taken on too much. But the timing was perfect, because when  I was looking after Marc, we were in the town centre and there was obviously something going off. So we hung around for a few moments, and saw the Mercian Regiment, just returned from Afghanistan, marching through town. There was a band and the ram mascot, and all these young men in battle dress, and Marc was entranced. He was marching along with them, swinging his arms, loving it. It absolutely brought the tears to my eyes, to think that such a short time ago, these young men had been little boys like Marc, but now, what have they seen and been through?  And quite a number didn’t come home, or came home seriously, life changingly, injured.

The crowd was applauding them and there was the odd cheer, but I’m sure, if you’d asked people, they would have said that the army shouldn’t be in Afghanistan at all.  A good number of people in the crowd were obviously relatives and they were beaming with pride and near to tears.

So then to the Globe. And what is so wonderful was that you got all the same emotions as watching the troops march through Nottingham – that mixture of pride in courage and achievement, and comradeship, and the sheer glamour of  soldiery and war (from a distance), with an uneasy awareness that it isn’t  justifiable, and that men are killing and dying horribly for nothing worthwhile.

The timing was perfect. And Shakespeare’s marvellous ambiguities were just allowed to stand. The production didn’t have an “interpretation” forced onto it.

I’ve got to mention Jamie Parker as Henry, although the entire cast was terrific. We hardly even noticed the discomfort of the seats.  Last year we had a Falstaff couple of days and saw the two Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor, so it was particularly satisfying to complete the story. 

Yesterday was my birthday, so we just pottered about, reading, sitting in the sun, swimming for me, and having a long walk along the cliff top into the next bay. There is a long walking route right round the coast; Portugal seems quite big on long paths. The highlight was the chocolate cake; there’s always cake for breakfast but we’ve never indulged. But today we sampled the chocolate cake and it was so good – intensely chocolatey but not too sweet - it’s made me dissatisfied with my standard recipe.

As this is our last full day we decided not to rush away from the hotel, but to have a long walk along the beach and a swim in the pool before setting off. This hotel was built in the 60s, but inside has lots of nice art deco-ish touches, and there are the huge rooms and the huge swimming pool just to make sure of happy guests. We are both talking about coming back to it for a few days some time, and it might happen as we have totally failed to summon up the will to see Lisbon! We simply don’t want to deal with a large city – the largest towns we’ve been in are Porto, Caceres and Salamanca, and they are quite small. The rest of the time we’ve been in such quiet and beautiful countryside.  So maybe we can have a city break in Lisbon, followed by a couple of days at the beach.

Monserrate

So instead of Lisbon, we went back to Sintra., and saw two more palaces with gardens. The first was Monserrate, which was begun by a very rich English friend of Byron (who visited, and wrote about Sintra). He had to leave England after a scandal involving a sixteen year old boy. No wonder he and Byron were friends. He built some Gothic follies and waterfalls. Then it was bought by a rich but respectable Englishman, who imported one of Kew’s head gardeners, and then by another rich Englishman who built a sort of Mughal pleasure palace, as a summer retreat for the family. The house is gorgeous and the gardens are amazing. There are giant sequoia, a colossal Norfolk pine, a lawn (the first ever in Portugal), agaves, Yucca, agapanthus, camellias – it all smells and looks terrific, although we did miss tunnels and secret doors.

The Duck house

Then we went to an even odder place, the Pena palace. This was built by Queen Amalia’s consort, who was Bavarian, and seemed to have had similar ideas to King Ludwig. It’s based on an old convent, but the rest is built out of reinforced concrete with elaborate doorways, crenellations, Moorish domes, a clocktower –it’s a hoot. The furniture is even more weird and wonderful, all carved and twisty and looking chronically uncomfortable – I bet they would have given anything for an Ikea Poang. There are life size statues of peasants with plant pots balanced nonchalantly on their heads, and Moors with turbans and pointy shoes holding up lamps, and best of all, a set of copper jelly moulds in the shape of a Yorkshire terrier’s head.

The gardens are gorgeous, again, Sintra has this wonderful climate for exotics. There are lakes with black swans and two duck houses built like miniature (about seven foot tall) Gothic towers. Eat your heart out, whichever M.P. it was.

So now we’re comfortably ensconced in the airport hotel, and home tomorrow. We’re really looking forward to it now, though we’ve had a terrific time.

Sintra

Although we’ve finished Wellingtonia, there is a  World Heritage site on  our doorstep, the Sintra national park. Sintra is a mountain rising out of nowhere, very well wooded but with massive rocks in the woods, and close to Lisbon, so a brilliant place for summer palaces.


First we stopped for a coffee to fortify ourselves since everywhere is up. While we were quietly drinking it, in came about five or six armed police and three or four tax inspectors. The till and the books were examined, the waiters were questioned, the price list was checked, while the police ensured that no one made a run for it and nothing was smuggled into hiding. It was quite exciting to us, but it seemed an everyday occurrence for everyone else.

There is a Moorish castle almost at the top (we were very pleased with ourselves when coming down again) and it has the most terrific views. This was when we wished we had Marc and Tom, well, Phil did, but the crenellations weren’t very high, so it could have been a bit fraught. There’s also a summer palace started in the thirteenth century and finished in the sixteenth. It’s just lovely, with cool grottos and water fountains, and lovely decorations. There’s also a lot of beautiful Goan made chests and Brazilian rosewood tables and such, including a ghastly ivory effort from Macau.

Just a rock

Ta Dah! The rock moves!

Then we went to see a house built by a bloke who made millions in Brazil, in the late nineteenth century. The house was interesting, but the gardens were amazing. The millionaire bloke had all sorts of interests, including a sort of mystical philosophy, and, as far as we could make out, the garden is meant to be symbolic of something, probably something like the journey of a human soul. However that might be, the garden is great fun. There are really beautiful bits, but miles of tunnels and grottos, all pretty confusing, I felt we needed a ball of wool. And there was an “initiation well”, very well hidden in some rocks, with a revolving rock for a door, that was like a tower of Pisa, but going down. Luckily the new phones have a torch, because some turns took you into pools. There was a grotto and tunnels behind a waterfall. Now we really wished we had Marc and Tom with us, although frankly any age would have enjoyed it.

Sadly, the edge was taken off our enjoyment when Phil cracked his head on a downward projecting piece of stone. It bled quite a lot, and hurt more. A kind Polish couple gave us a plaster and we got it to stop bleeding. Then we had a excellent meal and came back to the hotel, so we are recovered.

The Lines Of Torres Vedras

Wellington's HQ

In the autumn of 1809, Wellington retreated to previously prepared positions, called the Lines of Torres Vedras after the small town which became a strong point. There were about 150 forts, mostly small, with two or three guns carefully trained on possible routes of attack. Wellington’s engineers employed about 170,000 Portuguese building forts and roads so that troops could swiftly be moved. Phil had to do quite a bit of internet research to find out where to go to see stuff, but in the end our day was a triumph. First we found Wellington’s HQ (a substantial farmhouse) in a village called Pero Negro, from where he rode up to the nearest fort every morning. Then we climbed up to the very highest point, Monte Soccorso, which is not a fort, but the signalling centre. It has stupendous views in all directions. Wellington brought in sailors to manage semaphore stations to communicate between forts and between the forward line and the second line of fortifications. There were naval gun boats as well, to stop the French outflanking the lines by sea.

Sao Vicente - you can see some of the other hills, all with forts.

From Monte Soccorso, you can see the line of forts along curving ridges. All the forts supported each other. Portugal is very big on renewable energy and now the ridges are usually occupied by wind generators. Then we went to one of the few big forts, Sao Vicente, just outside Torres Vedras. They tended to use old windmills as magazines – this has two inside the walls – and deep ditches lined with stone. It commanded the road from Leira to Lisbon. So Massena, after getting a bloody nose at Busaco, marched through stripped countryside, only to be faced with this!

Well, we have completed our Wellington trail. It’s been great, because we’ve ended up places we wouldn’t normally go, and seen a very wide variety of towns and villages, accommodation, and landscapes. So maybe our next project ought to be to follow Wellington through the Basque country and the Pyrenees into France.

The driving was fine today, and there is another grey Panda in the car park, but they are ignoring one another, as pandas do.

A short note on the Portuguese language – it’s very different to Spanish – the whole country is very different to Spain – and while you can make some guesses with written Portuguese, you have no idea how anything is pronounced. They seem to slur and swallow syllables, so that “Torres Vedras” becomes something like “torsh verges”. Asking the way is not an option – thank heavens for the satnav. Although you have to watch her – she tried to take us up steps today.

Rolica, Vimiero and a day off

Today we left Luso and the site of Busaco, and drove to the seaside, taking in two battle sites on the way. They are Wellington’s two earliest battles in Portugal, Rolica and Vimiero. The British troops were landed on the coast further north by boat, by the navy. Wellington immediately marched towards Lisbon, aiming to prevent the French forces from joining up, and succeeded in having a numerical advantage at both battles, which was unusual for him.

Grave of Colonel Lake, a gallant officer

At Rolica, the usual Wellington strategy was reversed – he attacked up a slope, to the French army positioned on a ridge. In fact, he was trying to outflank them, but the 20^th foot, led by their Colonel Lake, launched an assault up a gully and got massacred, so that Wellington had to order a frontal assault. The ridge was gained and the French forced to retreat. Colonel Lake was buried on the ridge by his men, and there is a cross erected by his fellow officers, in memory of his valour, but I bet Wellington was furious. He is supposed to have said that there was nothing so stupid as a gallant officer.

With Vimiero, we were back to the usual style – he was positioned on a ridge, and although the French arrived from the “wrong” direction, he was able to manoeuvre the lines round and beat off five assaults. It’s very interesting to realise how vital drill was – it wasn’t, in those days, about looking good, it was vital in battles for the men to be able to wheel and turn in formation, and to fire in unison.

Wellington (Sir Arthur Wellesley as he was then) had already been superseded as commander by Burrard, and luckily Burrard had not yet disembarked. Wellesley’s brother suggested that Junot had been bribed by Wellesley, to attack before Burrard could take command!

We also had a sidetrip to the abbey at Batalha. King Joao I seized the throne to prevent the Spanish taking over Portugal. The abbey is to thank the Virgin for his victory – but he was also helped by a few hundred English longbow men. He then married Philippa of Lancaster, John of Gaunt’s daughter, in 1387. She brought English architects, so the abbey inside is English perpendicular, and very high and plain, and it feels oddly like home. Although you don’t normally get swifts zooming in and round and out of York Minster. Outside the Portuguese have got at it, so it’s all weird twiddly bits.

Philippa was the mother of Prince Henry the Navigator, who started the Portuguese on their voyages of discovery.

Me, in the pool

We finally reached the coast and our hotel, which is another triumph. It’s right on the beach, with a huge room with private balcony, and a 50 metre salt water swimming pool. It’s wonderful. There’s a lovely fresh wind off the Atlantic and one can watch the sun go down into the sea. We’re planning on doing nothing very much tomorrow.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 19^th)

We have kept our resolution and done nothing much. One reason for this is that driving yesterday was quite stressful and we need a rest from it. First, you are not supposed to do more than 50km/hour in villages, so there I am, driving through a long, long village, with a colossal truck a foot from the bumper.  I am not exaggerating. This was not good for my nerve, and then poor Phil, realising we’d passed the turning we needed, backed on to a track to turn round. There was the most terrible bang and lurch. The left hand back wheel had gone into a completely uncovered manhole! While we were staring at it in dismay, a man stopped his car, and another who was walking came over, and helped us lift it out. Thank heavens for good Samaritans, and thank heavens it’s a small car, so that we could lift it out. As it has a wheel at each corner with no overhang, there’s no apparent damage. Once we’d got back on the road, you couldn’t see the manhole at all, even though we were only three yards away. But the incident pretty much did for both of our nerves. We were hugely relieved to reach the hotel and switch off the engine.

The weather has been cloudless blue skies and sun, and the wind off the Atlantic keeps you cool, so I have got a bit overdone. Phil was very good, though, sitting under an umbrella, and he’s fine. The pool is wonderful – it is about 9 feet deep at one end and there are diving boards, and the most people I’ve ever seen in it at one time is seven. We walked right along the beach – there’s nothing much here, the hotel, a block of flats, a surfing shop and about four café/restaurants. At the other end of the beach the rock strata are completely vertical, which is worth seeing.

And we’re now recovered – so the lines of Torres Vedras tomorrow.

The beach at Praia Grande

The Battlefield of Busaco

Looking down from Busaco ridge

The battle of Busaco took place on a high ridge, with Wellington having arranged his forces just behind the ridge, and the French troop having to flog up the hill to be slaughtered. That’s the basics – but seeing the ground itself was just stunning. The ridge is extremely high and steep, and why Massena thought it a good idea to assault it, instead of outflanking it, I have no idea. I suppose he was just so over confident – convinced the Portuguese would run away, which, re-organised by Beresford and inspired by patriotism, they most certainly did not. Also, he probably underestimated the numbers opposed to him. Wellington was outnumbered, but had constructed a road to rush reinforcements from one part of the ridge to another, and his men were so well concealed that a French officer, captured at the battle, wanted to fight a duel with General Craufurd. He considered it most unfair that Craufurd waited until the last moment before ordering his men forward! Also one has to remember that Napoleon kept issuing orders from Paris, and that Wellington couldn’t afford too many casualties because Parliament was not in whole hearted support of the Peninsular venture. So both leaders had political considerations as well as military. But having taken all that into consideration, the French assault on such a strong position still looks suicidal.

The battlefield is just outside the National Forest, which is a very old arboretum, begun by monks in the seventeenth century, and it’s lovely. There are redwoods, cedars, all sorts of South American trees, a pond with black swans, and the loveliest little valley, with tree ferns, arum lilies, and a sort of hydrangea, but much more open than the ones you get normally, and only in a greenish white and a beautiful pale blue.

The monks also built a convent - they all seem to be convents in Portugal, whether inhabited by monks or nuns. The cells are all cork doors - I suppose to deaden the sounds - and Wellington and his staff spent the night after the battle in them. There's a chapel dedicated to the Holy Family, which made us ensure whether to giggle or feel creeped out by. There were loads of wax breasts, pregnant stomachs and tiny babies. The breasts made us think of stag night accoutrements form the fancy dress shop, but the babies were really creepy. There were letters of thanks too, so one must assume the wax models work at least some of the time. 

All in all, this is a lovely place. Something that amuses us is the people coming with car loads of gallon sized water bottles to fill up at the spring. Whole families arrive and labour away, lugging these heavy bottles. I suppose they must really believe the spa water is good for you.

To Bucaco

We left Porto this morning, travelling to see the battlefield of Bucaco. We are staying in hotel which is another different experience. This little town, Luso, is a spa, but definitely rather faded. The hotel is all polished wood floorboards, Turkey carpets, and old fashioned Victorian furniture with curlicues, powerfully perfumed with beeswax. There is a very nice pool and I’ve had a swim, and to top it all, the manager is a battle nut. He’s keener than we are. He’s given us some advice and maps, so tomorrow I expect we will have to report to him and sit a short test.

We stopped to have a look at Coimbra. It was really nice, although there are a lot of Salazar era university buildings, which make Moscow university look good. The old university is very nice, with a statue of King Jaoa, who was clearly Henry VIII’s long lost twin, and a wedding going on in the chapel. A lot of the guests spread their black student gowns on the steps of the chapel for the bride and groom to walk on, and they were serenaded by a band of male students in gowns, with pipe, drum, mandolin, guitar, and a chap with a tambourine, who leapt and kicked high enough for Bruce Lee. Then the bride and groom danced to the band. It looked good fun. It’s obviously wedding season, there were loads going on in Salamanca. They were accompanied by fireworks, so you couldn’t miss them, and vertiginously high heels, just the thing for cobbles.

I have to say something about our hire car; it’s a Fiat Panda,  which has been just wonderful for all the narrow streets, and the ”sit up and beg” seats are really comfortable and good for one’s back. Unfortunately it’s really underpowered for such a hilly country; we get frustrated drivers behind i.e. two feet from the bumper, until we can find a spot to pull over and let them pass. If doing a hill start, which one is doing all the time, it seems to be de rigueur to let the car roll back a yard or so before pulling away. We had some nasty moments until we learned to expect it. Talking of nasty moments, we were deeply impressed with the escape lanes on long descents. They are sand, some with tyre tracks but mostly raked, so we think they treat them like the long jump pit. “Oh, poor effort – this one was out of control and only going fast enough to get a third of the way up.” At the end, there are piles of old tyres – presumably if you hit those, a bell rings and you win an unfeasibly large stuffed toy animal.

Off out for dinner – we had a good snack lunch in the student canteen in Coimbra, which welcomed tourists but made us feel rather old.