To Marseilles

On the way back to Marseilles and the airport we decided to visit Les Baux. Last time we visited we had all the children in tow and it was baking hot. This time we were nearly blown off the high points and the wind made it quite cold. I think more of the site is open and it is better explained. The siege engines were there last time, but this time they fired the trebuchet!

The trebuchet

 It was quite a performance and great fun. It’s really a mechanised sling shot. The projectile goes really high, but I should suppose the besiegers had to be able to get the machine close to the walls of the castle they were attacking and then protect the crew somehow. The battering ram comes with its own housing to protect the crew from projectiles of all kinds.  We had a good time, although all the courtly  love nonsense leaves me very cold.

Wandering through the village is quite fun but all the shops get very same-y. The church is interesting though - twelfth century and with a barrel vault and reused Roman pillars. Some of the side chapels are carved from the rock and there are striking brilliantly coloured stained glass windows, the gift of Prince Rainier of Monaco, as apparently the Grimaldis briefly  owned Les Baux.

From Marseilles we had a trip to the coast, at Bandol. It got a bit fraught as the traffic is so heavy.  There is a helicopter service from the airport, and now, rather than despising the celebs flown into Cannes or wherever,  I have a certain sympathy for them. Bandol, is quite a swish resort, with many yachts and some superyachts with the crew cleaning and polishing. It's slightly spoiled by parking. I dread to think what it might be like in August. We had an excellent lunch, and then drove along a rather dramatic road through the Parc National des Calanques, to Cassis. Cassis is more workaday than Bandol but very pleasant.

Beach at Cassis

View back to bandol

The following day we planned to complete unfinished business and visit Chateau d'If. We got the bus into Marseilles centre rather than try to park, and got off at the main station, which has had a big modern makeover,  but the bloke at the coffee stall immediately tried to overcharge us, and outside the station there was litter everywhere and a pervasive smell of urine. A business man advised us to stick to the main streets to the Vieux Port,  and even so, we saw beggars, some with babies, someone dead drunk or maybe just dead, and groups of young men that it seemed better to avoid.  If we told any French person we were going to Marseilles,  they all chorused "Soyez prudent! " and we see why now. I think Marseilles has gone off since we were here two years ago.

When we reached Vieux Port, the boats were not going to Chateau d'If (again!). To be fair there is a wind and a bit of a sea. 

But boats were going to Frioul, so we decided to do that, and at least pass near the prison. Well, what a brilliant decision! Frioul is on a little island, Ratonneau. There are a little group of islands, two of which, Ratonneau and Pomegues are rather larger and have been joined by a short causeway. They belonged to the military until about forty years ago but are now a nature reserve, with this little harbour and yacht marina. 

Frioul marina

They are very dry, and obviously windblasted, and only some drought- and salt-tolerant plants grow. 

A Mussel farm on Pomegues

There are some interesting birds though, and the military remains are really interesting. At the extreme end of Pomegues there is what is clearly a nineteenth century fort, but instead of cannon there are huge concrete bunkers for big guns – the sort you see in Normandy, so I’m sure they are German built, but the guide sheet we were given didn’t mention the Germans. I think they got away with it.

There’s also the quarantine hostel where the characters meet at the beginning of Little Dorrit, which got me quite excited, and spectacular views back to If, with Marseilles beyond, limestone cliffs, and navy blue sea dotted with white sails. There was no traffic and almost no noise. It was just wonderful.  Heading back into Marseilles to get back to the hotel was quite a shock to the system!

The pilots' quarters on Ratonneau- as though a boat has reversed very fast
into the island

So now we're off home and dreading getting on the scales after all the food and wine. But what are holidays for, but relaxing? And we have had quite a lot of exercise.

Provence again

Here we are in a gite in Vaucluse again. We're near Cairanne, which is yet another sleepy dusty hilltop town with walls, gates and a donjon, but all rather in miniature. The gite is super, a big modern extension on the original mas, with a wonderful 18 metre long swimming pool, and it is really hot, so the urge to go sightseeing is considerably reduced, but on Tuesday we went to Vaison La Romaine, because it is market day. Vaison has the best market I've ever been to, so we enjoy wandering round and looking at stuff we have not the slightest intention of buying. I did actually have some commissions - Dan wanted lavender for his newly acquired blanket chest, and Kate wanted rosemary soap. I wanted some soap, too, and ideally an oval tablecloth for the table outside on our terrace. We got all those and then I fell for a dress in Provencal print for my granddaughter. I hope it fits her next summer- it's all a bit guess work a year ahead.

 

The market, Vaison. Everything you can think of
for sale.

Unfortunately the restaurant we normally go to in Vaison has closed and the one we went to, across the Roman Bridge and just into the medieval town, was quite poor with the sort of old fashioned rude and patronising French waiter I thought had died out except in Paris. Still, it was a very pleasant outing.

Wednesday threatened thunder storms so we went for a walk locally, in the village of Rasteau. There's not a lot to see in the village, just the usual medieval gate and remains of the donjon, and a Romanesque church. It did have a superb lavanderie, with numbered places for the washer women and drying lines above. I think it was in use at least into the 1960s. But Rasteau is on a ridge and you can walk several kilometres along the ridge in wooded countryside looking at the views over the vines. Unfortunately we could also see the rain heading towards us, and we had to give up. That night was a terrific thunderstorm and wind and we got up to find the cover of the table tennis table had taken off and flown who knows where, which, although clearly not our fault, is a bit embarrassing.

It is the vendage and the roads are full of agricultural traffic - huge high rigs which straddle the rows of vines, vans carrying field workers, small tractors towing trailers full to the brim of grapes, and even the odd huge truck full of grapes. We can't take more than a bottle or two of wine back, so we are not taking any, but we have enjoyed some excellent wine at some excellent lunches. Our best find is a new (to us) restaurant in St Cecile les Vignes, called Estanquet, where the food is superb.

We went back to Fontaine de Vaucluse, where, in the cave, the water was so low you could actually enter the cave itself. The springs further down seemed to be flowing well, though.

The fontaine - deep down in the cave.

 I love the clear water, all green with the weeds. It looks so tempting for a swim but I have never seen anyone in the water and in fact there are signs forbidding swimming. The friends we were with hadn't been before, so we took them to the restaurant that we always go to, just this side of the bridge, and had a very good meal. They always have pretty and efficient waitresses too. Then we went round the museum of the resistance, which is hardly cheerful but very fair concerning the Vichy government and the attitude of the vast majority of the population.

We had parked near to the church so had a quick look at it. It's twelfth century and very simple and rather fortress like. it reuses some Roman pillars. 

We made a trip to Richerenches where the Knights Templar had a commanderie. The main building has been restored and houses an exhibition on the Templars, a temporary exhibition and a truffle museum. The temporary exhibition was on the film star Mylene Demongeot,  whom we couldn't recall, until we had our memories jogged by the film posters. After that we kept exclaiming "Oh she was in Bonjour Tristesse.- oh, yes, now I remember. " There were some pictures of her as she is now, in her eighties, and she has certainly aged better than Brigitte Bardot.

The truffle museum was interesting mostly because of the film of the truffle market. In order to sell truffles you need a large nose and a walrus moustache, apparently.  The trading goes on in a rather furtive manner out of the boots of cars. The opportunities for black money and for cheating seemed quite extensive.  Apparently there are armed robberies too, but they weren’t mentioned in the museum.

We had lunch in La Garde Audhemer  where there is a super Romanesque church and then To the “Fontaine des Nymphs”. This was a very pretty wooded little valley with a permanent spring, which seems to have been regarded as sacred and healing from at least Celtic times. It was Christianised and various chapels and churches built, all now more or less abandoned, but the place had a very peaceful and pleasant atmosphere.

Healing spring, complete with healthy frog.

A hectic summer

I honestly haven’t had time to spit this summer. It’s been brilliant, but rather tiring and I’m not as upset at the nights drawing in as I usually am.  A  little more time sitting down might suit rather well.

We’ve had two excellent holidays with various combinations of family this summer. First we went to Pembrokeshire with everyone, and second we took the grandsons to the Lake District.

Barafundle Bay. Really gorgeous.

We’d never been to south Wales and it really is gorgeous. The beaches are superb with apricot coloured sand and fascinating rock pools full of life. Marc even found a brittle star.  Tenby is a charming walled town with an interesting Tudor merchant’s house and a state of the art lifeboat, self righting even with 44 rescued people as well as the crew.  

And Pembroke castle has a keep built by William Marshal and a massive cave underneath. It was pretty romantic -you could see where the legends of Merlin and the dragon imprisoned under the Prince’s castle came from. We all enjoyed the swimming; the sea was cold but the water was lovely and clear, and perfectly safe. Unfortunately the weather was a bit off – it was warm but we had an awful lot of sea fret and quite a bit of proper rain.  But we would definitely return.

The Lake District on the other hand offered lovely weather, which is so unlike that part of the country that we were a bit slow to adapt! We took the boys to an indoor climbing centre on the first day.

But the next day we spent climbing Blencathra, which you can see from the lodge where we stay, only usually you can only see the bottom half and the top is covered with clouds. Marc asked if we were half way up after about ten minutes, which didn’t bode well, and then he grumbled on and off all the way to the top. But he didn’t struggle at all, and after a quick look at the view he skipped all the way down chattering nonstop. I don’t know which was more annoying, the chattering or the grumbling. Still we all did it, even if Phil and I felt it in the knees and hips the next day!  

Th summit

heading down via the tarn.

We visited Brougham Castle, which was of special interest to us because it was one used as a base in Edward I’s invasion of Scotland. We have read “A Great and Terrible King” which told us much more about Edward than we ever learned in school.  In fact it has led to a slight obsession with medieval history, which has actually now spread to dark ages Northumbria.

We have been to see “Finding Dory” (good, but not as good as “Finding Nemo”), some National Trust properties, Thomas has done a Kayaking course, Marc and I have fed goats and lamas and identified many bugs, which are proving almost as absorbing as dinosaurs, and I saw a watervole.  And Marc has learned to tie his shoelaces (he taught himself), and his school tie, and Thomas has learned to iron his own shirts. 

I think the thing I'm most pleased with is that I have crocheted a viking helmet, complete with horns, for my son in law's birthday. I think he thought it was a rather strange present - I'm reading that from his expression - but it fitted and actually I was impressed by how good it looked. I did have to unpick it about twenty seven times in order to get it more or less right, but it was worth it. 

Past Times 2

I don’t write this blog to be read, really.  But a couple of people actually read the post on things that have vanished in my lifetime, and remarked on things that they missed. So here’s a second instalment.

First: the milkman. It was number two son who pointed out that he remembered the milkman delivering really clearly, and now they just don’t exist.  It’s a shame really, because it was an eco-friendly system, and also milkmen used to check up on old  and isolated people. For those of you who are too young, the milk was delivered by milkmen with electric “floats” at some ungodly hour in the morning.  In fact I actually remember horse drawn milk floats. The horse was so steady and had done the round so often that it would plod round while the milkman went up and down front garden paths, pausing occasionally for its driver to catch up!

You had an order, but most people had a carrying rack with an indicator so that you could change your order more or less daily if you wished. Once a week you’d leave an envelope with the money due, and every day you’d leave the empty glass bottles, rinsed out. You also needed a cover for the tops of the bottles, as blue tits pecked through the foil covers and drank the top of the milk. If you had a very late night out, you could “arrive home with the milkman”.  It’s sad. Plastic supermarket bottles are so boring in comparison.

Food shopping was altogether harder work. Cheese, butter and lard came in huge barrels and had to be cut to weight for the customer. Biscuits came in large tins and you bought a pound or half pound in a paper bag. It seems a strange way of selling them,  they must always have been soft or broken. In fact you could buy broken biscuits by the pound.

No one ate anything but white bread. I think our parents had consumed enough of the “national loaf” under war time rationing, to reject anything brown.

Crisps came in one flavour (potato) and included a little twist of blue paper containing salt. I seem to remember a crisp manufacturer trying to bring back the blue twist of salt, but it didn’t catch on.

Almost every proper meal included mashed potato. I used to be sent to the greengrocer to buy two stones of potatoes. I remember being quite puzzled in Kentucky, when menus presented mashed potato as a special treat. But only a few years later, a similar thing is happening in England. I even saw a “scientific” study which claimed that eating potato four times a week was bad for your health. Tell that to our parent’s generation, who ate potato a minimum of seven times a week and lived into their nineties.

Smoking really is bad for you, but practically everyone of our parent’s generation smoked. Often the women seemed to regard smoking as a bit of a treat to be indulged in at parties and Christmas. My parents used to buy a very large box of Balkan Sobranie cigarettes for the ladies at Christmas. They came in a variety of pretty pastel shades, and I remember them smelling lovely. Whether I would think they smell nice now, I rather doubt. Which has led me off at a tangent. E cigarettes smell disgusting, almost worse than the real things. And at least the real things could look cool – think of the David Bailey portrait of Michael Caine – whereas an e cigarette makes anyone look a prat.

No one smokes a pipe. When we went to the Kentucky State Fair (you get a bit desperate with teenage boys to entertain for six weeks in Louisville, where they know no one, and anyway everyone looks sideways at long hair and death metal T shirts) there was a pipe smoking competition. The competitors got a measured amount of tobacco and one match. The winner was the man who could keep his pipe alight longest. I don’t know who won. In the end the excitement got too much for us and we went off to see the pig races. Actually, it was a good day out, the boys really enjoyed themselves and I didn't have to keep telling them not to gawp. You were allowed to gawp at things, and there were no signs telling you not to carry concealed weapons. I could not stop the boys doubling over in hilarity at those. 

I did wonder about the effects on my mood of this sort of nostalgia. But mostly, it makes me realise that life is better nowadays. I would like the milkman back though. 

Malta

We decided during the winter, that this year, we would only go to places which could be reached from East Midlands airport. So here we are in Malta. We are staying in Sliema, across the water from the capital Valetta, and one fun thing is taking the ferry across. We have a magnificent view of Valetta, all pale honey coloured limestone, and with many church domes and towers. The biggest dome is not the cathedral, but a Marian church. The whole church is under the dome.

View of Valetta from our hotel room

Cranes. But a lot of the former Royal Naval dockyards are derelict.

It's a curious mixture of British and Mediterranean. All the locals speak English but Maltese all the time amongst themselves, and it is pretty impenetrable. It's mainly Arabic, but written in the Latin alphabet and with lots of loan words, chiefly, I think, Italian. Everyone speaks good English and lots of sentences in Maltese are peppered with English words and phrases. Then there are lots of shops from British chains, and the post boxes are British, and I have seen houses called Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, and Seaview. The houses look completely Mediterranean, though.  They go in for those big projecting square wooden windows. Actually a lot in Valetta are fairly new but in the old style, because Malta was so intensively bombed. I talked to two older ladies on the bus and they both said they are still affected by the raids. They can't bear loud noises and just freeze.

We went to the war museum, in the castle St Elmo. It was very interesting. St Elmo was actually captured by the Turks in 1565, and we saw the chapel where the last defenders died in front on the altar. 

Chapel of St Elmo.

But taking St Elmo was so costly that the Turks gave up, and didn't attempt the bigger fort, St Angelo. In fact the military architecture is just stunning. We've seen Badajoz and Pamplona, and Malta is just on a different scale. It is amazing. Our guidebook calls Valletta Liliputian, and I can see what they mean, but the fortresses and walls are more Brobdignagian.

Fortifications

Some of the museum was about the Great Siege and there was a lot on the Second World War, during which Malta became the most bombed place on earth. Amazingly, less than 2000 civilians died, thanks to the deep limestone cave air raid shelters. The Malta convoys were dealt with and on show was the last surviving Gloster Gladiator biplane, three of which were all the aircraft with which Malta was defended when Italy declared war.

St Angelo, with super yacht

The museum was very interesting, really quite moving and gave you a chance to have a good wander round St Elmo. St Angelo is being restored as Valetta is the European City of Culture next year, but it isn't open yet.

Valetta was a completely new town built after the Turkish siege, and named for the then Grand Master of the order. The church they built was named as equal to the church in Mdina which was the original seat of the bishop, so it’s called the Co Cathedral. Originally it was Renaissance with a stone coffered ceiling, and quite plain. But it got Baroqued. Now it's a riot of gilding and painting and coloured marble. The floor consists completely of grave slabs for various knights, all in different coloured marbles. They usually include a representation of angels trumpeting the dead knight's fame, his coat of arms, weapons, more angels and frequently skeletons or death with his scythe. There were a few wall monuments for knights, which seemed to be in competition for who could go furthest over the top in funerary sculpture. 

Knight's tombstone

The museum included two Caravaggios, which really are good although not at all cheerful, much more suitable for a church than a living room. They also had a bit of John the Baptist (an arm, I think, allegedly) but Napoleon helped himself to the jewelled reliquary and the ousted Grandmaster took the relic with him when he left the island. What happened to it afterwards I have no idea.  I have actually seen John the Baptist's head in the Ummayad mosque in Damascus. I'm about as convinced of the head's provenance as I am of that of the arm.

The palace of the Knight Commander is now the official residence of the president of Malta, but you can see some of the impressive renaissance rooms and there is a huge collection of armour and weapons. Each knight had to leave his armour and horses to the order. It’s very well displayed but obviously from a much more limited period than the Royal Armouries.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable walk around Birgu, which was the original village where the knights settled. Or Victoriosa as the knights renamed it. It's been really well restored and is quite smart. There's also a maritime museum, in the old Royal Navy Bakery, which is massive, and interesting in itself. We're staying in Sliema so it's easy and fun to get a ferry across to Valletta, and then cross Valletta to get another ferry round into Dockyard Creek. In Valletta you cross the Baraka gardens, which with Hastings gardens are about the only pretty spots of greenery on the entire island, and take a lift down to the water level, through the fortifications which here include an amazing chasm.

 

The auberge of the knights of Castile

We saw some of the auberges for the knights; there were several, one for each language group. The English one is small, the French one rather bigger and the Castilian one huge and elaborately decorated. There is a new city gate and Parliament building, whose architect is Renzo di Piano. Apparently they are controversial but I thought they worked. The Fine Art Museum is in an interesting old palazzo which I think had been used by the Royal Navy, but the contents weren't great. There were two different versions of Judith and Holofernes and I do like to see any of those, and there were quite a lot of pieces of impressive Maltese furniture. There is a plan for a new museum and it's very necessary. All the pictures needed cleaning and there was no climate control.

We did consider hiring a car for a day or two, but the buses are very easy to work, air conditioned and seem to go everywhere we want, so we took a bus to Golden Bay and I had a delightful morning swimming. There is very little sand in Malta except for this bay. The sea is very clear and warm and along the rocky edge of the bay there were lots of fish.

 

Golden Ba

Watchtower. They are at regular
and frequent intervals all around
the coast.

Another day we took a bus to the neolithic site of Hagar Qim. Buses allow both of us to see the landscape and are less stressful than the driving through towns which one is really all the time. There are only tiny bits of countryside - it's nearly all urban, and the traffic is really heavy. They are very big on dry stone walls, stone being about the only commodity Malta is not short of, and there are little garden size plots, mostly tilled but fallow, and some with melons, courgette, dwarf beans and occasionally lettuce. There is a shallow valley on the way to Golden Bay which the guide book tells us is fertile, but the difficulty for British people is that it doesn’t look it, compared to almost anywhere in England. The main let down for Malta is that the food isn't very interesting. It's nearly all pasta, pizza, and burgers. Fish is expensive and doesn't look appetising. We did find a Maltese restaurant which was a pleasant place but the food is pretty solid and unsophisticated, much more solid than we fancy in this heat. The only really Maltese specialities seem to be rabbit, and various sweet pastries. Apparently the knights had to replace each galley every five years, so God knows where they got the wood for that.

Hagar Qim and the site next door, Mnajdra, are fantastic. They are dated about 3500BC.They are built from dry laid limestone blocks, and consist of a sort of entrance hall with chambers off, through “porthole” doors. These are a thinnish large oblong slab, which has an oblong hole cut into it, big enough for a person to pass through. There are also holes in the slabs which seem to indicate that there was a door or curtain of some sort over the entrances. 

Porthole door

Many of the stones were decorated by pitting or by spirals, and some statues were found, representing obese figures. It's not clear whether they are men or women, but there are some clay statuettes which are clearly female.  The hands are all positioned the same way which suggests it meant something, as it does in Hindu statuary. The limestone is quite soft and weathers easily, so the temples are covered by huge awnings to keep off the sun and rain. It's a shame but obviously necessary.

 

The middle altar, if that's what it was, is lit by the sun's
rays at dawn at each equinox. The slabs to right and
left are lit on the summer and winter solstices.

After the site visit we went to the Museum of Archaeology, which is in the Auberge of the Knights of Provence, which I assume covered all those who spoke Catalan. It's pretty large and has an impressive painted entrance hall, but it was the exhibits which were really interesting. There's another Temple cum burial place, the Hypogeum, which is closed for restoration, and on show were some of the findings. It was all very sophisticated for such an early culture.  It made the visit to Malta worthwhile in itself, I think.

When we left Hagar Qim, we could hear rolls of thunder and large drops of rain were beginning. So we got on the first bus that came along and went to Mdina. Mdina, as the name suggests, has Arab walls, and many large houses and is a very pleasant place to wander round.  Then, as we were on the bus to Sliema, luckily, the heavens opened and turned the roads into rivers. We ran into the hotel, but our shoes were soaked. I’ve never seen so much water fall in such a short period.

All in all, Malta was a really interesting place to go for a few days, and we enjoyed ourselves, but we’ve seen it now, and unlike Crete (or Northumberland, come to that) I don’t think we’ll return. One thing that made us smile was that while we were waiting at the airport, we were subjected to the Game of Thrones theme for ages.  But apparently GOT has increased tourism to Northern Ireland massively, so it's understandable.  

Rant

This post is mostly about getting things of my chest. So quite likely you shouldn't read it.

I've been getting more and more angry with both sides of the Brexit "debate". Both sides think that wild economic speculations constitute an argument. Firstly they are speculations. Secondly the Remain camp seem to have taken Clinton's mantra "It's the economy, stupid" to an extreme, where it never seems to occur to them to mention any other factor. It seems to me that geopolitical considerations should be pretty important, but they are simply ignored. 

So, if Greece had not been in the E.U., would their economic difficulties have led to a military coup? There is a history. Without the E.U., how far might the Yugoslavian conflict have spread?  And we should not assume that democracy is winning throughout the world. There are very many rich powerful nations where equal rights and democracy and the rule of any sort of law that we would recognise as justice do not exist, and are not likely to in any foreseeable future.  It makes sense to band together with countries who share similar ideals. 

And when the Leave campaign claim that we can get together with the USA instead, I feel like screaming. Have they ever been to America? We have next to nothing in common with the USA as a whole in terms of values and political ideals.

And if one more idiot talks about "getting our country back" - back from what, exactly? The twenty first century? or the voices in their heads? And back to what mythical age, when you didn't need to lock your door and no one was poor and everyone had a job and the sun shone all summer, and you never had to worry about living next door to a brown person? 

On the leave side is that out and out hypocrite and chancer Boris Johnson, The Daily (Hate) Mail, the ghastly Gove and the unspeakable Farage. That's really all you need to know. 

I do believe the inflammatory rhetoric and outright lies of the Brexiters have contributed to the dreadful murder of Jo Cox. Spouting vitriol about the country being swamped, hordes of refugees coming to rape our  women, our culture being destroyed, the British way of life under threat and such like must affect weak or disturbed minds, and God knows there are enough of those. 

The "James" plays

Last Saturday, we went to see the James Plays at the Theatre Royal.  We bought tickets for all three in the day, in the front row of the stalls because we do like to be close to the action. If you’re too far back it’s almost like the cinema – well, obviously it isn’t quite, but all the same, you do get even more involved in the action if you’re physically close to it.

On the Friday, the playwright, Rona Munro, was talking about the plays, so we went along there too, and it was really a good preparation. She said that even Scots don’t know a great deal about their first three King James, and that the plays were intended to stand alone and be quite different in tone. Which they were. 

Also she talked about the weight of writing something so comparable to Shakespeare’s history plays, although I think it’s probably pretty inhibiting if you think too much about that. Also, she uses straightforward demotic language throughout, not running to poetry (although the first James’ own poetry is quoted) but avoiding obvious anachronisms. She also pointed out that stories in the chronicles, even when the historians point out that they are not completely accurate, probably have some truth. So the plays bear a similar relationship to historical fact as do Shakespeare’s history plays, and like them, have an interesting  relationship with the state of the nation nowadays.

Seeing any of the plays would be very well worthwhile but seeing all three was a brilliant experience. All the cast were superb, and it was pretty full on and physical, I imagine they were shattered by the end of the day. Although of course an actor who had an important part in one play had a less important one in the others, it was still a very impressive feat.

Also, I didn’t feel that Rona Murray has many illusions about Scotland and its history. It was interesting to compare with the similar period in England portrayed by Shakespeare in the Henry plays. It’s clear that although the Wars of the Roses were going on, the English kings had rather more control over the nobility and more money.

Best thing – there were very many laugh out loud moments! Go if you get the chance. And if you’re not over offended by swearing.  

Past times

The other day, I cooked a chicken and, because I knew I wouldn’t have much time to cook the next day, I cooked twice as many potatoes, peas and carrots as we needed. Then the next day we had cold chicken with a Russian salad. It occurred to me that we hadn’t had Russian salad since I don’t know when. Then I realised that it’s a thing which has disappeared, in England anyway. I bet my kids don’t know what a Russian salad is, and I’m absolutely sure it’s not in modern cookery books. But it used to be really common; in fact, I seem to remember that Heinz actually offered small tins of it.

So that started me thinking about what else has disappeared in my lifetime. Well, there are very few independent department stores any longer. There used to be one in every reasonable sized town. The quality varied a lot, of course, but now they’re all House of Fraser or Debenhams, and they’re all more or less identical. You’ve been in one, you’ve been in them all. Woolworth’s has gone altogether, of course, but Wilkinson’s has filled the gap brilliantly.

Another thing which has changed is the casual – well, I suppose I’d call it sexual harassment nowadays.  Recently a friend and I were talking to her daughter and her daughter’s friend, and they were horrified by our tales. But even decent (ish) men used to behave badly. Lorry drivers tooted their horns as they went past; walking near a building site was bound to elicit wolf whistles and worse, even if you looked like the back end of a bus. There were plenty of men with whom you couldn’t get in a lift alone, or accept a lift in a car from, or climb on steps in front of, or sit next to; and the stationery cupboard stories we have! And curiously, we just accepted it as all part of life’s rich pattern. And if you did have to defend your honour, instead of feeling traumatised, you were cross with yourself, for being stupid enough to let yourself get in a situation where it was likely to be necessary. Now I’m not saying that there are no problems any more – of course there are, but that fairly low level, constant, groping and leering  - well, that seems to have largely stopped. Of course the harassment suffered by women who venture onto the internet is extreme, but that seems to be a toxic combination of misogyny and anonymity rather than the almost casual harassment we lived with.

Hats haven’t quite disappeared, but they have certainly changed their purpose. Nowadays, there are sunhats and woolly hats for winter, and that’s more or less it, apart from Ascot. Even for weddings,  women often wear those stupid “fascinators”  rather than proper hats. Or nothing at all on their heads.  My aunts used to go out for morning coffee in town wearing hats. (Not my mother, though; she thought sitting having coffee and gossiping while wearing a hat was a complete waste of valuable time.)  School uniform always included a hat – caps for boys and various styles for girls. My school had berets, and an uglier form of headgear is hard to find. The daring girls used to have bee hive hairdos, and stick the beret flat on the back with hair grips. It looked bizarre and used to drive the teachers nuts. Actually, that’s another thing that’s changed. We could get into trouble for things done on our way home – eating things, not standing and offering our seats on the bus, for example. I’m sure no school would try to enforce that  sort of thing now. The parents would be up in arms, defending their little darlings.

The other week we had an electrician working in the house. Phil offered him a cup of tea and he said yes please, and “leave the bag in the mug, I like it strong.” So Phil said, well, we don’t use bags, but don’t worry, it’ll be strong. So when the chap had had his tea, he said “That was lovely, how did you make it?” Phil had to demonstrate loose tea and the use of a tea pot. So how long will it be before loose, tasty, tea goes the way of Russian salad?

Zakros

After breakfast on Thursday we walked up to some rooms where we have been told they have maps on the local walking routes. The patronne, Stella, was very helpful and the rooms looked very nice, but they aren't right on the sea as ours are. Then we visited the Zakros Minoan site. It is, I think, the third biggest Minoan palace complex, and the most recently excavated. It was here they found the elephant's tusk, the bronze ingots and the wonderful bull's head vase. It's really interesting, as the lower half of the complex, where the finds were and where they even found food in cooking pots on fireplaces, was never rebuilt, whereas the higher bit was partially rebuilt. I'm convinced it was done for by the Thira eruption and tsunami, especially since it's so near the sea. Apparently some of the site is underwater, and as this is quite a wide and not particularly sheltered bay, I imagine there must have been some sort of port installations. Anyway we enjoyed looking round, and particularly enjoyed the many turtles which have taken up residence in the sacred wells. Not archaeological, I know, but they were charming.  

The afternoon was given over to swimming and idleness, which was lovely.I am getting actually ahead with my books for book group. I have read “All The Light We Cannot See”, which was a real page turner, especially the Werner story, but a bit floridly written. Now I’m reading a biography of Thomas Hardy, which is quite sad. He seems to have been incapable of happiness.

On Friday we drove up the winding road to Zakros proper. This time we were held up by a herd of goats, again with two men but no dog. The goats seemed easier to organise than the sheep, though. We parked the car and walked back to Kato Zakros along the Zakros gorge. It was brilliant. Because there's water, it's really lush, but because it's quite a scramble it's wild.

 There are all sorts of wild flowers and some sort of oaks, the odd wild olive and almond trees and it's all strongly scented with wild herbs and oleander.

Precipitous sides of the gorge with caves

All you can hear is insects humming, birds singing and the odd goat bell.  There are high cliffs and pinnacles and many many caves, where the Minoans buried their dead. It was super. This path down the gorge is apparently the end of the E4 European footpath, which starts in Portugal. We indulged brief fantasies of walking the whole thing, in instalments of course - we're not over ambitious. Then we phoned for a taxi to take us back up to Zakros to retrieve the car.

In the early evening, before dinner we began chatting to a charming Dutch couple in the next room, as we all sat out on the terrace. Then a German bloke in another room told us to be quiet or go somewhere else, as his girlfriend was trying to sleep. I was so worried about Phil's probable reactions that I hardly felt offended. However, he kept his cool, while calmly telling the bloke to clear off. It was actually our Dutch friends who got fierce. All four of us had decided that we would not be told what do by some ill mannered German.  That's Europe - all one big happy family.

We went for dinner with the Dutch bloke, Theo, as his wife has stomach problems and didn't want to eat. It was a very interesting dinner. It's curious that we always seem to get along with the Dutch, even if not the Germans!

It rained in the night and we got up to a strong but warm wind and a rough sea. We had decided to walk to the Pelekita cave. It's a good long walk around the headlands; they say three kilometres, but it's more than that, I'm sure. I have to say that once we were round the first headland, where the walk is very close to a long drop into the sea, it was rather boring. It's over volcanic rock and I have never imagined you could have huge boulders of pumice stone. You can see where the lava reaches the sea and is all buckled up in waves. But it does mean that it's really barren. There's nothing growing except exceptionally spiky thyme. There are a lot of bulbs but they have finished flowering. I thought at first they were hyacinths, but now I don't think so. There are loads of millipedes and some beetles and some goats, which must survive on the thyme, so they are ready flavoured for the grill. We kept seeing goats, gazing down on us from some high point on the cliffs above, like guerrillas spying on government troops. The path is well marked but very rough and the stones are very sharp. I think both of us were a bit worried about tripping and falling, as everything was so sharp one would really have hurt oneself.

Guerrilla goats

 Also, like a fool, I left my walking trainers at the hotel in Chania. They are keeping them for me and we will collect them on our return. But all I have now are sandals and a pair of Converse plimsolls I bought in Aghios Nicholaos, and plimsolls are just not up to this sort of walking; the soles are far too thin.  My feet are bruised. Anyway, we reached the cave, which is a bit similar to the Dikteon, in that you climb down into it. 

The opening of the Pellekita Cave

There's a massive first “room” with pits where there is obviously ongoing archaeology, and then you can go down into a second enormous “room”. We went so far down, but didn't reach the floor of the lower bit. Our torches felt very feeble in this vast space. There are some formations, but nothing on the scale of the Dikteon. You can go a bit farther and see a Minoan quarry, but we'd had enough by then. We've also rather gone off the E4, if it involves boring bits like this.

 

The surface of Mars.

Our last day was really windy, with white horses on the sea, and occasional spatters of rain. It meant we had a quiet day, sitting out watching the sea. The drive back to Chania was quicker and easier that we had anticipated, in spite of the inevitble flock of sheep, and so we had a few hours to wander around. I do really like Chania. It has a cheerful atmosphere – well, all of Crete does, to be honest, and there are layers and layers of history – Byzantines, Venetians, Turks, Germans, have all left their marks on the place.

Well, we’ll definitely return. Maybe we’ll go to the west of the island next time.