Waterloo

Today was the reason we decided to go to Brussels rather than Paris. We went out to Waterloo. We have been before, but I suppose it might be forty years ago. It’s changed quite a lot – Waterloo is a suburb of Brussels now, where it was really quite a country village, and the battlefield is intensively farmed – with the result that the sunken lane, which was quite clear forty years ago, has lost its hedges and in fact, isn’t sunken any longer. Kincaid says that the road was about twenty feet deep where he was stationed, close to La Haye Sainte, but it’s just flat now. I’m pretty sure the low ridge has been flattened off, too.

The two farms, La Haye Sainte and Hougumont, seem just the same. It must be very odd living in a farm which saw such slaughter. La Haye Sainte was defended by 376 men of the King’s German Legion, and only 41 survived. The defenders were armed with Baker rifles and ran out of cartridges, and then defended the farm with bayonets. The French were able to get over the wall by climbing on the pile of corpses of their compatriots, so goodness knows how many of them died. Also, an attempt by the rest of the K.G.L. to relieve the defenders ended in disaster as they were completely exposed to French cavalry. La Haye Sainte fell about 6.30 p.m.

Hougumont

The no-longer sunken road - the Allied position

La Haye Sainte

Looking towards the French position

Hougumont was held the whole day, by various units of Guards, but was set on fire with the result that the wounded were roasted to death. The French would not give up the attempt to capture it, even when the events of the rest of the battle made it pointless, and the casualties were enormous.

Obviously one would still want to farm one’s land, but living in the very house – one wonders how they stand it. Like the farms around Paschendael, which were clearly used as dressing stations in the first world war, and each had  their own graveyard behind. 

   

We saw the memorial to Sir Thomas Picton. Poor Picton seems to have been suffering from what we would now call post traumatic stress, but still took a command and died from a shot through the head. His top hat, with bullet hole, is in the National Army Museum. Wellington was very relaxed about matters such as uniform – at one stage he forbade umbrellas on the battlefield, which I think is quite telling. He himself wore plain grey civilian dress during the battle.

There’s also a monument to the 27^th Foot (Inniskillings) who, at the end of the battle, were lying dead, in square. Out of 747, 463 were killed or wounded. Kincaid wondered if this was the battle in which everyone would be killed.

The monument to the Inniskillings.

I ought to mention that it was bitterly cold, windy, and snowing slightly, and we did have a bit of a laugh, picturing the expressions on our friends’ faces if they could see us.

Wellington's H.Q.

Then we got the bus back to Waterloo village. Wellington spent the night before the battle and what was left of the night after at a substantial coaching inn, which is now a museum. They have one of Congreve’s rockets, which were deeply unreliable and quite likely to turn back on themselves into the British lines. Wellington kept trying to get rid of them. They also have one of the Earl of Uxbridge’s  wooden legs – he of “By God I’ve lost my leg!” to which Wellington replied “Have you, by God!” Uxbridge was the commander of the British Heavy Cavalry, and never forgave himself for failing to keep control. No cavalry had ever before routed so great a body of infantry, but they got carried away, failed to obey the Recall, got cut off, and of the Scots Greys, 279 troopers of 300 failed to return.

In the room next door to the one in which Wellington wrote his Waterloo dispatch, and got an hour or two of sleep, his ADC Alexander Gordon died after having his leg amputated. Wellington’s staff was almost wiped out. On getting the casualty list next morning, Wellington wept, and said, “I do not know what it is to lose a battle, but surely nothing could be more painful than to gain one at such a price.”   

So, back to Brussels, somewhat chastened, and off to a Lebanese restaurant which Phil remembered from business trips. We’re very partial to Middle Eastern food. It’s the antithesis of all that Noma and El Bulli nonsense. It’s real food, carefully but fairly simply cooked.

Eurostar to Brussels

I’ve never been on Eurostar, so my husband decided we should have a short break in Brussels. He knows it as well as he knows Paris, from working there, and it had the advantage of allowing us to pick off Waterloo – not chronological, but then we’ve given up on that.

So one Saturday we got up early and walked to the station to take the train to St Pancras, and then changed to Eurostar. Two international trains were leaving within three minutes of each other, so the queues for security were a bit fraught, but the journey was uneventful and we got to our hotel (off Avenue Louise and rather smartly modern) mid afternoon.

Unfortunately the journey did rather knock Phil for six – we only had small tow along cases, but maybe it was that, I don’t know. He did recover sufficiently to go down to the Grande Place and we found a good place for moules frites - the restorative effect a plate of chips has on him is amazing. The service and food were both really good for somewhere in such a touristy spot, but halfway through it was afflicted by a crowd of very rowdy drunken men. They were placed as far as possible from us, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the waiters, and worried that they might be British. They did sing a couple of pop songs in English, but that doesn’t prove anything.  No wonder so many landlords hate the customers.

So we had an early night and a late morning and eventually Phil was able to set off the Musee de Beaux Arts. Public transport in Brussels isn’t the easiest thing to navigate – although tram and bus stops are named, there are no indicators inside the bus or tram, and no information at the stops as to how long you might have to wait. It’s like going back ten years in time. Luckily the pile of the Beaux Arts is unmistakeable.

The museum is divided into old and modern. It was the old stuff we particularly wanted to see, which was just as well as a lot of the modern art bit was closed due to problems with the roof.  I think, now, that in spite of not being particularly visual and much more language oriented, I’ve looked at enough pictures to instantly perceive the good stuff. (Like wine – I don’t drink much, but you can keep all your boring “drinkable” Australian stuff. Give me a French claret you can practically cut with a knife and fork, or a Gewurztraminer.  If I like it, it’s invariably expensive. It’s just as well I don’t drink a lot!)

Anyway, there were a number of seventeenth century portraits and the three I liked turned out to be two Rubens and a Rembrandt. I don’t normally like Rubens – all that billowing flesh, tree trunk legs and shiny skin – but there was a study of a black man’s head, a preparation for an “Adoration of the Magi”, and a portrait of a woman. It was a pair, her and her husband, and I’m sure getting painted was the husband’s idea, because she looked faintly surly, face closed, determined not to give anything away.  They were wonderful.

But choosing just one picture was exceptionally difficult.

 They have a number of Breughels, including “Landscape with the fall of Icarus”, about which Auden wrote a poem:

http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html

There’s always such a lot going on in a Breughel painting, and Auden is quite right – in the “Arrival at Bethlehem”, you have to look quite hard for Mary and Joseph; they are just part of what’s going on, unimportant to everyone else in the picture. They’re all going about their lives, quite oblivious of the momentous event, or the tragedy of Icarus’ fall. There are no shining lights or haloes. But luckily Phil said he’d definitely choose a Breughel, so that let me off the hook.

I was very tempted by a sensitive portrait by Rogier van Der Weyden, but in the end chose a Cranach, of Venus. She’s very slender and stark naked except for a large feathered hat, and has unfeasibly long legs. She’s not at all voluptuous, but she has sly, knowing cat’s eyes and smile, and she’s clearly trouble. She’s accompanied by a cupid who has stolen a dish of honey and is being attacked by bees, just in case you didn’t get the hint from her expression. It’s just gorgeous.

http://www.opac-fabritius.be/fr/F_database.htm

The museum also possesses David’s painting of “The Death of Marat”, which surprised me because I just assumed it would be in France somewhere. It’s very impressive, but the propaganda is just a bit too blatant.

Museum of Musical Intruments

After lunch we went to the Museum of Musical Instruments. It’s in an old Art Nouveau department store, worth seeing for itself, but the museum is great fun. You are given an audioguide and can listen to all the instruments in the cases. The gamelan cases were fun, and the Ivory Coast case makes it quite clear where jazz originated. They also had the curved trumpets which we had at numbers one son’s wedding in Nepal, which look like the ones you see on pictures of the Roman army, and sound like bagpipes. There were a lot of real bagpipes, too, and innumerable versions of the zither.  So a highly enjoyable afternoon, and I’m having a shawm. It’s a lovely sound, and I could probably manage to play it, at least a bit.  

Suk, Shostakovich, Sainsbury and Richard III

I’ve just borrowed Joseph Suk’s symphony “Asrael”  from the library, and it was much more of a success that the Henze. It’s also about death – it’s a “funeral symphony” written after the early death of Suk’s wife and the death of her father Anton Dvorak, Suk’s teacher as well as father-in-law. It’s tremendous – full of grief and foreboding, and with very little in the way of comfort or redemption. I would absolutely love to hear it at a concert. There’s no doubt that the textures of music are much clearer live than on even the best recording. Probably one concentrates better in the concert hall, too. But I don’t want my own copy of Asrael. I think it’s like Dido’s lament “When I am Laid in Earth”,  which is so harrowing that one can only listen to it maybe once a year at maximum.

Speaking of foreboding, I watched a BBC masterworks programme on Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. It was conducted by Gergiev who claimed that certain passages were indicative of happy memories and were Shostakovich smiling. This left me gazing at the TV with my mouth open – I don’t set myself up as an expert against Gergiev, but this isn’t right. While I was feeling troubled (Gergiev knows much more than me about music but nevertheless I’m sure he’s wrong)  the programme wheeled on Maxim Shostakovich who was quite definite that there is no laughter – the “pretty” violin solo, he thought, was more like a little innocent girl whose face is stamped on by a boot. Exactly as I thought, and Shostakovich junior ought to know.

It’s quite funny, because when I was teaching I regarded it as vital to teach my students to be critical of scientific studies and to look hard for flaws in the methods used and the conclusions drawn. “Just because the researchers  are higher status than you lot doesn’t mean they get it right all the time. Tell me, what’s wrong with this study? Tell me other reasons why they might have got these results.”

And yet, here I am thinking that Gergiev must be right because he’s Gergiev. Well, he’s not. So there.

On impulse I borrowed Lionel Sainsbury's violin concerto from the wonderful Nottingham Central Library. I had no idea what to expect and knew next to nothing about Sainsbury. I still don't know much - not even whether he's related to the supermarkets and the National Gallery - but he was born in 1958, has won various prizes and seems to be involved with the Three Choirs Festival. But the violin concerto is unashamedly romantic and quite conventional, and I did enjoy it. I'll look for more of Sainsbury's music. It's a bit old fashioned, I suppose, more like, say, Barber, than like Part, never mind Berg, but then I can't stand Berg. Also, after a while, it doesn't matter one bit whether music, or probably anything else, is actually up to contemporary ideas. Bach was old fashioned in his day.

It's been half term, too, so we had a trip to the "Looking for Richard" exhibition in Leicester. There were stacks of people and the exhibition wasn't sufficiently geared up for large numbers, so although the information was very interesting, I can't honestly say it was a success.  The way Richard's body was treated made me think of that ghastly film they kept showing on TV of the capture of Colonel Gaddaffi. (As an aside, does not Assad see that film and think of ending up like that?)

As the grandsons get older we have more and more interesting conversations, which is lovely, but there are downsides - I'd just given them a yogurt to eat each, when number one grandson said "What's the date , Granny?" I was too slow to realise why he wanted to know, so I told him the truth, and he then announced that the yogurts were four days out of date. Needless to say, I told him to eat it, it wouldn't kill him. And he did, and it didn't. 

Updates

On the quest to improve my knowledge of recent music (well, of recent  classical music – I’ve given up on the popular front), I borrowed another Arvo Part CD, with pieces I didn’t know, and Hans Werner Henze’s Requiem.

The Part is wonderful. The music is minimalist in terms of its make up, but not minimalist at all in terms of its emotional meaning and impact. I’m not a musicologist, so I don’t know how to explain it any better. But the Henze had me well and truly defeated. Apparently he’s an atheist, so it’s a non religious requiem. He uses the traditional “movements” of the requiem mass, Dies Irae, Lacrimosa, Lux Eterna, etc, as titles, but there are no words and the piece is about life, death and grief as part of human experience. So the CD blurb says, anyway.  I have to say, to my ears it never got going at all. It sounded as though the orchestra was tuning up the whole time. I played a little of the CD for second son and son in law, and I am sorry to say we all got the giggles. Haken Hardenberger plays in some movements (not in Tuba Mirum, for reasons best known to Henze). But what’s the point of having a trumpet virtuoso playing, if all he gets to do is make parping noises?

On the theatre front, we’ve been to see One Man, Two Governors, which was a wonderful end of January tonic. We laughed and laughed. And then I went to see an Alan Ayckbourn, Joking Apart, which was quite depressing. The story hinged on a golden couple, for whom everything seemed to go perfectly, and the increasing jealousy and bitterness of their “friends”. But nobody has a perfectly successful and happy life. Everybody, unless they are a complete psychopath, has disasters and regrets and sources of sadness. Plenty of people put a on a brave face, and sometimes rather stupid or egocentric people take it at face value, and yes, they can get jealous. It would have been better, in my opinion, if we had been allowed to see that the golden couple did not have the perfect life that the others so envied. That would have been more truthful. It made me think of my godmother. If anyone got overly pleased with themselves, or showed off too much, or if you got jealous of anyone else’s good fortune, she would always say, philosophically,  “Everyone has their Gethsemane.”  Mind you, it took me a long time to understand what she meant, and even longer to understand its truth!

And we had a walk, in Leicestershire, a part I didn’t know at all, Burrough’s Hill iron age hill fort, which is a terrific place – very impressive ramparts, a huge enclosure, and quiet empty countryside. The views were super, but the wind made my ears ache. And there were snowdrops and lambs! Some of the lambs weren’t even that young, they were quite big and sturdy.  It was so cold and icy I couldn’t help thinking that the ewes must have got a bit confused.  One ewe had very young twin black lambs in Persian lamb coats.

It’s now comfortably into February. January is never a good month for me. The rheumatologist is pleased with my husband’s blood tests, the flower shops have daffodils, oldest grandson has to make a Roman shield, as have his classmates, and they are going to form a testudo, (I wish I could see that!) and spring is on the horizon.

Sharm el Sheikh 2

We’ve been back for a couple of days now, but I’m behind with the blogging, because there was one casualty of the trip – the screen of my laptop. It must have got bumped or shaken on the flight, but I didn’t notice anything untoward at the time. I haven’t lost the data, so I’m beginning to be mildly pleased at the prospect of a new laptop. Anyway, here’s my second Egyptian instalment.

The Egyptians are obviously aiming at slightly higher end tourism, and they keep this place really clean and well cared for. There’s only a little of the Middle Eastern / Asian failing of building something rather swish and then failing to maintain it in any way. It’s pretty international – we ate teppanyaki one night - but you’re still clearly in Egypt.

It’s been cloudier today so not quite as hot on the beach, but the evening is much warmer and we had a little walk, and I noticed a trend for Egyptian pop songs to use tunes from European classical music – I heard one clearly based on Fur Elise and a real oddity based on Orff’s O Fortuna. There was even a dramatic anthem, with an opening based on Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathrustra. It’s quite a strange sound because the tune is overlaid by Arabic wailing, and so to begin with I thought I was just imagining hearing Beethoven.

The Kobo E readers the children gave us for Christmas are a great success. The only difficulty I’ve encountered was that I couldn’t make out the maps in the copy of Antony Beevor’s  “Stalingrad”, which I borrowed from the library. It really benefited from concentrated reading – at home, reading in short spells, I’d have constantly been having to look back to remind myself who Schmidt or Chuikov was – but the maps would have been a great help, I’m sure.

It felt slightly odd to be reading about Stalingrad while surrounded by Russians, or Ukrainians, I can’t tell the difference. But they are instantly recognisable as one or the other. They’re usually very badly dressed and the women have badly coloured hair. To protect the dyed hair from the sun they wear headscarves, but there’s nothing stylish about them – they all succeed in looking like those statues of “The factory worker (holding hammer aloft) and the collective farm worker (brandishing sickle)” which seemed to be everywhere when we went to Russia in 1972. The pretty women tend to spend a lot of time having their photographs taken in soft porn poses, and all seem to favour thongs, whatever sex or figure. A woman with the figure of a shot putter run to fat, in a diamante thong, will stick in my memory for ever.

One of the tour boats is rigged up to look rather like a Nile barge, curved with thick, heavy posts shaped a little like lotus stems and flowers fore and aft. It makes me think of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, but there aren’t any rowers, just an engine – a bit disappointing. And it doesn’t seem to have perfumed sails, either.

We’ve got a routine of going into a café for a drink and a sandwich for Phil, otherwise he goes all weak and weedy, and using our phones to check emails and the news. We seem to have missed some bad weather. But the exciting thing was getting an email from our older grandson – how quickly they grow up!  It was nice to hear from him and be able to reply – I always send the postcards, but we usually get home before it arrives.

We came down to earth with a bump, arriving home! Waiting for the minibus to take us to the car, the cold was awful, and by the time I’d scraped the snow off the car, I could have cried at the pain in my hands. Then when we got home, the flat was freezing. But it is nice to be home again and to see everyone.

Sharm el Sheikh

I had a very enjoyable Christmas, but a bit odd because we didn’t have anyone to stay. So I kept feeling at a loss, and that I must have forgotten to do something, because I had so much time to relax. Normally I don’t stop working for several days, except to sleep, and I don’t usually do that well, because I know I have to be first up and try to get things done (say, cleaning the loos or sweeping the kitchen floor) before everyone else gets moving and wanting breakfast, and then coffees, and then lunch………. It sounds as though I don’t enjoy it and of course I do really, but not having it to do is quite a change.

So now the Christmas holidays are over and we are having our first holiday in Sharm el Sheikh. We chose it because it’s the place that’s the shortest flight to guaranteed sunshine, and my husband felt in need of warmth because of his rheumatoid arthritis. I must say we felt some trepidation – it’s not at all our usual type of holiday – but so far it’s a big success. We’re in a big resort hotel, with a lovely large room, with settee and table and chairs so we can be comfortable passing time in the room. There’s a big swimming pool just outside and I had a swim before breakfast, but it is cold (12 degrees according to the blackboard), so I really needed a hot shower when I came back. There are two heated pools, but they are too small for serious swimming.

The gardens are beautifully cared for, with hibiscus and bougainvillea in blossom, all the colours from white to deepest reds, purples and blues, and busy lizzies,  and some other flowers that I can’t identify. There are egrets pottering around the lawns, very bold, and sparrows, and we saw a kestrel (or something pretty much identical to one) sitting on the beach volleyball net. When we got back after breakfast the first day, our room was made up and the duvet was arranged into a heart shape, heavily decorated with fresh bougainvillea flowers. Surely they can’t think we’re a honeymoon couple? Or does everyone get the treatment?

The Hotel garden

Our chamberman is obviously well trained but a bit OCD, if you ask me. He’s always arranging tubes of shaving gel, toothpaste and such in strict size order, and brought a special napkin to arrange the leads of all our electronic gear. He always refolds my pyjamas (evidently I don’t do it neatly enough) and I wish he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t put it past him to tidy our drawers. They could do with it – I tend to work on the principal that if it’s in a drawer, then it’s been tidied, no matter what state the drawer is in.

The beach is great, lots of sunbeds and shade. There were some people with snorkels, so I took my goggles and blow me, there are loads of fish and corals! This is just off the beach, as you get out of your depth in the sea!  Actually you can see fish in water that’s only knee deep. I thought you’d have to get much further away from the busy beach. They aren’t a bit bothered by swimmers. The best was a ray, I suppose about 2 to 3 feet long, sand coloured, but with bright sky blue spots and bright blue stripes on its tail. There are some elegant bronze coloured fish with very fine  yellow/green stripes. Yellow seems to be a popular colour, and stripes are obviously in – horizontal, vertical and even on one fish, chevrons. It was silver white with fine black chevrons and a  brilliant yellow tail. There are spots as well. One fish is all leopard spots in brown/grey, very smart. I’ve even seen a pipefish, pale silver blue and about a foot long. (I know things look bigger underwater, so I am trying hard not to exaggerate.)

The coral isn’t quite as interesting as the fish, but there is quite a variety and it’s really colourful. There’s quite a lot of sulphur yellow, growing up like a fan, and there’s some nubbly purple stuff which reminds me of thyme in flower. There’s some just like boring stones, but with weird sort of lips that are bright blue. There’s red and orange, and I did manage to identify brain coral, not that that’s a great achievement.

There are loads of Russians here, escaping the winter, and the first thing that greeted us at the airport was an extremely drunken Russian, shouting at the top of his voice. The police had got him in a glassed off sort of room, but you could see all that was going on, which was a good arrangement. I have to say the police seemed to be being quite patient, because he was really annoying. The taxi driver we’d arranged to meet us said he’d been yelling like that for about an hour, and of course the flight he should have been on wouldn’t take him, so the Egyptian police were stuck with him.

Possibly a worse Russian offence is that of fat middle aged men with substantial beer bellies, hanging over budgie smuggler swimming trunks. Actually I don’t think any man, other than Olympic swimmers, can get away with that sort of swim wear. There’s an even more revolting version which involves a thong back.  In fact, there are some  truly hideous sights on the beach – I really never imagined that bikinis were obtainable in size 24.  And however slim you are, when you reach a certain age,  remember that your skin is not as it was, and cover up the soft,saggy, crepy bits. Please, have some dignity. Having said that, there are some lovely girls in bikinis and a few nice looking men.

There are lots of Italians here, too, which I didn’t expect, all cheerful and noisy. The one man I’ve seen who is really well dressed is –guess what? Italian. There were some dodgy British types on the plane, but they have disappeared. Why won’t British men grow up? Why do they think behaving like half witted  teenagers  into their thirties is appealing – or even acceptable? And why do they wear those short trousers, which are obviously meant to end mid shin, but because their wearers are fat and have had to buy a big size, end just above the ankles, at half mast? I could have a whole section on shockingly ugly tattoos, but I’ll spare you.

The days are quite short but the middle of the day is really hot. The evenings are comparatively chilly, but we’ve brought jumpers and I have tights and shoes as having cold feet makes me miserable. The first night we ate at an extremely good Lebanese restaurant – the fattoush had pomegranate seeds in it, which I thought was just to look pretty, but it really added to the flavour. So we went back and had the grilled meats. I couldn’t quite name the spice used in the chicken kofta, and it was gorgeous, so maybe we’ll go back again, in the interests of research.

There are lots of shops but they all sell the same stuff that you don’t want. So really, there’s nothing much to do. I expect it’s livelier in the season, whenever that is. Egyptians are very jokey, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but they obviously mean well.

We did try an Egyptian restaurant, but it wasn’t good, either for service or food. There was a large party of Egyptian women and children and they seemed to be complaining, so I don’t think it was just us. It’s a shame, as we’d like to sample good Egyptian food. It was quite entertaining, though, because the TV seemed to be showing a “Strictly Belly Dancing” competition, where the audience seemed to vote for the girl they liked best.  I would have voted for the girl in black – her breasts were amazing – they had a life of their own. Then it switched to MTV or similar with the sound off and Egyptian pop playing on a tape or something. That was quite confusing until we worked out 

that the pictures and sounds weren’t related. - I'm having a lot of trouble with  and apologise for the weird punctuation - it will keep working from right to left.the Arabic 

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.