Travel

Cooking In The Alps

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It is no secret among my friends and family that I do like to do a bit of cooking and so although I am ruthless about throwing away donated and dated cookery books, old and interesting ones do catch my attention.

So, fellow ordinary cooks – no special stuff here – you might want to read on and be entertained by David de Bethel (the cook book writer and illustrator) as he spends time in the Tyrol oscillating apparently between pestering Anna the cook at a rather posh schloss called ‘the Castle with the Little Red Tower’ and the Knapp’s ‘peasant house.’

Before we start, this was published in 1937 ( there are no mentions of what would have been the political ‘issues’ of the time but plenty of references to the mores of the time.) 

I have no idea who he was except to have a quick search and find he wrote other cookery books from his travels in France and perhaps he ended up involved in the New Zealand Players Theatre Trust with his wife Joan who was a potter.

But I haven’t confirmed he is the same man, so let’s just go with the cookery writer.

So here is why he went:

And it must be said, though he is not complimentary about all Austrian cooking, he is later equally willing to report the disdain of Anna for, as he described, the type of English cook who has ‘damned forever the character of the English on the Continent’ by their appalling cooking.

It is a characteristic of old cookery books that they just don’t have the detail you would expect from a Jamie, Nigella, Nigel….

If you bear with me, there will be another piece on a similar vein of ‘Ok if you regularly cook and potter in the kitchen over the years/tears and work out what works with what and how, then you can work this out but if you are not that person, you need a lot more advice on how that recipe is going to work.’

I think it must be that in those days, cooking was much more ‘if you had a cook, they knew how to do it, and if you didn’t, you knew how to do it.’

Prepared meals? What??

Now David, I have to say that stuffed cabbage leaves was one of my specialities in lockdown and my Austrian-born neighbour liked them.

But essentially the cabbage ( and I used Savoy as a much better alternative to white cabbage) was the easy bit – it was the filling and sauce which made the food interesting. 

So to have a recipe which is largely about cooking cabbage and only a brief mention of the stuffing, I have to say, sorry, is pretty rubbish.

Mince, rice and parsley could be good but only with a lot more thought and action.

(Happy to supply a better recipe, though I say it myself, if called on to do so.)

David, yes we are on first name terms now, interspersed his recipes with a (slightly florid and Disney-like, but rather charming and interesting diary about the seasons and weather and customs.)

If you are wondering about the recipe for bilberry fritters, essentially it is: make some fritters and add bilberries.

There are times when his recipes have more detail but I have to say a) I would never use the time I have left in life to make a strudel and b) if I should somehow change my mind on that one, I would not be relying on David to tell me how to do it – great read though and love the love letter thing AND CAPITAL LETTERS.

Fungi foraging is much more of a thing now but I remember my grandmother soaking button mushrooms to make sure they were safe to eat and anything other than those white things were never to be countenanced, so I understand David’s comments on this.

By the way, Sarah Gamp was a ‘dissolute, sloppy and generally drunk’ character in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit who always carried an umbrella, so an umbrella became called a Gamp. I am assuming that is what David is referring to.)

I am not sure that ‘most people’ hunt foxes but could tell you a tale of being at a pre-Vienna ball dinner (in my posh days) where talk was of the days they went hunting around the cemeteries of the city….. just saying.

So, thank you David.

I am not sure that I will be doing that many of your recipes (though being a potato fan, Sauerkraut with potato pancakes might feature one day) but it was a great read.

Assumptions

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I was sitting minding everyone else’s business in a hotel bar/eatery at Gatwick airport the other evening.

People watching is one way of describing it. I like to try and think what the story is behind people sitting there.

The Best Beloved and I were staying the night, before venturing to an unknown-to-us destination but more of that another time.

Anyway, I glanced over to the check-in desk and saw two women and two men.

The two men were clean cut, short haired and good looking in a kind of neutral way and likewise the women, though they had long hair pulled into glossy, and unsurprisingly, very tidy buns.

Mormon missionaries, I thought (instantly).

Going home to Utah having perhaps spent time in Crawley, Billingshurst, Croydon and for time off for good behaviour some of the villages of the Surrey Hills.

I speculated on their reports to the Elders’ committee.

How many times did they turn up on someone’s doorstep, say their spiel, get invited in for a cup of tea and hear, ‘ This is such a revelation, I had no idea. Where do I sign and when can I join?’

Meanwhile, a large group had been gathering in the seating areas around where we were sitting.

People joined in twos and threes and fours and all seemed to know at least a few other people.

At first I thought it would be a family gathering, but as more and more people arrived, that didn’t make sense.

There was no obvious common factor – older, younger, men, women, rather smart, not so bothered about that sartorial nonsense, tall, short, all white and middle class. 

Indeed one of the women who seemed to know everyone and as I watched morphed into the woman in charge, was dressed in an ill-fitting tracksuit.

Not that there is anything wrong with that but if you had asked me to pick out the leader it wouldn’t have been her. 

However, the trim looking young man – well, in his 40s which was young by the group’s standards – I would have earmarked into the role and indeed he was joint organiser.

Assumptions/prejudices all my own.

They were bussed out to the terminal to check in with their passports and luggage and then came back for a group meal which a few of them declined in favour of a beer and an early night.

Several women had been sitting next to us and one – in her late 60s and very elegantly casual had declared it is past six o’clock ‘ where we are going’ so lets order some wine.

So, who were they and where were they going?

In the end curiosity got the better of me and I gently tugged at her sleeve as they stood to go to check in and asked her.

It was an amalgamation of three golf club’s members going to Portugal for 10 days of sun and teeing off.

I was a bit disappointed.

I had already mentally tried on a group of witches and wizards based on one person’s green and pink hair and the off-beat religious theme which I had already got going in my head.

And I really liked the idea there wizards in slacks and colourful.

In a widely optimistic thought on behalf of the Best Beloved, I had hoped they might be the inaugural convocation/convention of peripheral neurology specialists from across the country who were looking for people about whom they could do an in-depth study and treat at the same time.

Retired stand-up comedians, the world-renowned group who between them decided on all the bizarre paint shade names we have these days – remember elephant breath?

Graham Greene super fans.

Or a jolly and interesting group of people who might end up in the same resort and hotel we were going to.

Anyway, golf in Portugal it was, and I hope they are having a very good time.

Once they had left, I was left with a group of Chinese looking young men sitting on stools around a table and eating a mix of pizza and dumplings.

They looked as if food was a fuel rather than a culinary delight and they were dressed in T shirts with random slogan and decorations. 

They were, I decided some kind of manual workers, eating and then going to get some rest before they had to start again on whatever they were doing.

I wondered what workers they were, and why Chinese – on the basis that you don’t see many manual Chinese workers in Britain.

But they, and we, had eaten and gone before I got much time to speculate.

Well, dear reader imagine my surprise when my Mormons turned out to be an long haul aircraft crew and likewise my Chinese workers appeared in uniforms with lots of gold braid (and I noticed on the departures board there was a flight to Shanghai).

It was a Gatwick airport……

Accidental Conversations 1

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There is something special about accidental conversations.

We are on holiday in Greece – so if that makes you curl your lip, please don’t read on as there will be mention of food, sea, sunshine, wine, relaxation and all those other privileged things – though mostly in the next installments.

So, one of the Sundays we were on holiday, the Greeks went to the polls again – it was a foregone conclusion that the New Democracy centre right party would win.

According to an accidental conversation with a taxi driver we learned what the canny Greeks do – and apparently there are a lot of canny Greeks

It appears they can choose to keep their voting rights in the area where they grew up.

So, you can legitimately say to your boss, you need one day to get there, one day to vote, take one or even two days off, and then you come back. Long weekend all round then.

Not sure that was what Joseph and Mary had in mind when they had to go to Nazareth to pay their taxes but I am pretty sure they didn’t go to make a long weekend of it.

Anyway, that leads me on to the next conversation.

Staying in Athens in the same hotel we stayed last year, I was set on re-visiting a small, rather dilapidated church which was apparently one of the first built when the Greeks shucked off the Ottoman ‘yoke’. 

Allegedly, the first ‘free’ cathedral in Athens. 

Of course, there is a much bigger, posher ‘proper’ cathedral built later.

(By the way a German aristocrat was made king and not by the Greeks, so not entirely free then…)

In St Demetrios’s the frescos are blackened by years of incense burning and swinging about the place, there are water damage marks, the icons are overlaid in (possibly) tin not silver. 

There are upstairs galleries where the women used to sit in the old days but apparently are not now needed on a usual Sunday as everyone sits together, and they only get a dusting off at Easter.

But still, it is a gem of a place

When we went in, an unmistakable Greek Orthodox priest was sitting at a desk by the door.

We have a look round and the Best Beloved sighs as I say, I am going to have a chat.

It turns out Father Nickolaus was a real font (excuse the pun) of information.

He told us that as part of the rejection of Ottoman/Turkish style, the artwork and icons were Western style – more realistic faces than the more abstract Eastern style. 

And as one of the first such churches in Athens, it was Western frescos all the way until there was a swing back to the abstract, which he preferred.

He said, no-one knew what these saints looked like so why pretend, just a beautiful artistic symbol was much better in relation to how you thought about saints.

There are now some Eastern icons.

So, in an Orthodox church there is a wood-carved and icon-covered wall with a door and the priest operates in the space beyond with his back to the congregation for much of the service.

Apparently the wall is relatively new innovation, by Orthodox standards, – a place to show off your icons and carvings.

There is an interesting theological difference of views about the priest having his ( well maybe her, but not in the Orthodox persuasion) back to or facing the congregation.

The Orthodox view is that having his back to the filled pews and facing the cross means he is with the congregation looking to God. 

He is part of the people, not God’s intermediary to the people.

At this point, I mentioned the Pope who is, so I gather, God’s intermediary on earth and infallible and so on.

Father Nickolaus was beautifully diplomatic –  smiled, and pointed out something else of interest in the church.

As a special treat, he opened the door in the carved wall and let us see inside where he performed his duties as the priest. (But to take a photo would have seemed rude, so I didn’t.)

And he told us that the bread and wine ritual is also part of the Orthodox communion but instead of wafers and a slurp, they have proper home-made bread brought in by local women and marked with a special square stamp.

It is cut up and into squares and I think, but maybe I misinterpreted or you dip it into the wine.

As if on cue, a local woman brought a loaf to the church so we could see it – but of course until it is blessed, it is not the body of christ.

Father Nickolaus told us, he had spent time with a friend who was an Orthodox priest in London, and St Albans.

It turns out that St Albans – a protestant cathedral is on a bit of an ecumenical mission.

It has services not only Orthodox, but German Lutheran ( who knew), Catholic ( well not that surprising) and the Free Church ( which is not that free if you are a gay, or a woman who needs an abortion, or a divorce.)

But anyway, good on St Albans.

(I looked up St Demetrius and it turns out he was run through with spears in 306 CE as part of the emperor Galerius’ persecution of christians.

Presumably, he got martyr status pretty rapidly as a result of that, but he made it into sainthood by, though dead, intervening against Barbarian barbarities in his city of Thessaloniki.

Now, Demetruis was the son of a senatorial family and in his time was proconsul of the district, so it was surprising to learn he was patron saint of agriculture, peasants and shepherds.

But on closer inspection of Wikipedia, it turns out that he was doing that familiar christian thing of adopting ‘pagan’ practices.

Apparently Demeter, the greek goddess and handily with a similar name, had a local cult going on.

She was the Olympian goddess of the harvest, the earth’s fertility, crops, etc.

As her cult died out, St Demetrius stepped into the breach and took over her responsibilities.

(All sorted then.)

Needless to say, Father Nickolaus’s English was great and I could have spent much longer listening to him.

But he kept getting mobile phone calls and so we left him to his (in his own words) small flock, but not as small as they are in England.

I think he had a pretty good idea that we were not practising christians of any sort, but  he liked to talk to people who asked questions, and maybe he was a bit bored of re-arranging the candles.

As I left, he said, I will give you an icon of St Demetrius, and I thought wow! But actually I got a card with an icon image of said saint.

Still it will be a nice reminder. 

Eating Out

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Whist we could not make it to Northern Majorca this month ( again – and yes I know this is a rich person’s whinge), we have made it lovely West Wales.

Well, it is lovely but it is also cold with a very brisk northerly ‘breeze’ as the weatherman called it, and not much in the way of sun.

Still and all, it is somewhere other than home, and it came with a promise.

I had promised myself and the Best Beloved had also promised, that we would eat out – no cooking for me and the chance to have our first meals out since before Christmas.

So, not being a great researcher, I had pottered around on the internet looking for good places to eat on the locality, and thought I would leave the fine tuning of my potential choices until we got to our rented cottage and read the inevitable visitors’ book – that which always tells you where to go and where to avoid.

Ah well, the visitors book was scrapped as a Covid measure.

And the wifi connection in this part of very rural West Wales is pretty rubbish. After half an hour of one/off connection, I discovered that St Davids is not a place of culinary excellence. 

There are a couple of highlights but the BB balked at the innovative Grub Kitchen where you eat the insects bred by the chef’s wife in her ‘grub’ farm – he was not further enamoured by the news you can also visit it and see what you are about to eat before it is mashed, fried, griddled etc. 

I would have gone for it as I remember fondly the salty crunchiness of deep fried crickets in Thailand many moons ago.

He said he would go with me but be very, very careful about what he chose off the menu. And would probably stick to a beer.

The one posh place in St David’s doesn’t allow dogs and the cottage owners don’t allow you to leave them alone in the place, so that was out.

Anyway, I had found Mrs Will The Fish which is apparently an unassuming bungalow in Solva where you can pre-order and collect a platter of locally caught fish and shellfish, so that is hopefully happening tomorrow.

But today we decided to have a late lunch in one of the local pubs which I gathered after half an hour of waiting for reviews to come up on my weary, wifi-deprived laptop, did good food and was popular.

We booked for 2pm, went in and were seated and they were happy to have the dog along, so all looked good.

I went for the mussels – but the mussels were off.

Then what I really wanted was one of those orders that Americans do.

‘Please can I have a small size greek salad, not a main size, alongside a starter possibly the duck or maybe the potted pork what do you recommend? Both at the same time you understand, and a small side order of chips?’

The BB said he was having a burger. I watched the service and the harassed and no doubt short-staffed comings and goings and decided I too would have a burger but without the bread.

Not too complicated/American a request but it threw the waitress – her revenge would come later.

Meanwhile and I have to say, it had been a long meanwhile so far, a couple sat down next to us.

They had walked 6 miles of the Coastal Path and were looking forward to a justified late lunch.

‘Food service has been suspended,’ they were told by the waitress.

‘Until when?’ they asked.

‘What time is it?’

‘2.30’

‘Oh, then we have stopped serving.’

They had to settle for crisps and peanuts and by that time, I was beginning to envy them. 

They finished their snacks, and a couple of lagers and set out to find a bus back before our waitress appeared again.

‘Sorry she said, you burgers got dropped so there will be a delay so they can cook them again.’

Yes it was the same waitress who was less than impressed by the idea of a burger without bread, ‘You mean all the stuff but not in a burger. No bun??’

I was, at that point very glad, I had not asked for anything more complicated.

Any by ‘got dropped’ she later admitted she had dropped them……

They were good homemade burgers, and indeed grit free, and the chips were excellent – mine arrived in a bun as it is clearly beyond comprehension that a burger doesn’t belong in a bun. And I get that up to a point – a scotch egg without the egg… but anyway.

And though the more than generous helpings it meant there was no need for supper, I was somewhat at a loss about what to do come early evening and got rather nostalgic about the night before when I had rustled up crushed Pembrokeshire new potatoes with mint butter, asparagus and some thick cut local ham with background Radio 4.

This eating out business might be a bit over-rated.

So, I think I am planning to save my BB’s promise tokens for eating out – much like the old green shield stamps – until I can book a place which will serve food I really enjoy and could/would never cook at home.

And, tomorrow there is Mrs Will The Fish eaten at ‘home.’ Fish fingers crossed.

Lottery Winnings

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Within almost spitting distance of our hotel room, there were two conflicting ways in which to get rid of quite a lot of my lottery winnings.

It was the end of the season so the very big yacht/boat/whatever/, was all alone against the jetty and watchable from our hotel bedroom window.

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Indeed so close were we that – if we had only had the right passwords – we could have logged onto to crew, captain’s, owner’s or guests’ wifi.

It is called Apogee which I thought, perhaps a little optimistically, meant that its owner had a sense of humour.

It turns out that its owner wants rid – perhaps, I thought, indeed it had been the apogee, and then things had gone downhill for him.

(The price has been reduced by $500,000 and it is now going for $24,950,000.

Or you can charter it for $275,000 per week.)

But no, a little research shows that the owner is someone called Darwin Deason ( yes he is American) worth some $1.45 billion dollars so he can probably live with the current disappointment of no sale.

I looked up what we might get for that amount of winnings and the specs were indeed impressive – if, I have to say, tasteless.

The main salon is panelled in mahogany and has white carpet and brown furniture.

Well, white carpet is so James Bond circa 1970s and completely impractical ( for the cleaning crew.)

And if I was out and about in Med on a boat like that, in the sunshine, why on earth would I want mahogany and brown furniture – I could get that in Furniture Land in Croydon.Image result for yacht apogee images

Mind you, the spec says, guests can converse there in comfort whilst waiting for their dinner to be served at the 10-seater dinning table – indoor one or outdoor one, so that is all right.

Image result for yacht apogee images

Image result for yacht apogee images

The master suite has his and hers bathrooms, a walk-in wardrobe, and office and a sitting room.

And of course there are guest rooms though one of them has a double sofa bed which hardly strikes the same note of luxury – I had one of those in my first student flat.

There is a gym, jacuzzi and two bars – one each side so you can shuttle across to see a different view, or oscillate between sun and shade.

There is an indoor pool and an area at the bow ‘to store motorised toys’.

Now I didn’t think they’d be posh rubber rings and indeed they aren’t…..

‘Two Nouvurania tender dingys with a 300 hp & 230 hp engine respectively, four 3 person Kawasaki water bikes, various scuba diving equipment, water-skis, fishing gear, underwater aft lights, two see through bottomed Explorer kayaks.’

All this is courtesy of a 2013  -refit which is something my other choice to spend my lottery millions, did not have.

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This was the home of an artist.

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It turns out – there has been time to do quite a lot of research given that we have been somewhat rain-confined to our holiday rental – Angelos Giallinas 1867-1939 was one of the last of the Heptanese School of Art.

That got you sitting up straighter didn’t it?

So, to quail your beating heart, here is the information you need and I am sure you will feel better for it:

‘The School of the Seven Islands, (Hepatense) also known as the Ionian Islands’ School succeeded the Cretan School as the leading school of Greek post-Byzantine painting after Crete fell to the Ottomans in 1669. Like the Cretan school it combined Byzantine traditions with an increasing Western European artistic influence, and also saw the first significant depiction of secular subjects. The school was based in the Ionian Islands, which were not part of Ottoman Greece, from the middle of the 17th century until the middle of the 19th century.’

So, Giallinas had painted murals at Sisi’s palace in Achelleion – where we were just today but I hadn’t known that when I visited – how exciting…..

(I am leaving it to you to do the research on Sisi and her palace and rather tragic history.)

I read that Giallinas, after studying in various places, decided to specialise in watercolours and had his first solo exhibition in Athens in 1886 where he met the British ambassador Clare Ford.

Then I got a bit carried away.

I was going to make sure this lovely, neglected building was restored and what is more, not just made beautiful (with no white carpets and places to stow your ‘water toys’) but into a (tasteful) place where he and the female – because what a shock, we had a female, yes female, ambassador in the 19th century – were celebrated.

I had salons planned, rooms, other rooms, gallery spaces – and though I am not a fan of 19th century watercolours  I was willing to be liberal and show them off – and did I mention rooms? – a very nice set of rooms for friends and family.

(Not mahogany and brown upholstery but something much more light and airy and suitable and yes, in better taste.)

And what is more, I planned a celebration of this unknown female ambassador. 

I would track down her history, her letters, her relationship with Giallanas……

Then, I did some more research and found that Clare Ford had commissioned our artist to paint landscapes in Venice, Rhodes, Istanbul and had arranged an exhibition in London and introduced him to London society.

Well done that woman, I thought.

Clare Ford, it turns out, was Sir Francis Clare Ford.

My Best Beloved and I spent the evening thinking of colour schemes, but I am not sure the millions are yet decided.

The View From Corfu

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There is a depressing element of Groundhog Day about us going on holiday – it rains, or there is civil unrest.

(Though I have to say that since we booked ill-fated visas for Syria in 2011 and then were told by the Foreign Office that we would be on our own if we went – we didn’t –  our jinx has been confined to rain.)

So, here is this holiday’s tale so far.

(Now you have had the spoiler alert, you needn’t read on to find out what happens if you have better things to do – and I have to say, that as I write this, there is a brief glimpse of sun over the sea, so this is after all, a privileged person’s complaint.)

For those of you still with me, here is the timeline:

Packing:

Despite the weather forecasts, I think positively and pack summer stuff – after all the forecasts say it is going to be sometimes sunny. ( I am still in the warmer travel clothes I arrived in.)

My best beloved, optimistically, packed snorkels. 

The airport:

I am a nervous flyer and anyway like to be in good time, so we are there early – despite a Monday morning rush hour drive involving the M25 and a blinding sun in my eyes.

The BB settles down for a paper, a cappuccino and almond croissant whilst I wander about getting things I don’t really need, and forgetting the one thing we do really need – a guide book to Corfu.

Since I met him, our holidays have involved, thinking where might be nice, booking it with no further research, and buying a Rough Guide for me to read on the plane so that we know what to do.

Mmmm no guide book……

The Gatwick electronic boards show that our flight is ‘Go to the Gate’ but no gate is shown. I pace about nervously, whilst the BB says, there is plenty of time.

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Eventually, it shows ‘Boarding’ but still no gate and at this point, my ever laid back and patient BB decides we ought to find out what is going on.

We find an airport information desk and they tell us the gate.

We join a few other enterprising souls who have found the mystery gate and are told to sit and wait, and wait and wait.

The flight:

It is with a small Polish carrier and there are all of 20 of us on the flight.

Nice, I thought, not least as we were at the front with extra leg room and there were a million places to put your overhead luggage.

We had, as the Polish captain said the ‘usual Gatwick’ wait of 30 minutes before we could get a slot to fly, and then we were off.

One of the nice young cabin crew men came to take our order for food and drink. He wrote it down and took it away – there were about 8 of us at the front of the plane.

He smiled, and told us it would be about 10 to 15 minutes for the food.

It was the worst cheese and tomato toastie in flight memory – cold and with only one slice actually toasted – after 15 minutes, really? 

The women cabin crew came to the front after their (arduous) food service of the other say 10 people at the back – and one of them sat texting.

Now, I know that the rules about mobile phones being switched off is silly – but really! In front of the passengers?

The drive:

A nice holiday rep at the airport said our drive would take her about 20 minutes so we, not knowing the road, should think about 30 minutes.

And, she said, the weather forecast was looking up.

Nice she may have been, but truthful she certainly wasn’t.

This is not the first holiday we have had this year, and it is also not the first holiday we have had where a lot of uphill and downhill sharp s-bends and sheer drops, a newly-hired car, and me ( a relatively cautious driver)  have been involved.

Thank god it was not the height of the season so there was, as we were told, no one on the roads – well not quite actually, … I’d say it took us about an hour.

( We had been warned by the hire car woman that the turn into the public car park was a killer for scraping the underside of the car – and that was not covered by the rental agreement – so I was told to take it wide to the left. But not so far to the left that I scraped the passenger side on the bushes – because that was not covered either….)

We are thinking of taking the bus tomorrow.

When we arrived, we went down to one of the many tavernas overlooking the beach – all very nice and the sun setting. 

We ordered wine and what turned out to be very nice fish, and watched the sun.

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Then there was the creeping black of cloud on the horizon.

Then it got bigger and became what you would call, a bit dramatic.

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Is that a bad sign I asked the waiter.

He was evasive – it seems to be a trait here to not tell the tourists bad news – but eventually he agreed, indeed it was a bad sign.

We watched the sun go down behind black cloud and wondered what you do in a small-ish Greek resort in the final week of the season when it rains….

So, the place we are staying is nice but rather basic – though as I sit here there is a view of the sea. 

(Admittedly it is a bit full of white caps and the rain tends to take the edge of it but hey ho the BB went swimming this morning.)

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I decided to cook lunch – we are after all self-catering – and got some tomatoes, peppers etc and then found the kitchen has no wooden spoon, no decent sized frying pan, no tin opener and no scissors……

We decided against eating outside.

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Things you see on a bus trip

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We recently went to Krakow and that meant – at least for us – we had to go to Auschwitz.

At this point, I am going to tell you that I am not going to write about what I saw and felt there, because I cannot ever match you watching a newsreel from the time, hearing real life accounts, reading a Primo Levi book ……going yourself.

So I am just going to tell you about the bus trip to Auschwitz.

We didn’t do one of the many organised tours and decided to get there and back under our own steam as it were.

We had been advised (via the internet) to get there early to avoid the arrival of massed crowds of people on coaches.

So, we went to the bus station by 7am and got a seat on a minibus – de-regulation of buses has really got going in Poland.

The ‘bus’ took just over an hour to get there and looking out of the windows I noticed, particularly, a couple of things – the houses, and the number of learner drivers.

The houses were larger and more had more space than ever would be the case in Britain unless you were looking at the richer part of an area – and maybe we were.

(Given that we were heading to Auschwitz, I rather hope that the outskirts have not become a des-res area…)

They were mainly detached and large – I mean I looked at them and thought ‘five bedrooms, maybe six even..’

And the Poles ( at least in this area) are not gardeners.

Their gardens were grass (at best) with a boundary demarcated by – and brace yourselves – all too often by leylandii.

Occasionally you would get a bit of topiary…. but where were the kitchen gardens, the fruit, the veg, the stuff that would feed the (I am guessing, given the size of the houses) three generations of the family?

In other (yes, I admit) Mediterranean countries, you could not go anywhere without seeing stuff even in February poking their veggie shoots through the soil – but not in this part of Poland.

And I have no proof, but I am guessing that these gardens did not have flowers in spring and summer – there certainly didn’t have evident flower beds.

Now perhaps if I went back in the summer, there would be an abundance of produce but I have to say I doubt it – no evidence of raised beds, tilled soil, in fact any interest in the outside at all.

The first learner driver I noticed, with mild interest, had an L plate up on the top of the car – signalling for all to see that here was someone who needed to be treated with road care.

And then there was another one, and then another, and by the time we had gone there and back, I had counted more than a dozen learners out and about on the roads between Krakow and Auschwitz.

Is this a learner driver specialist area? Are there a lot more learner drivers in this part of Poland than anywhere else? Is this a particularly good place to learn to drive?

Why don’t the Poles interest themselves in vegetables and flowers in their gardens?

Who knows?

Despite the fact that our driver had spent 13 years living in Bath, I didn’t get the chance to interrogate him – in his very good English – as to why there was a surprising preponderance of learner drivers and no vegetable and flower gardening.

When we got to Auschwitz we were indeed just ahead of the coach arrivals, and had the place more or less to ourselves, but as we were leaving, they were arriving.

As we headed to the bus stop go back, we saw coach arrival after arrival.

One group were Israeli schoolchildren, and all their coats had bright green stickers on them.

Of course it was to make sure they din’t get lost or mixed up with another group but the irony of ‘labelling’ Jews with identifying stickers on their way into Auschwitz stuck with me.

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A Few Mysteries

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We have had a few mysteries in the bookshop recently.

At this time of year, we often get unwanted Christmas presents and that can only be the explanation for two copies of the same – rather unusual cookbook – in separate donations on the same day.

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(Perhaps there are a few hungry dogs in deepest Sussex as we speak – and no, though Jessie, our’s –  and Mungo, not our’s but here now and then – would have been very pleased to see me walk through the door with it, I have not brought one home.)

 

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Whilst we are on animal books – who would have guessed there would be such a book as this:

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Then, we had quite a few boxes of sci-fi books – a rarity in our neck of the woods.

Now, at the risk of heaping down on my head accusations of arrant sexism and stuff, I would have expected them to have been donated by a man.

But no, they were donated by a woman of a certain age who brought them in over several days with the help of a sack truck – all carefully boxed and labelled.

As it happened, the day after we got them all Ursula Le Guin died – one of the few famous women sci-fi writers.

Now, I feel I should read more sci-fi – well, any, actually – but I really know nothing much about it.

Yes I did know who Ursula Le Guin was and that she had written Earthsea, and Iain M Rankin, Neil Gaiman and his collaboration with Terry Pratchett who I have read  a lot, and I was looking for a good copy of War of Worlds……so I am not altogether ignorant but pretty much so.. )

By coincidence, a fellow volunteer who happened to be in at that time, said he was a bit of a sci-fi fan – a surprise to me  – and would sort out the wheat from the chaff as it were.

So, all those coincidences added up to a table display.

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Then this, – donated separately but had to be displayed together. I hesitate to say Pauline was being indiscreet – but who knows?

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Meanwhile, our antiquarian book expert told me a while ago that old crime novels could be quite valuable so when some came in, I though I would look them up and we could do a table on crime – not least because we have a boxful of those old green penguins which are mostly crime too.

Who would have thought that someone called Clive Witting was so much in demand – the covers though are a delight and someone will want them just for the look of them.

( No, I haven’t read them…nor did I remember to photograph them so just let your imagine run riot and meanwhile appreciate this, and yes I do know that it is of its era:)

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Then there was the Nabakov donation.

Everything he had ever written as far as I could tell, along with a few biographies of the great man.

But not a copy of Lolita – the most famous book he ever wrote and indeed the only one that most people have heard of.

So, now we have two boxes of Nabakov waiting for a copy of Lolilta to appear – something like this first edition – preferably signed…..

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This little booklet is no mystery – except why anyone would give it away – what a little delight.

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And this, another lovely little book, has all its fold out maps intact – again, why would you give that away?

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Of course, we are grateful to everyone who does given them away to us, allow us to ‘re-home’ them, and raise money for such good causes.

Mind you, I am not sure who needs this book in their life – any aspiring civil servants out there?

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Clocks in Barcelona

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Recently I was working with some PhDs near Barcelona. As you are not necessarily in my immediate social circle that might have been the first time you heard me say that.

But, if you know me on a person-to-person basis – at all – you will have heard me say that quite a lot recently.

And, you will have heard me mention that I was ‘running an interactive case study on the ethics of stem cell research, which, well yes, I wrote…’

Anyway, enough of that, I am not here to show off.

(Though if you want to know more about how good the case study is and how lovely the hotel in the mountains above the city was, or how charming and fun the 40 PhDs were, then do get in touch.)

The trip involved quite a lot of waiting around in Barcelona airport for one reason or another, and unlike the stuff above, I won’t bore you with the details.

Anyway, there is no clock in Barcelona airport.

Now an airport is somewhere where time matters, so you might think even in this day and age of watches and phones, you might have a clock that people could glance up at and be sure they hadn’t missed the time to go to the gate or missed their family’s flight arrival.

There is a fake clock in the cafe, where I spent some time waiting for a friend/colleague to arrive but, it being fake, is stuck on 9.40 – and attractive though it is, that doesn’t really cut it as a clock.

I can understand the toilets being far, far down the other end of the terminal. I can even understand that the mezzanine floor is still under construction and may have been/will be for some time.

I can even, just, understand that whilst one terminal has lots of shops and thus ways to kill time if you arrive very early for your flight, the terminal I was in has Desigual and bugger all else.

( We would not have arrived so early if the taxi driver had not decided that the half hour trip from the hotel should be done in record time of 15 minutes with near death experiences thrown in for good measure.)

But no clock?

So, I got to thinking about clocks. I had a lot of time to kill, one way or another.

Meeting under the clock at Waterloo station is one of those cliches now over-ridden with more practical solutions like meeting at a cafe on the mezzanine floor ( Barcelona airport authority please note, with no clock you should get your mezzanine floor sorted.)

And the grandfather clock belonging to our previous next door neighbours which chimed, quietly, through the walls during the night.

I have tried to get us a chiming clock for our mantlepiece, and bought two ( not the same as a grandfather clock, but nice all the same) but we can never make them work.

So, our siting room has two clocks which don’t work – though I am sure anyone with an ounce of clock experience could get them going in a minute.

But, glancing at my watch, it is now time to go and cook supper – and there are two clocks in the kitchen which work – one has bird song on the hour and an image of the bird which is singing but (please at this point see previous blog about not being a detail kind of a person) the images and song don’t quite match – we have an owl’s hoot at midday….

And for those of us of a like mind, there is the daily time keeping, just after 7pm, The Archers, after which supper will be served.

 

 

No Trace Remains

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Some years ago my best friend and I walked sections of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path and very lovely it was.

She was map-reader in chief and my role was to enliven our walk with snippets from a guide book.

‘As you rise steeply from the beach you will be passing the site of XX Castle – of which no trace remains,’

Now, there were a lot of similar sentences in that book and whilst I am prepared to believe that there were a lot of castles on the coast of Wales, for so many to have left so few traces is rather suspicious.

It is not as if the stone has been used for local dwellings which is often the case with under-used castles, because the local dwellings are usually pebble-dashed bungalows and I for one, am not convinced they have a strong layer of castle stone underneath all those pebbles.

Anyway, I was reminded of this ‘no trace remains’ phrase when we were recently in Stratford-Upon Avon, home of the bard.

Of course there are loads of references to Shakespeare – every second shop is Shakespeare’s bakery or bookshop or something- but not much of a real trace remains.

Yes I know,there is the house where he was born with several engaging guides dressed in appropriate costumes who can point to gloves like those which Shakespeare senior might have made in this workshop and painted wall-hangings like those his mum might have brought as part of her dowry.

And there is a child’s sized bed which pulls out from under the adults’ and its base is a criss-cross of rope with a device to pull the strings taught – from which comes the phrase ‘sleep tight.’ Which is interesting but no one has the faintest idea if Shakespeare slept on something similar.

And then there is the place where the house he once owned stood – now it is a garden, unimpressive very small museum, and of course, expensive gift shop.

But all in all, not much of a trace remains.

Which, of course, is not putting off the millions of tourists which go there to see the merest sniff of a trace magnified into various ‘attractions.’

We stayed in the White Swan which was all very nice and old and cosy etc etc. (As far as I am aware it has no real connection whatsoever with Shakespeare.)

Above the mantlepiece there was a quote written in suitably Olde Englishe script and it said, ‘I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety. Henry Vactz. ‘

‘ Well,’ I said to my best beloved, ‘ At least half of that  quote worked. I have never heard of him. Looks like he might have been Czech though.’

‘What?’ he said, ‘ That’s Henry V Act 3.’