Plus ca change!

Oh to be abroad. Now that December's here. First, there the little business of going on a cruise. No flying, just drive ourselves down to Southampton, embark on this nice Norwegian ship and then steer towards Nantes, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Bilbao, Coruna and Aviles.

You must be mad, said our friends. The Bay of Biscay in Winter! So what, we thought. We are good sailors. So it might be a little rough. so what? We were not prepared though for these lily-livered Norsemen who, through the mouth of our beautiful and immaculate Captain, announced, no sooner than we had arrived at our first port of call, we would turn tail after the second and head northwards.

A horrible storm coming from the South and he backed it all up with scary weather pictures of evil looking balls of green and violet heading our way. It would be too uncomfortable for us all, 20 meter waves, unable to get into or out of some of the ports, etc.etc we got the message.

So where did we go? Antwerp and Amsterdam! Full of all the old familiar places. like Starbucks, Macdonalds, Etam and Body Shop. Actually, it was nice and a trip around the Canals was  great. But not what we had planned.

Ten days later, Christmas sorted. 27 people fed and watered on the 25th, we are back in France. A quick sortie into Etaples and the curiously named Simply supermarket, heaving with Pâté de Fois Gras for tomorrow night's celebration and we head back to our hamlet. But what's this? The road is white with Euro sized hailstones. There is slush everywhere and overflowing ditches are disgorging their surplus on to the road.

As for our planned celebration with friends twenty miles away, who can tell....

Panic

Panic, indecision, delaying tactics. You name it, I've got it!  We are off on a cruise from Southampton to Nantes and then South to La Rochelles, Bordeaux, Bilbao, Avila and Corunna. Far from saying 'how wonderful' those who are told about the trip, exclaim in horror: "The Bay of Biscay. In December. Wow!"

To tell you the truth, we had not thought about that aspect but, having done so, it doesn't worry me.  I have eaten in big liner dining rooms, where just about every other passenger was below decks, suffering.

But  I have to pack. But there's the indecision. Where shall I start? Should I take the red? or the blue? or both or neither? The camera? or forget about it? We have hundreds of photos and we never look at them any more.  Or should I play one more game of patience on my computer? I have only played about a dozen  in the last couple of hours and it has not come out once yet. Maybe another attempt would do it.

Address book or not bother? Be home in ten days after all and Christmas mail takes for ever anyway.
Oh dear, perhaps I should finish that crossword puzzle first

You see them here, you see them there...

There it is in this morning's paper: a huge half-page ad for Norbert Dentressangle. You may well ask - who? I also used to wonder who they were as we drove to the Channel port on our way to and from France and saw these huge red lorries with Norbert Dentressangle painted on the wide.

To start with, what an extraordinary name! You couldn't make it up if you tried. And I was obviously not the only person mesmerised by that name because, some years ago, a poem
appeared in the press, all about the fantasies the author had about these trucks and their name.

And then, one day, we found ourselves in conversation with a solitary diner in a little brasserie in our corner of France. It turned out that he worked for our mysterious Norbert. At last I would have an answer to my question of what they did and why there were so many of them crowding our roads.Well, they transported goods from business to business. From France to England, from England to France. Logistics it's called,  I believe.

I expressed amazement to our co-diner and  I have never forgotten his rejoinder. " Madame, did you think the goods arrived in England by parachute?"

Now here they are in this ad, proclaiming "We are Norbert Dentressangle and we will move your business in 2013".

It bothers me

I am quite bothered by the number of immigrants in this country and the constant flow of yet more. It is not very politically correct to say so but it is a fact.

However, I am also concerned by the increasing number of jokey - and not so jokey - emails which appear in my inbox, taking a dig at Muslims. There is no doubt about it, some are quite funny, like the one which says that women are now allowed to drive in Iran and is followed by a photo of a car, shrouded with a pale blue cover with just a heavy mesh over the windscreen.

Or the one which shows a dinghy carrying two heavily veiled ladies, who are being hailed by a naval vessel with the words "Where are the rest of you?" And their answer "We are the last two."

Yes, very funny I thought but isn't this the thin end of the wedge? Should I be laughing or  isn't this a form of racism too?

As it happens, we went to a Muslim wedding in Manchester last weekend. It was the bridegroom's parents' invitation, so there were only 430 guests! For the henna party there were 500 and for the religious ceremony, 1000.  We participated in the civil wedding and reception in a hotel, with the happy pair sitting on a white sofa on a dais. And the clothes and jewels have to be seen to be believed. Absolutely wonderful!  The West cannot compete in sumptuousness.

And, of course, no alcohol. Just juice.

Genius

What is it that makes some people stand out from the crowd? Why are some people so much cleverer, so much more original and so remarkable in their achievements? No doubt, your genes and your education, your upbringing and your environment, have something to do with it.

If your father and your mother were both doctors, there is a reasonable chance that, if you follow in their footsteps, you will become a very good doctor.  If everyone in your family writes books, you may well feel that it's the done thing to follow suit and you might be brilliant.

But there are a few people who manage to rise to extraordinary levels of accomplishment and who defy categorisation.  Take Leonardo da Vinci. Everyone is agreed, he was outstanding.  Well, there is another Leonardo on the scene and, in case you have not heard of him, his name is Thomas Heatherwick and he is a designer.

He is the designer of the Olympic Cauldron, that magical  circle of torches, which we saw at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. He is the designer of the new Routemaster bus. He has created roll-up bridges, amazing buildings, stunning handbags and much, much more.

He is all of 42 and, for the rest of this month, you can go to an exhibition of his designs at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

I don't get paid for writing about him but he is just amazing.

August French style

Here we are in our Pas de Calais corner of France and the army is marching. Not a khaki-clad one but yellow, sometimes covered in dark blue, white or grey plastic overcoats.

I am talking corn and hay bales. Look in any direction, and the fields around us have regiments of Swiss roll look alikes laid out in rows.  The  normally silent nights have been broken by the  steady hum of combine harvesters, bright headlights ablaze, wending their way up and down the wheat, all through the night, or so it would seem.

Having just acquired a marvellous book of 150 years of photo journalism at a braderie - boot sale -it is interesting to see harvest times of the past, with the whole family, armed with pitch forks, high sided hay wagons hitched to horses, picnics waiting and a good, if itchy, time had by all.

Ça change!

This also the month when there are festivals in every otherwise sleepy town and village. So it was that we saw a one man show about the history of the theatre which included a passable version of To Be or Not to Be, both in English and in French! Très curieux!

Holidays

Is there such a thing as a holiday, once you don't work? Where's that sense of excitement that used to produce butterflies in my tummy the night before the departure? The waking up every hour for fear that one would oversleep?

It's sad really, that that feeling of something special has evaporated, together with anticipation of birthdays and all the other big events. They have all become small events, not so different from every other day.

Oh well, perhaps its time to pack up and leave for France. Time to refresh jaded thoughts, embrace the new, do something different. Come back refreshed, possibly rejuvenated and maybe looking forward to something special!

Old Wives Tales

Medical progress is all very well but I have a feeling that our doctors are going back  to the middle ages or some past century anyway.

I recently read in a respected medical newspaper column that, as we are all expected to know, eating exactly nine golden raisins, which have been steeped in gin for a fortnight, every day is a  cure for arthritis. Oh? And of course, wrapping a cabbage leaf over your arthritic knee overnight, works wonders too.

We all grow up being taught to rub a nettle sting with dock leaves. They grow near nettles so that's an easy one but did you know that if you put a potato in your bed, you won't get cramp?  Who told me? An eminent doctor. Any potato will do - raw but perhaps washed if you want your sheets to remain clean. It is also a good idea to check under the bed occasionally, particularly if you have cleaning help or you might be embarrassed at having to explain away an old potato which has been kicked out of bed and which is quietly sprouting!

And then there are warts. I had one on my rhumb as a child and all medical and surgical intervention was to no avail It always grew back. And then our old Essex gardener said he would buy it off me for one penny.  Aged nine or t'en, I laughed out loud art such crazy ideas. But the wart disappeared. My adult son had the same problem.  I followed the same financial transaction. The wart disappeared!

If that is not enough to convince one that the past is now the present, how about the fact that leeches are back in fashion. A surgeon told me.

One step nearer to God?

I have rubbed shoulders with a few notables. I have found myself within arms' length of the Queen. I have even sat three rows behind Princess Diana at the theatre. But last night was something new.

We went to a charming and quite intimate evening of poetry. The event  took place at the National Portrait Gallery, in a pretty auditorium. The poetry had been chosen by the daughter of a painter who died recently who, it appeared, had loved poetry. The poems chosen included his favourites and each was read out - beautifully - by a well-known poet.

The choice included Byron, Coleridge, Cafavy, Edward Lear and Auden, among others, and then there was one by the 17th Earl of Rochester called The face of Sodom - Actus Secundus.

There was a problem because the Archbishop of Canterbury, for it was he, was sitting in front of us. The reader hesitated, alluded to the august presence in the audience but continued. It is a  very funny poem, about as explicit as it gets but I don't think the Archbishop turned a hair. As for me, well I could drop his name in the odd place, couldn't I?

Utopia

Italy is  always a great destination for a minor or major break. Padua excelled itself. First of all, wall to wall smiles and friendliness from one and all including the young man who passed us as we were ambling along the street, calling out "Have a good holiday!". 


Then there was the hotel, filled from top to bottom with the owner's paintings and collages. No nimby pimby chocolate box pictures but in your eye, exuberant and over the top manifestations of her joie de vivre. Not just pictures but the furniture, lampshades, fire doors and bed heads were all covered with Rossella's art. Our bedhead included a teddy bear and a swathe of sparkly netting, dipped in dark orange paint and stuck on to a wooden panel.  
As for the bed itself, it was so vast that had we decided to play hide and seek, it might have taken us some time to find each other.


A fantastic public transport system with sleek state of the art trams and also buses, appear within a couple of minutes, even though you can walk from one end of the Old Town to the other in about half an hour. And, as for the streets, there is not a yellow line in sight. Cars park anywhere and nobody even seems to lock them.  Best of all, it was hot - while London enjoyed the advent of a second Winter, this time in May!


Padua? Most of us know that it is mentioned by Shakespeare and not much more but, as the Michelin Guide would say, it's worth a detour.

A new mode of travel

Three of us travelled by train to Yeovil and back on Saturday and  I had not been on a train for years. Wow! What a far cry from my school journeys by LNER from Great Dunmow to Bishops's Stortford. Throw your bike into the bicycle shed at the station, be greeted by name by the guard, sit in a red plush compartment with its own door on to the platform, surrounded by homburg or bowler hatted men changing on to the London train.
Waterloo, for a start, is light, bright and clean. The train is sleek and apart from having to bend like an S in order to gets one's legs under the table, it is clean and comfortable. A trolley comes at regular intervals, to woo us with coffee and KitKats, an overhead display tells us the time and next stop. It's all astonishing in its elegance and efficient performance.
Our young neighbour across the aisle, spends the hours working on his laptop, slide rule and other electronic gadgets, three or four others in the carriage are on their computers.
Stiff British reserve has disappeared in general. Here, our workaholic fellow traveller breaks in an out of our overheard conversation with comments. He is going to a christening. We are going to a memorial service.
On the return journey, there is an anachronism. Yeovil station has a cafe on the platform which is a throwback to Brief Encounter: steamed up windows, dirty cups on the table, a massive pourer-out of tea. Thank goodness there is still something familiar!

Conformity or not?

I really don't like to stand out in a crowd. I have never wanted to be a trendsetter and yet, I hate to be predictable. I don't particularly like to conform to whatever might be expected of me. But I have to admit that it gives me not only pleasure but enormous fun to find people looking at me and then doing a double take.
Why? Because I have pictures painted on my nails. Nail varnish anyone can do. Even different colours on each nail. But I sport ten finger each one of which is different. All because my clever grand daughter is into Nail Art in a big way.

What started as a Saturday job to supplement her university grant, has snow-balled! Photo Shoots, business deals, in-shop demonstrations and much more, has sent a stream of people knocking on her door. Her blog Boom Nails has had well over a hundred thousand hits . Who knows how it will continue.

As for me, I have sported snowflakes, snowmen and igloos over Christmas, I've had blue and white stripes and at present I have ladybird -like black spots on a scarlet background on some nails, others have pale blue polka dots on white and a couple have eyes outlined in red on blue.And yes, I only have ten fingers.

And, of course, I stand out from the crowd, at least on closer inspection.

Why oh why?

I have spent the last two days, trying to clear everything out of my kitchen. Why oh why did I ever think it might be an idea to have a new kitchen? I must be mad!
I need at least two minutes to take the decision to throw out that saucepan that has lost every bit of shine and beauty and can only be used for boiling unpeeled potatoes. Will I have to use a more pristine one in the future and reduce that to something horrible?
What about the jar of tamarind paste? So exotic that I have never figured out how to use it. And the twirly thing for taking honey out of a jar? But we never eat honey and if we do, it is so solid, we need a knife to get at it.

Decisions, decisions...and ever more boxes are needed. And more and more rubbish bags! But my worst fear is that I will end up with a very functional kitchen and I will not be able to function it.

Reminds me of my brother who aged about 9, flatly refused to have any new clothes made for him. He only relented when our mother promised him that she would have old clothes made for him. That's what I need!

Hidden Talents

Never judge people by their face value! Some years ago when I was researching local traders, I was astonished to discover how many of them had many more strings to their bow than one might guess. Bookshop managers turned out to be furniture designers, a wallpaper shop was run by an ex-accountant who then became a psychotherapist, a gardener had been a tax inspector. And now there is the delicatessen owner who has a rare talent.

Out to buy some olives and Milano salami, there was a bit of a wait because il signore was finishing off a conversation with another customer. Not about Bel Paese or Prosciutto. No, about shares. About a particular share which he had decided was going to rise sharply. Our in-house financial risk taker, kept stumm, bought his delicatessen, drove home, picked up the phone, bought those shares and now has a smirk on his face, as the share goes up and up.

I no longer protest at more and more delicatessen fill the fridge!

I am in two minds

Publicity is a slippery commodity. At best, it can be fun and feed one's narcissistic ego. At worst, it makes one want to scream and take to task whoever misrepresented you.

But in the past, whatever media exposure has come my way, has been because of something that I did. Something for which I could take the credit.

I have now been interviewed, here and there, in print and on TV, simply because I happen to be related to someone well-known who has died. Endless stories and photographs have appeared - children, friends, associates etc and me, simply because I was his cousin and was able to shed light on his earlier life and his family background.

It feels odd and not entirely comfortable. Nothing to do with me really, except my memory and my views and why should they be of interest?