Redhill to Nantes

My week in Redhill flew by.  I worked closely with Sarah, normally a ‘remote collaborator’ but this week in the room next door.  We ploughed our way through a whole journal on the rural left-behind elderly in China, an article about humanitarian aid in South Sudan and a field guide on agro-environmental measures in Alpine Regions.  Seven articles in four working days! I lot of administration got done (I am now testate) and a lot of wine was drunk. We harvested seven different varieties of apples from trees on an abandoned allotment site and a pub car park and had an equinox ritual and sing along on my last night there.  All the time there I felt protected by the ‘guardian lamp-post dragon of Oakdene’. Thanks for a great week Sarah and Bryn. 

Thirty hours later I was in Nantes, half way down to the Pyrenees with a bag full of goodies from northern Europe for my southern European friends: dropjes from the Netherlands, chocolates from Belgium and cheese from England.  ‘You’re taking Cheese from England to France, the home of a thousand cheeses’ asked Sarah.  ‘Yes it’s Cheddar and I am very proud of that part of our culinary heritage’ I replied.  ‘It’s a British food stuff worth waving the flag about.’  Let’s see how it goes down!

On the ferry I met a hitch-hiker heading south, a likeable young hippy type. We talked. Turned out he came from Corfe Castle where I used to sometimes hang out more than thirty years ago.  Turned out he went to school with the son of the friend I used to visit there and went to birthday parties at his house. Oh -  and he just done a permaculture the previous year.   The world seems to be getter ever smaller as I embark on this quest.

Our 400km journey flew by in a whirl of conversation about permaculture, low impact living (yes he’d read Thoreau’s Walden Pool and quoted me stories from it that I’d forgotten) and Buddhism.  I drop him at a service station just before Nantes and wished him luck on his epic hitch to Perpignan.  Nantes, 600km or so south of Redhill, is considerably warmer and is less blustery than Poole. It’s welcome to wear light clothing in the evening.

Its definitely just a stop over though.  This weekend I have a rendez-vous with an old university friend in Bordeaux, a full moon and the autumn bore running up the Dordogne.  I’ve yet to work out if I am brave enough to ride it (as aoposed to just watching) or if I can make the logistics work to hire a canoe and arrange transport back to the starting point.  

Baby's on the road again

Saying adieu to my flat for the winter on a hot summery day, the first we have enjoyed in a week or so. My flat sitter flew back in from Greece at one am yesterday: twelve hours later I am packed and gone, heading south for the winter. The first two weeks of the trip are planned, the next three sketched out and the remainder is unknown territory.

Calais is my first port of call. Being here gives a real insight into some of the things going on in the world today. The last two kilometres of the road to the ferry terminus is lined with two lines of barbed wire fencing, two metres or so high. It's like entering a fortress or concentration camp. Beyond the barbed wire to the north is an enormous shanty town of makeshift shelters. If one didn't, read the papers one might think there was a festival going on. But it's 'The Jungle', a waiting place for thousands of refugees and migrants seeking asylum or a better life in the UK.  This summer the media has swamped with tragic and accusatory stories of the ever growing tide of refugees and migrants.  my flat sitter has been working on the coal face so to speak, documenting numbers and conditions in Greece,  a country racked with its own domestic problems. Now I am at another end of the chain, a closed sea border that these desperate people repeatedly try to cross,  often putting their lives in peril. It's worth reflecting how lucky I am to pass, without let or hindrance, a reflection that Isabella made on being free to get on a plane in Greece and fly home.

The other thing that being at a port brings to mind is the sheer volume of stuff being trucked across Europe.  There's more than a hundred articulated lorries, waiting to get on my ferry, from all parts of Europe,  from the Baltic states to Portugal,  from Ireland to Romania.  That's just for one ferry, these ferries cross the channel every hour, twenty four hours a day. That's an awful lot of goods being moved around the world. And you know  the juxtaposition of the two things really seems to say a lot about our society. Yes we want things, more things than we need, so many things that choosing between them can cause countless hours of indecision, or at least anxiety. But basically we don't want to find a place in our society for traumatised victims of terrorism, civil war or economic marginalisation. I'm not going to talk about rights or wrongs here. I'm just observing what is happening from a longer distance perspective. It doesn't paint a pretty picture of our society.

En passant 2015 day 4: A (foodie's) visit to Aragon

I ate in a Michelin recommended (note -  that is not the same as starred) Comodor today.  It was located in the cloisters at Roda de Isabena,  an 11th Century cathedral perched on a rock in Ribagorza (Aragon) with 360 degree views across astonishingly different landscapes.  The building used to be the canteen for the monks and was established in 1125, so this is almost certainly the longest established catering facility that I have ever dined in.  The surroundings were opulent with vaulted ceilings, remains of frescoes on one wall and classical music). The menu del dia (three course meal with wine water & coffee) consisted of two bean soup, a veal stew and yoghurt with honey. And I  got  change out of 20 Euro! I'm still so full here's no need to even go in search of tapas tonight.  My first meal in Aragon! 

The sun shone today and the wind stopped blowing off the snowy mountains.  I went down from wearing four layers to a T-Shirt and  drank my first coffee on a terrace in 2015!. Really good therapy after 15 hours of worrying about whether my car hire contract was going to fall through, 12 hours of torrential rain and a day of sub zero temperatures because of the wind blowing off the snow-clad mountain tops.  I love (Northern) Spain- when the weather's hospitable.

Airport traumas parts 1-6

I wrote this post almost six months ago but for some reason didn’t get around to posting it.  Next week I am flying back into the airport where traumas five and six occurred. So it now seems like a good time to post this and hope I have a less stressful journey – there and back.    

I travelled quite a lot in the past 12 months. I hate the travelling but love being in new places. But airports bring out a special kind of trauma. Brian Eno recorded an album called ‘Music for Airports’ It’s one of my favourites of his:  very tinkly and relaxing– but I think the true soundtrack for airports should have been made by Genesis P. Orridge, Skiddo 23 or Lou Reed in his Metal Machine Music days. Just thinking about airports brings me out in a rash. Does anyone have any worse stories?  

1        Belgrade – August 2013- I bought a bottle of honey vodka from a local shop on the way to the airport and put it in the wrong bag – my carry on instead of the one going in the hold.  Not such much a trauma as an inconvenience -as I watched it go into the dustbin.  

2.  Bangkok – November 2013 - severely jet lagged on Saturday morning, I find that none of my debit cards work.    It hadn’t occurred to me to tell my banks that I was going to Asia in order for them to work there - after all they worked in Serbia a few months ago - and that’s outside the EU. It was Saturday morning and customer services at neither bank were open until Monday.  Still I had  my hotel was already paid for and I had 80 Euros in cash in my pocket, and a friend was due to arrive at the hotel the next day.  But still, it was a close call – almost stuck in a strange city alone with no currency. Lesson #1: always keep 100 Euros / dollars liquid to tide you through emergencies. 

 

3.      Brussels -May 2014 - stupidity tax. I went to the wrong ****ing airport!  All the cheap fights to Portugal I had been looking at left from Charleroi. The one I booked – which was still cheap - left from Brussels International - the airport whose flights wake me up at 0600 every day.  I don’t know how long it took for me to register that the absence of a flight to Lisbon on the departures board at Charleroi meant that there was something wrong. Very wrong. And it was my mistake.  Nor can I recall how long it took me to do the calculations about time and energy, loss of face with my flatmate (‘Yu’re back’ ‘Yes - um I went to the wrong airport’) and booking a flight tomorrow when I already have a pre-paid hotel room in Lisbon and - worst of all - having to make own way to the middle of the Portuguese countryside.  Only one thing for it. ‘Taxi! How much to Zaventem?’’ “**** I think, that’s more than the cost of the flight”.  Several deep breaths.  “Any room for negotiation here?” Absolutely not – he has me over a barrel.  We made it (just) through the rush hour traffic on Brussels’ outer ring road. Three minutes or so to spare before they closed boarding. “Any reason you’re so late sir?” asked the check in clerk. ‘Yes I went to the wrong ****ing airport’.  This story deserves a few expletives.  I don’t know whether the smile he gave me back was one of sympathy or superciliousness.  But I made that flight. And the fish, potatoes, beans and vinho verde that I consumed that evening tasted that much sweeter for it. And I had one of the best trips of my life.

 

4.      Oslo – June 2014 - a double whammy: I had a 45 minute transfer at Oslo on my way to Trondheim.  It turned out to be too short since I had to reclaim my baggage, go through customs and immigration and check my baggage back in - something the online booking agency had clearly not taken into account - you can’t do that in 45 minutes.  So I was bumped onto the next flight. Fortunately there was a next flight – the last one out of Oslo that night. I got the airline to try to call the hotel to let them know I would arrive late (like very late- after 1 am) but their answer phone was permanently on.   I was assured that, yes, there would be a bus running at that late hour and went to find a cash machine - which wouldn’t give me any money. Bangkok revisited?  This time I didn’t have any liquid cash as I didn’t anticipate logistical problems in Scandinavia - which has a reputation for efficiency.  I was sweating like a pig with the stress of it all.  Fortunately the cash machine in Trondheim was kinder and - yes - there was a bus and my mobile roaming was working so I could disturb the concierge at almost 2am to finally check into my room (although it took him twenty minutes to find the keys, while I was standing in a biting cold wind wondering if will ever get dark - it didn’t).  The next morning I was not bright and early at my conference.  

5.      Toulouse – September 2014.  The worst yet? I had a 6.40 flight from Toulouse to Copenhagen to attend a workshop. That meant being at the airport by 5.40 which in turn (according to travel planning sites and my Tom-Tom) meant leaving Gruissan at 0400. Let’s say 0330 to be safe.  I woke at 0300 - got my still very groggy head and ass into my car by 0320 and headed off.  Somehow a one and three quarter hour journey morphed into a two and a quarter hour one.  I got to the airport at five to six thinking I can still make it! But then it took me ten minutes to find the parking lot – fifteen minutes for the bus transfer to the terminal and then another ten minutes to find the check in (and I thought Toulouse would be a small provincial airport) – which was closed.  Damn. What to do?   Two choices: go home and forget about Copenhagen and my workshop or try for another flight.  I did some mental sums and an emotional weather check.  I checked out all the likely flights and found one for €330 Euro.  (Taking off the fact I could reclaim the airport taxes on the original flight and would lose my first night’s hotel charge and that translated to about €170 net loss painful - but not as financially painful the taxi ride to Zaventem four months earlier). Ah well bite the bullet and regard it as a another dose of stupidity tax.  I had two and a half hours to appreciate the ambiance of Toulouse airport and was soon on my way to my destination, arriving somewhat tired after having got up at 0300!   

6.      Toulouse again- on my way back from Copenhagen I got to the parking lot at almost midnight. The machine didn’t accept my (foreign) bank card – nor did it accept cash. Nor was there was a ‘help number’. ‘Here we go again’ I thought.   Fortunately another car was making its way out of the parking lot and I knocked on the window – feeling that I might appear like a crazy fool.  They appeared very reluctant to wind down the window and I had a real fear that they were just going to drive away into the night. But they just wanted to get through the barrier and then pulled over.  They believed my story and that I could pay them cash if they used their card to my pay my bill.  So all ended well, thanks to some good Samaritans.  But I was almost out of cash on the way home and barely had enough to pay the motorway tolls between Toulouse and Narbonne.   In compensation I did see the citadel of Carcassonne from the motorway –some 5km away and sitting so splendidly and so hugely on its rocky foundations. Yes I need to go back there.  

Does any else find travelling so stressful?

En Passant - day 2: Dali-ville

Day two: Cabestany - Col de Perthous (290m) - La Jonquera - Figueres (65 km).

If you are reading this blog- it's part of a series -so better to go back to here to get the background

It rained all morning so I stayed in my 'digs' and did a bit of work / writing. Headed out for the border just after lunchtime. Too rainy and cloudy to bother taking any photos en route. The sun began to come out as I descended from from La Jonquera to Figueres. Hooray! Two of the last three days have been wash outs (causing chaos on both sides of the border) and I'm starting to run out of clothes suitable for such weather. Figueres is lovely, vibrant: the food here spicier and cheaper than in France and I have a really swish hotel!

The Gruissan Dairies part 2 –‘They paved paradise and they put up a parking lot’

The Gruissan Dairies part 2 –‘They paved paradise and they put up a parking lot’ Oh I do like to beside the seaside, oh I do like beside the sea. I do like to walk along the prom, prom, prom’. But I hate what continental Europeans do to their sea-side resorts. In the last decade or more I‘ve been to resorts in Belgium, Holland, France, Spain and several other countries and never found a place that was ‘gezellig’ (cosy). Well maybe I’m exaggerating – Bornholm, a Danish Island that is closer to Poland than Copenhagen, Lesbos a Greek Island that is almost part of Turkey and La Gomera, which is part of Spain but closer to Cap Verde, are three places that I have visited that have not had their souls ripped out by tacky tourist infrastructure, but they are exceptions). By and large it seems to be very hard to find coastal villages or towns in mainland Europe that have not been deracinated by the exigencies of the tourist trade. And this is in stark contrast with the UK - where coastal villages and towns such as Polperro or Fowey (Cornwall), Aberystwyth or Tenby (Wales), Oban (Scotland) or Whitby (Yorkshire) seem to retain a timeless charm, or at least a charm that is redolent of a bygone steam-driven era, rather than modern day Mammon.

This I guess is the only ‘red thread’ that I can find from my month long stay in Gruissan. It is a beautiful medieval village with a spider’s web layout (even now after a month here I can get hopelessly lost if I turn right instead of left to find the local shop or trash collection points)). There is a lot of (justified) pride in the local gastronomic patrimony (the wines, the fruits, the fish and the patés) - but it’s also full of tack, too many new-build apartments, too many yacht berths, too many ateliers of artists with, shall we say, limited talents. It sounds like I am having a bit of a bitching session –but that’s far from my intent. Surrounded by four lagoons (étangs), Gruissan (where eels come spend their maturity before migrating back to the Saragossa Sea – if they don’t end up on the Gruissanese tables- to reproduce, and where salt is panned in the traditional manner) and limestone massifs to the north, south and west it is truly a stunning natural environment. On a clear day you can see the Pyrenées to the south and the Montagne Noir (Cevennes) to the north. But it seems to me to have lost (or sold) its soul.

Perhaps there is a paradox here- continental Europeans are able to spend much more time and money on their holidays than us Brits can (its not uncommon to see signs in the windows of bars, barbers or boulangeries in Brussels or Paris saying ‘closed for four – or six - weeks for the summer holidays’. These are not EU ‘fonctioniares’ – though their clients may be- just ordinary working class people, who value their summers). And that means that there’s lots more money available to spend in developing these places as ‘desirable resorts’. And in my eyes, at least, that makes them far less desirable places to visit. It’s a paradox. And I’m aware that it smacks of elitism and snobbery - but I would just rather go to places that have a lower tourist/local ratio. Next stop the Pyrenées. In the meantime a few photos of the local scenery.

Thanks to Jeroen who supplied a couple of the photos after I left my camera's memory card in my laptop one day!

'Betty Blue Ville'- the Gruissan diaries

Day one

I am sure many readers will remember the opening scene of Betty Blue (en francais: 37.2 C le matin)– the sex scene that goes on for almost twenty minutes - so long that it’s embarrassing to watch with your mother (though I never did). And, perhaps, you will remember the next scene, where Betty goes into a fit of rage and throws everything not fixed to the floor out of the window and the proprietor strolls over to see what’s wrong and tells her that her (his) beach house is now ‘very Zen’: well that was shot here in Gruissan – my home for the coming month. Unfortunately I’ve not got one of the stilt houses (or perhaps fortunately if one has issues with noisy neighbours) but a pied á terre in the centre of the village – in a pedestrianized street. The only sounds for most of the day are those of the church clock which - bizarrely - chimes the hour twice, once three minutes after the hour, children playing, bicycles going past and people licking ice-creams (if you listen very closely). Many people who come here are apparently ‘movie tourists’, perhaps in search of their muse. My greeter assumed I was one of them - after all Betty Blue is one of the most iconic, and globally successful, French films from the past fifty years.

But most are attracted by the sun, sea, sand and the windsurfing and sailing opportunities. In the words of Rough Guide this coastline is ‘buffeted by wind that could flay the shell off of a tortoise’ (I didn’t research that bit very thoroughly before booking). Serendipity plays a big role in my life: I am not (consciously) a movie tourist and certainly not a windsurfer or yachter. I just came here because (to paraphrase Colour Blind James Experience singing about Memphis): ‘I just like the way that it sits there on the map’. And it certainly sits well on the map: surrounded by lagoons (used to produce eels but which occasionally attract flamingos migrating to or from the Carmague), salt pans and with distant views of the Pyrenées Occidentales , you couldn’t imagine a more idyllic spot. But did I mention the wind? It could flay the hind off of a rhinoceros. And unlike anywhere else I have ever been, it doesn’t blow off the sea onto the land but in the reverse direction, from the Pyrenées onto the Mediterranean and the shapes of the trees and shrubs bear witness to this being a long term phenomenon, not a seasonal aberration.

Day 2
Forty eight hours after arriving in Gruissan I finally get away from my work, get back to my van, put the wheels back on my bike (yeah I packed the van full of kit - even a printer for my work) and head to the real ‘Betty Blue-ville’, some 2-3 k east of my new lodgings. It’s an enormous disappointment. Instead of a few isolated bungalows on stilts, it feels more like a well-heeled banlieu, lacking manicured lawns (because of the wind and salt) but otherwise packed with state of the art cars, bo-bo wind chimes and ‘smiling happy people’ everywhere. Alas, there seems to be an absence of highly-vocal multi-orgasmic French women throwing their worldly possessions out of the window. Borth is actually far cooler (if you can live with listening to Brummie accents most of the day) although probably doesn’t rank as high on the ‘hours of sunshine per year’ index. I wrote yesterday about the strange reality inversion here . Nearly every beach resort I have been too (and I am no expert on these matters) has wind blowing in off the sea. Here, it blows off the mountains (the Pyrenees) towards the sea. The 3 k cycle ride back from the beach felt like a one-in-three hill, although it was perfectly flat.

Days 3 and 4
My legs were barely strong enough to carry me up the stairs the past two days, I wondered if it was the effects of the wind from yesterday but it lasted all day and the next so must have been something viral (though jokingly I told myself it was just internet access withdrawal symptoms) . So I just stayed at home with my books (and heated up a tin of cassoulet when I got hungry): the new Murakami (which sold a million in Japan in its first week of release) and Patrick Leigh Fermour’s Caribbean travel odyssey ‘The traveller’s tree’. PLF certainly had a knack for good timing. He walked across Europe in 1934, just before it ignited into a cauldron of hatred and later war. He visited the Caribbean in the 1950s just after the war and just before most of the islands got their independence. He is certainly sympathetic to the history of the islands and plight of the slaves on whose sweat and suffering the island’s wealth was built, but didn’t see the independence movement that would soon after arise – although if I am not mistaken with my history it was considerably more peaceful than the first Caribbean state independence (Haiti in the 1850s, which was an absolute bloodbath) or the inter-communal holocaust that accompanied India’s independence.

I like PLF’s work. He has a good pen for describing places, people and incidents along the route. I think every budding travel writer should read him. But sometimes I find him a bit too much of a historian and classicist, assuming the reader has an equally encyclopaedic knowledge (or indeed interest in) the fortunes of, sometimes quite minor, European dynasties and he does throw in some rather overwrought pages of description of buildings or landscapes. Perhaps his writing style is just a bit dated to my eyes. He did enjoy a rather privileged position: segments like (these are not quotes but could easily be) ‘we had a letter of introduction to the Governor-General’s son and spent a pleasant week at his plantation, delving into his library’: or ‘at the end of our hike a meal had been prepared in the shade of the trees by the bearers who had caught the fish just an hour before’ are all too common, suggesting access to a way of travelling that hardly exists these days.

Leaving Mertola?

I’m up and ready and packed (with all my extra jars of honey, liqueur and truffles) in good time for the bus to Alcoutim, a town about 25km downriver. In fact I’m a little early. I looked at the time on my mobile (which I left set to the time zone of my clients) rather than my watch. When I get to the dining room in time for a quick breakfast I find the blinds are still drawn, the breakfast trays are not yet laid out, and the coffee is only half percolated. Time for a slow breakfast. I take a cup of coffee outside – watch the black winged heron cruise up and down the river searching for his breakfast, the goats being driven across the road on the opposite side of the river to the fields that go down to the river where they have their morning drink, read a chapter of my book. Another coffee.

There are only two buses a day towards Alcoutim. They actually don’t go to Alcoutim, but down to the coast – but they do go past (and hopefully stop at) the Alcoutim turn off stop - about 5km from the town itself. I could go down to the coast, and then catch a bus back to Alcoutim – making a journey of around 100km. But with a frequency of two buses a day the chance of the connections working seems remote. I had tried to get the number of the taxi service in Alcoutin to arrange a pick up at the turn off but my hotel reception couldn’t find that. So I decided I would take my chances and try to hitch hike the last stretch. Country people are pretty good about giving lifts, especially when they know that there’s no public transport, although I’m carrying a (wheeled) suitcase - not a backpack – which isn’t the ideal way to hitchhike.

I’m just about to check out and embark on that adventure when the hotel receptionists tells me the bus is at 1530, not 0930 as I had been told the day before. This kind of changes the equation. I ‘check back’ into my room, check my emails to see if a promised commission has arrived (it hasn’t) and redo the equation. Standing by the side of the road waiting for a lift at ten in the morning is acceptable. Doing so at four in the afternoon, when anyone with any sense is in the coolest place they can find is considerably less attractive. Mm I could skip Alcoutin altogether, or enquire how much a taxi would cost.

Bhutan travels days-6 Punakha Dzong

Bargain hunting in Zeeland

I was in Zeeland last weekend hoping for a repeat of last year's sun and sea holiday. Alas it turned into a wind and rain vacation with occasional dry patches.

Still it was nice to be away in 'the nature' and away from my laptop and the internet for four days



We schleped around Middleburg on the Saturday afternoon - joining all the other damp and disappointed tourists, though I imagine the shop keepers were delighted. At Lucas's suggestion we went into a brocante, where I found these two wonderful bargains - an African mask (more than one metre high) and a woven basket (using three different types of twig / straw). I am sure I paid less for the mask than it would have cost me to freight it back from Africa and the basket is so unique I'm surely going to find a use for it.



And Lucas found an armful of Donald Duck magazines for a couple of Euros to keep him happy!

An English intermezzo

 

I took a week out last week to go to England for my Dad’s 90^th birthday. It was a busy work period and I wonder now why I bothered. He has no concept of time anymore. Whether it’s three months or three days – he still gives me the same smile. The blessing is that it is - as opposed to a grumble and a frown – which was such a prevalent reaction in the days before Alzheimer’s.  I’m coming to think of Alzheimer’s as being a blessing as well as a curse.  All the photos I have of him are of him scowling. Now for the first time he has a smile (sometimes) when he sees me (although the words ‘son’ or ‘Nicholas’ don’t actually spring to his lips).  

For the last four years I have been travelling to the UK more or less every quarter - with the aim of looking after his flat and paying him a visit or two. Now the flat is sold - the need to travel to the UK is less pronounced.   I’m not sure if I will be able to justify (to myself) regular visits in order to spend an hour or two over lunch - not really communicating.

In the past I have had a flat (my dad’s) to stay in (rent free).  Kindly the warden - at the sheltered centre where my father’s flat was - offered me use of their (heavily subsidised) guest flat whenever I came to visit.  So I booked it for this visit. Regrettably (and somewhat annoyingly) I got bounced. One of the tenants of the block had recently passed on and her relatives were coming over from Italy for the funeral.  I was offered alternative accommodation (and rent free) but it was sub-standard (as in not-fit-for-purpose). The room smelt of old people (I bought three scented candles to fight that off), was overheated (no thermostat controls) and had no chair or table to sit and work from. To plug in the kettle you had to unplug the TV (or fridge). While it did have its own fridge, the kitchen was two stories below (so I was constantly up and down the stairs with my milk, and breakfast things). Oh, and there wasn’t a single knife in the kitchen, so I had to buy meals that didn’t require knives.   It made me think what it must be like to live in an asylum seekers hostel- with very little control over your environment.   But mustn’t grumble- fortunately I could afford to buy oven-ready meals from supermarkets- an option not available to most asylum seekers.

I did need to get away from old people for a while though.  So I went up to central London and spent a day working in the Westminster Hub (as a Hub member in Brussels I get free access to other Hubs in other parts of the world).  Its located in New Zealand House in Haymarket -  200 yards from Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus – two of London’s most iconic landmarks (I never realised before how close together they were). At lunchtime I took a stroll around the neighbourhood and ended up in the nearby Royal Opera Arcade- the oldest of London’s shopping arcades: Georgian, elegant and stylish. 

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

 

It was designed by John Nash.  Normally I don’t take much note of architects (people like Horta excepted) but I have visited and enjoyed his buildings before, notably Llanerchaeron near Aberaeron, where I once had the opportunity to stay overnight when it was being renovated a decade or so ago (a friend of mine was a friend of the guardian).   The arcade – though a very different structure had the same feel and bought back pleasant memories.

I did have plans to go to the Pre-Raphaelite show at the Tate Britain - but my work ran over and it wasn’t a late opening day (I consoled myself that it would be on for another three and a half months and I probably would have another opportunity).  I had drinks after work with a colleague and collaborator who was also working in London that day.  She found us a cosy pub back street down a back street of railwaymen’s houses just behind Waterloo station.  It was busy and noisy with people enjoying after work drinks: office groups, couples and old friends catching up with each other (just like us).  But the street itself was like a film set:  if you took away the cars and TV aerials it could have been used as set for a Dickens story – (I was told that it has been used for that purpose) – a perfectly preserved piece of Victoriana.

I do always try to do one fun excursion on my trips to England. Sometimes it can be quite humble – like a cycle trip round Richmond Park or along the river to Hampton Court.  This trip I noted that the Royal Horticultural Society had a free open day at its show gardenat Wisley.  Conveniently on route for the ferry at Dover. I think I’d been once before as a teenager - when I didn’t have much interest in or knowledge of gardens - the father  of my girlfriend at the time was a member and had a family ticket, so we took advantage of a free day out).  It was heaving –(the Brits like the Dutch like  bargain) I got there at eleven but it was almost impossible to find a parking space (and surprisingly there were no staff on car park duty – on this possibly their busiest day of the year).  So people were left to drive round and round in circles looking for parking places.  Being free entry at least there were no queues for tickets.  I had planned a four hour visit before going onto the ferry.  But what had started as a promising sunny day turned quite overcast and cold and the greenhouses got very busy.  I was underwhelmed – it’s a nice garden – but perhaps my expectations were too high after visiting Heligan earlier in the year.  I was hoping to find some inspiration for plants for the courtyard that offer a little autumn or winter colour.  I was most drawn to the range of feathery grasses they had-  offering a range of yellows, greys and browns – which sets off the colours of other plants very well- but their shop turned out to be rather expensive and I decided to pass  - the more since there might be  a problem exploring plants into Europe and I already had a bike taking up most of the room in the back of the van.   Talking of colour, I noticed how ‘few people of colour’ there were there.   Given how multi-ethnic Britain is it was surprising to see that the visitors were almost overwhelmingly white (and over forty but that’s another story). Do coloured people not garden? Is it a economic or cultural thing? Or do they just not do the RHS?

 

So I left Wisley earlier than expected and empty handed and headed down to the docks, hoping I might catch an earlier ferry and get home earlier than anticipated. As it happened I was out of luck and had to hang around the dock for an hour and a half.  I allowed myself the indulgence of a cheeseburger and sat in an almost deserted diner - that had definitely seen better days and managed to do an hours editing on a client's paper.  On the crossing the winds were so strong that the captain banned access to the smoking deck (which made me glad I was on the short Dover- Calais run as opposed to the longer one to Dunkirk).  Back in France and Belgium it was already dark and there was constant drizzle – making the two hour drive to Brussels much harder work than normal.  Autumn’s definitely setting in.  My apartment was down to 17^o so I put the heating on for the first time since May.

More Gardens

Just before I left England I made a quick visit to the Isabella Plantation, in Richmond Park. 
The azaleas were in season. A stunning show.

Lucky Boy

My work often allows the me luxury of being an armchair traveller and getting to know more about obscure parts of the world.  In recent weeks I have been / will be editing reports on climate change adaptation in Peru, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Ghana, fuel poverty in Togo and Uganda, an article on land grabbing and water rights in Tanzania  and a PhD on the privatisation of the water sector in Malaysia.  All (usually) without living the comfort / confinement of my own office. 
And thats not including the articles on organic and sustianable farming or articles on Dutch Fauna. I'm thinking about starting one of the Google Maps to show how many countries I virtually work in!

Speak my language?

It's difficult to count how many languages are used in Bruxelles. French is the main language. The street signs are all bilingual (French/Flemish) and most Belgians I have met speak Flemish (a variant of Dutch). Nearly everyone I meet socially speaks English, and the public transport information is in four languages (+ English , +German -because there is also a small German speaking section of Belgium). Sadly in the Flemish speaking regions around Bruxelles such linguistic diversity is not at all approved of (but that will be the subject of another blog).

It's good to use my French again. I have a much better understanding of the grammar and structure of French than of Dutch. But sometimes- having lived in the NL for almost ten years -I forget key words (a verb or noun) and can only remember the Dutch equivalent. It doesn't matter much if I pepper my French with a few Dutch words - as people understand them anyway. (Vous avez une aanstekker?).

In the past I have often received very mixed feedback about my French ' You speek fairy good French'.. pause for comic effect.. 'For an Engleeshman'. With a few Dutch words thrown into a conversation it confuses the French speakers even more

But this is a two way process - Belgians have evolved a distinct version of French - especially when counting. They have done away with sixty + ten and two times twenty +ten (soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix) - replacing them with septante and nonante. The first time I heard this in shops I wondered if I was hearing French or Vlaams. Now I am starting to get used to them - and I am sure next time I am in France I will sound like a Belgian (with an English accent) .

Tripping round the Netherlands

A British friend was 'back' in Wageningen this weekend. I say 'back' because we first met here. We used the opportunity to do a cycle trip round the Kinderdijk(we didn't cycle there from here) which neither of us had visited before. It is one of the Netherlands' iconic landscapes (and a UNESCO world cultural heritage site). WE also recruited a 'local tour guide' - a Buddhist friend from the area- a big thumbs up to Geert for making it such a great day!

This land is some 6m below sea level and was reclaimed by windmills. I'm sure that there is some pro-renewables, pro-sustainability argument there. The light wasn't great - so apologies about the poor quality of the photos- but if you've never been -do try to - it's a very impressive place.

We took the water bus back to the city - enjoying some sights of more contemporary Rotterdam.