Dear Family & Friends, June 6
The sad news is that a favourite pair of shoes died this week. It’s a pair of Timberland boat shoes I bought in the International departures area of Johannesburg airport three years ago when Lucia and I were setting off on one of our trips to Portugal. There were two pairs of shoes that I liked going relatively cheap and we bought both of them. I remember the occasion particularly well because our luggage didn’t join us on the flight to Lisbon. It was a daylight flight which meant we arrived late in the evening when all the shops were closed. We also had an early departure on the train down to The Algarve the next morning well before the shops opened. The only change of clothes I had was the two pairs of shoes in a paper bag from Johannesburg airport. I had made matters much worse by washing my underwear and then burning a hole in them while trying to dry them over a light bulb in our room at a pensão near the airport. I was not happy. The second pair of shoes is still going strong.
On the upside, Lucia has finally mended from the bug which kept her in bed most of last week and is greatly looking forward to the weekend when she can join me walking the dogs again. I have been making full use of an ordnance survey map of the area I bought showing all the footpaths, minor roads and other byways. Not that the paths are always as clear on the ground as they are on the maps. On Tuesday I took the dogs out for a circular walk around Offchurch, a small village just east of Leamington Spa. I had the route clearly laid out in my mind and on the map, but when I got there, I often found myself thrashing through waist high fields of rapeseed or wheat, or picking my way across meadows filled with sheep and the inevitable sheep shit. Edgar doesn’t like sheep; I think he sees them as big, scary, woolly dogs. And they bark funny too. We already know that he doesn’t like horses having seen his reaction when we drove past one in Cape Town with him on the back seat of Lucia’s car. The back window was wide open for him and he barked and screamed blue murder at the horse such that it made the car shake. Edgar doesn’t often come across animals bigger than him, but he gets very emotional when he does. Poor boy.
The very high level of grass pollen in the air at this time of year can make the walks a little unpleasant for me. Not even halfway through Tuesday’s walk my nose and eyes were streaming, and there wasn’t very much time to breathe in between sneezes. Even Hazel was sneezing. But the dogs loved it, haring across fields in great leaps and bounds and then racing back. Hazel flushed more than a few pheasants and rabbits.
The fantastic thing here is that there is such an infinite variety and choice of places to walk. In Cape Town I either walked straight onto the mountain from our house, or took the dogs down to Camps Bay beach; anything else would first have required a bit of drive. Here, one needn’t do the same walk twice very often so longs as you have an ordnance survey map to show you the way.
On Wednesday I took the dogs to Broadway at the foot of the Cotwolds in Worcestershire at the suggestion of my friend Andreas whom we had around for lunch last Saturday along with his wife, Michelle, and daughter, Natasha. Broadway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway,_Worcestershire) is a very pretty little town built of yellowing limestone and very popular in the art community. It was beautiful sun-drenched day showing off the village at its best. The high street is dotted with several expensive art galleries and restaurants and there is a plethora of picturesque walks around the town and through the fields. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to pack my walking boots in the car, and the fields were a bit too damp and sodden under foot for my Timberlands. I had a lazy lunch in the sun at one of the inns with the dogs lying at my feet in the shade of a brolly. I drove home across the minor roads via Chipping Camden (also a really beautiful limestone town) where an annoyed driver got out his car to remonstrate with me for hooting. I told him I wasn’t hooting at him, I was hooting with him (at the car in front of him) which he accepted. I thought that was hysterically funny afterwards: I’m not hooting at you, I’m hooting with you – although it might not have been so funny had he chosen to take offence. (Pics at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones as usual.)
I’m rather hoping that the weather behaves this weekend so I can go back with Lucia, this time making sure to take our walking shoes with us. That Wednesday evening the good weather was too good to pass up and I made our first braai (barbecue) of the season. How’s that; we’re only having our first braai two weeks away from the summer solstice. I had bought some frozen sardines weeks ago for just this occasion. I defrosted them, coated them in olive oil, salt, a touch of pepper and mixed herbs, and grilled them for fifteen minutes turning them often. With some salad and a bottle of Zondernaam Sauvignon Blanc, it made for a perfect evening.
Another item which really caught my funny bone this week was drawn to my attention by Andreas while we were out walking in a local park with Natasha last Saturday. Apart from public bowling greens, Victoria Park also has public tennis courts for which users pay an hourly rate. Andreas pointed out the third price on the rate card attached to all the gates: “Under18s/Disabled/Unemployed: £1,50 per hour.” Disabled?
And talking of quirky things, I had really expected to see more dogs here. It’s just one of the stereotypes one is brought up with about the English. But none of our immediate neighbours have dogs, and there are very few in the neighbourhood. I’ve noticed that people are a lot more timid around dogs, especially dogs as big as Edgar. And while one place was happy for patrons to have dogs on lead in their beer garden, another was adamant that it was against the law because food was being served. One cafe let me have the dogs with me at their outside tables, another said I couldn’t. I expected something completely different. But you know what they say about assumption then, don’t you?
And another bizarre thing happened to me yesterday. I was walking down a side street in Leamington Spa with the dogs and I heard this real commotion going on behind me. I turned and saw these three yobbish youths shouting something at someone which included the words ponce and tosser. I sort of ignored them and only realised they were yelling at me when I crossed the road. And then they were gone. I’ve got absolutely no idea what it was about. Something similar has happened to me two or three times now, each occasion just as baffling as the last.
That’s it for now
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
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