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My dear family & friends
I have just escorted Tigger, our Burmese cat, out of the house with strict instructions not to bring his prey inside no matter how much he thinks we rightly deserve these gifts. This time it was a frog which gave an excellent impression of being dead. I picked it up in a plastic carrier bag and tipped it out under the hedge on the off-chance that it was, in fact, still alive. Frogs can be sneaky like that. Of course, I nearly had a heart attack when the seemingly dead frog almost leapt into my pocket before scurrying away. Best he find another patch because Tigger will get him again if he sticks around.
What I really want to know is which bloody cat stole my hearing aid from the drawer in my bedside table. I searched for the thing most of the weekend, and even took the washing machine apart looking for it. On Monday morning, just when I was pondering owning up to the loss to the NHS hospital, Lucia noticed CharlieBrown staring intensely at the narrow space just under the dishwasher. And sure enough there it was. It had a cat tooth sized whole in it, but it was still working. The hospital has furnished me with a new hearing aid and sent the old one back to the manufacturer for repairs. I was very relieved because these things cost a couple of thousand pounds in the private market.
Lucia remains as busy as ever trying to get the same amount of work done with fewer resources as the recession bites down. Twelve-hour days are not uncommon and she seldom has an entire weekend free. I try to make sure that everything else runs smoothly.
That’s not to say that we haven’t had some fun though. Barbara and Terry (my sister and brother-in-law from Portugal) came to stay with us for a few days over easter allowing us to return some of the hospitality they have shown us so many times in Portugal. Not that we changed our daily routine much: the day, as always, begins by taking the dogs out for a walk along the paths and through the parks and fields around Leamington Spa and Warwick. One day we drove to Croome Park near Worcester to sample the landscape and gardens designed for the Earls of Coventry by Capability Brown. The grand house is not open to the public but is currently being restored after serving first as a school for mentally disabled children after the war, and then as a country pad for the Hare Krishna movement. Like most such properties we had to keep the dogs on lead except in designated areas which I know frustrates them. Finally being unleashed is always met with a burst of energy that sets them sprinting off in whatever direction takes their fancy until I whistle them back. (You can see the pics in the usual place http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.)
Terry was impressed with my control of the dogs. He describes them thus in his own letter: “The dogs are Edgar, a large and (fortunately) affable Rhodesian Ridgeback, and his hairy companion, Hazel (along with cats, Tigger and Charlie Brown). Both dogs operate under Llewellyn’s strict control. Like the English themselves, the dogs share the peculiar habit of being able to mingle with while largely ignoring their fellows in public spaces.”
We were sorry to see Barbara and Terry go; we enjoyed having them. Just like our own trips to Portugal, our conversation usually continued deep into the night, lubricated by just one more glass of wine. We also managed to eat our way through most of my second batch of biltong while they were here. I’ve now got the third batch on the go.
I met them again later in the week in London to meet with friends and to go to the Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery. The Picasso was interesting. Some of the paintings were absolute gems, but I thought more than a few of them to be complete drivel. But then I’m no great art critic. I did enjoy the short film that put his life into perspective and explained what he was trying to do.
The day after that I went into London again to cast my vote in the South African election at South Africa House. My heart dropped when I saw the queue snaking halfway across Trafalgar Square and was fairly certain that I would be waiting for hours in standard South African tradition. But the efficiency of the election staff was quite something to behold and I made my mark in less than an hour. Occasionally someone would try to get a chorus going of Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika, but the crowd just looked away. Most of these people were there to vote against something rather than for something. I doubt my vote will make a jot of difference to the path South Africa is on, but I had to do it just in case it does.
Having voted, I walked across the Thames and down to Vauxhall for a spot of lunch at Casa Madeira (where else) and pondered what to do with the rest of my day. After lunch I caught the tube to Bond Street, then walked all the way up Marylebone High Street, across Euston Road, through Regents Park, and then down onto the Regents Canal near London Zoo. I followed the canal all the way down to Little Venice in Maida Vale where I dreamed of winning the Euromillions lottery and buying a house here. Then I followed the trunk down to the building developments around Paddington Basin which have turned a worn out industrial area into a sparkling modern metropolis of (very expensive) apartments and office blocks. This is where Marks & Spencer built their new head office, and a very impressive building it is too, vaguely reminiscent of the iconic Lloyds Building in the City. I was fairly shagged out after that so I walked back to Marylebone station and caught the train home.
Edgar and Hazel met me at home with that expectant look that asks if I would now be taking them on their walk which they have so missed for the past two days. I had to decline their invitation. Edgar I think was especially desperate because he hadn’t had a daffodil to wee on for two whole days. Honestly, I don’t think there is a daffodil in Leamington Spa that Edgar hasn’t hosed down. They’re all looking a bit tired and I’m not sure whether that’s due to Edgar’s efforts or whether they’re supposed to look like that now.
I think that about covers all the exciting bits since I last wrote.
And here’s one for my South African correspondents: there’s a blue Mercedes 4X4 driving around Leamington Spa with the registration “KUK 1”. Ja bru.
That’s it for now
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
One morning in Cornwall ...
My dear family & friends
I’m feeling sore; all sorts of muscles are hurting and I have the remains of burst blister in the middle of my hand. I was gardening yesterday – after the grand prix, of course. I got the blister digging out the clay that is a poor excuse for soil in our garden. (See pictures in the usual place at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.) This house has been a rented home for a while and it is unlikely that any of the previous tenants put any but the most rudimentary effort into maintaining the garden. I doubt the lawn has ever seen top-dressing. There was one particular patch of lawn that wasn’t reacting to my care and attention, so I dug it out, filled it with a thin layer of river sand, and then covered it with roll-on lawn. I hope that does the trick. I’m also turning some of the flower beds (actually weed beds) into lawn. I like a nice green grass lawn as anybody who saw my lawn at Pinoak Road in Cape Town can attest to. I’m still trying to learn what works here: I miss kikuyu and buffalo grass for the simple reason that I knew how to work with it. There are lots of things like that which we have experienced here in the UK – and I’m not just talking about grass. We are foreigners living in a strange land. One can easily forget that although we all speak English we still have to adjust to living in a foreign country, fitting into the society and learning how things are done. It is still a foreign land.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote; forgive me, I just wasn’t into it. But that doesn’t mean we’ve been doing nothing though. I have still been posting pictures on Picasa. (See the last two albums.) For one thing, I finally got around to building my biltong box. I found a business nearby – Building and Plumbing Supplies – which cuts wood to order. I took the measurements along and asked them when I could pick up the wood. I thought it would be something like Timber City in Woodstock in Cape Town where they would tell me to come back in a week. Instead they told me to come back in half an hour. I was also surprised to see that wood was cut by a man fiddling with dials on a big wood-cutting table. At Timber City the measurements were keyed into a computer which then performed the job to computerised precision, maximising each board and thus minimising costs. It is interesting to note that the computer took a week whereas the bloke on the dial heaving pieces of wood around took only 30 minutes. I prefer the 30-minute option.
Back home I banged the box together (see pics) and set about preparing my spices (see pics again). Now I know I said I would never use a hammer on my food again, BUT crushing the spices in the mortar and pestle was just taking too long. So in classic Jones tradition I poured the spices into a freezer bag which I then placed on the bread board, covered it with a dishcloth and beat the hell out of it with a hammer to the required consistency. It worked. I salted, then spiced the meet, hung it in the biltong box, and five days later we had biltong. I now have the second batch on the go.
Now, let me think. Three weekends ago we had Rob, Mandy and her daughter Chloe around for a braai – the first of the year. We originally met at Bayton Lodge, the quarantine kennel where our animals had to serve their six-month prison sentence for being born African. Our conversation over the fire and dinner was an expatriate one (which is probably much the same the world over no matter where you come from and where you are): how lucky we are not to be where we came from, the difficulties of settling, and understanding these foreigners and their ways. I challenge new settlers anywhere in the world to tell me that’s not how it goes. While Rob and I were tending to the fire and sinking in a couple of beers (like good South Africans), Lucia took Mandy and Chloe to the Warwick tip to see if they could find a bicycle in reasonably good condition for Chloe. They didn’t find anything suitable, but this is my intro to say that I took a bunch of pictures of the Warwick tip & recycling centre to show how serious the Brits are about their rubbish and recycling. We are regular customers.
I think that was the weekend we also went to Northampton because there’s a Brazilian restaurant, Rodizio, there that I wanted to find. We didn’t actually have anything to eat there; I just wanted to find it because Helder, at the Pastelaria Portuguesa, recommended it. We found it, but Northampton is missable.
Then, two weeks ago, we took a long weekend down in Cornwall looking for a weekend beach getaway spot that we liked – like we used to go to Arniston when we lived in Cape Town. The weekend looked promising after three glorious weeks of Spring, but (you know what I’m going to say) the weather was shite. Our “cottage”, which Lucia found on the Internet, wasn’t ideal either. In SA we would have searched on the term “self-catering” for what we were looking for; we have now learned that the correct term in the UK is “holiday cottage”. That said, it doesn’t really matter what term you search on, it’s still overpriced. Just like in SA where it was cheaper for us to go to Zanzibar or Portugal than to go to the Wild Coast, it would still be cheaper for us to get an aeroplane to Portugal or some Mediterranean hotspot. As an amateur economist that tells me that property in the UK is wrongly priced (just as it is in the tourist areas of SA.) But we live in interesting times (like the old Chinese curse), and I am so fascinated to see what’s going to happen next in the global economy. We are probably living in a time that will prove to be a “defining point” in history like all the other debt fuelled credit bubbles: 1929, the South Sea bubble, the Tulip bubble, and the Missippi bubble (which was probably the real cause of the French Revolution according to a recent program I saw on Channel 4. That’s what happens when you put a Scot in charge of a bank) etc, etc. I get howled down every time I say to people that there is nothing that happens that hasn’t happened before, even in the midst of this crisis which, to my mind, proves the point. In Mathematics you would say “Quod Erat Demonstrandum” – It Is Proved.
But let me not go down that road now. We drove first to Bristol on the Friday to look around. The city holds a fascination for me because that’s where my father was born way back in 1905 in the district of Redcliffe. Visiting it now, for the first time, I see that Redcliffe would have been a desperately poor harbour/waterfront district. Of course now, like so many waterfront precincts around the world, Redcliffe is becoming gentrified, polishing the whole area with lots of money. But I like Bristol; I wouldn’t mind living there – and we would be relatively close to some nice beaches which are really important to Edgar and Hazel.
Our cottage (matchbox) was just outside Camelford (missable). On Saturday (freezing; raining) we drove down to St Ives and all around southern Cornwall (nothing else to do in that weather.) St Ives is really pretty, and we probably saw it at the best time when there are not too many people about. I don’t think I would want to be there on a summer weekend. We let the dogs go for a romp on the beach and a splash in the waves. As you may see from the pictures, I am walking on the beach and playing with the dogs barefoot. This is because I am a South African and I was bloody determined to do so. We drove on to Truro and investigated some of the expensive villages and compounds around Falmouth. (For the South Africans, this is where Martin Bailie, “The Little Irish Devil InThe Morning” lives.)
Sunday was much better; sunny and warm by British standards. We started at Padstow, and drove towards Newquay (awful), and then back north to Polzeath, opposite Padstow on the Camel Estuary. We liked the area around Rock and Polzeath; it’s got an Arniston feel to it (but with Riviera prices). On Monday we packed up and headed north where I wanted to show Lucia to Saunton Sands (Devon), and it was just as well that I did because that’s what she liked most. I was fairly sure she would, but I needed to show her the options first.
Jumping a week ahead, Lucia had to work in London again this Friday and we agreed to meet Becky and Katie for dinner at our Portuguese taverna in Vauxhall for dinner. I arranged to meet Lucia in Canary Wharf where she had to give a presentation, but I arrived early in the afternoon so that I could stroll around Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs (the old docklands.) It’s really fascinating: the Canary Wharf District is a marvel of engineering which is essentially built on a marsh. It is also quite surreal in that this vast new centre of money and commerce has been built right next door to (and is slowly taking over) one of the most deprived inner city areas of London. As I walked, I found myself in the middle of Tower Hamlets, which is not the most savoury area in the UK. I came across some really drugged out, inebriated, scary looking characters – and that was right next to the playground where carefree children were squealing with delight at being set free from school for another week. In SA you wouldn’t walk through this area without a gun, but I felt relatively safe. OK, I did speed up, but I didn’t run. Later we had a great dinner with Becky and Katie. I haven’t laughed quite so much in a long while.
And that mostly brings me to up to date; if I don’t write when you’re expecting a letter, please check the Picasa website to see if there are any new pictures there.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
