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My dear family & friends
I’m getting the upper hand on the foxy-woxies. One of these days Hazel is going to nab herself a fox in our garden in the middle of the night and that fox is going to regret fucking with my lawn. Discouraging the foxes has proved a little easier than expected. I was lying in bed the other night and I noticed that the security light in our garden had switched on. I lay there and thought: That’s strange. If it had been South Africa, I would have hit the panic button and called the security company, and men with big guns would have come and searched our garden. This being England, that wasn’t necessary. But as I lay there, I suddenly realised that it must have been a fox. So I jumped out of bed, riled the dogs by poking them hard in the ribs and yelling: Tsa, tsa, tsa. Then I charged down the stairs to the conservatory with the dogs at my heels baying for blood. I grabbed the door key and tried to ram it in the lock and twist in one motion. But my hand was shaking so much with all the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I just could not get the key into the lock. Watching all this, the fox was fucking laughing at me on the other side of the glass. I swear he gave me a one fingered salute before easily jumping over the fence in his own time.
The next night I left the door unlocked.
I was ready when I saw the security light switch on. The dogs had also figured out that the light was a call to action and they galloped down the stairs ahead of me. By the time I got to the conservatory door, the fox was already heading for the fence. Hazel did her best, but he was long gone. The next night I didn’t see the light switch on because I was fast asleep. Edgar and Hazel, however, must have been sleeping with one eye open. You must know that feeling when you’re fast asleep and something really loud wakes you up. Your eyes are suddenly wide open and there’s just one thought that goes through your mind: Where the hell am I? Once I’d figured that out, I had to decide whether I was going to leap out of bed, charge downstairs and set the dogs free. I thought: Stuff it – and pulled the pillow over my head. I’ll get him another time.
In another vein, one of my favourite television programmes is “Mock The Week”. For the non-Brits, it’s a weekly spoof quiz show with various comedians giving a different angle to the events of the week. You can find lots of clips from the programme on Youtube if you feel so inclined. I particularly enjoy Russell Howard, and two of his lines this past week had me in hysterics:-
1) You see these bankers are getting bonuses again? That’s a bit like finding out that Osama bin Laden got air miles for 9/11!
2) Howard was in a pub in Bristol when the English soccer team beat Croatia 5-1, thus guaranteeing themselves a place at the World Cup in South Africa next year. Howard turned to the person next to him and asked if he would be going to South Africa for the competition. The answer was apparently: “No way! If I wanted to be murdered, mugged, or sexually abused, I’d go the docks wearing a dress.”
We’ve done some fun stuff since I last wrote which is probably best shown in the pictures in the usual place at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.
Lucia took a week’s leave last week. The first thing we did was go to the beach. I had been keenly watching the long range weather forecast which showed that Saturday (two weeks ago) would be a fantastic day in the south-east of England. So we loaded the dogs in the car early in the morning and headed for Saunton Sands in Devon, a two-and-a-half hour drive away. We stopped in Barnstaple for coffee, and then headed straight for the beach. I suppose there’s not much I can say about a day at the beach – see the pictures. I was, however, somewhat amused at the many surfers in the water trying to squeeze whatever they could out of a 1ft swell. (For the Cape Tonian surfers, that’s not an error. I mean 1ft.) The dogs – who used to go the beach nearly every day – had a party cavorting in the sea and the sand to their heart’s content. Hazel required emotional support as she remembered Africa. The other thing that struck me was how clean the beach was. You will know that I have complained bitterly in these pages about the level of littering we have seen around where we live. But it was quite amazing on the beach as we watched people making sure to take every last piece of litter with them – so when everybody left, the beach was as spotless as they found it.
We headed home in the early evening listening to the first part of the Last Night At The Proms on the radio. We switched between the Royal Albert Hall on BBC Radio 3 and the Proms In The Park on Radio 2 every time some screeching opera diva took centre stage. I don’t particularly enjoy the vibrato of opera – you know, the warbling voice; I much prefer plainsong both male and female – just the clear single note.
We got home in time to watch the second half of The Last Night At The Proms on television which is always quite a party with flags waving and audience “participation”. There were one or two things that struck me as quite jarring. First, there were quite a few German flags in the audience which does look a bit strange when the audience is belting out “Rule Britannia” and “Land of Hope and Glory” at the top of their lungs. Second, was the Moslem woman in the front row wearing a hijab waving a huge Union Jack and belting out “God Save The Queen” for all she was worth.
Our second adventure was a two-night break away in the Pennine Mountains of Cumbria and Northumberland. A couple of years ago we met a woman on Arniston beach whose family owned some holiday cottages in the mountains of Cumbria. Lucia looked them up and called, only to find that husband and wife had since split up. But be that as it may, we booked Stonecrop Cottage in the tiny hamlet of Eals. Once again, I won’t enumerate everything we did – rather look at the pictures.
On day one we stopped in Penrith on the way up to have lunch with Julie, the person we’d met on Arniston beach so long ago. She prepared a delicious lunch of Scottish smoked salmon and salad. We’re hoping that she’ll come down south soon so that we can return the favour and have a lot more time to talk. The cottage is fantastically secluded – I couldn’t live there (no coffee shops) but it’s great for a getaway.
On day two we drove to Haltwhistle in the morning and then to Housesteads, one of the largest Roman forts on Hadrian’s Wall. After sniffing around and taking the obligatory pictures on Hadrian’s Wall we took a looping drive back to Eals via Hexham. In the afternoon we took a long walk along the decommissioned railway line that leads across the Lambley Viaduct, and then cut back through the woods on the other side of the river. I won’t say we got lost in the woods, but we did lose the path several times. The dogs had a field day chasing after new sights and smells. We have never seen them as animated and excited as they were loping through the woods. They were also fairly much layered in mud. When we (eventually) got back to the cottage we grabbed our costumes and towels and went down to the river to see if we were brave enough to go for a swim. The water was colder than Camps Bay in winter – the type of cold that hurts. The dogs didn’t have a choice because we needed to clean them off – although, I must say, Edgar didn’t look too happy. I eventually screwed up all my courage and dived in ... and ran straight back out again. Lucia then felt obliged to do the same to much the same effect. We completely ignored the sign that says “No Swiming – It’s Dangerous”. ‘Elf 'n safety (the Communist Directorate of Health & Safety) put these warning signs up wherever they feel that people might have fun. Julian tells us of a bridge near where he lives in Tunbridge Wells where the sign at the top of the bridge says – “No Diving – Shallow Water” – and the sign at the bottom of the bridge says – “No Swimming – Deep Water”.
On day three we drove home via Morcambe Bay and Liverpool. We decided that Liverpool needs a lot more investigation and some day trips in the future. The little bit of the city centre and the waterfront that we saw was really attractive and inviting.
What else?
My brother-in-law says I should be very careful about campaigning to re-introduce whipping for littering offences lest they introduce it for motoring offences – particularly speeding – as well. In which case, I too might be in a little bit of trouble.
I also took my hearing aid back to the hospital for a check-up. To my mind, it just wasn’t working like it used to after the last repair. The technician shook the aid and closed it in her hand to induce feedback, and then handed it back to me and said it WAS working. So I said to her very slowly – I didn’t say it wasn’t working, I said it wasn’t working properly. That caused a bit of flurry and she emerged with a doctor’s ear torch to look down my ear. After inspecting my ear for all of two seconds she declared it to be “quite dirty.” I was so offended and quite pissed off. In fact, I probably looked like a person who was about to throw a major wobbly – so she dashed out to get another technician. He looked down my ear and said there was nothing wrong with it. I felt like I was in some Twilight Zone. So I said to him: I would really appreciate it if you would re-programme the hearing aid. He said it wouldn’t make a difference. I said: Nevertheless, I still want you to re-programme the hearing aid. He did so with bad grace – and do you know, it’s working like it used to. I walked away shaking my head with lots of things I wanted to say – but I left them unsaid.
And finally, I met God on Newbold Comyn, somewhere around the 15th tee of the public golf course. He had “LOVE” tattooed on the knuckles of one hand, some Greek symbols of the knuckles of the other, and various other prison tattoos up his arms. He had a wild shock of white hair that brought Albert Einstein to mind. He told me that all the leading ministers, rabbis and imams in England had got together to identify the second incarnation of Jesus – and it was him. He said Anne Robinshon – “a very, very knowledgeable woman” – had confirmed it on The One Show (on BBC1). I thought: Oh, Christ, how do these nutters find me?
That’s it
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
My dear family & friends
Right. The vermin digging up my grass in the dead of night – formerly known (to Lucia) as the foxy-woxies – are banned. They came in and had a party on Monday night. In the morning, there were feathers everywhere from their bring-and-eat buffet, they had dug up newly laid lawn, (mostly) destroyed Lucia’s favourite shrub, and there was fox shit everywhere. The only thing missing was the empty bottles of Strongbow cider favoured by England’s binge-drinking louts. One of the buggers was still searching for tidbits when we woke up at six. He cleared the fence in a single leap when he realised he was being watched. We thought it was cute until we surveyed the damage.
Now, there are many slights and annoyances in life that I will ignore. But fucking with my lawn is not one of them. I decided that that the dogs were going to sleep in the conservatory with the door open for the next couple of nights. So, on Tuesday evening, we kissed them goodnight and went to bed. Well, Edgar patrolled the fence incessantly and barked at every sound. Lucia gave up and let him in at about half-past one in the morning. We certainly couldn’t find any of the telltale signs of a fox party when we woke up at sunrise. But, absence of proof is not proof of absence. I shall be monitoring the lawn closely. Lucia suggested that we make a couple of “No Foxes” signs and hang them on the other side of the fence. They would do well to heed the signs; I will defend my lawn to the hilt.
It’s been a while since I wrote. Let me note a few of the more memorable events. You can see a few more pictures in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones. (And talking of pictures, can I ask you to send us some pictures of your lives, or at least encourage you to start your own Picasa page for the delight of your scattered friends and family.)
At the top of the list was my birthday at the end of August. It was a bank holiday weekend. The weather was shit. I really wanted to go the beach, but one needs to be sure of good weather to invest in a two-and-a-half hour drive to the seaside. We went to the Pastelaria Portuguesa for dinner. They open for dinner once a week on a Saturday night offering some traditional Portuguese dishes for a set price. We rolled home afterwards. I’m still waiting for my birthday post though; there’s been a strike at Royal Mail that (according to a news report this morning) has delayed 20 million pieces of mail. So it’s not just SA.
Out of the blue we were contacted by another South African here in Leamington Spa a couple of weeks ago. Laurie Hall went to university with our vet in Cape Town (George Koury, Citivet Gardens) and also knew one of Lucia’s colleagues in Johannesburg who gave him Lucia’s email address. We invited him and his family around for drinks one Friday evening, but then it turned out that another friend of his (an ophthalmologist from Cape Town) was going to be in town as well, so we ended up going around to their house out in the country for drinks instead. It was a pleasure to meet them and we’ll have them back soon.
Another weekend I drove Lucia an hour down the road to Great Malvern to go walking in the Malvern Hills. We walked up to the beacon that I’d investigated a couple of weeks before. But, being a Saturday, it was a bit like Oxford Street – very crowded. It rather reminded me of Signal Hill in Cape Town. I used to love climbing the Hill with a couple of friends at full moon with a bottle of wine and some cheese and biscuits in my backpack. But as the years wore on, this became a more and more popular past time for fit and active Cape Townians. The last time I climbed the peak I counted more than 150 people edging around the summit trying to find a comfortable place to sit. I thought: “Screw this, I’m not doing this again” – and I never did. But in the Malvern Hills Lucia and I were only too pleased to get out into the great wide open. There wasn’t a breath of wind as we climbed the leeward side of the hill, and it was absolutely silent. You don’t find that many places like that here in the UK. Up at the top, we also noted that there were areas in the hills that had relatively few walkers about. We plan to go back there sometime with the aid of the survey map we bought at the Tourist Information centre and have a picnic in one of the quiet spots we spied.
After lunch in Great Malvern we went in search of the Tiltridge Vineyard near Upton-upon-Severn that I had discovered on the Internet. (There are now more than 400 wine producing vineyards in the UK.) But they were closed for the weekend. Somebody please explain to me what good that is – to close on the two days that you’re most likely to get visitors. As if to prove my point, Clive’s Fruit Farm and Farm Shop (“come pick your own”) a few hundred metres down the road was doing a roaring trade – there was a queue of cars waiting to get into the parking area. We did find a few bottles Tiltridge’s Elgar Wine at the farm shop, but I passed it by at £9.99. Although some English wine is developing a good a good reputation, it is to my mind vastly overpriced. We bought a bottle of English sparkling wine (champagne) at the Leamington Spa Food and Wine Festival a couple of weeks ago for £12.50. You can get vastly better sparkling wines from Spain, South Africa, Australia or Chile for the same price or less.
What else?
I forgot to tell you about the tramp in Vauxhall in my last letter. It was after I had taken my sister Barbara to Luton airport and I carried on into London. I had gone to find a Portuguese restaurant I had read about, and was walking up South Lambeth Road. Sitting on the pavement, leaning up against the railings of Vauxhall Park was a tramp (sorry, indigent person) and his dog (there’s no euphemism for dog, is there) begging for money. The tramp did have a bit of a wild-eyed, scary look of the emotionally disturbed about him. He asked for money. I said, No. He said: Fuck you, fuck off, get the fuck away from me, get the fuck off my sidewalk, go on, fuck you, fuck off, who the fuck do you think you are fucker, go on, fuck off ...” It stopped momentarily when he asked another passerby for money, and then it started all over again. When I thought I was nearly out of sight, I turned around to see what was happening, but he saw me and it started again, except much, much louder to make sure that I would hear all the way up the road.
The point is that he rather reminded me of a corporal I met in the army at 7 South African Infantry Battalion at Phalaborwa many years ago. He managed to use the word “fuck” in one sentence as a noun, adjective and verb. It came about as he was inspecting our rifles for “cleanliness”. The bloke next to me had clearly not made even the most rudimentary effort to clean his gun. The corporal stared down the barrel, leapt back as if he had been given an electric shock, and then yelled: “This fucking fucker is fucked.” Oh man, I nearly wet myself laughing. The corporal waited – apparently calmly – until I had brought myself under control. Then he yelled me to run around the “fucking” parade ground until he said that I could “fucking” stop.
And talking of beggars, there was another story in the media this week about how much money “professional” beggars are making in the UK. Police said some beggars were making “hundreds and hundreds” of pounds a week and then still claiming benefits. It immediately struck me as true because I have often come across beggars with dogs where the dogs look in perfect condition; they look as though they could enter a dog show compared to the emaciated, flea-bitten curs with big doe eyes I would expect to find as a begging accoutrement in South Africa, or any third world country.
What else? Oh, I was so annoyed the other day. Lucia and I decided to walk across the fields to the Saxon Mill. Just as you get to the public footpath across farmland some tosser had dumped two old big-screen televisions. The thing that got to me about this is that the televisions were too big and heavy to have been carried there; they had to have been taken there by car. But the dump – with a special section for television sets – is LESS than a mile away. Now, you see, that’s why I think whipping should be brought back – because it doesn’t matter how much you try to “re-educate” this tosser, he’s so dumb that only violence works.
Finally, let me end on an upbeat note. Barbara sent me a text message a couple of weeks ago to ask if I had listened to the Ukulele Prom on BBC3 the night before. The short answer was no, I hadn’t, but that I would try to catch it on the BBC website’s “play again” feature. It was absolutely brilliant. The Proms are mostly about classical music, but they also always have some “interesting” stuff. The Prom in question featured The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain and they played a wonderful mix of classical and pop music on ukuleles. Lucia and I snuggled closely on the sofa listening to the Prom on the Net the next evening. I was so impressed that I decided that I had to get a recording of the Prom. While that sounds fairly simple, it takes a bit of effort to grab the recording from the Internet. First of all, the BBC and rights holders don’t really want you to do it. (But the law says you are allowed to record something from the radio and even distribute it so long as you do it for free.) So what they do is hide the address of the audio stream in the web page and you need a special programme (I use URL Snooper) to find the address. Then you need another programme (I use Replay AV) to grab/record the radio show from the Internet. I hadn’t done any of this since we’ve been in the UK, so I had to find the programmes and learn to use them again. This is a long way of saying that I’ve got a recording of the Ukulele Prom both as an MP3 (73MB) and as an audio CD that I have listened to many times since. If you would like a copy, the price is pictures. Just let me know.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
My dear family & friends
There was a story this week on the regional morning newscast that Birmingham City Council was going to crack down on litterbugs by handing out £50 fines to anybody who transgresses the litter edicts. I think they’re being generous; you probably know my views on the issue – if I were in charge, I’d bring back whipping. As part of the insert, the news camera was sent out to follow some litter inspectors. They filmed a smoker casually tossing his burning cigarette butt aside once he was done. He was immediately accosted by the inspectors who informed him that he would be getting the £50 fine. And, you know, he had the absolute gall to declare angrily: “That’s disgusting!” (Actually he said disgoosting.) Can you credit it. He’s smoking, he’s littering, doesn’t give a fuck for anybody else, and then declares that it’s disgusting that he should be given a fine. That’s why I’d bring back birching – just for him.
In a similar vein, there have been angry letters in the local knock-and-drop newspapers about dog fouling in Victoria Park, Leamington Spa. These were followed up by declarations from the District Council that they were going to do something about it. No hint yet as to what they’re going to do. But that’s not what annoyed me. Every day you see council attendants picking up the detritus tossed aside by the park users who seem to be so annoyed by dog poo. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time watching one of these attendants one day. They’re not allowed to bend over you see, because that could hurt their back, and then the council would have to pay squillions to ensure that they live in pain-free luxury for the rest of their lives. Instead they walk around with long rubbish-picker-upper tongs, dabbing at a single cigarette butt for two whole minutes before they finally manage to capture it in the rubber pincers. Now, to me, this is the really funny bit – they have to transfer the piece of rubbish from the end of their tongs into the rubbish bag. But remember that the rubbish-picker-upper tongs are nearly half the users’ height meaning that he has to perform a gymnastic manoeuvre just to get the end of the tongs hovering around the mouth of his blue rubbish bag. All so he doesn’t have to bend over. And then you want to see how many times he misses, which means that the pantomime starts all over again.
What this is leading up to is that I received a visit from the Dog Warden while I was ironing one morning two weeks ago. The council had received a complaint that morning from someone in our road that I was allowing our dogs to foul (poo) on public and private property. This was the second complaint they’d received regarding our dogs which thus triggered the personal visit from the Dog Warden. Needless to say, I was absolutely adamant that it wasn’t my dogs. The complaint had apparently been made a short while before which narrowed the complainant to somebody who was still at home. So I went knocking on doors for the second time, just as I did after the first complaint. This eventually took me to Bill at No.1 who admitted that it was he who had made the complaint. His argument/belief was that it could only be one of my dogs because I’m the only person in the area who walks his dogs off-lead. By his definition, I must, therefore have been allowing my dogs to poo on his lawn. Moreover, my guilt was confirmed by the fact that I had ignored him when he rang our doorbell that morning – my car was in the drive, there was an open window upstairs, so I had to have been ignoring him, right? Right?
He started wavering when I offered to show him my receipt for a cappuccino from Cafe Rouge that morning which would have shown that I couldn’t possibly have been home when he was banging on our door. I had three points to make to him: 1) it was not my dogs, 2) it was probably the foxes, and 3) I would pay for any DNA test on poo he collected on condition that he would be obliged to pay me back when it was shown to be not from my dogs. Of course, I thought that was a good deal because I knew it wasn’t going to be my dogs. He was less enthusiastic because he knew it would probably cost him a lot of money and show him up to be the pratt that he is. We parted on difficult terms. It was perhaps thus very fortunate that I walked past some fox poo on the sidewalk two doors down. I spun on my heel and marched right back to his house, rang the doorbell and enquired with my most insincere smile whether he wanted to see what fox poo looked like. (It’s small, squidgy, red to black, smells terrible, and it’s often got berries in it at this time of year.) So there we stood examining fox shit, and a little voice in his mind began to tell him that he might have made a big mistake. He offered to show me the poo that he had collected that morning and which was residing in a plastic bag in his rubbish bin. You could smell it was fox poo the moment he opened the Tesco carrier bag.
Needless to say, I was fairly annoyed. I told him it was his duty to call the council back and tell them he had made a mistake. When I got home, I called the dog warden, Vicky, and told her – given that she had paid me a personal visit – that she was obliged to visit my moron neighbour and confirm that his complaint should have been laid with god rather than the council. I also impressed upon her my hope that the complaint would be expunged from the council records or, at least, have a notation added that the allegation was found to be false.
Now Bill and his wife wave wildly whenever they drive passed me while I’m walking the dogs. All I want to do is throw stones at them.
It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote and we’ve done quite a lot that’s fun and interesting. I’m not going to bore you to tears enumerating every single moment, but would rather leave you with some broad strokes of the highlights. You can see the pictures in the usual place at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.
First, about three weeks ago now, I met an old friend, Julian, in London for lunch. You may recall from a previous letter that I had tracked Julian down on the Internet with (I thought) some clever guesses. I met him outside the bank where he works in the City, and we went to lunch at Brown’s Brasserie. It’s funny how ten or twelve years can wash away in an instant. I met Julian in the army at the Castle in Cape Town, but we had both gone to King Edward’s School in Johannesburg. The friendship stuck. We watched each other’s girlfriends come and go; I went to Johannesburg for a while then came back to Cape Town; he met a young French lass, Sandra, and they moved to London a couple of months later – and that’s more or less where our contact ended until a few weeks ago. One of the main outcomes from our lunch was that Julian, Sandra and daughter Chloe would come up to Leamington Spa and stay the night with us the next weekend which they did. It was a splendid weekend and it was lovely to have them. We very much look forward to doing it again.
The next weekend (last weekend) my sister, Barbara, joined us from Portugal. I picked her up at Luton Airport on Thursday afternoon and drove most of the way home in driving summer rain. Barbara loved the rain after the dry, searing hot summer days of the Algarve. (I’ll swap you any time Barbs.)
On Friday, after walking the dogs, we took Barbara to Waterperry Gardens near Oxford, an old favourite of Barbara’s from when she lived in London. I later discovered – on Wikipedia – that the big house (with all the security) in Waterperry village belongs to the actor Rowan Atkinson. Barbara was blown away by the gardens – she said she couldn’t remember them ever having looked quite so spectacular. And they were absolutely stunning. Lucia and I had visited the gardens in late winter and we had been distinctly underwhelmed. The summer show, however, was breathtaking.
Our route, when we left in the late afternoon, took us over the M40 motorway which was supposed to lead us home – except we couldn’t help notice that the traffic had stopped and was jammed up as far as the eye could see. We scrabbled around for traffic reports on the radio and quickly decided that we would rather go into Oxford for dinner than join the Friday, accident-ridden, summer holiday traffic madness. I was about to join the main road into Oxford when I saw that it too reflected an image of Dante’s hell, so I pulled over to confer and decide what to do. It was just as well that I did. At that moment we noticed a bus doing an illegal U-turn off the dual carriage way and decided to follow it on the basis that the driver would know what he was doing. Well, he certainly did – at 60mph through cutesy villages and down narrow country lanes. Behind me a long queue of cars sat on my tail as if to say: “Don’t lose that fucking bus.” He got us into Oxford far quicker than I might otherwise have expected. Barbara wondered if the reason we couldn’t see any passengers on the bus was because they were all lying on the floor praying.
On Saturday, we went in to London to visit friends of Barbara’s and take in an exhibition at the National Gallery. On Sunday we walked the dogs up the canal to Hatton Locks and had a braai in the evening. On Monday Barbara and I woke with the sparrows to get her to Luton for her flight home. After waving her goodbye, I carried on into London (given that it’s just a few miles from Luton) to take in some more sights, sounds and culture. Here’s a tip. Stay out of London in August – it’s jammed full with tourists. So I went home. I decided to try the M1 because my satnav has always insisted that it’s the quickest way home. What my satnav doesn’t seem to take account of is that most of the people who use the M1 are horrible road hogs who just won’t get the hell out of the way. Rather use the M40 if you can – a far better class of person.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
My dear family & friends
I’ve not that much to report. All is domesticity and hard work. Lucia is the one working incredibly hard and I’m doing the domestic bit. She is fully into her new position at MillwardBrown which entails the reintegration of a slice of the business which had previously been spun off into a separate company. But she also has to keep a grip of part of her previous roll until the person slated to take over comes back from maternity leave in mid-August. All this means she has been working twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hour days, plus weekends.
But she has managed the odd break. This past weekend we met Ann, Richard and daughter Polly at the nearby Charlecote Park on Sunday for a stroll around the 16th century manor house now owned by the National Trust. Afterwards we continued on to Ann and Richard’s house near Shipston-on-Stour for a late afternoon barbecue which got later and later as the weather refused to play along. Still it was a most wonderful dinner with all the vegetables coming fresh out of their garden. The leg of lamb, which Richard eventually had to cook in the oven, was sublime.
The weekend before that we went to lunch at the Fosters, the parents of Lucia’s former boss in South Africa and who are also acquainted with Lucia’s parents. As Lucia got chatting with one of the other guests, Jill, it struck her that Jill’s description of the places she stayed in South Africa sounded remarkably similar to those of a young girl Lucia had employed in Cape Town. So Lucia asked her: “Do you know Nikki Cunliffe?” and Jill said “Yes, she’s my niece.” We all remarked at what an unbelievable coincidence this was and what a small world we live in, except Jill’s husband, Richard, who noted that: “It’s not so much a small world we live in, but the small circles we move about in.” I liked that. It’s probably a far more accurate reflection on the nature of coincidences.
We also had dinner a couple of times with Lucia’s colleague Monica, husband Sayure (pronounced SY – as in Simon, YU – as in you, and RE) and daughter Cecelia before they returned to Spain. Monica had been in the UK on a year-long secondment from Madrid. On the first occasion they joined us for dinner after a walk across the fields to The Saxon Mill. You can see the pictures in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones. Well, when I say they joined us for dinner, what I mean to say is that they brought all the ingredients to our house and cooked it. We should find more guests who are as accommodating as that. What I found truly remarkable though, was how much their six-year-old daughter Cecelia sound like a proper little English girl after just a year of living in this country – so much so that she was speaking largely English at home with only a few Spanish words thrown in when she didn’t know the English equivalent. Cecelia also just loved Hazel, our Otterhound, Retriever, Terrier cross. When she was asked at some point what she was going to miss the most of England, she said Hazel and Edgar. We never had to entertain her for a moment, and Hazel being Hazel just lapped up all the attention.
What else?
I went to Malvern one day to take the dogs walking in the Malvern Hills. I forgot to take the camera so no pictures to show for it. I did take a few with my phone, but I had it on the wrong setting and they were all out of focus. I walked more-or-less straight up the side of the hill to the beacon, which at 425m, is the highest point in The Malverns, or just about as high as the King’s Blockhouse on the slopes of Devil’s Peak in Cape Town. What is interesting is that I used to walk up to the Blockhouse three or four times a week without breaking stride. Now I am clearly not as fit as I used to be because I was fairly shagged out when I got to the beacon. I lay down, told the dogs not to wander too far, and rested my eyes for ten or fifteen minutes. When I woke up the dogs were nowhere to be seen, but my most piercing whistle had them instantly racing back to my side through the long grass. Walking back down the hill Hazel kept a constant vigil for rabbits which she only ever chases as far as the nettles. She’s learned to keep her snout away from the stinging green stuff.
Hazel has also turned out to be a bit of a fox hunter. She goes mad every time she hears them in the field on the other side of the fence. One night, when I took the dogs up the road for their bedtime wee run, a lone scrounging fox made the mistake of barking when s/he saw the dogs. Hazel instantly bolted after the fox in attack mode – sprinting low down with a high-pitched I’m-going-to-kill-please-send-for-reinforcements bark/whine. Edgar looked on in confused amusement, or perhaps that was bemused confusion. I whistled my loudest come-back whistle. The fox run up a neighbour’s driveway and around the corner into their garden with Hazel in hot pursuit. It took a few more whistles and calls before Hazel obeyed, but by that stage neighbours were already looking crossly out their windows to see what all the commotion was about. We’ve already had one neighbour complain to the council that we let our dogs wee on the grass at night. I ask you!
What more? I have discovered – quite by accident, don’t ask – a new personal cure for hayfever: inhale water. I don’t mean breath it so that it goes into your lungs, but just so that it covers the sinuses. It’s just like when you go swimming and you get water in your nose; it sort of burns for a second, but probably clears out whatever was bothering you.
And finally, Lucia was lazing in bed one weekend morning when she suddenly leapt up and whipped her night dress off. A bit like Edgar I looked on in dazed confusion. In explanation Lucia breathlessly blurted out that there was something on her. On closer inspection and with due consideration, I replied that she could have fooled me.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
My dear family & friends
I’d rather be on a beach (and, as soon as we win the lottery, we will be.)
We had a lovely weekend with Barbara & Terry in Portugal. You can see all the pictures in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones.
But to begin at the beginning (which seems about as good a spot as any,) we woke at 02h40 last Friday to shower, get dressed, and make the zoo comfortable before the hour-long drive to Luton Airport for our 06h35 flight to Faro with EasyJet. Google said it would take us an hour and a half, but I surmised that it wouldn’t take us quite so long at that time of the morning. Lucia had arranged with one of her colleagues, Laura, to babysit the zoo over the weekend. We locked them out just after 03h00 with plenty of food and water to see them through the day until Laura arrived to take charge after work. Edgar bid us adieu beyond the glass of the patio door with that cocked head look that dogs give when they want to manipulate you.
I pointed Lucia’s Mercedes towards Luton and floored it. There was almost no traffic on the roads until we reached the M1 near Daventry. On the M1, the main north-south motorway out of London, I was taken aback by the amount of traffic on the road for that time of the morning – almost all of it big articulated trucks. I stuck to the right hand lane and did the speed that I wanted to do. But at that time of day it was easy to see what the problem is with UK motorways. The trucks are essentially a moving roadblock. They are limited to 60mph by statute and speed limiters on the vehicle itself – but there obviously going to be slight variations due to the physics of moving such weights and the technology on board. So, what happens is that a truck travelling at 61mph will always overtake a truck moving at 59mph. This blocks lanes one and two for miles essentially turning the freeway into a single lane road for cars. There are only two ways to get around this: ban trucks from overtaking, or add an extra lane to the motorway. I don’t really see either of those two things happening, but I can always dream.
Strolling around the departures lounge at Luton we couldn’t help but notice the news on the giant screens that Michael Jackson had died. You know how I feel about that paedophile. I might have mentioned to Lucia in passing that it was a great day for music. On the other hand, I can imagine quite a few news editors (in this age of 24-hours news) thanking their lucky stars that he died on a Thursday rather than a Monday – giving them an entire weekend’s worth of fluff to fill out their bulletins.
Disembarking at Faro airport, we followed everybody else – the wrong way. It’s amazing how people follow each other rather than the signs – bloody sheep. So when everybody turned around and started walking back the way they had come, we were at the front of the queue. Barbara and Terry (& Prickles & Ono) met us on the other side of passport control and baggage claim. We got a great big welcome from the dogs who now recognise the airport as a source of new guests. Then we wandered up and down the arrivals concourse looking for our car rental agency. We’ve always used AutoAlgarve – one of the discount rental agencies – but couldn’t find them anywhere. Back in December, Paulo – the agent – told us that the airport company was going to move their stand. He neglected to mention that this would be out of the building, across the approach road, through Parking Area 1, across another road, behind some trees and next to Parking Area 4. We got there with some guesswork and luck, and eventually drove away a little Renault Clio to meet Barbara & Terry at “O Electrico” (The Tram) just across the causeway on Faro Beach. The café used to be a tram carriage and hence its’ name – now it’s just another café on the estuary island of Faro Beach where you can watch aeroplanes take off and land at the airport across the mudflats. Sitting outside under the parasols, Lucia and I basked in the dry heat and simply absorbed the aromas of the sea, coffee, wild thyme and fish. Terry told us about the new Honda CRV he had just bought (and how delivery had been delayed by a strike by the people who make number plates in Portugal), but all I could think was: “Wow, smell that” as the aromas and warmth titivated our senses.
I also remembered – this time – to ask Barbara to bring some beach towels along when they came to greet us at the airport so that we could wander straight onto the beach for a swim. We had packed our costumes right on top of our suitcase for quick and easy access. So after coffees, tostas (toasted sandwiches), and a warming bagaçeira (grappa), Lucia and I went for a swim while Barbara and Terry went to check on their new vehicular purchase. Going straight to the beach definitely helped get us into a relaxed, holiday mood right away – you’ve got to get into the groove as soon as possible when you’ve only got four days.
From the beach we drove (slowly) to Barbara and Terry’s home – Casa Valepena – in Espargal with the windows wide open to feel the warm air ruffling our hair. Just a short note here on the name of Barbara and Terry’s home which is a play on words in Portuguese: their house overlooks the Pena valley (Vale de Pena), but “vale a pena” also means “worthwhile”. So they’ve got a worthwhile home in the Pena Valley.
Let me speed up here. We had a long, languid lunch of tapas, followed by an afternoon zizz and then a walk around the Espargal hilltop to exercise the dogs. In the evening, Barbara and Terry took us into Loulé which had fenced off the old town for the FestivalMed, an annual festival of music and gastronomy. We were aiming for the Igreja Matriz (mother church) where the Orquestra do Algarve was performing works by Bizet and Voríšek. Let me give you Terry’s description of the event from his own letter to friends and family: -- “Those attending were required to pay a 12-euro entrance fee, which is steep by local standards. Having obtained tickets, we made our way through the crush in the narrow cobbled streets, past endless stalls hawking knick-knacks (jewellery, clothing and music, adds Jones) to the church. Jones complains that I have not done justice to the event, with its alternative flavours, Bohemian atmosphere and smell of hash hanging in the air. It’s life as life has been lived in bazaar towns for centuries – if that’s what you like. Certainly, lots of people did.”
Like Terry, I didn’t know either of the pieces of music. Hell, I hadn’t even heard of Voříšek . We arrived a few minutes late and had to scuttle to an empty pew on tiptoes as the orchestra belted out the first movement of Voríšek’s Symphony in D Major. I was mesmerised by the music, but was frustrated by the fact that I had no idea what the hell I was listening to. I dashed back to the church door after the second movement to buy a programme, and then had to tiptoe back to my seat under the glare of other concert goers because the conductor had the temerity to launch into the third movement before I was ready. Through the third and fourth movements I felt like one of those fluffy dogs with noddy heads that people who drive LOUD cars put in the back window of their vehicles. I just couldn’t stop nodding my head and tapping my foot to the beat. The first thing I did when we got home to Leamington Spa was to see if I could download the music, which I couldn’t – so I actually had to BUY the CD on Amazon. (Still waiting for delivery.)
Afterwards we found a table in one of the numerous places to eat. Unsurprisingly – given how busy the old town was with the festival – the service was slow and the ambience distinctly noisy. But we were hungry, so we stuck it out and yelled at each other to be heard. My half-deaf ear popped and whizzed and zinged in the noise.
On Saturday morning Barbara and Terry took us around to João Rafael’s medronho distillery at Monte Ruivo for a brief tour and to make some purchases which we would be cramming into our suitcase for the journey home. Medronho is made from the fermented and distilled fruit of the wild strawberry tree, arbutus unedo . I have developed quite a taste for it over the years of visiting Portugal.
In the afternoon, Lucia & I went to the beach at Dunas Douradas (Golden Dunes). We go back to the same beach every time 1) because we know it, and 2) because it gives us a barometer of how the Algarve is changing. When we first went to this beach together in 2001, there was virtually nothing there – just some dunes and pine trees. Now it’s a mass of high-end property developments and golf courses which make for a continually changing the landscape.
I’ve lived with the beach for most my life so it’s difficult to describe how it feels to flop into the sand after missing it for so long. In Leamington Spa we are about as far away from the sea as you can get in England, and we really miss it. We used to absorb as much of the sun as possible when we were younger; now we spend most of our time under the umbrella. But it’s still the beach and it feels so much like the natural place for us to be. As a teenager I cycled many thousands of kilometres riding to a beach every single day of the summer vacation.
In the evening, Barbara and Terry attended the annual banquet of the Senior University of Loulé, while Lucia and I went to the Churrasqueira Angolana (churrasqueira = grill room, I suppose) in Loulé. No prizes for guessing that I chose the chicken piri piri; Lucia had steak. The dishes are served with rice, chips and salad. (No wonder then that Lucia and I both put on a couple of kilograms in just four days.)
Sunday was much the same as Saturday. In the morning we walked the dogs in the valley, we went to the beach in the afternoon, and in the evening we took Barbara and Terry to dinner at a new restaurant in Salir, a small village in the hills near Barbara and Terry’s home. Of course, that short monologue doesn’t do justice to how it felt – and it felt fantastic.
On Monday morning – all too soon – we had to pack our bags and go home; but we really felt like we’d had a good break. We did a lot without rushing. I drove slowly (mostly). This is where we’re coming to live if we win the lottery.
Back in England, Lucia was immediately thrust into her new job which involves integrating two business units in MillwardBrown. We expect this to take a lot of her time over the next few months, and exercise all the management skills she has learned in her career.
What else?
It was great not to suffer from hayfever for the few days we were in Portugal (given that grass pollen had to do its job months ago on the Algarve.)
Back home I traced an old friend, Julian, in England this week with whom I had lost contact in the late 1990s when he came to the UK. I had been talking to Barbara in Portugal about people who had influenced me for one reason or another and Julian’s name jumped out at me. I came back to the UK determined to try to find him if I could. The Internet is amazing. First I found his brother who is a senior pilot with Air Mauritus, and then, with a couple of good guesses, I tracked Julian to Anglo Irish Bank in London. He certainly seemed to be pleased to hear from me, and noted that he had recently been talking about me to somebody else. Of course I’m fascinated by the coincidence that we had been talking about each other at more-or-less the same time after no contact for twelve years. In classic British tradition where weekend diaries fill up weeks and months in advance, we have arranged to get together at the beginning of August.
The foxes are multiplying. Lucia hustled me to the study window yesterday evening to point out that the two adult foxes had been joined by at least three cubs in the playing field behind our house.
I was lying on the lawn after mowing the grass the other day and I started thinking about marbles for some strange reason. A couple of weeks of every year at primary school was devoted to “marble season” (which was usually followed by yo-yo season and then dingbat season.) If this strikes a chord, you’re probably male and you’re probably getting old. Ask any teenager now what a dingbat is, and I bet you £1 that they’ll say it’s a stupid person or a MicroSoft font. (Who remembers the little rubber balls tied to a plastic bat with a rubber band?) When I was in Standard Five (or Grade Seven, or whatever they call it now) I discovered a very cheap source of the highly prized “triple crystal goons” at a toyshop in the Highlands North shopping centre near where we lived in Johannesburg. The “goons” cost a mere five cents each at the toyshop, but I was able to flog them at school for Two Rands each, a mere 4000% profit. The toyshop also had pure-ies (as in something that’s pure, which is bit of a contradiction because they were milky rather than clear) which I was able to sell for vastly more than I paid for them. My friend, Brendan, also had a limitless supply of ball bearings of various sizes through his engineer father which didn’t cost us anything and which we sold for stupid amounts of money in the school playground. I have absolutely no recollection what we did with the profits; we probably splashed out on the high life – chips, sweets and cold drinks. Sorry, there’s no point to this anecdote. It’s just something I remembered with fondness; maybe I should have become a shopkeeper.
That’s it for now
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
My dear family & friends, Wednesday 24 June
We’ve got some changes coming up. Lucia has accepted a new position within Millward Brown here in the UK which is going to keep her very busy for the next six months. She’s very excited and enthusiastic over the opportunity. More on this at another time. The changeover is going to happen fairly fast so we decided to take ourselves away to the sunshine of Portugal for a quick break this weekend. We are greatly looking forward to deep blue skies, bright sunshine and some proper scorching heat.
It’s just as well then that we got Lucia’s new multiple entry Schengen visa when we did. You will remember from my last letter that we went to London with Lucia’s mother for the visa interview after which we took her mother on a trip down memory lane. I went to fetch Lucia’s passport with the new visa the following week. As with all my trips to London, I try to make a day of it. (It would be a horrible waste not to given the price of transport. A return ticket to London from Leamington Spa with a day travel card for London costs £32.)
I had to wait a while at the Portuguese Consulate which appeared to be busier than usual. Afterwards I walked down the back streets parallel to Oxford Street from the consulate in Great Portland Street to Tottenham Court Road. Then I caught the Northern Line to Archway and headed for Highgate Cemetery which I had never visited before. You can see a picture of me next to Karl Marx’s grave in the usual spot at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones. I was way too early for a tour of West Cemetery and the grand tombs hidden in the undergrowth, and had to settle for strolling around the East Cemetery with its famous epitaph to Marx. From the cemetery I walked through Waterlow Park to Highgate Village where glamorous people gathered for lunch in the sunshine on the sidewalk sipping champagne. I kept a sharp eye out for movie stars. I didn’t see any. I looked in at the window of an estate agent just to see exactly what it is that I can’t afford.
I wandered through Highgate to the tube station and journeyed across London to Golbourne Road where it cuts Portobello Road for a late lunch at a Portuguese cafe. I also wanted to pick up a couple of bottles of bagaçeira (that’s what the Italians call grappa) at a small Portuguese-run supermarket. Looking at my map book over lunch I spied a pleasant looking walk along the Grand Union Canal from Golbourne Road to Maida Vale. So, with a much heavier backpack, I set off along the canal.
It wasn’t long before I came across a canal maintenance barge. The fellows on the barge were cutting back branches hanging over the canal and fishing out all the shit that people throw into the canal. There were THREE scooters (not the child toy variety), what looked like the remains of a sofa, and a lot of bicycles (ten, twenty, maybe more.) I have been surprised by the level of littering here in the UK. The parks only look pristine because the local councils pay quite a bit of money to cleaning staff to keep them looking that way. The author Bill Bryson is a leading anti-litter advocate and has succeeded in using his high profile to draw attention to the matter. But he might as well ram his head into a brick wall. The parks here in Leamington Spa and Warwick look like a tip on Monday morning if there’s been good weather over the weekend. The only difference between here and SA is that somebody comes to pick it up here (thankfully). It reminds me of an occasion many years ago when I was driving through Hillbrow, Johannesburg, with the Business Report photographer John Woodroof. His comment about what had become of the litter strewn warzone that was New Hillbrow was that the residents had “no fucking pride. No fucking pride whatsoever.” I really wonder why people do it – why they deliberately ruin a beautiful park with their litter even when there are LOTS of rubbish bins all around them.
I really liked John Woodroof. He was short and tough as nails. When some “people” tried to hijack one of The Star’s staff cars a number of years ago, John – a fluent Zulu speaker – stuck his camera monopod in the back of one of the hijackers and threatened to blow them all away if they didn’t put their hands in the air and slowly lie face down on the ground. They all surrendered. I just love that story.
At Maida Vale I hurried to the tube to get to Marylebone Station before the rush of commuters trying to beat a two-day underground strike due to commence that evening.
The next evening we had a big braai (barbecue) at our house for the farewell of one of Lucia’s Spanish colleagues, Monica, her partner and their daughter. Pyromaniac that I am, I made a huge fire that would be certain to cook everybody’s food. It was a good party. Monica’s partner – I’m not saying his name because I don’t know how to spell it – helped me doing the grilling. I couldn’t have done it without him. But it was a surprise party, and I’m sure that he was very surprised that he had to cook.
And so the weekend came where we said goodbye to Ann. On Saturday we went to Kenilworth Castle (got quite a few pics of that) and to lunch at the Heron’s Nest on the canal near Knowle. We were much exercised by a sign next to the canal which warned of deep water – 4ft. I bet the Health & Safety commissars came up with that one. On Sunday we took Ann for a walk in the park and then to the Pastelaria Portuguesa before driving her to Heathrow in the afternoon. The traffic was incredibly thick going in to London and slowed to a crawl as we passed an accident. I wished I had taken heed of Lucia’s warnings that we needed to leave earlier – but we got to Heathrow in plenty of time in the end. The drive home was a joy – in all the time we have been here I have never had such a free, open road that allowed me to do some of the speeds I used to do in South Africa. It seemed like everybody had just disappeared.
We haven’t really done much in the week and half since Ann left. My one task has been to get all debit orders onto our local account and also finally get my mobile phone contract into my name. It’s impossible to contract for anything when you first arrive in the UK until you have a provable address so Andreas wife, Michelle, took out a cellphone and mobile broadband account for me in her name. I sent the forms in to transfer the contract to my name months ago but nothing had happened. Dealing with the call centres at Vodafone or British Telecom is not fun. I ended up having a real row with Gareth, who sounded Irish, at Vodafone who promised that he had done everything that needed to be done and all that Vodafone required was a call from Michelle to confirm the transfer. Michelle called and was told that the full transfer couldn’t be completed because there was something wrong with my credit check.
So, I called back the next morning, and I was not happy. I spoke to Jose from Spain, and he just blew me away with his service. He chased everything down, and even found the original transfer of user forms I’d sent in months ago. Even though I was an angry customer, Jose was patient and won me over. When he was told that he would have to wait a couple of minutes for a piece of information he said: “Let’s talk. Where are you from?” And while Jose just got the job done, I guess that Gareth was still muttering that people shouldn’t be allowed to talk to him like that. Tsk.
And talking of service, I just have to mention Warwick District Council. Fast, friendly and efficient. We’re just not used to that from the organs of state. I know British people can sometimes complain about state service, but coming from South Africa there is just no comparison.
What else?
Lucia was right. There are TWO foxes in living around the playing field behind our house.( I got a nice picture of one of them.)
That’s about it.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
My dear family & friends
It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote. I have been alternately busy or lazy or ironing or walking the dogs or something. We’ve been to Wales and London, and run the dogs on a sun-drenched, ice cold beach. A couple of you e-mailed me to check that I wasn’t dead. Thank you.
At the forefront of our thoughts this past week was the murder of another friend/acquaintance in South Africa last weekend. And a few weeks before that MillwardBrown in Johannesburg was the victim of an armed office invasion with Lucia’s former colleagues suffering the trauma of being held up at gunpoint.
But of the more recent tragedy: I don’t claim to have known Klaas Jonkheid well, but he was a former business partner of one of Lucia’s friends, he had dinner with us in our home, and Lucia had extensive business dealings with him. For those of you who don’t know, Klaas was murdered while attending the annual SAMRA (South African Marketing Research Association) convention at the Spier wine estate outside Cape Town. It appears that he had been hijacked. He was shot in the head, doused in petrol and set on fire. His (alleged) murderers were arrested two days later in possession of his cellphone, and the car battery and spare tyre from his hire car. It grieves me greatly that he died so cheaply. Klaas was the fifth person whom I personally knew that has been violently murdered in SA.
The manner in which Klaas died represented the greatest of my fears, particularly after my Aunt Eugene was murdered three years ago. I worried whenever Lucia had to travel to Johannesburg, or any distance at all for that matter. She, in turn, worried whenever I took the dogs walking on the mountain – and that was more-or-less every day. I remember so clearly flying home from Zanzibar after Aunt Eugene was killed – Lucia and I were sitting on the aeroplane after a glorious two weeks on the beach in the tropics, and I turned to her and said: “I don’t want to die like that. I don’t want to die in fear.” That was the tipping point for me that really got me thinking, and reading, and calculating. Most of you who know me might remember that I strongly recommended the book “When A Crocodile Eats The Sun” by Peter Godwin which had a significant effect on us and helped change our beliefs and expectations for South Africa. I still recommend that you read it.
As we struggled with our decision to leave SA and rationalise our thinking, one of you, my friends, bitterly shot at me that I/we were just like all the other people who had joined the chicken run and could do nothing but criticise South Africa to justify our choice. My answer to you now is this new tragedy to befall a friend, and the armed invasion of the MillwardBrown office in Johannesburg. That Klaas died in Cape Town (which is allegedly so much safer than Johannesburg) is especially poignant to me. The experience of relocating our lives has not been easy, and still isn’t easy, and we miss South Africa, but we breathe free air. We didn’t really know how much we feared for ourselves all the time – driving, parking the car, walking down the sidewalk , walking on the mountain, checking that the doors are locked at night (twice) – until we didn’t have to do it anymore. I cannot begin to describe to you how completely free of threat our lives are here in Leamington Spa. Crime means somebody’s car was broken into four weeks ago, as opposed to the daily theft epidemic where we lived in Vredehoek. Lucia always points out that she sleeps more solidly than she has done for years.
We no longer recommend South Africa as a tourist destination to anybody who asks – it’s expensive, it’s dangerous, and (most importantly) they don’t know the rules. Klaas knew the rules, and still he was caught out. The fact that he was caught out in that place at that time was entirely random, and it is that which most bothered Lucia and still does. I think it’s going to get worse. Global consumption has dropped off a cliff which means that nobody wants whatever SA was making (which was keeping the economy going), and there is a major problem on the horizon. I don’t think this bodes well for the soccer World Cup next year. Europeans just do not understand the “poorness” and desperation of Africa. Poverty in the UK seems to mean you don’t have SKY TV. They EXPECT people who live in Africa to behave like them, and I expect they are going to get a big surprise.
But that’s just a guess. I fear so much for all of you whom I love dearly.
That said, there’s been plenty to report in the lives of Familia Jones-Moir. It’s been a while since I wrote so I’ll just talk to the pictures which you can find in the usual place http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones. At the end of my last letter I said I was going to drive Lucia’s mother Ann to her sister-in-law in Cardiff the next day. I successfully accomplished the goal and then I went to Bristol. You may recall from a previous letter that Lucia and I really like Bristol and that I wanted to go back and spend more time exploring the city. Well, I still think it’s a lovely city. I could easily live there. Clifton, the neighbourhood which clings to the slopes of the Avon Gorge, attracts superlatives when I try to describe it. It reminds me of Paris, and Lisbon, and Porto and Bordeaux. It’s Bohemian and Classic. It pulses with life. I spent hours strolling up and down the streets drinking it all in before settling down to lunch in an inviting bodega. Afterwards I just drove around looking at what was there; it really is a pretty city. I was particularly fascinated by the Cathedral that no one needs anymore and which is being converted into apartments and offices – that is, as soon as the property market turns around. Now it’s just falling down. You probably know my feelings about any and all religion, so you’ll know that that appeals to my sense of order.
The following weekend Lucia and I went to look at Packwood House which is one of the National Trust properties in the area. The idea was that we would stroll around the house and gardens, and then have lunch at the canteen/restaurant. Nearly all the National Trust properties have canteens which provide really good, ordinary food. Just not Packwood House though. But I got some nice pictures of Lucia in the topiary.
Ann got back to us from Cardiff by train via a stop in London with more family. In the meantime, Lucia had been trolling the Internet looking for a reasonably priced holiday cottage in Wales where we could spend a short break over her birthday. She found a lovely home in the little village of Castle Morris in Pembrokeshire which welcomed dogs. But before our short jaunt, we went for a Sunday afternoon picnic in Stratford around the bandstand. It was a Bank Holiday weekend and Rob and Mandy, our friends from Leicester whom we met at the quarantine kennels last year, suggested an outing. I had been wanting to do a picnic around the bandstand, and Rob, Mandy and daughter Chloe liked the idea too. We had a wonderful time. A brass band played from around two to half past four in the most glorious summer sunshine while we caught up with each other’s news over a picnic lunch next to The Avon. It takes really shit weather to appreciate days like that, and, oh, what a wonderful day it was!
Sunday 7 June – I got sidetracked for a while there.
Then (relatively) early on Monday morning (this is two weeks ago now) we were off to Wales. I chose to drive to our destination along the A40, the more scenic route which took us over and around the Brecon Beacons. “Scenic” in Wales means fairly narrow and fairly windy roads. You’re screwed if you get stuck behind a slow driver. You can drive for miles before you find a straight enough piece of road to overtake – and even then you can’t hesitate. You have to change down a couple of gears and floor it. If you hesitate, or there’s a car coming the other way, it’ll be five or ten miles before you find another opportunity. And, of course, in summer time you can’t see terribly much because the hedgerows are in full leaf. I think hedgerows should be banned next to all “A” roads. This could be simply enforced by placing the liability for any road accident deaths on the owner of the land where the hedgerows are less than 3m (around 10ft) from the side of the road and are more than a metre (3ft) high. On the other hand, even suggesting this could very easily earn me a fatwa – so I won’t say it too loudly. I’ll try to suggest it to Jeremy Clarkson. The liberal, bunny-hugging brigade blames most of the road accident deaths in the UK on “excessive” speed. I beg to differ – I blame it on the hedgerows and the windy roads (and the doos who thinks he/she’s being a good driver by driving slowly.)
Trying to find a nice spot for dinner on that first evening in Wales a touch difficult. We drove into Fishguard (Abergwaun) but most of the nice-looking places were closed for Monday evening. How they justify this on a Bank Holiday weekend in the middle of summer is a bit of a mystery to me, but there you have it. The one really nice pub we found in Lower Town, called the Ship Inn, didn’t serve dinner. We eventually found a pub that served food, but it was forgettable. We went back to the Ship Inn for a drink afterwards. Much of the 1956 classic movie “Moby Dick” with Richard Burton was filmed in Lower Town in Fishguard, and the Ship Inn was their local during the filming as attested to by the the grainy black and white photographs on the wall.
The next day dawned bright, but cold and icy as a bitter wind blew in off the Atlantic. We went looking for the beaches and the sights. Our journey mostly followed the very, very narrow and winding “B” roads. We stopped in St David’s to tour the cathedral which dates back a thousand years. Newgale was our chosen beach for the day to let the dogs loose and enjoy themselves before lunch. Lucia and Ann dressed up like Eskimos to protect themselves from the elements. I didn’t think it was that cold. As you might notice from the pictures, I’m wearing shorts. I must be tough. My best picture of the day was a combine harvester raking up a crop on the cliffs above the beach. In the afternoon we cut across to Milford Haven because I knew the name. Whatever it was like before, it is now dominated by petroleum and gas terminals on the Cleddau River, and oil refineries just inland. In the evening, we celebrated Lucia’s birthday at The Famers Arms in Mathry just down the road from our holiday cottage.
On Wednesday morning, we packed up and followed the coast along Carmarthen Bay to morning tea at Saundersfoot and a lunchtime walk on the Pendine Sands. Unfortunately we couldn’t go far because the Pendine Sands are owned by the Ministry of Defense and a big red flag was flying which barred our access to the beach. Then we directed ourselves to the M4 which led us along the southern Welsh coast passed Swansea, Port Talbot and Cardiff to the Severn bridge and the M5 and home.
The next day we all went to London where Lucia had booked an interview for her next Schengen visitor’s visa at the Portuguese Consulate. One has to book these interviews weeks and months in advance. The annoyance is that the interview never takes more than a few minutes because (how shall I put this) we are of European heritage, have provable financial resources and Lucia is gainfully employed. If you are from South America, Africa or the Far East, you get grilled. After the “interview” we took Ann on a journey down memory lane to the secretarial college which she attended in Hampstead 60 years ago, as well as the Catholic boarding house where she stayed at 49 Fitzjohn’s Avenue. The boarding house is still a cloister for retired nuns. We had lunch in the sun just off Hampstead High Street before taking the bus to Brent Cross shopping centre (free parking) where I’d parked the car. The bus rode down the back of Hampstead Heath and through Golders Green to Brent Cross. I knew Golders Green was a well-known Jewish suburb, but I had no idea how Jewish it was. In some places it seemed that most of the people walking down the sidewalk were Hasidim – the men in their round black hats and suits, and the women wearing wigs to cover their own hair. I watched one ancient crone hunched over her cane shuffle slowly down the road – all topped by a flowing blonde wig.
Our adventure last weekend was a journey to Leominster for lunch with a childhood friend of Ann’s, Pam Pridham and her husband Michael. I took Ann to Coventry bus station on Monday morning to catch her National Express coach to Essex where she spent the week with more family.
And so I’ll jump to this weekend. Lucia – who has much more patience than I do when searching for stuff on the Internet – booked matinee tickets for Cameron Mackintosh’s production of Oliver at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane starring Rowan Atkinson as Fagin. I’ve had a soft spot for Oliver ever since I was cast in the Pact (Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal) production of the musical at the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg in 1978. (It was a spin-off of the London show with the same director and the same sets.) Most South Africans (of a certain age) will know exactly who I’m talking about when I say Gordon Mulholland starred as Fagin. It is still the only professional production I have ever been cast in. It ran for nearly five months and I earned R10 a practice and R15 a show which was a lot of money then, especially as a twelve-year-old. I remember Annie was also being staged at His Majesty’s Theatre near the Carlton Centre, and there was great competition between the two casts to see who could attract the bigger audiences. I just loved being on stage. There were school productions after that, and at University I was a participating member of the Cape Town Gilbert & Sullivan Society – but I wasn’t paid for my participation as I was in Oliver.
Jumping 31 years ahead to the Theatre Royal, I am as much entranced by the production as I ever was. The sets were incredible, and the set changes were incorporated into show with the same slick precision which I remembered form 31 years ago – except it was all so much more grand with modern technology. Another – slight – difference was that we were sitting in the back row of the balcony. If one was really unlucky to slip on the stairs while trying to find your seat, it could easily be written up as “Suicide In Theatre” by the tabloids. Lucia has never liked heights and she admitted afterwards to feeling some considerable vertiginous fright as she peered down at the stage from on high.
Afterwards we strolled around Covent Garden before catching a tube to Golbourne Road in Nottinghill, where we had been recommended to a particular Portuguese restaurant. We found a couple of Portuguese coffee shops and a deli – plus some Arab, Lebanese, Somali, Italian, Greek, Polish, Indian and Turkish establishments – but not what we were looking for. So we made our way down Portobello Road looking for something to entice us which we never encountered. We eventually gave up and caught a taxi to Marylebone High Street and an excellent Turkish Restaurant called Topkapi which we would wholeheartedly recommend to our London correspondents.
What else?
I have also posted some pictures of my new favourite cooldrink – Rubicon lychee (that would be litchi in SA) – along with a few of the other flavours in the range; passion fruit, pomegranate and guava. They only seem to be distributed by “independent” retailers and I only discovered them because I was looking for something like Granadilla Twist in South Africa. The range is only stocked by Costcutters in Leamington Spa.
We have a fox (Lucia says two) living in the field behind our house. He hurries across the playing ground every evening to a house where somebody throws out some scraps for him. When he’s done he dashes back again to get under the cover afforded by the copse of trees on the other side of our fence. We were concerned that he might represent a threat to our cats, but one of my neighbours tells me that the fox has already lost an eyeball-to-eyeball showdown with his own cat. I expect Tigger and CharlieBrown might also let him know he isn’t welcome. He certainly wants to keep out of Hazel’s way.
One of my sports in the UK is listening for South African accents. I was really surprised to hear the villain from the fourth series of “24” – which I’ve been watching back to back while ironing – speaking with a distinct South African accent. At first I was convinced it was somebody with whom I served in the army at the castle in Cape Town ... until I Googled the feller and discovered it was Arnold Vosloo from “Boetie Gaan Border Toe” fame. At least he isn’t pretending he’s an American like Charlize Theron. Every time I hear her talking in that fake American accent, I remind the television screen that she was born in Benoni.
Love, light & peace to you all
Llewellyn
