JAWORSKI TRAVELS
We live our lives forever taking leave - Rilke
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Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Monday, December 29/2008
Cyprus's mild version of winter - temperatures in mid to high tens Celsius and the occasional shower. Euronews shows only European weather, the camera moving across the map at a speed that makes focus a tricky eye exercise. BBC World attempts to cover the whole world in the same inadequate time, so that North America is represented by little more than half a dozen cities. The two chosen Canadian cities are Winnipeg and Quebec, an odd choice but reasonably interesting for us. Presumably Winnipeg occupies a spot on the map for which there is little competition.
Monday, 29 December 2008
Sunday, December 28/2008
Lazy day for us, but we're an hour away from Gaza (by air) and the utter misery is intensifying as the Israelis play tough for a pre-election audience.
Nice bits of year end retrospectives beginning. Gwynne Dyer's look at the year in today's Cyprus Mail is disappointingly thin on analysis - looks like he suddenly realised it had to be done by five o'clock - but BBC World shows some of its best documentaries of the year, including a couple of excellent ones on China, a contry that has changed enormously in the almost 20 years since we were there.
Nice bits of year end retrospectives beginning. Gwynne Dyer's look at the year in today's Cyprus Mail is disappointingly thin on analysis - looks like he suddenly realised it had to be done by five o'clock - but BBC World shows some of its best documentaries of the year, including a couple of excellent ones on China, a contry that has changed enormously in the almost 20 years since we were there.
Saturday, December 27/2008
Coffee with Maggi at the market - a smaller market for the Christmas meal but we don't need anything. Then in the afternoon we walk out to M&M's. The road has been eroded a bit by the sea during the last storm - undercut as well? G&T, melon and parma ham on the balcony overlooking the sea. It's hot as long as the sun lasts.
Woolworth stores in the UK began closing their doors today, early victims of the recession. They've had a long history. My father used to tell us about going to Woolworth's with his brothers and sister to buy Christmas presents. They would take turns having one wait while the other four went to buy his presents.
Woolworth stores in the UK began closing their doors today, early victims of the recession. They've had a long history. My father used to tell us about going to Woolworth's with his brothers and sister to buy Christmas presents. They would take turns having one wait while the other four went to buy his presents.
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Friday, December 26/2008
Boxing Day and would have been my grandfather's birthday - I think his hundred and twenty third. He never knew any of his grandchildren and we have - the oldest grandchildren at least - a few distilled sayings and memories of him through our parents. In the Depression, for example, he wouldn't let his sons caddy because there were grown men trying to feed their families by caddying. It was also Grandpa who, early in his marriage, made the mistake of telling my grandmother that the cake she had just made was as good as a store-bought one.
Shops closed and we, like many others, tourists and locals alike, walk along the beach front promenade (named Finoukides after the date palms that line it) and the pier. It's warm in the sun and everyone from babies to grandparents is out, the children displaying Christmas presents. A little girl is unsteady on her new roller skates and helium balloons in animal shapes are much in display. Popcorn, roasted corn on the cob and ice cream on sale. One brave man goes for a swim. The water is probably quite warm, but there is a bit of breeze across the beach.
We stop to examine the new large abstract sculpture at the pier end of the beach. Tell me, I say, that it isn't something horrible like a monument memorialising victims of some Turkish atrocity. Well, not quite - but sort of. It's not Cypriot victims anyway. Loath to miss any chance to demonise the Turks, the southern Cypriots have erected a monument in memory of the victims of the Turkish massacre of the Armenians. It's true, of course, that the massacre occured, though not recently and true that Turkey has not taken responsibility and that many Armenians took refuge in cyprus - but all the same it seems like an opportunity they just couldn't let pass. But there is also on display along the walk winning entries from a Cypriot art contest with multicultural emphasis. Some quite impressive works and a sign of hope. They don't seem to attract as much attention as the sculpture though.
Shops closed and we, like many others, tourists and locals alike, walk along the beach front promenade (named Finoukides after the date palms that line it) and the pier. It's warm in the sun and everyone from babies to grandparents is out, the children displaying Christmas presents. A little girl is unsteady on her new roller skates and helium balloons in animal shapes are much in display. Popcorn, roasted corn on the cob and ice cream on sale. One brave man goes for a swim. The water is probably quite warm, but there is a bit of breeze across the beach.
We stop to examine the new large abstract sculpture at the pier end of the beach. Tell me, I say, that it isn't something horrible like a monument memorialising victims of some Turkish atrocity. Well, not quite - but sort of. It's not Cypriot victims anyway. Loath to miss any chance to demonise the Turks, the southern Cypriots have erected a monument in memory of the victims of the Turkish massacre of the Armenians. It's true, of course, that the massacre occured, though not recently and true that Turkey has not taken responsibility and that many Armenians took refuge in cyprus - but all the same it seems like an opportunity they just couldn't let pass. But there is also on display along the walk winning entries from a Cypriot art contest with multicultural emphasis. Some quite impressive works and a sign of hope. They don't seem to attract as much attention as the sculpture though.
Thursday, December 25/2008
Christmas Day. Traditional and not. We go to Mass in the moroning, stopping for koulouri at the bakery on the way back. Bakeries and news stands are open (and newspapers published) but not much else. No one condemned to day old bread or news.
J has outlined a Christmas tree shape about five feet high on the front of the wardrobe using tinsel made from silver paper donated by Maggi. He's "hung" baubles (saved from last year) on it with bluetack, decorated it with curls of paper chain and cut a gold star for the top - and all of this in two halves so that the wardrobe doors still open. He's also draped coloured foil curls and balls made from chocolate wrapper across the arch in the middle of the room and we have a couple of christmas posters, full broadsheet size, courtesy of the December 10 and 11 Guardians. As well as our menorah style five candle wrought iron candelabra that J rescued from the street two years ago.
M&M to dinner for what is now our 7th Christmas together. This time we have a leg of lamb, largely because it works better with the large pot but no oven facilities. And because Cypriot lamb is so good. Just after the vegetables are on the table and J is finishing making the gravy, the two burner hot plate blows, audibly. As Maggi says, pretty good timing. Dinner is done, and we can still make the brandy sauce and heat the Christmas pudding in the microwave. Lovely lamb and good company.
J has outlined a Christmas tree shape about five feet high on the front of the wardrobe using tinsel made from silver paper donated by Maggi. He's "hung" baubles (saved from last year) on it with bluetack, decorated it with curls of paper chain and cut a gold star for the top - and all of this in two halves so that the wardrobe doors still open. He's also draped coloured foil curls and balls made from chocolate wrapper across the arch in the middle of the room and we have a couple of christmas posters, full broadsheet size, courtesy of the December 10 and 11 Guardians. As well as our menorah style five candle wrought iron candelabra that J rescued from the street two years ago.
M&M to dinner for what is now our 7th Christmas together. This time we have a leg of lamb, largely because it works better with the large pot but no oven facilities. And because Cypriot lamb is so good. Just after the vegetables are on the table and J is finishing making the gravy, the two burner hot plate blows, audibly. As Maggi says, pretty good timing. Dinner is done, and we can still make the brandy sauce and heat the Christmas pudding in the microwave. Lovely lamb and good company.
Wednesday, December 24/2008
Christmas Eve. There is a Christmas farmers' market today, and the rain has stopped, but we head north instead to Carrefour and collect a few more bits for dinner tonight and tomorrow. The queues are horrific, especially at the butcher's counter - easily fifteen people deep. At Prinos greengrocers I watch a young mother hand her daughter, aged maybe 4, a juicy peach as a reward for watching the shopping basket in the queue and am not sure whether I am more shocked by the casual acquisition without payment of a large out-of-season fruit on behalf of a child or by her handing the girl unwashed fruit to eat. I tell Joe, who says he just watched a woman in the supermarket put in her cart a carton of coke with attached free toy bus. She then tore the bus out of its plastic, handed it to her young son, and returned the coke to the shelf.
Lovely walk back. The rain has freshened things up and we pass bouganvillea, and flower beds, trees laden with oranges and palms swaying in the breeze. Very busy with traffic backed up and store aisles jammed with shoppers.
Christmas for me begins with the broadcast live of the nine lessons and carols from King's college, Cambridge. Or does when we're in this part of the world, anyway. In central Canada it would be at 9 a.m. but here it starts at five pm, always with a single boy soprano singing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. They've been holding the service for 90 years and every year since 1932, with one exception, the radio World Service has carried it live. Time to sit down, pour a drink, and know that Christmas has begun. King's College chapel itself (not that it shows, this being radio) is lovely - a Gothic chapel dating back to Henry VI, and memories of it mingle with the music.
And on a more secular plane we pick up, later in the evening Ricky Gervais in some slightly edgy comedy with Swedish subtitles on the Swedish chanel.
Lovely walk back. The rain has freshened things up and we pass bouganvillea, and flower beds, trees laden with oranges and palms swaying in the breeze. Very busy with traffic backed up and store aisles jammed with shoppers.
Christmas for me begins with the broadcast live of the nine lessons and carols from King's college, Cambridge. Or does when we're in this part of the world, anyway. In central Canada it would be at 9 a.m. but here it starts at five pm, always with a single boy soprano singing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. They've been holding the service for 90 years and every year since 1932, with one exception, the radio World Service has carried it live. Time to sit down, pour a drink, and know that Christmas has begun. King's College chapel itself (not that it shows, this being radio) is lovely - a Gothic chapel dating back to Henry VI, and memories of it mingle with the music.
And on a more secular plane we pick up, later in the evening Ricky Gervais in some slightly edgy comedy with Swedish subtitles on the Swedish chanel.
Tuesday, December we/2008
The television weather map of the Mediterranean shows the eastern end concealed by bluish cloud. It's not a satellite map - just a representation - but it matches the alternate drizzle and heavy showers that happen.
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Monday, December 23/2008
Wake to the swish of cars driving on wet road. It's rained in the night, though not enough to do a great deal of good. Cypriot reservoirs are said to be at 3% of capacity and progress with desalination plants hopelessly behind. More rain, and hail and wind, in late afternoon, with attendant damage and flooding. As always, the storm sewers here are completely inadequate. so much of the rain that falls is wasted.
There's a Christmas concert on tonight. It's free and the standard is usually pretty high, but given the uncertainty of the weather and the certainty of flooded streets we give it a miss.
There's a Christmas concert on tonight. It's free and the standard is usually pretty high, but given the uncertainty of the weather and the certainty of flooded streets we give it a miss.
Monday, 22 December 2008
Sunday, December 21/2008
Last Sunday in Advent. At Mass there are two separate, though intermingled groups. The Europeans - mostly English or Irish expats with a sprinkling of Italians, Poles and others - and the Asians - mostly Filippino or, in lesser numbers, Sri Lankan, household help. While clearly in the laid back european camp ourselves, it's hard not to admire the liveliness, enthusiasm and open affection of the Filippinas especially. They don't make much money here, are often badly treatd by their employers, and, in many cases, have left small children behind with grandparents as they search for jobs that will allow them to send money home but the hug as they meet, sway to the music and are all smiles. It's very humbling.
Find a Chinese delivery menu that had been thrust into my hand on the street. See that it features "pecking duck with 4 pancakes," "half pecking duck" and "whole pecking duck," at eight euros fifty-five, sixteen euros ninety and thirty-three euros thirty respectively. For those feeling peckish?
Find a Chinese delivery menu that had been thrust into my hand on the street. See that it features "pecking duck with 4 pancakes," "half pecking duck" and "whole pecking duck," at eight euros fifty-five, sixteen euros ninety and thirty-three euros thirty respectively. For those feeling peckish?
Saturday, December 20/2008
The American Academy has a car boot sale in the morning. Pick up 4 paperbacks for a euro. Then market for oranges, cucumber, courgettes, cauliflower, kohlrabi and eggs. Coffee there with M&M. Good Cypriot coffee with the glass of water on the side and a nice breeze blowing.
In the afternoon to Carrefour. Still getting stocked up. Last time J spotted a Cypriot woman checking out the liquor. She opened the caps of two different fancy for Christmas bottles of vodka, sniffed them, returned them to the shelf, and bought neither. Today we check the meat counter. There's a sign with a price for lamb, but all that appears at that point under the glass counter is thirteen sad looking sheep's heads, eyes glazed, and beside them a pile of miscellaneous offal. No sign of the better bits. What would one do with a sheep's head if one were inclined to cook it? Not that I am.
At Prinos, the greengrocer across the road I get a huge bunch of dill - almost the size of the bouquets of roses in grad photos - as well as lemon, garlic, and onion. A man comes over to offer me a small white paper bag. Turns out to contain 5 hot chestnuts that he's just been roasting, so J and I stop at a park bench to eat them while they're still hot.
BBC World TV shows a circle of policemen surrounding the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square, central Athens. Its predecessor was burned by rioters and t he protests continue. We have fond memories of sitting in Syntagma Square in mid-December the year we retired, pleased that we could leave our jackets open in the winter sun (before we'd first come to shirt sleeve Cyprus). It seemed so exotic then seeing both Christmas lights and oranges on the trees of the square. Now, unfortunately, we've become blind to the miracle, walking past laden orange trees in December without really seeing them.
In the afternoon to Carrefour. Still getting stocked up. Last time J spotted a Cypriot woman checking out the liquor. She opened the caps of two different fancy for Christmas bottles of vodka, sniffed them, returned them to the shelf, and bought neither. Today we check the meat counter. There's a sign with a price for lamb, but all that appears at that point under the glass counter is thirteen sad looking sheep's heads, eyes glazed, and beside them a pile of miscellaneous offal. No sign of the better bits. What would one do with a sheep's head if one were inclined to cook it? Not that I am.
At Prinos, the greengrocer across the road I get a huge bunch of dill - almost the size of the bouquets of roses in grad photos - as well as lemon, garlic, and onion. A man comes over to offer me a small white paper bag. Turns out to contain 5 hot chestnuts that he's just been roasting, so J and I stop at a park bench to eat them while they're still hot.
BBC World TV shows a circle of policemen surrounding the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square, central Athens. Its predecessor was burned by rioters and t he protests continue. We have fond memories of sitting in Syntagma Square in mid-December the year we retired, pleased that we could leave our jackets open in the winter sun (before we'd first come to shirt sleeve Cyprus). It seemed so exotic then seeing both Christmas lights and oranges on the trees of the square. Now, unfortunately, we've become blind to the miracle, walking past laden orange trees in December without really seeing them.
Friday, December 19/2008
Maggi and I have a drink at the little market cafe with her friend Dino, a British born Cypriot. We drink zivania, a clear Cypriot liquor. I've had it before but this is nicer. Zivania in one glass and ice water for diluting it in the other. Still shirt sleeve weather, so lovely for outside cafes.
Stop at the Frangiorgio and collect the Christmas card Rachel and Dave have sent with Kieran and Katy's school pictures, both of which turned out really well. There's a broken cable beneath the Mediterranean, affecting both internet and telephone communication. It's somewhere near Alexandria but affecting countries as far away as Singapore. Hard to know what the local effect is - it could easily be confused with the usual apalling performance.
Stop at the Frangiorgio and collect the Christmas card Rachel and Dave have sent with Kieran and Katy's school pictures, both of which turned out really well. There's a broken cable beneath the Mediterranean, affecting both internet and telephone communication. It's somewhere near Alexandria but affecting countries as far away as Singapore. Hard to know what the local effect is - it could easily be confused with the usual apalling performance.
Friday, 19 December 2008
Thursday, December 18/2008
Pre-Christmas sales at the supermarkets and we get our exercise as they're not all in the same direction and none are very close. The priorities are interesting. Carrefour's flyer, for example, has 13 pages of food ads, 13 pages of wine and liquor ads, and 5 pages of miscellaneous - soap, ipods, whatever. Anything with sugar is ridiculously expensive, but alcohol often quite cheap - e.g.700 ml. Drambuie at ten euros forty-five cents or a litre of local vodka at five euros fifty cents.
Wednesday, December 17/2008
M&M drop in for tea in the morning so Magne gets to see our studio as well. Maggi says temperatures have been so warm that there are snake warnings out. Datime temperatures about 22 in the shade, much warmer in the sun, and the snakes have not hibernated as usual. Contrast with the -35 and wind chill warning in Sioux Lookout when I checked at the internet yesterday. The bad part is the drought. Our hotel is only granted water from the municipality 3 days a week. The rest it brings in by tanker. Local residents have similar problems - water rationed and not available every day.
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Tuesday, December 16/2008
Meet Maggi at student internet. Had forgotten how maddening it is. Three out of four computers "working" though unbelievably slowly and with periodic crashes and, in at least one case, a mouse that leaves the user feeling neurologically disabled. Increasingly frantic attempts have slow and inconsistent results. Astonishingly little achieved in half an hour, which is the maximum allowed, regardless of whether anyone is waiting for a computer or not. Sourpuss, in charge today, takes a particular grim pleasure in pointing out that one's time is up.
Haircut in the afternoon, put off since back in tunisia. I wait for the man who usually does it well. Not a lot of language in common so it's a more unnerving prospect than usual. Show him 2 fingers shorter and say "layer." He nods and sets to work. Basic "shorter" don and he explains that he will now "layer everything." I have horrible visions of a vicious shingling, but it's fine. He's never given me a bad cut - though the price is creeping up. Nine euros now, and the euro itself is creeping up. Worth roughly $1.50 when we went to Paris, it's now $1.70
Haircut in the afternoon, put off since back in tunisia. I wait for the man who usually does it well. Not a lot of language in common so it's a more unnerving prospect than usual. Show him 2 fingers shorter and say "layer." He nods and sets to work. Basic "shorter" don and he explains that he will now "layer everything." I have horrible visions of a vicious shingling, but it's fine. He's never given me a bad cut - though the price is creeping up. Nine euros now, and the euro itself is creeping up. Worth roughly $1.50 when we went to Paris, it's now $1.70
Monday, December 15/2008
Wake up in our new home. No couch here, but there are 2 armchairs and a proper kitchen table with 4 upholstered chairs, and lots of light. Maybw we were lucky to have the bed beetles as an excuse.
Free bottle of wine at Metro with 65 euro purchase, but we don't have a hope of carrying that much. Must be at least a kilometre. Would have gone on to the student internet but Maggi texts to say that it's closed for the funeral of former president Papadopoulos. Never speak ill of the dead, but he, an old EOKA man, did as much as humanly possible to prevent the reintegration of south and north cyprus, spending his presidency persuuading the citizens that whatever they were offered they deserved better.
Free bottle of wine at Metro with 65 euro purchase, but we don't have a hope of carrying that much. Must be at least a kilometre. Would have gone on to the student internet but Maggi texts to say that it's closed for the funeral of former president Papadopoulos. Never speak ill of the dead, but he, an old EOKA man, did as much as humanly possible to prevent the reintegration of south and north cyprus, spending his presidency persuuading the citizens that whatever they were offered they deserved better.
Sunday, Deember 14/2008
Mass at 9:30 with the usual enthusiastic Filippino singing. Father Wilhelm, giving communion, says "the body of Christ" in Polish, so back home.
After brunch we decide to make the move. Frangiorgio not exactly happy and suggest that on the daily rather than long term plan we owe them money on top of the deposit from last spring. But after the bugs they're not in a strong position and we call it quits. Do a flit, as the Scots say, to the Kition, fortunately only two blocks away. Maggi, out for a bike ride, comes to help. There's our suitcases, a bit of food and the three goxes we left in the storeroom last March, as yet unpacked. We'd also left a drying rack for clothes and a wheeled cart, both scrounged/inherited. Dryer there, wheels gone - taken by someone who must have taken some time to untape our name. Good thing it's only two blocks.
But our new home is light, happy and warm, and we're instantly glad we've made the move.
After brunch we decide to make the move. Frangiorgio not exactly happy and suggest that on the daily rather than long term plan we owe them money on top of the deposit from last spring. But after the bugs they're not in a strong position and we call it quits. Do a flit, as the Scots say, to the Kition, fortunately only two blocks away. Maggi, out for a bike ride, comes to help. There's our suitcases, a bit of food and the three goxes we left in the storeroom last March, as yet unpacked. We'd also left a drying rack for clothes and a wheeled cart, both scrounged/inherited. Dryer there, wheels gone - taken by someone who must have taken some time to untape our name. Good thing it's only two blocks.
But our new home is light, happy and warm, and we're instantly glad we've made the move.
Saturday, December 13/2008
Market morning, and on the way over we meet Dougie, the bus driver, who asks how we're settling in - we spare him the details - and says he's brought Maggie and Magne in. If Cyprus is, as J contends, a tribal society, it's nice to be in Dougie's tribe.
Cyprus coffee with M and M in a litle corner behind the market. Near the rubbish piles, but sunny, nice management, good company and good coffee. Then the basics - if we manage to move we don't want too much to carry. So a couple of onions and some tiny tomatoes and the rest from Carrefour in the afternoon.
Cyprus coffee with M and M in a litle corner behind the market. Near the rubbish piles, but sunny, nice management, good company and good coffee. Then the basics - if we manage to move we don't want too much to carry. So a couple of onions and some tiny tomatoes and the rest from Carrefour in the afternoon.
Friday, December 12/2008
So after coffee the agenda becomes a search for alternate accommodation. We're a bit put out because the promised CNN has disappeared from the TV offerings. Not our favourite chanel by any means, but still constant English language news, which is in short supply here. There's also a separate charge for heat that was not the case when we booked, and heat is a definite necessit in a north facing flat - and in the evening anyway. But the creepy crawlies are the biggest concern.
Check at the Achilleos and at Petrou Brothers. Achilleos ridiculously overpriced and Petrou sparkling clean, professionally run and with good TV, but still pretty high, as always. Off to M and M's for lunch - after telling Francis at the Frangiorgio about the bugs. Apologies, new flat - next door - OK not to move until after lunch - which we discreetly refer to as an appointment.
So lovely and welcome interlude with M and M, gin and tonics, spaghetti bolognaise and mince pies with custard - and lots of catch up talk and laughter.
Walk back along the seafront and, seeing the Kition Hotel, decide to check. The manager is in at 7:30 and we look at two studios. There is a one bedroom but its fairly expensive. The studio is a last minute bit of inspiration but proves to be lovely - 3rd floor corner and 3 large windows and two patio doors to a balcony gong the full length of the studio. Tons of light and a penthouse feel. It's not large and storage is pretty limited but we're taken with it - and it does have BBC. Forty euros more than the Frangiorgio. So back to think it over.
No bugs in new Frangiorgio apartment.
Check at the Achilleos and at Petrou Brothers. Achilleos ridiculously overpriced and Petrou sparkling clean, professionally run and with good TV, but still pretty high, as always. Off to M and M's for lunch - after telling Francis at the Frangiorgio about the bugs. Apologies, new flat - next door - OK not to move until after lunch - which we discreetly refer to as an appointment.
So lovely and welcome interlude with M and M, gin and tonics, spaghetti bolognaise and mince pies with custard - and lots of catch up talk and laughter.
Walk back along the seafront and, seeing the Kition Hotel, decide to check. The manager is in at 7:30 and we look at two studios. There is a one bedroom but its fairly expensive. The studio is a last minute bit of inspiration but proves to be lovely - 3rd floor corner and 3 large windows and two patio doors to a balcony gong the full length of the studio. Tons of light and a penthouse feel. It's not large and storage is pretty limited but we're taken with it - and it does have BBC. Forty euros more than the Frangiorgio. So back to think it over.
No bugs in new Frangiorgio apartment.
Thursday, December 11/2008
Up at 4:40 and mini cab to Heathrow 5 - 23 pounds, a fraction more than our joint train and tube fares from Gatwick. Heathrow 5 huge and glitzy but no long queues. Amazingly long bus ride out to the plane though, feels like heading for another town. SMall delay while they find and unload the cases of two people who have not shown for the flight. Undoubtedly not terrorists but Cypriots, who very frequently come late and with staggering amounts of hand luggage, used, we suspect, to a system that runs less on rules than on favours. Huge brunch and lovely crew, especially the young man wh hands us each an extra brandy, saying in confidential tones "one is never enough, is it?" He'd also come up with larger cups for coffee at breakfast with similar sympathetic clucking. BA seems no longer to run to newspapers, but this time we're prepared and have exchanged our overweight British coins for three newspapers in preparation. And the flight's half empty so there's lots of room to spread out and read them.
Maggi meets us at the gate so hugs and then we're just in time to get the bus in. Dougie, the bus driver is into high welcome too, with a handshake for J and kisses - les deux smack - for me. And he refuses to take any fare - oh not the first time!
Out to get enough for a meal of the beans on toast and cheap wine variety. I'm fairly early to bed with The Times - and then the discovery. First a small beele, about the size of a ladybug, crawls past - but perhaps it fell off the newspaper? But there are more. Two or three at a time, clearly visible against the white sheets, appearing endlessly from where - the mattress, the carpet? A half dozen of them, when squished in a bit of toilet paper, have mosquiteo sized amounts of what can only be human blood, though we're not aware of being bitten.
Maggi meets us at the gate so hugs and then we're just in time to get the bus in. Dougie, the bus driver is into high welcome too, with a handshake for J and kisses - les deux smack - for me. And he refuses to take any fare - oh not the first time!
Out to get enough for a meal of the beans on toast and cheap wine variety. I'm fairly early to bed with The Times - and then the discovery. First a small beele, about the size of a ladybug, crawls past - but perhaps it fell off the newspaper? But there are more. Two or three at a time, clearly visible against the white sheets, appearing endlessly from where - the mattress, the carpet? A half dozen of them, when squished in a bit of toilet paper, have mosquiteo sized amounts of what can only be human blood, though we're not aware of being bitten.
Wednesday, December 10/2008
D-Day. And a few auf widersehn's (sp?). J talks to our friend of flood night, who says that he makes 3 winter trips - to Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey - going back to Germany in between. British Air allows seat selection online 24 hours before departure. Useless yesterday as the internet was closed for the holiday. They're not open today when I check at 9 and 9:30, but are at 10, giving me time to pick good seats on tomorrow morning's flight, though no time to see about today's, which matters less as they're all in banks of 3 anyway.
The transfer is there promptly at 10:30. We're alone in the van until Hammamet, where we pick up another half dozen holiday makers. Past olive groves, in some of which there's a bit of picking going on, with blankets spread on the ground, as efficient a collection method as any. Sheep and goats graze, often it seems on nothing but sand. There's a fair bit of land reclamation going on, tree planting to stop the erosion of grassless wastes. The settled areas are spreading with a lot of buildings in the local mud brick, looking half finished as further storeys are added as money allows, leaving many people living in what looks like - but isn't - bombed out ruins. Gardens and groves are often fenced in quite effectively with cactus plants.
No queue at the airport and no one mentions the fact - or used to be fact - that one is not supposed to leave with Tunisian dinars. We've got a very few and I'm hoping for something in the way of reading material, even old. But once through security - no questions re liquids, mobiles, etc - there's only the big Duty Free with ridiculous prices. Gin about the same in euros as Air Canada charges in dollars. Do you take all currencies? Not dinars. Pounds, euros, dollars? Oh yes.
In the departure lounge a young Asian woman walks round with what looks like a menu, but what's on offer is Chinese massage, behind a not particularly concealing screen in what looks like a nor particularly comfortable chair. Ten euro for ten minutes.
An hour's wait at Gatwick for the luggage, then train to Farringdon and tube to west Harrow. There's frost (snow?) in trace amounts on the platform, but cosy, warm, and a bottle of wine and some Bombay mix waiting at Jean's, to say nothing of a warm welcome.
The transfer is there promptly at 10:30. We're alone in the van until Hammamet, where we pick up another half dozen holiday makers. Past olive groves, in some of which there's a bit of picking going on, with blankets spread on the ground, as efficient a collection method as any. Sheep and goats graze, often it seems on nothing but sand. There's a fair bit of land reclamation going on, tree planting to stop the erosion of grassless wastes. The settled areas are spreading with a lot of buildings in the local mud brick, looking half finished as further storeys are added as money allows, leaving many people living in what looks like - but isn't - bombed out ruins. Gardens and groves are often fenced in quite effectively with cactus plants.
No queue at the airport and no one mentions the fact - or used to be fact - that one is not supposed to leave with Tunisian dinars. We've got a very few and I'm hoping for something in the way of reading material, even old. But once through security - no questions re liquids, mobiles, etc - there's only the big Duty Free with ridiculous prices. Gin about the same in euros as Air Canada charges in dollars. Do you take all currencies? Not dinars. Pounds, euros, dollars? Oh yes.
In the departure lounge a young Asian woman walks round with what looks like a menu, but what's on offer is Chinese massage, behind a not particularly concealing screen in what looks like a nor particularly comfortable chair. Ten euro for ten minutes.
An hour's wait at Gatwick for the luggage, then train to Farringdon and tube to west Harrow. There's frost (snow?) in trace amounts on the platform, but cosy, warm, and a bottle of wine and some Bombay mix waiting at Jean's, to say nothing of a warm welcome.
Tuesday, December 9/2008
Phone after breakfast to confirm the transfer for tomorrow. AOK. A few more cafes and shops are open today, though by no means everything. Sort of a Boxing Day selection. Internet closed though. Stil a small amount of lamb's blood in the gutter.
Packing night. Leaving Newsweek and Mrs. McGinty Est Mort *the Agatha Christie in French translation I've just finished reading( at the hotel. But what about the others? All very well to say, to begin with, that we can leave them behind, but when it comes to it I hate seeing books consigned to the rubbish bin. They're not ideal ones to find a home for here either. Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman would simply be considered pornography in a country where it is forbidden to access hotmail on the internet. As for the other two, a travel book featuring Central Asia and the biography of a Trappist monk are probably minority taste and tough going for most Arabic speakers. But they're too heavy to take.
Packing night. Leaving Newsweek and Mrs. McGinty Est Mort *the Agatha Christie in French translation I've just finished reading( at the hotel. But what about the others? All very well to say, to begin with, that we can leave them behind, but when it comes to it I hate seeing books consigned to the rubbish bin. They're not ideal ones to find a home for here either. Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain's Horseman would simply be considered pornography in a country where it is forbidden to access hotmail on the internet. As for the other two, a travel book featuring Central Asia and the biography of a Trappist monk are probably minority taste and tough going for most Arabic speakers. But they're too heavy to take.
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Monday, December 8/2008
The dining room looks like a series of short stories in the making. There are the four people at the next table, all German, who look like two sisters, the husband of one of them and a friend or possible sister-in-law. They seem on quite friendly terms but appear to be on independent schedules, arriving for meals singly and leaving when finished, regardless of whether they leave a lone person eating. The diets range from that of the one we call Jane (because of her resemblance to Jane McGill), who eats enormous amounts of salad and fruit but little or no meat, to that of the sister-in-law character, a large blonde woman, immaculately dressed, with a cane and a taste for comfort food, who keeps a plastic bag in her handbag to load with pastries at dinner. And the couple at the next table - she middleaged, a plump, wistful redhead who always says good morning in German and he an Arab, German speaking, but possibly a local, a little younger than she - and not always there at meals. She wears no rings, and she's happier when he shows up for meals, which he does more tha half the time, sometimes at breakfast. And the story is?
Out for a walk and the city is utterly deserted and shuttered, apart from the magnificent tomb of former president Bourguiba, where we seem to coincide with some Bourguiba family members. The tomb looks a bit like the Taj mahal, and is at the end of a quarter km walk made of paving stones. On each side of the walk there is a cemetery. Quite interesting, with rectangular white sarcophagi marking each burial spot - the richest of them in white marble, most in white concrete, and the occasional one in white tile. One is actually in chequered blue and white tile. There's no surrounding grass, just earth, butmany of the white coffin sized rectangles have sprigs of green leaf on top. There's the odd tourist and very few locals, but nothing open. Then, at the marina hotel complex, we spot a shop saying closed Sunday-Monday-Tuesday. TUrns out it's Eid, the feast commemorating God's sparing of Ishmael (Isaac in the Judaeo-Christian tradition), celebrated with each family killing a lamb - and we remember that the gutters were, as we set out, running red. We had joked about its being blood. No wonder the sheep I saw Saturday was so reluctant to accompany the woman.
In the evening the bubbly woman in the next room asks if we have heat. Actually, no, and it is starting to get chilly. She speaks 6 words of English to our 6 of German, but she manages to convey an amazing amount with sign language, laughter, and sheer determination and even hugs. They'd better fix it - otherwise she's off to Sousse, good hotels with heat and bigger pools, same price. She writes out 3 names (all this expressed without language in common!) A cheerful young man comes to check the heating and gets results with ours but not, unfortunately, hers.
Out for a walk and the city is utterly deserted and shuttered, apart from the magnificent tomb of former president Bourguiba, where we seem to coincide with some Bourguiba family members. The tomb looks a bit like the Taj mahal, and is at the end of a quarter km walk made of paving stones. On each side of the walk there is a cemetery. Quite interesting, with rectangular white sarcophagi marking each burial spot - the richest of them in white marble, most in white concrete, and the occasional one in white tile. One is actually in chequered blue and white tile. There's no surrounding grass, just earth, butmany of the white coffin sized rectangles have sprigs of green leaf on top. There's the odd tourist and very few locals, but nothing open. Then, at the marina hotel complex, we spot a shop saying closed Sunday-Monday-Tuesday. TUrns out it's Eid, the feast commemorating God's sparing of Ishmael (Isaac in the Judaeo-Christian tradition), celebrated with each family killing a lamb - and we remember that the gutters were, as we set out, running red. We had joked about its being blood. No wonder the sheep I saw Saturday was so reluctant to accompany the woman.
In the evening the bubbly woman in the next room asks if we have heat. Actually, no, and it is starting to get chilly. She speaks 6 words of English to our 6 of German, but she manages to convey an amazing amount with sign language, laughter, and sheer determination and even hugs. They'd better fix it - otherwise she's off to Sousse, good hotels with heat and bigger pools, same price. She writes out 3 names (all this expressed without language in common!) A cheerful young man comes to check the heating and gets results with ours but not, unfortunately, hers.
Sunday, December 7/2008
A man rides a motorbike down past the bank, one hand on the handlebars, the other gripping the edge of a large rectangular tray full of pastries balanced on his head. We stop at a shop in the medina to browse. On a shelf at the back, a small television set is showing the Hajj, so J's curiosity is aroused. In Tunisia (98% Moslem) what percentage are observant, that is atttend the mosque? Not a large percentage - mostly the old.
The numbers seem to be dropping in the dining room as winter comes on and tonight a number of the dishes appear to be recycle versions of last night's fare, so it's tempting to ask if we don't finish it tonight will we have to eat it again tomorrow.
BBC's weather report refers to Manitoba and Ontario as "perishingly cold."
The numbers seem to be dropping in the dining room as winter comes on and tonight a number of the dishes appear to be recycle versions of last night's fare, so it's tempting to ask if we don't finish it tonight will we have to eat it again tomorrow.
BBC's weather report refers to Manitoba and Ontario as "perishingly cold."
Saturday, December 6/2008
Coming back from the internet cafe I see a young woman in a hijab with a sheep on a rope lead. She's talking to a young man and also trying to persuade the sheep to come along with her, but the sheep is having none of it, digging in its hooves as she tugs and backing away like a dog trying to slip its collar. A cruising yellow taxi passes and the woman pjuts up a tentative hand. The taxi slows, then the driver seems to size up the situation and speeds away. Can she really have been going to try to force the sheep into the cab?
Saturday, 6 December 2008
Friday, December 5/2008
Attempt to mail postcards to the grandchildren. The post office is standing room only, and there must be at least fifty seats occupied as well. A young woman shows us where to take a number. Our number is 022. The electronic number currently being served is 667. Do they start over at a thousand? We leave.
For the first time the tourist information office in the medina is open as we pass. A petite young woman is in charge, a little shy. Do they have information in English? She searches in a large cupboard and in her desk. There isn't much there at all. Or French? Ah, here we are a little lucker and get a brochure about Monastir and road map of Tunisia. We ask about the price of stamps to North America and louage trips to Kairoun, but her answers seem both improbably high and like random guesses. I'm ready to leave but J, as usual, is thirsty for information - about the economy, health, education. I jokingly apologise: "Il a toujours des questions." But she's warming a little and becoming more fluent as she continues, mostly in English. Turns out, rather disturbingly (as she can't actually come up with a full grammatical sentence, though she's a lovely girl) that she teaches English to students of 18 or 19. But there's not much chance to practice. French is coçmpulsory from age eight and English at the secondary level. Other languages are senior secondary options. An initial doctor's visit is 35 dinar ($31.50 CAD or £17 UK), but dentists are not expensive.
Walking back, pass a small truck parked on a main business street with a placid sheep in the box. J talks to it and it looks silly and interested.
For the first time the tourist information office in the medina is open as we pass. A petite young woman is in charge, a little shy. Do they have information in English? She searches in a large cupboard and in her desk. There isn't much there at all. Or French? Ah, here we are a little lucker and get a brochure about Monastir and road map of Tunisia. We ask about the price of stamps to North America and louage trips to Kairoun, but her answers seem both improbably high and like random guesses. I'm ready to leave but J, as usual, is thirsty for information - about the economy, health, education. I jokingly apologise: "Il a toujours des questions." But she's warming a little and becoming more fluent as she continues, mostly in English. Turns out, rather disturbingly (as she can't actually come up with a full grammatical sentence, though she's a lovely girl) that she teaches English to students of 18 or 19. But there's not much chance to practice. French is coçmpulsory from age eight and English at the secondary level. Other languages are senior secondary options. An initial doctor's visit is 35 dinar ($31.50 CAD or £17 UK), but dentists are not expensive.
Walking back, pass a small truck parked on a main business street with a placid sheep in the box. J talks to it and it looks silly and interested.
Thursday, December 4/2008
Try to catch up on the Canadian political scene at the internet but the consultation with the governor general scheduled for later today. BBC World, which doesn't usually mention Canada, has it pretty well summed up when they say that Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper has taken the unusual step of asking to have parliament suspended in order to avoid defeat.
Over past the mairie to the post office. Dark blue sea and tall palms, red Tunisian flags much in evidence as always. Post office inaccessably crowded and outside there is a fair sized streetmarket taking place over block or so. Mostly local supplies - clothing, kitchen knives, mobile phone chargers. There are some fairly attractive salad bowls close to 2 feet in diameter and a sort of tin hibachi affair. I finally acquire my comb, a not particularly nice pale aqu one. I buy it from woman at a table outside the supermarket but all the other sellers are male, as they seem to be in all but official goverment shops or little family run ones or supermarkets. One stall at today's market includes, amongst other unrelated objects, 3 padded bras of different colours in the care of a man no woman would dream of consulting about measurements. Nearby a boy about the size of Kieran is shouting enthusiastically "one dinar, one dinar" as he offers a variety of things for sale at 90 cents CAD each.
The male dominance is even more pronounced in the outdoor cafés, which are many and often large. Among the dozens seated at one of the biggest - men of all ages wearing fezzes, baseball caps, woollen hats, the occasional Arab headdress or bareheaded - we only once spot a female, a very small girl with her father. In the more touristed spots there is very occasional woman. But unemployment is fairly high and men have quite a bit of time for coffee, even young men.
We're about to go down to dinner when BBC World announces that the governor general has agreed to suspend parliament. So there we are in the BBC news along with the international drug cartels and the war crimes of former African presidents nd Khmer Rouge leaders. Somehow "suspend parliament" has the sound of suspending democracy, a deprivation not implied by the faintly ridiculous "prorogue." So we're back to the Stuart kings who would much have preferred not to deal with parliament at all, were it not for the grubby necessity of getting money.
Over past the mairie to the post office. Dark blue sea and tall palms, red Tunisian flags much in evidence as always. Post office inaccessably crowded and outside there is a fair sized streetmarket taking place over block or so. Mostly local supplies - clothing, kitchen knives, mobile phone chargers. There are some fairly attractive salad bowls close to 2 feet in diameter and a sort of tin hibachi affair. I finally acquire my comb, a not particularly nice pale aqu one. I buy it from woman at a table outside the supermarket but all the other sellers are male, as they seem to be in all but official goverment shops or little family run ones or supermarkets. One stall at today's market includes, amongst other unrelated objects, 3 padded bras of different colours in the care of a man no woman would dream of consulting about measurements. Nearby a boy about the size of Kieran is shouting enthusiastically "one dinar, one dinar" as he offers a variety of things for sale at 90 cents CAD each.
The male dominance is even more pronounced in the outdoor cafés, which are many and often large. Among the dozens seated at one of the biggest - men of all ages wearing fezzes, baseball caps, woollen hats, the occasional Arab headdress or bareheaded - we only once spot a female, a very small girl with her father. In the more touristed spots there is very occasional woman. But unemployment is fairly high and men have quite a bit of time for coffee, even young men.
We're about to go down to dinner when BBC World announces that the governor general has agreed to suspend parliament. So there we are in the BBC news along with the international drug cartels and the war crimes of former African presidents nd Khmer Rouge leaders. Somehow "suspend parliament" has the sound of suspending democracy, a deprivation not implied by the faintly ridiculous "prorogue." So we're back to the Stuart kings who would much have preferred not to deal with parliament at all, were it not for the grubby necessity of getting money.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Wednesday, December 3/2008
Morning starts with dark clouds and white caps on a grey-blue sea. Very windy and no hardy German sunbathers in evidence, but not actually cold. Text message from Jenny saying she's back from Cumbria and awaiting the birth of the grandchildren - due next month.
Try the internet but it's ridiculously slow - "plus tard" we tell him. Walk down to the souk. Horrifically windy but still not cold.
J chats in the lift with the German of lst night's flood watch. He and his wife go away for the winter - 6 weeks here, then Egypt, then Turkey. At dinner the German lady at the next table says tht they are here until January 13. The conversation is partly in English and mostly in French, and she seems also to have said that Cyprus gives her a headache, so there may have been some degree of miscommunication.
Try the internet but it's ridiculously slow - "plus tard" we tell him. Walk down to the souk. Horrifically windy but still not cold.
J chats in the lift with the German of lst night's flood watch. He and his wife go away for the winter - 6 weeks here, then Egypt, then Turkey. At dinner the German lady at the next table says tht they are here until January 13. The conversation is partly in English and mostly in French, and she seems also to have said that Cyprus gives her a headache, so there may have been some degree of miscommunication.
Tuesday, December 2/2008
Check at the louage station re trips to Tunis and Kairouan. Yes, continually. From "trois heures le matin" - much earlier than our most ambitious thoughts.
Decide in the end not to go to Tunisia - given the louage time and a preference for being back before dark - and then it begins to rain, hard and with accompanying thunder. Having a glass of wine and a read in the room when I check the stairwell door in the corridor, which has been banging. There's a German guest in the hallway who has spotted a leak in the ceiling. As I turn round we realise that the room is filling with water coming in from under the balcony door. Reception promises help, which takes some time to arrive. The German spreads his hands - this is Africa. But eventually a man comes with long squeegee, mop and pail and it's habitable again. Evening's drama over.
Decide in the end not to go to Tunisia - given the louage time and a preference for being back before dark - and then it begins to rain, hard and with accompanying thunder. Having a glass of wine and a read in the room when I check the stairwell door in the corridor, which has been banging. There's a German guest in the hallway who has spotted a leak in the ceiling. As I turn round we realise that the room is filling with water coming in from under the balcony door. Reception promises help, which takes some time to arrive. The German spreads his hands - this is Africa. But eventually a man comes with long squeegee, mop and pail and it's habitable again. Evening's drama over.
Monday, December 1/2008
December already. Not that it feels like it in Tunisia. A little cooler than when we arrived? Maybe, but yesterday we abandoned our light jackets by late morning - while locals passed us in coats and often woollen hats as well. Curious - one would have thought that biology more than culture would determine sense of cold and heat, but it's clearly a mixture.
This morning J shows me the footprint on top of his shoe where a man at the Medina yesterday stood on his foot, firmly and unapologetically - presumably to allow his knife-wielding companion time to slash J's bag.
Make our visit to the ribat, a large sandstone complex, walled fortification originally defended by warrior monks who slept in small cells around the central courtyard. Great views from the ramparts and tower and reminiscent of Life of Brian which was filmed there. Makes, as Zeffirelli found, a better Jerusalem than present Jerusalem for film purposes. There's not a great deal in its little museum, but some of the antique embroidery is lovely and the picture of Monastir 150 years ago is interesting - an Arab village.
J chats up a young man as we're leaving about the present state of Tunisia. Things are difficult economically despite the signs of construction. Monstir itself he says is a university town - faculties of pedicine, pharmacy, health, agriculture. Do they pay for university or health care? Not for university, except accommodation, but they do pay for medical care, though not a lot.
To the internet café. Fascinating Canadian political/constitutional situation but ot easy to follow via the internet glimpses, especially as it's still early morning in Canada.
This morning J shows me the footprint on top of his shoe where a man at the Medina yesterday stood on his foot, firmly and unapologetically - presumably to allow his knife-wielding companion time to slash J's bag.
Make our visit to the ribat, a large sandstone complex, walled fortification originally defended by warrior monks who slept in small cells around the central courtyard. Great views from the ramparts and tower and reminiscent of Life of Brian which was filmed there. Makes, as Zeffirelli found, a better Jerusalem than present Jerusalem for film purposes. There's not a great deal in its little museum, but some of the antique embroidery is lovely and the picture of Monastir 150 years ago is interesting - an Arab village.
J chats up a young man as we're leaving about the present state of Tunisia. Things are difficult economically despite the signs of construction. Monstir itself he says is a university town - faculties of pedicine, pharmacy, health, agriculture. Do they pay for university or health care? Not for university, except accommodation, but they do pay for medical care, though not a lot.
To the internet café. Fascinating Canadian political/constitutional situation but ot easy to follow via the internet glimpses, especially as it's still early morning in Canada.
Monday, 1 December 2008
Sunday, November 30/2008
Market day in Sousse, so after breafast we take a louage (shared taxi). Holds 7 plus driver, though rather packed. One dinar 30 each to Sousse (about $1.15 CAD, 62p UK for a 24 km trip). Close to a km walk when we get there, from the bus/louage station to the medina.
This medina is much older and bigger than "ours" in Monastir. It's about a km across diagonally but a labyrinth of passages enclosed in ancient walls except for the northern entrance where the wall was blown away by the Allies in 1943. The medina includes 24 mosques and several hotels, but mostly it's shops and stalls selling everything, like a Middle Eastern souq: the obvious leather goods, jewellery, tiles, pottery and kaftans; food of all sorts from fast food to sweets to huge open sacks of spices to whole fish and live hens; ordinary clothing, socks, underwear, etc. as well as general necessities - plasticware, batteries, watch straps, etc. It's crowded in places and in the prts with more tourist goods (including towels featuring various English football teams), there's fair pressure to buy. A man approaches, determined to sell us some Viagra. Very cheap, he insists, but gives up when I say "pas necessaire." Through the crowds an occasional cart or even car makes its way, unbelievably, and more than once two or three sheep on a lead.
We take some time to look at the port - a working port with some pirate style tourist day boats as well - and the southern end of the beach, with beautiful fine sand.
Come back by train - even cheaper than the loge and from a handier location by the port. As we're waiting for the train J discovers that the leather bag he has been carrying has been slashed by a sharp knife, presumably in the crowded medina lanes: It's wrecked the zipper of the front pocket and cut the lining through to the second section. Nothing missing - actually there was nothing in the front section except plastic cutlery for picnicking, but it leaves an unpleasant feeling.
This medina is much older and bigger than "ours" in Monastir. It's about a km across diagonally but a labyrinth of passages enclosed in ancient walls except for the northern entrance where the wall was blown away by the Allies in 1943. The medina includes 24 mosques and several hotels, but mostly it's shops and stalls selling everything, like a Middle Eastern souq: the obvious leather goods, jewellery, tiles, pottery and kaftans; food of all sorts from fast food to sweets to huge open sacks of spices to whole fish and live hens; ordinary clothing, socks, underwear, etc. as well as general necessities - plasticware, batteries, watch straps, etc. It's crowded in places and in the prts with more tourist goods (including towels featuring various English football teams), there's fair pressure to buy. A man approaches, determined to sell us some Viagra. Very cheap, he insists, but gives up when I say "pas necessaire." Through the crowds an occasional cart or even car makes its way, unbelievably, and more than once two or three sheep on a lead.
We take some time to look at the port - a working port with some pirate style tourist day boats as well - and the southern end of the beach, with beautiful fine sand.
Come back by train - even cheaper than the loge and from a handier location by the port. As we're waiting for the train J discovers that the leather bag he has been carrying has been slashed by a sharp knife, presumably in the crowded medina lanes: It's wrecked the zipper of the front pocket and cut the lining through to the second section. Nothing missing - actually there was nothing in the front section except plastic cutlery for picnicking, but it leaves an unpleasant feeling.
Saturday, November 29/2008
Back to the market. An amazingly large fish section, including whole tuna and swordfish as well as steaks of same. Three sheep's heads in a row at a butcher's stall, looking pathetically small without the large fluffy bodies. The cow's head has lost its dummy pacifier. The pressure of salesmen in the medina isn't overpowering but there is sometimes an edge to it - it's not very much for you; a cup of coffee. As the man selling cigarettes who is disgusted when J points out he doesn't smoke - it's very cheap so buy them for someone else. Of course we must look as if we're going back to Europe at the end of a week's holiday with a suitcase full of souvenirs.
Friday, November 28/2008
The BBC chanel is prone to sudden pixillation and disappearance, especially in the early morning and around dinner time. So as it disappears this morning we scan the other chanels for news. We're not much good at following the Italian or German news and the French chanels seem to be broadcasting advertising and children's programming. The two Tunisian chanels, which seldom have much content of consequence even when it isn't the Moslem holy day, are no use. One is, oddly enough, showing a Canadian program on ice climbing, dubbed in Arabic and featuring information on technique and desirable ice climbing locations from Quebec and Banff to Nipigon, Ontario. Written advice of the "wear a helmet" variety appears in a sidebar. One wonders what on earth the Tunisian watchers make of it.
At breafast a German lady uses her few words of English to say she regrets not being able to converse with us. But turns out she does speak some French so we have a brief discussion. Join the sunseekers outside where the sun is certainly hot but the wind is strong enough that it is only just a pleasure, although several determined Germans are in bathing suits.
Mark Abell, the British man we listened to on BBC yesterday is on again today, now no longer barricaded in his Mumbai hotel room but free to go home to his family. And how had he spent his time, apart from keeping in touch with his Blackberry? "I had one of the Ladies Number One Detective Agency books to read." As have we in our hotel room, though fortunately with no need to barricade.
Drinking a not bad Tunisian red wine - Grand vin de Mornag (2005). Much better than the red J bought at the bar. But J finds a small shard - it looks like glass but we think plastic - in the bottom of his glass.
At breafast a German lady uses her few words of English to say she regrets not being able to converse with us. But turns out she does speak some French so we have a brief discussion. Join the sunseekers outside where the sun is certainly hot but the wind is strong enough that it is only just a pleasure, although several determined Germans are in bathing suits.
Mark Abell, the British man we listened to on BBC yesterday is on again today, now no longer barricaded in his Mumbai hotel room but free to go home to his family. And how had he spent his time, apart from keeping in touch with his Blackberry? "I had one of the Ladies Number One Detective Agency books to read." As have we in our hotel room, though fortunately with no need to barricade.
Drinking a not bad Tunisian red wine - Grand vin de Mornag (2005). Much better than the red J bought at the bar. But J finds a small shard - it looks like glass but we think plastic - in the bottom of his glass.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Thursday, November 27/2008
Wake to overcast sky and rough sea, although the wind is a fairly warm one. Mumbai hostage taking continues (we listen to a remarkably controlled mobile phone report from a man barricaded in his hotel room without food, much water or tv as a news source. And in Bqngkok protestors have occupied the other airport as well.
Good drying weather for the wash - the clothes dance wildly above the balcony. Go for a walk in the mild wind. The café round the corner has a number of men drinking coffee and smoking water pipes (sheeskas), including one of the German men from our hotel, answering in one case the question of where the others go and what they do when it's not sunny by the pool. Past the drugstore where we first bought bottled water. Nothing would look less like a drugstore. The local pharmacies are European drugstores with pharmaceuticals, skin creams and such, mostly behind the counter. This 'drugstore' however is a grubby cubbyhole about 6 by 8 feet, with dusty cardboard boxes and grimy jars, looking more like a disused toolshed - the proprietor pleasant enough but the last person one would think to consult on a medical problem.
Discover the local covered market, a lively place full of fruit and vegetables - heaps of oranges, pomegranates, bananas, purple-black aubergines, cauliflowers, lettuces, courgettes. The central area is a huge square composed of tables covered with fish, whole fish of a variety of shapes and sizes. We must look impressedas a man tries to sell us some. There are also alcoves selling eggs, cheese, and meat, some with carcasses hanging above the counter. Next to small carcasses of lamb or kid, there hangs the full unskinned head of a cow, facing into the market, a baby's dummy pacifier in its mouth.
Good drying weather for the wash - the clothes dance wildly above the balcony. Go for a walk in the mild wind. The café round the corner has a number of men drinking coffee and smoking water pipes (sheeskas), including one of the German men from our hotel, answering in one case the question of where the others go and what they do when it's not sunny by the pool. Past the drugstore where we first bought bottled water. Nothing would look less like a drugstore. The local pharmacies are European drugstores with pharmaceuticals, skin creams and such, mostly behind the counter. This 'drugstore' however is a grubby cubbyhole about 6 by 8 feet, with dusty cardboard boxes and grimy jars, looking more like a disused toolshed - the proprietor pleasant enough but the last person one would think to consult on a medical problem.
Discover the local covered market, a lively place full of fruit and vegetables - heaps of oranges, pomegranates, bananas, purple-black aubergines, cauliflowers, lettuces, courgettes. The central area is a huge square composed of tables covered with fish, whole fish of a variety of shapes and sizes. We must look impressedas a man tries to sell us some. There are also alcoves selling eggs, cheese, and meat, some with carcasses hanging above the counter. Next to small carcasses of lamb or kid, there hangs the full unskinned head of a cow, facing into the market, a baby's dummy pacifier in its mouth.
Wednesday, November 26/2008
We've been here a week and a high proportion of our fellow guests are no longer the same as at the beginning of our stay. I'm now writing the journal aware that the keyboard for which it is destined is different; the most difficult letter to get right is the 'w', placed in the usual spot for the 'z'. (There are 5 w's in the last sentence). Will I begin to write like a stutterer, choosing phrases that avoid problems? A little inattention and witty becomes zitty.
Temperature still about 35 in the morning sun but 22 in the morning shade with enough breeze that the sunbathers look for sheltered spots. We sit mostly on our balcony, having a large fourth floor one overlooking the sea.
Both BBC and French television have scenes of Bangkok airport, taken over by protestors and effectively closed to flights. Usually both sides in Thailand knoz the value of tourism but isùs a good time to be planning to fly from Tunis rather than Bangkok.Then in the evening Bangkok is knocked off the news by live coverage of violence in Mumbai, with more than 80 dead and guests held hostage in luxury hotels.
Temperature still about 35 in the morning sun but 22 in the morning shade with enough breeze that the sunbathers look for sheltered spots. We sit mostly on our balcony, having a large fourth floor one overlooking the sea.
Both BBC and French television have scenes of Bangkok airport, taken over by protestors and effectively closed to flights. Usually both sides in Thailand knoz the value of tourism but isùs a good time to be planning to fly from Tunis rather than Bangkok.Then in the evening Bangkok is knocked off the news by live coverage of violence in Mumbai, with more than 80 dead and guests held hostage in luxury hotels.
Tuesday, November 25/2008
Our regular wander includes a search for the railway station, which we find after a couple of false starts and debates with a minimum of acrimony. Astonishing how remembered maps and the reality on the ground can fail to match up in one brain let alone two. The man we ask appears to be explaining in Arabic that he doesn't speak French, but points in response to "la gare?" Monastir is on a spur line, but there are several trains a day to Sousse, and several a day from Sousse to Tunis.
Through the medina on the way back. Fast food prices don't seem expensive but goods aimed at Tunisians are not cheap. A small and quite basic microwave, for example is about a hundred dollars (£48 UK). We are passed by a calèche, a horse-drawn carriage for tourists, decorated with artificial flowers. Most horses we have seen here are small working animals pulling carts with sacks of goods. Sometimes donkeys do the same, competing with vehicular traffic on the less busy streets.
Through the medina on the way back. Fast food prices don't seem expensive but goods aimed at Tunisians are not cheap. A small and quite basic microwave, for example is about a hundred dollars (£48 UK). We are passed by a calèche, a horse-drawn carriage for tourists, decorated with artificial flowers. Most horses we have seen here are small working animals pulling carts with sacks of goods. Sometimes donkeys do the same, competing with vehicular traffic on the less busy streets.
Monday, November 24/2008
It's rained in the night and there's enough mist to obscure the usual clear line between light blue sky and dark blue sea. By the time we finish breakfast it's burned off and the balcony floor is dry. Quite a windy day, though warm enough in sheltered spots.
Two minarets are visible from our window and from the nearer we can hear the call to prayer five times a day. Monastir has not always been Moslem of course. It was originally a Phoenician trading centre and in Roman times was Julius Caesar's headquarters when he defeated Pompey who was based at nearby Sousse, after which Monastir became the Roman town of Ruspina.
Two minarets are visible from our window and from the nearer we can hear the call to prayer five times a day. Monastir has not always been Moslem of course. It was originally a Phoenician trading centre and in Roman times was Julius Caesar's headquarters when he defeated Pompey who was based at nearby Sousse, after which Monastir became the Roman town of Ruspina.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Sunday, November 23/2008
Say goodbye to Sandra and John after breafast - S not looking forward to Edinburgh's temperatures after Monastir's. Wander about the town. The central area isn't large but the streets are all curves and angles so it's easy to get confused. Mostly overcast but still warm. On the way back we follow the sea and then turn in toward our hotel. See man with a dozen or so sheep grazing by the side of the street. A curious mixture of urban and rural; roosters crowing and grazing sheep in a residential area blocks away from the university hospital and the banks.
Saturday, November 22/2008
Discovery - the key to getting wholemeal bread rather thn baguettes is to get up a little earlier before the German contingent has made sandwixches to be smuggled out for later.
A walk in the non-tourist streets to the south-west of our hotel. They're much more interesting than the touristy medina. It's a residential area with small shops and other businesses, such as a bakery (identifiable by loaves of brfead painted on the outside s well as, one presumes, by the Arabic writing beside the door). It's a windy day and there's plenty of loose rubbish blowing about but there are quite attractive houses, many with shapely pillars and arches, decorative wrought iron work and pretty Islamic tiles. The area doesn't look rich by any means, but there are new buildings under construction as well as those being renovated and extended. A sheet of paper taped to a shop wall is advertising for a 3rd girl to share a furnished flqt with 2 others (and it's a desirable area near the university medical faculty) but at the same time we see a small number of sheep disappearing round the corner near the closest of the mosques that we can see from our window. Later we pass a man with 2 sheep on q long rope. He's letting them graze on a vacant lot full of rubbish and bits of scrub growth - admittedly a better source of vegetation than many of the hills of Israel and Jordan. There is a girl wearing a hijab with an armful of bqguettes, two young men playing football, children coming home from school with their books. Not a great deal of vehicular traffic though. Laundry hangs from the windows and carpets are airing.
We stop at a couple of small shops as I look to buy a comb, mine having unaccountably disappeared in transit leaving us one b etween us. No luck though, although the shops do carry shampoo, styling gel, and even hairbrushes and I have remembered the French for comb. Interestingly there are large bottles (2 litre perhaps) of various colognes filled to varying levels, from which it appears possible to buy 100 ml portions.
Then J back to the hotel and I to the internet. A somewhat frustrating experience for a touch typist as the keyboard is quite different - for example the a and q are reversed, as are the m and the comma. Some characters, such as double quotation marks, I never do find. Sky overcast when I leave, and the sea, which had been green streaked with indigo in the shallows, is now dqrk grey with whitecaps. Huge local interest in a televised football match for an African regional cup. The locals support the team from Sfax, down the coast, rather than the nearby city of Sousse - perhaps too local a rival for their allegiance. Victory greeted with much shouting, singing in the streets, car horns and - we note from our balcony young bloods hanging Sfax's colours from the roof of a tall neighbouring building.
After dinner a farewell drink with John and Sandra, who leave tomorrow. I go back to our room for a pen to give them our email address (John has a card featuring his Zimbabwe wildlife charity). Searching for the pen, I leave the door to the corridor open and then remember our reading of last night. In Journey to Khiva, author Philip Glazebrook recounts his experience stying t the National, a major Moscow Hotel. He had left the window of his room open and lso the door to the corridor in order to get some fresh air. A man armed with a knife rushed into the room and attacked him violently, holdintg a chloroform pad as well as the knife. Glazebrook, who had quite a bit of money with him by Russian standards (in 1990) fought for his life. Suddenly the assailant left, perhaps having heard someone coming. When the author attempted to complain to authorities, both hotel and police, he zas met with incredulity that anyone could have been stupid enough to have left the door of his hotel room open to the corridor.
A walk in the non-tourist streets to the south-west of our hotel. They're much more interesting than the touristy medina. It's a residential area with small shops and other businesses, such as a bakery (identifiable by loaves of brfead painted on the outside s well as, one presumes, by the Arabic writing beside the door). It's a windy day and there's plenty of loose rubbish blowing about but there are quite attractive houses, many with shapely pillars and arches, decorative wrought iron work and pretty Islamic tiles. The area doesn't look rich by any means, but there are new buildings under construction as well as those being renovated and extended. A sheet of paper taped to a shop wall is advertising for a 3rd girl to share a furnished flqt with 2 others (and it's a desirable area near the university medical faculty) but at the same time we see a small number of sheep disappearing round the corner near the closest of the mosques that we can see from our window. Later we pass a man with 2 sheep on q long rope. He's letting them graze on a vacant lot full of rubbish and bits of scrub growth - admittedly a better source of vegetation than many of the hills of Israel and Jordan. There is a girl wearing a hijab with an armful of bqguettes, two young men playing football, children coming home from school with their books. Not a great deal of vehicular traffic though. Laundry hangs from the windows and carpets are airing.
We stop at a couple of small shops as I look to buy a comb, mine having unaccountably disappeared in transit leaving us one b etween us. No luck though, although the shops do carry shampoo, styling gel, and even hairbrushes and I have remembered the French for comb. Interestingly there are large bottles (2 litre perhaps) of various colognes filled to varying levels, from which it appears possible to buy 100 ml portions.
Then J back to the hotel and I to the internet. A somewhat frustrating experience for a touch typist as the keyboard is quite different - for example the a and q are reversed, as are the m and the comma. Some characters, such as double quotation marks, I never do find. Sky overcast when I leave, and the sea, which had been green streaked with indigo in the shallows, is now dqrk grey with whitecaps. Huge local interest in a televised football match for an African regional cup. The locals support the team from Sfax, down the coast, rather than the nearby city of Sousse - perhaps too local a rival for their allegiance. Victory greeted with much shouting, singing in the streets, car horns and - we note from our balcony young bloods hanging Sfax's colours from the roof of a tall neighbouring building.
After dinner a farewell drink with John and Sandra, who leave tomorrow. I go back to our room for a pen to give them our email address (John has a card featuring his Zimbabwe wildlife charity). Searching for the pen, I leave the door to the corridor open and then remember our reading of last night. In Journey to Khiva, author Philip Glazebrook recounts his experience stying t the National, a major Moscow Hotel. He had left the window of his room open and lso the door to the corridor in order to get some fresh air. A man armed with a knife rushed into the room and attacked him violently, holdintg a chloroform pad as well as the knife. Glazebrook, who had quite a bit of money with him by Russian standards (in 1990) fought for his life. Suddenly the assailant left, perhaps having heard someone coming. When the author attempted to complain to authorities, both hotel and police, he zas met with incredulity that anyone could have been stupid enough to have left the door of his hotel room open to the corridor.
Friday, November 21/2008
Take our coffee to the lounge at the end of breakfast and sit overlooking the pool. A woman with a cane gets up to shut the door against the breeze and we meet Sandra from Edinburgh. A lucky meeting as we might well have assumed that she and her husband were German and not have opened a conversation. They're here for 2 weeks but unfortunately will leave on Sunday. An interesting conversation with her husband as well. He's sunning himself by the pool and chats with us for a half hour. He lived in Rhodesia at one point and they still go back regularly to Zimbabwe to holiday and because he is involved with a charity tht supports an enormous game reserve there entirely run by volunteers.
Further explorations in the midday which is very warm in the sun but with a bit of breeze from the sea. We're even closer to the centre of things than we realised yesterday. We're within 500 metres of the ribat (a ribat is a fortified monastery). This one dates back to the end of the 8th C and has a giant fairy tale sandcastle look. The complex has appealed to others as well, as it was used in the filming of Monty Python's Life of Brian and Zefferelli's Life of Christ. We'll definitely go in another day. We're a similar distance from the tozn centre and well under a km from the train and bus stations. We stop at the Monoprix Supermarket. It's not especially cheap by our standards, although most of the people shopping there are local. Prices at the little restaurant cum café we pass on the way back are pretty reasonable though - espresso at about 55 cents a cup (25 p) and crèpe suzette at a dollar thirty-five CAD or 65 p UK.
After dinner have a drink in the lounge with Sandra and John. Hebuys the first round when we have the local Celtia beer, a pleasant enough light lager, so we have no idea what beer costs. However the bottle of Tunisian red wine that J buys for us to share is 15 dinars - about 13.60 CAD of £6.50 UK. Admittedly less than one would pay in Canada or the UK in a bar, but a pretty fair mark-up locally for a wine that was nothing like as good as home made, despite its being one the AA Tunisia guide refers to as drinkable and despite its 2003 vintage - not enough people over the past 5 years have cared to drink it? Good conversation, though. And John points out that Johnnie Walker in the supermarket is £80!
Further explorations in the midday which is very warm in the sun but with a bit of breeze from the sea. We're even closer to the centre of things than we realised yesterday. We're within 500 metres of the ribat (a ribat is a fortified monastery). This one dates back to the end of the 8th C and has a giant fairy tale sandcastle look. The complex has appealed to others as well, as it was used in the filming of Monty Python's Life of Brian and Zefferelli's Life of Christ. We'll definitely go in another day. We're a similar distance from the tozn centre and well under a km from the train and bus stations. We stop at the Monoprix Supermarket. It's not especially cheap by our standards, although most of the people shopping there are local. Prices at the little restaurant cum café we pass on the way back are pretty reasonable though - espresso at about 55 cents a cup (25 p) and crèpe suzette at a dollar thirty-five CAD or 65 p UK.
After dinner have a drink in the lounge with Sandra and John. Hebuys the first round when we have the local Celtia beer, a pleasant enough light lager, so we have no idea what beer costs. However the bottle of Tunisian red wine that J buys for us to share is 15 dinars - about 13.60 CAD of £6.50 UK. Admittedly less than one would pay in Canada or the UK in a bar, but a pretty fair mark-up locally for a wine that was nothing like as good as home made, despite its being one the AA Tunisia guide refers to as drinkable and despite its 2003 vintage - not enough people over the past 5 years have cared to drink it? Good conversation, though. And John points out that Johnnie Walker in the supermarket is £80!
Thursday, November 20!2008
A long night's sleep and we wake to the dark blue Mediterranean (why aren't other seas that colour?) and the repeated crow of a rooster somewhere to the west. Two of the German women outside by the pool are already, stereotypically putting markers on their sun loungers to reserve them for later. Breakfast buffet is quite good and coffee very welcome.
A day of quiet settling in. Exploratory walk along the corniche by the seafront and the streets near the hotel. Some shops seem closed for the season and we don't pass other tourists (most of those at Monastir Centre are turning toast coloured around the pool). We pass the university hospital, a small internet cafe, pizza places, little greengrocers and magasins alimentaires. We buy 2 1.5 litre bottles of water for a Tunisian dinar (88 cents CAD or just over 40 p UK) to take back to the room. Also wash a few clothes and hang them out on our balcony to dry. Make tea using our immersion coil and sample each of 3 books we've brought with us. Two of them, Monica Furlong's biography of Thomas Merton and The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, are divided into 20 or 21 chapters - exactly right for our 3 week stay. The other, Philip Glazebrook's Journey to Khiva, is an intelligent and sometimes humorous account of a trip to Uzbekistan via Moscow in 1990, shortly before our own trip to Moscow and Leningrad. It looks very interesting.
Not quite as many people at dinner and no overlap with the contents of last night's dinner except for the Tunisian soup. The chef will fry a small fish as you wait. Quite delicious. Not much selection for dessert but what there is is quite good, though the oranges are underripe.
A day of quiet settling in. Exploratory walk along the corniche by the seafront and the streets near the hotel. Some shops seem closed for the season and we don't pass other tourists (most of those at Monastir Centre are turning toast coloured around the pool). We pass the university hospital, a small internet cafe, pizza places, little greengrocers and magasins alimentaires. We buy 2 1.5 litre bottles of water for a Tunisian dinar (88 cents CAD or just over 40 p UK) to take back to the room. Also wash a few clothes and hang them out on our balcony to dry. Make tea using our immersion coil and sample each of 3 books we've brought with us. Two of them, Monica Furlong's biography of Thomas Merton and The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, are divided into 20 or 21 chapters - exactly right for our 3 week stay. The other, Philip Glazebrook's Journey to Khiva, is an intelligent and sometimes humorous account of a trip to Uzbekistan via Moscow in 1990, shortly before our own trip to Moscow and Leningrad. It looks very interesting.
Not quite as many people at dinner and no overlap with the contents of last night's dinner except for the Tunisian soup. The chef will fry a small fish as you wait. Quite delicious. Not much selection for dessert but what there is is quite good, though the oranges are underripe.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Wednesday, November 19/2008
Up at 4:15. We've set the alarms on both mobile phones and J's watch, just to be sure. And they all go off. Pretty well everything done last night. Take sandwiches and leftover salmon cakes for breakfast at Gatwick. Also remaining blue cheese. Leave 3 onions, a banana and a pint of vanilla yoghurt for the cleaner.
Just make the 5:16 underground train but it's a quick and peaceful time of day to be travelling. No problem catching the 5:50 train to Gatwick and ze're there at 6:20 - having allowed for all public transit contingencies we're much earlier than necessary.
Plane not full and the middle seat remains unoccupied. Allows for some manoeuvering room as party ahead - two very loud German men with a quiet Asian woman - is quite exhuberant. The girl is attached to a man with a hangdog face and a large moustache sitting in the window seat ahead of J while the tall man in the seat ahead of me looks quite a lot like Boris Karloff. They're not bad really - just very loud - and each time Boris Karloff throws himself into the seat my tray shakes and the wine wobbles. But we've learned one of the lessons at Monday's lecture on happiness - think of the alternative possibilities. Yes, we might have had quiet and considerate people ahead, but then again the 3rd seat in our bank might have been taken by a large person with a bad head cold instead of remaining vacant, so we're doing well.
As with Air Canada on our way to London, there are no newspapers - and British Air used to provide a choice. There is wine though, and a pleasant cabin crew, though lunch is a rather skinny sandwich. Across the aisle from us is a father with a lively, inquisitive 6 year old boy interested in everything after "we blast off."
Flight a little less than 3 hours and there's an hour's time change. We're met by a rep from A2B, the independent transfer company we booked online - 30 pounds return for the two of us, and it's about 150 km each way, so it's pretty good value, not much more than a return trip by taxi fro, home to the train station be. Knowing that it's cheap by western standards they've put a collection plate at the door as we board: "English money no problem." There are several of us, including the bright little boy and his father, but the others all get dropped off at hotels in Hammamet, a beach tourist resort town 63 km south of Tunis.
We're at the Monastir Centre Hotel, advertised as being central but not far from the beach as I googled for central. Actually some of the beach hotels are about as central, as we're only about two blocks from the beach. We had just feared being stranded on an isolated strip of tourist beach hotels outside the city. Fortunately these people also recognise our voucher, booked with a different firm online. We're on the fourth floor (out of 5) and in an end room with stunning views in 3 directions. The balcony doors are on the east, looking out over the Mediterranean, as dark blue as only the Mediterranean can be, and from the large balcony (15x15 feet) there is also a view to the south. On the other side of the room the window looks west, over the swimming pool and sun loungers to the city proper with apartments and the minaret of a mosque. As we enter the room the sun is poised as a red ball on the horizon, just about to set an hour later than it would have done in England.
The room itself is irregularly-shaped but big, with bunk beds tucked in a corner for the children we didn't bring. The shower is in the middle of a long bath and has surprisingly good water pressure for the fourth floor as well as plenty of hot water. Most tv channels are French, Arabic or German, but we do have BBC World, so we're in touch with English news.
Dinner (we've opted for half board) is from 6:30 to 8:30. Most of the other guests appear to be German. J, harking back to Yugoslavia 30 years ago, has always said that the Germans had a good eye for a bargain. Dinner is a varied buffet - fish, chicken, lamb, coscous, salads, soups (including a Tunisian one flavoured with a fairly ,ild harissa, or chili paste), salads, oranges, pears (a little underripe) and dates still on the stalk, as well as sweet biscuits and a pudding with a flavour we can't quite pin down which J remembers eating as a small child in Germany. Dishes are somewhat uncertainly labelled in three languages, and include chiken, lamm and fische.
We've been up since quarter past four so it doesn't take us long to fall asleep.
Just make the 5:16 underground train but it's a quick and peaceful time of day to be travelling. No problem catching the 5:50 train to Gatwick and ze're there at 6:20 - having allowed for all public transit contingencies we're much earlier than necessary.
Plane not full and the middle seat remains unoccupied. Allows for some manoeuvering room as party ahead - two very loud German men with a quiet Asian woman - is quite exhuberant. The girl is attached to a man with a hangdog face and a large moustache sitting in the window seat ahead of J while the tall man in the seat ahead of me looks quite a lot like Boris Karloff. They're not bad really - just very loud - and each time Boris Karloff throws himself into the seat my tray shakes and the wine wobbles. But we've learned one of the lessons at Monday's lecture on happiness - think of the alternative possibilities. Yes, we might have had quiet and considerate people ahead, but then again the 3rd seat in our bank might have been taken by a large person with a bad head cold instead of remaining vacant, so we're doing well.
As with Air Canada on our way to London, there are no newspapers - and British Air used to provide a choice. There is wine though, and a pleasant cabin crew, though lunch is a rather skinny sandwich. Across the aisle from us is a father with a lively, inquisitive 6 year old boy interested in everything after "we blast off."
Flight a little less than 3 hours and there's an hour's time change. We're met by a rep from A2B, the independent transfer company we booked online - 30 pounds return for the two of us, and it's about 150 km each way, so it's pretty good value, not much more than a return trip by taxi fro, home to the train station be. Knowing that it's cheap by western standards they've put a collection plate at the door as we board: "English money no problem." There are several of us, including the bright little boy and his father, but the others all get dropped off at hotels in Hammamet, a beach tourist resort town 63 km south of Tunis.
We're at the Monastir Centre Hotel, advertised as being central but not far from the beach as I googled for central. Actually some of the beach hotels are about as central, as we're only about two blocks from the beach. We had just feared being stranded on an isolated strip of tourist beach hotels outside the city. Fortunately these people also recognise our voucher, booked with a different firm online. We're on the fourth floor (out of 5) and in an end room with stunning views in 3 directions. The balcony doors are on the east, looking out over the Mediterranean, as dark blue as only the Mediterranean can be, and from the large balcony (15x15 feet) there is also a view to the south. On the other side of the room the window looks west, over the swimming pool and sun loungers to the city proper with apartments and the minaret of a mosque. As we enter the room the sun is poised as a red ball on the horizon, just about to set an hour later than it would have done in England.
The room itself is irregularly-shaped but big, with bunk beds tucked in a corner for the children we didn't bring. The shower is in the middle of a long bath and has surprisingly good water pressure for the fourth floor as well as plenty of hot water. Most tv channels are French, Arabic or German, but we do have BBC World, so we're in touch with English news.
Dinner (we've opted for half board) is from 6:30 to 8:30. Most of the other guests appear to be German. J, harking back to Yugoslavia 30 years ago, has always said that the Germans had a good eye for a bargain. Dinner is a varied buffet - fish, chicken, lamb, coscous, salads, soups (including a Tunisian one flavoured with a fairly ,ild harissa, or chili paste), salads, oranges, pears (a little underripe) and dates still on the stalk, as well as sweet biscuits and a pudding with a flavour we can't quite pin down which J remembers eating as a small child in Germany. Dishes are somewhat uncertainly labelled in three languages, and include chiken, lamm and fische.
We've been up since quarter past four so it doesn't take us long to fall asleep.
Tuesday, November 18/2008
Last day. Over to the Barbican to choose seats on tomorrow's flight. They're in banks of three on either side of the aisle so we ga,ble and opt for the aisle and window seats. Either no one will choose the middle or one of us will offer to trade. Check out the ti,ing on tomorrow's underground trip too. First train from Swiss Cottage leaves at 5:16 and takes about 20 minutes to reach London Bridge Station. Should give us plenty of time.
Trafalgar Square to post office - long queues as always - and Canada House to print boarding passes. And back to Trafalgar after dusk (and sunset is about 4:10 this time of year) to see the interactive art project of a Mexican Canadian. A nu,ber of projectors project film images of people, more or less full size, from a cache of hundreds onto the pavement at the north end of Trafalgar Square. Intriguingly the images are activated by the shadows cast by the observors: They seem to come alive, struggling to sit up. It's temting to offer a hand so that they can emerge from the pavement and become fully real. Meanwhile the images make eye contact and even the security people seem quite taken with them.
The evening spent packing. How will it all fit back into our little suitcases? The saddest is throwing out all those lovely newspapers - many of which have excellent bits that there hasn't been time to read - with English language reading on our winters it's always feast or famine.
Trafalgar Square to post office - long queues as always - and Canada House to print boarding passes. And back to Trafalgar after dusk (and sunset is about 4:10 this time of year) to see the interactive art project of a Mexican Canadian. A nu,ber of projectors project film images of people, more or less full size, from a cache of hundreds onto the pavement at the north end of Trafalgar Square. Intriguingly the images are activated by the shadows cast by the observors: They seem to come alive, struggling to sit up. It's temting to offer a hand so that they can emerge from the pavement and become fully real. Meanwhile the images make eye contact and even the security people seem quite taken with them.
The evening spent packing. How will it all fit back into our little suitcases? The saddest is throwing out all those lovely newspapers - many of which have excellent bits that there hasn't been time to read - with English language reading on our winters it's always feast or famine.
Monday, November 17/2008
Note: Entries now being made on Tunisian keyboard. Some characters impossible to find!
Barbican library internet and check the terminal for the Cyprus flight - terminal 5. The Tunis flight is fro, Gatwick. Leaves us just time to get to Hanover Square for the Gresham College free lecture. This is the church that Shelley got married in, a pretty sqare church with balconies on three sides. Paul and Jill are there already and we join them. The lecture is on what makes people happy and is given by a visiting professor of psychiatry. It is interesting, informative, and quite witty. Gresham College in the Inns of Court has a wonderful and varied series of free public lectures zhich Jill and Paul put us on to: A tradition of lectures that goes back over 400 years.
Then we realise that we are quite near Farm Street. Farm Street is often ,entioned in literary biographies as a Catholic centre and I am curious. Turns out to be a lovely little neo-Gothic church with beautiful vaulting and stained glass. It is officially the Church of the Immaculate Conception, run by the Jesuits and familiarly known as Farm Street - a treasure tucked azay in a quiet corner of Mayfair.
By bus to Trafalgar to pick up our new debit cards at Charing Cross. On the way to the bus stop we pass, within a block, the former home of Florence Nightingale and the former abode of Skittles, apparently the most famous courtesan of Victorian London. Then up Charing Cross Road where we find a small French dictionary at Blackwells - unaccountably half price. By now it is raining so umbrellas out and home.
Last of the spaghetti for dinner. Jenny calls to chat. She is to be off work for another two weeks and has decided to go to Cumbria to visit Jane.
Barbican library internet and check the terminal for the Cyprus flight - terminal 5. The Tunis flight is fro, Gatwick. Leaves us just time to get to Hanover Square for the Gresham College free lecture. This is the church that Shelley got married in, a pretty sqare church with balconies on three sides. Paul and Jill are there already and we join them. The lecture is on what makes people happy and is given by a visiting professor of psychiatry. It is interesting, informative, and quite witty. Gresham College in the Inns of Court has a wonderful and varied series of free public lectures zhich Jill and Paul put us on to: A tradition of lectures that goes back over 400 years.
Then we realise that we are quite near Farm Street. Farm Street is often ,entioned in literary biographies as a Catholic centre and I am curious. Turns out to be a lovely little neo-Gothic church with beautiful vaulting and stained glass. It is officially the Church of the Immaculate Conception, run by the Jesuits and familiarly known as Farm Street - a treasure tucked azay in a quiet corner of Mayfair.
By bus to Trafalgar to pick up our new debit cards at Charing Cross. On the way to the bus stop we pass, within a block, the former home of Florence Nightingale and the former abode of Skittles, apparently the most famous courtesan of Victorian London. Then up Charing Cross Road where we find a small French dictionary at Blackwells - unaccountably half price. By now it is raining so umbrellas out and home.
Last of the spaghetti for dinner. Jenny calls to chat. She is to be off work for another two weeks and has decided to go to Cumbria to visit Jane.
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Monday, November 17/2008
Barbican Library internet and check the terminal for the Cyprus flight - terminal 5. The Tunis flight is from Gatwick. Leaves us just time to get to Hanover Square for the Gresham College free lecture. This is the church that Shelley got married in, a pretty square church with balconies on three sides. Paul and Jill are there already and we join them. The lecture is on what makes people happy and is given by a visiting professor of psychiatry. It's interesting, informative and quite witty. Gresham College in the Inns of Court has a wonderful and varied series of free public lectures which Jill and Paul put us on to. A tradition of free public lectures that goes back over 400 years.
Then we realise we're quite near Farm Street. Farm Street is often mentioned in literary biographies as a Catholic centre and I'm curious. Turns out to be a lovely little neo-Gothic church with beautiful vaulting and stained glass. It's officially the Church of the Immaculate Conception, run by the Jesuits and familiarly known as Farm Street - a treasure tucked away in a quiet corner of Mayfair.
By bus to Trafalgar to pick up our new debit cards. Then up Charing Cross Road where we find a small French dictionary at Blackwell's - unaccountably but happily half price (£2.25). By now it's raining so umbrellas out and home.
Last of the spaghetti for dinner. Jenny calls to chat. She is to take two more weeks off work and has decided to go to Cumbria and visit Jane.
Then we realise we're quite near Farm Street. Farm Street is often mentioned in literary biographies as a Catholic centre and I'm curious. Turns out to be a lovely little neo-Gothic church with beautiful vaulting and stained glass. It's officially the Church of the Immaculate Conception, run by the Jesuits and familiarly known as Farm Street - a treasure tucked away in a quiet corner of Mayfair.
By bus to Trafalgar to pick up our new debit cards. Then up Charing Cross Road where we find a small French dictionary at Blackwell's - unaccountably but happily half price (£2.25). By now it's raining so umbrellas out and home.
Last of the spaghetti for dinner. Jenny calls to chat. She is to take two more weeks off work and has decided to go to Cumbria and visit Jane.
Monday, 17 November 2008
Sunday, November 16/2008
Go out to the newsagent's for the Sunday Times and find that there is a fine rain, one step beyond mist. So we take our umbrellas with us to Finchley Road tube station and off to Jean's. STill mild. THere are leaves all over the pavements, mostly from the plane trees. They have leaves that look like giant maple leaves, the largest of them about a foot across.
There's a bird bath in the back garden at Jean's and J watches the birds enjoying a bath. Jean says that she spotted a dead rat there earlier. She called the council who say that they charge to remove a corpse from private property, though not from the street - from whence it probably came. Their advice is to wrap it in paper and put it in the rubbish bin. She does, and says the bin is due to be emptied tomorrow, but if it happens again she'll put it in the gutter and then call. They say that in London one is never more than ten feet from a rat, though it seems (and one hopes is) unlikely. We have seen them by - and in - the bins in Belsize Park though.
Shanthi joins us after a weekend visiting relatives in Surrey. Lots of lively chat. We discuss David Hare's Gethsemane. Predictably given a good review in the Guardian and a poor one in this morning's Times. The characters are, of course, scarcely disguised at all, and one recognises Tony Blair, Lord Levy, and - by dilemma at least - Tessa Jowell. Now, apparently, rumour has it that Blair isn't putting much energy into doing his new job; he's too caught up in the world of well paid speaking engagements. Shanthi has friends in the court system who say that the current economic situation has seen a surge of City wives from the world of finance filing for divorce beofre there is an end to the huge payout bonuses as companies fail and banks lay off executives. Meanwhile Shanthi's concern is for families losing their homes in record numbers as the banks repossess.
Fragrant rice and curries for dinner. Little pavlovas with fresh strawberries for dessert. A lovely treat. Jean and Shanthi reminisce about Singapore, arranged marriages, family. Jean's grandfather was born in London in the 1820's and lived as a bookseller in the London in which Dickens was writing. Quite amazing.
There's a bird bath in the back garden at Jean's and J watches the birds enjoying a bath. Jean says that she spotted a dead rat there earlier. She called the council who say that they charge to remove a corpse from private property, though not from the street - from whence it probably came. Their advice is to wrap it in paper and put it in the rubbish bin. She does, and says the bin is due to be emptied tomorrow, but if it happens again she'll put it in the gutter and then call. They say that in London one is never more than ten feet from a rat, though it seems (and one hopes is) unlikely. We have seen them by - and in - the bins in Belsize Park though.
Shanthi joins us after a weekend visiting relatives in Surrey. Lots of lively chat. We discuss David Hare's Gethsemane. Predictably given a good review in the Guardian and a poor one in this morning's Times. The characters are, of course, scarcely disguised at all, and one recognises Tony Blair, Lord Levy, and - by dilemma at least - Tessa Jowell. Now, apparently, rumour has it that Blair isn't putting much energy into doing his new job; he's too caught up in the world of well paid speaking engagements. Shanthi has friends in the court system who say that the current economic situation has seen a surge of City wives from the world of finance filing for divorce beofre there is an end to the huge payout bonuses as companies fail and banks lay off executives. Meanwhile Shanthi's concern is for families losing their homes in record numbers as the banks repossess.
Fragrant rice and curries for dinner. Little pavlovas with fresh strawberries for dessert. A lovely treat. Jean and Shanthi reminisce about Singapore, arranged marriages, family. Jean's grandfather was born in London in the 1820's and lived as a bookseller in the London in which Dickens was writing. Quite amazing.
Saturday, November 15/2008
Paul arrives with a bag of brochures, etc. just as we're leaving. Take the Northern line tube. Two women (mother and duaghter?) sit opposite in animated sign language conversation, laughing as they talk.
We do a bit of theatre checking and then wander down to Covent Garden. There are open air performers to admire, including a pearly king and queen collecting for charity, their black clothing studded with pearl buttons in traditional Cockney style. Check for Christmas cards at St. Paul's Covent Garden, the actors' church. The garden behind the church is a little oasis full of memorial benches. A lovely spot to have a snack, though unfortunately others seem to have thought so as well and left their rubbish, despite the bins provided.
Tube out to Shepherd's Bush to check out the new Westfield Mall, supposed to be the largest in Europe. Pretty upscale - forty restaurants but no plasticland, chandeliers much in evidence. Home via Camden Town. Check for a French dictionary but the shop where I got the last one seems to have disappeared.
We do a bit of theatre checking and then wander down to Covent Garden. There are open air performers to admire, including a pearly king and queen collecting for charity, their black clothing studded with pearl buttons in traditional Cockney style. Check for Christmas cards at St. Paul's Covent Garden, the actors' church. The garden behind the church is a little oasis full of memorial benches. A lovely spot to have a snack, though unfortunately others seem to have thought so as well and left their rubbish, despite the bins provided.
Tube out to Shepherd's Bush to check out the new Westfield Mall, supposed to be the largest in Europe. Pretty upscale - forty restaurants but no plasticland, chandeliers much in evidence. Home via Camden Town. Check for a French dictionary but the shop where I got the last one seems to have disappeared.
Friday, November 14/2008
Sort out the best method of getting to Gatwick on Wednewday. Settle on train from London Bridge Station and buy the tickets. It means we can get the tube from Swiss Cottage without changing and has the advantage of no stairs at the other end. Pamphlets at the station explain the "fall leaf" timetaboles. Autumn leaves on the track are mulched into a slippery coating that forces the trains to slow slightly for safety. The same problem occurs (as the leaflet points out) in North America, but I'm quite sure Canadian trains don't adjust the timetable. They just unapologetically arrive late.
From Southwark we walk over to the Imperial War Museum. There's an exhibit on the Great War in honour of the 90th anniversary, complete with photographs of the three surviving British veterans, now aged 108, 110, and 112. It's a very moving exhibit - letters from the front, photographs, newspaper clippings. A letter fragment reads "I doo not want to die...If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling bby again turns my bowels to water." There is a photograph of the little family and a note to say that the soldier, Captain Charlie May, did not survive. There are paintings too, including a large one by Stanley Spencer and a Roualt. There are letters and paintings representing the German side as well and a German bread ration book next to a photograph of malnourished children. Also the reminiscences of a soldier who said that, to the dismay of the officers, soldiers from both Allied and German forces joined in games of football on Christmas Day, between the trenches.
Meet with the other Canadians staying in a Welby bedsit for a drink. Their first choice pub is too full, but we find a quiet if unatmospheric hotel nearby. They're leaving London on the same day we are but already making plans for next time. We exchange experiences, tips and email addresses and Paul promises to give us his stash of brochures and leaflets for museums, free events, lectures, etc. It's too late to use most of them now, but the website addresses will be handy in the future.
From Southwark we walk over to the Imperial War Museum. There's an exhibit on the Great War in honour of the 90th anniversary, complete with photographs of the three surviving British veterans, now aged 108, 110, and 112. It's a very moving exhibit - letters from the front, photographs, newspaper clippings. A letter fragment reads "I doo not want to die...If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling bby again turns my bowels to water." There is a photograph of the little family and a note to say that the soldier, Captain Charlie May, did not survive. There are paintings too, including a large one by Stanley Spencer and a Roualt. There are letters and paintings representing the German side as well and a German bread ration book next to a photograph of malnourished children. Also the reminiscences of a soldier who said that, to the dismay of the officers, soldiers from both Allied and German forces joined in games of football on Christmas Day, between the trenches.
Meet with the other Canadians staying in a Welby bedsit for a drink. Their first choice pub is too full, but we find a quiet if unatmospheric hotel nearby. They're leaving London on the same day we are but already making plans for next time. We exchange experiences, tips and email addresses and Paul promises to give us his stash of brochures and leaflets for museums, free events, lectures, etc. It's too late to use most of them now, but the website addresses will be handy in the future.
Thursday, November 13/2008
Barbican in the morning. Booksale still on and get a Lonely Planet Tunisia, as well as a biography of Thomas Merton - both hardcover, unfortunately.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Wednesday, November 12/08
Theatre day. Concession prices at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand for a matinee performance of Piaf - as rough and crude and energetic as Piaf herself, with Elena Roger's powerful voice sounding uncannily like Piaf.
Across the Blackfriar's Bridge to the Tate Modern to inspect the new installation in the Turbine Hall, a sort of giant spider thing with matressless double bunks and film in the background - must be explanatory material that we've missed. Then walk along the south bank to the National Theatre to see Gethsemane, a clever play by David Hare about party funding and political compromise - pretty close to the bone.
Across the Blackfriar's Bridge to the Tate Modern to inspect the new installation in the Turbine Hall, a sort of giant spider thing with matressless double bunks and film in the background - must be explanatory material that we've missed. Then walk along the south bank to the National Theatre to see Gethsemane, a clever play by David Hare about party funding and political compromise - pretty close to the bone.
Tuesday, November 11/2008
By tube to Jean's in West Harrow. Far more than our share of Bombay mix as we sip Merlot and talk in the sitting room. Jean warms herself by the radiator and I can see Siva there in a sarong, glass of wine in hand, watching his quiz parogram on television. It's different without him. Shanti and Antony are to join us for curry but that falls through unfortunately. They miss a great meal with fragrant seasoned rice, mutton cury, and all kinds of vegetable dishes. We've come early in order to leave early, but that's not what happens - 11:16 train home.
Monday, November 10/08
Jenny would have liked a walk in Bushey Park (she's off work this week) but it's wet and windy, so we settle for a cooked breakfast and a chat. J goes with Doug to see and admire the flat that Doug has been doing up for sale with his usual perfectionism, despite the unfortunate timing of the credit crunch. Train back from Surbiton.
Sunday, November 9/2008
By train from Waterloo to Thames Ditton where Jenny has invited us for Sunday lunch. It's a lovely traditional lunch with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and Jenny's mother is there as well as daughter Emma (now expecting) and her husband Giles and Doug's sister Kathleen and her husband. Good to see them all again. We stay the night.
Saturday, November 8/2008
Visits to St. Paul's Cathedral are free today in honour of the new Lord Mayor of London's installation. As it is usually £10, we take advantage of the opportunity and head down early. The architecture is beautiful, with the dome the second larget in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome. There is to be a dramatised reading of the Dick Whittington story, accompanied by organ music, in the afternoon, but we have the benefit of the rehearsal in the morning. The script is witty and the cat particularly well played. We take some time to explore the crypt, an interestingly secular and military place, final resting spot of such famous military men as Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. Then we walk up to the whispering gallery. The circular gallery has holes opening in the wall through which whispers travel in a circular pipe. It also has an impressive view of the floor below. Another set of steps (making 448? in all) leads to the stone gallery. We look down on the Lord Mayor's parade but it's raining quite hard by now. Once we leave the rain stops, and we do get a glimpse of the gilded carriage as the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress stop at the steps of the cathedral for a blessing, complete with boys' choir.
Back to the south bank at 5 for fireworks above the Thames to finish the day's celebrations. They're quite good and there's a big crowd. The trees along the south bank are covered with blue and white fairy lights and by 5 it's quite dark.
Back to the south bank at 5 for fireworks above the Thames to finish the day's celebrations. They're quite good and there's a big crowd. The trees along the south bank are covered with blue and white fairy lights and by 5 it's quite dark.
Friday, November 7/2008
Down to the Barbican for email, and in J's case magazines. They're having a book sale as well, and we, naturally, cannot resist and end up buying a travel book and a biography of Thomas Merton - unfortunately hardcover.
Docklands light railway to the ASDA at Crossharbour where we acquire an ASDA UK sim card. Texts 4p and calls 8p, which is better than bouncing everything through Cyprus - although not as good as Cypriot rates. The sim card is free. The lady at the electronics counter is very kind - they're sold out but she finds a card without a package and eventually comes up with a package to scan for the price.
Docklands light railway to the ASDA at Crossharbour where we acquire an ASDA UK sim card. Texts 4p and calls 8p, which is better than bouncing everything through Cyprus - although not as good as Cypriot rates. The sim card is free. The lady at the electronics counter is very kind - they're sold out but she finds a card without a package and eventually comes up with a package to scan for the price.
Friday, 7 November 2008
Thursday, November 6/2008
Pass Paul and Jill on our way down to the tube. They're on their way out for a Burmese lunch. Then down to Earl's Court to visit the mobile shop J found last spring with the cheap sim cards and friendly proprietor. It's gone, as is the big, cheap internet. There's a new Philippine bank though. So we try a few more places, acquire a fair bit of misinformation, and rediscover the area, which seems more Asian and less Australian than it used to.
Trafalgar Square for Charing Cross bank and the event info from the Portrait Gallery. Email check at the Canadian Consulate and a bit more shopping in Camden Town. Try phoning Jean but not much luck with the phone boxes and a puzzling "restricted access" message when I try using the mobile.
Trafalgar Square for Charing Cross bank and the event info from the Portrait Gallery. Email check at the Canadian Consulate and a bit more shopping in Camden Town. Try phoning Jean but not much luck with the phone boxes and a puzzling "restricted access" message when I try using the mobile.
Wednesday, November 5/2008
Short night as they turn on the cabin lights at 5 a.m. GMT, which is only 11 p.m. in Winnipeg. There is news, though: the unofficial results of the American election show an overwhelming Obama victory. And we sit, a planeload of self-contained Canadians and Brits, all interested in the outcome and not a murmur aloud in response.
In London the newspapers are picking up the excitement as well: the transit system's Metro headlines read @History in the Making@ as we get on the underground at Heathrow, but a stop or two later people are boarding with an unusual second edition saying "Good Morning Mr. President" in enormous letters. We reach the Welby long before it opens and, taking the advice of a cheerful middle-aged resident with a Canadian (or American?) accent, go round the corner to the little coffee shop with the outside tables. A pleasant place to wake from jetlag in a little alcove of Belsize Village. Deliverymen for the pharmacy and the restaurant, mums and prams with toddlers hanging on, a steady stream of customers at the bakery. At ten we pick up the keys for the bedsit and at the gate we run into our Canadian friend of the coffee advice with his wife, Paul and Jill they are, and from B.C> They're finishing six months here and are enthusiastic, especially about their great discovery of high quality free public lectures at the London School of Economics, St. Paul's, the Inns of Court and other places. We tentatively agree to meet for a drink at some point.
The afternoon is for supplies - stocking up from the 99p store on Camden High St. and Sainsbury's. Veggies and grapes from Inverness St. market. The market vegetables are half the price they'd be at the supermarket and lovely.
It's Guy Fawkes night and the sound of firecrackers in the dark streets. Lambeth Council has arranged fireworks on Clapham Common and two other parks, so we head off, along with half of London it seems. The tube is jam packed with people, most of them younger than our children. Someone says they've closed Clapham Common Station because of crowds, but we only get as far as Kennington when we're told to evacuate the station "due to a reported emergency." So up in a crowded lift and onto the street. We follow the crowd and eventually work our way to Clapham Common Station - then notice the crowd thinning and falling away to pubs as we walk. We've followed Clapham High St. instead of cutting across to the common. But we've had our night's excitement and a taste of fireworks. A long day, and we're ready for home.
In London the newspapers are picking up the excitement as well: the transit system's Metro headlines read @History in the Making@ as we get on the underground at Heathrow, but a stop or two later people are boarding with an unusual second edition saying "Good Morning Mr. President" in enormous letters. We reach the Welby long before it opens and, taking the advice of a cheerful middle-aged resident with a Canadian (or American?) accent, go round the corner to the little coffee shop with the outside tables. A pleasant place to wake from jetlag in a little alcove of Belsize Village. Deliverymen for the pharmacy and the restaurant, mums and prams with toddlers hanging on, a steady stream of customers at the bakery. At ten we pick up the keys for the bedsit and at the gate we run into our Canadian friend of the coffee advice with his wife, Paul and Jill they are, and from B.C> They're finishing six months here and are enthusiastic, especially about their great discovery of high quality free public lectures at the London School of Economics, St. Paul's, the Inns of Court and other places. We tentatively agree to meet for a drink at some point.
The afternoon is for supplies - stocking up from the 99p store on Camden High St. and Sainsbury's. Veggies and grapes from Inverness St. market. The market vegetables are half the price they'd be at the supermarket and lovely.
It's Guy Fawkes night and the sound of firecrackers in the dark streets. Lambeth Council has arranged fireworks on Clapham Common and two other parks, so we head off, along with half of London it seems. The tube is jam packed with people, most of them younger than our children. Someone says they've closed Clapham Common Station because of crowds, but we only get as far as Kennington when we're told to evacuate the station "due to a reported emergency." So up in a crowded lift and onto the street. We follow the crowd and eventually work our way to Clapham Common Station - then notice the crowd thinning and falling away to pubs as we walk. We've followed Clapham High St. instead of cutting across to the common. But we've had our night's excitement and a taste of fireworks. A long day, and we're ready for home.
Tuesday, November 4/2008
Our D-Day - and American election day. Bus to the airport, Winnipeg being one of the few Canadian cities where the airport is on the local bus route. Then up over the patchwork of prairie on our way to Toronto, where we have a very short wait for the trans-Atlantic flight.
Newspapers seem to have disappeared in the general economy measures Air Canada is practising, along with vegetables and hot breakfasts, but the wine is not bad and we brought our own Globe and Mail.
Newspapers seem to have disappeared in the general economy measures Air Canada is practising, along with vegetables and hot breakfasts, but the wine is not bad and we brought our own Globe and Mail.
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Monday, November 3/2008
Errand day. And off to see Mum at the nursing home, taking the customary bag of sweets. Winnipeg buses are some of the politest in the world. The drivers are helpful and a fair proportion of the passengers say thank you as they get off. A stunning day - it reaches nearly 19, with a pleasant warm breeze. And we note the exchange rate on the pound is the best it's been in years - about $1.87. Hard luck for the British, of course, but good for us in the next couple of weeks.
Monday, 3 November 2008
Sunday, November 2/2008
All Souls Day. And D-Day for us, as we leave for the winter. Fortunately, it's also time change day, so we manage to get up in time for the last minute tasks - draining the water, putting the anti-freeze in the plumbing, packing the lunch, etc. There's a very plump partridge in the driveway when I take the water pots out to empty them. And the bluejays and whiskeyjacks show considerable interest in the final scraps of food from the fridge. Shirley kindly takes us to the train and we're off.
Plenty of the room on the train and we settle back as the alpha rhythms begin. Quite good coffee which we take up to the observation car. It's mild and sunny and many of the cottages still have boats in the water. A number of people from other countries enjoying the wilderness and spotting the eagles. The woman behind us is from Ohio, and very interested, asking questions. The man across the aisle, hailing from Saskatchewan, is a mine of misinformation on everything. We're early, which allows us to pick up the return ticket at the wicket, as we're travelling with an electronic voucher.
Ian and Susan pick us up at the station and Janet and Dave, Judy and Dino, and Jennifer and Brian join us at Ian and Susan's for Chinese food. Good to see everyone and get caught up. Susan's niece Kristin and Trevor are there too.
Plenty of the room on the train and we settle back as the alpha rhythms begin. Quite good coffee which we take up to the observation car. It's mild and sunny and many of the cottages still have boats in the water. A number of people from other countries enjoying the wilderness and spotting the eagles. The woman behind us is from Ohio, and very interested, asking questions. The man across the aisle, hailing from Saskatchewan, is a mine of misinformation on everything. We're early, which allows us to pick up the return ticket at the wicket, as we're travelling with an electronic voucher.
Ian and Susan pick us up at the station and Janet and Dave, Judy and Dino, and Jennifer and Brian join us at Ian and Susan's for Chinese food. Good to see everyone and get caught up. Susan's niece Kristin and Trevor are there too.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Monday, October 20/2008
Last leg. Stop for lunch at Thunder Bay. Then refuse to pay the diesel prices at Ignace. Should we go in to Dryden or just go home. J is for Dryden and points out that we can also check to see if the pellet stoves have come in, so we go. Diesel, bread, milk, fruit, and over to Canadian Tire. The pellet stove (SINGULAR) has just arrived. Did we want to take it? Well no, wrong vehicle, but we'll pay for it now. Then notice Ron S. at the counter. Does he have his truck? So change of plans. The girl at the cash says that we got it by ten minutes. As we were waiting for the boys to load it, a woman phoned in looking for one and offered to pay for it on the spot. So J's instincts were good. Home for supper by the fire.
Sunday, October 19/2008
Off around eight, stopping for diesel on the way out of Brampton. We're too early for the Globe and Mail. The roads are pretty clear. Very few transports and no "travaux" so we make good enough time we start to wonder about the likelihood of a ticket. At Sault Ste. Marie we're also too early for the Globe - "depends on the who's driving" [and how fast]. Stop for the night at White River, same motel we usually use. Sixty-eight dollars including tax and they have a fridge and microwave.
Saturday, October 18/2008
Saturday, so everyone is around, including Mike who came in on the last bus - after we had gone to bed. J and Barb do lots of reminiscing. Out to dinner at a little diner with home-cooked meals. Check online for the voucher for the hotel we booked in Tunisia. There is actually a button to click asking them to resend the voucher. Non-reception must be a frequent problem, but fortunately the solution works.
Friday, October 17/2008
Gary and Barb at work, and we wake to a blaze of gold from the oak tree in the next garden. Slow breakfast over newspapers - the ultimate luxury for those from print deprived Sioux Lookout. B&G are back in mid-afternoon, so lots of time for chat. Mandy's boyfriend joins us (B,G,J, Shannon, Mandy and me) for dinner.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Thursday, October 16/2008
A morning visit with Aunt Ruth and Uncle Donald. Aunt Ruth has so many memories that she alone possesses now in the family. It's a lovely visit, chat and reminiscence. Talk of family and travel.
By noon we're gone, off to Toronto. Despite the hazards of the 401 we're there before supper. Barb and Gary are both home and the girls come in later. Shepherd's pie and kapusta - and more talk
By noon we're gone, off to Toronto. Despite the hazards of the 401 we're there before supper. Barb and Gary are both home and the girls come in later. Shepherd's pie and kapusta - and more talk
Wednesday, October 15/2008
Leisurely start in the morning, as we're only off to Kingston. We take the autoroute through Montreal, but once in Ontario we leave the 401 at Long Sault and take the river route. The old towns are beautiful, and the leaves still at their best. Picnic lunch at a park at Long Sault. We spot Crysler's Farm, site of an 1813 battle, near Upper Canada Village as we drive and stop to look. A beautiful sunny spot overlooking the St. Lawrence, scene of a Canadian victory over an attacking American force more than twice their strength.
At Margi's by dinner time. Maddie is off to rehearse for Phantom, in which she will be playing the lead, but the rest of the family is there. We sit in the living room where a wooden box has centre place - the box in which our great grandmother, Catherine West, brought all her possessions from Ireland. So nice that Margi still has it.
At Margi's by dinner time. Maddie is off to rehearse for Phantom, in which she will be playing the lead, but the rest of the family is there. We sit in the living room where a wooden box has centre place - the box in which our great grandmother, Catherine West, brought all her possessions from Ireland. So nice that Margi still has it.
Tuesday, October 14/2008
Election Day. And the end of our visit. We're off early. We'd meant to take the scenic river route, but there's so much fog along the river that there's not much point. The trans-Canada is quicker and the visibility better. At Riviere-du-loup we leave the trans-Canada and take the route along the south bank of the St. Lawrence, a string of lovely little villages with huge churches and the ancient strips of rich farmland along the river. We cross at Quebec City and take the autoroute in to Trois Rivieres, then head up to St Etienne des Gres. Dinner with Patty and Don - chicken done with onion, apple and maple syrup. Then the election results - a sad but predictable Conservative minority.
Monday, October 13/2008
True Thanksgiving Day. And more beautiful weather. We all go for a walk downtown and over the walking bridge to the north side. Katy is hoping for ice cream, but the place isn't open. Not much is, but there are plenty of families out walking. Dogs and babies and cyclists.
Sunday, October 12/2008
Thanksgiving Sunday. We've been invited to Thanksgiving dinner with Faith and her mother and friends at a camp they rent on the lower Miramichi. It's an annual tradition, with lots of people about at a beautiful spot on a salmon fishing river. I make cranberry sauce with the wild cranberries and Rachel makes dilled beans and a pumpkin pie. A beautiful drive up the Nashwaak River, with the leaves at their red and gold best and the sun on the river. It's warm enough to eat outside at a long table on the lawn overlooking the river. Potluck, but it works out perfectly with enough of everything from turkey and moose pie to farm pickles and desserts. All kinds of space for the kids to play bocce and football, and tea and whist after dinner. A lovely time
Saturday, October 11/2008
Kieran is at a sleep-over but Dave and Rachel and Katy and Joe and I head out to the farmer's market. I buy wild cranberries from an older man who explains how he harvests them using a hardwood comb. Dave buys samosas, and we sample them while they're still warm. J buys aged cheddar. This is where we've joked about setting up Katy and Nana's perogy stand.
It's Dave and Rachel's anniversary, so they go out in the evening. Katy and Kieran are both at sleep-overs, so it's just the old folks at home in the evening, watching qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
It's Dave and Rachel's anniversary, so they go out in the evening. Katy and Kieran are both at sleep-overs, so it's just the old folks at home in the evening, watching qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Friday, October 10/2008
Sunny again and we go for a walk with Rachel. The Fredericton houses are so compelling; painted wood, with welcoming front verandas and endless additions behind, serving generations of large families and student boarders in this university town. Then there are the elm trees, and the river, and the cemeteries in the centre of the city. It's so lovely and unmodern. The oldest houses here date to the 1780's, and many people know their family history for generations before that.
Friday, 10 October 2008
Thursday, October 9/2008
Rainy, and a stay in day. Still plenty to read, though. I get about half way through Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy. It goes nicely with our trip to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, covering, as it does, the dispute over ownership of many of the best paintings, a dispute between the gallery and Sir Maxwell Aiken, Beaverbrook's grandson. I moved to Fredericton shortly after Beaverbrook's death, and during the time of much of the manoeuvering and controversy, but have little memory of it. Probably, with adolescent egotism, I was simply too absorbed by my own little student world.
Our trip to the gallery is a pleasure. Kieran, who's lately taken quite an interest in art, has been wanting to go, in part to see the Turner and the Freud at the heart of the dispute (because of their financial rather than their intrinsic value). There's the hugh Dali, Santiago El Grande, in a space not quite large enough to do it justice, and a crucifixion by Tristram Paul Hillier that fascinated me as a student, set as it is in the fifties, with fifties costume and tools much in evidence, rather in the manner of Stanley Spencer. It too has disputed ownership. There has been a recent court hearing, we're told, with Judge Bayda now preparing his judgement.
Wednesday, October 8/2008
Down to Saint John with the morning sun in our eyes. The highway is beautiful, and fenced on both sides to keep moose and other wildlife separated. We think of friends who would still be alive if our roads at home were fenced like this. Past spectacular autumn colours and down to Saint John, where we spend five and a half hours at the dealership, as they investigate a shimmy, diagnose worn tires, break for lunch and come back to put on the tires - all after the scheduled maintenance. The tires seem pretty short-lived but we're assured that we've had longer than most (40,000 km). J isn't impressed, but there's not much option. The man in charge is overwhelmingly like John Cleese's Basil Fawlty in height, clipped speech, and general angularity of movement, a distracting similarity. It's not a bad place to wait, though, with comfortable chairs, Globe and Mail, a television tuned to CBC Newsworld, an impressive range of coffees and a computer connected to the internet (albeit with the window light behind it, making it almost unreadable). I decide, unsociably, to do the crossword puzzle on the grounds that it will probably remain undone if I politely leave it for someone else. There are other customers waiting, though none for as long as we wait. One man has only two teeth in evidence and chuckles and grunts a fair bit - in sympathy with our difficulties with the coffee machine or in disgust over the speech Harper is making on television? I find myself wondering if he can really be driving a Mercedes. How's that for snobbery? What has it to do with teeth or articulation?
It's three o'clock by the time we're finished, but we drive to St. Andrew's by the Sea to have our first look at the old Loyalist town. It's even more charming than we'd imagined. Frame houses, in pastels and brighter, the oldest of them dating to the 18th century. It's a pretty harbour - and there's good business in whale watching in holiday season. Even now, though, the shop fronts along Water Street, featuring pubs, and hardware, and clothing, and souvenirs, are as appealing as candy. We wander the street and then stop for a bowl of seafood chowder at Elaine's Chowder Restaurant. Nice, but unevenly distributed - I have far more shrimp and scallops than J - and the bowls aren't big. There's still time before dusk to look at churches and more houses, including some that were rafted across from the American side when the border was drawn farther north than the owners had expected. Time for huge ice cream cones and then we're off home, finishing the drive back to Fredericton (about an hour and a half) in the dark.
Tuesday, October 7/2008
More lazy reading. But J makes an appointment for the car's scheduled servicing in Saint John for tomorrow, so there's an outing planned. The kids have, for the third day been selling the apples they picked at Ivan's camp. Small table, big sign advertising organic apples at 50 cents apiece and lots of cute kid appeal. Katy sings her wares. They've made over thirty dollars each at the enterprise, rather to our surprise.
Monday, October 6/2008
I'm trying to shake laryngitis, so we've mostly been in, which is a shame in view of the spectacular leaves. Even without the leaves, Fredericton is such a pretty city. It's been non-stop reading time for both J and I, though. Within any random hand-span here there are at least two books I'd like to read. Reading Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love. J is reading Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919, which would also be on my list if I had time.
Sunday, October 5/2008
Dave's breakfast special - eggs, bacon and pancakes. I love this house (1920's) with its beautiful proportions, hardwood floors, and french doors, but I like the warmth of the paintings and photographs everywhere. Why don't modern houses have windowsills? Libby's house had such deep window sills in the bathroom that there were huge pots of geraniums on them. There's a friendliness in beautiful things jostling for room.
Saturday, October 4/2008
Dave's fortieth birthday, so teasing about old age, etc. We go to the market in the morning, one of Canada's best. Wander about happily and buy samosas to eat from the paper bag and some to save for later. Very quiet without Katy's bounce - she spent the night with Fiona.
In the afternoon we drive (two cars) up to Ivan's camp. A lovely hour's drive up the Royal Road to Woodland. The kids and J pick apples while Dave barbecues steak - butter tender meat that comes from Peter's Shop, we're told. Well worth remembering if we're ever here and buying meat. Rachel's brought birthday cake with her, a carrot cake. There's a fire on in the woodstove, Ivan still burning wood his father cut over ten years ago.
Friday, October 3/2008
A lovely start to mornings here - organic coffee and TWO newspapers waiting. We of the northern Ontario wilds, being used to having the Globe and Mail available a day late if at all, are like cats stretching in the warmth of the morning sun on the hardwood floors and a news fix for the day. Katy's done school at two but Kieran not until four. Their friend Fiona, Faith's daughter, comes back at three as well, to wait until her mother is finished work. So Katy gets a little time to show us what she's been doing before the others are back. Kieran demonstrates his sax playing - quite impressive for only having had it two days.
Thursday, October 2/2008
Another full day's drive, and another time change, so we arrive in Fredericton at quarter to seven. Dave and the kids are off at cubs, but Rachel makes us some spaghetti and pours the wine. We're home.
Then Kieran and Katy are back with Dave. The kids are off to bed - it's a school night - but we have time to admire their uniforms, their school work, Kieran's new saxophone, before we start catching up with Rachel and Dave.
Wednesday, October 1/2008
Breakfast and we're off. This is our easy day, so we've slotted in a visit with Libby Toop, a fourth cousin I've never met, and her husband Ron. Through the Perth area villages, so mellow after the raw angularity of the west, and past farmland nearly to the village of Toledo, where the Toops live in a house that has been in Ron's family for a hundred and sixty years. It's opposite a cemetery where his ancestors have resided for even longer. A lovely meeting in a room full of books. Libby does have Manning ancestry, though it's back a bit, but even better she has years worth of knowledge of the Loyalists families that travelled with them through New York, Vermont, and Quebec, as well as southern Ontario. We have to tear ourselves away at noon because it's still more than six hours drive to St Etienne, north of Trois Rivieres.
We take the Queensway through Ottawa but miss the trans Canada exit. Must be poorly labelled, as we've done it before, though not recently enough to remember the mistake in time. But we decide to go with it and take the older route along the Ottawa River, lovely and no longer, but not four lane. Cross the river at Hawksbury and Don's directions work well, so we follow the north shore of the St. Lawrence to Trois Rivieres and take the Shawinigan route north to St Etienne. It's a far better highway than it deserves to be, the Shawinigan route, not long but a royal road north to former Prime Minister Chretien's old seat.
Dinner with Don and Patty and a sampling of the local beers. And the treat of the French language pre-election leadership debate from a Quebec vantage point. Dion and Duceppe are at home in the language, of course, but the French of the others is surprisingly good - surprisingly to me at least. There's a fairly comfortable feeling to the round table format. Less comfortable for Harper, perhaps, but then I have an admitted bias.
Tuesday, September 30/08
More rain - in fact mostly rain, though not always heavy. Away by eight, but it's close to seven in the evening when we reach Heather and Doug's place at Perth. Warm welcome, dry house, wine, dinner, talk, and family photographs, including one of my grandmother and her younger sister as children. Doug and Heather tell us about their three months in Tuscany - happy enough that they went back for two weeks this year. We're reluctant to call it an evening and go to bed, and not simply because of the Laphroaig, though that's a special pleasure.
Monday, September 29/08
Up at 6:15 but it takes us two hours to get away. It's getting cold enough at night that J wants to freeze proof the house, draining water and disconnecting the pump as there will be no heat on.
Cloudy start and a good drive as far as Upsala, where traffic comes to a dead stop. We're queued for three quarters of an hour, passed by ambulance and police cars but unable to see the cause of the trouble. A man with two young boys from the car ahead do go on a recce though, and the daughter-in-law tells us that there's a back road - we can follow them. So we detour round on Pipeline road, missing Upsala entirely. Eventually the news catches up with us. The police had set out a spike belt to catch a thief and apprehended him when he ran for the woods. His female accomplice, following, was in a head-on crash. Surprisingly little human carnage, but arrests and drama.
And past Marathon a single car - or to be accurate, truck - accident. More ambulances, at least four police cars, and two fire rescue units pass us. vic tims still in the truck. As we pass, things don't look good - backboard and oxygen in evidence.
Darkness after Wawa, and rain. We stop for the night about thirty km short of Sault Ste Marie.
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