New Year was in June

Sheafhayne Manor, June 2023 (photo credit: Lola II)

Many times, a group of my friends and their partners have gathered in some large house to celebrate the New Year. Up until now, this has always taken place in December and January, but this year we gathered in June and reaped the benefit of warmer weather and light levels that allowed walking beyond 3pm, not to mention the joy of eating dinner outside.

We returned to the house in Devon where we'd spent the last holiday at New Year (2021-22), but with fewer people: only eleven of us this time. I drove with Lola II and Mr M, stopping for lunch on the way and then doing a major supermarket shop for the group before arrival and the process of picking bedrooms - we all chose a different room from the one we'd had before.

Over the week we went on long walks and shorter walks, those who brought bikes went cycling, we cooked for one another and ate out at cafes and restaurants, visited National Trust houses and their gardens, played games and attempted a fiendish jigsaw which remained unfinished at the end of the week when it was time to go home. 

A Buddhist friend of mine who used to live in Stratford before she moved to Devon joined us for one walk. Two of our number revealed that the reason that they had to leave us for two days in the middle was because one of them was going to become Irish on Tuesday afternoon. They drove and sailed all the way back to Ireland, attended the citizenship ceremony and drove and sailed back, then cooked us a barbeque in the evening in a truly heroic fashion. So we were nine Brits, one Australian and one European when we arrived, and eight Brits, one Australian and two Europeans when we departed.

The Bursar and Lola II, Sidmouth promenade

Games played were Pitchstorm, Codenames and the Bucket Game; places visited included coastal towns Beer, Branscombe and Sidmouth; National Trust sites were Montacute House and Killerton, both of which were delightful and included interesting walks as well as interesting properties. Killerton was my favourite, due to the enthusiastic volunteers who were keen to share as much information as you were prepared to listen to, and encouraged interaction to the extent of actually being able to look at books in the library and to play their piano and organ. Luckily our party included a competent pianist (not me) who had been practising tunes for singing back at the Manor. So Killerton was treated to a rendition of Life on Mars on the organ, which was lovely.

Mr MXF was the most enthusiastic cyclist and rode off early every morning to bring back breakfast pastries. Both our Europeans and Lola II and Mr M all brought whisky and Lola II made her signature gulloeblobs consisting of stem ginger in chocolate. The weather was so good that we ate outside nearly every evening. It was a wonderful and relaxing holiday with people who are easy to get along with, and due to the Splitwise app we didn't even need to do the convoluted accounting to work out what everyone owed everyone else.

Sidmouth, June 2023 (photo credit: Lola II)

What I've been reading

The Rings of Saturn
by W. G. Sebald

"The Rings of Saturn begins as the record of a journey on foot through coastal East Anglia. From Lowestoft to Bungay, Sebald's own story becomes the conductor of evocations of people and cultures past and present: of Chateaubriand, Thomas Browne, Swinburne and Conrad, of fishing fleets, skulls and silkworms."

This book came from my classic list of fiction, but isn't fiction at all. It isn't an ordinary travelogue either, as he goes off in all sorts of directions with the narrative, prompted by some association with the place he's travelling through. I used to spend much more time on non-fiction, which has now been substituted by the Buddhist reading that I'm doing, but this has reminded me of the simple pleasure of looking at the real world through someone else's eyes, whether that is in a travel narrative like this or through writing about science.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
by Mark Kurlansky

"Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been triggered by it, national diets have been based on it, economies and livelihoods have depended on it. To the millions it has sustained, it has been a treasure more precious that gold."

This is a book off my shelves that I haven't read in a while, and is a fascinating walk through the history of cod fishing (and cooking) up to the date of publication at the end of the 1990's. I wonder how things have changed in the last 25 years, because it wasn't looking good back then.

Put Out More Flags
by Evelyn Waugh

narrated by Michael Maloney

"Upper-class scoundrel Basil Seal, mad, bad, and dangerous to know, creates havoc wherever he goes, much to the despair of the three women in his life-his sister, his mother, and his mistress. When Neville Chamberlain declares war on Germany, it seems the perfect opportunity for more action and adventure."

I hold up my hands for this one, I wasn't paying enough attention while I listened. Despite this, the bits that I absorbed were quite good in the Waugh sort of way, a precursor to Catch-22 in portraying the dishonesty and inefficiency of wartime management by self-serving officers looking out for their own interests. A more light-hearted and humorous take on similar views as the 'Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' (below), which was an altogether more downbeat narrative.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
by Robert Tressell

"The story of a group of working men who are joined one day by Owen, a journeyman-prophet with a vision of a just society. Owen's spirited attacks on the greed and dishonesty of the capitalist system rouse his fellow men from their political quietism."

This was one of the most dispiriting books I've read. It's a Socialist polemic in the form of a novel that describes the poverty and destitution of the working classes before the establishment of the welfare state and the NHS, and made me feel even worse than when I read Orwell's 'The Road to Wigan Pier'. The employers and idle rich are portrayed as crooks (with the exception of just two men), and the majority of the workers aren't prepared to see that there is any alternative to their fate. Women don't feature other than as wives reliant on their husbands without any other influence. It certainly makes a strong case for socialism, but spoils it somewhat by describing an unrealistic socialist utopia where all have their choice of occupation and are paid equally. I'm glad I finished it, but it was a worthy rather than enjoyable read.

Good Behaviour
by Molly Keane

"Behind the gates of Temple Alice the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour."

An interesting book set in Ireland in what feels like the 19th century, I wouldn't say it's gripping but good enough to keep me reading. I don't think she really gave a good account of each character - we were almost kept at a distance from them, and her portrayal of the aftermath of a death was strange. She did use some lovely adjectives, though.

The Dodgy Chicken Sandwich

Vajraloka, May 2022

Two friends and a dog visited at the weekend, for the main purpose of attending a Blues gig (Nine Below Zero) at my favourite venue in Leamington (yes, Temperance again). There had been heatwave, thunderstorm, heatwave, thunderstorm in the days leading up to their visit so the weather wasn't anything to rely on, but it was beautifully warm if you weren't moving (a bit hot and sticky if you were). They arrived mid-afternoon, we had a lovely chat, a walk and an ice cream, more chat, out to Kayal for dinner (the second time in a week for me after going there with the Buddhists on Tuesday as well), then on to the gig.

It had been advertised as 7 to 11pm and I had estimated that they'd actually start playing at about 8, but no, when we arrived it was nearly the end of the first half. I forget that most of the audience at Temperance is as old as us and wants to be home for Midlands Today. It was good music though, well worth the trip.

Arriving back home, one of my friends started to feel odd, then worse, then sat outside with a bowl, then sat inside with 'trouble at both ends'. Poor man, bad enough to be that ill, but in someone else's house too. We pondered what it could be, since we'd all three had exactly the same food and drink except he'd had a coffee and a cake at Temperance. Next day he was feeling a lot better, and we discovered that he'd had a petrol station chicken sandwich on the way to my place that was a little crusty around the edges.

The Buddhists had scheduled a walk for Sunday afternoon, but fate had scheduled a classic car show in the Pump Room Gardens, plus my recovering visitor wasn't really feeling up to walking too much in the heat. So car show it was, then another ice cream (easy on the stomach...) before my healthy visitor left. The invalid dozed to catch up after the difficult night that he'd had and to spare the dog from the heat of the afternoon in the back of the car, before setting off to an extended journey home with delays for two accidents on the M1. Poor chap.

An ordinary week

Aquilegia in back garden, May 2022

Lots going on as usual, but with gorgeous weather that takes my mind off the fact that Lola II and Mr M have been unavailable to share the joys and the horrors of my life due to being on holiday abroad. Mr M is back now but Lola II continues to taunt us with accounts of her adventures.

Meanwhile, I was visiting mum and dad when a paramedic sent by the GP surgery came to assess dad, who has been atypically active in writing at the computer for a few weeks. All is as well as can be expected. There's been the usual badminton - twice this week because my Monday study group didn't meet. Our concert took place and went quite well, we came third in the pub quiz, I've been to the tip with all the garden prunings and lawn trimmings, and had a meal out with the Buddhists as well as various Zoom meetings for team business. There really isn't much more to say, so here's an extra picture to be getting on with.

Kew Gardens, October 2022

Jurassic Coast weekend

Jurassic Coast, May 2023 (photo credit: UJ)

It was a sunny half term Bank Holiday at the end of June, so the whole world was going to be heading for the coast. But UJ asked ages ago if I would join her for a weekend on the Jurassic Coast, and I'd said yes, and this was the weekend that was available so we joined the whole world and headed south rather slowly.

But that was Saturday. The director/conductor of my music group had sent round a notice that he and the Jukebox Rhythm Orchestra would be playing on Friday night in central Coventry, and it looked like it would be quite fun, and UJ was up for it, so off we went. It was indeed quite fun, and right next to Coventry Cathedral. The site of the bombed-out Cathedral is open freely to the public, so we even had a look round there, although it was after the concert so quite dark.

The Saturday morning journey took four hours, but we arrived in time for lunch at a pub overlooking Corfe Castle that Lola II and I had visited in 2008. Then we visited Corfe Castle itself, which was better than I expected. After the obligatory ice cream we continued on to the Airbnb we'd booked, which consisted of an 'EcoPod' for each of us which looked great on the listing. They turned out to be attached to a pub garden and stiflingly hot in the sunshine. Also in the pub garden was a marquee with a live reggae band just getting started, at a volume loud enough to make the floor vibrate.

So we decided that we would walk to Wantage, about half an hour away, and as we walked up the high street we heard some live music coming from a pub. Folk rather than reggae, delightful, and at a much more suitable volume. When we got back to the EcoPods, thankfully the reggae had finished. I tried to contact the Airbnb host but she wasn't available, and my negative review of the venue is unlikely to be published.

Sunday's breakfast was in a lovely garden centre on the way to Lulworth Cove, where we had planned a walk to Durdle Door. The sun was still shining, it was still a half term Bank Holiday weekend, and there were crowds of people with the same idea. Luckily there was still room in the overflow car park, and it was difficult to complain about the weather... UJ loves to swim and I sat meditating in the shade, tuning out the noise of the crowds, and had quite a relaxing time. After more ice cream we climbed to Stair Hole, then down to the Cove for another swim/rest.

We got lucky with dinner that evening. There was an unprepossessing Indian/Nepali restaurant very near to our accommodation, very convenient, so we thought we'd give it a try, and it was one of the best meals I've had for a long time. Recommended.

Monday half term Bank Holiday was still sunny, so off we went to Durlston Country Park for breakfast and a walk. It wasn't all that busy there, and a helpful volunteer told us a lot about the bird and plant life and a bit about the history of the place. Heading back home the recommended route took us via the chain ferry to Studland and Bournemouth, which wasn't the ideal choice in terms of waiting time, although it was very scenic. Another four-hour journey home.

Despite my reservations, and despite the crowds and the traffic, it was a fine weekend.