Sardines on Toast

In my childhood this dish was a regular favourite. The joke was that because of its propensity to slide off the plate, we suspected that it had been on the floor at least once before reaching the table.

When I remembered this first or second course from the past and made it for Margreet one evening, she said that she could eat it on every night of the week.

SARDINES ON TOAST

You will need:

One can of sardines for two people

Its oil

Vinegar

Toast

Pepper and salt

Make a slice of toast for each person and then cut off and discard the crusts.

Empty the can of sardines with its oil into a frying pan.

Slice delicately through the backs of the fish to divide each in half, placing them with the skin side down. Don’t worry if they break up a bit.

Add a little vinegar to the oil and mix it in.

Fry the sardine sides slowly until they just begin to crispen.

With a spatula lay the fish on the toast and pour over just a little of the oil/vinegar mixture from the pan.

Salt them and mill over some pepper.

Serve (being careful not to let them slip to the floor).

Double Bass

A close associate of a famous pianist had invited us to a vegetarian Sunday lunch in her London garden.

            Another guest was a man of no great stature who parted from our direct company for a furtive few puffs on his Sherlock Holmes pipe.

After pre-prandial, sparkling drinks, he came to sit at our table.

            “Tell me about you,” say I.

            This Englishman was not only a Professor of Music, had played the bass (or was it double bass?) for several years in that famous Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, was in regular demand around the world for playing his instrument and, from working in Holland, had learned to speak Dutch fluently (much to Margreet’s delight).

            Although singing solo at school, I am almost completely non-musical – generally liking silence more than sound.

            Because a tune from some source or other fills my head throughout each night, I suppose, what with my father playing the drums and saxophone, I have been provided with a small musical gene (many more skipping on through to my youngest son who composes and plays the acoustic and bass guitar in rock bands).

            So, knowing virtually nothing of music, I am curious about it. Thus, my poor table companion came in for some questions,

            What are bass strings made of? Gut alone would be fine but subject to changes in temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. So they have a gut core surrounded by wire.

            Has nylon been tried? Yes, but without great success.

            Does the horsehair in a bow come only from white horse tails? No. Some bass players favour brown hair.

            For how long do the bow hairs last? They break and are cut off. Some bows are rather short of hair.

            How about their tension? The hair is tightened before a concert and slackened after it.

            How does the hair grip the strings? It doesn’t. The hair is treated with a resin powder and would make no noise at all if dragged across the strings without it.

            If you lost your instrument, would another be satisfactory? Another could be used, but you get to know your own instrument’s capabilities.

            Do players in an orchestra ever pretend to play, but don’t? Not so much nowadays, but more often in the past.

            When playing in a quartet or such with a singer, how much does artistic temperament enter the equation? There are temperamental players as well as singers, and when a prima donna singer is a nuisance by making unnecessary changes, the musicians generally agree to do what they were going to do anyway.

            Does much solo bass music exist? Yes, often interpreted from other music, but much is now being composed.

Are there many female bass players? A lot are coming along, but few reach the top flight because they are not physically strong enough.

            To press down on the strings he used his fingertips and two parts of a thumb. I asked to see them. The skin was firm but not hard. If, due to a force of nature, he was unable to play for a while, to start again with soft skin was extremely painful.

            Can you teach up to virtuoso standard? No. I can only teach about 45%. The rest is up to the musician.

            I might have misheard the answers to my recalled enquiries, but I was extremely lucky to have had a chance to make them at all.

            With the questions from this ignoramus over, he returned to a corner of the garden to puff on his St Bruno-filled pipe, and I returned to nibble on a lettuce leaf.

Our Olympic Games

We all have our memories of the 2012 Olympics in London. As far as my own family (Margreet and I) were concerned, we planned to not travel, stay at home, lock the door, and watch the goings-on on television.

            But, as I am English and Margreet Dutch, there was a dichotomy of allegiances involved. “We” generally meant English (or British) and us both, and “you” - Dutch. So Margreet had a firmer foot in my camp and me a lighter foot in hers – if you can see what I am trying to say.

What we hadn’t quite anticipated was that we were to entertain some (generally large) Dutch relations and their friends.

Two of these were dressed entirely in orange suits. They were not just ragbag and bobtail but well-educated and fervent nationalists – and out to have fun.

I felt that their violent orange display of nationalism was rather on the excessive side, but then realised that many of the home crowd were adorned equally violently in the bright colours of the Union flag.

Anyhow, after imbibing elsewhere beforehand, our Dutch contingent came to be entertained for drinks in our garden, where a considerable amount of wine was consumed. With only olives and our “house” pancake to eat, they left for Olympic entertainment (provided by bikini-clad Beach Volleyball ladies) in a jolly mood.

Just what happened to them later was none of our business. We heard that they returned to the Netherlands having had a splendid time here.

            Another Dutch relation, an eminent lawyer and ardent sports fan (especially of Olympics), had been residing with friends in a hotel near to Victoria Station. He had seen and enjoyed many of the sporting events that took place in specialist venues – one building of which he found to be architecturally interesting.

            He came to visit family before leaving for home and had quite a different view of the Olympic occasion.

            He loved the sports, but found the Olympic site to be far too large. It had been a considerable trek to get from one venue to another. Whereas the more compact Athens site had been an occasion for intimacy between spectators and athletes, here there was too much space in which to feel part of the sporting and festive scene.

            He also found the colours of buildings and paving to be drab after Athens. All seemed grey, in contrast to the colours displayed in Greece.

            One of his comments really interested us. He was astounded to see so many drunken women lying on the ground in London.

            So, in two groups of Dutchmen, we experienced two diverse viewpoints concerning the games.

            One crowd had come “on the spree” and loved it, the other to enjoy the camaraderie, colour and sport, with the sport winning hands down, and with the rest rather a disappointment.

Lollards

MIGHT THE LOLLARDS COME AGAIN?

Had I but a grain of historical scholarship in my bones I would have evolved the theme of the second most used book on our shelves (the first is the dictionary).

            Whenever there is reference to a king or queen in England’s past history, this book, “Kings and Queens”, is referred to.

            From William the Conqueror onwards, each monarch is given a short monograph.

            The book’s language is simple and direct. So when a Shakespeare play about our royal past appears on screen or stage, this splendid volume is invaluable.

            It is not possible for the ordinary punter to verify the accuracy of the text. But then Shakespeare turned history into entertainment. So there may be some discrepancies – as there is in much of historical writing.

            The book is a paperback, written by Elizabeth Gundrey in 1977. And when telling us about the reign of Henry IV and his persecution of the Lollards and how many were eliminated and burned alive, we wanted to know more about these followers of Wyclif who operated under a name derived from the Dutch language.

            But there was a slight snag. The text recommended on one page that we turn to page 36 to discover more about these people.

            It was then that we discovered that the recommended page (36) might well have told us more had the publishers not omitted to number the pages.

            Perseverance paid off, and on an earlier unnumbered page we learned that in Edward III’s reign, these followers of Wyclif (“in a way the first Protestant”) were critics of the corruption and pride spreading through the Catholic Church. They preached sermons against the power of the Pope and urged the people to return to more spiritual ways with less striving for wealth.

            No wonder they were persecuted and burned alive by those who were then, in the late 1300s to early 1400s, enjoying the fruits of power and money.

            This paperback has been a great and simple source of information. And from it we have now learned a little about the Lollards.

            It was a bit of a job to glean this information from the book’s unnumbered pages – and more difficult, I imagine, for the readers upon publication, as its recommended readership age group was 9 – 14.

Ups and Downs

For some time now, Margreet and I have been admirers of the work of a Scottish artist called Alberto Morrocco (1917 – 1998).

            It is a strange name for a Scotsman, but he was born in Aberdeen of Italian immigrant parents who sold ice-cream in Scotland with considerable success.

            Our connection with Christie’s is that they sell my work and we have very occasionally bought from their sales. On the strength of that we had been invited to the Private View of a major sale of Morrocco’s work. This overview of his art and craft confirmed our opinion as we smiled our way around the works on view, for he was a charming, colourful, versatile and very creative artist.

            In passing a display cabinet in the sale-room, a collector, of small stature, had asked an assistant to open the cabinet which contained three of Morrocco’s sketch books.

            Saying to both the collector and Christie’s assistant that it might be better if only one person turned the pages, we asked if we might look over the man’ shoulder.  Both we and the collector were astounded by the power and directness of the pencil and ink drawings.

            As the cabinet was closed and re-locked, we asked the said collector which of the books he might be bidding for, and that out of courtesy, we would not compete with him. He told us which one of the three had taken his fancy.

            So, on leaving the sale-room we left an absentee bid for the book of Morrocco’s Italian seaside drawings.

            It was on the day of the sale that Margreet returned home in a state of depression and tears as there had been a quite unwarranted row between two members of her family, of which she had had no part, but was much affected by it.

            It happened to be her week as the house cook. And on this occasion she was not really fit to contrive it.

            Seeing the possibility of a kitchen tragedy, and despite my passing hints and an offer to take over, she went ahead. The result was smoke and cinders.

            We were eating that evening in our garden shed. To cheer her up, I opened a saved bottle of our favourite upper Rhône red wine. This cheered us up to a state of laughter over the unhappy incident of the day and the pleasure we had taken over the Private Viewing.

            Then word came through from Christie’s on Margreet’s telephone/email that our bid for the Morrocco sketch book had been successful.

            It had been a day of tears that had ended in cheers.

Garden Update Summer 2012

Other than our herbs, our garden edibles have done well in the extended wet and cool weather.

            Runner beans have climbed up and over a bamboo frame from plastic buckets of soil. They are flowering in readiness to produce one of our favourite vegetables, when harvested at about 6" in length.

            Three varieties of tomatoes, grown from seed on a shelf in our kitchen window, have romped away after being planted out in the only strip of soil in our otherwise paved garden.

Charlotte potatoes, planted with six tubers in each of four buckets of soil have produced lush and decorative foliage.

            One bucket was upended on our marble garden table after six weeks growth and produced enough small potatoes for a couple of dishes.

            Another bucket, upended after two months growth, gave us enough potatoes for four dishes.

            These culinary delights were first eaten boiled – with butter, chopped mint and sea salt. The rest became part of salads.

            The only other edible crop was asparagus. From its large flowerpot a mere eight spears grew. Six we ate raw as soon as they were large enough to share, and two were left to grow into our annual asparagus tree – tied to a bamboo. This tree is very decorative with its delicate fronds and red berries.

            Colour in the garden has been provided by the pastel shades of busy lizzies (impatiens), scarlet flowers from the stem of a Bolivian begonia, geraniums (pelargoniums) from the holes in the side of a strawberry pot, lavender and roses.

            We may have been fed up with the weather, but the garden plants seem to have loved it.

Mushrooms and Onions

My very simple recipe for Sardines and Onions is one of the most popular on the web site/blog. Here is another like recipe that takes very little time to prepare and can be concocted well before being wanted at the table.

MUSHROOMS AND ONIONS

You will need:

Olive oil

Onion

Small button mushrooms

Pepper and salt

Vinegar

Granular mustard

A fresh herb

Cut up an onion finely and, in a frying pan, cook the pieces in plenty of olive oil until they reach the state of softness and transparency.

            Add lots of small button mushrooms, and turn them over in the pan until the mushrooms are completely covered in the oil.

            Add pepper, salt, a splash of vinegar, and a good dollop of granular mustard. Stir it all together. Tip the mixture into a serving dish. When cold, drizzle some olive oil over all.

Before serving, garnish with some chopped fresh herb – like parsley, mint, lovage, or thyme leaves.

Crusty bread at the table to sop up any juices will be appreciated.

Keep this dish simple to start with, then, if you tire of it, use your imagination to make a change by adding spices, like curry powder or chilli.

                                                            *****

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, 2012

Only the English can put on a public show like the three days of Jubilee celebrations in London. As far as we were concerned, the best way to see it all was on television – and to be warm and dry. However, one of the highlights for us was a very modest St Peter’s Grove street party. This started, for me, at 6 in the morning when I rose to make a cake and a large mince pie. Shortly after 11 in the morning we looked out of a window to see our neighbours across the way (from the house that Margreet rented when we met) fixing up an awning to protect a round table of food and drink from the elements. So, with cake, wine, and glasses in hand, we joined a dozen or so St Peter’s residents with more children of tender years that we ever imagined lived in our street. The children enjoyed themselves greatly, running wildly away down the street whenever possible, with parents in hot pursuit. When I came to live in St Peter’s Grove some 24 years ago, I knew almost everyone in the road. At the street party I met neighbours who I didn’t even know existed. This was a splendid outcome from a day of celebration. With the Thames being so close to us, we went several times to the bank of it, hoping to see the Armada of ships jockeying for position. But we either chose the wrong time or tide, or they were mustering down river far from our sight. But on the brighter side of one walk, we discovered a pub that sold excellent hot sausages. The procession of some one thousand boats took place mostly in the rain – rain that had been falling for some weeks already. Yet with all this water falling from the sky, a regional hosepipe ban to conserve water was still in operation. Impressive was an elegant canopied vessel (Gloriana) propelled by many oarsmen. Its kind featured in Canaletto’s famous depiction of an 18th century river pageant, seen and imagined by him from across the river opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. The Royal Barge was, well, a barge with bling on top, comfortable no doubt, as it needed to be. On it, the Royals looked cold and wet, masterfully showing interest and warmth toward their people. One wanted to go aboard and give them all a stiff and warming drink. On the following evening a concert took place for the great and enthusiastic crowds of well-wishers, conducted from the Victoria Memorial roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace. From sunny day to clear evening darkness, notables from the international field of entertainment strutted their stuff, with ill-equipped stand-up comedians to fill in the gaps as one group took over from another. This eclectic mix was an outdoor Royal Variety performance, conducted with truly admirable stage management. Image projection on to the Palace façade was brilliant. Then there were fireworks. On the third and final day of celebration, there was a televised service at St Paul’s Cathedral, luncheon with speeches, and an impressive procession of gilded coaches and mounted horses moving from Westminster Hall, and then along the Mall to Buckingham Palace. Once again, we witnessed on television the massed crowds proceeding down the Mall behind a thin line of marching policemen as they walked in slow procession to see the upper Royals appear on the Palace balcony. The crowd could then see the Queen waving at them and were able to wave back. The climax for such royal occasions is a fly-past of old and newer aircraft. This is also a highlight for me, as it is whenever I have a chance to see an Avro Lancaster bomber again. In 1943, while training to be a pilot, I flew in the rear turret of one. I was stationed at RAF Skellingthorpe, near Lincoln, when a “Lanc” was to have an engine test before leaving for a bombing raid on Germany that evening. I was asked if I wanted to go along to Scotland and back in the turret with its four, fully armed-up Browning machine guns to fire at the press of a button. Sadly, although we watched for the fly-past from a top window of our house, only a formation of Red Arrows and the sole Dakota ever came into distant view. But that was only a small disappointment in a few days of fascinating obeisance to a long-lasting Queen. Long may she reign.

A Holiday at Home

I wrote a blog recently on holidays-at-home, and have just taken one. As we sometimes go to Dieppe, in Normandy, for a few days in springtime, we thought that we would enjoy a quiet holiday-at-home instead of the hassle of going abroad. We started on Sunday for a reunion. Once a year, fellow pilots, who trained together in Oklahoma in the war, get together with their families at a restaurant in Datchet, a hamlet on the Thames off the M4 motorway half an hour out of London. There are four of us left alive, the others having “left the circuit”. Of the four, one has had a series of strokes and is rather frail. The others, all in our late 80s, are thankfully hail and hearty. Wives, children, and now grandchildren, make up the numbers to around 16. Sadly, one wife, well in body and spirit, was not quite with us in her mental state. But everyone had a happy lunch and were in excellent spirits, even with the fund of our wartime stories exhausted. It was a very English occasion – not like Dieppe at all. That was Sunday. On Monday, Margreet and I had booked for lunch in our favourite and very English restaurant in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. We set out to have coffee in Soho, as we might have enjoyed it had we been in France. Then, as we were still early for lunch, stopped off in Chandos Place for an aperitif in a very small central London pub that is a favourite of ours (there’s nothing remotely like it abroad). For this, our grandest lunch, we now barely look at the menu, sharing 6 oysters and a rib of rare beef – with the best horseradish around. Wine, too, was as usual when we splash out, being Ribera del Duero, from Spain (in Dieppe it is French wine only). We once also had an excellent rib of beef in rural France, and wanted to take the bone back to England for a dog. But the French would have none of it. It was forbidden to take food out of a restaurant – even a bone. But we took it – much to the pleasure of that English dog. After a good lunch, as when on holiday in Dieppe, an afternoon snooze is called for. And after eating generously in the day in London or Dieppe, we have little appetite for more food in the evening. On holiday in Dieppe we can usually only manage a light evening picnic in our room overlooking the sea. Tuesday came, but it came with much early morning rain and a forecast of flooding on the south coast. We had planned a rail trip to Chichester to view an exhibition of paintings. So we decided to postpone the visit until the following week. We took lunch at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant where the food had French overtones, the country having once been ruled by them. Our plans for Wednesday were to eat out for lunch and then visit the theatre for a matinee performance. We took an aperitif in a splendid, polished brass, red plush, and cut glass pub in St Martin’s Lane. Over a small drink there we people-watched – mostly tourists – before walking into Covent Garden for an excellent lunch, this time at a Belgian restaurant – the like of which a Belgian tells us does not exist in her country. The theatrical performance was a Commedia dell’ Arte, by Goldoni, altered and set in England, in modern dress, and with English jokes. There would be nothing like that in Dieppe, where the only and quite beautiful early 19th century theatre has become an interesting memorial of the war and, more specifically, the terrible failure of the Dieppe raid – mostly involving Canadian troops and the well-entrenched Germans. Anyhow, slapstick theatre in the Haymarket was great, and had a packed audience “rolling in the aisles”. Which brings us to Thursday. We had read about, or heard of, a Lebanese restaurant on Golborne Road, the Portuguese and very cosmopolitan area at the end of Portobello Road. So we planned to eat there and, when in that part of London, search for olive oils. My theory about olive oil is that as much of it is a “blend from EU sources”, it is best, for authenticity, to aim for the countries from where the bulk of blending oil is actually made. Of these places, Morocco, Spain, Portugal and Greece might feature. So we bought a Portuguese oil from a Portuguese shop, Moroccan oil from a Moroccan shop, and Greek oil from a shop run by a Sikh. But the restaurant of our quest was Muslim enough not to offer wine – or even allow customers to bring in their own. So, as local advice is always the best, we returned to the Sikh with our dilemma “You’ll get good fish and wine next to the Post Office,” he said. Next to the Post Office was a Spanish restaurant. He was right. The lunchtime menu was fine, the house red and white wines were from Rioja, and the sherry was cold. We were transported not to Dieppe but to the Iberian peninsular. The tables were nicely furnished, the wallpaper was peeling, and the old waiter exactly as an old Spanish waiter should be. We enjoyed it. By bus, we carted home bottles of oil and some merguez sausages that had been freshly made in the shop where we had obtained Moroccan oil. Full again, we found that those sausages were quite enough for our evening snack. Our Friday jaunt involved a curry lunch (unwise in Dieppe) and to see a film about English oldies in India. The cinema in question has a curry restaurant as part of a complex. So we ate a lunch of curry before, appropriately, watching a film set in India. Advertised at the table were Indian red and white wines – one of each colour. India? Wine? When we were once in the West Indies, staying in Grenada, we visited, by chance, a Chinese experimental agricultural project. There they were cultivating various fruits and vegetables, I suppose with a view to either growing the successes in the hotter parts of China, or starting up farms in the tropics to supply the Chinese market. Of the fruits on trial, grapes featured. They seemed to be doing rather well in the humid heat. One of the drawbacks of making wine in hot conditions is to obtain enough acidity in the vinification. So acid must be added at some stage. This process, if not done with great skill, can easily upset the balance of a wine. I once knew a man who, many years ago, added to his fortune by supplying acid by rail tanker to Argentine winemakers. The two Indian wines on offer were Cabernet Sauvignon red and Sauvignon Blanc white. They were made north of Mumbai in the Nasik Valley. We tasted each and both were excellent – fresh, and with plenty of taste. But they were expensive. So, if the Indians can make wine this good, there is hope for more – but at a lower price. The film was charming, with some shots taken from the roof of a rather seedy hotel where we once stayed. I remember the hotel for the noise and sight of dhobi-wallahs washing and beating clothes across the rather green water of the Udaipur lake, and of the extended view of the lake with its white palace seemingly floating on its surface. I also remember the place for a large cockroach on which I stepped with a flip-flop. It seemed to hardly notice. And when we were having an evening drink on the roof terrace, a flying fox crashed into a tree next to us for its night-time roost. What films of India cannot convey to viewers is the dirt, noise and smell that makes the country so special. It is a wonderful sub-continent, loved by some (me) but not by others (Margreet). That was the end of our holiday-at-home, except for the postponed visit to the gallery in Chichester. We had enjoyed ourselves enormously – as much if not more than had we gone to Dieppe. And we had avoided the early morning and late return by the M25 and country roads to and from Newhaven, the Channel crossings, hotel booking, dealing with foreign currency, talking with the French, and the tiresome delays of passport and customs controls. We’ll be holidaying-at-home again for sure.

RESTAURANT WINE (AND FOOD)

A country friend, arriving for lunch out in our part of London, was astounded at the low price of meals. An hors d’oeuvre in the country would cost more than a meal here, he told me. It is true. But it is lunch that is almost always far cheaper than an evening meal hereabouts. So when we want a meal out, it is usually one starting between noon and one o’clock. (Margreet and I have the advantage of age and time.) The one item that stays expensive night and day is wine. I have noticed that restaurants that fail to survive have generally been too greedy in the wine department. Margreet was astounded recently, when returning with a friend from a lecture on Africa, that the friend’s friend, who runs the restaurant they went to nearby, was charging £27.50 a bottle for their cheapest wine. Will the restaurant last? Indian restaurants usually serve better value draught beer, which is, anyway, more appropriate for Indian food. We are very lucky to live in an area stuffed with restaurants – from an oriental one where one can obtain three excellent courses for under £7 to one across the road from it where that £7 might possibly get you a bottle of water. We are not great pizza-eaters. But there is an exception, where the food is served only in the evenings. It is a pub. There, on Tuesdays for a special price, they serve giant, wafer-thin pizzas (for two people) with a topping of about everything that ever goes on a pizza – and for £18. Expensive? No. That is because the price includes a bottle of excellent, if rustic, wine. And that wine (at present coming from Sicily) complements the pizza splendidly. So not every eating place is greedy when it comes to the price of wine. But, sadly, they are few and far between. If I were younger and computer-literate, I would start a restaurant guide based on customers’ recommendations of restaurants where wine is considered to be the natural accompaniment to food, and priced accordingly – that is, reasonably.

RADIATION

It was a television programme that made me think of the past. I was once a medical student, extracting the semicircular canals from a dogfish intact – a considerable feat, I was told. Beyond that I know little or nothing of medicine – or radiation. But my experiences in those far oft days, when there was no cure for TB, might be of interest today. Just after the war ended I was grounded as a pilot, learned to be an air Photographic Intelligence officer, and contracted TB during the terribly cold winter of 1947. The disease was discovered when I was about to be demobilised. When working as a late entry into medicine, the TB in my lung returned. There was still no cure for it. One simply hoped for the best. But it was the end of medicine for me. Rest was considered to be all-important for recovery. And to rest the affected lung an artificial pneumothorax was administered. The procedure involved was to insert a thick needle between the ribs to introduce air to a gap between lung and ribcage (no anaesthetic and no fun if the needle hit a rib on its way in). This air gap would then become a buffer and thus rest the lung. But this air, passing into the gap under atmospheric pressure, became absorbed by the lung and had to be topped up – initially weekly, and then fortnightly, over a period of seven years. Before each air-introduction process, doctors wanted to see the size of the air gap so as not to penetrate the lung with the needle. For this I was scanned – that is, placed between a powerful x-ray machine and the doctor, so that the medicine man could actually see through me – or, rather, the upper part of me. The doctors in question wore leaded protection from the x-rays. I, obviously, had no protection whatsoever. So my body, over those seven years, was submitted to a vast amount of powerful radiation. As I write, I am 87 years old. Most consider me to be much younger. So they ask for my secret. I just say “plenty of red wine, plenty of garlic and a good sex life”. That ends the conversation pretty quickly and we can go on to other matters. In looking back, the treatment I received was almost medieval in concept, combined with modern radiation – a word that was later to get a very bad name indeed with the advent of the atomic bomb. But was all that radiation shot at me possibly the real reason that at my age I can still run for a bus, out-walk my wife, cook, paint, garden and all the rest – and all done with little effort. Is, then, radiation, perhaps, rather good for you after all?

Holidays at Home

It has been our custom over many years to spend holiday time in Dieppe on the French Normandy coast. Four or five days there has been enough of eating, drinking well, renewing acquaintances, sitting with a glass in hand to watch people pass by, and to come home laden with wine – mainly everyday plonk that we buy from French supermarkets at half the price of the equivalent in London.
As it was a holiday for us, the cost of these trips was expected to be – well, holiday prices all round and quite acceptable.
I/we would reside in the same hotel in which I had stayed just after the war when it was being built.
To reach Dieppe just after the war with the little money that the British were allowed to take out of the country, was to escape rationing at home and to rejuvenate a deprived body with some of the missing and good things of life.
And so it has continued, with our hotel owner leaving the place to his son, and the son now allowing his daughter to hold the reins.
In all that time I (and then we) have taken the same room, only to change it for a smarter one overlooking the plage when a kite or retro motor festival was taking place on the vast area of grass between the hotel and the sea.
There have been only two main changes in Dieppe over the last 60 odd years. The harbour entrance “pier” has been extended outward, and the ferries that docked in the middle of town to disgorge their passengers on to a train for Paris or hotels in town, have moved to a dock in the tidal outer harbour (making space for a smart marina). Otherwise time has stood still, with only shop owners and some restaurants changing hands.
It was almost like having a second home in a busy French fishing port, but without the trouble of ownership abroad.
But if Dieppe has hardly changed, we have. And one of the main reasons for that change has been the cost. Inflation is rife (especially in France) and everything involved with our holiday outing has now become rather expensive.
The added car insurance for just a short trip abroad has risen in cost, as has the price of petrol, both here and in France. Prices of the sea voyage, cabin, then hotel, food, wine, bar drinks and restaurant meals have risen too much. Only plonk wine has remained excellent value, and buying this in French supermarkets certainly helped to defray the overall cost of our trips to Dieppe. But now inflation has gone too far and begun to spoil much of our holiday pleasure. The gilt has finally fallen off the gingerbread.
So what’s to be done?
“Holidays at home” has become a sort of catch phrase that we think of as a good idea until coming across B&Bs where the cost of a room depends on how many inhabit it (unlike in France). Petrol is suddenly expensive in England, and good food available but often difficult to locate – and pricey.
But holidays based on one’s own home, where bed and pillows are to one’s liking, is surely the answer nowadays when wanting a break.
Mark down a few days in the diary for self-indulgence. For those days avoid the computer. Don’t make appointments, refuse invitations, and do not entertain. Make a list of holiday diversions, like exhibitions near and far, towns to visit, favourite treat places in which to eat and drink, theatrical performances to see, areas of town to explore, and so on.
Then enjoy a real holiday at home – without the hassle of any tedious delays or documentation. But of course this is not for everyone, like those who want to lie in the sun all day or see the world.

A HIGH DEGREE OF CEREMONY

An academic institution is, to me, a select club, difficult to join, steeped in ritual, elitist, innovative, selective and channelled. It is a place where cloistered brains reside and knowledge distributed.
It is also an institution that I would never have been able to enter, even if the 2nd World War had not arrived at a vital time in my education.
Academic language, and the way it is used, is hard for me to encompass. In fact, I find its “in-language” close to being an alien method of expression.
Although I took 25 years away from painting and sculpture to write books and articles, I still would not have had it in me to then write a good academic paper.
My wife, Margreet, has just been awarded a BSc. from the Open University. I would love to have been able to help her in her studies. Except for checking for the odd typographical error I was useless in any way other than to offer encouragement.
It was with enormous pride in my heart that we went to the degree presentation ceremony at The Barbican Centre in London.
Beautifully organised, Margreet was robed in fetching black, blue and yellow, photographed wearing a mortarboard, had her name announced to much clapping and cheering, and then presented to Lord Puttnam, Chancellor of the University.
The seriousness of years of study, tutorials, submitted papers, research and reading (all done when she was still working for the Dutch Foreign Service), culminated in this day of splendid accomplishment and sheer joy.
The clapping and cheering of families helped to dissolve the serious panoply of academia to become, for all graduates, relaxed expressions of outward joyfulness and proud inner feelings of a job well done. More than one tear ran down a cheek.
We needed a good lunch after that.

A Lost Picture

In the 1950s, way before I compiled a pictorial and written record of my paintings, I painted a landscape of the late 18th century Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale.
I also made a drawing of this icon of cast ironwork, which was done with the then recently invented indelible, felt-tip, black-dye pen. This was a wonderful invention for a budding artist, making drawing far more effective. And it was almost as easy to use as a pencil – though with mistakes uncorrectable.
These pens were better than those available today inasmuch as you could control the amount of ink delivered by pressing down on the felt tip to release ink into it. So one could use its wedge-shaped tip to draw with a light or heavy line, thick or thin. These pens may well still exist, though I would not consider using one today.
It so happens that I am at present working on a series of A4 pastels entitled “Landscape Recalled”. These are recollections of my past landscape paintings. They are interpretations – to some eyes barely resembling the originals.
One recently finished example of Landscape Recalled is of that of the Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale. I have no record of the original.
A 2’x 2’ painting, done on that very same journey north to Coalbrookdale, I still have. It is of a barge on the Shropshire Union Canal in 1956, when the bargee allowed me to sit at the prow and record us passing beneath an asymmetrical bridge near Eyton. This was exhibited at the Galerie de Seine in 1957.
So where might that original Iron Bridge oil painting be?
Well, when I sold the studio that I had built on a Thames wharf in Limehouse, London, certain paintings were stored in the loft there and forgotten in the sale and my move to America in 1970.
This studio house in Three Colt Street changed hands twice before the then owner contacted me in London after I left my address with the estate agent who was about to sell it once more.
I went to meet the owner, who showed me the forgotten paintings that he had taken down from the loft. They were dusty and scratched.
Technically they belonged to the owner of the property, who chose four of them for himself, kindly giving me back the rest.
One of those returned to me was the barge painting.
So did this kind house-owner select and keep the Coalbrookdale Iron Bridge painting? I can’t recall.
Lost, given, stolen or strayed, at least I now have my pastel recollection of it.

Springtime

Before spring appears in nature outside, it manifests itself in our bodies and brains.
Even thought the temperature of around 10 degrees outside is winter cold, the same temperature in springtime seems warmer.
A blanket comes off the bed. Winter socks seem too thick. You look around for lighter shoes. The neck scarf is not always necessary. Gloves are left at home. In the kitchen potatoes begin to sprout. Onions have a soft core.
Outside plants, shrubs and trees are still reluctant to come into bud. Even catkins are still to appear. Although the mornings and evenings are marginally lighter, a longer day is still needed before nature really makes a move.
The garden, seen outside the window, is still in its winter guise. But in one’s body there is the feeling that the new year’s work awaits.
Bamboo posts need straightening and ties reinforced.
The lower content of the compost bin needs to be extracted for rejuvenating the upper soil in plant, tree and shrub pots. Some must be put on to the ground and loosened in with a fork. And some needs to be put in a bin for mixing with soil for new plant pots and the buckets for new potatoes. With plenty of good home-made compost, no other fertiliser should be needed. Leaves that escaped the early winter clear-up can now be put into the emptier compost bin, along with any bagged-up leaves for which there was no room in the autumn.
Away in the loft, the last vintage of wine grapes has been fermenting and resting over winter in its demijohns in readiness for bottling. Late bottling has the advantage that the wine might have passed its malolactic “fermentation” stage. It is time to act, to bottle, to cork and to inscribe the labels with the vintage year. Will it have been a good year for red wine? (2011 certainly was.)
Birds feel the springtime urge more than humans. They start to feed and fly in pairs. Favourite nest boxes are eyed up, inspected, and the openings prepared yet again by beak-hammering.
The male blackbirds patrol the boundaries of their territories, running up and down on the side they own, while the male of the adjoining territory runs with him along his own side of the boundary. The hen blackbirds are making up their minds about nest sites. They bath a lot to look their best. They are early to nest in springtime, and have already started before other garden birds – except for magpies who are putting together their twiggy nest balls in bare trees.
The tin of seeds must be sorted out, and new packets bought in anticipation of crops as good as those depicted on the packets. And seed potatoes must be bought to grow in soil or buckets. They must be left in the light to chit but not to send out pale, straggly shoots in a dark place.
It is the time of anticipation and planning.
Yes, spring is in the air.

Curried Eggs

There are some very simple, quick to make, reasonable in cost and excellent to eat dishes about. This is one of them.

CURRIED EGGS

You will need:
Oil (any cooking oil)
Eggs
Flour (plain)
Curry powder (Madras mild or any other)
Stock cube (beef or chicken)
Soy sauce (for colour and salt)

Hard-boil the eggs (1 or 2 per person) by bringing them to the boil from cold water and giving them exactly 10 minutes boiling after that.
As this is happening, in a bowl mix, say, 3 heaped dessert spoons of flour and 2 of mild curry powder (or paste). Mix them well.
Put oil in a saucepan and add the flour/curry powder mixture. Add a stock cube. Stir this together, and after heating it through, add, say, a pint of water, and then some soy sauce for colour and saltiness.
Now whisk this well and keep whisking until the sauce is smooth, scraping inward any mixture caught in the lower side edges of the pan. Keep whisking occasionally.
The sauce will thicken. Dilute it with water to obtain the desired thickness, as some like a thick sauce and some a thin one. Test the sauce.
Now comes the time to fine-tune by adding any (or none) of the following: peanut butter (excellent), Worcestershire sauce (excellent), Tomato ketchup (also excellent), more soy sauce or salt. You might even want to add more chilli (powder).
Keep testing, adding what you will. But it shouldn’t need any more attention.
You will by about now have strained the water from the eggs, rattled them around the saucepan (in one kept specially for boiling eggs) to break up the shells, added cold water, and left them for a little while to ease the shelling process.
Add peeled eggs to the sauce. Eat.
Any sauce left over will make the start of a soup by adding water and stock cubes. You might want to fine-tune the soup. Do this as above.

A Nasty Burn

After a recent blog about my medical inventions I’m on to a medical matter once again.
Incidentally, just after my heart pacemaker had been fitted, I went into my local Tesco supermarket and set off the thief alarm when entering and leaving. Perhaps it was the power of my new pacemaker’s battery that triggered it. Having warned the management of what might happen in future, I then went in and out without alarm - presumably as the battery’s power had declined.
What I now write about is the efficacy of a childhood remedy.
Whenever we happened to burn ourselves as country-bred children in the late 1920s and early ‘30s, butter was applied to the burned surface of our skin.
In a rush a few evenings ago, I wanted to change the position of a pot that was cooking in the oven, leaving a very hot empty pan on the top of the stove in the process.
With thumb and forefinger of my left hand I inadvertently touched the scorching metal of this pan, burning the skin badly as I did so. Margreet, who witnessed it, swore that my skin had burnt itself onto the pan.
So I dashed to the refrigerator and rubbed the exposed end of a slab of butter on the wound, coating it thoroughly.
I kept the agonising burn open to the air and covered with the melting butter for the next two hours, until the excruciating pain had subsided.
Margreet, who was rather dubious of the success of this English country remedy, thought that a large blister was forming on my thumb and a lesser one on the adjoining finger. The hurting areas were certainly very red.
I kept the wound in the open air and covered in butter until bedtime, occasionally re-applying the soothing unguent throughout the night.
The next day revealed a thumb and forefinger as if no burn had ever taken place. The area was a little sore, and nerve endings on the thumb’s skin somewhat shaken.
From then on I was using the hand as if no trauma at all had occurred.
It had been a miraculous recovery, and one that had confirmed the efficacy of a country remedy. It also proved that in an era of rather primitive medicine, mother really did know best.

A Patient's Minor Contribution to Medicine

I am rather proud of my two contributions to medicine – although I may be the only person to have benefited from them.
Recovering from prostate cancer, I had a catheter fitted that ran from my bladder to a bag strapped to my leg. This bag had to be emptied when it became too heavy for comfort. Then a convenience (often an inconvenience) had to be located, trousers lowered, and urine released.
I had a zip fastener put into the side seam of my trousers from which to extract the drainage tap. Then, even when in public, I could find a drain or flower bed for the purpose. I dubbed it
“The P-R Zip”.

On another occasion, when being released from hospital with a pacemaker, instructions were not to raise my left arm, the side in which the device had been inserted. A reminder was necessary for the following month or so.
I installed a cord (string) loop that rounded and fell from my trouser belt.
With the arm dangling through this loop, there was a restraining reminder whenever I started to raise it. The doctors had not seen one before.
This could be the cheapest medical aid ever invented.
I dubbed it “The P-R Loop”.
The “Loop” can be threaded through a strong safety pin attached to waist-high nightwear.

My other contribution to medicine was only an observation.
In a shaft of sunlight I was using an electric shaver with an oscillating head, and was astounded to see so many small pieces of hair flying about. These, I thought, must be an irritant when breathed in to my ex-TB lung.
I changed quickly to a rotating headed shaver that retains the cut hair.

Background music and nature films

Being laid low by a virus infection gave me more time to watch television. Two matters from this have been food for thought.
Years ago I saw a film that had, as one of its scenes, a man crawling through desert sand about to die of thirst. He was accompanied by orchestral music. So I didn’t see why he couldn’t have turned right, crossed a sand dune, and asked a musician for a glass of water.
Much the same situation has been very apparent in a nature series that I saw on the box.
It is true that long-lens photography of animals making a noise is difficult to record. So, somewhere, a sound person might well have been extracting a cork from a bottle each time a penguin rocketed from the water to land on an ice floe.
When making appropriate sounds to fit the action becomes difficult, a full orchestra is brought into play. Natural sounds are then thought by these portrayers of nature to be unnecessary.
But the accompanying orchestras can be so intrusive that the music detracts from the action.
One feels that all might well be reversed. Why not show the orchestra, with a showman of a conductor encouraging his musicians - with a few nature bits superimposed on a backdrop behind him.
Because we, as viewers, especially of nature programmes, have now seen the intimate lives of nearly every bird, insect and beast on this planet, it has become essential with repeat images to announce every so often that: “This is the first time that anyone has seen…”
The makers of these films have not been watching television. Most of us have seen the lot already.
So that is now the new quest when repeating the subject. It is to find something new.
The great fall-back is to film lions chasing wildebeests toward crocodile-infested water.
Now, if one of these wildebeests should reach the water, see a crocodile, take fright, turn back, and fall into the jaws of a lion, that might be new. But do we care any more?

Sirens and red lights

Travelling by rail to and from Amsterdam, with a change of trains in Brussels, would seem to be the best method to choose for a winter’s visit. But there was, at Christmastime, a great deal of heavy luggage to lug about at stations.
And then, in Amsterdam, where space is at a premium, and where stairs are unproductive areas of a house with treads narrow and assents steep, heavy suitcases meant that extra muscle power was required.
Probably because of these additional manual matters, my heart acted strangely on our return to London.
When walking along a street I was suddenly short of breath and struggling. Something was not right.
So, for a few days before the New Year, I took my pulse rate at various times of the day and night. It seemed to be extremely low.
Margreet wanted me to see a doctor. An appointment was to be made at the counter of our local health centre, where we learned that no one could see me for several days. At Margreet’s cajoling, the receptionist then found that, due to a cancellation, I could be seen by my own doctor right away.
After the briefest of examinations, she ordered an ambulance and booked me into the cardiac clinic of Hammersmith Hospital.
So, with me in a wheelchair, ambulance paramedics and Margreet, we set off with sirens screaming and red traffic lights ignored.
Wheeled into the hospital for another brief but thorough examination (symptomatic complete heart block), I was put into a bed and connected up to a mass of cables that led to monitors of lights, flashing numbers and noisy alarms.
I was to have a heart pacemaker installed in my chest. These are inserted beneath the collarbone and connected to the heart by two wires. In place, it would result in my heartbeat being under control at a satisfactory level for life. Fine.
Speed was necessary, but I had to be fitted into the pre-arranged surgery programme. It was not until mid-day the following day that the operation took place. Antibiotic pills aplenty were administered.
The surgical procedure was to be conducted with local anaesthetic.
This obviously involved delicacy and, unexpectedly, some brutal force from a surgeon who was discussing his future in medicine with a colleague. The procedure appeared to be a success.
Margreet was much relieved when I appeared from the surgical quarters looking much the same as before.
With some aches and pains and soreness the following day, I dressed to go home. But a final and more comprehensive extra scan revealed that one wire from the pacemaker to the heart had become detached (atrial lead malpositioned).
So off came my street clothes and, once again, on went that surgical garment – one that surely needs some re-design and logical thought directed at it.
But, once again, with a surgical schedule full, could I be fitted in?
I was (possibly to make up for the previous failure).
Now, a glamorously dressed lady surgeon from another hospital appeared. She read my notes, and retired to change into her surgeon’s kit.
I was not really looking forward to another session of pain and brutality. So I asked for the more liberal use of anaesthetic.
She started the procedure after the accompanying sterilisation of about everyone and everything. I expected a repeat blood-letting and brute force – except that it was not that at all.
The surgeon operated so gently and skilfully that, compared with the previous day’s attempt, it was almost painless. She re-attached the atrial wire to the heart.
The female touch in surgery is to be recommended.
Poor Margreet was the one who suffered throughout this medical saga, imagining the worst – the very worst – when the risks were actually quite small.
So, with almost a new heart, I was returned to my hospital room and to Margreet with the prospect of, once again, returning home the following day.
Final (satisfactory) tests were taken, and doctors released me. I was ready to start life again – with the restricted movement of one arm for several weeks.
To remind me not to raise my left arm, I devised a simple cord (string) loop, tied around my belt and hanging down into which to thread my lower arm. With the arm dangling through this loop, there was a restraining reminder whenever I started to raise it. This was a simple idea and, apparently, one not thought of before. And it must be the cheapest medical appliance ever to be used.
Never throughout the saga having felt ill, at times I felt a bit of a fraud. But doctors and nurses knew otherwise, and had saved me with their expertise.
One must admire hugely the Hammersmith Hospital’s staff, the National Health Service – and Margreet, whose supportive hand needed holding much more than mine.