Meeting friends for a meal, with an hour to kill before your restaurant opens? Or linking up with them for an hour after work? Here in Barcelona, you may well head for a vermuteria. There’s vermouth of course, served simply with ice and lemon or in exotic combinations. You can have wine or beer instead if you choose. Order a dish of olives or a simple tapa. But best of all, enjoy the friendly atmosphere, and relish a cosy convivial moment in a place that may well have been around for over fifty years. And will still be here in fifty more.
Today is the day when the Three Kings – the same ones who visited the infant Jesus – begin their journey to visit all children in the Spanish speaking world to deliver presents to them. We watched the Carnival parade they brought with them as they passed through Barcelona earlier this evening. Dancing, singing, exhuberant and imaginative displays had us enthralled for an hour or more. It was never like this in biblical times, I’m sure.
Do you remember our last trip to Barcelona? How my bag, my purse and contents, my camera, our passports …. and all that. …. got stolen?
Well, ahead of this trip, I replaced my bag with one with a doughty zip and secret pockets. And off we went.
Our flight accomplished, we met Emily at her office after a couple of bus journeys. I opened my bag. Hang on. Where’s my purse? Someone – and we both think we know who: that amiable woman of middle years who stood near us on the Number 7 – unzipped my bag, removed my purse, and zipped the bag up again. Without either of us noticing a thing.
So guess who spent her first morning back here down at the Police Station practising her Spanish?
I spent a lot of 2018 being angry: most of you know why – the ‘B’ word. While our rage motivated us to take action and become more politically engaged than we’ve ever been in our lives, we were also probably largely impotent to effect change.
So in 2019, I at least am going to look after myself a bit more. How about spending a bit of time with Vermeer, that supreme documenter of everyday life among the Dutch merchant classes of the seventeenth century? He takes us into comfortable homes, and shows us simple moments of domestic life: a woman playing the lute, a servant patiently pouring milk. He shows their faces, expressive and full of inner light and makes us wonder about them and their thoughts. He makes the ordinary extraordinary.
Maid pouring milk: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
I’m revisiting Vermeer and his work thanks to an exhibition curated by the Mauritshuis. No, I’ve not been to den Haag to visit this museum since about 1970. But in a pioneering project with Google, it has brought together every surviving Vermeer painting for the first time and exhibited them on-line.
Here, I’ve been enjoying looking again at all his work. I can examine any individual work in great detail, or consider recurrent themes that Vermeer returns to: paintings within the painting: musical instruments; maps…. I can read articles about his technique, his influence on pop art…. I can lose myself for as long as I wish in his world, and return as often as I want to.
Sadly, neither my computer nor my phone are as state-of-the-art as they could be to get the most out of all the features offered. But I’m happy enough. While I’m in the company of a young lady playing her virginal, observing a tired maid snatching a quiet moment’s sleep, a young woman making lace, or a reflective astronomer I’m not engaged in twenty-first century life for a while.
I didn’t intend to post this evening, but the sunset, even though I couldn’t actually see the sun, seemed cheerful and optimistic despite the whisps of forbidding grey which kept on drifting across the pastel pinks . This is England after all. This is our weather. And our current state of mind.
I whipped out my phone to record the clouds. It seemed a good opportunity to wish you all a happy new year, wherever you are.
Goodbye 2018. We’re driving off and forward to 2019.
We travelled to London for Christmas quite late in the day on the 22nd. The moon was all-but full as it rose, at first barely peeking over the tree tops before eventually soaring high above us, in a clear black sky. I tracked its progress. Only my phone was to hand, but rather than lamenting the poor quality of these images, I liked the somewhat abstract quality they had. Here they are.
Then the next day, off we went, with Tom, Sarah, William and Zöe, to the Natural History Museum. More fool us for assuming it would be nearly empty so near to Christmas time. Outside though, was a man with a bucket of soapy water, and a couple of sticks linked with string, intent on play. He made bubbles. Lots of bubbles. I loved the abstract play of soft pinks and blues and sinuous curves set against the clean lines of the museum buildings beyond.
Here then is my contribution to today’s Ragtag Challenge: Abstract.
Winter childhood meant cold and frosty mornings, barely daring to get out of bed to shiver while washing in an icy bathroom, before returning to an equally icy room to muffle up in a vest, a blouse, a cosy cardigan and a sensible pleated skirt. Little girls didn’t wear trousers in those days and tights didn’t seem to exist, but I don’t remember my legs resenting being bare between sock-top and skirt bottom. But then boys of my age were wearing short trousers too.
I remember Jack Frost too. He had spent the early hours of the day sketching dizzyingly complex and beautiful patterns in luminous white on the inside of my bedroom window. It’s rare to see these intricate motifs on house windows these days. But the other day, arriving early in town, I passed a car park full of vehicles exhibiting examples of his artistry. I had to take a shot or two.
I’m in a very odd pose as I’m semi-squatting so as not to hide those at the back from view. Malcolm’s behind me, and Phil, our director, is centre-front.
‘Just walk round the room. Any direction – no, not in a circle.. Just … don’t bump into anyone’
That’s how we began every rehearsal for our improvised drama ‘The Lie of the Land’, which played to a pretty full house in the Frazer Theatre Knaresborough last Monday. Those first minutes of every session provided time to focus and to learn how to use available space.
We brought in stories about Brexit that mattered to us. An ex-Science teacher deplored the ‘brain drain’ and the fact that foreign nationals no longer want to come here to pursue their careers. A mixed race woman observed the casual and less-than-casual racism that the Referendum seems to have legitimised. A deaf member of the group worried about the possibility of arts funding dedicated to people with disabilities being withdrawn. Someone gave vent to his anger on behalf of his children that the British Government has turned its back on the Erasmus programme. A management consultant spoke about his worries that England, perhaps less accessible because of visa restrictions, and no longer part of Team Europe, will become increasingly isolated. I, having spoken about no-longer-welcome long time residents known to me, talked about a much loved Ripon restaurant that has recently closed because it can no longer easily access the European staff on whom it has come to depend. British workers aren’t interested…. And so on.
We worked with these stories in turn, Chucking ideas into the pot, junking some, adapting others, polishing them into short tableaux and vignettes. Mine for instance, had two of us being shown into a restaurant, with staff busy serving relaxed diners. As I told my tale, the staff gradually disappeared, until, as I finished speaking, all the diners found themselves alone in unstaffed premises….
As the Management Consultant finished speaking, a group of us, friendly, cheerful, wrapped in our EU flag, welcomed trading partners sporting the flags of nations from around the globe. The lonely bearer of the Union Flag found herself increasingly ignored, until finally, Mr. America tossed her a raddled and threadbare looking soft-toy chicken.
When the Science teacher spoke, his discourse was regularly interrupted between paragraphs by speaking members of various tableaux. ‘Three years to finish your research? Ah… that could present a problem’. ’I’m vairy sorry, I don’t want to accept ze job. I don’t want to come to ze UK any more’. And finally ‘ Yup. I’ve decided to take that job in Sweden’.
And so we continued till each of our stories had been told.
We’d begun the play though as proud members of the British Empire, sovereignty intact. We came on stage, upright and military, singing a rousing sea shanty ‘A Drop of Nelson’s Blood’, completely overlooking the fact that as we advanced, we were trampling over the body of a slave.
We threw ourselves to the floor to allow the showing of a short stop-motion animation in which Playmobil figures told the early history of the EU, Britain’s membership and the Referendum, after which there was a full-ensemble mime sequence suggesting our individual feelings of loss.
So it went on, with our individual stories interspersed with comic mini-moments when Mr. or Ms. Sensible would try and prevent an ardent Brexiter leaping from a cliff in quest of the Unicorn.
Our finale had our splendid and multi-talented musician Tim declaiming from a megaphone those fake news stories about the EU of which the likes of the Daily Mail is so fond (‘EU bans barmaids from showing cleavage’, ‘EU will force .uk website addresses to become .eu’ etc) , all of which we greeted lustily with ‘No! Really? Bastards!’ before a final vocal surge in which a susurrating murmuring wind was gradually replaced by whisperings which culminated in a vociferous shout for a People’s Vote.
After the interval, some of the troupe took on roles as Shadow Minister for Trade, the very recently appointed Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, a German industrialist, a wealthy Brexit backer and so on, for a Question Time in which members of the audience were encouraged to ask genuine questions. It went surprisingly well and authentically.
For those of us who’d not done any drama since we left school, this has been a moving, stimulating and thought-provoking experience. Cathartic too. Perhaps we should have invited Theresa May.
I hope there will be photos later, when we’ve scavenged them from those who were charged with taking some. We were too busy to take any…..
Father Christmas came early. Three months without a camera was enough, he reckoned. He lacked a beard and red clothing, and looked remarkably like Malcolm, but he helped me choose, provided the credit card and carried the new camera home for me.
Even at ten o’clock, there was still mist rising from the Moon Ponds. And even though the view from Surprise View is no longer surprising, it’s none the worse for that.
A distant view of Fountains Abbey from the High Ride, Studley Royal
But look! This is what we spotted in a distant meadow. Time to put the zoom lens through its paces. Aren’t these deer magnificent?
Later, we passed the fine Elizabethan Fountains Hall. It was fun to contrast the view of the house itself with the version spotted in a puddle we passed.
Fountains Hall…….
….. in a puddle.
A good walk, and it’s good to have a camera once more.
Back in the valley, a less distant view of the Abbey.
As usual, click on any image to view it full size.
I enjoy Jo’s Monday Walks, and browsing through the posts of some of those who contribute too. So I thought I’d join in the fun. Yes, I know it’s Tuesday…..
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