Six Degrees of Separation: from India to the Arctic

On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate: Books are my Favourite and Best

This month’s Six Degrees of Separation Challenge invites us to start with a favourite Lonely Planet travel guide. I rarely use physical guide books any more, but one old friend I won’t be parted from, even though I’m unlikely to travel there again is their guide to South India. This was my bible when, newly retired, I spent a month there, largely solo, in 2007. My travels there began my blogging career, though on a different platform.

I’m taking an easy option for this month’s post. I’m whizzing us to six different countries or regions via a book set in each of them.

We’ll start not in Asia, but in Africa: Nigeria. Blessings, by Chukwuebuka Ibeh. Obiefuna is the elder son of a couple who had long waited for a child. He’s doing well at school, but isn’t the football-playing, loud and gregarious lad his parents expected. The arrival of a live-in apprentice arouses unexpected feelings in the boy, and his father catches them heading towards an intimate moment. We follow Obiefuna’s adolescence as he’s banished to a strict Christian seminary. We watch him grow into young adulthood where his homosexuality is always a source of shame, even danger in Nigeria’s deeply homophobic society. Obiefuna is a sensitively drawn and rounded character, whose future is uncertain as the novel ends. A compassionate, understated and beautifully written book.

I’ve chosen Happiness Falls by Angie Kim, because this too has a young person as its main protagonist, but her family, besides being American, is also of South Korean heritage. This story, ‘narrated’ by Korean-American Mia is hard to categorise. A young adult, she lives with her parents, her twin brother John and her younger brother Eugene who is both autistic and a sufferer from a rare genetic disorder, Angelman syndrome which leaves him unable to communicate verbally, and with severe motor control difficulties. Mia is very bright, intense, prone to careful analysis and scattering her writing with footnotes. She recounts the family drama in which her father disappears while in the park with Eugene, who arrives home bloodied and distressed. What’s happened? It’s complex, high octane stuff. And while I probably wouldn’t survive for ten minutes in Mia’s company face to face, she’s an engaging, thoughtful narrator with a passion for forensic detail and analysis. Provocative, heartfelt, compelling.

Another book with a family drama at its heart is by the Swedish author Alex Schulman (transl. Rachel Wilson): Malma Station. This was a book I had to finish and stand back from before I could appreciate it. Three sets of people are on a train heading towards Malma. We begin to learn their stories. And we begin to realise that these three sets are not travelling at the same time – years separate them. Yet these sets- father-daughter; wife-husband; daughter are all related. And the story slowly unfolds of how damaged they each are, and how this damage has passed – multiplied even – from one generation to another. It’s a tough, emotional read, with unlikeable characters whom we slowly begin to understand.

A story about a woman who’s a cemetery keeper in France – yes really – is a complicated family drama too. Fresh Water for Flowers, by Valérie Perrin (transl. Hildegarde Serle). Violette Toussaint had a childhood passed from foster-carer to foster-carer. Illiterate as a young adult, she taught herself to become a skilled reader. She married the sexiest man around, and had an unhappy marriage. The couple were level crossing keepers for many years, then they – and ultimately only she – became a cemetery keeper in the Bourgogne. It’s here that she gets over the tragedy that befell her, and finds friendship and meaning in life. There is a complex web of characters to become immersed in – or not. I think I’ll have to read it again, as I didn’t enjoy this book as much as its many devoted readers.

Now to another woman with a difficult life. Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville. Another work of fiction? Not quite. Dolly was born in the 1880s, at a time when women knew their place and had to stay there. But during Dolly’s life time, with two world wars forming part of it, things began to change. Enough to make her dissatisfied with her lot. But by sheer hard work and cussedness, she got herself and her husband on in life. It didn’t make her as easy person to get along with. Dolly was Kate’s grandmother, and this book is heavily based on the known facts of her life. An interesting exploration of the life of a woman during a period of huge evolution and change, written with sympathy and some understanding of a somewhat bitter, difficult individual.

Finally, another story – a true one – of a woman with a difficult challenge. Austrian Christiane Ritter wrote an account of her year in the Arctic in A Woman in the Polar Night (transl. Jane Degras).In 1934, Ritter, a painter, left her ordinary life with a teenage daughter to join her husband in his life as trapper in Arctic Spitsbergen. It turns out to be as cold and inhospitable as we all imagine, and twice as primitive. Seals have to be caught and processed: birds too, and these fatty unfamiliar meats form much of their diet. Husband and Norwegian friend and housemate are often out trapping, looking for animals whose fur they will sell. That’s enough to tell you what much of this book is about. It’s tough in this unforgiving climate. But it’s beautiful too, and Ritter dwells on this. Straightforwardly yet engagingly written, this book offers an insight into the strange world which she chooses for a year to inhabit, and leaves reluctantly.

I wouldn’t presume to connect my experiences in India with Ritter’s in the Arctic, but being a woman travelling often alone is what links us. The advantage I had was in owning a guide book. The Lonely Planet Guide to the Arctic wasn’t available then.

And next month? Our chain will begin with Stella Prize 2024’s long listed The Anniversary, by Stephanie Bishop.

All my illustrations this month, apart from the Indian photo, which is my own, come from Pexels. With thanks to the photographers Emmanuel Slope, Kindel Media, Koolshooters, Efrem Efre, Pat Whelen & Kristaps Ungurs.

Water in Motion?

You want water in motion, Sofia, for your Lens-Artist Challenge? You’ve come to the right place. We speak of little else in England this year. Look at this.

A dismal moment sheltering by the River Skell in Ripon.

Or this, taken through the windows of Christ the King Cathedral, Liverpool.

A (typical?) view of Liverpool.

But without this rain, we wouldn’t have those glorious tumbling riverside views: these are both from Yorkshire: I’m focussing on England for this post – it seems appropriate.

The River Wharfe at Grassington
The River Ure at Redmire Force.

Water’s playful too: especially in the hands of a sculptor. Here’s Atlas with his sea gods at Castle Howard, Yorkshire. A fuller image is shown as the featured photo.

Atlas , Castle Howard

And a child in Granary Square, London is certainly having fun.

Fountain, Granary Square, Kings Cross London.

But we’ll conclude with a more typical London view, overlooking the River Thames.

The River Thames passing through central London.

The Biggest Easter Egg You’ll See This Year?

Almost anyone who visits Harrogate considers that taking morning coffee or afternoon tea at Betty’s is part of the deal. This iconic part of the town has been here since 1919, and has the reputation of being thoroughly civilised, with the highest standards. Whatever you choose to eat or drink will be delicious, and elegantly served. But it’ll cost you.

Something else that could cost you is the egg that forms a traditional part of its display every Easter. It weighs in at over 5 kg. but could be yours for £375. You can read all about it here.

For Brian’s Last on the Card

Caution! People at Work

People photos. That’s Tina’s Lens-Artist Challenge #292. This is difficult. I’m only just learning to be less shy about making snapshots of innocent strangers, with or without their permission. One way or another though, people at work is an easier ask, so I’m off to see who we can find doing just that.

We’ll start at the second biggest fish market in the world: Jagalchi Fish Market, Busan, South Korea. Here’s someone who’s probably been filleting fish for decades. She could probably do it with her eyes closed.

An experienced ajumma at the fish market

Here are some workers who have a head for heights: Window cleaners in Warsaw; a telephone engineer in Wensleydale; and two workmen doing something useful at a Thames-side structure.

This auto-rickshaw driver isn’t working at the moment. He’s proud to have taken a very green, very-jetlagged-but-too-wired-to-sleep English tourist (me) on an informative two hour whistle-stop tour of Bengalaru, and is cheerfully posing for a photo.

My first friend in Bengalaru: the rickshaw driver who took me on a tour of the city

Here’s a different kind of job. Most Brits have heard of Clare Balding, radio and tv presenter. One of her jobs is presenting a BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘Ramblings’ about the joys of walking. A few years ago, two friends and I had the pleasure and privilege of walking part of the Nidderdale way with her. You can read all about it here. And here Clare is describing the scene before her, as her producer and sound recordist Lucy saves her every word on that muff-on-a-stick while we hover in the background.

Clare and Lucy on the Nidderdale Way

Not all work is paid of course. Every year, sheep farmers from all over the north of England and beyond gather for Masham Sheep Fair, to show their sheep off at their very best. Some of the keenest contestants for honours are under ten, the farmers of the future. But the featured photo shows someone who is paid – very little I suspect – for his work: A herdsman in Albania, constantly moving his herd of sheep and a few goats in quest of lush pasture.

Waiting for their sheep to be judged, two young contestants.

But over in India, you could be working with different animals -elephants, perhaps at Dubare Elephant Camp. You might be washing them in the river, or cooking their next meal of jaggery, millet and vegetation.

You might be a waiter. Here are two French ones. Only they’re not really French, or serving at table. They earn a crust as actors – in this case at Ripon’s annual Theatre Festival.

Zey kept ze crowds amused at Ripon Theatre Festival

Or you might be a slave. A willing one. At half term, my grandson was taken on – for half an hour only – to be enslaved to a Viking master who turned out to be extremely personable, and even helped him with some of his tasks, such as wood turning. Well, it was part of York’s annual Jorvik Viking Festival.

Children can be good at working for free – unless you want them to tidy their room. Catch ’em while you can.

Castles to build …

Monday Portraits from a Sunday Walk

Nidderdale: the first day totally without rain in I can’t remember how long. Our walk was punctuated with encounters with animals, from Highland cattle who seemed to have strayed south, to llamas whose forebears were definitely immigrants, via horses and – of course, since it’s now officially spring -newborn lambs.

Monday Portrait.

A Trip on the Thames Clipper

When Patti proposed, for this week’s Lens-Artist Challenge, that we focus on cities, I wondered where to start. Busan? Barcelona? Bamberg? Instead, I’ve decided to return to the city where I lived between the ages of five and sixteen, and to which I often return because my son and family live there: London.

We’re going to journey up the Thames, from Woolwich where the imposing flood defences of the Thames Barrier are sited through the city as far as Tower Bridge and Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We’ll travel, as so many tourists and even daily commuters do by Thames Clipper, the city’s very own London bus of the waterways.

Here’s the Thames Barrier, its metal hoods stretched assertively across the river, protecting it from the ravages of high tides and storm. You can read all about it in another post of mine, here.

The Thames Barrier on a grey day.

As our Thames Clipper passes through Greenwich, there’s the Old Royal Naval College, and the famous 19th century tea clipper, the Cutty Sark.

To the left, the Old Royal Naval College. To the right, the Cutty Sark.

Passing through the Docklands, we’re reminded of the city’s industrial past, when this was the area for receiving and despatching goods from all over the world.

Once a busy wharfside storehouse, now elegant apartments

These wharves are now repurposed as sought after apartments. But even with the modern Canary Wharf behind, we shouldn’t forget the Dirty British Barges (sorry, John Masefield) that continue their work of haulage up and down this busy river.

And maintenance works goes on …

Then it’s Westminster. Here’s Westminster Abbey and The Houses of Parliament, but what a shame that my most recent photo has Big Ben bundled up in tarpaulin.

Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament AKA The Palace of Westminster, and a wrapped-up Big Ben

Then it’s the former County Hall, with the London Eye in front.

The London Eye, and County Hall which now houses the London Aquarium.

And on to the beating heart of the city: Tower Bridge, which I have never seen raised, though it still happens often enough. And here too is HMS Belfast, which saw 25 years of service during and after WWII. This most ancient part of London, site of Roman walls, and the Tower of London, is also where London’s most modern high-rises are found.

HMS Belfast with Tower Bridge behind.
The Tower of London with The Gherkin behind.

Are you getting a bit windswept and weather beaten here at Blackfriars Bridge?

It’s raining as we look through the arches of Blackfriars Bridge.

You are? Well, we’ll finish with a miscellany of photos. Enjoy the rest of your day – but just enjoy the view from the Millennium Bridge across to Saint Paul’s Cathedral first.

From the Millennium Bridge to Saint Paul’s on a rainy day.

If London -and the quirkier aspects of its history – interests you, I recommend hopping over to Steve’s blog: A London Miscellany. He’s a mine of useful, and useless-but-fascinating information.

The Big Plastic Count

Honestly, we do try. Our weekly vegetable shop is a seasonal organic veg. box from Riverford, which arrives in a re-useable cardboard box and nowt else. We supplement this with a trip to the market, taking our own packaging. Household and bathroom products such as washing up liquid and shampoo come from the refill station at our local GreenHouse. But still plastic packaging enters the house – every time we visit the supermarket actually. The cheese that’s packed in plastic: the odd box of blueberries: the package of pitta bread … and so on and so on.

This week The Big Plastic Count invited us to join in and count all our plastic waste for one week only. So we did. It was tricky, because the family from Spain was here, and spending our time with our three year old granddaughter and her two month old baby sister was the priority. But we bunged everything in a sack, and with the family now gone, made our inventory this morning.

And it was shocking. The smoked mackerel we can’t buy loose; the toothbrush pack (I haven’t embraced the bamboo toothbrush); the pizza bases bought for an easy supper that three year old Anaïs could help create … and so on. Here’s what we learnt.

Like almost everyone who took part, I imagine, we do try to think about what we buy, and avoid packaging where we can. Yet our plastic footprint is huge – larger this week no doubt because of our visitors. What about those who because too busy or lacking motivation have an even larger footprint? Shops – especially supermarkets – and manufacturers don’t make it easy for us. Who, for instance, needs to have their bananas packaged in plastic? Why can’t supermarkets sell us the number of apples we actually want, rather than supplying them packaged in units of six or so?

We take any plastic bags we do acquire to a supermarket recycling point, but that’s a faff too. It’s usually full to bursting point.

And here’s what happens to it.

But even that’s better than this horribly common sight, a tiny proportion of the result of an urban litter pick. …

The Big Plastic Count is being conducted among individuals like us, and in some schools as a project, as a means of raising awareness among children. And the results are being fed to the Government. Individuals and groups, however well meaning. really can’t effect much-needed change alone. And we have an election in the offing. I can’t imagine lobbying by The Big Plastic Count will make an impact on a dying-throes government chaotically falling apart. Another year of inaction. Another year wasted.