Change And Decay….

Helen Devries25 Comments
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You want to buy a house in France?

So did we, some forty years ago.

Long before the days of internet we went out on the hoof to areas which looked promising, rented a place to stay, and looked around. Estate agents were not what they are today….if you were lucky you could look through their book of photographs and be issued with a blurred document on yellow paper with vague instructions as to how to find the property…..if not, it was just verbal instructions…..

We saw some ‘interesting ‘ properties…. some with cracks in the wall giving a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside, others with an atmosphere which made you feel uneasy the minute you opened the door….but we saw a house we really liked and wished to pursue the sale.

Return to the estate agent, full of enthusiasm, ready to pay the asking price. Normally that would have had his eyes revolving like a one armed bandit machine….but, no.

Alas, it had been on the market for a couple of years. There were thirteen owners…..children and grandchildren of the original owner. There had been many offers of the full price, but the family could not agree…..he would make another attempt but…..

His attempt failed…and we looked elsewhere. Twenty years later the house was still unsold, and was in an appalling state – roof leaking, woodwork perished, and the family still refusing all offers, the house a victim of internecine strife.

Now another house is to come on the market….La Boisserie in Colombey les Deux Eglises in the department of Haut-Marne, but there are problems within the family selling it – the four grandsons of General de Gaulle, whose home it had been since the 1930s.

They were sufficiently agreed to sell off the memorabilia of their grandfather…..mostly bought in by the state at auction….but the sale of the property seems to have made a rift in the lute.

The second grandson seems to have bought out the interest of his elder brother, so his fifty per cent gives him more weight in the affair….

The state, worried about the possibility of foreign purchasers, has classed the property as a Monument Historique….which is enough to put off anyone without the deepest of pockets. A neighbour in France told us of the pitfalls….you are subject to the diktats of the local Architect de Batiments de France….who alone could decide what you could do and not do and force you to employ the builders he recommended – at a price…

Having seen the appalling renovations demanded by our local architectural tyrant, we took his point….as, no doubt, will potential purchasers of La Boisserie.

The sons do not wish to sell to an individual….but the local authority, already responsible for the Charles de Gaulle memorial in the commune, does not have the funds to put the house back into good repair. The state – by way of Macron – says that the property should be a national asset, but without the financial back up to support the idea.

Whatever one might think of le Grand Charles, one should never forget that he gave France back a place in the world…..and that in his private life he was an honest man, Can you imagine Macron, or his predecessors, having a separate electricity meter at the Elysee….or paying for his own and his family’s meals?

Let the state find the money to buy out the grandsons and thus continue to allow people to see where De Gaulle lived and worked. The family can retire…..unworthy of their heritage.

France, Then And Now

Helen Devries24 Comments
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Two coffins on their way to be integrated to the Pantheon, France’s national mausoleum for the remains of its distinguished citizens. Two empty coffins, as one of those so honoured wished his body to remain where it had been buried after his death at the hands of the Gestapo in 1944 and the other because the remains of his wife had never been found after her death shortly after his own.

Marc Bloch and Simonne Vidal.

I came across the work of Marc Bloch when I was a student……his study of feudal society viewed it as far wider then the conventional way of treating it as a pyramid….he put its origins in the break up of the Carolingian empire, the widespread insecurity and the dispersal of power of the period, drawing on sociological and geographical themes to illustrate his arguments. It was an eye opener for me…..

Only later, when in France, did I discover Bloch the soldier in two world wars and Bloch the Resistance organiser, betrayed to and killed by the Gestapo.

And I also discovered his book on the defeat of France in 1940…’Strange Defeat’, analysing that defeat from the point of view of a participant and concluding that in large part it was due to the incompetence of the high command, who were still fighting the last war and riddled with defeatism, while acknowledging that he, and other survivors of the the Great War, were at fault in not agitating in the inter war period, content to have a society at peace, not wishing to rock the boat.

Ironically for that great historian, it is that latter work which will carry his legacy.

I had a message from France about the same time….but not about Bloch.

There was a devastating fire in the area where I lived when first in France and friends sent me details and images….nearly one hundred hectares of pine forest destroyed, and surrounding areas threatened, despite the best efforts of fire brigades from all over the department – and from as far away as the neighbouring region. They thought at one point that they had it beaten, only for it to break out again as the wind got up.

My old house was close by….friends still lived in a hamlet down the road….I recognised the places in the images sent over…roads I had taken so many times, all the memories of that time now so far off which suddenly became close again.

I had been in that pine forest, searching for chanterelles under the supervision of Gerard, while keeping a wary eye out for one of the owners who was handy with his shotgun…..had widened our search to the deciduous woodland belonging to the chateau down the road….dropped in for a drink with Pappy…..and sympathised with Jean, who had sold a sheep and not been paid for it by the chap living in the hamlet the the side of the wood. His wife was not surprised. Whatever had possessed him to sell anything to one of those people…of ‘teint bazane’ – brown skinned! Everyone knew they were descended from the Saracens Charles Martel had beaten at the battle of Poitiers, who had taken refuge in the forests of the time. The battle of Poitiers had taken place in 732 A.D…..but not forgotten over eleven centuries later!

But those images also showed the side of rural France that I had always appreciated….yes, the firemen, so many of them volunteers….but farmers bringing tanks of water, people setting up sites for the water and food donated by local shops and individuals to succour the firemen in their breaks from duty….the solidarity which kept rural life going, in good times and bad.

And so I returned to Marc Bloch….for it was from his association with the working class soldiers – the poilus – he commanded in the Great War that he drew inspiration for his historical studies….the importance of the collective of people, not the shooting star individuals that up until then had dominated the study of history. And the collective, in my old haunts, was still going strong.

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The Cure For All Diseases

Helen Devries42 Comments

I recently read an article in ‘The Times’ dealing with prescription drugs, which had an eye catching opening.

‘A study of the top ten grossing medicines in the USA found the most effective worked in only a quarter of patients and half of them did not work in 90 per cent of patients.’

The writer, pharmacist Dr. Nick Barber, in his book ‘How to Take Drugs’ points out what should be obvious – we are all different and react differently, so the ‘one size fits all’ of common prescription practice is not necessarily the most effective, and he gives a handy way to reckon the effectivenesss of drugs we are presented with by doctors.

‘There is a tool that calculates the chance that a drug will work for you — improve your health outcome — and that is called “Number Needed to Treat” (NNT). This is the number of people who need to be treated with the drug for one to get the clinical outcome we require — reducing pain, getting rid of an infection, avoiding stroke, heart attack or death. An NNT of one means that everyone who takes the medicine will get the desired outcome. An NNT of two means half of all patients will get the desired outcome. Virtually all the drugs you are taking at home will have an NNT greater than two. In a comparison of the top ten grossing drugs in the USA in 2015, the most effective had an NNT of four (so did not work for three out of four patients) and the least effective had an NNT of 25 (so did not work for 24 out of every 25).’

So ask your doctor for the NNT, ask about likely side effects, and work out for yourself if you should take what he suggests.

Another point he makes is that one should avoid the ‘prescribing cascade’, giving as an example ‘An 87-year-old woman took ibuprofen for knee pain. It raised her blood pressure, so she was given amlodipine; this swelled her ankles, so she was given a diuretic; the diuretic caused incontinence, so she was given oxybutynin; this caused dry eyes and constipation, resulting in prescriptions for eye drops and senna. ‘ Here one needs to go back to the doctor and work out just what is needed and remove the others.

While in France we had a young Spanish doctor who single handedly improved the health of elderly patients in his area. He made home visits, often without appointment, checked the medicine cabinets and took away most of the contents, telling his patients to take a daily walk instead. The pharmacists hated him – and other local doctors were not too keen on him either, trying to drive him out of his practice – but he made a significent difference to peoples’ well being.

Alarmed?

Fear not. Help is at hand.

A friend had recommended the Penguin Classics edition of ‘Early Christian Writings’ and I thought that I had the book somewhere so set off to search for it. It took some time, as I kept finding books I had not read for while and was obliged to poke about in them to see whether I wanted to read them again now, but find it I did, wedged between one of Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe series and and a P.G. Wodehouse on Blandings Castle.

On the other side of the Blandings novel was, however, the answer to a hypochondriac’s prayer. A well thumbed copy of ‘Soignez-vous par le vin’ – Look after yourself with wine – by Docteur Maury, a best seller from the 1970s which I’d picked up from the second hand book stall at the local Emmaus when in France.

The author, keen on homeopathy, regarded wine as the cure for all diseases from constipation to typhus and gave chapter and verse on the mineral make up of the soil of the vineyards which determined which wine to use in which case.

He pointed out the disadvantages of drinking water…..tap water was a veritable liquid poison, containing toxins which would land you with gall stones, heart failure and depression!

Mark you, those obliged to use the water supplied by the major water companies in the U.K. might well agree with him on this point.

He wrote before the age of the smoothie, but included in his jeremiad fruit juices and gazzy drinks, which inevitably produced obesity in the adolescent, for which his suggested remedy was a bottle of either Rose de Provence, or a white Sancerre from the Loire, to be taken between meals. Try your fat kid on that and see how it works!

Shocked at the idea of giving a teenager alcohol? But you have not understood….yes, he writes, wine contains alcohol, but it is not the alcohol which is dangerous for your health, perish the thought…. what harms you is the alcohol which comes from the distillation process! So sling out your gin and tonic, sort out what ails you and Docteur Maury has the answer!

For the ‘flu, a good Cotes de Rhone

Problems with cholesterol? Muscadet will set you right.

Too thin? Burgundy from the Cote d’Or.

Salmonella? Something from the Medoc – which will also probably sort out your problems with typhus….

Constipation? An Anjou blanc.

Diarrhea? Back to the Medoc.

But if you want an reason to drink champagne, well, just contract a risk of heart attack, fever and old age….champagne the sovereign remedy for all!

Incest And Morris Dancing

Helen Devries31 Comments

The injunction to try everything once except the activities referred to above has been attributed to a number of people well known in their time, and indicates the deep contempt for folk dancing and folklore in general felt by those who believed themselves to be cultured.

The message did not always get through, however. Time spent in Norfolk in the last century indicated that the inhabitants may have observed the last prohibition, but not the penultimate.

Well, times change. A study by Durham University in 2025 showed that incest material was widely shown on websites offering pornography, and Morris dancing is going strong.

In general, I cannot dance. Not that education in that sphere of life was lacking, but it did not ‘take’.

In the last year of junior school, there was Maypole dancing, where the dancers circle the pole weaving coloured ribbons around it until it is covered from top to bottom. Mighty scenes of chaos ensued as children tripped over each other and tied each other in knots as rehearsals commenced, but eventually each child knew its path – and the consequences of losing its way – and it was decided that as I was emerging from yet another operation on my eye I should be given a static role…as one of the four children standing the base of the pole to give it stability. All went well with the dress rehearsal, and then came the great day itself….we were not to wear school uniform, but ‘best’ clothes, and mother had just the thing. In the family clothes were handed down and I had been presented with a very nice dress in artificial silk now too small for one of my cousins. There was just one problem. It was pink, and so the spectators were treated to the sight of a ginger haired girl in pink National Health spectacles with one lens covered in pink sticking plaster and a bright pink dress…..even I knew that I was, indeed, a spectacle and, stuck in one position, could not even turn away to hide!

Things were no better in the senior school. We were supplied with tunics, told to remove our shoes and socks and instructed to believe we were autumn leaves caught by the wind. My friend decided that she would be a pile of autumn leaves which the wind had driven into a corner and sat down, saying that she was waiting to be swept up into a wheel barrow.. She was removed to outside the headmistress’ study and the class continued. My efforts were described as ‘I said leaves, dear, not fallen branches’ and I conceived a loathing for the dance mistress which I retained for the remaining years at that school.

Still with the tunics, but soft shoes permitted, we moved on to English country dances…..quite sedate affairs…..’Gathering Peascods’ and ‘Brighton Camp’, which mother told me she had been taught when at school in the nineteen twenties. This being a single sex establishment run by maiden ladies, we were not introduced to Morris Dancing – at that time a purely male pursuit – nor to the philandering King Charles II’s favourite dance, ‘Cuckolds All Awry’. Mother had not been introduced to it either. All I can say was that it was better than being falling leaves in autumn, but not by much.

Because by that time I had been introduced to the only form of dancing I enjoyed. Scottish country dancing. On holiday with the grandparents we would be taken to the seaside on the west coast of Scotland where the villages and little towns would hold what was called a Soiree. In other words, a hall with a bar, a band, and dancing and it attracted all ages from toddlers to ‘auld yins’, and all would be on the dance floor. It was generally fast and furious and easy to pick up as your partner would guide you through the movements, though as you were propelled down the set in ‘Strip the Willow’, you had the distinct impression that one unwary step as your partner hurled you into the line of other dancers and the whole lot would go down like dominoes.

It was not the style of highland dancing with the ladies in long frocks and tartan sashes….it was people in ordinary day clothes out for a night of fun after a long week of work, and I loved it.

School dancing continued…..it was considered that we should know how to dance as a necessary part of social education…so up went the tempo. ‘The Lancers’ was not too bad,especially as demonstrated – solo – by Mr. Pastry

but the ‘Military Twostep’ was a step too far, and the Polka was my downfall, always hopping at the wrong moment which was taken as dumb insolence and resulted in a wait outside the headmistress’ study.

A stern Presbyterian Scot, she ruled that school with a rod of iron….and, sitting outside that room I remembered the time she was taking a lesson in Religious Education and caught one of the girls looking at the clock. The tempest raged about us and none of us would ever be in doubt after that as to the reality of the wrath of God.

Summoned and told to sit down, she perused my reports. She observed that I had been expelled from the obligatory cookery classes in my first year after having caused a small explosion in a gas cooker and been sent to the library for those periods for the rest of the year. Likewise needlework, where I had sown the blouse I was supposed to be making to my school uniform skirt. Privately I thought I should have been congratulated in getting a needle through that skirt, of a serge so obdurate we assumed that their fabrication was keeping the Clyde shipyards in business, but instead I was expelled from the classes – to the library.

‘And now it is dancing’ she observed. She explained that, although a firmly academic institution – woe betide any girl who did not aim to go either to university or teacher training college – it was thought best to fit us for the world outside school, thus cookery, needlework and dancing. My attitude to all of which, she noted, was a far cry from my attitude to study. Did I not enjoy dancing?

I told her I enjoyed the soirees to which she raised her eyebrows and exclaimed

‘Just so, a godless stramash!’

Then, smiling, ‘Well, you may not have the social graces but I note that you have some skill in avoiding what you don’t want to do! Taken in moderation that may well stand you in good stead in later life. Off to the library with you, and try not to smile!’

Thus I was never introduced to the Foxtrot, for which grace much thanks! But I do wonder whether the problem was that, being a single sex institution, one was always dancing with other girls….as expressed by Joyce Grenfell.

Earth….Works

Helen Devries40 Comments
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As you are probably aware, Costa Rica is a country subject to earthquakes…..in 1910, two quakes destroyed the old colonial capital, Cartago, many of the survivors fleeing to San Jose, which had become the capital some ninety years earlier, following internecine struggles following independence from Spain.

The house we bought in San Jose is one of the earliest built by those survivors, who took over a swampy area previously used for horticulture, and which took its name – Turrujal – from fruit trees growing there.

Last year in August and this year in January, San Jose suffered two hefty quakes – 4.1 and 4.4 respectively – which led to an investigation into the system of faults running under the capital and installation of observation points which have revealed the existence of two major faults…one about two kilometres deep and the other deeper, but less than ten kilometres so….running under the historic centre of the city and which could, it is estimated give rise to a quake of up to 5.2.

To the delight of all, one of these faults runs under the new National Assembly building, so one can but live in hope!

Our little town and surrounding area have fairly frequent shakes. Don Freddy told us that the ones that feel like rolling on the ocean are pretty harmless…it is the ones which feel like a percussion hammer giving it laldy which are to be feared. And Don Freddy should know….he was working in his office in the town when the 6.1 quake struck in 1990 and he emerged to see the towers of the church across the main square leaning towards each other like trees bent by the wind. The church was wrecked, and there was major damage for kilometres around.

There are a number of faults in and around the town. One lies on our back road into town, where a house lying alongside has, over the years, lost half of its construction, while the road in front has subsided so much that a trip into town feels like a short run on the Big Dipper.

Quakes are not the only problem either. As the town expanded, springs were built over….but water resists. Block it one way and it finds another so the result is that the town is effectively floating on a waterbed.

All in all, stability is a problem.

A study was undertaken, which provided a solution by which the various water sources would be located and a system of drains constructed…..but the costs were astronomical, needing central government money to cough up and as this town has always been an orphan in terms of the national scene none was forthcoming. The local council did not press the matter either, as the ‘big’ families who own most of the centre of the town – and the council – were not interested.

For years now people have been worried about the immediate consequences of another disaster hitting the town, not just the damage to property, but how to escape.

Thanks to the landholding history of Costa Rica there is not the sort of network of roads one is used to in Europe. One road will lead to a small village or two – but no further – so if you look at a map you find a road leading to a cluster of villages which will not connect with villages a little to the north or south.

This feature was exemplified when the one way bridge on the main road to San Jose was finally declared unsafe. Anyone using the bus service could have told the authorites that years before when watching the driver cross himself before attempting it. While it was being repaired, commuters – and they are myriad cue to the council’s inability or opposition to encourage firms to set up here – had to find alternative routes.

One used back roads to cross the river dividing the Central Valley – which added two hours to the journey and involved crossing a bridge already declared out of use – another by using gravel tracks across the mountains to arrive in the outer suburbs of San Jose, at risk of your tyres and also adding two hours to the trip – and the third by passing through the indigenous reserve on another gravel track with steep gradients, where the inhabitants showed their displeasure by putting logs across the road.

Finally, something is being done to remedy the situation. Two ways of exiting the town, one to the north, one to the south, are being upgraded…not just the usual method of cranking up the municipal bulldozer and levelling the ruts, but laying down proper beds of lastre and concrete – there are even drainage gutters! And the one to the north is our back road into town!

Work has started…..huge lorries carrying lastre pass several times a day making dumps along the route and things have advanced enough for industrial scale cement mixers – known here as chompipes – to start dumping their loads. It will be a long job so with luck they will not arrive here before June at the earliest, by which time the rains will – or should – be in full spate, which should moisten the soil enough to allow Danilo to lift the large plants outside the gates before they are swallowed up in a concrete tomb.

I have noted that the posts marking the width of the road stop just on the side of the gates on the track leading to the bridge which connects us via a half concreted road to the main road to San Jose…..is this because there are complicated problems of drainage on this section thus needing further study, or because they don’t intent to join up the roads at all? Time will tell and nothing could surprise me! We have been in the Constitutional Court several times over the drainage problems….so it may be gird up your loins time yet again!

Journey Into The Unknown

Helen Devries32 Comments

I had been staying with an old friend in north London…..but had had many errands to run while there. Those to central London posed no problem….but I wanted to visit a specialist shoe shop which was situated in the further reaches of the capital.

Terra Incognita.

For both of us.

Accordingly we consulted Transport for London’s journey planner, according to which we took three buses involving two changes.

Fine…except at that change two it did not explain that we had to cross the road as a result of which we had an interesting journey in the wrong direction.

We passed from discreet Kensal Rise to run down Willesden – all fast food, nail bars and Turkish barbers, then out into the wilds.

We passed shopping streets full of halal butchers…..then south asian suppliers….Polish stores…..Roumanian supermarkets….and finally kosher bakers – at which point we realised we were going the wrong way and retraced our steps – using, fools that we were, the Transport for London journey planner once again.

Mission accomplished, we returned to Kensal Rise, gentrified for some years now. No halal butcher, no south asian supermarkets, no kosher bakeries. A plethora of expensive ‘beauty’ parlours, cafes and restaurants….the last fish and chip shop closed and shuttered. The new residents do not shop locally – unless in the organic butcher. They order from upmarket delivery firms for their groceries – and from decidedly downmarket delivery operations for their drugs.

On the way to the shoe shop we had noticed a number 302 bus – the first one of the three on the TfL list – in the other lane just a few stops short of our destination. Accordingly, on the return leg we checked the bus stop signs and found one at which the 302 would call. So the three buses and two changes had been inaccurate.

The next day we wanted to go to Somerset House to see a Seurat exhibition – and consulted TfL again. It suggested three buses and two changes and took us on a roundabout route. My friend, who has an encyclodaedic knowledge of central London bus routes, announced that that was rubbish. Two buses, one change and a direct route.

Once could be an aberration…..but twice? Looks more like a sneaky way to raise revenue.

One thing struck me about the buses…..I used various services nearly every day for three weeks and on only four occasions did I hear passengers speak in English, either to their neighbours or on their mobile ‘phones. A curious phenomenon.

One Sunday, we went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square to see the Stubbs exhibition…..extracts from his work ‘The Anatomy of a Horse’ published in 1766, the fruit of eighteen months’ labour in dissecting horses, the better to know how to depict them acurately.

His best known work is the stunning study of ‘Whistlejacket’, a racehorse owned by one of George III’s ministers

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But the exhibition also displayed another of that minister’s horses…Scrub.

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Both studies were to be part of equestrian portraits of the king…thus the pose in the ‘levade’ position….but the minister fell out with the king and the horses remained without riders.

We had noticed that a stage had been erected in Trafalgar Square, which had been closed off and imagined that it had been booked for an open air concert.

What it had actually been booked for was a celebration of breaking the fast during the month of Ramadan, and thus offered free food and a great deal of praying. Entry by ticket only.

The sight of massed upturned backsides roused great deal of reaction….one conservative M.P. opining that it was less a celebration but, by siting the event in central London, more a sign of domination. In a period of social tension over immigration, both legal and illegal, the failure to set an enquiry into organised ‘grooming’ gangs in motion, and attempts to reintroduce blasphemy laws by the back door in respect of Islam, perhaps it would have been wiser, in the interests of social harmony, to have kept celebrations to the mosques.

Business apart, I enjoyed being back in London, despite being buffeted by freezing winds every time I ventured outside the house and a damp cold which chilled me to the bone. I could shop for things unobtainable in Costa Rica – hello, jars of Marmite! – find shoes which fitted me, and indulge in the delights of black pudding, white pudding, hagggis and kippers…..

Now, if only Waitrose and Marks and Spencer would open branches in San Jose, life in Costa Rica would be truly ‘pura vida’!

Back to Blighty

Helen Devries38 Comments

It did not start off under the best of auspices.

Herded into a far flung unheated waiting area of San Jose airport – the only amenity the loo – at 6.00 a.m. to await the departure of the plane for Montreal some two hours later, the early morning chill enhanced by gusts of even chillier air as outside staff passed too close to the automatic doors to the tarmac, I watched as my companions in misery arrrived.

Mostly Canadians and British returning from holidays, there were an alarming number of people in wheelchairs – genuine users with plaster casts, pressure boots and assorted bandages, as opposed to the usual chancers who leap from their chairs like Lazarus once the queues for boarding begin. It looked as if the waiting area was an annexe of a hospital outpatients departure.

Why had we been herded into this unhospitable area became clear. For whatever reason, the ‘plane upon which we were to embark had not the privilege of an airbridge…..we were to be bussed to the far reaches of the airport and expected to board by mounting the steps. You would think that noting the number of those requiring assistance when booking the flight it would have dawned on someone that this was not a helpful idea…..but dawn it did not, or dawned and disregarded as only inconveniencing passengers.

Accordingly the halt and the lame were loaded onto a bus, only to be submerged by the able bodied passengers crammed on afterwards, and the adventure began. The able bodied disembarked and legged it up the stairs. The walking wounded – me included – were urged to the steps with a minder to carry the bags. Half way up, the steps were blocked by two women gabbing. I asked them to let me pass…..no joy, so poked one with my stick. Blockage shifted and finally made it to my seat, exhausted by the effort.

The totally immobile were either carried up the steps by two helpers, or in the case of the lucky ones, loaded on the hoist that brought the fodder aboard. Conversation later in Montreal revealed that the people concerned were not exactly delighted by this feature of their trip…….

Still, despite all, the transfer at a snowy Montreal was painless, and I finally made it to London Heathrow and thence to the house of a friend in north london. No, not the north London of the chattering classes, but recently gentrified Kensal Rise, boasting the obligatory Gails over priced coffee shop, an organic butcher and any number of tanks in which the yummy mummies panzer their young between one and the other.

Easy to slide back into London life…..charge up the Oyster card and public transport is yours!

We decided to go shopping for fresh fish. The fish shop opened by the owner of the organic butcher had had but a short life…..people no longer seem to want to cook fish themselves in Kensal Rise…..so we took the bus down to the Edgeware Road – little Lebanon – where the shop fronts have arabic subtitles and most of the women customers wear head coverings and long clothing, meeting on the bus a gentleman who saved me from annihilation by a lady wielding a shopping trolley damned nearly as wide as herself and who revealed himself to be a spanish speaker. You meet all sorts on a London bus.

The fishmonger, a middle eastern gentleman, had a vast display of fresh fish and shellfish……but took a step back as two bare headed women entered his shop, culture shock writ large upon his face. However, he recovered himself and proved to be most helpful, scaling and gutting our choice…..though it was an odd sensation, being regarded as somehow abnormal a few bus stops north of Oxford Street…..

Still, normality returned as we took the bus further down the Edgeware Road to shop in Waitrose. Not a head covering in sight among the customers, just on the lady on the only manned till and, oh! the delight of a British supermarket after the banal offerings of those in Costa Rica! The palate jaded by variants on rice and beans could rejoice in row after row of sheer temptation, and rejoice it did!

Heavily laden, we crossed the road and took the bus home to stock the fridge with our booty. I am on cooking duties while here and intend to make the most of the opportunity, while taking the chance to indulge in the vast array of preprepared meals for the days on which we are going to be home late. Scoff if you like, but given the opportunity not to have to make cannelloni oneself or scrap around to find the spices for ‘exotic’ foods, I’m seizing it with both hands. Roll on the Marks and Spencer ready meals……

One drawback…. I had forgotten how cold it could be in early March. Despite taking heavyweight – by Costa Rican standards – clothing and a padded coat which made me resemble a boiled maggot, the chill got to me and I trotted into a charity shop up the road from the house to buy a woollen sweater. The eastern european lady running the joint had no change, so I arranged to call in on the following day to pick up the two pounds fifty pence she would owe me. Next day dawned…..a different eastern european lady on duty who ‘knew nothing about it’. I shall return until I the trap the first one…..

I took buses acrosss the city to Liverpool Street station to meet up with Adullamite – Tynecastle to you, Tom – who kindly came in from Essex to meet me. I felt guilty as on our last meeting I had said I would travel down to meet him on his home turf, but, ever the gentleman, he would not permit it as I was, if no longer hors de combat, somewhat fragile still and having to use a stick to get about.

It gave me a lot of pleasure to catch up with him and his news…..well laced with that pawky Scots humour which makes his blog something to which to look forward….and a genuinely kinder man you could not wish to meet. Now I just hope he did not catch pneumonia by insisting on accompanying me to the bus stop and waiting there in the cold!

In my days of using Liverpool Street station it was a gloomy, grimy hole…..these days it is light, clean and welcoming – and about to be wrecked by some office development being installed above it. Why build more when offices lie empty all over London!

On thing has struck me and pleasantly, at that. The thoughtfulness of people on the buses, from drivers to passengers, in not hurrying me and making sure I am seated before the bus sets off again. Apart, of course, from that woman with the shopping trolley. Perhaps I have just been lucky so far, but it gives a good impression of London.

Oozlem Bird Directions

Helen Devries36 Comments

Costa Rica has – in theory – street names and numbers. They are even marked as such on maps – not, I suspect, however, maps produced in Costa Rica.

The capital, San Jose,once had cast iron plaques on street corners. These, like many of the cast iron manhole covers, were removed by enterprising gentlemen for purposes of their own, so not only did you not know where you were, but it was probable that the sewer you had just fallen into could not easily be identified.

Built on a grid pattern, as San Jose began to expand following the earthquake which wrecked the old capital, Carthago, anomalies crept in. Someone would buy a piece of land, put up buildings and run an access road between them…..the grid began to become irregular…..no longer a compact city, people needed to know how to get to your house or your place of work, so a new system arose.

The house we bought in San Jose was officially on Transversal 19B – which has since morphed into something else entirely – but, as no one had a clue where or what that was, it is – for purposes of directions – in front of the American Bar across from the park of the Escuela de Chile.

How this is supposed to help you if you are a stranger in town is beyond me, especially since, although the Escuela de Chile is still there the American Bar has long gone the way of all flesh – which is mostly what frequented it.

This came to mind recently, when applying for a certificate from the elecricity board – ICE. If the anglophone reads that as ice…it is appropriate as it normally moves at the speed of a constipated glacier.

I duly produced the necessary information….my ID card, an official plan showing the property and a map where X marked the spot.

Shock, horror! The young lady on the desk could not accept a map!No, she required ‘exact directions’!

Accordingly I supplied the information that it was to be found two hundred metres south of the local school. Well, it is….but there are two crossroads inbetween…..

Two days later a gentleman from ICE ‘phoned me. Where, exactly, was the property?

Trying to avoid foaming at the mouth – it inhibits comunication – I gave him directions from his office to the site. To a man with local knowledge it obviously rang a bell….

‘Ah, there’s a lot of bananas growing on one side…?’

‘Yes.’

Rashly I asked if a map would not have been easier. Yes, for him it would have been, but the IT system could not accept maps.

Could not the young lady have just passed him the map as well as entering the ‘exact directions’ on her computer?

She could have done, but to do so would be to admit she had received it and the sytem did not allow her to give a reciept as said system did not accept maps….

The Immortal Memory

Helen Devries21 Comments
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Burns Night is with us again, a celebration of the life and work of Scotland’s great poet, a night of cullen skink, haggis and whisky, all in abundance, for this is a fitting night for the Selkirk Grace to be said.

“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be Thankit!”

An evening of ritual…..the Address to the Haggis, the singing of Auld Lang Syne….but also of fun – the Address to the Lassies and the lassies’ rejoinder in the Address to the Laddies, for this is not just a night out for the boys!

And this echoes Burns’ own attitudes for, apart from his incurable weakness for a pretty face and its consequences, leading to being upbraided as a ‘fornicator’ by the Presbyterian church, he had a high regard for women as evidenced in his poem ‘The Rights of Women’ of 1792.

“While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.”

A high regard which is not shared by the unholy alliance of the Scottish National Party and the despicable Greens which have brought about a total disregard for the rights of women in a country that was once the fount of the Enlightenment.

Their rights, from privacy to opportunity, have been over ridden by the demands of men masquerading as women…..the patriarchy in a frock…..demands supported and encouraged by the institutions and government of Scotland even in defiance of a ruling of the Supreme Court.

Tonight we celebrate…..tomorrow, back to the fight!

‘But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions;
Let majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ca ira! The majesty of woman!’

‘

O Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!

Helen Devries25 Comments
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I had been planning to go to the council offices today to pay the rates….best to get the pain over as quickly as possible. Last year they rose like a vertical take off jet out of control – there should have been a bottle of smelling salts on the counter – so I can’t say I was very optimistic about this year’s likely outcome.

However, I was spared the journey. Local news showed the gates to the offices firmly shut as the police are raiding the joint – and not before time!

There have long been rumours of dirty work at the crossroads – though given the neglect of any roads which do not lead to councillors’ properties perhaps another phrase should be sought – through a succession of mayors, but the current one takes the biscuit.

Her involvement with the loathsome meter parking scheme is, it is suggested, but the tip of an iceberg – and this would seem to be the case, given that the police are also raiding her joint, removing papers and computers. They appear to be raiding every unit associated with the council, including the works yard on the outskirts of the little town and, mysteriously, a heavy goods vehicle repair garage on the other side of the country. The staff in offices of an associated body tried to block the doors to prevent access -goodness only knows what that was in aid of – but the police prevailed.

The current mayor is – or was – standing as a member of the National Assembly in the forthcoming general election, but ‘in the interests of transparency’ is no longer associated with her party, whose view is that the whole thing is the result of an internal problem in the body of the council – move along, nothing to see there – but, to be on the safe side, to accept the situation as it relates to the forthcoming election.

Considering that the investigation is said to be founded on suspicion of money laundering, traffic of influence, award of contracts and dubious goings on using council heavy machinery that might have been a wise move.

Still, they may be right about internal problems giving rise to the investigation…..there has been a well publicised falling out which ended up in going to court …..and who better than an insider to know where the bodies are buried. But not, I hope, by the council’s heavy machinery.

Early local reaction has been varied….’Gotcha!’ being a popular choice, while others doubt whether she will be carted off in the dog van as her party has a stranglehold on the judicial system from which she will emerge like the phoenix.

My favourite response came from a lady who could not imagine why there was an investigation as the current mayor was only following in the footsteps of her predecessors –

They’ve all robbed us blind, so why pick on her!’