Back in Catalonia I can hardly believe that only five days have gone by since I was last here!
The party on Friday evening in Rumney brought together some of my closest friends, some of whom I had not seen for some time. It is amazing how quickly one slips back into remembered relationships with the familiar quips and coded language; the re-establishment of personal frontiers and their dissolution; the easy juxtaposition of face and voice all combining to provide a truly comfortable environment.
That last paragraph should have ended with some sort of easy throwaway line like, “And the drink helped too!” But that was not the case on that particular night, because as sure as Saturday followed Friday, I had to be in Gloucestershire the next day for Aunt Bet’s 90th birthday lunch.
So it was with a disturbingly clear eyed vision (that I alone possessed in the household in which I was staying) with which I contemplated the journey into deepest darkest England.
Armed only with a borrowed Tom-Tom and fortified by the slurred felicitations from the hollowed eyed denizens I was leaving for the day I set out on the A48.
Time shifted unsettlingly quickly and I began to wonder if I would make the start of the festivities for the 12.30 start. The majority of the journey was via motorway cutting through misty countryside. As soon as I left the safety of the M5 (!) I found myself following a convoluted route though almost ludicrously picturesque calendar photograph material which was the “Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness™” memory storage of many English ex-pats.
I, however, was Welsh and so such things passed me by because of my inbuilt cultural inability to appreciate The Other when trying to get to a strange location with time running out.
The Tom-Tom got me to the village in which the lunch was being held and a couple of friendly natives encouraged me to take the final leg to the Country Hotel itself.
The Grand Gathering of the Clans brought together disparate members of the family who had not seen each other for some time. The setting was gracious and the view would have been magnificent if the mist had dissipated itself but it didn’t and so we had to make to with conviviality and conversation! The ‘catching up’ was only interrupted by a speech by me and a gracious response by my aunt who appended to her thanks the gratuitous statement that “she deserved it!” How true.
Although the raison d’etre for the gathering was the birthday of my Aunt it also gave me an opportunity to collect my bling.
My mother’s engagement rings (don’t ask about the plurality of that piece of jewellery; the memory is too painful!) had been taken by my resourceful and talented cousin and fabricated into a fabulous pair of cuff links. On a small tablet of gold each differently sized diamond is set off-centre to create an elegant and stunning piece of jewellery. I can wear them with impunity of course, because no one is going to believe that they are real. But, as I explained to one of my friends, as long as I know that they are real – that is enough! And one can only pity those so beggared in their experience that they cannot tell precious stones from bits of glass!
The journey back to Cardiff after the birthday was notable for my inability fully to demist the windscreen; the complete lack of lighting on convoluted, narrow country roads – and the ‘considerate’ driving of the Barbour coated, green welly wearing wallys that roared up to within inches of the back of my car and then hurled themselves and their vehicles into total darkness and blind corners to overtake me. I speculate about the sartorial details of the drivers as it was pitch black, but I’m prepared to bet!
I have never been so glad to see a motorway!
I’m not sure where the world was going on a Saturday night but most of it seemed to be concentrated on the motorways which took me back to Cardiff.
I am reminded of the battle of wits that characterized the verbal conflicts between the painter Whistler and the writer Wilde. I always thought that their meetings were the living equivalent of two of the more arrogant masters of the epigram to be found in the pages of ‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray.’ It was the sad loss of a respectfully held illusion to find out that often Whistler and Wilde resorted to good, old fashioned abuse rather than the intellectual restraint of repartee.
Our small dinner party on that Saturday night liked to think of itself as scintillating with the clash of highly honed rapier comment but the Neanderthal club was also much in evidence. The meal, cooked by Paul Squared was exceptional with delicate soup and meat falling from the bone, but when I also tell you that four glasses were broken in the course of that evening (and not from impromptu coloratura opera arias) that the true state of festivities can be gauged! A very pleasant time was had by all!
Sunday saw (some of) us venture forth to Saint Fagan’s and the Welsh Folk Museum. Having moved away from Cardiff I realise more clearly now that Saint Fagan’s is a remarkable cultural resource. The range of reconstructed buildings and the setting in which they are shown to advantage is extraordinary.
Our specific visit was to see the completed church was had been transported stone by stone to Cardiff from West Wales.
The church as been restored to its full early Roman Catholic glory complete with painted rood screen and medieval wall paintings. Although the building is open for visitors it is still in the course of completion and another group of painters is scheduled to come back to the church to continue painting the walls with the ‘visual books’ which were an essential part of the instruction of the people in times past.
As is always the case with Saint Fagans there is work in progress which means that a return visit is essential!
As a special treat on our return we had an Indian take-away which emphasised that I make do with second best in the small restaurant near the Liceu in Barcelona!
As a further even more special treat I was invited to experience the true uplifting wonder that is ‘Mama Mia!’
It was fairly obvious after the opening minutes (by which time I was horizontal with horror and biting the cushion) that my friends were more interested in enjoying my reactions than looking forward to the joy of watching the ‘film’ again.
Leaving aside the spectacularly awful singing and a script which makes ‘Titanic’ appear as though it were written by Wittgenstein; it’s the filmic direction which is most glaringly obvious by its omission. There are so many lost opportunities in this film which should have given some sort of evidence that the director had at least glanced at any great musicals from the past. But no we were presented with inept build up to song and disappointment. Awful!
Monday was visiting all the shops that I miss living in Spain. Matalan (which has a mythic reputation in Terrassa) provided a book, ‘The Funniest Thing You Never Said’ edited by Rosemarie Jarski. Ebury Press, ISBN 978 0 091 8966 6. This is the sort of volume that, having read a few pages you make a resolution that you are going to use some of the more amusing quotations in your next conversation in an apt and sophisticated way. And you don’t. It has all the dangerous addictive qualities of the Guinness Book of Records (which is in 3D this year!) as the quotations are grouped in sections and you can kid yourself that reading a section is like reading a chapter!
I am not sure about the accuracy. The famous Mel Brooks quotation about the difference between comedy and tragedy is destroyed by using the wrong personal pronoun. The correct version is, “Tragedy is when I have a hangnail. Comedy is when you accidentally walk into an open sewer and die.” Change the ‘you’ to an ‘I’ as this book quotes it and the essential element of black comedy is lost. But a book well worth buying all the same and chuckling your way through.
Mac Arthur and Glen as my Catalan friend calls the retail outlet just outside Bridgend produced not only a few excellent bargains but also the unexpected sight of a past pupil (and now real concert going human being) whose first words to me were, “You shouldn’t be here!” And I thought that we were all members of a united Europe!
Returning to Cardiff in my woefully underpowered black Matiz Chevrolet I called in to visit my aunt Micky and my cousin Louise and had a cup of tea with conversation augmented by a purely gratuitous piece of cream cake!
My next visit was to my Uncle Frank who had been tardy in replying to my telephone calls from Spain. There were lights on in the living room when I pulled into the pavement but a strange face greeted my ring of the doorbell.
The news that he had gone into a residential home was not surprising as he had been getting steadily frailer but at least I had a phone number to call for more information.
The information that I got was not what I wanted to hear: he had died on Saturday when I was telling my Aunt Bet in her birthday party that I was going to call on him and check up on him. If one can use the word serendipitous for such a sad event then I learned that his daughter and son in law were going to be in Cardiff the next day and that I could give them a hand in clearing out the room which Uncle Frank had occupied in the residential home.
I only had time for a quick shower before I headed out for dinner with Ceri and Dianne. Here too time has brought two more creatures into the realm of the fully human as their two children can no longer be usefully designated by such an ageist term!
We had a beautiful meal of chowder, lamb and lemon tart (though on separate plates) accompanied by a progressively freer reminiscence of past unintentionally hilarious trips and holidays with the ‘kids’ taking notes for future blackmailing opportunities!
As I was ferried to and from this dinner I was able to indulge my penchant for red wine. I eventually left with a feeling of well being and a large Christmas present gaudily wrapped with golden cord. What larks!
I returned to a dark house as my hosts had retired for the night.
The next morning I was able to meet up with Margaret and help with the somewhat depressing clearing of personal possessions from the room in the home. The room and the general appearance of the home itself were luxurious and it was far nearer in appearance and ‘feel’ to an hotel than to a typical home for the elderly. Margaret had phoned me when her father died, but had no reply from my number as I was in Cardiff at the time!
As the room emptied with our discovery that cars can take an extraordinary number of miscellaneous possessions when they are fitting together into a complex three dimensional jigsaw, Margaret and I had lunch at one restaurant that her father had loved.
As we entered the waitress asked how Frank was and was shocked by the news of his death. We had his favourite meal of garlic king prawns followed by lasagne.
I’m afraid that the waitress must have been at least disconcerted to listen to our raucous conversation as we remembered the positive and idiosyncratic life which had just ended.
When I had written my letter of condolence to Margaret I found the words flowing; there was no dearth of detail to cherish to illustrate a life which was vital and fascinating. I shall miss him.
A remembered chore meant that I had to call into PC World to try and return a non functioning digital camera. When I arrived at the store all was in darkness: the power had failed and so too had the emergency generator. There were groups of desperate people outside these dens of blackness with the hollow eyed look of junkies denied their electronic fix. As if on cue, Dave (a past colleague now working at the store) then appeared took my camera and my email off my hands and with airy expressions of compassion and professionalism said that he would sort it out.
Back in Rumney and preparations for yet another meal!
My last meal in GB was in a newish Kurdish restaurant
with the added incentive that it was possible to ‘bring your own’ bottle and so avoid the criminal mark up that British restaurants add to the wine that they provide and find so essential to their financial survival.
As we were about to start our meal three ladies appeared of whom I knew two. I was hardly surprised as the whole of my holiday had been a succession of fortuitous moments and chance meetings.
The meal itself was tasty without being fully satisfied. The amount of stodge we accumulated in the form of flat bread, garlic bread and rice was truly astonishing! Lamb seemed to be the basis of virtually everything (including I suspect the ice cream) and it had a taste which suggested that it was spiced ruthlessly to accentuate that taste, though the spices never came up to the level of piquant. I’m glad I tried it, but I would not rush back.
And so to bed.
This morning I rose at the same time as Paul and clutching one of their cases (my accumulated ‘things’ meant that flying with hand luggage only was an impossibility) and two superb baguettes made by Paul Squared I braved the usual traffic jams by which that apology for a city Newport is so justly condemned.
Morning traffic meant that a boring drive was enlivened by the ever present fear of missing the plane.
As usual fears were unnecessary and from the moment of handing back the keys of the hire car everything went like clockwork.
Oddly I sat next to the same hogger of the ‘front seat for the leg room’ as when I came over to Bristol on Friday! His working week must be soul destroying!
Once back in Catalonia and back to the language. I was told an involved story by my taxi driver of his being attacked with a knife in the shoulder after he had taken a man on a long drive to a town near the French border. This man turned out to have been wanted by Interpol and he was the sort of scum who trafficked in abducting young girls and then forcing them to work as prostitutes. I was quite proud that I managed to keep up my end in what you have to admit was quite a challenging conversation in a foreign language! I think that somewhere along the line I lost the morality in the linguistics!
I have now done two washes and put away the bits and pieces of my little jaunt. Although the afternoon was warm and sunny the temperature became quite challenging when the sun went down.
I have given in and, for the first time this year, I have turned on the central heating.
Roll on the summer!
The party on Friday evening in Rumney brought together some of my closest friends, some of whom I had not seen for some time. It is amazing how quickly one slips back into remembered relationships with the familiar quips and coded language; the re-establishment of personal frontiers and their dissolution; the easy juxtaposition of face and voice all combining to provide a truly comfortable environment.
That last paragraph should have ended with some sort of easy throwaway line like, “And the drink helped too!” But that was not the case on that particular night, because as sure as Saturday followed Friday, I had to be in Gloucestershire the next day for Aunt Bet’s 90th birthday lunch.
So it was with a disturbingly clear eyed vision (that I alone possessed in the household in which I was staying) with which I contemplated the journey into deepest darkest England.
Armed only with a borrowed Tom-Tom and fortified by the slurred felicitations from the hollowed eyed denizens I was leaving for the day I set out on the A48.
Time shifted unsettlingly quickly and I began to wonder if I would make the start of the festivities for the 12.30 start. The majority of the journey was via motorway cutting through misty countryside. As soon as I left the safety of the M5 (!) I found myself following a convoluted route though almost ludicrously picturesque calendar photograph material which was the “Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness™” memory storage of many English ex-pats.
I, however, was Welsh and so such things passed me by because of my inbuilt cultural inability to appreciate The Other when trying to get to a strange location with time running out.
The Tom-Tom got me to the village in which the lunch was being held and a couple of friendly natives encouraged me to take the final leg to the Country Hotel itself.
The Grand Gathering of the Clans brought together disparate members of the family who had not seen each other for some time. The setting was gracious and the view would have been magnificent if the mist had dissipated itself but it didn’t and so we had to make to with conviviality and conversation! The ‘catching up’ was only interrupted by a speech by me and a gracious response by my aunt who appended to her thanks the gratuitous statement that “she deserved it!” How true.
Although the raison d’etre for the gathering was the birthday of my Aunt it also gave me an opportunity to collect my bling.
My mother’s engagement rings (don’t ask about the plurality of that piece of jewellery; the memory is too painful!) had been taken by my resourceful and talented cousin and fabricated into a fabulous pair of cuff links. On a small tablet of gold each differently sized diamond is set off-centre to create an elegant and stunning piece of jewellery. I can wear them with impunity of course, because no one is going to believe that they are real. But, as I explained to one of my friends, as long as I know that they are real – that is enough! And one can only pity those so beggared in their experience that they cannot tell precious stones from bits of glass!
The journey back to Cardiff after the birthday was notable for my inability fully to demist the windscreen; the complete lack of lighting on convoluted, narrow country roads – and the ‘considerate’ driving of the Barbour coated, green welly wearing wallys that roared up to within inches of the back of my car and then hurled themselves and their vehicles into total darkness and blind corners to overtake me. I speculate about the sartorial details of the drivers as it was pitch black, but I’m prepared to bet!
I have never been so glad to see a motorway!
I’m not sure where the world was going on a Saturday night but most of it seemed to be concentrated on the motorways which took me back to Cardiff.
I am reminded of the battle of wits that characterized the verbal conflicts between the painter Whistler and the writer Wilde. I always thought that their meetings were the living equivalent of two of the more arrogant masters of the epigram to be found in the pages of ‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray.’ It was the sad loss of a respectfully held illusion to find out that often Whistler and Wilde resorted to good, old fashioned abuse rather than the intellectual restraint of repartee.
Our small dinner party on that Saturday night liked to think of itself as scintillating with the clash of highly honed rapier comment but the Neanderthal club was also much in evidence. The meal, cooked by Paul Squared was exceptional with delicate soup and meat falling from the bone, but when I also tell you that four glasses were broken in the course of that evening (and not from impromptu coloratura opera arias) that the true state of festivities can be gauged! A very pleasant time was had by all!
Sunday saw (some of) us venture forth to Saint Fagan’s and the Welsh Folk Museum. Having moved away from Cardiff I realise more clearly now that Saint Fagan’s is a remarkable cultural resource. The range of reconstructed buildings and the setting in which they are shown to advantage is extraordinary.
Our specific visit was to see the completed church was had been transported stone by stone to Cardiff from West Wales.
The church as been restored to its full early Roman Catholic glory complete with painted rood screen and medieval wall paintings. Although the building is open for visitors it is still in the course of completion and another group of painters is scheduled to come back to the church to continue painting the walls with the ‘visual books’ which were an essential part of the instruction of the people in times past.As is always the case with Saint Fagans there is work in progress which means that a return visit is essential!
As a special treat on our return we had an Indian take-away which emphasised that I make do with second best in the small restaurant near the Liceu in Barcelona!
As a further even more special treat I was invited to experience the true uplifting wonder that is ‘Mama Mia!’
It was fairly obvious after the opening minutes (by which time I was horizontal with horror and biting the cushion) that my friends were more interested in enjoying my reactions than looking forward to the joy of watching the ‘film’ again.
Leaving aside the spectacularly awful singing and a script which makes ‘Titanic’ appear as though it were written by Wittgenstein; it’s the filmic direction which is most glaringly obvious by its omission. There are so many lost opportunities in this film which should have given some sort of evidence that the director had at least glanced at any great musicals from the past. But no we were presented with inept build up to song and disappointment. Awful!
Monday was visiting all the shops that I miss living in Spain. Matalan (which has a mythic reputation in Terrassa) provided a book, ‘The Funniest Thing You Never Said’ edited by Rosemarie Jarski. Ebury Press, ISBN 978 0 091 8966 6. This is the sort of volume that, having read a few pages you make a resolution that you are going to use some of the more amusing quotations in your next conversation in an apt and sophisticated way. And you don’t. It has all the dangerous addictive qualities of the Guinness Book of Records (which is in 3D this year!) as the quotations are grouped in sections and you can kid yourself that reading a section is like reading a chapter!
I am not sure about the accuracy. The famous Mel Brooks quotation about the difference between comedy and tragedy is destroyed by using the wrong personal pronoun. The correct version is, “Tragedy is when I have a hangnail. Comedy is when you accidentally walk into an open sewer and die.” Change the ‘you’ to an ‘I’ as this book quotes it and the essential element of black comedy is lost. But a book well worth buying all the same and chuckling your way through.
Mac Arthur and Glen as my Catalan friend calls the retail outlet just outside Bridgend produced not only a few excellent bargains but also the unexpected sight of a past pupil (and now real concert going human being) whose first words to me were, “You shouldn’t be here!” And I thought that we were all members of a united Europe!
Returning to Cardiff in my woefully underpowered black Matiz Chevrolet I called in to visit my aunt Micky and my cousin Louise and had a cup of tea with conversation augmented by a purely gratuitous piece of cream cake!
My next visit was to my Uncle Frank who had been tardy in replying to my telephone calls from Spain. There were lights on in the living room when I pulled into the pavement but a strange face greeted my ring of the doorbell.
The news that he had gone into a residential home was not surprising as he had been getting steadily frailer but at least I had a phone number to call for more information.
The information that I got was not what I wanted to hear: he had died on Saturday when I was telling my Aunt Bet in her birthday party that I was going to call on him and check up on him. If one can use the word serendipitous for such a sad event then I learned that his daughter and son in law were going to be in Cardiff the next day and that I could give them a hand in clearing out the room which Uncle Frank had occupied in the residential home.
I only had time for a quick shower before I headed out for dinner with Ceri and Dianne. Here too time has brought two more creatures into the realm of the fully human as their two children can no longer be usefully designated by such an ageist term!
We had a beautiful meal of chowder, lamb and lemon tart (though on separate plates) accompanied by a progressively freer reminiscence of past unintentionally hilarious trips and holidays with the ‘kids’ taking notes for future blackmailing opportunities!
As I was ferried to and from this dinner I was able to indulge my penchant for red wine. I eventually left with a feeling of well being and a large Christmas present gaudily wrapped with golden cord. What larks!
I returned to a dark house as my hosts had retired for the night.
The next morning I was able to meet up with Margaret and help with the somewhat depressing clearing of personal possessions from the room in the home. The room and the general appearance of the home itself were luxurious and it was far nearer in appearance and ‘feel’ to an hotel than to a typical home for the elderly. Margaret had phoned me when her father died, but had no reply from my number as I was in Cardiff at the time!
As the room emptied with our discovery that cars can take an extraordinary number of miscellaneous possessions when they are fitting together into a complex three dimensional jigsaw, Margaret and I had lunch at one restaurant that her father had loved.
As we entered the waitress asked how Frank was and was shocked by the news of his death. We had his favourite meal of garlic king prawns followed by lasagne.
I’m afraid that the waitress must have been at least disconcerted to listen to our raucous conversation as we remembered the positive and idiosyncratic life which had just ended.
When I had written my letter of condolence to Margaret I found the words flowing; there was no dearth of detail to cherish to illustrate a life which was vital and fascinating. I shall miss him.
A remembered chore meant that I had to call into PC World to try and return a non functioning digital camera. When I arrived at the store all was in darkness: the power had failed and so too had the emergency generator. There were groups of desperate people outside these dens of blackness with the hollow eyed look of junkies denied their electronic fix. As if on cue, Dave (a past colleague now working at the store) then appeared took my camera and my email off my hands and with airy expressions of compassion and professionalism said that he would sort it out.
Back in Rumney and preparations for yet another meal!
My last meal in GB was in a newish Kurdish restaurant
with the added incentive that it was possible to ‘bring your own’ bottle and so avoid the criminal mark up that British restaurants add to the wine that they provide and find so essential to their financial survival.As we were about to start our meal three ladies appeared of whom I knew two. I was hardly surprised as the whole of my holiday had been a succession of fortuitous moments and chance meetings.
The meal itself was tasty without being fully satisfied. The amount of stodge we accumulated in the form of flat bread, garlic bread and rice was truly astonishing! Lamb seemed to be the basis of virtually everything (including I suspect the ice cream) and it had a taste which suggested that it was spiced ruthlessly to accentuate that taste, though the spices never came up to the level of piquant. I’m glad I tried it, but I would not rush back.
And so to bed.
This morning I rose at the same time as Paul and clutching one of their cases (my accumulated ‘things’ meant that flying with hand luggage only was an impossibility) and two superb baguettes made by Paul Squared I braved the usual traffic jams by which that apology for a city Newport is so justly condemned.
Morning traffic meant that a boring drive was enlivened by the ever present fear of missing the plane.
As usual fears were unnecessary and from the moment of handing back the keys of the hire car everything went like clockwork.
Oddly I sat next to the same hogger of the ‘front seat for the leg room’ as when I came over to Bristol on Friday! His working week must be soul destroying!
Once back in Catalonia and back to the language. I was told an involved story by my taxi driver of his being attacked with a knife in the shoulder after he had taken a man on a long drive to a town near the French border. This man turned out to have been wanted by Interpol and he was the sort of scum who trafficked in abducting young girls and then forcing them to work as prostitutes. I was quite proud that I managed to keep up my end in what you have to admit was quite a challenging conversation in a foreign language! I think that somewhere along the line I lost the morality in the linguistics!
I have now done two washes and put away the bits and pieces of my little jaunt. Although the afternoon was warm and sunny the temperature became quite challenging when the sun went down.
I have given in and, for the first time this year, I have turned on the central heating.
Roll on the summer!
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