Category Archives: Travel

Paris Part 2: Musée Jacquemart-André, Le Grand Mosquée, Saint Mammes, the Seine and soggy knickers…

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Picking up where I left off in my last post, I started off slowly on day two in Paris. After a bit of unpacking and general faffing, I enjoyed a good breakfast at my hotel, the Holiday Inn, Gare de Lyon. Others might not get excited about apple compote, but I love it (especially when I haven’t had to peel and stew the apples) and it’s not something you often find on breakfast bars! Combined with creamy yoghurt dispensed from a machine by pulling on a lever – which reminded me of Mr Whippy ice cream – and topped with nuts and seeds, it was a winner.  I also enjoyed one of the best gluten-free bread rolls I’ve had in a while with some fresh figs and goat’s cheese.

It was a fine morning, and once again I set off for the Jacquemart-André Museum, this time by metro, criss-crossing my way to Miromesmil.  I arrived to find there was a queue to get in unless you had already reserved tickets. The wait time was advertised as at least an hour thanks to a once-in-thirty-year retrospective of paintings by Georges de la Tour (1593-1652), a chiaroscuro painter influenced by Caravaggio.  Thank Goodness I hadn’t slogged my way there the night before only to be turned away – no room at the inn – and refused entry.  

In just under an hour, I had a ticket in my hand and was inside. The Jacquemart-André Museum is a sumptuous Belle Époque private mansion built at the end of the 19th century by wealthy banker Edouard André and his wife society portraitist Nélie Jacquemart. They married in 1888, did not have children and were avid collectors of fine art and treasures from around the world.  The museum is described as the finest private collection of artworks in Paris – and that’s no exaggeration.  

The place is full of big name artists from across the centuries. Right at the start of the tour in the Picture Gallery are two Canaletto paintings of Venice, in Nélie’s boudoir there are paintings by Gainsborough and Reynolds, and the library walls are hung with paintings by Dutch masters including Rembrandt, Franz Hals and Van Dyck.

Paintings in Nelie’s boudoir reflected in a mirror

There are no less than three works by Tiepolo:  a fresco at the top of the double marble staircase and a ceiling painting on the roof the mansion’s dining room, the Salon de Nélie. Both were transposed from a Venetian villa. The third Tiepolo is a ceiling painting in the study, a room furnished with chairs covered with Aubusson tapestries, a Japanese lacquer writing desk and a Louis XV desk stamped by the king’s favourite cabinetmaker.

Tiepolo ceiling painting in the Salon de Nelie

Edouard and Nélie loved to entertain – the picture gallery leads into the Grand Salon where the partition walls could be lowered into the ground via a hydraulic system that converted the Picture Gallery, the Grand Salon and the adjacent Music Room (and musician’s gallery above) into a single space – catering for up to a thousand guests. You can almost hear the frou frou of opulent gowns, lace and silk, the hum of chatter and the clink of champagne flutes.  And you can picture the men retiring to the smoking room which is furnished in the ‘Oriental’ style with treasures from Persia.

Grand Salon – partition wall detail
Music Room and Gallery
Edouard Andre

To keep their entertaining space unimpeded, Nélie and Edouard departed from the norm of having a centrally situated staircase – the double marble staircase is no less magnificent, but it’s located to the side of the building. To the left of the staircase is the Winter Garden, a status symbol at the time, a place to showcase plants from around the world.

Section of the Tiepolo fresco at the top of the staircase

The Italian galleries – the Venetian and the Florentine – are crammed with treasures: 15th century sculptures, bas-reliefs and paintings by the likes of Uccello and Botticelli.  I had a little break at lunchtime and managed to get a spot in the Salon de Nélie, in the annex overlooking the courtyard.

La Vierge e L’Enfant – Botticelli
Ornate lantern in the courtyard

After lunch, I enjoyed browsing some of the 40 Georges de la Tour paintings. He focused on portraits of saints and people on the margins of society – blind musicians, beggars, old men and women, capturing them in a moment in time, his subjects imbued with grace and dignity, and often illuminated by a single candle flame or a shaft of light. I could have spent longer but it was getting towards mid-afternoon and I was due to meet friends from Oxford for drinks at 4.45pm. Time waits for no man not even Georges de la Tour, so I ran back to Miromesmil, sped-walked along the long passageways (if you want to get your steps up, travel on the Paris Metro!) connecting with the M1 line back to the Gare de Lyon. From there I dashed to the hotel to change and then, with a swipe of lippy, was back underground on my way to Châtelet where I changed line to get to Cité and to our meeting place near Notre Dame. I just made it.

It was pure chance that I overlapped with Hilary and John for one night in Paris and pure joy to see them and catch up on two year’s chat over drinks and pommes frites. To add to the fun, my niece, Georgie, a wonderful conversationalist and all-round bright spark, joined us just as the heavens opened and the wind picked up. We were sitting outdoors so we huddled under the awning but were soon rewarded with exquisite light and a double rainbow. From there, Georgie and I walked back to the Gare de Lyon and to Ground Control, a warehouse space behind the station with food stalls, bars, vintage fashion, a book stall and alive with the buzz of chatter from children, families, the lot. We drank a Hugo cocktail and tucked into a tasty and generous Greek share platter.

The next morning, Sunday, I was back at the Gare de Lyon, now my second home, and took a train out towards Fontainebleu to spend a day with Georgie, her husband Manu and the three boys. She met me at the station in Moret-Veneux with three-year-old Ralphie in tow. From there, it was a short drive to Veneux -les-Sablons, where we walked across an arched suspension bridge at the confluence of the Seine and the Loing over to the town of Saint-Mammès, which has a vibrant Sunday market with lots of local and organic produce and an entire stall devoted to goat’s cheese – heaven!

The rest of the day was spent with the family in Thomery, a wonderful spot on the Seine, known for its history of viticulture and use of walled vineyards. It’s forty-five minutes on the train from Paris but a hundred times more peaceful. No suitcases, sirens or heavy ‘circulation’! Georgie and Manu are renovating their house bit by bit – it’s full of character – and they live a very eco-oriented life.  

The long garden complete with Granny Flat (la dépendance), veggie patch, walnut trees and mown paths slopes down in the direction of the river.  It’s a bucolic idyll and the three boys – Ralphie’s twin brothers are now six – charge around the garden, their playground. So far, they are living a screen-free life (not even a TV), which I so admire, their imaginations free to roam, their attention unshackled by technology.

We all did a bit of drawing after lunch. Even I, who can’t draw a stick man, managed a decent flamingo thanks to a book that steps you through the process. A delightfully bonding family day – good for the soul – and I have bagged a spot in the dépendance for future trips. And next time I’m eager to try the walnut wine which was still at the macerating stage when I visited.

Monday, my last day in Paris, I explored Le Grand Mosquée, which is in the Latin Quarter near the Jardin des Plantes, the Botanic Garden.  It was built to honour the African, mostly Muslim, soldiers who fought in the First World War and was inaugurated in July 1926.   

Reminding me of my March trip to Malaga and visit to the Alcazaba, the Grand Mosque is built in the Hispano-Moorish style with the familiar arches, decorative tiles, Arabic calligraphy, intricate geometric patterns, Mahgrebin carved cedar wood and lush courtyard garden with fountains. It’s wonderfully peaceful, a place for quiet contemplation and, unlike the museums, not crowded. I was flagging by lunchtime – jetlag maybe – so rather than have lunch at the mosque’s café, where you can get a full meal – tajines, couscous etc., – or mint tea and Arabic sweet treats, I decided to visit the ladies only hammam (steam bath).

In keeping with the mosque, the hammam is a tranquil space with detailed mosaics, arches and ornate plasterwork. Years ago, I was scrubbed to smithereens in a Moroccan hammam so this time I opted for a simple steam bath without the ‘gommage’ option (exfoliation).  The dress code is bathers or a bikini – topless is fine but you need some form of ‘bottoms’. I hadn’t planned to go to the hammam so didn’t have either – spontaneity has its drawbacks! So here I was topless in a Turkish bath trying – in faltering French – to navigate how it all worked and in what order – from the difficult-to-shut 1 Euro lockers to the wrist tag, plastic slippers and showering protocol.

I got myself into the main room which has a long marble ledge running down each side, divided into three alcoves for sitting or lying in and furnished with buckets and water taps. I lay down and semi-relaxed but it would have been better to have a friend to lounge about and laugh with. After a while I graduated to the furthest room, which is more like a sauna with stepped ledges – the higher you go the hotter it gets – and a cold-water dipping pool. This is where my M & S undies got the full immersion treatment!

Once I was fully steamed and cooked, I progressed to an anteroom, where they bring you mint tea, which, although teeth-squeakingly sweet, is refreshing. I emerged feeling rejuvenated but, with damp knickers and damp hair, I soon lost the glow and warmth of the steam room as I was walking around the nearby Jardin des Plantes. On went the fingerless gloves and then I found a small café where I had a very overpriced but warming cup of tea, enough for me to enjoy all the autumn colours, pumpkin displays and curious woolly plants while I dried out!

Within three and a half hours of stepping off the plane from Australia via Hong Kong to Paris, I was shuffling along in the queue (which moved surprisingly fast) outside Notre Dame. Time-travel at its best, I had left Melbourne on a Thursday afternoon in the spring to arrive in Paris on a Friday morning, a warmish autumn day, shifting culture, language and centuries as I gazed up at the façade of one of the world’s most famous gothic cathedrals, the first stone of which was laid in 1163 during the reign of Louis VII.

What a way to ‘land’ in Europe! Stepping through one of the intricately carved portals, the first thing I noticed was the quality of light – the resplendent nave and vaulted ceiling, the whiteness of the newly cleaned stone, the sparkling stained-glass windows – the reds and blues standing out in particular.  Reading up on Notre Dame, purists argue that it’s now too squeaky clean without centuries of accumulated candle smoke and grime, but I disagree. The restoration is – and continues to be – a triumph thanks to the craftmanship and expertise of the many artisans, conservationists, sculptors, stonemasons, stained-glass artists, carpenters and experts involved, not to mention the sourcing of 1,000 oak trees from approximately 200 forests across France for the roof and spire. The restoration is due to be completed in 2026.

I’m straying into cliché now but arriving during a service, the organ playing – incidentally all 8000 pipes were individually cleaned – and following along to the Lord’s Prayer in English – was a beacon of light moment, of hopefulness, in our ever more troubled and conflict-ridden world. The restoration of Notre Dame following the 2019 fire is an encouraging reminder of what can be achieved when political will combined with public, private and business funding unite around a single vision. And the fire has served as a reminder for us all – witness the queues to get in – how precious these ancient monuments are. I don’t know about you, but I took Notre Dame for granted – I certainly didn’t visit it last time I went to Paris in 2019.

Being a bit of a swot, I rented an audio guide covering Notre Dame’s history. I discovered that the north rose window with its central image of Mary with the Christ Child still has most of the 13th century glass intact – extraordinary. The original Crown of Thorns is believed to reside at Notre Dame, brought to Paris from Jerusalem in 1263. The Crown of Thorns survived the fire, but its glass case was broken. The new reliquary designed by French artist Sylvain Dubuisson is stunning. I could have stayed for the monthly veneration service of the Holy Crown of Thorns but the jetlag was beginning to bite so I carried on with my tour admiring the contemporary tapestries hanging in the side chapels in the north aisle – my favourite Polynesia, the Sky and Polynesia, the Sea, woven in 1972 after the cut papers by Henri Matisse,  before moving onto the 14th century sculpted wall scenes from the life of Christ in the choir enclosure.

I was drawn to the newly created chapel for Eastern Christians (this was not included in my audio guide, but I have since learnt it was inaugurated in May 2025) displaying the eight icons that pay tribute to the founding figures of the great Eastern Churches. But I have to admit to not being sure about the new modern altar – a bronze bowl-like structure which looked more like a bath to me and had nothing of the sacred about it.

Much more mysterious was the how the play of light around the sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Jesus in her lap at the High Altar cast an almost spectral silhouette of Mary’s hands onto the black and white flagstones.  Similarly, the statue of Joan of Arc and the statue of the Virgin Mary, both of which avoided the fire, seemed to be ringed with an auric kind of white light. Quite magical.

After a pitstop in a café near Notre Dame – where a local told me I had to shut my menu to signal I had made my choice before anyone would take my order (great intel!) – I had a bit of a rest back at the Holiday Inn Gare de Lyons, where I was staying gratis thanks to my brother generously donating his points.

My plan for the evening was to visit the Jacquemart-André Museum in the Boulevard Haussman in the 8th arrondissement.  They have late night openings on Fridays with drinks and platters on offer at Le Nélie, the salon de thé.  I had it all mapped out, except I didn’t…

I had read that the nearest RER station was Charles de Gaulle-Étoile, which is true, but there’s a much closer metro stop. The best laid plans and all that… A transport volunteer at Charles de Gaulle-Étoile told me the museum was a good half-hour’s walk, or I could take the 22 bus. It was pouring with rain but, determined to get there, I went on up to street level and discovered I was at the Champs-Élysées, which was gridlocked with rush hour traffic. I found the 22 bus and jumped aboard only to find I needed to be ‘de l’autre côté’ but which autre côté? The Champs-Élysées roundabout is hectic at the best of times, and amid the cacophony of coups de klaxon (cue a smug moment remembering the words for car horn from my schoolgirl French), I felt I couldn’t distract the driver by asking which side he meant.

I got off the bus and back into the sheeting rain, where I took an “I woz ‘ere” photo for some fellow tourists and asked them to do the same for me. Then I took a deep breath and thought through my options. It was now getting towards 7.30pm – even if I found the right bus, the traffic was at a standstill and I’d be unlikely to get there till after 8pm. This was overly ambitious for my straight-off-the-plane day one.  Too hard basket was the conclusion. I retraced my steps and went back to the Gare de Lyon area where I indulged in a spot of people-watching over a simple but delicious dinner and a glass of rosé at a local bistro. A good decision move as it turns out. You’ll find out why in Part 2.

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A short sojourn in Paris Part 1: Notre Dame resplendent and risen from the ashes

How making the most of a Melbourne winter saved me from travel envy

Over the winter friends and family have shared northern hemisphere holidays photos – lots of wish-you-were-here vibes. There’ve been pictures of sardines grilling in Southern Spain, Gothic churches in Germany, flower-lined canals in Utrecht, dazzling white-washed vistas in Santorini, yodel-inducing Swiss alpine scenes, lush green coastal paths in Devon, quirky markets and Lord’s Cricket Ground in London and windswept beaches at the northernmost tip of Denmark.

I’ve enjoyed looking at the pictures and have imagining myself there in mind and body, but I haven’t felt an ounce of envy. I’ve been just fine and dandy staying put in Melbourne. The Melbourne winter can bite, especially the wind, but it’s mild compared to a UK winter. Although I feel the cold, there’s nothing more energising than a rain- and wind-lashed walk on the beach with the dog children – Rupert, the dachsie, my canine nephew, has ‘over-wintered’ with me and Bertie.

I enjoy the seasonal variation – summer can be very intense requiring a lot of sunscreen slip, slop, slap – and finding warmth in soups, stews, candles, hot baths and snuggling with the dogs on the sofa. There are grey days in the mix which make me feel right at home but there are also some glorious sunny days in the high teens, when there’s no better place to hang out than in my courtyard garden.

Immersing myself in artsy things has provided another form of nourishment these last few months. One of the zanier exhibitions my friend Kaliopi and I went to was Swingers – The Art of Mini Golf. I had no idea that mini golf had its origins in feminism. In the 19th Century a group of Scottish women, rebelling at being told that swinging a golf stick was unladylike, commissioned a 9-hole putting-only course which became known as the Himalayas due to the uneven terrain. The course still exists today, alongside St Andrews Golf Course near Edinburgh.

Swingers is an interactive exhibition staged in the former Victorian Rail Institute ballroom upstairs at Flinders Street Station. We navigated the nine-hole golf course created by nine female and gender-diverse artists. My favourite was the first hole, a big, bold and colourful desert scene by Yankunytjatjaraartist Kaylene Whiskey, complete with Greyhound bus and featuring Cathy Freeman and Dolly Parton. Putting is harder than it looks – you’re never going to get me playing golf – but we navigated the course as best we could.

Other works included videos of the Teletubbies, an eerie Carnival Clown face, spooky scenes reminiscent of the Mexican Day of the Dead and, at one of the holes, we had to attach a latex animal tail and swing it with our bodies to putt the ball. Well, what can I say, maybe if you’re as flexible as a hula hoop dancer… Much hilarity ensued but it did nothing for our technique.

Another big pop of colour came courtesy of another feminist – in July I went up to Bendigo in regional Victoria to see Frida Kahlo: in her own image. As well as her paintings, self-portraits and the fabulous costumes, jewellery and flowers that she wore are some of her personal items that were sealed in a bathroom for 50 years after her death. These include lipsticks, powder compacts, medicines and herbal tinctures. As well as polio aged six, she suffered a horrendous accident in 1925 leading to life-long injuries when a streetcar collided with the bus she was travelling in. During her recovery she began to paint and used mirrors and an easel positioned over her bed. She underwent multiple surgical interventions, lived with chronic pain and had to wear a corset every day from 1944.

What shines through is her resilience, her deep love of animals and the natural world, her courage not only to channel her pain and disability into art but her readiness to challenge the prevailing societal and political norms. She was the daughter of a German/Hungarian father and a Mexican mestiza mother and, rather than follow the European-influenced fashions of the time, she honoured her Indigenous heritage and wore the traditional blouses, skirts and shawls from the Tehuantepec Isthmus, a matriarchal society. And although her life was cut short by gangrene in 1953, she lived to the full. She and Diego Rivera had an up and down marriage, they both had affairs – Frida even had a brief affair with Leon Trotsky. She was a member of the Mexican Communist party and painted one of her plaster corsets with a hammer and sickle.

Continuing with all things Hispanic, and following my March trip to Malaga, I saw five exquisite films at the Spanish Film Festival and luxuriated in the cadence and rhythms of the language. My two favourites were Wolfgang, a warm-hearted comedy about a nine-year-old highly intelligent boy with autism spectrum disorder, who re-establishes a relationship with his father following the death of his mother. And Ocho, a love story set across eight decades and eight defining moments in Spain’s history including the Civil War which split friends and families apart. A masterful and magical movie from the 2025 Malaga Film Festival.

A creole mass – Missa Criolla by Argentinian Ariel Ramirez – in a city church was a revelation. In place of the traditional Latin Mass, this was a folksy mass featuring dance, instrumental and song forms from Argentina blending Indigenous, African and European influences. The concert included other gems ranging from Spanish classical guitar pieces and a Peruvian hymn in the Quechua language to an Afro-Brazilian chant by Villa-Lobos, and Libertango, a piece composed by Argentinian tango composer Piazzolla. You’ll likely know the famous instrumental version, but we heard the choral adaption by Oscar Escalada with voices playing the parts of instruments.

I came out of the concert with an Andean beat pulsing in my veins, the maracas sounding in my ears and added South America to my travel wish list.  There’s been a strong Hispanic thread this winter. A few months ago, I went to a jazz club in north Melbourne to hear the Brazjaz Ensemble headed up by Carlos Ferreira, a Samba specialist from Rio de Janeiro. It was the real deal – mellow, moody and intense – and the newly graduated (2022) flautist, Yael Zamir, gave an extraordinary performance. The set included about five songs, two of which I recognised from a CD I used to play in my London days in the 90s.  

I’m a big fan of escapist musicals – it’s easier than meditation – that transport me to a make-believe world. Beetlejuice with Eddie Perfect was no exception. It’s a dark comedy about ghosts, zombies, life and death with a great score including a couple of Harry Belafonte favourites – Day-O and Shake Senora.

I went with my friend Angela and her daughter Alice, and we indulged in a Beetlejuice-themed high tea beforehand which included ghoulish lime green cocktail, black and white sugar snakes, dark chocolate and pepper scones, shrunken head tarte and a smoking concoction that added to the mystique.

This Sunday, I celebrated the last day of winter by going up to Kyneton to see Alice – a rising star – perform in Mary Poppins with Sprout Theatre, a youth musical company in the Macedon Ranges.  A wonderfully high energy production performed by a cast of talented young people ranging from tiny tots in the junior class to teenagers in the senior classes. Beautifully staged and choreographed, it was a knockout with great singing and dancing including coordinated moves and can-can kicks that must have taken a fair bit of rehearsing. As a two left feet person, I was impressed.  Absolutely supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Mary Poppins is one of my all-time favourite musicals, and its story and messages are as relevant today as they ever were; family is more important than work and money, find the silver linings and positives “Just a spoonful of sugar”, and believe in the power of creativity and imagination: “Anything can happen if you let it.” Sound advice!

Remembering adventures in Western Australia – Eye Candy Colin, coral reefs, Carnarvon, cancelled in Karratha and the Karijini National Park

A colleague recently travelled with his family to the Kimberley in Western Australia (WA), hiking in the remote bush. Hearing of his tales and seeing the photos reminded me of my travels and adventures in WA in 2003, and prompted me to dig out my photo album*. The characters I met were as colourful as the sea- and landscapes I explored. *please excuse the grainy photos photographed from said album.

On a mature gap year in Australia – my house in Oxford rented out – I had been staying with friends of friends in Freemantle, a suburb of Perth, camping in their garden.  A bit less Princess and the Pea than I am now, I shared the tent with a littler of Jack Russell puppies for company. I’d wake up with the puppies snuggled in my armpit, across my belly and around my head. How I adored them, particularly one of them whom I named Oscar.

From Perth I travelled north up to Exmouth with Australian Adventure Tours. The tour included sandboarding in Geraldton, marvelling at the Pinnacles, ancient limestones formations – some rather phallic-looking – as our guide Colin was (very) quick to point out, hanging out with bottlenose dolphins at Monkey Mia in the Shark Bay World Heritage Area and learning about the nearby Hamelin Pool stromatolites, layered sedimentary rock formations, single-celled organisms, that produce oxygen in a saltwater environment and were once the dominant lifeforce on earth! We passed through Carnarvon (my diary reading simply: Boiling! Banana plantations, NASA dish, supermarket and, according to Colin, the cheapest grog till Broome), swam with the whale sharks at Coral Bay, a wonderfully life-affirming – and energetic – experience, drank in orangey-red dawn and dusk skies and travelled on red dust dirt roads.


We stayed at various old homesteads and stations including Warroora Station (meaning Woman’s Place in the local Aboriginal language), where we made raisin damper, sat round the campfire, and where I did my best to keep Colin at bay.  I was the odd number on the tour; our party consisted of two gay girls from Tasmania, two rather inflexible German girls (they eschewed the damper at breakfast saying: “nein danke, only ever muesli in the morning”) and two sweet and giggly Japanese girls.

Colin was unapologetically Colin endlessly searching beaches for ‘Eye Candy’ and regaling us with apocryphal stories of past conquests such as Debbie from Essex.  He was sweet on me, insisting I sit next to him in the front of the van and dropping inuendo-laden hints, but I came away unscathed bar some campfire hugs. While he was a bit of a tour guide cliché, he created camaraderie, kept us all entertained and energised and loved his job.  

making damper

My next stop was the Ningaloo Reef Retreat (before it got upmarket and swanky). Ranger Dave with his bright eyes and rasta blond hair took out us to the turtle beds and kayaking on the Blue Lagoon. Sadly, even then, more than 20 years ago, there were sections of dead coral but what I remember more is the extraordinary diversity of marine life, the dazzling colours and quirky names of the fish. To name a few, we saw sailfin catfish, the harlequin snake eel, Tawny nurse sharks, Christmas Tree worms, fusiliers, humbugs, sweetlips and convict surgeon fish being chased by black damsels. A very different vibe from Colin’s tour, Dave was more Hippie Hippie Shake and exuded the kind of positive energy that comes from living close to nature. I also enjoyed the company of Mike, a curator of Indigenous art, a chain smoker of roll-ups with gappy teeth and wild and woolly grey-blond hair, and his wife Ilse, a linguist.

From Ningaloo Reef I took the overnight bus to Karratha, a mining town, to join a tour to the Karijini National Park. Due to arrive at 6.30 am, I had booked into a backpacker’s, and, as arranged, the manager came to meet me at the service station. I had stayed in some wonderful youth hostels in the south of WA – at Denmark, at Bunbury and Albany. Here, my room overlooked a courtyard full of cigarette stubs and empty beer cans, there were ants, chicken bones and food on the floor in the kitchen, and I’ll spare you the detail of the bathrooms.  Tired from a night on the bus, I couldn’t handle the nicotine-imbued squalor. Looking back, I realise this place was a budget option for mine workers and transient labourers rather than travellers.

The manager was furious when I complained it was dirty. She screamed at me, blaming me for getting her out of bed at 6 am and flung $30 of the $50 I had paid into my hand and booted me out the door. In today’s parlance, we’d say I’d been cancelled!  Smarting from the experience, I cut a tragic figure wheeling my case along the streets looking for alternative accommodation. But all was well as I pitched up at the Mercure and for $98 (bargain!) got a sparklingly clean room, TV, air-con, private bathroom and access to the pool. Bliss.

At 7.30 am the next morning, Andrew from Snappy Gum Safaris picked me up for the tour I’d booked to the Karijini National Park. We had to wait around a bit as his brother Brendan was still in the shower and nursing a hangover and sore leg from coming off his motorbike the night before. Something about the camber of the road. Yeah, right… And guess what? I was the only one on the tour, a fact which came back to haunt me.

Karijini is iron ore country. It is vast, remote and characterised by rust red dirt roads, cliffs, gorges and large termite mounds interspersed with splashes of green ranging from the grey green of the gum trees and the spinifex grass to the brilliant jade of the water in the rock pools. It’s like being inside a Fred Williams painting.

It’s a four-to-five-hour drive and, with a few stops along the way – a deserted homestead and a spidery drop dunny – we got to our first stop at lunchtime, the Hamersley Gorge, where Brendan and I had a dip in a water hole, the waterfall giving our shoulders a gentle massage. Sounds good doesn’t it but the brothers were distant and disengaged, cross that they were not making any money by taking one person on the tour.   While there was no male/female tension, they were keen to get their pound of flesh.

By early evening we crossed the dry riverbed of the Fortescue River towards the Rio Tinto Gorge (note how the big mining companies have claimed and named the land as theirs) and the Dales Gorge camp site, which was just a patch of red earth. Here they set up our swags and, for mine, hitched up a mosquito net to a tree branch.

Dinner was cheap sausages cooked over a fire served with salad and, to drink, bog standard cask wine or Victoria Bitter (VB).  My diary reports the boys ‘romped through the VB’ and complained about penny-pinching backpackers.  I was almost starting to miss cuddly Colin.

By chance a group of four tourists – an English girl, a Dutch girl and two Canadian blokes – came over after dinner and asked Andrew and Brendan if they knew the park and the various hikes. They boys went into a huddle with them while I sipped at my wine. Dollar signs in their eyes, they turned back to me after about ten minutes and asked how I’d feel about changing the itinerary to walk the much-more-exciting Miracle Mile the next day? It’d be the walk of a lifetime, the said. The tourists were keen to engage them as guides. Ching Ching.

Miracle Mile, why not?  It sounded good and I didn’t want to be the party pooper.  I slept reasonably well in my swag –  apart from being startled awake by one of the boys shouting in his beer-soaked sleep, after which I got a bit lost going for a pee in the spinifex. No mobile phone torches in those days!  

After a light breakfast, the day started gently with a trip to the Joffrey Falls, Knox Gorge lookout and Oxers lookout which is the meeting point of four gorges.

And then the adventure started. No wonder they had stuck to the catchy Miracle Mile moniker rather than detailing what it involves. The Miracle Mile is within the Hancock Gorge and the Joffre Gorge and involves walking along extremely narrow 20-metre gorge walls. While we did have helmets, there was no rope, and one wrong foot could have spelled disaster.  

It was physically and mentally demanding, but what made it most challenging for me was being the odd one out while the other four were a bonded team, walking together and encouraging each other on. I’ve always loved a bit of solitude and peace and quiet, but this was uninvited exile. I changed schools a lot as a child, and this reminded me of being the new girl and not having a gang to belong to.

Looking but not feeling the part!

At one point I slipped and grazed my knee, irritating Andrew, who was walking behind me. Shaking, I picked myself up and pushed on, desperate not to let the others see my fear – and suppressed fury! We crawled, climbed, clambered and inched our way along, in parts spreadeagled between gorge walls, jumping into rock pools below and swimming between gorges, floating our day packs on air beds. Andrew and Brendan set challenges and dares for the others, while I waited around – like a spare part at a wedding – getting cold (think damp bathers in shaded gorges), tired and hungry. When I got back to the car at the end, I bit into an apple only to crack a tooth!

The scenery was out of this world SPECTACULAR but I’m appreciating it more all these years later looking back at the photos in my album. My diary description from 11 May 2003 is underwhelming: Fab gorges, layering and rocks but wasn’t happy in my head as Phil (an ex) would say.  It was a tough character-forming experience, but one I will never forget. And as my German teachers would say: it’s all grist to the mill. Indeed, and 22 years on it makes a good story for my blog!

Vale Connie – a tribute from Charlottie

I’ve already written about how I first met Connie in 1995 when I was travelling in Australia – I was in my 30s and Connie in her 60s (see https://thisquirkylife.com/2017/09/12/how-spiders-got-me-writing/). In summary, I was taking time out between jobs and had been offered the use of a cottage in Noojee in Gippsland. Picturing a quaint, rose-covered dwelling where I’d have time to do my own thing, write poetry, meditate and relax, I had eagerly accepted.

It didn’t turn out like that – the cottage was more of a shack. And as I got ready for bed on night one, I noticed a large black shape on my bed. I now know it was a huntsman but back then I thought all Australian spiders were deadly. And this one, large, rubbery and hairy, was unlikely to be an exception. After dispatching the spider to the afterlife, I lay tensely on my mattress on the floor flinching every time the loose spidery threads of the coverless duvet brushed against with my face and arms. And looking around the room, I noticed spider webs decorating the windowsills and skirting boards like a dusting of snow.  Suffice it to say I had no sleep, not a wink. And stepping into the shower the next morning, there was a spider dangling from the bare light bulb. It started to feel positively Hitchcockian.

I decided flight was the only option. Rather than return to the safety and comfort of suburbia, and my brother’s house and pool in Bayside, I got out my notebook with phone numbers of friends of friends and rang Connie from a phone booth. My dear friend Helen in the UK had met Connie and Norman in a camp site in Darwin in the late ‘80s and given me their contact details.

Hearing the high-pitched hysteria in my voice and my garbled tale about killer spiders, Connie gently said: “Would you like to come and stay?”  And so it was that I was soon on a train to Kyneton (Central Victoria) where Connie met me off the train with a big hug as if we’d know each other for years. And we never looked back.

I was embraced by Connie and her husband Norman as one of the family from the get-go and joined in the rhythm of their daily life, mainstays of which included porridge and poached eggs for breakfast, drinks and nibbles in the evening and roasts for dinner. I am indebted to Connie, an excellent (and published) writer herself, for encouraging me to write my first short story, and for believing in me as a writer. It was winter and she set me up with a table and typewriter with an oil-filled radiator for warmth. I still have the story – The Swim – typed up on now-yellowing paper.

And in 2009 when I was making a living, albeit a modest one, from writing travel and lifestyle articles, she helped me edit my article about fishing on the UK’s River Test entitled Duffer’s Day Out for the travel section of The Australian.

THE SWIM

I’ve never forgotten my stay with Connie and Norman in Kyneton. It was where I first tuned into Australian birds; they had a bird bath in the drive outside the kitchen window, and Connie identified the lorikeets, crimson rosellas, Australian magpies, wattle birds and pied currawongs. I learnt that the Australian magpie is not of the crow family like its Eurasian counterpart. And I grew to love its melodic warbling song, so unlike the cackling of the magpies I had grown up with. To do this day, I always think of Connie and tap into something grounding and quintessentially Australian when I hear the magpie’s song.  

After moving to Australia in 2004 I visited Connie and Norman several times in their new home in Shoalhaven Heads in NSW. And once again I slipped into their way of life, comforted by the unchanging routine of porridge and poached eggs for breakfast– often on the balcony in the early morning sun. Connie and I talked about family, books and writing, Norman tinkered with his boat, and I went for walks to the beach armed with a stick that Norman made for me to scare off any snakes that might be dozing nearby. Connie and I also went into Sydney to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.  I don’t remember exactly what we saw – it may have been paintings in the permanent collection – but it was a treat as Connie knew her art and helped me view the pictures from a more informed perspective.   

It was entirely fitting that Connie and Norman, such an integral part of my Australian ‘journey’, attended my Australian Citizenship Ceremony in June 2007. Other shared milestone celebrations included Norman’s 90th birthday party in Melbourne – a wonderful gathering of the family and extended family clan. And, over time, I can’t pinpoint exactly when, Connie began to call me Charlottie, a fitting hybrid name used exclusively by the Tout-Smith family. We also had fun and a lot of giggles playing with various English regional dialects and came up with Noite Loite, which is night light spoken with a West Country accent! Noite Loite became something of a recurring refrain in our conversations.

I last saw Connie in March 2024 in Adelaide where she had moved to live with her daughter Lynda. She was frail and suffering from cancer, and I knew it might be the last time I would see her. We played the game Bananagrams – Connie still a woman of letters and a dab hand at building words. At the same time, I felt that in Connie’s memory Helen and I may have become one and the same person – there was an element of confusion, one that presented an elegant closure of the circle. “I always did love you,” said Connie, and I, biting my lip not to cry, accepted her heartfelt words for both of us. Helen had her own formative experiences with Connie during an extended stay in Kyneton. Under Connie’s care and guidance, she encouraged Helen to join the local writer’s group and also to practise her art – one of her works was shown at an outdoor exhibition in Melbourne.

When her daughter Deb rang to tell me in late February that Connie had died peacefully in the early morning surrounded by her family, I recalled how I’d been spellbound on my dog walk that morning at the sight of several hot air balloons silhouetted against the rose-pink sky. Looking back, it feels like it was Connie’s spirit soaring home. I won’t say heavenwards as, although Connie was the daughter of a Reverend who served as a missionary in Fiji and Rotuman, she wasn’t religious.  

I was deeply saddened by the news of her death, but I was thrilled to be invited to Connie’s Celebration of Life event in mid-May. The event was held in Campbelltown, NSW, in the aged care facility where Connie’s 93-year-old sister lives.

With photographs from Connie’s life rotating on the screen – wonderful shots of her as a girl and beautiful young woman that I had never seen before – family and friends came together to celebrate all that she was and all that she contributed to the world.

I already knew Connie as an accomplished writer, a regular diarist, a keen reader, a cryptic crossword solver, a connoisseur of art, a good cook, a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend, a generous spirit with the warmest of smiles and biggest of hearts, but I hadn’t realised the depth of her creative life. And that’s, I suspect, because Connie was extremely modest. In Deb’s beautiful tribute I discovered that Connie was a talented piano player and received a diploma from the Associate in Music, Australia (AMusA), an award for outstanding candidates. And in later life she embarked on a Master of Fine Art at Melbourne University. While illness prevented her from completing it, she was able to use her expertise as a volunteer guide at Melbourne’s National Gallery of Art.

When her nephew reminisced about visits to Connie and Norman and mentioned the pattern of their lives – morning poached eggs and all – I reflected just how lucky I was that I had known Connie and Norman and been part of the family. Vale Connie.  I dedicate this blog to you as my dear friend, writing muse and inspiration. May you rest in peace.

Back in England: family, fine art, an old flame, a (very) old tree and teeth on the table

A highlight of this trip was meeting up with an old flame for the first time in over 25 years. We met in the ‘80s in London when I was his lodger and the world was a very different place. After years of communicating via Christmas cards between America and Australia, we were, at last, going to be in London at the same time. The anticipation and getting ready were half the fun. Limited to a travel wardrobe and my hair out of shape, my beloved sister came to the rescue. Despite our combined age of just over 130, we were like teenagers again. She helped me get ready, backcombed my hair, lent me a coat and scarf and some jazzy earrings. It was wonderfully bonding.

Lance and I met at the Cavalry and Guards Club in Piccadilly. Honouring the Club’s formal dress code, he was wearing an elegant blue suit and orange silk tie – the word dashing comes to mind. He’d hardly changed at all, and we effortlessly took up where we left off in what proved to be a fun and fond evening. Dining on the best of British at the wonderfully-named Noble Rot in Mayfair, we reminisced, caught up on all the years in between and shared unrealistic ex-pat dreams – he and his family now live in San Francisco – about how nice it’d be to own a pad in London and to stay for three months every year.

He remains a stalwart drinker, a bon viveur, a keen golfer and, while politically poles apart from me, he’s stylish, has artistic sensitivity and impeccable taste. He always did have a dry sense of humour. Quote of the evening had to be “Well, Cha (he’s the only person in the world who calls me Cha) it’s good to know, as a former lover, that you have found happiness with a dog.”

In a small world moment, Lance had seen the exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 at the Met that I was about to see at the National Gallery. In fact, some of the photos I am sharing are his.  It was an exquisite exhibition, and an extraordinary one with many of the works reassembled for the first time in centuries.

To quote from the National Gallery:

Simone Martini’s Orsini polyptych, split between Antwerp, Paris and Berlin is together again. His panels for the Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico altarpiece are reunited. 

Panels from Duccio’s Maestà, one of the largest and most complex altarpieces ever produced, on loan from Madrid, Fort Worth, New York and Washington and his ‘Virgin and Child’ and ‘Crucifixion’ triptychs come together.

Siena, I learnt, was one of the world’s richest cities and a major centre for artistic innovation and experimentation before the Italian Renaissance and up till the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348.  

What I loved was the sweep of the exhibition from the large, commissioned altarpieces, shimmering gold, to smaller paintings as well as ivory carvings, intricate enamelled boxes, reliquaries with fragments of bones, silks and textiles from Iran and Turkey, marble and wooden sculptures and illustrated manuscripts. The level of detail and the vividness of the colours – particularly the  blues, oranges, reds, purples and pinks – pulled me in as did the emotion and humanity in many of the pictures; the tender face of Mary, baby Jesus reaching up to pull aside the veil from his mother’s face and, my favourite, a picture of Jesus as a boy being told off by his parents and sporting a sulky teenage face and crossed arms.

Jesus getting scolded!

Seeing great nephews and nieces is always a joy on my UK trips, the catch being that it’s all or nothing, and I miss out on many of their milestones from trip to trip. I enjoyed reading Hairy Maclary to Dougie, who is now coming up for two, walking, talking and being schooled in the art of calling me Lot-Lot.

Up in Nottinghamshire with Mum, I caught up with my great nieces – Millie and Imogen from Yorkshire. Millie at 14 months was too young to recognise me but I got a great welcome Imogen, who is nearly five. I’d decorated the dining room with bunting and balloons, but much more exciting was doing the washing up standing on the step and playing peek-a-boo through the (rather old-fashioned) serving hatch between kitchen and dining room. That and ragging around with my eldest brother, the most devoted grand-father ever.

Mum had a rocky start to the year but has fought back amazingly well. So it was a triumph to manage a fun day out together and lay down new memories. At 93 it’s a case of carpe diem. We went down the A1 to Lincolnshire to see a heritage-listed tree – not just any old tree but possibly the oldest known apple tree in the world. The tree where Isaac Newton had his aha gravity moment.

The tree is in the garden of the Woolsthorpe Manor (now a National Trust property) where Newton was born in 1643. Inside the house is the room where he conducted his experiments on light using a prism, a recreated dining room, kitchen and bedroom with lots of heavy oak furniture, and exhibition on the 17th Century uses of urine. These ranged from mouth wash, skin softening, reducing wrinkles (I’m not up for trying it on the crow’s feet!) and stain removal to making gunpowder and warding off witches. It was also prized as a valuable side-hustle commodity you could sell to soap-makers and tanners – there was no Airbnb and Uber back then.

The apple tree, somewhat gnarled and bent, has proved amazingly resilient and survived being felled by a major storm in 1820. And, even better, the tree has offshoots all around the world including in Canada, the US, Argentina, Germany, South Africa, Korea, Japan and Australia. And the tree’s Australian descendants are not far from where I live.  

We enjoyed the spring sun but there was a biting wind, so we warmed up with a sandwich lunch in the barn and I enjoyed a nice British cuppa, one of 13.6 million served in National Trust cafés annually!

The weeks with Mum in her village near Retford in Nottinghamshire had some surprisingly busy days whether it was medical appointments, relatives coming over, neighbours popping in and out, the window cleaner appearing at the top windows early one morning when we were only half dressed, the boiler being serviced, supermarket shop-ups, a trip to the tip to get rid of rubbish from the garage – and managing all the things old age throws at you.

Mum and I had a few fraught moments due to an unholy alliance of old age irritations – hearing, digestion, eyes, poor sleep and anxiety topped off with a very nasty cold which we both succumbed to. Mum had two macular eye injections in one week, and for one of them I managed to leave all forms of payment behind on the kitchen table. Emerging from the injection feeling wobbly and seeing black dots, Mum wasn’t best pleased that I had no means of paying for the parking, which would likely result in a written penalty. You’re never too old to get a good ticking-off.  Luckily a kind-hearted woman gave us the £1.75.

However, that evening dinner was a disaster. I’d managed to make the sausage skins tough and the broccoli too crunchy (Goldilocks would have had a field day). Mum, cross and tired and unable to chew adequately, took out her dental plate and put it on the table where it sat accusingly. Mum’s teeth were out, and mine were firmly clenched. A bit of a Swords at Dawn moment!

Needless to say, we’d moved on by the next morning and, girls together, we both had 10.30am hair appointments – nothing like a haircut to make you feel better. Adjacent basins wondered my brother? Not quite but that’d be a good title for an Alan Bennett play!

I timed my trip to include Mother’s Day on my last weekend, and my sister came up from London to join us. Flowers, chocolates, coffee by the canal in Retford and roast chicken in the Aga. And time to read Mum a few more stories from Craig Brown’s A Voyage around the Queen, an entertaining biography with a difference. I bought it on the strength of this review from The Times:  “An unconventional tribute that offers a snapshot of almost a century of social history with a mix of royal insanity, and superior anecdotes, from farts and corgis to Paul McCartney and poets laureate.” And it absolutely delivered; Mum, I’ll be back to read you more extraordinary Royal tales (and tails) before you know it.

Rediscovering Spain Part 2/2: Picasso, paella, pajarete and more

It was Michael Portillo, he of the brightly coloured jackets and train journeys, who inspired me to choose Malaga as my stop-off place on the way to the UK. There’s a lot more to Malaga than being a gateway to the Costa del Sol.

Another reason I chose Malaga is that it’s very walkable, its compact city centre perfect for meandering, mooching about and soaking up the vibe. In the past I’ve tended to cram too much into my European trips – partly because living on the other side of the world engenders terrible FOMO.  

I stayed in a small Airbnb studio in a quiet residential area about ten minutes’ walk from the city centre. It was nothing fancy, but I felt completely at home and enjoyed watching the comings and goings in the street below from my narrow window balcony.

Walking to and from the centre I tapped into timelessness again (see Rediscovering Spain Part 1) noticing something new every time – a few hole-in-the-wall shops, seemingly unchanged over decades, selling salami, processed cheese, tulipán margarine (Spain’s version of Flora), bottled water, olive oil and packets of this and that. I spotted lots of traditional barber shops, one with a window artfully decorated with 45 vinyl record sleeves. Then there were the glass-fronted balconies, the lantern-style streetlamps and decorative tiles on house fronts depicting religious scenes (lots of those) or various trades or symbols related to the original homeowners. And crowded tapas bars at lunchtime, the scruffier, the more authentic.

From the roof terrace of my Airbnb, I looked over to the church of San Felipe Neri, a baroque church with distinctive green and white tiles on the bell towers. Listening to the bells ring out several times a day, a pure and undiluted sound, I felt a great sense of serenity and groundedness. I’ve always loved church bells.  Although I didn’t do a tour of Malaga Cathedral, I did go into another church, Santo Cristo de La Salud, in the centre. Drawn in by its terracotta exterior and circular stained-glass window, I went and in sat for a few minutes looking up at the domed ceiling, feeling into the sanctity, time stopping still.

Thwarted in my attempt to visit the Picasso Museum (sold out even in low season!) on day one, I joined a tour of the Moorish fortress, The Alcazaba. I am somewhat spoilt having lived and studied for nearly five months in Granada in the ‘80s with the Alhambra Palace and the Generalife Gardens a half-hour climb up the hill from where I was living.  Given today’s mass and over-tourism issues, I realise how extraordinarily lucky I was to have had unfettered access to a UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of the most magnificent examples of Islamic art in Spain.

Like the Alhambra, the Alcazaba sits on a strategic hilltop and was previously a Roman settlement. The tour started at the Roman theatre and the site of sunken pits which housed fermented fish sauce called garum, the Roman equivalent of umami flavouring.

The glory days of the Alhambra and Alcazaba ended with the Catholic conquest – the Reconquista – which culminated in 1492 when Granda, the final Moorish stronghold, surrendered to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I. The Alcazaba was largely abandoned by the 18th century, damaged during the Napoleonic wars and, again, during the Spanish civil war.

Restoration started in the 1930s – our guide pointed out some of the remaining Moorish parts: the double walls, one inside the other, making the fortress harder to attack along with the bent entrances, the cobbled paths that double back on themselves, another defensive feature to slow down potential attackers; the carved caliphal-style horseshoe-shaped arches at the entrance to the main hall, the Taifa Palace; the 8-point star in the paving stones; a number of carved wooden ceilings with their intricate geometric patterns from the Mudejar tradition, a style blending Islamic and Christian artistic traditions, and a decorative arched niche set into the wall that would have housed water, perfume or flowers.

To my mind nothing comes up to the Patio de Las Arrayanes (the Courtyard of the Myrtles) at the Alhambra, but the Alcazaba’s restored gardens and series of courtyards and patios with tiled pools nonetheless have charm and offer a tranquil place for reflection.  

I was hungry and thirsty after all the hill climbing so I repaired to Bar El Pimpi at lunchtime, another Michael Portillo recommendation. Something of a Malaga institution since the 1970s, El Pimpi is a wine cellar with lots of different patios and rooms. I found a stool at the bar and ordered sangria, tortilla espaňola (Spanish omelette) and habas con jamón (a stew of jamón serrano and broad beans). The omelette came doorstep-size and was disappointingly dry, but the beans and sangria were excellent. I got chatting to a couple Chris and Kat, from Ireland and West Virginia respectively. They are in their 50s, have sold their businesses and are enjoying the freedom to travel. They were heading to a spa after lunch and hadn’t bothered with any of the museums or sights. No FOMO there!

After a much-needed siesta – take a pinch of jetlag and a glass of sangria – I popped out again in the early evening. Not quite ready to do a Chris and Kat and eschew all museums, I was keen to check out Picasso’s birthplace – a house with beautiful stained-glass fan lights overlooking the Plaza de la Merced, a five-minute walk from where I was staying. Open till 8pm, it was perfect for the post-siesta, pre-dinner slot.

Picasso came from a wealthy bourgeois family and lived in Malaga until he was nine. The Museo Casa Natal de Picasso documents his early artistic influences, including his painter father, and his classical training. Despite spending most of his life in France, Malaga and Spain stayed in his blood. His father took him to the bullring as a child and bulls, bullfighting and the mythical minotaur all feature prominently in his work. Much has been written about Picasso and his representation of the bull and the bull as his alter ego. I am no fan of the bullfight, but I admired the elegant simplicity of his line drawings and painted ceramics featuring bulls and the bullring.

I went to the Picasso Museum the next morning. It’s housed in a traditional house with a courtyard and decorated with Mudejar wooden ceilings and rooftiles. A timeline on the wall describes the key events in Picasso’s life including two World Wars, the Russian Revolution, the 1949 First International Peace Congress in Paris (featuring Picasso’s “Dove of Peace” lithograph on the poster) the Vietnam War, JFK’s assassination and the advent of TV.

From the classical – a tender picture of his sister, Lola, with a doll dated 1896 –  to African masks, vases and pitchers to his cubist works and some of the more distorted surrealist pieces – the museum takes you through the stages of his artistic life, the extraordinary diversity of his work and all the different media he used – wood, plaster, bronze, linocuts, line drawings, metal, cigar boxes, clay etc.  It’s an understatement to say that Picasso was/is a complex and controversial figure, but I came away understanding a little more about his approach to art, his blurring the lines between classicism and cubism, and his exploration of what he considered the artifice of all artistic practice.

The café at the Picasso Museum is in a quiet courtyard lined with pots of bright red geraniums and orange kumquats. Scarred by ordering tea with milk at El Pimpi and receiving a pot of frothed slightly sweetened milk and a tea bag – an aberration – I chose coffee! I discovered that a weak coffee is a nube, a cloud, and the next strength up is a sombra, shade. Useful things for the traveller to know! And I enjoyed another moment of calm and quiet in a spot overlooked by a church.

On my last day, I had a slow morning – packing, stretching and doing admin. Then after a long walk along the Paseo del Parque, a park running alongside the harbour and planted with tropical and sub-tropical species, I looped back into the centre for some lunch, enjoying the views back towards the Alcazaba and adjoining Gilbralfaro Castle.

Following Chris and Kat’s recommendation, I headed for the Mercado de Atarazanas. The market was a boatyard during the Islamic period, the Moorish archway at the main entrance still part of the design today, and on the other side an impressive stained glass arched window depicts Malaga’s city scape.  It’s busy, bustling and bursting with fresh produce, tapas and aperitif stalls. I was a bit late but just made it in time to feast on paella for lunch, and to discuss with the stallholders how to get that toasted crusty layer of rice on the bottom and the layering of textures and flavours over that. What a treat!  

And to round off my afternoon, I visited another Chris and Kat recommendation, the Antigua Casa de Guardia, a bodega founded in 1840. Once again it was like going back in time. Lined with oak barrels, you choose which sherry or wine you want, and they chalk up the price on the wooden bar. I chose pajarete, a fortified wine aged for five years. A delicious and sweet note to end my stay in Malaga.

Rediscovering Spain (Part 1 of 2) – Madrid to Malaga

It had been a long time since I last visited Spain – probably back in the ‘90s when I made a couple of brief visits for work during my publishing days. Many moons ago I studied Spanish (and German) at university, and even tuning into the children’s cartoons playing above the luggage carousel at Madrid airport was exciting; just as well as my case took nearly an hour to appear!

Despite the bracing early March weather, eight degrees and wet and windy (it was mid-20s when I left Melbourne), I was off and out the minute I’d checked into my hotel, keen to make the most of my afternoon and evening in Madrid.

I was staying in the Barrio de las Letras, the literary quarter, home to many of Spain’s writers from the 17th-century Golden Age, a deliberate choice as my degree was largely literature-based. All the names came flooding back, Cervantes (Don Quixote), Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina who, in his play El Burlador (seducer) de Sevilla), introduced the world to Don Juan, the charming hero-villain, a character with folk legend status made famous by Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni and the subject of many books, plays and films since.  I was in my element walking along elegant, cobbled streets dotted with early spring blossoms in the company of these literary greats who were variously honoured in colourful tiled mosaics, street signs, cafés, Metro Station names and quotations engraved on the pavements.  

I barely noticed the cold and that my feet were soaked through to my socks. Such was the excitement and cultural immersion. I had a few pit stops – an arty café where I dipped into a slim novella, Réquiem Por Un Campesino Español, one of my university books, first published in 1950, and a few tapas in a thronging and lively covered market.

Further on I stumbled on a rehearsal for Semana Santa (Holy Week) which will be in full flow as I write this over Easter.  14 men from a cofradía (a fraternity/brotherhood) were bearing a float weighed down with suitcases in preparation for the Holy Week processions. All wearing white runners, they performed a kind of slow-shoe-shuffle in time to the recorded music, their heads covered in a white cloth, a stand-in for the capirote, a hood with a conical tip, a symbol of penance, that conceals the face. I admired their dedication turning out on a cold and wet Saturday afternoon!

A few days later in Malaga, I peeked through the heavy wooden doors of a cofradía and saw the bulky shapes of sculptures (most likely Christ, the Virgin Mary and various saints) covered in cloth and mounted on a float, awaiting the Easter processions. These brotherhoods are Catholic organisations made up of lay people (men and women) who carry out charitable and religious works and events in the community. They play a key role during Semana Santa.

This was just one of many examples of timelessness and enduring tradition that I was delighted – and reassured – to find still in existence in Spain today. It’s 40 years since I spent four or so months in Granada as part of my Spanish degree – way before the distracted digital age of everything being available at the swipe of a screen.

I took the train to Malaga from Madrid’s Atocha Station the next morning. Atocha is a destination in itself with its glass and iron-clad domed roof – an old trainshed – complete with tropical garden. I was on a no-frills ticket, and it’s a three-and-a-half-hour journey from the centre of Spain down to Andalucia in the South. There wasn’t much to look at on the way but I got chatting to a young female student and soon realised how rusty my Spanish was!

My goal was to get to Malaga in time for the Entierro del Boquerón (burial of the sardine), an annual ritual on the last Sunday of Carnaval, when festivalgoers mark the end of Carnaval. I had missed the midday jamboree of music in Calle Lario (I was still on the train) but got down to Malagueta Beach by 5pm and was surrounded by revellers in their costumes, tears painted on their faces, marking sorrow that the fun was ending and the sobriety of Lent fast approaching. Nobody quite knows how the sardine tradition came about – maybe it’s a nod to Malaga’s maritime heritage – but the message is clear, it’s about closure.  

I stood on the wall overlooking the beach to get a better look. Delightfully irreverent, the sardine sat atop a float, flashed its blue and green-glinting scales and sported a jester’s hat. From what I could see the fish was made of metal and layers of fabric and paper – perfect combustible material. Although the weather was squally, the fish was set alight, and clouds of black smoke blew back towards the city. In no time at all, all that remained were the spines of the fish.  Buried indeed. What joy to be part of the action. I felt as if I had time-travelled to another world.

Just back from Malagueta Beach is Malaga’s Pompidou Centre. I had no idea that the Paris Museum has a Spanish branch. But you can’t miss it with its Mondrian-style brightly coloured squares. It was open till 8pm so I drifted in and went to an excellent exhibition called Place-ness: Inhabiting Space, that explored how humans relate to (and ruin!) their environment. There were many references to exploiting the natural environment for productivity and profit, and a section with paintings and photographs exploring the impact of industrialisation including ‘non-places’ such as shopping malls, motorway interchanges, abandoned shipyards and airports. Some of my favourite pieces include an idyllic Alpine landscape with a shower and tap attached like an elephant’s trunk in the centre of the painting reminding city dwellers of the source of their water supply, and a pair of Armani suit trousers hanging on a clothesline, the pockets filled with plants and earth, an allegory by the Romanian artist about the immigrant experience in Italy and being uprooted.

For dinner, I found a delightful restaurant with earthy home-cooked food near to where I was staying and away from the city centre. Reminding me of carpet sellers in a souk, the more touristy restaurants have hawkers stationed outside brandishing menus printed in three languages. It’s all too pushy for me.

Small and cosy with the menu on the blackboard and small chalk-painted wooden tables and retro chairs, restaurant Oliva was a great find. The welcome tapa- served with a drink – was an exquisite flavoursome stew of chickpeas made with a hint of chorizo and lots of vegetables and cooked slowly for hours. Other delicacies included roasted padrón peppers, eggs with asparagus and jamón and a cheesecake made with Queso Manchego. Delicioso!

Such richness on all levels, a feast for body, mind and soul – and I was only just over 24 hours into my Spanish sojourn en route to the UK. Spain Part 2 coming next week.  

In praise of the arts: hope, healing and humanity

Last (Australian) summer I got completely spooked by reading an apocalyptic novel – Leave the World Behind – by Rumaan Alam. Not my usual literary genre of choice, I had picked it up at my brother’s holiday house and couldn’t stop reading. It’s the story of a mysterious blackout along the East Coast of America and the collapse of civilisation. After finishing it I had a sleepless night worrying about the state of the world – everything from climate change, wars, plastics in the environment (and our bodies) to Trump getting back into the White House and AI into the wrong hands.

For me one of the best antidotes to Weltangst and negativity is engaging in the arts.  The arts connect us to joy, inspiration, beauty, creativity and to one another, expand our understanding of the world and humanity, enable us to dream and soar above the everyday – even if fleetingly. We may laugh, we may cry or be filled with awe and wonder.  The arts can also shock, provoke and act as a call to action.

During the endless Melbourne COVID lockdowns, tapping into all the wonderful plays, operas and musicals streamed free from the world’s stages was a silver lining. It also gave me hope and restored my faith in humanity, which was challenged by all the fear-mongering and survival of the fittest behaviours – remember the loo paper hoarding?!

An emerging body of research, strengthened since COVID, highlights the link between engaging/participating in the arts and mental health benefits. It makes it all the more regrettable that public arts funding gets slashed during periods of economic downturn. The cultural sector in the UK, for example, is suffering huge cuts. Interestingly – according to my research – Finland has the highest per capita public arts spending, and is also the country that ranks highest in the UN World Happiness Report – I rest my case.

There’s also opportunity for arts to inform and be integrated into social policy.  A good example of how this can work in action is Streetwise Opera, a UK charity that connects those living with homelessness with world-class artists to co-create bold new works, bringing together diverse voices and stories, improving the wellbeing, confidence and social connectedness of participants. It’s a great example of how an otherwise elite art form can be reinterpreted for social good.  See: https://streetwiseopera.org/

Another immersive, affordable and accessible way to experience the arts across multiple genres is to attend a Fringe Festival. In 2019 I happened to visit Avignon during the Avignon Festival in July and was drawn to Avignon Le Off (their name for the Fringe). I dashed around seeing French theatre (dusting off my A’level French), watching a naked yoga dance (which was rather beautiful and not remotely salacious), a clown-like comedy set in a barber’s shop, and a brilliant and hugely powerful two-person play written and performed by Tim Marriott (of Brittas Empire fame) about Mengele meeting the angel of death on a Brazilian beach. And everywhere I turned there was this artsy soup of drag queens, artists riding unicycles, singers, street artists and acrobats. Some of the works I saw there happened to be Adelaide Fringe shows. And in the magical way the universe works, a year later I ended up doing grant-seeking and advisory work for them.  

Fast forward a few years to August 2023, and I met a colleague from the Adelaide Fringe in Edinburgh when the Festival and Fringe were in full flow. Of course, Edinburgh is where the Fringe movement was born in 1947, when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited to perform at the Edinburgh International Festival.

While I mainly focussed on Fringe shows, I also attended a couple of Festival events. A standout was a chat between Iván Fischer, Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO), and Edinburgh Festival Director, Nicola Benedetti, in the Usher Hall. We – the audience – lay or sat on the floor on bean bags and heard Fischer talk about – and demonstrate – how an orchestra can maintain contemporary relevance away from the formal staging of a classical concert.  Many of the musicians in the BFO play other forms of music, and we heard a selection: Monteverdi madrigals (with instrumentalists singing in the chorus), Argentinian Tango, Klezmer music and rousing wedding music from Transylvania.  An absolute treat.  

Other favourites were a one-man play, In Loyal Company, a true story of missing WWII soldier Arthur Robinson, written and performed by his great-nephew David William Bryan. A hugely energetic, visceral and totally captivating performance, you’re on board his ship in Singapore when it gets bombed, you sweat and shiver through dysentery in Malaya, and feel gutted when he finally returns to Liverpool after the war to find life has moved on in his absence.  Another very poignant play – Shanti and Naz –was about two best friends, one Hindu and one Sikh, during the time of partition in India. By complete contrast A Migrant’s Son (an Adelaide Fringe production) presents a true-life story of the Greek migrant experience to Australia. It’s a musical journey created and sung by Michaela Burger and is full of humour, heart and a few horrors along the way. Burger has a fabulous voice and was joined by a community choir as the chorus.

The New Revue was a sharp satire on (mainly British) current affairs which back then featured Rishi Sunak, BoJo, Keir Starmer, Suella Braverman and Paddington Bear.  How fortunate are those of us who live in democratic societies and enjoy freedom of speech and self-expression. A healthy and vibrant arts scene encourages the exchange of ideas, the exploration of stories and different art forms. There are all too many examples past and present of autocratic regimes suppressing the arts and subverting them for state propaganda.

I loved being in Edinburgh: the buzz and festival vibe; the many tartan and shortbread shops; the whisky; people-watching; pop-up shows and street artists; bagpipes; summer chill and cloud; ancient stone and cobbles; and, towering over it all, the great bastion of the castle. I reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen for many years and stayed in their delightfully rambling house in Morningside. I also stayed with Australian friends in the Borders, and probably drove them mad running around to so many shows.  

I did the same thing in Adelaide in February, partly as my clients at Adelaide Fringe generously gave me a bunch of comp tickets and also because it was Writers’ Week. I ran between the two – literally!

Highlights included a magic show, Charlie Caper, how DID he do it?  I strained to see the tricks and shortcuts but couldn’t. I loved the show and the old world feel conjured up (haha!) by his Fedora, three-piece suit, bow tie and the tasselled lamps. A stand-up comedy session in a converted railway carriage was raw and vulnerable while a Japanese circus, YOAH, was highly stylised and silent – all black and white and techno. Lolly Bag, a one-woman show by the talented Hannah Camilleri was a delight. Very quick, very original, and very funny, she played a whole a range of characters from a curmudgeonly car mechanic to a frazzled Year 8 class teacher, mixing improv and audience participation to great effect.  

Charlie Caper’s Magic Show

I also had the pleasure of seeing two more Tim Marriott plays – we have stayed in touch since I got chatting to him, his wife and dogs in Avignon. Appraisal was a gripping all-too-realistic and, in parts, darkly funny, two-person play about a toxic work culture, the abuse of power and position.  Watson, The Final Problem is based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. With Big Ben chiming in the background and a Victorian-era room complete with hat stand, wooden chest, chair, desk and diary, we were transported to London, where Dr Watson looks back on his life and friendship with Sherlock Holmes. Tim Marriott’s masterful monologue took us on a rollercoaster ride culminating in the final demise of the detective at the hands of Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.

Cramming in – you know me – Writer’s Week events, it was a delight listening to Irish writer Anne Enright talking about families, Irish mothers and poets in relation to her new book The Wren, The Wren, and hearing what broadcasters Leigh Sales and Lisa Miller had to say about storytelling. I also attended an event at the Town Hall, where a group of writers each read a piece about family. My absolute favourite was by Martin Flanagan.  

On this 66th birthday he went back where he was born, the Queen Victoria hospital in Tasmania (now offices), to write a letter to his late mother. Warm, moving, fond and funny, it was clearly part of an ongoing conversation with her.  He recalled his friend Michael Long saying: “the silliest thing white fellas say is that you can’t talk to the dead.” Michael, whose mother died with he was 13, has a cup of tea with his mother every day. Martin concluded his birthplace reflection by saying to his mother: “I knew I’d find you here.” I found an extract from this tribute online if you’d like to read more. Go to: https://footyology.com.au/martin-flanagan-talking-to-mum/

That’s what I love about the arts, it all comes down to storytelling in one form or another: . “You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built in the human plan. We come with it.” – Margaret Atwood,

Dresden: Part 3/3 – Final reflections and scorecard: Culture 8/10, Food 5/10, Historical interest 10/10, Livability 7/10

If you’ve slogged through my last two blogs on Dresden, well done!! Apologies if I lost you in all the detail; such was my fascination with its history that I did lots of research on my return to Australia making my blog posts rather information heavy!  “You really have to concentrate,” commented my sister… This final Dresden post is more personal and less driven by facts and figures.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention food in my previous posts. To be honest, neither food nor drink were highlights of my Dresden trip. Not to stereotype German food, but I’m not so into bread, beer and sausage. I was wandering round the various stalls and wooden huts of the Spring Market one evening and felt my stomach turn at the fatty-looking potato cakes and greasy Currywurst bubbling away in a large pot.

And eating out in the Old Town – close to my hotel – was very expensive; I was paying a premium for the location. Interestingly, though, the meals with a view were somewhat marred by surly and, in some cases, outright bossy service; no frills or niceties whatsoever. After my long day visiting Loschwitz, the castles on the Elbe and the Stasi Detention Centre (see blog post 2), I stopped off for dinner in the Neustadt – the ‘new town’ on the opposite bank of the Elbe from the Old Town.

Here the vibe was quite different: trendy, younger, student-y and ethnically diverse as evidenced by the different cuisine offerings – from Turkish, Greek and Middle Eastern to French, Vietnamese and more. And the shops! I window-shopped my way past some of the most fun and original retro, vintage and niche interest shops I’ve seen in a while. Just as well I had zero room in my case, and it was anyway approaching closing time.  

However, my chief mission was to find the Kunsthofpassage (KHP)– a series of funky interlinked courtyards in Görlitzerstrasse that were jazzed up about 20 years ago with art and wall sculptures. The one I loved best was the building with the musical drainpipes set against a turquoise painted façade. I’d love to be there when it rains and the water plays through the trumpet-shaped pipes. The courtyard of the animals is fun too with monkey, giraffe and bird bas-reliefs on a lime green wall.  Elsewhere there’s a floating sculpture made of woody stems and climbing red geraniums set off a blue front door.

Among the KHP’s arty shops, chocolaterie and other offerings I found a restaurant called Lila Sosse (Lilac Sauce) that drew me in with its wooden tables, menu on the blackboard and desserts in glass jars. Away from all the Old Town Baroque bling, the wait staff were friendly and down to earth, and I had the best meal of my stay – an asparagus, beetroot and feta risotto – and at a reasonable price. Still recovering from the Stasi Museum experience earlier in the day, I also treated myself to a stiff vodka and tonic. Chin up and all that.

Keeping on the food theme, I opted for the hotel breakfast the next morning – my last full day in Dresden. The previous mornings I’d gone for the cheapskate option and made tea in my room (I had to request a kettle as there was only a coffee machine) and eaten yoghurt and fruit purchased at REWE. And I am glad I did.

Having looked forward to my 29 Euro breakfast, I was disappointed! I’ve come to the conclusion that buffet breakfasts are not all they are cracked up to be – no egg pun intended! In fact, they are the supermarket of breakfasts: it’s self-service, involves queueing and you have to wander around to find everything you want in a mass-produced environment. You find the fruit but not the yoghurt and granola – they are at a different ‘station’, then you line up at the coffee machine looking for the hot water button to pour onto a tea bag in a cup. And, if you’re like me, you stuff it up and the hot water spills over or, even better, you press the wrong button and get cappuccino on your Earl Grey. But if you do manage a cup of tea, you take it back to the table with your fruit only to realise you forgot the milk. Up you get again and around you go.  

After the fruit and yoghurt, you venture off to the hot food station where eggs and bacon sweat over bain-maries. By the time you get back to the table, the tea is stewed and cold. And then there’s the toast to organise… And that involves waiting for it to cook on one of those cake-walk-type toasters (all the while your hot food is congealing on the plate) that spits out the toast at the end. All far too much juggling and faffing.

However, there were a few silver linings. I stocked up on Sunday papers which I am still reading (the Frankfurter Allgemeiner is quite dense!), I made myself some rolls for lunch, and I got chatting to the (German) couple sitting at the table next door.  We got into conversation because I mistook the guy for a waiter (he was wearing black trousers and a black shirt) and I asked him to bring me a pot of tea. A short but sweet friendship forged over laughter.

My final destination was Pillnitz Castle. You may recall that Andreas from the Antique Shop in Loschwitz recommended that, given my interest in East/West Politics, I should visit a special exhibition about chairs made in the GDR in the 1970s and 1980s.

I got a tram and a bus out to Schloss Pillnitz, which once housed one of August the Strong’s (remember him from the first blog?) mistresses. It has three main buildings, two of them Baroque with Chinoiserie elements and the Neues Palais, in the Neoclassical style.

The furniture exhibition was in the Wasserpalais, the Riverside Palace, and there was something wonderfully mismatched about staging an exhibition about polyurethane chairs in a Baroque castle. The brightly coloured “Känguruh-Stuhl” (Kangaroo chair) and the “Garten-Ei” the Garden Egg chair are thought to be icons of East German design. But it turns out that the East Germans had a bit of help from their frenemies.

Part of a worldwide boom after the second world war, cheap to make and mass-produce, plastics were attractive to the GDR, but production in the East lagged behind the West, where production and innovation were supported by private sector investment.  A bit of a When Harry Met Sally situation, the East wanted what the West had. The exhibition documented the subterfuge and political machinations that lay behind the GDR becoming a major centre for polyurethane plastic (PUR) furniture.

Unbeknown to the citizens of East Germany, their government was involved in clandestine trade with West German companies from whom they purchased know-how, machines, foam moulds and design licenses.  In the 1970/80s more PUR furniture was made in the GDR than anywhere else in the world, and this widescale production was outwardly hailed as a sign of socialist progress. The cross-border skulduggery was well covered up. Fascinating stuff.

Pillnitz is surrounded by lush green parkland – Englisher Garten-style – has a glass house (complete with Australian natives!) an orangery, several pavilions and a camellia tree that is more than 230 years old. Reputedly brought out from London’s Kew Gardens in the 1770s, the tree is protected during the winter months by a movable glass house that sits on rails. The tree is MASSIVE and the hexagonal glass house structure is a stunning piece of modern design.  I was lucky enough to catch the azaleas and rhododendrons in flower and ate my breakfast rolls sitting in the sun on a park bench surrounded by reds, purples and pinks.

One place I hadn’t managed to visit while in Dresden was the nearby town of Meissen, famous – since the 1700s – for the manufacture of porcelain.  Anyone who has visited my house will know I am a seasoned collector of china, particularly cups and saucers. And so it was with FOMO-assuaging delight that I got to see some fine examples of Meissen figurines and tableware wandering through the state rooms of one of the other Pillnitz palace buildings.

On the way back to Dresden I got a ferry over the Elbe, cutting off a corner, and linking to a tram back into the city. The ferryman was a jovial kind of guy with a big smile and twinkle (of the right kind) in his eye. He complemented me on my German detecting only a light English accent – which was flattering, (who doesn’t love a bit of encouragement?!) – and let me cross for free. And into the bargain I got a great view of the riverfront side of Schloss Pillnitz. A good end to a richly varied and fascinating four days.

As a postscript, I play a ‘could I live here?’ game whenever I travel. On the downside, there are still post-war political tensions, and quite a significant neo-Nazi and far right faction in Dresden. The week I was there an SPD politician was attacked and badly injured by a group of men, and shortly before this incident, a member of the Green Party had been attacked putting up posters. Dresden also feels a bit off the beaten track – the kind of place where opinions can harden. However, I reckon I’d enjoy hanging out there for a few months, especially in the summer months doing artsy things and speaking German. When I am less engaged in working for a living, Dresden might be one of my house-sit destinations.