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,

A sofa saga – a 2-seater with a backstory but no backbone

I’m a big fan of recycling, upcycling and reusing so when it came to choosing a new sofa, something that’s been on my agenda for a while, I searched on Facebook Marketplace.

Although I do love a bargain, it’s as much about the thrill of the chase and finding something different that may not be available elsewhere as about saving money. Similarly, I enjoy finding new ways of using what I have – whether it’s moving furniture around or giving a new lease of life to an item of clothing that’s been languishing in my wardrobe. A snippet in last weekend’s paper said that skinny scarves are back in; I knew it was worth hanging onto that quirky scarf my niece gave me years ago. So good to be on trend! But back to the sofa.

I’d been scouring Marketplace for sofas for some months trawling through Chesterfields, velvet pleated sofas, bog-standard IKEA offerings and even some sofa beds. Then a month ago I spotted a funky sage-green corduroy number, a 2-seater with no arms and deep storage underneath. I’ve been doing a lot of Life Laundry recently, sorting through old files, papers, newspaper cuttings, tax returns, diaries and journals. If I were famous biographers would have a field day. Who knows, I might mine my diaries for a book one day. Meanwhile, the under-sofa storage looked like a perfect repository for them.

The only drawback was that the sofa was in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, about a 24-km drive from where I live. I couldn’t face driving over there so I asked lots of questions instead. Having established that it was roughly the same height as my other sofa and that there were no dips, stains or squeaks (you’ll see later why I asked this), I bought it for the modest sum of $250 (it had been reduced from $400), and paid upfront to secure it.

Finding someone to collect and deliver the sofa took more scrolling and back and forth-ing on various apps. Hmm, I thought that buying something this way would be less of an effort than going to a physical store but now I’m not so sure. A friend recommended Airtasker, where I got offers ranging from $385 (ridiculous, at more than the cost of the sofa!) to $90. I chose a driver around the $100 mark. In readiness for the arrival of the new sofa, I shifted my old, more traditional sofa (rolled arms and pleated skirt) up against my study door.  I measured it and photographed it to advertise free on Marketplace and a few other sites. I’d had the sofa for 26 years, from when I lived in Oxford. It had been a good friend, and I loved its green, yellow and terracotta checks but it was very faded and it was time to pass it on. But despite over 1200 views and 19 saves on Facebook, I didn’t get any takers.  

The new sofa duly arrived – the base with the storage underneath came as one unit, the back cushions separately in a black bin liner. I reckon it had been in a shed or garage for a while. There were two steel rods to fix the back cushions into the base. I quickly realised – heart sinking – that there should be four rods, and so I asked the driver to search his van but no luck. There was a rod at each end but nothing anchoring the inner side of each back cushion. A sofa without arms was one thing but no proper back?!  I hadn’t signed up for an Ottoman.

I rang the vendors immediately – a mother and her daughter who were selling on behalf of the other daughter/sister. Later that night they texted that neither they nor the sister could find the rods, and didn’t even realise they were missing as: ‘the couch is functional without them’. I begged to differ. And, while I was at it, I mentioned there was a bit of a splotchy stain on one of the back cushions. To my amazement, they said they knew a steel engineer and they’d swing by at the weekend, pick up one of the rods and get two new ones made. Plus, they refunded me $50 for the stain. It seemed too good to be true – how many sellers on Facebook know a steel engineer and would go to those lengths to find a solution?

Meanwhile, I was stuck with old sofa as I had used up the second of my two annual Council-run ‘hard rubbish’ collections earlier in the year disposing of one of my other sight unseen Facebook purchases – a single bed base with drawers (I’ve got a thing about storage) for my twin-bedded spare room. Turns out it had an incurable, inconsolably whiny squeak. Thank Goodness, I tested it when I got new mattresses – I could barely breathe without the base creaking. It ended up as hard rubbish, and was devoured by the metal jaws of the Council truck. On sending photographic evidence to the seller, I did get a refund minus the delivery fee. But here I was going in again for a blind date with a second-hand sofa!

My lovely neighbour Jill about ten doors down offered me one of her hard rubbish collections. We wheeled  and wobbled my old sofa down the street on a trolley to the nature strip outside her house. And it was RIP to my dear old sofa purchased from the MFI Furniture Group in 1996. So far, so far good, pun intended.

The following Friday I got a text from the sofa sellers to say the mother had sent the newly made steel rods by Express Post. My excitement mounting, I asked for a copy or screenshot of the tracking slip only to learn that the mother had split tea all over it. What? Seriously?! This did not inspire confidence but I resolved not to cry over spilt tea… They reassured me, however, that the rods had been sent, that they would arrive, and I would need to sign for them. I never truly doubted the honesty of the vendors but the rods looked like they’d be tricky to copy and what if they didn’t fit or didn’t match? It all felt so unlikely. I was worried I’d bought a dud and would need yet another hard rubbish collection.

Express Post takes one or two business days maximum so I was ready and waiting, bright-eyed and breezy, on the Monday. Apart from my dog walk, I didn’t leave the house.  There followed an agonising week of waiting that looked like this:

Monday: My neighbour was having a new kitchen installed so vans were going up and down the drive all day long but none of them were delivery vans with my steel rods.

Tuesday: a parcel landed on my doorstep – aha, here it is I thought, holding my breath but, no, it was two boxes of my favourite granola bars from Marks and Spencer, a gorgeous treat from a colleague who went back to Blighty in July. Lovely but NOT the rods.

Wednesday: a van drew up and a delivery guy came to the door (YESSSS I thought in another adrenal rush), but this time it was a pet seat cover for my new (second-hand) car. My last car got very ‘dogged up’ with sand and slobber so I am determined to keep my new alloy-wheeled beauty in pristine condition.

Thursday: a van drove up and a box of environmentally-friendly laundry detergent refills (only available online) arrived on the doorstep (all this is so ironic as I am not a big online shopper – I’ve never even done an Uber eats for example). Then, later that morning, the Body Corporate Gardeners knocked at the door to ask what needed doing in the garden. Each time, there was van and door knock activity, I got my hopes up.

Thursday evening: I feared the rods must have got lost in the post and sent a somewhat desperate-sounding text to the sellers. Could they not go back to the Post Office where they sent it, show a bank receipt (amount and time) and generate a tracking slip – surely the system would have the technological know-how? It transpired that the mother was not sure whether they had been sent Express or Registered.  Registered Post is only for documents so I thought it had probably been sent standard parcel post but required a mandatory signature. That would explain the delay.  It transpired that they had sent it from a small PO counter in a larger retail shop and it wasn’t possible – so they said – to track retrospectively. OK, I replied. I don’t doubt you’ve sent them.  I’ll sit tight. Tight being the word…

Friday:  my neighbour Jill (she of the trolley) texted to say she’d been walking past my house and seen something bulky sticking out of my mail box.  The vendors had explicitly said the package would need a signature so it was unlikely to be the rods, but you never know. I dashed out to check. It wasn’t…It was the Government’s National Bowel Cancer screening test. Argh, the disappointment.

I continued to sit tensely but, not of course, on the new sofa.

Then miracle of miracles, the following Monday the daughter texted with the tracking number and to say the parcel had been returned to my local mail delivery centre the previous Monday!  It turns out that the parcel (it had been sent Express), had been returned as they hadn’t been able to find Unit 2 at my address. My address is interchangeably Unit B or 2 but there is no 2 marked on the house, only B. Had the vendors not tracked down the tracking number, the rods would have never found their way to me. The vendors didn’t put their address on the package, and Australia Post were under the impression that my address didn’t exist….

Once home, I am very happy to report that the new rods were a good match, and a good fit. I could hardly believe it. The vendors were profusely apologetic for all the toing and froing, and confusion. But, with the rods fixed in and the sofa sporting a firm back, I was only too happy to forgive and forget. After 56 texts, three weeks of faffing (from purchase to picking up the parcel) and a week of false starts, the situation was resolved. I was sincerely grateful to them for all they had done which, let’s face it, is above and beyond what one would expect from a seller on Facebook Marketplace.

And, the first individual to test the sofa was my canine nephew, Rupert, who is staying with me and Bertie. Rupert gave it his seal of approval and adopted it as his look-out post. There are several morals to this tale:  patience is a virtue, there are good people out there, and always hold onto a tracking slip! Amen.

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.

Dresden Part 2 of 3: Suspension Railways, Schlösser, sewing tables, the Stasi and the Soviets

Welcome back to Dresden where I am once again on the trusty Hop Off, Hop On bus, this time heading east from the city and across the cantilever truss bridge, colloquially known as the Blaues Wunder, up to the wealthy residential area of Loschwitz – an area of historic villas and summer residences, many of which escaped the WW2 bombings.

I start by taking the world’s oldest suspension railway (Schwebebahn) up the mountain. At this point, full declaration on suspension railways… My first visit to Germany was aged 15 when I stayed with my school friend Monica and her grandparents in Wuppertal. Quite young for our age and prone to giggling fits, we loved being with Opa and Oma, even if they did stuff us full of food – Kaffee und Kuchen every afternoon without fail! Travelling on Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn was all part of the adventure, and we loved it. Unlike the Loschwitz funicular (see below), the monorail in Wuppertal is not just a tourist attraction but part of the transport network. It literally hangs off the rails rather than sits on them, and is a great way of travelling around, lending a bird’s eye view of the city. Interestingly, the Loschwitz funicular and Wuppertal’s monorail were designed by the same engineer in 1901.  From the machine room at the top, there are stunning views over Loschwitz, the Elbe and beyond. Dresden is a city packed with panoramic viewing points.


The Blaues Wunder Bridge

Back on the ground in Loschwitz I had lunch at Kaffee Wippler, a café with an art deco vibe and an enticing selection of cakes – after a slightly strange Greek-style salad heaped with spelt grains (I was expecting croutons), I chose a Florentine biscuit to go with my – you guessed it – English breakfast tea! Then I wandered round enjoying the ‘olde worlde’ feel of the place: the cobbled streets and half-timbered houses; a delightful bookshop covered with ivy and vines; a knitter’s delight wool shop; an attractive yellow painted house, the final resting place of Clara Schumann’s father; an art gallery and a fabulous antique shop. Admiring a beautiful walnut sewing table in the antique shop, I got chatting to the owner and his mate, Andreas, from the Blaue Brücke Gallery round the corner. That lead on to an interesting chat about all sorts including life in the GDR.  They recommended an exhibition on polyurethane chairs at Schloss Pilnitz given my interest in East/West Politics.  See blog post 3/3!

Keen to walk in the glorious spring sunshine, I followed Andreas’ directions and branched off from the road along a steep cobbled walkway past expensive-looking villas – from Swiss Chalet-style to classical and Art Nouveau – and yet more marvellous views over the Elbe. Then I rejoined the bus for one stop and got out at the Elbschösser – the three castles overlooking the Elbe (Schloss Albrechtsberg, Lingnerschloss and Schloss Eckberg). These three castles were all built in the mid-19th century and are surrounded by rolling English-style (Englischer Garten) parkland and meadows dotted with wildflowers.

At Lingnerschloss there’s a large open-air café on the terrace overlooking the vine-clad slopes – Loschwitz has been a wine-producing area since the 11th century – and it was here I succumbed to a major attack of FOMO. Tramping around a city is tiring and part of me wanted to chill out and kick back with a cuppa or something stronger. The other part argued that I had to make the most of my time in Dresden. It was now 3.30pm, the Stasi Museum was open till 6pm, and it was on my way back into Dresden.  Having read Anna Funder’s Stasiland and seen films such as The Lives of Others, Goodbye Lenin and Balloon, my curiosity won out. I had a quick drink of water and pressed on.

The Bautzner Strasse Memorial is a former Stasi remand centre and, prior to that, a Soviet prison housed in a grey/beige-coloured apartment block. The memorial commemorates those who were victims of political persecution during the post-war Soviet occupation and then under the GDR.

The man at the desk was somewhat unhelpful when I asked how long I needed to go round and if I had time to listen to the 55-minute audio – “that all depends,” he said, shrugging, “who knows?” He handed me a map and gave muddled instructions – the museum is across a number of floors and parts of it were shut off for renovation.

It seemed entirely fitting that I should feel confused as I navigated the maze-like corridors. What a discombobulating experience it must have been for those detained by the Stasi. New arrivals to Bautzner Strasse were blindfolded until they had been processed, their families were not informed of the crimes they had supposedly committed and all detainees were identified by a number rather than a name. Not even the guards knew what the detainees had been accused of.

The interrogation room remains untouched and, according to the caption on a somewhat dog-eared piece of A-4 paper, was where the Stasi carried out psychological torture. For example, if a detainee didn’t cooperate, they were threatened that their partners, families and children could come to harm or that their children might be taken into care. Then there’s the small stark cells including a writing cell (any letters written under close supervision and heavy censorship), the room where mug shots were taken, a van that was used to transport prisoners with uncomfortably small compartments (mini cells), and the intact cell block on four floors – you can almost hear the clank of the keys and hear the footsteps of the guards doing their rounds. Testimonies from former inmates talk about the guards looking through the spy hole every few minutes.

Interrogation room

And then, even more disturbing, a damp dark tunnel with peeling paint leads to the post-war Soviet prison where Nazi sympathisers, political prisoners and those arrested on the flimsiest of charges were held in appalling conditions, in cold and cramped cells, the next stop being the Gulag.

Back on the street there’s a memorial to Alexei Navalny which I found particularly poignant, not least because a couple of streets further on is the site of Dresden’s former KGB Headquarters, No. 4 Angelikastrasse, where Putin worked as the local chief between 1985 and 1990.

Exhausted on all levels and in need of a bit of light relief, I was back on the bus in time to pop into Pfunds Molkerei, celebrated by the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘world’s most beautiful milk shop’. In business since 1880, Pfunds Molkerei featured as the bakery in the film, Grand Budapest Hotel. And it’s not hard to see why: floor to ceiling Villeroy and Boch tiles decorated with winged cherubs, naked cherubs, garlands of flowers and pastoral scenes (think cows and more cows!) provide the backdrop to the selection of cheeses, buttermilks (some with liqueur), sweets and chocolates as well as Dresden’s signature cake Eierscheke.  Short of time – it was about to close – I had a refreshing swig of buttermilk and bought some chocolates and nougat for friends. Then it was onto the New Town for dinner.

In Part III – coming soon – if you’ve stayed the course… – I spend an evening exploring the Neustadt, the new town – which is more boho than baroque. I also head off to Schloss Pilnitz, stroll the grounds, gawp at a 250-year-old camellia and visit two radically different exhibitions – one royal and traditional and the other about polyurethane chairs manufactured during the time of the GDR. (recommended by my antique shop friends).

Delightful Dresden: Florence on the Elbe (Part 1 of 3)

Dresden had been on my Bucket List for a while – I’d read good things about it. But I also wanted to go somewhere I could practise my German with the added interest of heading to a city that was part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – and behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ for 41 years. I found it fascinating on many levels – lots to interest me – so much so that this is the first of three blog posts on Dresden.

My hotel was right in the centre of the Altstadt, the old town, which made navigation very easy. Feeling somewhat under the weather on day one, I opted for the Hop On, Hop off Bus. And what a good choice that was. Purchasing a 20 Euro ticket at the hotel gave me three days of unlimited travel. I understood most of the German commentary but the bus rattles, rocks and rolls along so it was hard to hear it all. But if there’s only one thing you take away from Dresden it’s that Augustus der Starke, Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and Poland (1670-1733), made a huge contribution to the cultural, artistic and scientific landscape of the place. In fact, I was first introduced to him in the taxi on the way from the airport as we drove past a gleaming gold statue of him atop a horse in full body armour.

He might have been the Donald Trump of his day – he certainly liked surrounding himself with power, riches, wealth and women. Indeed, he was rumoured to have up to 365 illegitimate children.  But I was more interested in his cultural legacy.  It was short walk from my hotel to the Historisches Grünes Gewölbe (Historic Green Vault), which he built to store some of the many treasures he collected.

Dresden, particularly the old town, was very heavily bombed by the British in the Second World War. Amazingly however, the Grünes Gewölbe, remained mostly intact with only three rooms going up in flames.  Treasures from the vault – and many of the city’s precious objects and art collections – were removed to castles and fortresses outside the city during the war. And I learned that many valuable items were taken by the Soviets as booty after the war but were returned in the 1950s.


Views of the Altstadt

Entry to the Green Vault is by timed ticket, and only two people can enter and exit at a time through double-layered automated glass doors. And, needless to say, no phones or photographs are allowed. The tight security is not surprising; in 2019 thieves broke into the vault and stole precious items from the Jewel Room – some of which were recovered but not all.

The eight rooms of the Green Vault all have a different theme such as the Amber Room, The Ivory Room, the Silver Gilt Room etc. Building to a crescendo of Baroque opulence, each room has more mirrors than the previous one – there’s almost too much splendour, detail and intricate craftsmanship to take in! Variously crafted from amber, mother-of-pearl, coconuts, ostrich eggs, enamel, gemstones, gold, brass, silver, jade and more there were drinking vessels, carved figurines, clocks, sculptures, animals, birds, swords, platters and decorative boxes. And in the Jewel Room, rows of rings with knuckleduster-size gemstones – diamonds, rubies and sapphires as well as shoe buckles, swords, hat pins and a breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle.

Much of the Altstadt has been rebuilt and restored to its former Baroque glory since the fall of the wall in 1989. There is still building work going on at the Zwinger Palace which was never designed as a dwelling but as an orangery and a setting for court festivities and celebrations.

Ongoing works at the Zwinger Palace

Just across from the Zwinger is the Semper Oper (opera), which was rebuilt earlier, in the ‘80s, and reopened in 1985. Although it was advertised as sold out, I managed to get a return ticket and attended a matinee performance of the Magic Flute, Mozart’s only opera written and sung in German. Included in my all-time operatic favourites are the arias by Papageno and the Queen of the Night so it was a magical afternoon.

Semper Oper

A few days later I tagged onto a Night Watchman tour, and discovered there is an Opera Ball every January for the rich and famous. A glitzy ritzy event, previous guests include Vladimir Putin, who lived in Dresden for five years. I wonder if Trump ever attended or was on the guest list?

Augustus was also behind the construction of the Frauenkirche in the mid-1700s. After the war in 1945, the church remained a pile of blackened rubble and melted iron for 60 years. Archive photos from 1957 show sheep grazing around the ruins.  Then in the ‘90s, driven by the citizens of Dresden and funded by donations from all over the world, the reconstruction started. An extraordinary feat of engineering, each brick was catalogued and mapped and 40 per cent of the original materials were used. And, in a symbol of reconciliation between the UK and Germany, the orb and cross on top of the church were constructed by a team of British craftsmen including a London-based silversmith whose father was a pilot during the bombings over Dresden.  And, lest we forget, the cast-iron cross that originally crowned the dome is now displayed – molten and warped – inside the church. 

Climbing up to the dome was a good work-out, and I was rewarded with magnificent views over Dresden and the River Elbe, over spires and domes to the hills in the distance. You can see why Dresden used to be called the Florence of the Elbe.

But Dresden is not all columns, cupolas, crowns, carvings, chariots, cherubs and classical statues with fig leaves in strategic spots. It also has a history as an industrial centre – back in Augustus’ time Dresden’s wealth came from mining ore, silver and other metals from the Erzgebirge Mountains. Pre-war industries included car manufacture, medical equipment, optics and cigarettes.  Another stop on the bus tour is the eye-catching Yenidze Tobacco Factory, one of the few Altstadt buildings to survive the war. Now used as offices, the factory was built in 1909 in the style of a mosque, the minaret serving as the factory chimney, referencing the origins of the Turkish tobacco processed there. It was also a clever ruse by the architect to get round planning restrictions. I was tempted to go to the panoramic roof-top restaurant one night during my stay but didn’t get to it – next time!

Cars, optics and cigarettes (so many people smoke in Germany!) still feature today as well as IT, electronics and micro-chip manufacture.  It’s well worth taking a look at the state-of-the-art Gläserne Fabrik, the ‘transparent’ factory, home of the Volkswagen ID. ID standing for: “intelligent design, identity, and visionary technologies”. My timings didn’t work in with a tour but stepping into the glass atrium you can see the latest e-cars on display as well as cars moving along a self-driven assembly line. It’s all highly automated and futuristic, and the carbon-neutral building, which cost 86m Euros to build, is certainly impressive with its 27,500 square metres of glass.

Not everyone is a fan of the reconstructed Baroque city centre.  Some of those who grew up with a different cityscape – these ‘old new’ buildings including some with historically remodelled facades weren’t, of course, there in the 1980s – find the new Dresden homogenous and somewhat fake. And, there’s still some lingering Ostalgie (Nostalgia for the East) across the former GDR. But Dresden’s socialist past has not been completely erased. There are still some remaining Plattenbauen, prefabricated  blocks of flats,  that were common to much of the former East Germany.  And, in stark contrast to all the Baroque bling, stands the Kulturpalast (Cultural Palace) in the Altmarkt (Old Market Square ), a modernist building in the International Style which opened in 1969, and was used for concerts, dances and other events.

Kulturpalast

After heated debate, the people of Dresden voted not to demolish the Cultural Palace and deny their history but to keep a key building from the GDR period. The newly refurbished building, now protected by a preservation order, includes a concert hall, home to the Dresden Philharmonic, a library and a cabaret theatre, and was reopened in 2017.  You can’t fail to miss the large mural on the west side of the building titled Der Weg der roten Fahne (the Way of the Red Flag) with its socialist narrative. Quite a different story from that of the Electors and Kings of Saxony as shown in the pictures below.

Rote Fahne
Part of a mural of a mounted procession of the rulers of Saxony

In part 2 I will take you up to the wealthy suburb of Loschwitz, to the Elbschlösser, the castles along the Elbe, and to a stunning cheese/dairy shop dating back to the 1880s, which was voted the world’s “Most Beautiful Milk Shop,” by the Guinness Book of World Records. I also visit a former Soviet prison and Stasi remand centre.