Today I am delighted to be the guest of Sally Cronin taking part in her Sunday Interview where guests can choose five out of fifty questions to answer – it’s harder than you think. A million dollars, three wishes… visit Smorgasbord to find out my answers.
Uncategorized
Musical Notes
In high school our music teacher said he was once at a concert where the conductor fell backwards off the podium. Whether this story was true or not, it was a good way to encourage us to go and see a real live symphony orchestra in the hope of seeing the conductor fall. Perhaps that was why I was happy to go along with my parents and younger brother and sister to see the West Australian Symphony Orchestra give their free Sunday afternoon concerts at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth. As my parents loved classical music, but had a tight budget, this was a welcome treat.
The greatest classical music festival in the world, the BBC Proms, is now well under way and it was to a prom concert that my parents went on one of their first dates. Dad wasn’t interested in concerts, he just asked Mum where she would like to go for an evening out. Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto was one of the pieces played and Dad loved it.
Unless we are lucky enough to be born into a family of musicians, most of us first hear and absorb music from the radio or themes from television programmes. What is registered in our brains forever depends on our parents’ taste and the decade we were born. Don’t give your age away by mentioning The Lone Ranger when you hear the William Tell Overture.
Despite their love of music my parents never acquired a record player, but just as cassette tapes were being invented Dad acquired a large reel to reel tape recorder for which you could buy classical music tapes. I still had to listen to pop music on friends’ record players. The hefty machine made its way to Australia in our packing cases when we emigrated. Later on, my best friend Marjorie and I commandeered it to record our favourite pop programme, we then did endless GoGo dancing in our little lounge; we must have driven my parents mad.
Promenade concerts had existed in London’s pleasure gardens since the mid 18th century, but The Proms as we know them were inaugurated on 10 August 1895 in the Queen’s Hall by the impresario Robert Newman, seeking a wider audience for concert hall music by offering low ticket prices and an informal atmosphere, where eating, drinking and smoking were permitted to the promenaders! You can still buy £6 tickets on the day of every concert to stand in the arena, but smoking is certainly not on.
If you can’t get along to the Royal Albert Hall all the concerts are broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, repeated and available on iplayer. Some are broadcast on television, complete with background film and chats with musicians. We are told that people all over the world will be listening; in Australia my mother once watched the Last Night of the Proms at Christmas, while my sister told me she listened to a prom while driving along a road in the bush.
This is a true festival and there are orchestras and artists from all over the world playing many sorts of music. The first night of the proms featured Anna Meredith/59 Productions’ Five Telegrams, a response to the centenary of the end of the First World War, with specially produced digital projections. It looked fantastic on television, but to fully appreciate it one surely had to be there. Another completely new experience was Jacob Collier and Friends; Jacob, a young vocalist and multi- instrumentalist, became an online sensation with his one man multi tracked arrangements of well known songs.
The musical theme at Tidalscribe continues on Friday with flash fiction ‘Musical Chairs’.
Music inspired my character Emma Dexter in Brief Encounters of the Third Kind. Her mother has good reason to fear her daughter is not human and among her phenomenal abilities she has become a brilliant composer, pianist and violinist.
Silly Saturday – Sensible Sheep
Some sheep like the quiet life.
Others dream of fame in the world of fashion.
But it is hard to stand out in the crowd.
Ewe have to be prepared to do something different.
It’s no use running away…
Any sensible sheep will find a star turn to avoid being eaten.
Star Sheep and Show Shires
The members of the New Forest Agricultural & Horticultural Association, formed nearly a hundred years ago, would be unlikely to recognise the New Forest Show of the twenty first century. The early shows cost two shillings and four pence to get in with competitions, one tent and livestock tethered up to a piece of rope between two oak trees.
The modern show is on for three days and it would take three days to see all the events and exhibits; it can be quite exhausting being a visitor, let alone for the people working and taking part. On Tuesday, armed with our tickets from Stewarts Garden Centre giving us entry to their hospitality tent, we enjoyed free light refreshments all day, ample toilets with no queues and seats by one of the main rings; albeit looking into the blazing sun. As we sipped our first cup of tea riders were showing off their working hunters. The beautiful horses were examined for their looks then observed for their elegance and obedience as they trotted, cantered and galloped round the ring. The male judges wore bowler hats and for the lady judges a hat wider than their hips was the dress code, they all had very big hats!
I wandered off at intervals to explore the show ground. Arts and crafts, holiday homes, furniture makers and funeral directors all had stands, alongside vintage farm machinery and ferret racing. In their quarters the ferrets had tiny hammocks to sleep in, more exclusive than the tent full of show rabbits.
I came across a dancing sheep display and learned a lot about sheep as well as having a good laugh; the finale was the shearing of a sheep, it’s not easy to be a stand up comedian and shear sheep at the same time.
Stewarts had a garden display, with beautiful wildflower beds; you could buy packets of seeds to make your own. There was a garden tent with exquisite flowers and a guess the weight of the cabbage. The Women’s Institute had a varied and delightful display to celebrate their centenary; the theme was a woman who has inspired you; each entry had to feature three different crafts, variety and imagination was in abundance.
Back at the show ring the cows and sheep were having a winners’ parade, the highlight being a ram who managed to escape and run around making fools of the humans chasing him. Two beagle packs came on and children were invited into the ring to play with them, parents were reassured the beagles were longing to play with their darlings; we heard someone behind us laugh and comment … and rip them to pieces… but nothing untoward happened.
The highlights for me were the horses. The heavy horses’ musical ride is not seen anywhere else in the whole world, so we were told. Among the giants the Shires are my favourites with their feathered feet and elegant trot. But the best was yet to come, Atkinson Action Horses. If you watch any television dramas featuring horses, you will have seen some of their stars. We ladies love the scenes of our heroes galloping along cliff tops and across fields and these are real flesh and blood horses, not CGI; trained by experts, they enjoy working. The show display was action packed with gymnastics on Cossack saddles, bare back riding, jumping over fire and lying down and playing with their ‘best friends’. There was an hilarious commentary; riding and talking at the same time is very clever… and ladies, these chaps were fit, very fit. The girl riders were also amazingly agile, so I’m sure they had plenty of admirers.
http://actionhorses.co.uk/the-horses/
Big and modern though it is, the show is still about animals, country life and competitions.
Silly Saturday – Staycation
There’s a hold up on the motorway,
After junction 59.
Rain is heavy, sky is grey,
Traffic stopped in line.
Must mean we are on holiday.
Day two and still it rains,
But we have an agenda,
Uncle Ted to steam train,
Then visit Aunty Glenda.
She’s in the Royal Infirmary.
Day three on sunshine beach,
Lots of places to go.
No holiday is complete,
Without a secluded cove,
Scenery and strangers to meet.
Bridges over rivers and bays,
Lighthouses, harbours and piers,
Rolling fields and bales of hay,
High crumbling cliffs to fear.
Where shall we go next day?
Houses of National Trust,
Cathedrals with towers to climb,
Great statues of rust,
Museums and art sublime.
Then home at last we must.
London National Park City Week celebrates the city’s unique green spaces
Cities are here to stay and they don’t need to be escaped from – people need and like to live in them. In some ways they are more evironmentally friendly than countryside as residents are not dependent on motor cars. This project should inspire us to make all cities as green as possible.
Sunday Salon – Guest Blogger
Second in the series of occasional blogs by my Sister Down Under
Return To Sender
I often send Birthday cards to relatives in England, and as I seal down the envelope and stick my address label on the flap, I always find myself wondering if there is any point. If the address was to be incorrect, would they take the trouble and expense to send it all the way back to Australia?
I now have my answer. The other week, I received a blue envelope with an air mail sticker and an Australian stamp on it, and it was addressed to me. Someone had crossed the address out with a blue pencil, and there was a red Royal Mail sticker on it declaring that the address was unknown. It wasn’t a surprise that the address was incorrect, as it belonged to the youngest of my nephews, the inventor in the family, the itinerant creator of firework displays with a bedroom full of enough electronic equipment to drain the power grid of the Southeast of England. What was surprising was that the Australian postmark said it was posted at 6 pm on the 26th of July, 2011. Seven years ago.
So, yes, they do go to the trouble of returning letters. And an awful lot of trouble by the looks of it. Not for the Royal Mail the conventional route of placing it on a plane to fly half way around the world. No, this was more like the challenge taken on by Michael Palin to go around the world in eighty days without flying. The Royal Mail Postman was to get to Australia travelling overland, and taking sea journeys only when it was unavoidable.
What a tale that post man must have to tell! Imagine the deprivations and adventures he must have encountered on his 7 year odyssey! Crossing the channel to France was probably easy, but was he then waylaid by a French temptress, dallying with her for many months before silently slipping out at dawn one morning to continue his journey? Did he scale the Alps and get caught in a storm, to be nursed back to health by a local farmer and his daughter?
One imagines him crossing the Mongolian plains, joining the Mongol herders, living in a Yurt and learning to survive off the land. He would have regretfully had to say goodbye, explaining the Royal Mail always gets through, and he would put his uniform back on with pride, not withstanding that it was getting a little threadbare. He would have gone on a pilgrimage through India – retracing the steps of his colonial forefathers who had first brought British law and the British postal service to that teaming and untamed land. Then on to South East Asia, tiring now of the crowds and the jostling, longing only to reach that wide, open land of Australia.
What a relief he would have felt as he stepped off the small fishing boat at Darwin, only to be arrested as an illegal immigrant. He would have spent quite some time in detention, and despair would have been his companion as he waited for his superiors in London to confirm who he was and what his mission involved. There would have been a delay at their end, while they overcame their incredulity and double checked his credentials before rejoicing that he was not, as believed, dead – the first (or so they thought) postman to die in active overseas service.
And finally, catching a cruise ship (courtesy of the Royal Mail in gratitude for his services) around the coast to Fremantle. What a reception he would have from his Australia Post colleagues – glad to see him, but at the same time a little jealous that they could no longer boast they had the longest mail routes in the world.
And as for me – time to tell my nephew that he isn’t unloved, and that I did send a card, but something happened to it along the way
Kate Doswell, 15/07/2018.
Some Like It Hot
As new migrants in Australia, the first time the thermometer hit one hundred degrees we were very excited, a Century meant it was very hot; instead of sheltering behind venetian blinds in the relative coolness of indoors, in the days before most homes had air conditioning, I walked around marvelling at the sensation of the dry heat. If the thermometer hit one hundred degrees Celsius you would be dead. After a week of the temperature reaching over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit every day, the novelty wore off.
Since then the world has moved to Celsius, leaving only the USA and a few other countries using Fahrenheit. But one hundred sounds more dramatic than the slightly higher forty Celsius. When I worked at Heathrow, an English girl told me the first time she arrived in Kuwait she felt as if she had been blasted by a giant hairdryer. A Kuwaiti passenger told me no one had to work if the temperature rose above fifty degrees, but officially it never got hotter than fifty. A Singapore passenger told me the heat was not a problem as every building was air conditioned. I asked ‘What if you want to go for a walk?’ He looked puzzled. Why would you want to go for a walk?
Those who have lived in hotter climes might wonder at the fuss we are making about our heat wave in Britain. Temperatures over thirty, so early in the summer, have weather forecasters excited. We have had heat waves before and after our wet winter the reservoirs were full, so we shouldn’t run dry yet. Despite the usual comments such as ‘it won’t last’ and ‘we’ll pay for this later’ the heat wave shows no sign of ceasing, though some places have had rain. Our relatives, visiting back from Las Vegas, saw rain only once and looked forward to getting back to their air conditioned house.
We are not prepared for hot weather, we don’t have air conditioning, shutters and awnings or a tradition of siestas. In the garden, early morning or evening watering has become part of the domestic routine for those who cherish their flowers. The holiday atmosphere is fun; breakfast and dinner in the garden and days by the sea. Our beach hut feels worth the rates we pay the council for the tiny patch of concrete it stands on; it provides shade, changing room and a kettle. Daily swims have become the norm; as far as I’m concerned there is no point in having hot weather unless you can paddle or swim in a pool, river or sea.
Hot weather is no fun for those who have to work out in it and especially fire fighters. The heat has brought destruction to the moors with peat fires. It is equally oppressive for those who can’t get out. A lady told me it’s the first time in ninety four years she hasn’t worn a vest!
But the biggest cloud, or absence of cloud hanging over our holiday mood is What if it never rains again, is this another big warning about global warming?
If you go down to The Woods today…
The first national park I knew well was Jellystone Park, home of Yogi Bear, one of my favourite television cartoons. He wasn’t the only bear in the woods; closer to home I spent my early years in the Hundred Acre Wood with Winnie-the-Pooh, the real teddy in AA Mine’s books, not the Disney animated version; I have never left that wood! And there was the more sophisticated Rupert Bear who lived in pine woods much like the ones we visited on family outings.
More exciting was our first and only holiday in the New Forest when I was eleven. As I loved ponies it was heaven; cattle, ponies and donkeys roaming around open land. There were also the dark woods carpeted with green velvet moss and the seaside, pebble beaches facing the Isle of Wight.
Read more about my pony mad years in last year’s blog
https://wordpress.com/post/tidalscribe.wordpress.com/481
The New Forest is very old, William the Conqueror designated the area his Nova Foresta in 1079; forest then meant any area of land reserved exclusively for hunting. I do not think he would be pleased to see so many commoners enjoying themselves there today, it is still mostly crown land. The newest thing about the forest is its designation as a National Park in 2005.
People live and work in the forest, there are towns, campsites and all sorts of activities, but it is still a vast area of natural habitat with ponies and other livestock having right of way. The Verderers look after The Commoners rights to graze their animals. In the late summer and autumn, round-ups, or ‘drifts’ are held throughout the forest to treat any health problems the ponies and cattle may have, and to keep a count of the stock roaming the Open Forest. Mares and foals are marked during this time – foals are branded and the tails of mares are cut in distinctive patterns.
When we first moved to nearby Bournemouth I read in the local paper that bears were to be reintroduced to the New Forest, that seemed an exciting idea until I read the date at the top of the page, April the First. But rewilding has been seriously suggested for remoter areas.
Britain once looked very different with vast natural forests, glades and wild spaces; wolves, bears and lynx roamed the land. The first Britons lived alongside woolly mammoths. Humans chopped down the trees to make space for farms and hunted the large animals to extinction, we have no natural predators to keep down deer numbers.
We took our recent visitors and their children for a visit to the New Forest, cream teas at a lovely cafe that used to be a railway station, paddling in the river, a cow being chased off the cricket field, more cows wandering in the car park. Close to nature, but not really part of the ancient forest. How amusing it would be to see keen photographers surprised by a bear coming into view, or families having their picnics stolen.
You may still meet another ancient being in the forest, The Green Man…
There’s a New Forest theme at my website this month, read two dark short tales and enjoy a day out in Beachwriter’s Blog.
https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter-six-fiction-focus
As well as short stories, I enjoyed using the New Forest as one of the settings in my novel Three Ages of Man; the bewildered stranger has to find his way from Waterloo Station down to Brokenhurst and hike to a secluded cottage, there are many places to hide in the woods.
Last Gasp-Germany
Grace ends her journey.
There is much to love about Germany; black forests, picture perfect , historic towns, grand rivers bordered by gorges and fairy-tale castles, exciting cities like Hamburg and Berlin, charming, engaging and eager-to-help citizens. But not the motorways-oh no. The motorways are strings of roadwork-riddled tedium, clogged with miles of crawling, wheezing lorries spewing fumes and large, gas-guzzling speed machines reduced to inching along with everyone else.
The drive to Wurzburg was one such journey, with roadworks every 10k and frustrating traffic queues at every junction. And once we’d arrived there was further idiocy from the Tom Tom, which led us around the city in ever decreasing circles with no sign of the camper stop, even though it was flagged on the tiny screen. At that point when we were about to give up I spotted the parking place-beneath the bridge and by the river, a smattering of vans and motorhomes…
View original post 433 more words
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 