life

Christmas cruise

Posted on by Cathy Penman

3

Went on a short cruise from London Tilbury, just before Christmas 2016.  Amsterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp (Netherlands, Germany and Belgium), featuring Christmas markets.  Was shocked of course hearing about the Berlin incident, when I’d just been on a similar market in Hamburg.

I went on my own with the intention of being sociable, but it was difficult, it was mainly all couples or groups of friends and I felt rather awkward chatting to strangers and very much feeling the loss of my life partner, who would so much have loved to have been on the ship and seen all the things I saw.

There was a stunning sunset as we set off, and I bought lots of nice things including some clothes, and ate the most wonderful Belgian waffle I’ve ever tasted.  I discovered a lovely little zoo in the middle of Antwerp which had a wonderful exhibition of chinese (japanese?) lanterns in the shapes of different animals.  What I chose as my favourite photo on return, was one of these – the elephants below – which seems to have captured a nice variety of ‘texture’.

1

Krakow horses

Posted on by Cathy Penman

img_4579

(I stopped doing this photo blog a while ago because I don’t believe many people are looking at it and it just seemed too sad to continue writing stuff no-one’s reading.   Nevertheless, with the new year, I thought I’d do a couple of posts with photos I liked.)

I went to Krakow in late summer 2016, and stayed on my own in an apartment in the old town for a week.  It was very noisy all night with people talking, drinking, and laughing – particularly on the Friday and Saturday when the noise really didn’t die down until about 6am.  Difficult when it’s hot and you want the window open.

There are horses and carts giving rides to tourists in the main square, and I would keep hearing the sound of horses hooves from my room as they passed along the street below, all day and until late at night, and I would go and look out of the window at what colour the horses were.  I’m a bit obsessed with horse colours for some reason, and I liked the way they were so nicely paired up – two white, two dapple grey, two brown, two skewbald etc.  I particularly liked this unusual appaloosa colour on the photo – big brown spots.  I’ve never seen a horse that colour in England.

I do recommend Krakow as an introduction to Poland – it’s a lovely old city with lots of historical stuff to see, plus wonderful shops and loads of cafes and restaurants to try.  Right at the end of the week I discovered the more modern side of the city – a huge three storey shopping centre near the railway station that I thought was more impressive than any I can think of in London!

The trumpet call that is played from the main church every hour is so interesting and impressive – to think that it has sounded every single hour for something like 700 or 800 years to commemorate the death by arrow of the person sounding an alarm call.  Very profound to think that the poor man himself could never have guessed that that would happen for so very long after his death.

2

 

Valentine

Posted on by Cathy Penman

IMG_3016

I thought the world should know about this amazing fish I bought, with markings on its side that look like a heart!

It caught my eye in a big tank of Comets in an aquarium shop.  You should have seen me trying to point out this one (as opposed to all the others) as the one I particularly wanted.  No-one seemed to see the heart, or care that it was anything special.

He is alive and well, and the heart is keeping its shape as he grows.

His name is Valentine.

IMG_3058

Jungle Book

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Panther and Wolf 2

Just went to see the new 3D Jungle Book film.

Well I don’t think I’ve ever before seen a film that makes me feel like it should be one of the ‘seven wonders of the modern world’.  The fact that we’re able to create such a thing – imagine what all previous generations would have thought if they’d seen it.  It’s magical, wonderful.

So, Jurassic Park had occasional computer-generated dinosaurs.  Things like the Narnia films had some talking animals – Aslan, etc, and lots of animals in the battle scenes.  The Life of Pi had a very realistic tiger, but it was only in the second part of the film.  The Golden Compass has lifelike talking Polar Bears, but they still share the screen with a mostly human cast of characters.  But this films is pure CGI animals beginning to end.  The only live character is the boy Mowgli (and glimpses of other humans).  Probably the backdrops were all computer-generated as well.  Certainly I don’t think there’s even a glimpse of a real animal in it.  They are pure technology, and yet these days so very cleverly, perfectly done.  The way the panther walks and leaps, the fur of the bear and of the wolves.  Fantastic fight scenes between the animals, and the monkeys in the temple, all different sizes, scurrying about.

There must be some reason that there aren’t films featuring deceased human actors yet.  If they can make such a perfect panther and bear out of bits of computer program, surely they can make a passable Elvis Prestley or Marilyn Monroe?

As soon as I realised it was all computer-generated animals though, I had a dreadful feeling that, that’s it – now we can create whatever creatures we like on the screen, the real animals out there are doomed.  That will be the future.  Real tigers and wolves and bears will be extinct, and there will only be electronic versions.  They will become like dinosaurs – recreations only.  Children won’t know the difference between a real panther and one in a film that talks – they’ll think they were all like that.

Anyway, I thought it was a very impressive film.  Loved the 3D touches, especially when something is ‘pointing’ right out of the screen at you, like a snake’s head or a pangolin’s nose.

It slightly jarred that the boy had such a broad American accent – in old live-action versions of the film he’s always an Indian boy with an Indian accent, but I guess that’s old-fashioned and defunct; and it’s so far removed from reality anyway, that he’s actually conversing with the animals.

Don’t leave before the credits, which are fun.

Panther and Wolf

Skylark

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Countryside.JPG

So I find myself in the beautiful English countryside, walking along a path through the fields, and for the first time in years, possibly since childhood, I hear a skylark singing.

I scan the sky to try to spot him, so as to watch him plunge, like I used to years ago when I went on walks through the country with my (late) father.  I don’t see him, but the sound is so clear, and like a shock to my system.  In my brain, a dormant file is accessed.  This is such a familiar sound, though I haven’t heard it for decades.

I had a conversation with one of my hosts about city dwellers who have genuinely never seen a cow before; about children who think a cow is one inch high because they’ve only ever seen pictures in books.  I find myself wondering how many Londoners would recognise and identify the sound of a skylark.

My customary profundity kicks in.  Thirty years living in London and never hearing skylarks – and yet the sound feeling so familiar and so special when heard again.  It’s like a sudden reminder that – wow, the countryside is still here!  It’s been here all long, like a parallel universe.  That I can choose to visit, or return to, whenever I wish.

A skylark singing – a joyful, continuous, trilling song, high up in the air, so unlike any other British bird.

The sound of the countryside.
The sound of England.
The sound of Spring.
The sound of my childhood.
The sound of forgotten memories.
The sound of the past.
The sound of life.

 

Skylark poem

A skylark sings high in the sky
Reminding me of times gone by.
How many men, long years ago,
Have stopped to hear him singing so?
What does he think, as he looks down,
At people heading off to town?
Perhaps he calls on them to stay,
So they can hear him every day.
And as for me, I’ll be back soon
To hear his joyful country tune.

Yellow Chairs

Posted on by Cathy Penman

 

Chairs for blog.JPG

Have arrived alone at a hotel in the country, on my way to somewhere.

Walked into the room – which is split level and with a balcony outside overlooking a lovely green valley – to be confronted with two beautiful yellow (greeny-yellow) chairs, standing side by side.  The chairs have brought on some weeping.  Impossible not to be thinking how it should be me and him sitting in them, not just me alone.  A dreadful awareness of loneliness and grief – especially because it’s so quiet and rural, with wind in the trees and birds of prey circling overhead.

I must force myself to focus on living in the present, and enjoying the here and now.  There’s nothing I can do about his absence, so I will just take in and enjoy things myself – the yellow chairs, the shiny curtains, the balcony, the view, the wind.  The daffodils, the primroses, the palms.  The swimming pool.

I’m becoming a connoisseur of hotel swimming pools – I’ve been away quite a bit and I keep choosing hotels with indoor pools, as it gives me a chance to get some exercise in a nicer environment.  I’ve been using local public pools also, one of which in particular is modern and nice, but hotel pools are a different experience.  No groups of noisy schoolkids, generally fewer people, and often with nice facilities, like jacuzzi, sauna and steam room.  I do tend to find such places relaxing and escapist, which I suppose is the idea.

The one in this hotel has a spa pool with these sort of metal beds in – you lie on them and it bubbles up strongly under you.  Wonderful!  A new experience for me.  I had four goes!

In the changing rooms, like in most places I’ve been, there’s a spin drier, to remove water from your costume.  The other day when I tried an inner city gym, I asked a woman whether there was a spin drier anywhere, and she gave me such a bemused and incredulous look, like such an idea was quite ridiculous.  I felt embarrassed but incredulous myself that someone had never come across a spin drier in a swimming pool changing room before.  I guess maybe I’ve been spoilt by private pools.

After my swim and a wonderful shower, I return to my room – but have to try not to look at the two yellow chairs, so demanding of two people.

St John’s Passion

Posted on by Cathy Penman

2 n

Went to a performance of St John’s Passion in a lovely big church in Kensington recently.  The choir was very good, well worth listening to, with a lovely rich sound.  I wasn’t that impressed with the tenor though; I thought his diction wasn’t clear enough, and also there was no engagement with the audience.  It’s such a central role, ‘The Evangelist’, such a focal point for the piece, I would have thought it was an opportunity to really make your presence felt, and deliver it in a way that keeps the audience’s attention on you and on the story.  Basically, I don’t think the Evangelist was Evangelical enough.

I enjoyed it all though.  The penultimate chorus is a piece that, rather morbidly, I sometimes have to stop myself singing because I’ve always thought I’d have it played at my funeral.  I sung it years ago at school and it’s got itself deep in my soul.  I’ve always known it as ‘Lie still… (oh sacred limbs lie sleeping, and I will lay aside my weeping…)’.  But in this translation it was ‘Sleep well’.  Oh dear.  I don’t think ‘Sleep well’ has anything like the power of ‘Lie still’ in that context.

I went on my own and of course it was impossible not to think about my partner (and his absence) the whole time.  When I go to things like this I’m experiencing what they say about how people can be lonely in a crowd.  There were loads of people there who were all obviously interested enough to listen to a serious classical piece like that, and I felt like I had something in common with them, and I belonged.  At yet of course everyone is in couples or family groups, and though you sort of look at people with a smile on your face in the hope of striking up a conversation, no-one spoke to me at all.

In fact the whole of that day, my only attempt at interacting with someone was to make a comment to a guy walking a little white dog just like the one that’s recently won Crufts.  I said something like, ‘Oh look, it’s the Crufts winner!  Any relation?’  He didn’t really respond and the dog just pooed right in front of me.

Crufts

Posted on by Cathy Penman

IMG_3135 crop

Now I am definitely NOT going to get myself a dog.  I have no experience of having had pets like dogs or cats in my life (only budgies and goldfish).  It’s too much commitment.  It would be cruel in the inner city – I’ve always thought I would never consider it unless I had some sort of huge country farmhouse with outbuildings.  And no way am I doing the poo collecting thing – seriously not me.

However, I don’t see what’s wrong with speculating about what breed of dog one might have IF one was going to have a dog.  I love dogs – aesthetically.  I like some better than others.  Hence my decision to go to Crufts; in order to visit the area where you can see and ‘meet’ different breeds of dog (200 according to the website).

I really enjoyed it.  I saw it as an opportunity to maximise hands-on dog experience.  I amused myself by considering what my top three favourite breeds are.  In fact there are two different top threes – one for the dream/fantasy scenario (said huge farmhouse), where size isn’t an issue.  And another more realistic shortlist.  One that I just might conceivably, if I moved out of London and was living somewhere by the seaside where I could take a dog out for walks, consider as a possibility.

Fantasy top three breeds: Pyrenean Mountain Dog, Australian Shepherd, Golden Retriever.
Realistic top three breeds: Lancashire Heeler, Swedish Valhund, Pomeranian.

Last time I went to Crufts (on my own, some years ago), I fell in love with something called an Irish Water Spaniel, because of the way it FELT rather than looked, such lovely soft cuddly fur.

This year, of all the dogs I saw, I would make my personal overall winner a (I think it was) German Shepherd with a beautiful all over deep grey coat, which was doing amazing tricks and generally being charming.  He won me over completely.

IMG_3208

Rocky Mountain Horse

Posted on by Cathy Penman

DSC_0768

I’ve just had a new experience, bidding for something on ebay – and winning!

I thought I had got the item I wanted – a Breyer horse model that I had particularly been looking out for and knew was difficult to get hold of – as it had been telling me for a while I was the highest bidder, but luckily I thought to be online at the last moment.  Suddenly, literally in the last few seconds, not even minutes, someone bid against me and the price leapt up to double what it had been.  I bid back twice and won.  Very exhilarating, I must admit.  Having that real time interaction with someone somewhere who also wanted the item, but reacting quickly enough and getting what you wanted.  Sort of like gambling I suppose – I’d better watch out I don’t get hooked and acquire another addiction.

Do I really need another Breyer horse?  Of course not.  But I want him!  He’s mine!

 

Me And My Teddy Bears

Posted on by Cathy Penman

DSC_0764

I’ve got two selected teddy bears in my bedroom.  One is from the Splendour of the Seas cruise we went on (he has a t-shirt with the name of the ship on it), and his name is Splendid.  He represents the past.

The other is from the Isle of Wight last year.  His t-shirt says The Needles so (needless to say) I call him Needless.  Since he dates from after my life-changing event, he represents the future.

I sometimes pick one or other of them up, depending on my mood.  Sometimes I cradle Needless and say to him something like, ‘well it’s just me and you now, you’ve got to help me face my new future on my own’.  But sometimes I grab Splendid and say, ‘don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you, you (ie the past) are always going to be precious to me, and will stay with me always’.

That’s the sad story of me and my two teddy bears.