Sunday, 25 September 2016

Crete revisited

The full moon. The Venetian Fort. Souda Bay. Crete

When I was nineteen I was persuaded by my boyfriend at the time that I was too middle class and that I should 'be' with the people. So with the money I had saved up from working weekends at a pub in Henley called " the Angel". we set off with a Euro Rail pass for a month. Destination Greece.
On the Orient Express. when it was just a train going very slowly towards the Orient. There was a dining carriage, for the toffs, but not for us in cattle class. No cafe,  no toilets that were not workable after the first hundred miles. If a priest came into the carriage you had to give up your seat.  If you put your head out the window to find out why you had stopped for the sixtieth time, you would get a face full of dust.  The many border patrols were bullies in uniforms who took people off the the trains they didn't like. We ran out of the almond slices I had brought from Sainsburys.  That was what I brought. Cheese sandwiches and almond slices. I had miscalculated the journey and had only brought enough brown bread and cheddar to get us to the middle of Yugoslavia.
We stopped at stations like Sofia, where men walked along the platform with cheese and meat pies on trays. But I only had pounds and drachmas in my wallet, so I had to smell them go by.
By the time we got to Athens I could have eaten my flip-flops..I seem to remember that we slept on the docks at Piraeus , and I literally mean "on" the docks. And met some nice australians who were sleeping there too and we got on a boat to Sifnos, I recall.
I know there were boat trips to Santorini and Ios and probably Mykonos.
I know that on Ios, my boyfriend, infuriated with me and my Marks and Spencers pink frilly nightie and the way I went down to the sea with my toothbrush and toothpaste to clean my teeth every night before slipping into my sleeping bag which lay next to his on some oasis of sand in the rocks above a beach; he put the uncooked eggs into my sleeping bag and jumped on them.
That was the end of our relationship. He jumped on the eggs and he dumped me and my pink nightie. On Ios, the largest island of The Cyclades chain.
As for being middle class. He ended up becoming a stockbroker in the city and I travelled the country performing Joe Orton and Sandy Wilson to the masses.

Apart from the eggs , what I remember most are loons, figs, black sand, the smell of hashish, olives, retsina, and donkeys and mules.





after the storm.






I am in Crete again. The largest of all the islands. Looking at a landscape that was shocked by a massive thunderstorm this morning that took away all the heaviness of summer and tumbled it into autumn.
 Most of the mosquitos have flown further south for new skin.
The sky is pale grey and pink as the sun has set. But now there are clouds settling into the gaps between  the mountains. My sister, who lived here for many years, tells me that there is a day recognized by all the locals when the snow appears on the top of the mountains and the air immediately turns itself down by two degrees and everyone knows to put summer things away and get on with their winter tasks. Many Tavernas close down. But for the Cretans, eating out with your family on a saints day or a Sunday, is what they do. The outside tables are moved indoors and the wood stoves are lit.

our beautiful land and it's view.

I am here to meet with the lawyers about this poor piece of land that has been carved into pieces by our greek neighbors. We had a meeting on the land. My lawyer turned up in his black  BMW with a iced coffee in his smart clothes after his morning session in court. At 9.30pm that night, we met with him in his office. the smart clothes had gone. He brought out the Raki and the almonds. For an hour and a half I understood very little. But it seems we are going to serve papers on the two neighbours on the same day. Our lawyer, a bit of an attack dog himself, thinks these two men are worthless bullies and wants to cut them off at the knees. ( Not my words.)
I don't like fighting. I came here with lavender thoughts of mediation  and resolution. But it seems that these two neighbours had carefully planned this strategy of hi-jacking our land some twenty years ago.  We saw the site plans that were made for the contracts when the plots were sold and clear as day are drawn these large roads across our pretty headland as if, for all the world, it was a public piece of dirt.
So I shook the hand of the lawyer and said " go ahead."
Here's to the battle ahead. May the fireworks be colorful.

our lawyer. On the road of the bully.

And as I get ready for my last swim and my last breakfast of yoghurt and thyme honey.
I will remember swimming in the freshwater Lake Kournas. Where the light and dark blue waters denote  the sandy shelf and a blue hole so deep that no diver has yet found the bottom.

yoghurt from Vrises.

Lake Kournas
pomegranates

olives
I will remember the impatience of Greek drivers.  The sound of goat bells. The smell of red dust. The feel of water around my legs as I wade into the sea.
The unfinished houses, where steel rods stick up for the not-yet-built second floor. left like that for decades because until recently it meant they didn't have to pay tax.
The old stone houses  with just the walls left standing.
The hillsides and hillsides of olive trees. Holding the history in their sturdy trunks.


gigantes, tzatziki, fennel pie and salad.....yes


The avocado village. way up in the mountains.





I will remember the little churches, wherever there is water. Built over centuries by different occupiers.
11th century church by the river.
The monastery on the south Coast at Preveli. The abandoned one down the hill that they have now made safe for people like to me to wander the stone streets. And the one on the cliff edge, that is still home to orthodox priests. where in 1941, during the battle for Crete, the priests and the local villagers sheltered the allied troops from the Nazi's and eventually got them out through hidden tunnels to  a waiting submarine.
Monastery at Preveli
And paid for their actions.

monastery at Preveli.








Old Cretan woman


























I will remember the tomatoes, Red.  The olives, Black. The yoghurt, white.
The paper tablecloths. The bread, the olive oil.
The fennel pies, the smoked aubergines, the sweet onions, the courgettes, the wine served in metal jugs.
Dill, mint and oregano.
Oranges, pomegranates, and crisp apples.
Honey and soft sweet goats cheese.

fennel pie, courgette burgers in Theriso

Theriso


the village of Megala Chorafia on Saturday night. dancing in the streets till morning.




sunday lunch at Taverna Loutro.

end of Sunday lunch at Taverna Loutro.

grocery store in Chania

filo pie with data and olives.....and tomatoes
preparing Horta for that days lunch


I will remember the white mountains. The blue sea. The large sky. 
That has been there for thousands of years.
To be dipped into and left.
And revisited again and again.


The beach, the book...











Friday, 9 September 2016

Theatre, theatre, theatre

I was at Sadlers Wells last night watching the Alvin Ailey company strut their glorious stuff. I sat next to an old friend who used to do dance class alongside me every Friday morning.
" Of all the people who could leave London, " she said," I never thought it would be you."
" you went to the theatre all the time. Every night."

I don't really remember. But she is probably right. I lived in Clapham. In Larkhall Rise. I had a bicycle and I had the 77 bus. At seven o'clock I might be pacing around my kitchen having eaten my bowl of brown rice and vegetables..and I would think , "I could get there in 15 minutes if I pedal hard." And I pedalled and  turned up at the Garrick/ Queens/ National/Aldwych and I would get a seat in the upper circle. Chain up my bike. climb the many stairs and lean over to watch.









When I didn't work as a actor, and nobody works all the time as an actor, I would struggle to fill my days. I would swim at the Latchmere pool. I would take tap dancing classes at the Actors Centre. I would do mime or Johnny O'Brian's dance class at the City Lit. I would read plays. I would learn speeches. I would clean houses. I would "wench" at the Shakespeare Tavern.

Swimming was cheap. So were tap classes. Mime and Johnny O'Brian were minimal. and learning sonnets was free. But going to the theatre meant I had to have pound notes for the tickets. And that is where the cleaning of houses and the wenching comes in.
Actually I don't think wenching is a verb.
But me and Jillie, both of us in Larkhall Rise with brown rice and vegetables, and Barry Manilow singing loud to motivate us to hoover the flat. The both of us cleaned houses in Clapham and '
"wenched" at the Shakespeare Tavern.
She and I put on mob caps and low cut polyester blouses and brought in cauldrons of Knorr packet leek soup pretending to the tourists that it was a medieval recipe. She still remembers the song we had to sing when we carried it in. I don't.
There was an evening when the two of us set out from Larkhall Rise to go to our shift as wenches.
And I stopped on the bridge. Jillie stopped too.
I said, " I can't go. I can't go."
And she said something like, " it's okay. Go home. I'll tell them you weren't well." or whatever.
And she bicycled on to Blackfriars to take the flak for me.

I had reached my own  dramatic T junction.
Wenching and cleaning was about having the money to go to the theatre. To see  Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan in " Liaisons Dangereuses." To see the five hour, " Strange Interlude." To see a whole day of " Nicholas Nickleby."  To see Travesties and Jumpers and the Real Thing byTom Stoppard. To see Plenty and Pravda by David Hare.

That's what I did when I had the bicycle and the 77 bus.

And now.....

Now I get the 87.  I go to the last stop on the Strand and I walk over Waterloo Bridge to the National.
" Do you have a single seat for tonight's performance? " I ask.
The other week, the sweet young man at the desk said,
" Are you...?"
I said, " Yes, probably."
He said, " An actor?"
I waited for a second.
"Yes," I said. With the breath support of a three year training a long, long time ago......
 " I have a ticket for you " he said.



This week. Yes. This week.

I went to a spectacular musical based on a film called Groundhog Day

Old Vic. Outside














Old Vic. Inside
















 I went to an odd  play at the Dorfman  at the National. ....Brutal. Too loud. well acted.
Went to the Almeida.Saw a fabulous play about the Congo set in the Congo and in London.

Went to Sadler's wells and saw the aforementioned ballet company with the aforementioned friend who talked about my love of theatre.
Tonight I went to see Nina Conti at the Criterion Theatre. I have been chasing her for years.
The daughter of an actor who is now the most brilliant ventriloquist ever...don't have another word for her...ever.
















Last week went to "The Entertainer" Laurence Olivier slamming into Kenneth Branagh.

Garrick. Outside











Garrick . inside
And an Opera about Nelson Mandela from the Capetown Opera at the Royal festival hall.











The Almeida

The congo at The Almeida




I don't want to have to clean houses again.
But you know, it wasn't hard.
And when you know why you do what you do, then houses = theatre tickets.
Wenching however......



Wednesday, 7 September 2016

blowing in from the west....

It is a common thing , known to all who call themselves British,  that the weather is central to our existence.
We can stand on a station platform, a queue at a supermarket, a bus stop, the post office, Fortnum and Mason, naked in the shower at the public swimming pool, waiting for the curtain to go up at the Garrick Theatre;  to anyone...  a man, woman, priest, or clown  any of the following:
" Looks like rain."
" They said it would clear up later."
" Muggy , isn't it?"
" Think it might break through."
" You never can tell."
" Lucky you've got an umbrella."
" Bit of blue up there."

Our weather is told us by meteorologists, although a little smarter than the original man in the classy suit, Michael Fish.


They have immensely complicated charts to point at showing you hour by hour what to expect if you are in St Ives, Inverness or Margate.

They know if they get it wrong, they can expect letters of complaint in The Times.
But that's all part of the game too.
Nobody knows. Everyone is guessing. 
But it is the language of the British. 
It is how we got through the Blitz. And Suez. And probably, the Great Plague.
Even today, the morning after the Minister for Home Affairs, has resigned following a nasty tabloid claiming he had paid male prostitutes for poppers and other services...at the swimming pool no one was talking about that. Everyone was talking about the blue sky that had just visited unexpectedly.
It is a way of making nice. Of making normal. Of making it universal.

And then there is the Shipping Forecast: 
‘Forties. Northwesterly six or seven, occasionally gale eight later. Fair or good’; ‘Cromarty. Southwest five or six. Squally showers. Moderate or good.’

Every night at past midnight the radio waves tell those in Britain what is happening in the seas around the islands. 
I never knew I was up that late. But I must have been, because I remember, " Dogger Bank, and Finisterre; Lundy and German Bight ."

People, including Judi Dench,  have picked it as one of the eight tracks for their Desert island Discs.

Stephen Fry, with much affection I am sure, sent it up with, " Malin, Hebrides, Shetland, Jersey, Fair Isle, Turtle-neck, Tank Top, Courtelle. Blowy, quite misty, no seasickness. Not many fish around, come home, veering suggestively."

Me, I am a fan of weather. 
battersea park. sky undecided.





I love it all. Rain, wind, drizzle, grey, blue, bright, cloudy.




St paul's with cloud cover








Cold cucumber soup when it is warm. Baked potatoes when it is cold.
Gingham tablecloths when it is sunny. Jigsaw puzzles when it is not.







Surprise me...come on....

hambleden,   garden dripping with mist


hambleden, waking up to rain.





















In the meanwhile I am going to head up to north London to see a play about the Congo.
I'll take a cardigan, just in case.
looking up into the Battersea sky this afternoon. 
















But I didn't take an umbrella. And I didn't need one either.
" Warm isn't it?"
"Wouldn't think it was September, would you?"
" I heard it would be nice again tomorrow."
" Did you?"