Learning to walk again

I've suffered from migraines of one sort or another for around forty years.  Acupuncture kept them at bay when we were in France, but it didn't seem to be working back in the UK  Our GP recommended cranial osteopathy, as a result of which I went along to Richard Whitworth, who has a practice at the Falaise gym in Hastings.

I've been going to osteopaths for years as well, so know a bit about them.  Richard, however, is the first one to tackle my posture in an integrated fashion.  His colleagues have a tendency to treat the back in isolation: the first time I saw him, however, he said that part of the problem was the way I walked.  Unknown to myself, I point the left foot forward but the right foot slightly angled to the right.  This, he said, tilts the body, develops the muscles in the buttocks in a lopsided fashion, which throws the back out.  The body then compensates in order to ensure that the eyes are horizontal.  (Yerwhat?  Read on....)

According to Richard, when man moved from four legs to two it was in order to be more efficient as a hunter-gatherer.  Running on two legs meant you could move faster and catch your prey more easily.  In order to judge distance, however, while engaged in this hunting and gathering, the eyes needed to be horizontal.

And there you have it.  If you walk lopsided the body will be crooked, imposing strains further up, which ricochet into the neck and up into the skull.  Wow.  It just shows that some things never change.

Antony Mair

Defying the Weather - Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival

We managed to get to a couple of concerts at the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival last week.  The what?   I hear you ask.  Peasmarsh is a tiny village to the northwest of Rye, with a diminutive church.  Violinist  Anthony Marwood and cellist Richard Lester have organised this event for a decade: it involves a series of concerts over four days in Peasmarsh Church.

We attended the opening concert on Thursday evening, which was full.  Saabs and Volvos were parked by the dozen along the side-road, and the cut-glass accents of Middle England much in evidence  A garrulous lady in the row in front said "This is most of the glitterati of East Sussex", as if the audience was peopled by an alien species not usually seen in public.  We failed to recognise anyone except a charming woman who had been on my cookery course a couple of months ago - an indication of how far we still have to go socially.  Some brave souls were doing a mini-Glyndebourne with picnics.  Others were sheltering with cooked food in a marquee erected in the cemetery.

Thursday evening was in fact fairly clement, and the mythical memories of English summers seemed to be repeated.  At the Saturday lunchtime concert, however, it was drear, with a steady mizzle of rain as we went in.  Unperturbed, the audience hunkered down in their fleeces and tweeds and listened happily to the programmes.

If I have to be honest, the music was a bit uneven.  The term "chamber music" seemed to be defined fairly broadly, to include, for example, Britten's suite no. 3 for solo cello, and Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata.  The Britten suite was beautifully played, but I had the feeling with the Beethoven - as indeed with the Brahms C Minor Quartet on the Saturday - that expressive playing was sacrificed to the task of dealing with the sheer difficulties of technique.  The high point for me was the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, with some beautiful playing from clarinettist Timothy Orpen.  A joy.

Antony Mair

The Irish way of death

Paul's brother Gerry died rather suddenly last weekend, as a result of which we were both in Northern Ireland last week.  I have grown up as a Catholic, and have rubbed shoulders with the Irish in English parishes, but nothing had prepared me for the Irish way of doing things when someone dies.  The "remains" - not referred to as a body - of the deceased are brought back to the house, and placed in an open coffin.  People then call at the house to pay their respects - this involves saying a prayer beside the coffin, commiserating with the relatives, and then sitting down and having a cup of tea or coffee with the others present.  Since it's the done thing to call, relatives and friends are in and out of the house from the time when the death is known until the body is removed for the funeral Mass.  And of course they have to be catered for, so there is a constant supply of sandwiches, cakes, and more solid sustenance as time goes on.  This is a twenty-four hour undertaking, with members of the family staying awake all night.

When the time for the funeral comes, the coffin is sealed and then carried out of the house by members of the family or friends.  If the church is some distance away, the coffin will be carried a few hundred yards, people taking turns, before it is placed in the hearse.

At the funeral Mass itself, I counted some 300 people.  A general invitation was issued by the family for those attending to come to a meal afterwards - this turned out to be a sit-down lunch in a local function room for a mere 160 or so.

My kind in-laws were curious about how different things were in England.  Here the immediate family are left in their grief until the funeral takes place.  The funeral itself is followed by tea and biscuits in a local village hall.  I can only explain the difference by the fact that the Irish are more social, the English more private.  Nothing can make the experience of death less harrowing than it is, but I came away with the firm belief that the greater emphasis on the experience being a community one rather than a private and isolated affair is the healthier approach.  The hardest part for the bereaved, in both countries, comes later.

Antony Mair

New challenges in gardening

Not exactly spreading acres...

When we acquired the Shoebox the two obvious disadvantages for one who loved cooking and gardening were the minute kitchen and the diminutive back yard garden.  The kitchen problem has been resolved by replanning, and I now revel in it.  The garden has proved a little more problematic.  

We're talking of a space about four or five metres long and about three or four metres wide - a little wider if you take in the space at the bottom of the flight of steps that come down from the rear door on the ground floor.  We have a couple of flower beds, but the major part of the area is paved in brick.  It faces west, and gets a lot of light.  The views between neighbouring houses to the sea, to the south, and the open view of the Old Town to the west, are stunning.

All of this is fine.  The real problem, though, which I hadn't bargained for, is the wind.  It howls off the sea, bringing an abundance of salt.  All those delightful plants you see in cosy Sussex gardens simply shrivel and die with us.  Add to this a rigourous winter such as we have just had, and it's a miracle that anything at all has survived.  Last year we planted phormiums, which have staggered through but are looking a bit sorry for themselves; lavender, which has somehow been able to cope; and sedum and artemisia.  The sedums would have coped had it not been for another hazard - snails.  They've more or less survived but aren't exactly flourishing.  

This year we've taken a more restricted approach, and filled a number of gaps - it's quite surprising how many gaps there can be even in a space as small as this.  I'm not sure we'll ever create something with that Amazon jungle look, but we're gradually learning.  

Antony Mair

Frozen out at Fairlight Hall

Fairlight Hall

The thing about summer in the UK is that we've all got this idealised picture of balmy afternoons and evenings, strawberries and cream, cricket matches in the heat etc. - whereas the truth is very different.  People moan about climate change but I have distinct recollections of watching opera in country house venues years ago with the rain lashing down on the marquee - even one occasion at Glyndebourne when everyone was picnicking on the covered walkways like stranded refugees in dinner jackets.  

You'd think, therefore, that when we booked for a concert at Fairlight Hall, just outside Hastings, we would have been sensible enough to equip ourselves with several layers of clothing, not to mention shawls and overcoats.  However, we'd been working in sunshine in the back garden and toddled along to Fairlight in our innocence, lightly clad, to hear a recital by the wonderful Tae-Hyung Kim.  

Fairlight Hall is a Victorian pile owned by David and Sarah Kowitz, who are generous patrons of the arts.  They have converted a stable block into a concert room, the entire side of which opens out, by means of a sequence of folding doors, onto a courtyard.  Four giant umbrellas protect those sitting in the courtyard from the rain, but not, alas, from the wind and cold.  We realised our mistake at the outset, when we saw others dressed as if for the lower slopes of Everest, but hoped that we could cope.  

Tae-Hyung Kim is a superb pianist, who won the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition a few months ago.  In the first part of the concert he played two arabesques by Debussy, a piece by Satie, three brief sonatas by Scarlatti and extracts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.  His playing is wonderfully expressive and he discharges the bravura pieces from Scarlatti with extraordinary lightness of touch.  The Debussy was a marvel of tenderness and sensitivity.

But alas, while he played the wind howled in the trees of the neighbouring park and whistled round our courtyard.  In the interval we decided that we had to incur the penalty of our foolishness and miss the second half, rather than risk colds.  Next time we shall try to remember the truth about English summers rather than the idealised memory! 

Antony Mair

Paul becomes a Winkler

Winkle Island, with Winkle sculpture by local resident Leigh Dyer

On the other side of the street from the new Jerwood Gallery there is a paved area known as "Winkle Island", with a somewhat baroque sculpture in what appears to be stainless steel, of a giant winkle with a base of mackerel and rock.  The metal winkle serves as a collecting box for donations to the Winkle Club, formed in 1900 by the Hastings fishermen as a charitable vehicle for donations to the poor.

Membership of the Winkle Club is by invitation, and Paul was flattered recently to be asked to join, by our neighbour, the composer Polo Piatti.   He was admitted to membership at a ceremony in the Fishermen's Club, in the course of a social evening attended by other Winklers (as members are known) and presented with the small winkle shell that he now has to keep with him at all times - failure making him liable to a fine if he is unable to produce the shell on being challenged by another member with the formula "Winkle up".  

Good-humoured bonhomie was the characteristic of the evening, with music from the Goodall Brothers (a duo not in the first flush of youth but no less accomplished performers for that) singing a selection of golden oldies from the fifties and sixties.  As in all local events, you recognise faces, and it's like pieces of a jigsaw slotting into place - Keith Goodall works in our fishmonger's, and another Winkler present was Arthur Read, whom I pass regularly at his fish-stall behind the Jerwood.  

Famous Winklers include Winston Churchill in the past and the Duke of Kent and the Queen in the present.  Paul is now added to their number, and has the task of raising funds for the Club coffers.  Hastings people being fond of dressing up in costume, this may involve him donning some strange outfits.  Pictures will follow!

Antony Mair

Visiting Mykonos

Mykonos - the town

After a winter that seemed to last forever, we needed a break.  With the weather continuing to be unpredictable, the Greek islands seemed a good option, so we booked a week in Mykonos.  The last time we were in Greece was in a French holiday camp in Crete, so things could only look up.  A well-heeled friend of Paul's recommended a swanky hotel, so we threw caution to the winds and booked.

The pool at the Myconian Ambassador

The hotel turned out to be paradise itself.  If you want an idyllic place to stay, with a stunning view of the sea, untroubled by the party party mentality that afflicts large sections of the public as soon as they get off a plane, then book yourself into the Myconian Ambassador hotel.  The food surpassed anything I've experienced in Greece, although we rationed ourselves a little in order to preserve the wallet.  The staff were charming, the environment impeccable.  The other guests came from all over the world, including the States and Japan.

Back street in Mykonos town

Little on the surface of this elegant island indicates that Greece is in economic difficulties.  The main town is a labyrinth of narrow streets, giving the effect of a Middle Eastern souk.  Its shops include some very fancy jewellers.  We were told that these cater for a cruise-ship clientèle.  Who are these people, who leave their ship for a few hours to visit a small island and spend upwards of ten thousand pounds on some diamonds?  Chanel and Louis Vuitton were also present.  More Saint-Tropez than Captain Corelli.

Apart from our hotel, the culinary experience left a certain amount to be desired.  Greek cuisine has advanced since my visits back in the 70s, when the ubiquitous Greek salad made its appearance twice daily on the table, but locals still hanker after the traditional experience of the simple restaurant on the beach.  We sampled one such, where Paul's main course was a large wad of moussaka and I was confronted by half a leg of lamb.  The pallidly greasy chips that came with both were a long way from the current insistence on double and triple frying.

In July and August I imagine that the combination of heat and crowds make the Mykonos experience pretty hellish.  But at the beginning of June it was a perfect break, and we felt a bit of a pang on leaving.  The only remedy is to book another break!

Antony Mair