The Channel versus the Ionian

On Monday the sun was out. I guided our company to the places I’d visited by cycle the day before. I pretend it doesn’t matter but for us, who eat at home and don’t want to go to cinemas or exhibitions, the weather affects us since our pleasure is to stroll the coast and picnic on beaches, read, gaze and chat. Lin parked near Pointe St-Jean, on the estuary coast just west of Pol. From here Dorothy and Arthur could stroll gently along a narrow coastal path. A field of onions protected by a thin high hedge of domestic shrubs bent in the westerly wind until the path neared the wooded point where gorse, flowering privet, elder and broom mingled with waving grass (especially the seaside species with light furry tips), thistle, clover, white and pink campion, saxifrage, buttercup, poppies (small and large), egg and bacon, vetch, small violent hyancinths,pink achilleon, Queen Anne's lace and daisies. Crude disks of raw earth and ripped surface roots stood head high beside the path, marking a line of gale felled pines, kept green by their tap roots. Some of these little disasters had created alcoves in which inventive children, by weaving braken between splayed roots, might have made cosy seaside dens.
We went on to Ilôt Ste-Anne for lunch at a table in the park there and I worked through a dozen oysters bought from a vivier at Porzdoun for €3.64.

When I gaze at the sea here I feel less envy for not being on it now we know ‘Summer Song’ lies at Ypsos. But it’s strange that I still find this channel-Atlantic coast more understandable and readable than the lake like littoral of Corcyra. Here are innumerable off shore rocks surfacing and sinking between the ebb and flow of the highest tidal range in Europe. Harbours that present themselves as open jaws to approaching vessels, ocean swells and local currents to beset the becalmed and where a forceful wind meets an opposing tide the long waves steepen, trip and break, threatening heavy surf far from shallow water. Yet I look more apprehensively on the waters between Ipsos and Igoumenitsa which, even when the wind blows strong from the south, seem like no more than a gale in the Solent. Yet the Ionian makes noises I find ominous. The waves are low but too short and steep. There are no tides but the winds bring currents and the mountains, so beautiful and grand, set conditions for katabatic squalls that tumble, chill and solid as matter, down their slopes bringing blasts that come too hard and fast to spill from unreefed sails. An Atlantic sailor might sneer at Ulysses’ difficulties. He’d be a fool to be taken in by a sea that so regularly presents as an enchanted lake. I recall the skipper of a supertanker in which I’d sailed from England for a terminal near Beirut, too far offshore to see more than the haze of Lebanon, saying that of the seas he knew ‘the Mediterranean was the worst’.

E-mail from Corfu:

Hi Lin. Stopped for a couple of weeks to fix boat and earn some money. Garden area finished now, waiting for … some lightweight plaka … to use as the vertical bits on tree tub in patio and uprights on steps. Martin is finishing off a job in Skripero that he left to start your job. He should be there another week, then back to your place to put window and fire in. Once that's done, then we will get Ben back to plaster the wiring in, and plaster around the window and fire, …. Spent two days looking around various shops in Corfu for stuff on Internet you found. Not available in Corfu. If you want floor sealing before varnishing, you will have to bring out along with water based varnish when you come out.
Sealer takes 12 hours before varnishing, varnish is 8 hours between coats.
Sold 80 euros worth of spare plaka, still have some left. Costs to date are extra 83 euro plus fire and window, so we are doing ok for cash. Will pick up fire and window next week. Have a nice time in France, Best regards, George

The most pleasant place

From: Linda Baddeley Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 10:21:03 +0100 (BST) Hi George, Thanks for lending money till we get there. We owe you a drink or two! Thank Ben for sorting out the electrics. We owe him a drink too. Yes, we would like the window please. Good idea about the temporary plaka on the drain, but only if it's not going to cost much extra. Really can't afford to do things to be undone later. We're not rich like that lady you garden for! LOL Enjoyed seeing pics of arch jig. Shape looks good. It's looking so much better with that wall gone. I'll see if I can get any more info on sealing wood floors. Must admit that when we did one years ago in our previous house we just used normal satin finish polyurethane. Seemed to work OK, but don't know how long it lasted before it needed redoing. Could you give an estimate of how much we're going to owe you, so we can make sure we have enough to pay you when we come. You'd better add on the price of a saw blade! Thanks for keeping up the updates and pics. Regards to all. Lin

Big Pond Originally uploaded by lindabaddeley1.

As mid summer approaches and we are time richer the garden's looking good. Quite a lot of animals are living in or visiting. A young rat passes through on the scavenge driving the dog potty with its scent. Grey squirrels try to filch nuts from the birds. The occasional city cat passes along the gardens. The fish - orfe, koi, goldfish, tench - are stuck here, so we net their ponds against herons. The list of birds we've seen - Parakeets, Great Spotted Woodpeckers, (can't be bothered with more caps), jackdaws, rooks, magpies, great, blue and coal tits, hedge and city sparrows, an occasional thrush, a chattering jay, a wagtail, nuthatches, jenny wren, robins, starlings, blackbirds, fat wood pigeons, ring doves and - passing overhead now and then - Canada geese from the pond in the park. Our pond gives us dragonflies (but no frogs) and skaters and many other little beasts we don't see. The garden's full of insects, spiders and worms and snails and soon there'll be more butterflies to complement the bees. This weekend feels busy with a meeting later this morning of the Friends of St.Mary's Churchyard, followed by a wedding at Bethel United and one of my history tours around Handsworth Park - 'meet at the Park Lodge off Hamstead Road at 1300 on Sunday afternoon'. Yesterday I was doing a workshop for members of a Police Authority and some of its senior officers. Issues I suggested they consider: 1.Following the Police & Justice Act 2006 can Police Authorities develop a broader ‘conversation’ about service delivery with the public? 2.Central targets have created an Authority geared to delivering its performance figures to the centre. Can that process be about-faced? 3.By advancing their capacity for scrutiny, could Authority members have greater influence on the direction and nature of policing in the area? 4.How may Crime and Disorder overview, the spread of a habit of scrutiny among partners and ‘community calls for action’ influence relations between the Authority and the Service? 5.Can Authority members adopt techniques pioneered in Overview and Scrutiny, e.g. chairing, scoping, questioning and weighing evidence? Could scrutiny uncover the unknown unknowns? We noted a paragraph sent me by the person who'd invited me. It was in Mike Bichard's 2004 Inquiry into the murders of two children in an English village: '2.135 Nonetheless, the Police Authority appears at the time to have monitored police performance primarily by reacting to matters raised by the police themselves. Unless difficult or probing questions are asked about matters beyond those that the police choose to raise, no problem will be uncovered. There was, in my view, sufficient in the HMIC (Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary) reports to have caused the Police Authority to start asking more difficult questions. There is no indication that this happened.' These people - a mix of men and women between 30 and 60 (I'd say) were bright and conscientious sharing a wealth of experience. What a pleasure to work for such a group. I had a gentle row the evening before with a friend - a professor at Cranfield. She reflected perhaps no-one was to blame but the murderer; that Mike's remarks were perhaps untoward. I mentioned this on Friday morning. The most senior officer said "A difficult decision was made about what to do with information. What followed was consequent upon that judgement." As always I enjoyed cycling through London between rail stations on my way to this work. Being part brought up there I can't get lost in the capital. On my bicycle I travel almost as the crow flies, passing through static traffic like a butterfly, respecting those on foot, acknowledging the courtesy and skill of those who still drive in London, helped by the new cycle lanes. Lin's Mum just phoned to remind me to wake her for her Saturday visit to Cannock. The book I ordered has arrived. Lawrence Durrell's 'Prospero's Cell'. I've not read him since University ('The Alexandria Quartet' - spellbinding introduction to the same overlapping events told by different narrators; Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea). At the start of this 'Guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corfu' written in 1945 Durrell quotes Anthony Sherley, His Persian Adventure 1601 'A Greekish isle, and the most pleasant place that ever our eyes beheld for the exercise of a solitary and contemplative life ... In our travels many times, falling into dangers and unpleasant places, this only island would be the place where we would wish ourselves to end our lives.' [Flickr news: 439 images and 117 members in the group I'm administering on 'International flytipping'.]

E-mail from Corfu

Dear Lin, The front part of the roof has now been pointed up with cement, to give a neat finish. The wall inside and the plasterboard wall have been taken down, and the arch started. ... We should start on the floor and stairwell next week. That will all be belt sanded down and left until we can find something to put on it instead of varnish, ... consensus is that varnish will scratch. I have a builder friend over from UK says there's something called Russic oil, which you put on by cloth very thinly then leave for five days before applying the next coat. This seals and protects the wood from stains and scratches. Outside, the garden area is 90% completed. The orange tree has started to produce lots of leaves, but no branches. We can wait and see what happens. We should also start and finish the steps next week. I think Squeak is pregnant, so am keeping it out of the house. If it is a boy, then it is just getting fat from too many biscuits and sandwiches. Will keep you updated, Best regards G, M & B

Family

The photo is of Maria with some of her grandchildren. She died in November 2005. In a few hours perhaps we may have the start of the next but one generation. All of us have children - 15 in all - 6 of them girls. One son is married. They expect a boy today making one of my half-sisters a grandmother for the first time.
* * *
I've a list of things I didn't do yesterday to avoid doing the thing that has priority, which is to start writing a chapter I've agreed to write for a friend's book. As soon as I'm poised to start, displacement activities present themselves. Yesterday it was our garden - which Lin and I set to weeding removing and bagging that hairy plant which looks like Borage but isn't as well as lots of Sticky Bobby, dandelion, nettles and wayward couch grass. Lin tended the fish. Amy, back from work, helped. Other errands presented themselves. I phoned Mum. She's optimistic about the sale of the home we've visited since 1966. "If they go ahead and buy it the place will be as it should be - full of children". In 1973, returned from America and looking for work I took refuge in the Highlands and made a swing for the local children that hangs on a tree by the house with a view over Strath Nairn. It was used a lot but I've only needed to repair it twice in 30 years. Now it may be used again. These are hopes.
Lin and I chatted last night about whether life was better here or in Corfu. It's not a choice that interests me, wanting to be part of both - but I started the conversation because here we allow ourselves to be enveloped in news as we don't in Greece. What's the difference between being conscientiously in-touch with the human condition and overloaded with evidence of trouble? "Should we take a fortnight in Corfu before September?" we wondered.

The climbing rose - Jour de Gloire - from the garden in Handsworth has a delicate scent better than anything from a bottle.