Off to Spain via a Dover micropub

Here we go again. It’s late March and I’ve just planted 300 little trees to create a hedge at the top of our field, planted seed potatoes, carrots, broad beans, parsnips, lettuces and onions in another part of the field that I’ve fenced off and Margaret calls the allotment, then left them all to their fate.

First stop, as ever, was Dover where we just missed Vera Lynne singing to long dead soldiers, but made a wonderful discovery on the way to our ‘local’, Blakes. I happened to glance down a side road and there spotted a pub called The Lanes: a micropub. I was so excited, I have read a great deal about this recent development in the pub world, but had never visited one. I loved it, Margaret was not impressed. We were welcomed almost immediately by the daughter of the owner who told us proudly that The Lanes was the 100^th micropub to start in the UK and there are now more than 250 of them (none of which are in Oxford regrettably). She talked me through the six cask ales on offer, whilst we viewed the casks themselves through a large window letting into a sectioned off part of the room where they lay cooling in their stillage.

The entire pub itself had previously been a gambling arcade and was about the size of our lounge in Stow-on-the-Wold. There was no bar as such, just a few high tables for leaners, plus sofas for loungers. The walls were decorated in wooden green men of the forest and hundreds of colourful beer mats from the brews that they had already sold. There was also a small bookshelf stuffed with beer-oriented books. The clientele was, let’s say, comfortably mature; the atmosphere relaxed and friendly. We chatted to a bearded, grey-haired man who had worked for years on the ferries, one week on, one week off doing twelve hour shifts – what an odd life. Margaret was approached by a woman who admired her coat and shared her name. She turned out to be Irish, but a true convert to real ale and her partner, who was a Dover man, who gave us a history of the pub scene there.

The landlord, an ex-train driver from London, came to join us. He had learned from his daughter that we were from the Cotswolds and told us proudly that he came originally from Witney. He then regaled us with an overview of the micropub scene: telling us what good times they provide with their policy of serving real ale and cider, no music or meals, friendly greetings, traditional pub atmosphere and so on. There were now four of them in Dover, he said proudly, and the owners were a community in themselves, sharing ideas and their private lives.

The micropub is good news for those of us that yearn for this sort of thing. Whilst many of the larger pubs are closing, they, with their low overheads and consequently cheaper drinks are thriving. I am lucky in Oxford, living near to some really good, fairly traditional, pubs that all serve cask ales. Nonetheless I would welcome a pub like The Lanes but realise that it is not at all likely. Property prices are so high and rentals similar so that the concept just does not apply there. As to Stow-on-the-Wold - it really has too many pubs anyway - though a micropub would provide a welcome respite from the same old beers and, perhaps, a welcome.

What a send off The Lanes was to a man leaving England for weeks of deprivation, forced to drink fizzy ice-cold beer and cheap wine in bars where the inmates all speak in a foreign languageJ. And when I return I will be leaving the EU behind me!

Am I an Oxford intellectual?

Just the other day I cycled to the gymnasium as usual for a bout of physical stimulation and later that same day I attended a packed meeting in the nearby Oxford University School of Governance for mental stimulation. This, together with my work as an Oxford guide and slavishly following live music in pubs, etc, etc, forms the pattern of my life whilst residing in this stimulating ‘city of dreaming towers’.

The caricature of an Oxford intellectual has many versions though there is usually a bicycle involved, also a scarf, a gown and a smattering of other-worldliness. At that meeting in the School of Governance there were six academics each presenting their EU funded social science projects. Though professors at the University they were all fairly young, nicely balanced between the sexes, skilled PowerPointers, shockingly articulate and terribly enthusiastic. There were no gowns to be seen, but I did find their projects other-worldly. One presenter stated that the great thing about European Research Council funding was that it allowed you to get on with what you wanted to do: his project was to determine exactly when chickens and pigs and dogs became domesticated. I am not quite sure who needs this data or who in the EU decided to fund this arcane subject or why, but I was equally puzzled by most of the other projects. I am sure that they are of interest to the multinational Oxford teams working on them, I just don’t seem to have the intellect needed to appreciate their importance.

When I first arrived in Oxford I presumed that the academics of the University and the city council would be politically conservative. I was so wrong.  The current make-up of Oxford city council is heavily dominated by Labour (35 out of 48) and not a Conservative in sight. Also, during the years spent lurking on the fringes of Oxford academia I could not help but observe its leftward leanings which is seemingly innate and usually assumed. This seems to indicate to me that I am losing my intellectuality, if I ever had any, with the advancing years.

Recently the Adam Smith Institute published a survey showing that this leftward tendency  that I have observed in Oxford seems to exist throughout academia – only 12% of academics tend to conservatism! When the report surfaced the media Rottweilers immediately suggested a link with intelligence. Not so, said the survey. The top 5% in intelligence rating in the country are said to be slightly to the right – in common with the population as a whole. Since the latter includes me, the evidence is mounting that I am clearly not an Oxford intellectual even though I ride a bicycle.

What interests, and worries, me is why this strong and unrepresentative bias amongst academics should exist. There are many theories. One is that it is a conspiracy. The left, unable to achieve power through the ballot box, inveigled themselves into institutions, including academia, and then took care to keep conservatives out.  However, one insightful friend believes that socialism dominates because the academics are idealists (which squares well with unwordliness, I suppose). Meanwhile a Spanish friend just completing his doctorate in Oxford states quite bluntly that it is simply a pretence. My own view is that it is guilt. Let me explain. Academia is a reasonably well paid and respected occupation and well buffered from the vicissitudes of the economy. Unconsciously aware of this they rationalise their guilt into a desire for a fairer society where everyone could enjoy similar status and stability. Meanwhile, they are well aware of the horrifying results of imposed socialism in Russia, China, etc, so they really wish to maintain the status quo: especially the existence of a conservative government that can be safely criticised from the high cliffs of academia with little fear of the outbreak of revolution they pretend to eschew.

In conclusion you can undoubtedly conclude that I am not an Oxford intellectual and I would be grateful if you would ensure that this blog does not reach any academic in-tray. In the past week or so I have attended lectures on: artificial intelligence, global warming, corruption, populism, Brexit, aging and, of course, the point at which dogs were domesticated. I would be devastated if denied my intellectual stimulation in Oxford. What could I do instead: read the Guardian, rejoin the Labour Party, retire to Stow-on-the-Wold, migrate to the New World, regress to teenage and have my mind reshaped by academics, volunteer for the one way trip to Mars, or simply welcome the onset of dementia?

Exciting news in the colourful world of squirrels

In an earlier blog I disclosed conversations I had with French and Spanish red squirrels, and recently there has been a surprise twist to the vexed question of grey squirrel immigration involving none other than the Great Protector of redness, Prince Charles.

The Great Protector is the founder of the grand Squirrel Accord which states in its website that ‘Grey squirrels need controlling because they are causing major economic, social and environmental damage to the broadleaved woodlands of the United Kingdom. The grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) was introduced to the UK from North America in 1876 and its population has grown rapidly since then. The problem of grey squirrels was first recognised in 1930 when a law was passed making it illegal to release a grey squirrel into the wild.’

The Squirrel Accord points out that the freedom of movement granted to these interlopers has brought with it the pox which is spread by the greys and kills the reds. You may also recall from the earlier blog that French red squirrel accused the greys of ‘breeding like rabbits’: a point which has clearly been taken up by the Great Protector.

Squirrel Times recently reported that the Great Protector ‘is supporting government-backed plans to sterilise grey squirrels to protect native reds and save millions of broadleaf trees. The oral contraceptive, lasting several years, would result in a population crash, reducing numbers by more than 90 per cent from 3.5 million to fewer than 300,000, scientists believe. Prince Charles favours the idea partly because it is a humane alternative to culling. No grey squirrels would be killed under the scheme but the contraceptive, which could be concealed in chocolate spread, would prevent millions of births.’

I contacted French red squirrel about this news, he was aware of it and appalled that chocolate spread would be made available to the greys and not the indigenous reds. On the contraceptive issue he thought that culling was the least that the greys deserved for “coming over here and killing our trees”. Spanish squirrel was more restrained. He welcomed any move that strengthened the brotherhood of squirrels but he also felt that chocolate spread should be available to all squirrels though the contraceptive element must be optional. He praised the efforts of the Great Protector but was critical of his continued ownership of vast swathes of forest which he stated should be transferred to the Squirrel Brotherhood to be operated as a not-for-profit collective.

Oxford: housing, truth, Trump and global warming

There is no doubt that Oxford is a strange place: rare, desirable, bubbly, historic, intellectual, expensive, etc. Regarding the latter, on most of my tours I provide a short introduction stating that “I’m Rob Walters and I live in north-central Oxford where the rich and famous of this city live.” Then I pause for effect, before confessing that I am not rich or famous and live in a small flat. Dependent on reaction I then turn to my latest shocking housing report. When I first started guiding at least a decade ago I could shock my groups by telling them that a house in my area had recently sold for more than two million pounds. That was more than a decade ago and there has been some inflation since then. My latest example is a nine bedroom detached house in Crick Road which has recently sold for £10,400,000! Some inflation.

To re-establish my own credibility as a guide I go on to explain that you could buy my whole block of flats for that money and still have plenty of change. I also sometimes add that I do not know who lives in these obscenely priced mansions, but that is becoming less true. Recently, in one of my local pubs, I fell into conversation with a garrulous builder who told me that he was living in a big place in (highly desirable) Park Town. But his residence was temporary: the house had been rented for a year or so to provide accommodation for a team of workers who were renovating and extending the house next door. That house, he told me, had been bought by...can you guess...a football player! Furthermore, I have been told of someone nearby who downsized by selling their expensive home to a character who made a fortune from running an on-line gambling concern! And this is the area once occupied by the, so called, ‘Dons’ of Oxford in the late 19^th century.

Another view of the city is provided by a meeting of Skeptics in the Pub. It was a Tuesday night and the theme of that evening’s talk was science: particularly controversial science such as climate change and genetically modified crops. Now many pubs are lucky to get any visitors at all that early in the week, yet the St Aldate’s Tavern upstairs room was rammed full of people. Even standing space was in very short supply. And all for a talk on science, though it turned out to be a little more.

The speaker was Mark Lynham, a reformed GM crop destroyer and self labelled ‘environmentalist’. Mark told us that he had studied physics as an undergraduate. Presumably unable to procure a decent job in that world he travelled and on the shores of Lake Titicaca had a supreme awakening that launched his career as an ‘environmentalist’. In this guise he first became a leading opponent of genetic modification of crop plants, then a global warming evangelist. Another awakening followed when Mark realised that all of the facts underscoring his belief in the evils of GM crops were not scientific facts at all! He checked the science and became a proponent of GM, apologising for his earlier, ill-informed actions and determined to make amends. And through this he became a true defender of truth in science: even to the extent of attacking the holy green grails of organic food production and the misguided preference for ‘renewable’ energy production over nuclear. The latter is very dear to my heart as we, in Spain, look with weary resignation over the encroaching forest of windgens uglifying the beauty of our nearby mountains.

As I write this blog, no self-respecting speaker in Oxford is able to conduct a session without having a dig at Trump. And of course Mark did dig. But, in addition to the usual rants against the new President of America he tried to solve the outstanding mystery: just how and why did this millionaire, hotel owning, reality TV host get selected as the ‘most powerful man on earth’. And here he fell back on his original theme to develop an answer. Basically, many people do not believe the ‘experts’ anymore, they do not think that they are capable of speaking the truth. And of course we can all think of examples that substantiate that belief – the opposition to GM crops being one. And then along comes someone who people feel they know (from TV), an apparently self-made man, a man of great confidence who is seemingly a visionary providing simple solutions to complex problems, hope to the hopeless and jobs to redundant coal miners.

I think that Mark has matured with age, though some label him a turncoat who is creating a new career through his support for GM. I do not agree with all of his environmental beliefs, yet it is refreshing to hear realistic answers even when they do not fit the bill of ‘saving the planet’. He has no doubts over the reality of global warming and its causes, yet when asked if the Paris agreement, now under threat from denier Trump’s zeal, would really make a difference to climate change, he said no! What was making change, he argued, were the moves already in place to replace coal with cleaner sources, in which he even included fracking. He said, I think with pride, that there were now coal-less days in the UK: days when no coal was burned to produce electricity. That’s nice, except, of course, for the miners.

On the following evening I attended a talk on space exploration in which it was proposed that Donald Trump pilots the first manned flight to Mars. Not really, actually, surprisingly, he wasn’t mentioned.

Why didn’t I protest against the inauguration of Donald Trump?

The obvious answer to this question is simply that I did not think that any protest of mine would have any effect. But perhaps that is not good enough: after all, I am a protester at heart and can demonstrate that by two stories from the past.

At the peak of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa I boarded a bus bound for London then joined a huge throng converging on South Africa House. Our protest march was supposed to be peaceful but, because our march was halted for many hours, tempers flared, stones were thrown and the police moved in. In my rush to escape the violence I narrowly avoided being struck by an enraged and hatless policeman whirling around within the dense crowd whilst wielding long pole torn, no doubt, from one of our placards,. And, as I finally emerged from the melee, I was almost trampled underfoot by a large police horse, its rider urging it into a gallop towards the centre of the aggression.

A few years later, a small group of us attempted to take Margaret Thatcher to court by accusing her of transgressing the Geneva Conventions through possession of nuclear arms – which inevitably, of course, would kill and maim non-combatants if used.

I certainly cannot claim that my contribution to those protests changed the world, but perhaps every little bit does help. On a more positive note I was also a keen protester for the return of real ale to the pubs of Suffolk. This was a success and much more fun – but hardly as important.

I do not like Trump. And I certainly do not like many of his extreme proclamations. Nonetheless, stimulated by his coming presidency, I did sample one of his television programmes. I was not amused or impressed by the hard talking, the humiliation of contestants and the explicit bullying (keenly supported, by the way, by the awful, toadying, Piers Morgan). I would not have given Trump my vote and surmise that I would have grudgingly voted for Mrs Clinton in order to keep him out.

But I did not have a vote, and that’s the point. The Americans chose this man as their leader using their own democratic system of presidential election. And that, of course, is worlds away from the situation of South Africa in the 1960s where people could not vote solely based on the colour of their skin.  I now await with keen interest to observe what will evolve from the USA’s choice and hope very much that it will be good for those whom he claims to represent and also for the UK and the world at large.

Meanwhile, I do strongly object to the conflation of Trump’s success and the Brexit vote in the UK. The connections are tenuous to say the least and the issues quite, quite different. Of course if you are eager to find links in order to undermine Brexit by association with Trump, you will. I attended an interesting lecture at Oxford University’s fine new Centre of Governance last week. It was presented by an American professor of Indian extraction and attempted to take a more nuanced view of the then President-elect under the titles: Tantrumps, Trumponics and Trump over the Globe.  It was interesting and thought provoking. Afterwards I had the misfortune to exit the building with a lady who was unmoved by the talk and thought that the election of Trump was a step towards the end of the world (though she did not enter the debate itself). In our short interaction she moved on to attack the outcome of the Brexit referendum at which point I announced that I, in common with the majority of the UK, had voted to leave. This brought an uncompromising, alarming and wholly irrational response: “A vote for Brexit was a vote for Trump”. At which point I left.

We cannot see into the future, most predictions turn out to be quite wrong: Trump and Brexit are outstanding proofs of that. However, there is a possible future where Trumponics and ‘America First’ lead to world-wide recession or, even worse, to war. How would I then respond to a question from one of my grandchildren: “What did you do about it Rob?” My response would have to be: “Nothing, because I could not influence it. But I did help to save real ale.”

Paris is not France: travelling perspectives

Think of France and the French for a moment. What images, thoughts and ideas fill your mind? For me it used to be Brigitte Bardot, chic, fashion, cheeses, onions, snails, frogs, crepes, champagne, Burgundy, Beaujolais, Bordeaux. Yes: sex food and wine. And that accent. Is there anything sexier than a beautiful woman speaking French whilst eating snails?

Margaret and I have probably seen more of France than most people, including the French. We take our time travelling through the country four times a year on average. We usually make three or four overnight stops and on our last trip down to Spain we spent nearly two weeks in Brittany. And we do try to take a somewhat different route each time, rarely parking our motor caravan in the same town or village.

We have grown to love the country, though not through sex, food, and wine, rather through its rivers, its architecture – the churches and chateaux – and the varied country scenery. In fact we find the food generally expensive and poor and the wine poor if not expensive. I make no comment on sex except to say that we find the villages and towns that we grace with our overnight presence rather dull (with some exceptions of course: see this blog). So dull that we look forward to a night out in Dover (we have a local there called Blakes) or our first night in Spain.

Usually we begin to search for somewhere to park up for the night as the light fades. And generally, though not always, we end up in run down places with many vacant shops and restaurants. Worse still the eateries that are open close early. On our most recent trip we stopped at Prades in the Pyrenees.  We left with memories of difficult parking and narrow streets; of almost becoming accidental extras in a film about Pablo Casals - a famous Spanish cellist who lived in the town; of the many dreadlocked dog owners; and of at least three restaurants, all open, all deserted. We were excited to find that one of the restaurants offered traditional French cuisine, but calmed down when we saw that Elvis Burger was on the menu. We ate alone in a pizzeria.

The second stop was at a place called Riom just to the north of Clermont Ferrand in mid France. We parked near the railway station which was somewhat noisy and walked into the historic town, which was mostly dead and had very few eateries. We ended up in a hotel restaurant which offered a reasonable menu and there we consumed well-done (as requested), tough, steak accompanied by exceptionally well-done chips. Unusually, in our experience, there were other people eating there, all sitting alone.

The third stop was at Senlis, not far north of Paris. This was completely different. There were many shops and restaurants, all open. There were dogs but their owners were not dreadlocked and their animals well-groomed. Golly, there was even a charity shop in Senlis, plus a complex and commanding cathedral, together with charming streets boasting warm, busy bars. We ate in a Michelin Starred restaurant and were asked if we had a reservation!! The food, surprisingly, was not too expensive, but it was not too good.

The point of this blog is this: France is a fraud. Just as London is not England, Paris (and its surroundings) is not France. Yet our images of these two countries are often formed by the capitals. And, given our own experience, it is no surprise that the voting pattern varies so much between the big cities and the remote countryside, just as it does across the north/south divide in England.

Over the years we believe that the contrast in France has increased. In the early days we did find traditional restaurants with good food, chequered table clothes and waiters who knew themselves to be our superiors. Now we are more likely to find pizza and kebab take-aways. Still, we are thankful that the rivers, the chateaux, the churches and that delicious accent all survive.

Leonard Cohen and the death of our Spanish village.

Leaonard Cohen’s death was announced via Facebook on the 11^th of November 2016 so we played his Greatest Hits CD a number of times, saddened, yet comforted by the fact that there are many more Cohen songs out there that we have still to hear: songs like ‘Goodbye Marianne’ and ‘Everybody Knows’ will gradually imprint themselves on our receptive brains as he touches our imperfect bodies with his mind.

Darkness had fallen in our Spanish village of La Fresneda as we listened to the songs we loved and, as  Allelujah, the last track on the album, played we heard monastic chanting in the background. Margaret threw open the window despite the chilly evening and the sad and moving strains of the monks blended with the rising crescendo of Cohen’s most famous song.

“I want to see if we know who’s died,” she said leaning out into night.

This, of course, was nothing to do with Leonard – the whole world knew that his free spirit had slipped away. No, this was to be a local announcement from the town hall of our village. La Fresneda, like almost all Spanish villages, is laced with loudspeakers all linked to a microphone at the village’s control centre: the system is called the pregon and the chanting monks preface news of a death dolefully delivered announcement as their voices fade away. But Margaret, I noted without surprise, did not recognise the name of the dead person.  Interestingly, this is the fourth death since we arrived six weeks ago. So what’s going on? It’s quite simple, the villagers are dying of old age. I can only guess at the average age here, but sufficient to say that it must be in excess of fifty and the replacement rate, given Spain’s low fertility and continuing drift to the cities, is well below that needed to sustain the population.

Our Street

La Fresneda has a street called Calle Fantasma, Ghost Street, and it is gradually becoming a village of ghosts. This morning I completed a little survey of our own street, Santa Agueda. It has thirty-one houses in total arraigned in two terraces on each side of the road. The houses are tall and thin and the street is short and narrow. Of those thirty-five, five are wrecks supported mainly by their neighbours. One of the wrecks is occupied by a fierce dog. Two of the houses I know to be rented, though the one next to us, we are glad to say, is currently empty. One house is currently being renovated, just four are permanently occupied, and the remaining nineteen are occasionally occupied, mostly at fiesta times only and mostly by people from Barcelona who have inherited their houses from family. We currently live in our house for nearly half the year and are therefore more permanent that most.

In a way this is a sorry tale. My neighbours and friends in the street above us are in a sorrier state. They tell me that only two of the houses in their street are occupied  - the other by Vicente, the current proprietor of the old bar in the main square. But everything is relative. Relative to England this is an incredible tale. Relative to rural Spain our village is quite lively. There are children and there is a school. There are two bars, two restaurants, two grocery shops, two butchers, a bread shop and many visitors – it is a beautiful place.

Is La Fresneda dying? In a way it certainly is. Looking back on our years here we realise that most, though by no means all, of the people we know are from the older generation. Many of them were touched either directly or indirectly by the civil war in Spain. They remember well the heavy hand of Franco and the sudden transition to a liberal democratic state. We like them. They talk to us, they are interested in us and we in them. They are country folk, they give us gifts of tomatoes and more. The younger generation are more metropolitan. With a few exceptions they do not see their future as olive growers or olive growers’ wives. They have been exposed to a wider world and want to be part of it.

It is often said that a Spaniard’s thoughts and action are ruled by family and then village. Affairs of state are secondary and relatively unimportant. For many that is changing, for many it has already changed. The old boys in the bar had neither the opportunity, nor the inclination to go to university and to the big city: the village was there world, and their ambitions lay in growing olives, almonds and vegetables for the table. Similarly the girls aspired to marry a good provider rather than following a career. When we first came to the village just sixteen years ago there were a few mules and horses  working  the fields, and men carrying firewood on their backs. Now there are machines that shake the olives from the trees and one of the villagers owns a JCB, a tractor, a number of motorbikes and, I think, a modern vibrating road roller!

So, once again, is our village dying? Well we all are bit by bit, aren’t we? To actually die a village must lose all of its inhabitants, and in Spain that does happen. However, it is not likely to occur in  La Fresneda. Instead of dying, it is changing. More tourist come to absorb the beauty and history of the place, the number of events are on the increase; not just fiestas but fairs on various themes like the antiques fair which gets bigger each year. The number of bars has doubled (now two) and with that the amount of outside seating in the main plaza is much greater. There is now a very successful camp site nearby, a swish hotel and cheaper inn.

So, like Leonard Cohen’s music, La Fresneda will go on and on. But the village will never again be the place we were so delighted to discover just sixteen years ago.

Chatting with squirrels

On my current trip to Spain I happened to meet two red squirrels. The first I came across on the French side of the Pyrenees. I was walking alone in the beautiful countryside around Arro and the day was sunny and hot. Just to my left came a rustling sound from the hedgerow followed by some high pitched chattering. Suddenly a little red squirrel leapt put of the hedge onto the trunk of a tall pine tree just beyond it. It looked me in the eye and chattered crossly. I responded in kind as best I could. It climbed higher our interchange took place once more. This was repeated a number of times until, with a last burst of sound, my squirrel leapt into a neighbouring pine and was gone.

Arro

I continued on my way thinking over what we might have said to each other. First of all the little creature was clearly cross and said something along the lines of:

“What the hell are you doing out here disturbing my midday snooze?”

I simply pointed out that I was an Englishman on my way to Spain and had every right to walk through the French countryside.

“English,” he screeched angrily, “it’s you lot that let those grey tree rats in and now we hear that there isn’t a red squirrel to be found in the whole of your land.”

“You mean the grey squirrels?”

“Rats, tree rats. That’s what I mean.”

“But they are squirrels too.”

“Rubbish. Just look at them man. They’re grey not red. Look at their manky tails and the way they move. Why they can’t even speak properly.”

“Have you ever seen one here?”

“Not likely. But there’s some in the north. Coming over here eating our nuts, taking over our nests. The northern reds have tried setting up a no-go area around the coast, completely stripping the trees of nuts and ­­­­­­­­­­­blocking up all the nests. But it’s no good, they always get through. Some softie from your lot takes pity on a starving family of them and, instead of leaving them to die, feeds them up and takes them inland to where there are plenty of nuts and there you go.”

“But why can’t you live together.”

“Ha, that’s what they, with their big flat faces and rounded ears, say: ‘Oh please let me share your tree Mr Red Squirrel; there are plenty of acorns for all so why don’t we share them’. Then they get to work eating our nuts and breeding like rabbits until there are so many of them that they turn to us and cry, ‘This is our tree now. Push off red squirrel, there’s not enough food for you as well’. Yes, we red squirrels are doomed, all doomed.”

And with that he leapt into the next tree and was gone.

Alcala

The second squirrel I encountered was Spanish. He looked similar to the first one but was a shade browner and a little smaller. I had just walked along the lip of the deep canyon which the Rio Jucar cuts through the generally flat terrain of Castilla La Mancha. I had then climbed down into the gorge to the little village of Tolosa and began walking alongside the river to my motor caravan parked beneath the famous cave town of Alcala.  In a close repeat of the first encounter a Spanish squirrel rushed up the bole of a pine tree to my right. Surprisingly, given this squirrel’s nationality, this little chap was more reticent than the first and it was I that started the chattering. Nonetheless, once started he readily joined in before ultimately vanishing into the upper branches. This is what I imagined we said to each other:

“Hello Seňor Red Squirrel,” I said in a friendly way. “I met one of your cousins from France recently and we talked about the problem of the grey squirrels taking over your lands.”

“I am honoured to meet you Seňor,” he said shyly, his head partly obscured by the trunk of the tree. “However, I know nothing of grey squirrels and French squirrels. All squirrels are brothers and sisters and all are equal.”

“But surely you have heard that grey squirrels from another land have entered mine and taken all the food and nests of our own red squirrels, driving away all of your brothers in England?”

“All squirrels are brothers,” chattered the little brown squirrel after moving a little further up the tree.

“Are there any grey squirrels in Spain?”

He twitched his curved tail nervously and replied, “I do not know Seňor.  We live only in the valley of the Great River. My father’s father claimed that he found a grey brother by the riverside. The grey brother, sadly, was dead.”

“Perhaps it died trying to get into your valley. Life for squirrels is, I should think, pretty good here.”

He did not respond to this so I continued, “What if the grey squirrels did enter your valley?”

“We would welcome them, all squirrels are brothers.”

“Would you feed them, would you house them?”

“Of course.”

“What if they came in great numbers and took all of your nuts and your nests so that there was nothing for the red squirrels to eat and nowhere to live?”

The Spanish squirrel’s tail froze and he sat motionless on his high branch for some minutes before shrieking, “All squirrels are brothers,” then he vanished into the surrounding trees.

I continued walking through that picturesque ravine until I reached the town of Alcala. I then looked up at the morass of white houses clinging to the steep cliff side. We had visited this strangely attractive place the evening before and estimated that only a fraction of the houses were permanently occupied, so, plenty of nests there. We had also spent some time in a bar most of which was cut into the cliff face, so, plenty of room for expansion. The landlord, a confident, expansive fellow, had explained the current political situation to us as we watched Rahoy making his bid to continue as Prime Minister on the TV. He, the landlord, gave us nuts to chew while we drank our beer and I thought, “What if...?”

Desiccation and drinking in the headless state of Spain

It is so dry here that all is dust and dusty. The snakes are sufficiently emboldened to seek any droplets of moisture that people might spil,and walking on the terraces of our huerto is like walking on potato crisps – sharp, sticky crisps. It has not rained in our lonely corner of Spain for at least six months and the country itself has been ungoverned for at least twice that time. Not that the two are connected necessarily. The drought means that we will have no olives this year, but better governed holdings have irrigated their trees and will have a harvest.

On the brighter side we are still eating our olives from two years ago, have a bumper crop of delicious purple-bloomed grapes, most of the trees in our little orchard have survived, and the Spanish continue to enjoy life in their festive tradition.

Recently we went along to the first night of partying at the fiesta of our second most favourite village in this country. On offer was a fully fledged fairground plus a dance to a live band starting at midnight (yes starting). We chose the more traditional tour of the bodegas (wine cellars) led by a large cohort of local musicians and singers. They play jota, a distinctive local music featuring guitars and mandolins together with solo or duet singers who stand in a special way and give it full belt – not a microphone or amplifier in sight. The stance is important: the singer stand proud and thrusting with hands on hips and elbows extended (or, for the more casual men, thumbs in jean pockets cowboy style). The songs have a fixed pattern. There is quite a lengthy instrumental introduction during which the singer waits patiently for a musical signal. The music slows to a near halt then, as the musicians move into the main body of the song, the singing begins. My Spanish is not good enough to understand the lyrics but most seem to be concern the village or its surroundings. Some are clearly amusing, especially those sung by a short man with a white beard tied like a pony tail with a red elastic band and wearing a strangely tied bandana shockingly exposing one side of his balding head.

The evening started in the beautiful main square of Cretas when a small group of young ladies from the village set off a rocket at nine o’clock precisely (9.30ish Spanish time). Then, nothing. The crowd continued chattering animatedly unril, at long last,  the joteras climbed onto the stage. There were roughly twenty-five of them and so the show began with a few short songs. Following that, the troupe began their musical meander through the narrow maze of streets which make up the old town. First stop was outside the church so no wine there, yet the waiting and  their singing was making me thirsty. After a few songs the players led us on a long walk through the newer part of the village, singing and playing as they went.

“Oh no,” I said half-jokingly to Margaret, “they’re heading straight for our camper van.”

“And we only have one bottle of wine,” she replied dryly.

Fortunately they turned into a nearby restaurant and we piled in after them. It was a large place where one long table had been spread with plates of ham, olives and bread together with bottles of red and white wine. The musicians sat down at the table and began to tuck in so I grabbed a glass and made for a bottle. Margaret restrained me, hissing that the stuff was solely for the musicians. I watched carefully as the rest of the audience descended like locusts on the food and drink, then joined in. Soon the music began again with the owner of the restaurant doing a solo and to my amazemnet she was followed by a young girl. I had noticed this teenager at the church: an attractive girl with thick black hair and a pretty but elongated pale face. She wore that sullen, teen-style expression and displayed the body language of someone who clearly did not want to be there. Yet she sang so clearly, so strongly, so convincingly that the experience went straight to the heart and brought the greatest applause of the whole evening.

After this a melodious walk back into the old city for more food and wine in a large garage. More again in a dead end street where there was cake, sweet wine and, of course, always the jota. We ended a memorable night at about two in the morning in another garage, this one, strangely enough, dedicated to bull fighting. Finally, that seemingly recalcitrant, but actually rather shy, young lady sang a magical last song and we wandered happily back to our van.

Despite the lack of government the main bar in our own village, our favourite bar, has changed hands yet again. At first we thought that our friends Miguel and Anna had left and handed the business over to their cook Vincente. We were told that they had gone to Barcelona or maybe Adalusia, yet one day Margaret met Miguel in the local shop – they still live here, they have merely given up the bar. Vincente is very fat, just as cooks are supposed to be. He says little beyond an initial greeting and final goodbye. His wife is from South America and looks it. Margaret thinks her exoticism may prove a retainer for the old men who are the bar’s main clientele (though not income). We will have to wait and see. Meanwhile we have decided to share our alcoholic largess between Vincente and Ramon. Yes, he of the bar next door. He who almost drove us from the village when he ran the, then only, bar. Earlier blogs relate his rapid demise from enthusiastic greeter to resentful barman, followed by his re-emergence as the owner of a new, bigger, and perhaps better, bar next door.

Think of us then in England as the pound falls to near parity with the euro. Then, think again when I tell you that Vincente’s beer is a little over two euros a pint! Meanwhile we think of our recent escape from a two week traverse of France where six euros a pint was not unusual!

The Irish and Sovereignty

I like Ireland,­ and the Irish who live there. Ever since I was briefly befriended by the then prime minister’s (Teajoc’s) brother on my first flight to Dublin some years ago the people of the south have gained a special place in my heart and mind. I have so many tales about experiences there, usually based on the warmth and sense of humour of the people.

Our latest visit was occasioned by two events: our youngest son had acquired a son and house. My wife could not wait to get her hands on this latest grandson (I quote) and my acquired skills as a house renovator were needed to kick the other project off. And project it was. The house is not too far from the centre of Dublin where prices are soaring and, from first impressions, I found it to be a basket case in a dubious area. After two weeks hard labour where I provided a new shower and loft tank, rewired the kitchen area and fitted up a new kitchen I changed my mind about the house and the area – and reinforced my opinion of the Irish.

Just one example: the house is part of an old corporation estate and bordered by a scruffy lane which serves the next door launderette, Chinese takeaway, electrical supply shop and so on. We were living in our motor caravan, the house unfurnished and uninhabitable. There was nowhere to park, in fact most people parked on the pavements. So where were we to go? Luckily my son had spotted an unusual location near to his densely populated area: a dead end street overlooking a pleasant park and dribbling stream called the Poddle. At the end was a large space in which cars and lorries could turn. Great – we took up residence, nervously. Surely the permanent residents of this enviable plot of greenery would balk at gypsies moving in?

On the first evening an old man approached with his dog, presumably to complain. “Is it alright to park here?” I asked in an effort to pre-empt the onslaught, adding, “it’s just temporary while we help our son do up a house.”

“Oh, to be sure, you’ll be safe enough there. Nobody will bother you,” he said as my jaw dropped in astonishment. He then went on to tell us the history of the place, of his wife’s death and how his daughters supported him and finally to introduce his new “wife”, the dog, a little scrap of a thing whom he said, “never nags. Oh, and if you want you can park right outside my house”.

We became regulars at the Four Roads pub where we quickly made friends with the previous landlord and major contributor to the karaoke session on a Monday night. It was here that we saw a spitting image of Anne Widdicombe wiggling her bounteous hips whilst belting out Elvis’s ‘Teddy Bear’. And it was not just the Four Roads that welcomed us - we were chatted to by people in almost every pub that we entered.

My son allowed us just one day off work so we escaped to the coast south of Dublin. Finding it camping car unfriendly (not surprising, there are so many of the things nowadays and so big) we turned inland finally drawing to a halt above Parnell Park in the village of Rathdrum. The village was small but lively and we had a great evening of good, basic, Irish food, some quaffable local beer and visits to two pubs with live music. 

Next morning I ran around the park, learning a little more about Parnell who was born nearby and was a great and dogged proposer of home rule for Ireland in the 19^th century. Perhaps appropriately the park also had a plaque celebrating the constitution of an independent Ireland which I read with great interest. Two words leapt out at me, particularly because of the recent Brexit referendum in the UK. The words were ‘sovereign state’ and the context , of course, independence. My eyes widened as I read this at a time that the Irish government had just been reprimanded from Brussels for giving favoured tax rates to the likes of Apple and Google and ordered to accept unwelcome refunds! And, hang on, wasn’t sovereignty the major issue in the UK referendum?

Now, I know this is a long shot, but could it be the great change that is Brexit might be the context for a united Ireland with free trade links with mainland Britain and who know what else – sovereignty perhaps? Yes, just as long as they do not lose those palatial pubs of theirs where the greeting is genuine rather than corporate policy and the drinkers are there to talk and sing rather than adulate mobile phones.

Does Brexit mean Brexit?

I do seriously ask myself how I might have felt if the Brexit vote had gone the other way. Would I have been angry? Demanded another referendum? Insisted that the decision was not binding or legal? Complained that immature people had unfairly biased the vote or ‘educated’ people had been swamped by the ‘workers’? I do not think that I would, neither am I crowing over the victory of the leave campaign. But, to me the future does seem bright.

I recently had the temerity to attend a Fabian Society meeting titled the ‘EU Referendum and the Future’. The society’s strap line is ‘let’s shape the future of the left’ and the chairman told us that it was a long standing think-tank with loose links to the Labour Party. I was pretty sure that I was a gooseberry amongst the coconuts there, and this proved to be correct. The speaker was introduced as a man with many years experience working with and for the EU. As he talked it quickly became apparent that he was committed to the European project and resentful of the referendum outcome. His speech was full of gloom, despair and a litany of the problems to be faced.

Question time produced glowing support plus all of the moans and groans that I listed above. Someone even suggested a new political party aimed solely at remaining in the EU - I recognised him as local liberal democrat, hence doubly disappointed. The speaker glowed in the warmth of so much support but, in answer to the demand for another referendum or simply ignoring the recent one, said, quite reasonably, that MP’s could hardly ignore a vote by the population as a whole, Then, chillingly, he added, “but it is all a matter of timing.  Eighteen months down the line when the economy is going really badly may be the time to reverse this stupid decision”[1].

The second wave of questions proved to be more interesting. One man gave a long speech which could be précised as ‘shouldn’t we search for a progressive Brexit’. Another gave an equally long diatribe on the need to redistribute wealth via punitive death duties – something that he thought would be impossible within the EU. The speaker agreed that the last point was true: it would be impossible. He then dealt perfunctorily with my two-part question. I asked him if, given the outcome of the referendum,­­­ he couldn’t find just one positive thing to say about our new direction, and also whether he might now direct his obvious talents and experience towards making Brexit work. He did not answer the first part, but did say that helping with Brexit would negate everything that he had spent much of his life doing. In other words he will presumably spend the rest of his life trying to prevent what the majority of the UK want. Such a great pity; he undoubtedly has a great deal of knowledge that could aid the transformation of the country and might help to find ways of working with the EU to our mutual advantage.

There was little doubt that this was a meeting of unhappy remainers desperate to find ways of preventing Brexit, and the speaker told them precisely what they wished to hear hence fuelling their denial. I was convinced that I was the only gooseberry present, yet, much to my surprise, when I put my plea for a more positive approach to Brexit it drew hearty applause – from two people of the fifty or so who were there. But then Oxford is certainly not the UK and, as Theresa May has said repeatedly: Brexit means Brexit.

Naturally the divorce will take some time, but a happy separation will not be helped by those who are too rooted in the past. Some compromises are inevitable but Machiavellian attempts to ‘fudge’ the issue so that we ostensibly come out yet actually stay in will fly in the face of a long, well-informed, sometimes bitter, referendum campaign in which the remainers used all of their ammunition (and more) but did not convince the people of the UK to stay, close though the outcome was.

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[1] This is very Fabianesque. The following is quoted from early pamphlet published by the group: For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently, when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays; but when the time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did, or your waiting will be in vain, and fruitless.

Geology rocks: A day on Dartmoor

Dartmoor, for me, presents a chilling childhood image of an impregnable and inescapable grey jail surrounded by inhospitable craggy moors shrouded in mist. A frightening place populated by bloodthirsty and indestructible criminals who did somehow manage to escape from that awful prison. However, my recent visit – a field trip with the ever-popular Oxford Geology Group – has created a rather different picture.

Geology fascinates me, that’s why I joined the group some years ago when it was a moribund interest group, running a monthly talk and occasional field trips for its ageing and unwelcoming membership. It has now been transformed into a buzzing society with a very active website, oodles of lectures, lots of young members, field trips to everywhere, and a nationally important annual colloquium. It was whilst I stood on Blackstone Rock a prominent windswept tor in Dartmoor, that the idea for this piece formed. The man who started and fuels this little revolution shouted, “How come there is nothing on our field trips in Rob’s Blog?” And now there is.

What I really aspired to in joining the group was to look at a mountain, a valley, or a landscape and determine its geological life history; I wanted to look at rocks and say what they were and know more about their composition; in short I wanted to know all there was to know about this little planet of ours. Hubris.

What I have learned is that, though based on science, geology is hardly a science itself. However, I do now know that the grander mechanisms of geological change: plate tectonics, lava flow and cooling, erosion and sedimentation are all visibly true; and the stratification so ably demonstrated by William Smith’s famous map of 1815 makes sense of it all. I have also convinced myself that this is not a subject for the amateur. A solid knowledge of geology crosses many scientific boundaries and can only really be achieved by years of study. Nevertheless, I still enjoy the geology field trips very much. With a good guide they provide eye opening tours through landscapes which you may have seen before, but could not understand. A good guide adds another dimension to a panorama, something that Richard Scrivener certainly achieved on the Dartmoor trip. Of course, I understand that he stands on the shoulders of Smith and the geologist who followed him; nonetheless to transform what is simply a rocky terrain into a fascinating and logical story is a rare talent. It’s like walking down a darkened lane, then walking back in full sunlight.

I now understand that Dartmoor was a vast pool of lava which formed below ground level some 280 million years ago. The lava cooled slowly producing granite containing very large crystals of feldspar which we could see clearly at Blackingstone Rock. I also learned that the formation of tin-producing minerals so important to Dartmoor’s later industry occurred 3 million years after the formation of this great deposit of granite, itself called by geologists a ‘pluton’ after the god of the underworld. This was then followed by millions of years of erosion removing the crust above the lava and then digging into the granite itself leaving the occasional outcropping or ‘tor’ of which the Blackingstone Rock is one.

What will always trouble me is a simple question: what is granite? OK, I know it is an igneous rock formed from slowly cooling lava, but that tells you little of its physical appearance. When I look at a metal I can often determine what it is by colour, hardness, surface appearance, and so on. Granite can seemingly be of almost any colour dependent on the proportion of the various minerals that make it up, it can also be coarse or fine so how can you be sure that a rock is granite? My investigations on the web only served to complicate identification.

That aside, this was a great trip. After a good pub lunch accompanied by excellent Dartmoor beer Richard led us across the moors pointing out the cuttings made by the tin miners of old (we did not visit any underground mines). The ore that contains tin is called cassiterite and it appears as veins in the granite. Richard did show us some, it was dark reddish-brown and not particularly impressive. On the other hand, many of the rocks in the deep cuttings glittered attractively. Unfortunately this had nothing to do with tin: the glittering was produced by specular hematite which is an iron ore! I picked up a small stone with a wealth of this shiny black stuff embedded in it and have now deposited it in the dark confines of my stone collecting tin along with the other neglected pickings from other trips.

After a visit to a quarry we began the long drive home arriving back in Oxford at about nine. I was dropped off at a pub then visited two more that night and, do you know, no one mentioned the hard hat hanging from my backpack. I thought that it would be a great conversation starter, but it was Brexit that took centre stage.