I managed to drop into The Hope last Thursday. Thursdays are ‘Talking Days’ and I met Susie’s aunt Libby who has volunteered to help those who want to chat and relax, to make them feel welcome. Interestingly, the word’s got around and there’s quite a gathering, Libby encouraging individuals to sit here or there and organising drinks. Susie says she’s off on her late, late Gap Year in a week and that Libby will stand in for her.

“Where are you off to first?” I asked.

“Well I thought I would head for the south of South Island New Zealand, say Dunedin, work my way up the island, across Cook’s Strait and all the way to Cape Reinga on the northern tip.

Then across the Tasman Sea to Australia; maybe go to Tasmania first then back across the Bass Straits to Melbourne. If I can get eventually to Perth I will have fulfilled a long standing dream, to visit some of the places that have inspired the Australian writer Tim Winton’s stories.

“Oh! I love him! Which ones? ‘Cloud Street’ or ‘Dirt Music’ perhaps?”

“Got hooked reading Cloud Street, all those lovely characterisations and then ‘Breath’ and ……”

“If you need any contacts in NZ let me know as I have lots of second and third cousins all over the place! And do try and get to Tasmania, just stunning! Now, I need to have a word with Mo, so could you get me a double espresso and bring it over please?”

Mo has been reading some of my past posts and mentioned ‘No Buts no Butts’ (PC 234 June 2021) as she’d recently seen that New Zealand is implementing a law which means if you were born after January 1^st 2009 you will be unable to buy cigarettes legally.

“Great!” she exclaimed. “I hope the politicians here do the same thing.”

“Sadly I read they are not going to! Sixteen years ago the UK government banned smoking in public places, despite vested interests saying it was unworkable and civil liberties groups complaining it was an attack on free choice. Yet today the ban can be counted as one of the most successful public health interventions in British history. But the UK government has ducked the issue this time, falling back on their belief that raising the legal age so that the habit would quite literally die out gradually was ‘too big a departure from the policy of helping people to quit rather than banning adults from buying cigarettes.’ So smokers, whose habit costs the NHS billions of pounds in associated health issues, will die needlessly.”  

I looked around at the tables in the Hope, all full of people chatting, and smiling, and laughing, and listening to the others at their table.

“This looks a very successful way to reduce the undoubted impact of loneliness on those living alone”

“It’s simple yet so effective; I can see Libby’s in her element. Maybe I’ll bring my mother one Thursday. She says she isn’t lonely but I think she would have great fun!”

I had talked to Mo about the Couples Therapy programme and how interesting we had found it (see PC 326 March 2023).

“We finished the third series last week and I was pleased to hear from India and Dale how helpful their sessions with Orna had been. You remember I had been interested in their belief that they carried generational trauma. Dale had said: “I think as Afro-Americans we come into relationships with a lot of trauma that we are not necessarily willing to acknowledge, ready to accept, and there has to be a lot of soul/self-searching in order to understand how real life affects your relationship.”

They now acknowledged that within the safe environment of the sessions, they had realised a few things. “Just seeing our parents, grandparents and uncles blaming others, made us realise we don’t want to be part of that cycle, blaming others. They seem to want to escape from the lineage of our family, but I don’t want to escape, don’t want to run; I just want to accept it.”

“Orna’s clinical support group had asked whether the question of her skin colour had arisen. So she asked India and Dale whether they had initially wanted a ‘therapist of colour’. India said they were adamant they had, but realise now the benefits of being challenged by someone not of colour.”

”A complicated topic! Relationships are about the two individuals in the real-life story, not some fantasy, not influenced by baggage that may have been carried down the generations and not, as Dale agreed, by what my grandparents did!”

I told Mo that we had gone to a classical music concert in The Brighton Dome on April Fools’ Day, to listen to a professional performance of Sibelius’s 2^nd Symphony, some sixty years after I had played in the school’s orchestra’s amateur rendition of it in the End-of-Term concert (See PC 109 That Reminds Me (1) November 2017).

“How was it, hearing it played well?”

“Actually I have heard in played a number of times before, although I never tire of its opening and the finale, when trumpets make a grand entrance. Goose pimples and all that! Andrew Mellor, writing the programme notes, says: ‘…. the Symphony slips inevitably into its final movement and the mustering of a heroic, striving tune soaked in optimism and renewal in its journey from a cautious harmonisation to a brilliantly confident one. The tune, again born of those upwardly-stepping notes, lightens the dark shadows of the troubling Elli Järnefelt theme to suggest the blossoming of life anew, in all its richness and colour.’ Not sure I could have described it like this but hey! Ho! I am not a music critic!”

“So a good evening?”

“Absolutely! Although why is it men don’t dry clean their jackets or overcoats? Before the performance started a chap sat down in a nearby seat and we were assailed by this awful smell of damp, musty material, almost stale BO. It probably went straight back into the wardrobe when he got home!

Sorry Mo, must just pop to the loo; back in a second.”

(to be continued)

Richard 28^th April 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

(See also PC 172 (March 2020) and PC 217 ‘My Week’ (February 2021) with its recognition of Hugo Rifkin’s genius)

Christians have recently celebrated the moveable festival of Easter. My thoughts about Easter were brought together in PC 64 (March 2016) and the defining memory of my taking part in the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race, 125 miles from Wiltshire to the capital city, along canals, some dry and others filled with water, and the River Thames. This year someone wished us ‘Happy Easter’ with this delightful little collection of yoga poses:

Francisquinha has her own favourite posture, half locust …..

The Chinese New Year, which started on 22^nd January and ends on 9^th February 2024 (!), welcomed in the year of the Rabbit, traditionally one of the luckiest. If you were born in a Year of The Rabbit you are likely to be quiet, elegant, kind and responsible (Note 1).

The zodiac signs are popular in neighbouring Korea and the rabbit is the guardian of the moon in their folklore. It’s believed rabbits make rice cakes using a pestle and mortar; this has not been verified. Winnie and Richard wished us Happy Easter with San Kim’s photograph of this Cumulus rabbit over the island of Joong-do; San is a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society (Note 2)

The new series of David Attenborough’s nature programmes features the British Isles; ‘Wild Isles’ as it’s called. Featuring my homeland has simply more meaning in its revelations of the treasures beneath my feet than some of his programmes, all undoubtedly wonderful, despite the breathless commentary. Did you know for instance that the red ant obtains protein from an Aphid or that the Ash Black slug mates by wrapping its penis around another slug? The 30cm long slug is a hermaphrodite, so wraps itself (herself? himself? non-binary?) and its penis around another slug (and penis) until the twisting penises are 30 cms long, sperm is exchanged and both penises drop off. Not sure I can add anything to this, apart from a photograph:

One episode in Wild Isles features grasslands and the animals that live in them such as voles, hares and rabbits. Watching any animal is vaguely interesting but it seems that programme makers are always looking for the individual Mating Displays, like the slugs above, as these are often colourful if ritualistic. A male rabbit featured for some minutes of this programme and I am not sure I should share the details with Francisquinha. The first part involves the buck rubbing ‘a cocktail of pheromones’ from a gland under its chin across the fur of the female.

Just for clarity, a pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor which triggers a social response in members of the same species. In us humans, they are actively involved in sexual attraction, for instance stimulating arousal, desire, lust or even fertility.   

The second part of the mating ritual is weird; the buck urinates over the female.  I thought this was only practised by those humans who do deviant sexual stuff behind closed doors, but to see the rabbits, plural as it seems other bucks join in, spraying their urine liberally over a female makes me wonder. Francisquinha tells me her favourite drink is Buck’s Fizz but maybe now I am confused.

The rabbit is fair game for owls and other birds of prey when they are out and about but protected once down their burrows … unless the local fox sees them as they simply follow the rabbit down. What’s that expression, ‘dog eat dog’? In nature the food chain is clear!

If you have read PCs 172 and 217 (odd they both have the same numbers, just a different order!) you will know that Francisquinha is a stuffed rabbit who serves a multitude of purposes in our home. She is, of course, someone to blame for a misdemeanour! For example, Celina’s father was very particular about who could load the dishwasher; he was not a domesticated man by any stretch of the imagination but he firmly believed in ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’. I passed his test, but no other family members did. Now here in Hove it’s Francisquinha’s fault if the dishwasher loading is haphazard. And she’s to blame if the hall loo light has been inadvertently left on!

Dragons’ Den, a BBC production which has just finished its 20^th series, enables entrepreneurs to pitch for investment from the five resident multimillionaire ‘Dragons’. In the last episode the Dragons, having already been asked to invest in a child-friendly sunscreen applicator, a hard-water shower filter and a collectable whisky business, were faced with Jo Proud from Loughborough. She had found that having a stuffed toy to cuddle, talk to, had helped with her anxiety. She then developed a range of stuffed bears that, it is hoped, encourage everyone to understand their thoughts, feelings and emotions and, most importantly, to cope and articulate their feelings. They are named Hope, Calm, Happy, Nervous, Love, Sad, Silly and Angry, and are there to cuddle or simply to listen to their owner, without judgement. All five Dragons offered all of the investment she had asked for and their mentor and business acumen. Francisquinha serves the same purpose; you can ask her anything and she’ll answer.

In fact in this Year of the Rabbit, she wants to write the last comment:

“Sunday mornings are a very worrying time as it’s ‘clean sheets’ day. Everything gets bundled off the bed quickly and into the washing machine. Once I wasn’t quick enough and it was only when the detergent ball was about to be thrown in one of my ears was noticed and I was hauled out. Quite a close shave I can tell you! Although after many months, years even, of lying around, flopping on top of the duvet or travelling to strange cities like Singapore, I do need a bath occasionally!”

Richard 21^st April 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Born in a Year of The Dog (there are twelve signs), apparently I am “honest, amiable, kind, cautious, prudent, loyal, reliable, considerate, understanding, patient, hard-working and sincere!” Food for thought!

Note 2 www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

Mushroom Risotto is such a simple dish but it tastes delicious and I can see from the empty bowls that everyone else thinks the same. As we tuck into the salad, Sami mentions the Hope Café for it was here we first talked to each other over a year ago. Having a regular coffee haunt is a mark of a sophisticated existence, someone once said. In fact such places, often know as Third Places or The Great Good Place (note 1), are a hugely important part of our local communities, of our local society. Here in the United Kingdom traditionally it’s been the local pub where one could not only have a drink but also engage in conversation with strangers, if you so wished. The growth of the ‘café society’ has increased the number of places where you can do this and The Hope’s popularity is testament to the way that Duncan and his team have developed its offering. Sami agrees:

“Such a friendly place and I’ve heard that Thursdays are going to be ‘Talking Days’, encouraging those who live alone to come and chat.”

“Yes, didn’t Susie say that her aunt’s going to come in to encourage people? I am sure that’s going to help. Maybe she’ll stand in for Susie? Do you remember that Susie wanted to go off on a Gap Year but Covid postponed that …..”

“Bit old for that!” says Sami, thinking Susie is ‘late twenties’.

“Oh! No! Never too late to travel and stretch your horizons, experience new cultures so I will certainly encourage her to go now (See PC 155 Overseas Experience June 2019) .Talking of which, what was Goa like?”

“Actually it’s a very busy state, with both international and domestic tourists attracted by the lovely white sandy beaches and active nightlife! Being next to the North Western Ghats rainforest we had a wonderful time looking at the ‘flora & fauna’, as they say. And I had forgotten the Portuguese ran it as an overseas colony for over 450 years; that is very obvious in the European architecture which is everywhere. (Note 2)”  

“Tell me more about your writing, Lisa?”

“Well, I occasionally contribute to Grazia and have a monthly column in both the magazine Red and in The Derbyshire Times. I have written a number of short stories about relationships based around the Derbyshire Peak District; no one gets murdered so definitely not crime stories!”

“Wow! That sounds fantastic. Funnily enough I know the sister village to where you live, Folding Under Sheet. It was the location for a short story I wrote in October last year; I called it ‘Murder at The Fete’ (PC 306). I have been writing a weekly ‘post’ since 2014 and am now on my 330^th. I make a hard copy of each 50, just for me!!”

I get up from the table, walk to the end of the room and pick up Volumes 1-6 of my ‘postcard scribbles’ to show Lisa and Sami.

“Goodness! Well, you and I have writing in common and then I gather from Sami you and Celina are Hot Yoga fanatics, if that’s the right word?”

“Slightly obsessed, Lisa!!” says Celina. “Neither of us is working so we’re able to practise five times a week. I started in 2008 and actually we moved to Brighton & Hove because of the hot yoga studios. …….”

Alexa’s timer goes off so, leaving Celina to tell them of our romantic yoga journey, I excuse myself, to take the Tarte Tatin out of the oven and let it rest before turning it upside down.

An artful presentation of food will often mask a mediocre effort but with Tarte Tatin it’s so simple that it both looks great when turned out and is decorative and delicious to boot. (See note 3 for guidance)

“Vanilla ice cream, cream or custard, and the custard can be hot or cold?” I ask as I put the dish on my own place mat and start cutting slices.  

So the evening drifted on in the warm relaxed atmosphere created by good food and conversation, everyone sharing little anecdotes of their lives. I found out that Sami lives in an apartment on Third Avenue here in Hove and that Lisa was staying for a few weeks.

Some moments after 10 o’clock, I tell Sami and Lisa that I don’t do late nights so we could finish before 1030. They looked at each other, as if to say:  ‘Who is this guy?’ so I explained what has become a tradition started after my heart bypass in 2013 and how I had needed to rest. Interestingly it’s been quite popular with many of our guests. Those who drink wouldn’t have a headache the following day and those who don’t wouldn’t have to listen to the inebriated bore ….. for example Andrew from about six years ago, who clearly hadn’t taken in the blank and resigned faces around one dinner party table, talking about the difference between two versions of a small aircraft, the Yak 23 and the Yak 23a, or some such and it was 11.30pm. No one else cared one iota!

I am sure we will see more of this delightful couple.

Richard 14^th April 2023

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg

Note 2 Fourteen years after it became independent, India annexed Goa in 1961 after an invasion that lasted just 36 hours. Portugal protested but was probably happy to see it go! It’s India’s smallest state by area and fourth smallest by population but has the highest GDP per capita of all Indian States, two-and-a half times as high as the GDP per capita of the country as a whole.

Note 3 You just melt 100g of caster sugar (50/50 caster and light Demerara works very well) until it browns, add 50g of butter cut into chunks, place pealed apple segments (dusted in ground ginger and ground cinnamon) in a pattern, cover with rolled out puff pastry and put into the oven for 45 minutes.

When I was last in The Hope Café (PC 327 – 24^th March 2023) I invited Sami and his girlfriend Lisa to supper and said I would email some dates which would work for us. Yesterday, Thursday, was a suitable date for everyone and they came.

We have learned from experience that it’s better to ask anyone coming for a meal whether they are vegetarian, vegan, have dislikes, often an irrational one (!) about certain food, or whether they have any allergies, like to mushrooms, to nuts or to red peppers. Celina is allergic to all sorts of seafood, such as prawns, lobsters, oysters, whelks, scallops, clams etc. People seem shy in telling one upfront, so we ask. Some years ago someone came for a three course meal and then announced she was on a calorie-counting diet and could she weigh the food I was about to put onto her plate! Someone else had had to eat fish pie at boarding school and today, more than 40 years later, still couldn’t stomach it, especially if the pie includes boiled eggs. Felt sorry for him, as Jamie Oliver’s Fish Pie recipe is to die for!!

Sami had introduced me to Lisa, whom he had met in India during a tour of the Indian Mutiny sites, back in December (PC 312 In The Hope). She’s a writer from Folding over Sheet in the Derbyshire Peak District and the two of them seem to have developed a lovely relationship, so much so that they went off to a yoga retreat in India in February and then toured Goa.

Our doorbell went.

“Bottle of Tattinger? (Note 1) How did you know? Welcome ….. so nice to see you both ….. please …. come in …. let me take your coats.”

We had decided not to ask anyone else, as we wanted to get to know Sami and Lisa better. Our huge ‘living room’ is exactly that, a room in which we live, cook, eat and relax; downstairs are the apartment’s bedrooms. The open plan format allows me to chat to our guests as I am putting the starter together, a simple collection of roasted pine nuts, peeled pears, rocket, endive, some chunks of gorgonzola and a dressing.

“So how was your yoga retreat?”

Lisa quickly replied:

“Actually it was lovely. I am fairly new to yoga, having started only a couple of years ago when my now ex-husband left for a new life with his secretary! Such a cliché, but I had sited his coercive behaviour in our divorce papers, so it was a very serious breakdown of our relationship! ….”

I made a mental note to find out more, probably at a later date.

“ ……. But it got me focused on what I wanted, mentally and physically; practising yoga covers both aspects so a good place to start! I was delighted to find out from Sami he practised Hatha yoga too, maybe in a more desultory way …..

“I agree, not very regularly, but I am keen to do more.” interjects Sami.

…… so we booked a retreat in Kerula. Very international group of people, all ages, very relaxed and a beautiful place.” And pulling out her mobile from her handbag, with a little searching produced a photograph of the place.

“Looks wonderful! OK Let’s sit.” ….. and we sat as a foursome around the dinner table and got stuck in. The conversation started to flow, everyone relaxed and comfortable.

I then excused myself to finish off the main course. Sami and Lisa hadn’t met Celina before so she was able to tell them something of her life, being born in Rio de Janeiro etc.

Up until 1995 white rice to me meant perfectly cooked, dry and fluffy stuff; the sort of standard accompaniment to an Indian curry. I had never liked what I could call ‘wet’ rice, until I went for lunch in the café of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney’s Circular Quay. I ordered a bowl of mushroom risotto and thought I had gone to heaven; creamy, perfectly al dente but still with a bite and have loved cooking it ever since. When a friend Narissa commented she was put off making it at home, one evening I hosted a ‘Teach-in’ on how to make it.

A much used Risotto recipe from Jamie Oliver

Sami got up and came over to keep me company.

“You can obviously cook Richard.”

“Well, yes I learned sailing offshore that with a little effort food can be tasty and then I can read. Not fazed by a new recipe and remind myself that some recipes, for instance by reputation Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate cake, don’t work, but I have never tried to make it! A few years ago, in the family kitchen in Rio, I was told you could only make Crème Caramel with condensed milk. Thought this was nonsense if you can buy ‘fresh’ milk so came back to the UK, found a recipe and made some – delicious!”

“I guess I’ve got a bit lazy since my bankruptcy and having to look after myself! Too many ‘Take-Aways’ but Lisa can cook really well so life is on the up.”

“And I read the Post Office (PO) scandal isn’t over?”

“It’s a nightmare. I was offered thousands of pounds but the lawyers wanted 80% of it. Some convictions have not been overturned, with the PO dragging its feet, the compensation scheme is a nightmare to work through and the governmental enquiry still has to hear from the PO and Fujitsu executives.”   

Into the heavy-bottomed saucepan of white onions (15 minutes to sweat properly), garlic, sliced celery, I add some finely chopped mushrooms and separately cook some other roughly-torn ones.

“OK! Now some Risotto rice and white wine; three minutes”

“Hey that’s beginning to smell wonderful.” says Sami, looking over my shoulder.

Over the next five minutes I gradually add some hot vegetable stock, keep stirring, and eventually the rice is cooked. Finally I add the mushrooms, a large knob of butter and some grated parmesan cheese, tip the saucepan’s contents into a warmed serving bowl and take it to the table. 

“Sami, can you bring that bowl of salad and the plates please?”

When everyone has some food in front of them and something to drink, I raise my glass and toast:

“Bon Appetite” 

(To be Continued …..)

Richard 7^th April 2023

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 A bunch of flowers is lovely too, but you have to scramble around looking for a vase etc so a bottle better!