The English countryside is often defined by small villages and their Norman church, dating from the eleven or twelfth century. This particular Norman church is rather hidden behind thatched cottages in the tiny Hampshire village. Ancient carvings feature in the stonework of the arched doorway; ghosts of old paintings and fragments of the Ten Commandments are visible on the flaking plastered walls. The stone steps of the doorway have been worn away by the footfall of the faithful and they’re delightfully uneven; a beautiful alabaster monument to a long forgotten Tudor knight and his wife lies to the right of the altar. This church stands witness to both joy and sadness, to both hope and fear, to both faith and dedication, through its congregations over the centuries and, if you sit in a pew…… and pause ….. and imagine, you can hear some snippets of conversations, of sermons, of music from the little organ, of laughter and of silence. Some of those who have worshiped here lie at peace in amongst the rough grass around the solid building.

I sit on a hard wooden pew, close to where I had witnessed the marriage of her sister back in 1971. That was a joyous uplifting occasion, full of hope and happiness and the future. This is an extremely sad occasion, full of disbelief and finality; the falling rain and cold add their influence. Family and friends have come together in common grief, to acknowledge a life well lived but too short; no future. We’ve got rather used to an ever increasing life span in the Western developed world, so it’s hard to believe that at the beginning of the C20th life expectancy in the USA was a mere 49 ……  and in some parts of the world it probably still is! So now we expect to not only live longer but also live with better health. All the more shocking when someone close dies too soon; she was 60. Don’t be macho; listen to your body!

Working in a GPs’ practice must have given her huge understanding of the symptoms of heart disease; so she obviously didn’t have sense she had any, or maybe she just didn’t recognise them, didn’t think “It will happen to me.” The news reminded me of my own saga from last year! What if I hadn’t listened to my body and gone to the doctor to have the tightness in my chest checked out? I might not have had the Angiogram that found the blockage and might not have had the bypass. I might have joined the 60,000 people in the UK who have a heart attack every year, away from hospital – of whom 5% survive!! I could have been one of those 57,000 – I could have died, like my dear friend! Lucky, huh! (And do you remember, I had had a ‘Well Man Check Up’ a few weeks before and been told I had an 83% chance of not having a heart attack!)

But of course there are no guarantees in life! Educated, you keep fit, eat sensibly, drink in moderation, try to keep the weight off ……. and suddenly death comes and kicks you up the bum. A business chum, fit and healthy, died running the Humber Bridge half marathon four years ago, aged, er, 34! There are of course only two certainties in life – the event that starts it and the one that ends it. All the stuff in the middle depends on a multitude of circumstances.  One isn’t really aware of the beginning and maybe one won’t be aware of the end – so it’s all to play for in the middle!

With the certainty of life and death one can of course take a somewhat lighthearted view of this human experience.

“I think that the life cycle is all backwards.

You should die first, get it out of the way,

then you live 20 years in an old age home.

You get kicked out when you are too young,

you get a gold watch, you go to work.

You work 40 years until you are young enough

to enjoy your retirement.

You go to college, you do drugs, you do alcohol,

you party until you are ready for Public School.

You go to Public School, you go to Prep School,

you become a little kid, you play,

you have no responsibilities,

you become a little baby,

you go back into the womb,

you spend the last nine months floating,

and you finish off as a gleam in somebody’s eye.”

And then these words of Canon Henry Scott Holland rang out across the church, read by a nephew and my Godson:  “ ….. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am still what I am and you are still what you are. Whatever we were to each other that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name.  ….  All is well.”

The rain fell outside as the coffin was lowered, out of sight, into the cold ground. But our memories of her will remain, ‘gleaming in our eyes’, for many many years to come. Dwelling on the good and the happy, not the poor and sad.

Just some thoughts on this life of ours.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

We walked along the line of the surf of the crowded beach on a Sunday in September in Barra da Tijuca, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro; the sun was warm on our backs. I looked at the carefree groups of families and friends, at children playing either in the surf or with a football (this is Brazil, after all!) and at other adults, just splashing in the shallows. It was totally divorced from the obscene photograph of a black figure brandishing a knife in front of a kneeling orange-suited human that had appeared on the front page of my digital Times that morning.

I had looked at the photo of the latest British hostage, a 44 year old man with a family, with friends, with loved ones. It was so surreal. I knew from the news report that, moments after the photo was taken, he would be murdered, in cold blood, in the most barbaric and inhuman way. The British Press seem to suggest that because the killer was a British citizen, that it was somehow worse than if he had been an Iraqi, Syrian, Pakistani. Murder is murder. The photos of Iraqi prisoners of war shot in ISIS-controlled territory, simply because they belonged to a different branch of Islam, produces the same sense the outrage that every like-minded human must feel, revulsion, disgust, huge sadness. However it seems that those who carried out these murders do not feel anything but pleasure, of satisfaction that the infidel is dead.

Interconnected thoughts run through my brain, with no sense of cohesion.

Isn’t this a rerun of the Crusades, white Christians battling the ‘infidels’ (that name again!) just updated by 700 years?

Is a man being shot, and I remember a horrific photograph of a South Vietnamese Army officer firing a pistol against the head of a suspected Viet Cong, any worse than a man being beheaded? Somehow I feel it is, but it’s hardly a rational thought, balancing one way of killing someone with another. In the Middle Ages people in England were ‘hung, drawn and quartered’; how barbaric! We’ve developed, I guess, more sophisticated ways of killing people – so that’s good, is it? But actually we are repulsed by what ISIS is doing now!

In an effort to define the ‘laws for conflict’, The 1899 Hague Convention specifies “the treatment of prisoners of war, includes the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1864 for the treatment of the wounded, and forbids the use of poisons, the killing of enemy combatants who have surrendered, the looting of a town or place, and the attack or bombardment of undefended towns or habitations.” It was often ignored in World War Two and the countries in the present conflict in the Middle East, and in particular ISIS, clearly didn’t ratify it. I wonder whether they have read it!

During The Cold War the opposing power blocks of the USA and the USSR insured, through an unthinkable alternative of a nuclear exchange, peace; the tensions remained, but there was peace. And at the end of the Cold War everyone imagined that there would be a peace dividend, that the money spent on armaments could be channelled into education and health, two basic requirements of our societies. It hasn’t happened and it seems that the whole world has become unbalanced, fault lines opening up in every continent.

Jenni Russell, in a Times’ article about the Scottish Referendum, wrote:

“Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Syria, Libya, Boko Haram, Ukraine. These are not just troubling diversions on the way to a better future. They remind us that there’s nothing inevitable about the victory of enlightened values, the spread of secularism or the appeal of democracy. Raw power and brutality are flourishing ……. and we need to work out how to deal with it.” She quotes the American Jonathan Haidt who argues that “institutions such as the UN and the EU have evolved to allow us to live together without turning on anyone who is not our kin. They are barriers against chaos and won’t work if we chose to follow the narcissism of small differences and become a group of fractured squabbling nations.”

Here in Brazil, despite a great deal of internal focus with a Presidential election this coming weekend, in our C21st interconnected world where for example Brazil sends millions of chickens to McDonalds in Russia every month, one can’t ignore what’s happening elsewhere. The Pope has called the current conflicts in the world a ‘piecemeal World War Three’. Certainly the liberal values by which we live are under threat, but we have a propensity to celebrate our differences in a tragic way and forget to rejoice in the potential for our common future.

……….. The sun continues to shine, the sea continues to break on the warm sand ……. and the world of conflict seems remote  …… but my feeling of helplessness remains. Is man destined to always be in conflict with himself?

As I said, just some scribbles about what seems to be going on inside my head!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. South America’s geographical position in relation to the other continents has, for some reason, meant it has stayed apart from global conflicts in the past, most governments maintaining a policy of non-interventionism. Pressure from the USA after 1942 meant Brazil leant towards the Allies cause, and after some of its merchant ships were sunk by German U boats, Brazil joined the Allies. In 1944 a Brazilian Division (some 25,000 men) was eventually established in Italy and saw action in the Allied forces’ drive north. Pilots of its Air Force flew combat missions in the Italian campaign whilst its navy also took action against German U boats.

And of course there was the Battle of the River Plate, off Argentina/Uruguay, when three Royal Navy cruisers cornered the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee in December 1939, three months into the war. After an hour of fighting, with damage being sustained on both sides, the Admiral Graf Spee retreated into the neutral port of Montevideo for essential repairs. The Hague Convention required the German ship to leave within 24 hours, but the British encouraged it to stay whilst they tried to gather more warships offshore. They fed disinformation about the size of this Royal Naval task force, so that the German captain, Captain Langsdorff, decided to scuttle his battleship in the shallow waters of the estuary of the River Plate, rather than face the imagined enemy offshore. Recovery of the wreck started in 2005 as it’s become a hazard to shipping!

 

The Pantanal is such an important area of our globe that experts from every aspect of our ecology have written about its peculiar flora and fauna, studied its vertebrates and invertebrates, researched and lectured on a particular animal such as the Giant Anteater and produced documentaries on its human and animal inhabitants. So what follows are my own simple amateur scribbles, reflecting a few days in this magical place.

In PC 18 (and if you didn’t receive this, please ask!) I explained why we had decided we would go to the Pantanal, the world’s biggest wetland. The 100,000sq miles are like a giant saucer where water collects in the rainy season. It is so flat that the gradient on its 800 kilometres north to south run is a mere one cm per kilometre – ie 80 metres difference!

Looking North towards Rio Negro and Barranco Alto

And here we are! After many hours of travelling, firstly in a jet from Rio via Sāo Paulo to Campo Grande with the Brazilian airline Azul, then in a 4×4 Jeep, and finally in a Cessna Skylane (PT-1HF); we have arrived at the Fazenda Barranco Alto  …….. at that time of the day, ‘Bug Heaven’. Everything we touch seems to have a live creature on it, around it, in it. We wonder whether we have done the right thing in coming, but the bugs eventually vanish into the night, except for the permanent resident of our comfortable double bedroom, an enormous spider!

Fazenda Barranco Alto is essentially a large cattle station owned by Lucas Leuzinger, a charismatic rancher and biologist. He leaves the ecotourism side of the business to Hugo Guedes and Carolina Denzin, and they take an active part in ensuring we guests get what we want. We sit down to dinner and meet the other ten tourists, an eclectic mix of people; one large family group of parents, adult children and their partners and two other couples, one American from California who have arrived around the same time as us and with whom we would be paired for our visit. They turn out to be charming and good company.

The rhythm of the life on the fazenda is determined by the weather. Whilst the normal grazing Nelore cattle are raised for meat, there are a number of milk-producing cows that get rounded up on horseback at 0300 for milking. The  objective of most tourists who come to the Pantanal is to see animals and birds they would not normally see, and most of these shelter from the heat of the midday sun. So on our first morning we set the alarm for 0500, for breakfast at 0530. By 0615 we’re heading off upstream on the Rio Negro, in a small steel-hulled boat with the American couple and Fernando, who was our boat driver and knowledgeable guide. We look for, and have pointed out, the wide variety of birds that make the Pantanal so famous. We see many species, from small Black Skimmers to large Tuiuiui (Jabiru) storks standing some 2m tall.  On the warm, slowly flowing river, the water the colour of milky rust, anything that happens is observed by the ever watchful eye of Jacaré or Black Caimans, a 1.5m reptile.

A Jacaré or Caiman!

It is estimated that there are some 10 million in the Pantanal and, although they look ferocious, they are shy of humans. After about two and a half hours, having overdosed on birds, we make our way back to the fazenda before the sun gets too hot.

At about 1530, with a cooler sun and storms threatening on the horizon, the whole group climb aboard some 4x4s and head off with their respective guide to explore a part of farm. Our guide Lydia hails from Köln in Germany and is doing a doctorate on the habits of the Giant Anteater. The farm has about 25,000 acres, and Lydia has identified some 30, about one per thousand acres. Her knowledge of their habitat and of their habits pays off, and we find one of these large mammals, busily searching for termites on the corner of a wood. On another afternoon we spot a mother with a baby Anteater on its back.

We had arrived on a blisteringly hot afternoon but on our second day find the temperature has dropped and storms threaten. We are scheduled to ride horses across parts of the farm during the morning. Thunder and lightning are spooking the horses, so we wait for 45 minutes whilst a rain shower passes. It clears enough for us to go, so we get up into the saddle – only do have a torrential downpour which completely soaks us all, and cancels further riding. The Pantanal has the highest recorded lightning strikes in Brazil so this is sensible …….. and then the power goes off, and with only a 120v generator, it’s a rather disappointing morning.

There will often be an occasion during the sort of adventure that we are on, when you ‘see the light’, a moment when you sense how small one is in comparison to the natural world. After the rain of the morning, we have been on our second dusk excursion, looking for those animals for whom darkness is essential for their survival. As night descends, we have a fleeting glimpse of a Tapir, a strange looking animal to be sure, and a Burrowing Owl and we’re making our way back to the farm along the rutted tracks. The night sky is full of stars, their brightness heightened by the lack of light pollution; such is the remoteness of the Pantanal. Fireflies begin their busy evening and, as Lydia stops to open a gate in a cattle fence, we all become aware of what is around us! We turn off the jeep lights and sit, mesmerised, fascinated, not wanting to speak for fear of breaking the spell that the minute fireflies have induced …….. for everywhere we look, in amongst the grasses, in the small bushes and in the tall trees, there are fireflies, glowing incandescent, thousands of them. Above, with no visible divide, the stars map out the heavens and the constellations. Magic! Absolutely magic!

We weren’t lucky enough to see any Jaguar, Puma, otters or indeed anacondas – the yellow anaconda being one of the largest snakes in the world, about 6m long and 60cms in diameter – but we did see an Armadillo, wild boar and small herds of the largest rodent in the world, the Capybara, a very cute animal rather like a sheep in size.

“If it’s clear of rain in the morning, are you up for a canoe trip?” asks Hugo. “Sure!” “OK! We’ll leave at 0500 for a 45 minute drive, get the canoes onto the river and stop for breakfast after 15 minutes or so.” So on Sunday morning we leave with Carol as our guide and make our way to the River Negro, some 10kms upstream of the fazenda. The sun is just cresting the trees as we slip the canoes into the water, and paddle off. It’s a cool morning and there’s mist on the river, although by contrast the water is warm bath temperature! We drift, we paddle, we stop on a sandbank for a breakfast of coffee, sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, we paddle some more, we see Ringed Kingfishers, a few Roseate Spoonbills, Coicoi herons and Hyacinth Macaws, all our activities under the watchful eyes of a Caiman or three.

Blue Hyacinth Macaw

Three hours later we round the last bend in the river before the landing area and our trip is at an end. And our visit to the Pantanal is at an end too; after lunch we climb aboard the Cessna and lift off the grass strip, at the start of our long journey home.

Wow! What an amazing place! Time stood still a little during our stay and, although we were mere observers of the normal lives of various animals and birds that inhabit the Pantanal, it is enough to remind us we share this planet with some amazing creatures who all have a right to be here too.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. In PC 19 I scribbled about coincidences. On the first night in The Pantanal we sit down for dinner. Next to me is Simon, a British guy who lives in Paris. In conversation I find out that he worked for …….. Brighton & Hove City Council in their offices at the bottom of Grand Avenue in Hove – about 300m from where we live and thousands of miles from where we meet!

“I rushed around, a little like a headless chicken, not sure what I was looking for. I saw flashes of the familiar and the unfamiliar, of roads that ran nowhere and paths that went on for ever. A bottle of ‘Stohl’ rum came into focus, completely divorced from its surrounding. Some stranger held the bottle and laughed and asked: “What are you looking for?” It seemed such an obvious question and required no thought to answer: “I’m looking for the Pink Panther.” The stranger turned the bottle and there on the label was a cartoon drawing of The Pink Panther. So there it was; I’d found it!”

Suddenly I awoke from this collection of random thoughts, the dream so vivid and real. Most of you will remember The Pink Panther, but for those of you too young, the actor Peter Sellers made a series of films in the late ‘60s about an incompetent French police inspector named Clouseau. It featured an animated cartoon panther, which happened to be pink! I had experienced this dream way back in 2001 whilst staying with my brother and his family and, on appearing for breakfast, was asked: “Sleep well?” The dream and its Pink Panther hadn’t yet drifted into my subconscious and I was able to recount some of the detail, over my three boiled eggs and coffee.

I didn’t know much about the stages of our sleep, so was fascinated to be told at the wedding of chums that there are five stages that the body cycles through, roughly every 90 minutes. What a strange coincidence therefore to read exactly the same thing two weeks later in the Delancey Place daily news email, which I had just signed up to. So then I got thinking of other coincidences which I have experienced, some quite recent, some so bizarre to be unexplainable. Why should one have periods when ‘coincidences’ are more frequent than at other times? Is it that we are sometimes more open, more aware, more observant, more ready to accept? The question hangs in the air!

My favourite Australian author is Tim Winton (Cloudstreet, Dirt Music etc) and I ordered his latest book, Eyrie, in July this year. It’s a social tale of life in the raw in the suburbs of Freemantle, Western Australia from where Tim Winton hails. Somewhere in the book the narrator goes into a friend’s flat and sees a postcard showing Rio de Janeiro’s ‘Christ the Redeemer’ on the mantelpiece. I did a double take! The postcard could have been from anywhere; its origin had no bearing on the story, but it happened to be from …… Rio, a city I am now so so familiar with! Weird I thought.

A few days later I’m reading another book and, in the description of a scene, read: “…… the woman pulled open the café door, and came in, leaving the door to slam shut. Startled, I looked up from my Expresso, and immediately noticed her brown sweatshirt with the words ‘Thief River Falls is Paradise’ emblazoned across her chest. ……..” Some minutes later, Celina and I go for a walk along the seafront at Hove. On our return, I see a piece of junk mail in the front hall advertising “Blue River Falls.” “Weird! “River Falls” twice in a couple of hours?” I thought …..  but just a coincidence? Surely?

At the beginning of last month, my daughter Jade and husband Sam go off to Jersey for a family wedding, the same weekend that we have a small supper party. Chatting to one of our guests, I find out that she originates from ……. Jersey, but that now her mother is living in Weymouth ……. where my brother and sister-in-law live. Is this just random chance?

Some years ago I went to Osbourne House, the summer house of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, built on the Isle of Wight. It’s a rather Italianate palace, with towers at various corners. In one of the state rooms there are wonderfully proportioned floor-to-ceiling windows; the detail I particularly remembered was that the shutters had mirrors attached to their internal faces. It was easy to imagine a candle-lit formal party, the room full of uniforms, white tie & tails and long dresses, everything reflected in the mirrored shutters.  I don’t like curtains too much so when we bought the apartment in Amber House in 2012, I got the local House of Shutters company to come and measure up for some shutters. I will always remember the salesman Dean’s face when I said: “Oh! And I want some antiqued mirrors on the inside of the main ones.” I think he thought I was mad, but they work well and he’s even been back to take some photographs. So the connection is made to Osbourne House. Only a couple of months ago I found out that Amber House used to be part of an old people’s home (appropriate you might say!) called Dresden House. And if you google ‘Dresden House’ you read it was in a street named Albany Villas, “where many houses reflect the architecture of …. Osbourne House”. Full circle? Weird or what?

Is it such a coincidence that my daughter’s step-father-in-law Richard was born on the same day, in the same month, in the same year as my sister-in-law Jane – 10^th January 1953? Weird?

After the boiled eggs and coffee, we all went off to Portland near Weymouth, to sail with my late nephew in his dinghy. We trailered the boat down to the dinghy park and started the process of rigging the mast and generally preparing to sail. Unfamiliar with the particular rig, I helped where I could, but found myself looking out over the other boats on the hard-standing to the waters of Portland Harbour. In the immediate foreground amongst all the other craft was a small catamaran dinghy. Very visible on the starboard keel was a cartoon character – The Pink Panther. I did a double take, not believing what I was seeing, for here amongst the gravel and the fibreglass was the subject of my dream early in the day. Weird? Spooky more like!!

Just a few random thoughts!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. I hadn’t thought about The Pink Panther of my dream much in the last thirteen years, although last night when I was pulling together thoughts about life’s coincidences I sort of relived it. This morning, after a session of Bikram Yoga in Ipanema, Celina and I walk in the direction of the local Zona Sul supermarket. At the intersection of two busy streets there’s a flower stall, and sitting next to it is a Saxophonist, lost in the tune he’s playing and hoping for a generous donation. That tune – the theme from the film The Pink Panther! Now that really is weird!

 

 

 

Well, it could have been “A year in Provence” but then my name is not Peter Mayne and it was only 4 days! Still, I thought you might like to hear of our latest trip in the middle of nowhere, some 60kms north north east of Toulouse. The city of Toulouse is the home of French rugby, of Airbus Industries, famous for its sausages and the surrounding region lives on Foie Gras!! I liked Foie Gras until I learned more about how it is produced and the idea of eating it got rather ‘stuck in my throat’!

The historic village of Brunequel stands on a rocky outcrop overlooking the confluence of the Averyon and Vere rivers, in the southern part of the Quercy region. Occupied for its geographical importance since the early C9th, two castles were eventually built on the top, one by a Protestant family and one by a Catholic family.

The crusade against the Cathars in the early C13th was focused further south around Carcassonne and bypassed Brunequel, but the village was not immune to the various religious wars that washed through this nation and these castles, being only about 20 metres apart, were often in conflict! The guidebook says that the village ‘went to sleep’ in the C17th and it’s only today that the village is being restored, with tourists flocking to see Les Châteaux de Brunequel.

The English love France and many buy property here, so much so that some parts of southern France, the Dordogne for instance, are very ‘English’. The French are happy to leave rundown country properties and head for the towns; the English like nothing more that renovating some centuries old ‘ruin’ for their holiday home. David, our host with experience of renovations in England, bought La Verrouille near Brunequel some nine years ago. A part of the place was so run down that someone christened it ‘Beirut’ – reflecting on the similarity with that Lebanese city during its civil war! Today it is a glorious country mansion, with a huge guest wing, swimming pool, deconsecrated chapel, boule pitch and lake where, in the warm sunshine, bright blue and scarlet dragonflies flit across the surface. The house encourages David to have guests; two other couples, the men old Army chums of David, joined us.

The main thread running through the couples was that all the men had served in the British Army, some for more years than they cared to remember, or could actually remember! Ah! Not the only thread – we are/were all sailors of some sort. These factors alone ensured that everyone mucked in, helped prepare food, uncorked the wine, cleared the table, and generally made our stay run smoothly, with David overseeing everything.

We need some chopped chives to put on the freshly-picked Girolle mushrooms that Henri the gardener had suddenly produced from his wanderings in the nearby woods, and Dominique had taken charge of cooking. “Oh! It’s so much easier to cut them with scissors” says Isabella, watching Dominique start to cut them with a knife. Dominique, a native of Provence, looked over her glasses: “But surely” she says with her wonderful French-accented English “a knife is better, non?”, rather surprised that someone had challenged a Frenchwoman in the kitchen! A discussion ensued about how a really sharp knife is the absolute must in a kitchen, either in France or indeed in Northern Ireland!

If you live in a part of the country where a certain fruit or vegetable is in abundance, someone invents a device to aid its preparation for eating or cooking – think mandolin or mezzaluna for instance. Well, I thought I had seen most gadgets but David’s apple skin remover/corer/slicer was something else. Perfectly uniform sliced apples are needed for the French Apple Tart, so someone invented the right device. Looking rather like a design by William Heath Robinson (Google him if you’ve never heard of him!), it is so ingenious. You simply place the apple on a three-pronged fork on a spindle, and turn a handle. The apple meets a skin-removing blade, is cored and then sliced by another blade. All you have to do is cut it in half – with a sharp knife!

And no home is complete without a dog and/or a cat. Magic, a 6 year old Labrador, would immediately fall in love with you, provided you gave her a tasty morsel or threw her ball, or stick, ……. or flowerpot! Don’t you just love that trait in a dog? On the other hand, the cats, three in all and rather outdoor than indoor cats, loved playing with each other but with us mere humans would remain rather aloof.

The C21st has arrived in France like everywhere, but country internet speeds and coverage are not wonderful in La Verrouille. There was an amusing sight in the morning, outside David’s office where his router was sited. Three of us would arrive, brandishing our iPads, and, having got connected, would sit on the floor and check our emails or download our digital copy of The Times. It was a little like a doctor’s waiting room! I half expected David to open the door and shout: “Next!”

David is the most wonderful raconteur. He possesses that gift of making any story amusing, holding your attention even if, occasionally, the subject is very mundane. He told how a local priest and his young boy came to collect some bees that had nested in the attic of the main house. The removal of the nest and its queen bee, and her accompanying workers, was a delicate affair, although it eventually involved a winch, a length of rope and some luck ……. before the nest and its bees were in the back of the priest’s car. “How many bees are we talking about, David?” asked Bill. “The priest reckoned about 14,000. There’s another one up there. Do you want to take a look?” So we all climbed up into the attic expecting at any moment to hear the buzzing of some bees. Actually they nest in between the windows and the shutters, so you could see them easily but safely – maybe another few thousand! Up close, what an amazing sight!

Dinner in the evening was on a terrace of the old chapel. A round dining table encourages all sorts of chat and yes, as the evening wore on and the sun set, the stories got longer and more elaborate: “Do you remember Caruthers? God! Haven’t heard from him for thirty years; pinched my drill boots at Sandhurst. Well, let me tell you ……….” I don’t think anyone else knew Caruthers, but it didn’t really matter as the story unfolded and the wine flowed! Magic put his head on the lap of someone whom she knew would be seduced by the doleful eyes, and a cat rummaged amongst the cooling coals of the BBQ. The sound of a tree frog competed with David’s mellifluous tones ….. “Ah! Yes, that reminds me ……..”.

Life can be so so good!

Just some scribbles …….

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. La Verrouille is up for sale, as David looks to return to the west country in England. If you want to see the beautiful mansion we stayed in …….  and/or would like to buy it, go to www.french-property.com/vp/nv/id/12767 or go onto the internet and search for La Verrouille, Brunequel.

My dictionary tells me that the word ‘postcard’ was originally used to describe a regulation size of card that could be sent by post. I had thought it was connected with the prefix ‘post’ meaning after or behind ie something you sent having been somewhere!! It’s a pity because I wanted to call PC 17 a ‘pre’ card; something you sent before going somewhere!

In 1996 I read the latest John Grisham novel called The Testament. I always enjoy his stories, for they are good stories, not heavy and ponderous ….. and a very satisfying  read. This particular book centres around the last ‘will and testament’ of an extremely rich American, who leaves all his money to an illegitimate daughter ….. whom no one in his large family of ex-wives and squabbling children has ever heard of. “Rachel Lane” works for the World Tribes Missionary and is somewhere on the Brazilian/Bolivian border in a region known as The Pantanal.

The what? I had never heard of it! As the story progresses, my knowledge of The Pantanal increased. There was no reason for Grisham to invent things about it to fit his story, as the place naturally exudes superlatives. The memory of that book and the pivotal part The Pantanal plays in the story have stayed with me. What I didn’t imagine was that fifteen years later I would have the opportunity to visit this vast and extraordinary place. I’m no latent naturalist but the idea of maybe seeing jaguar, caiman or an eagle in the wild is appealing.

The statistics are somewhat amazing! With a total area of almost 75,000 square miles (compared with the overall size of the United Kingdom at 94,000 square miles), The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world. The vast majority of it is in Brazil but it also extends into Paraguay and Bolivia. As such an enormous tropical wetland, The Pantanal is a very precious resource for Brazil, and home to an array of plant and animal species. It is estimated to contain some 1000 bird species, 300 mammals and 9000 invertebrates. Because about 80% of The Pantanal is submerged during the wet season, the species here include aquatic ones, making it an even more diverse and fascinating destination.

As Grisham describes it:

“At 4000ft the majesty of the Pantanal suddenly appeared as they passed through a large ominous cloud. To the east and north, a dozen small rivers spun circles around and through themselves, going nowhere, linking each marsh to a hundred others. Because of the floods the rivers were full and in many places ran together. The water had differing shades. The stagnant marshes were dark blue, almost black in some places where the weeds were thick. The deeper ponds were green. The smaller tributaries carried a reddish dirt and the great Paraguay river was full and as brown as malted chocolate. On the horizon, as far as the eye could see, all the water was blue and the earth green.”

Being an electronic card, I thought I could add this wonderful photograph from space showing where The Pantanal is, and its size in relation to Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay.

Earlier this year we were sitting in Rio, contemplating coming back in September and what we might do during a 5 week trip. We had thought Celina’s parents would have come to England to escape the football World Cup but the flights proved just ridiculously expensive, so that idea was canned. Then we thought we could all go on a trip to The Pantanal! There was a ‘coffee table’ book showing the most amazing photographs of The Pantanal and one evening we looked through it, rather spellbound! In the end we couldn’t persuade Celina’s parents to join us, put off possibly by the difficulties to actually getting there.

Grisham: “Hundreds of rivers and streams like veins through the swampland. No towns or cities in The Pantanal. No roads. A hundred thousand square miles of swamp.”

In addition to the enormous variety of wildlife, The Pantanal is home to large herds of domestic cattle. First developed 200 years ago, they are raised on farmsteads called fazendas by pantaneiros (not the same ones of course!). Some of the owners of the fazendas have realised there is money to be made from ecotourism and now there are many centres for excursions into the wetlands. Some are only accessible by boat, all by light aircraft.

One particular one was recommended by a chum, and we leave Rio on 18^th September 2014 for a few days on the Barranco Alto fazenda……. and no doubt there will be a real postcard for those of you interested!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. “Rachel Lane” was eventually found deep in The Pantanal, administering to a tribe. For those of you who haven’t read this particular John Grisham novel, it’s the only way you’ll find out what transpires in the end!!

 

 

I often get comments about my electronic postcards, mostly of the “Good read!” variety. Some addressees do, in the words of that ancient quote, “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” (*) …. but nothing comes out the other end! Maybe they find them indigestible but they’re just scribbles – really! Silence may be golden, but PC16 has generated more comments than any other. Doesn’t that tell you something, of the central role alcohol and other drugs play in our lives?

A chum who’s had a particularly difficult twelve months admitted he was “back on the nicotine” and drinking recreationally! His “they (alcohol and cigarettes) are both addictive and at other times hugely destructive” I am sure rings bells; well, they do with me. Celina’s dear dear father congratulated me on ‘a beautiful confession.’! Did I really confess? Did it really come across like I was in a confessional? I had hoped simply to relate some of my experiences without attaching any guilt or other emotion! They are simply my experiences, neither right nor wrong, neither good nor bad …. they just are! We can all read the same thing and get a different understanding!

Oh! And I didn’t tell you in PC16 about what happened in Marstrand on the west coast of Sweden, many years ago. I was sailing a 42ft sloop from Oslo back to its home port of Kiel, Germany and stopped at this lovely little Swedish sailing town for an overnight stay. It had been an eventful trip as the yacht’s engine was ashore back at its home port being overhauled and getting into small harbours without an engine was consequently quite tricky. We had already had a scary moment on the passage into Marstrand, sliding between rocks so close I felt I could have touched them, trying to sail along a transit, so it was with some relief that we were safely tied up alongside the harbour wall. Picturesque harbours always attract pedestrian attention and when a local carrying a bottle of schnapps asked to come aboard, how could one refuse? We had a drink, as you do on a warm summer’s evening; maybe more than one! He told me that alcohol was so expensive in Sweden that most people distilled their own schnapps. He had an old enamelled bath in a corrugated-roofed shed he used for this purpose. I asked him how he knew when it was ready to drink. “It was a bit ‘trial and error’ at the beginning.” He held up a hand. “I used the finger test. I dipped my finger in; if it was too strong the tip fell off and I needed to dilute it.” He only had lost a couple of fingertips so I guessed he got more proficient quite quickly!

This from a chum in the Gulf: “ …….it’s the norm, as you say, to drink. A lot is almost inbuilt into our social psyche and it makes people very uncomfortable when one doesn’t partake.” Rather ironic, eh?, when they are writing from somewhere where the drinking of alcohol is not part of the social and religious culture – yet people still do. A cousin sadly felt “slightly ill” having read PC 16; maybe they read it in the morning when a coffee might have helped, or in the evening when a good glass of Oyster Bay, or indeed a small measure of Famous Grouse whisky should have been to hand! Another cousin wrote my observations were “very acute but I won’t show it to ….” for the topic is personally too close.

Those of us who love writing often look for the innuendo/pun/clever metaphor to bring one’s piece alive and I certainly acknowledge other people’s skill here too. Thanks to one reader for “Nice punch line!” (If you don’t remember the last paragraph of PC 16, reread it!)

My PCs are often shared with friends and family, but it’s good to hear …….. “I sent it onto my dad, by the way, who also enjoys your writing and for whom the last half a page was clearly recognisable.” And for some, it rekindled their own memory ….. “We all have our stories of smoking and drinking and drugs.” Don’t we just!

We went to my younger grandson’s first birthday party at the weekend – cake and all! His paternal grandmother let slip it was just a year since she had stopped drinking alcohol … and admitted feeling better ….. although still missed it! On the way home, we came over the South Downs just north of the Brighton & Hove conurbation ….. and there was the sea, shimmering in the distance, all sparkly in the early evening sunshine. Closer to home one could see more detail, numerous white horses on its surface. (**) Such a glorious sight …..  and sound.

And hot off the press, this week we’re told that the idea a daily glass of red wine prevents heart disease is deeply ingrained and often appealing. …… “But sadly it’s too good to be true. You’re better off walking to the green grocer than driving to your off-licence”. These ‘health warnings’ come and go! “Butter’s bad …. butter’s good! Eggs are good …. eggs are bad” Everything in moderation seems to do it – including alcohol?! We had chums to supper the other night and ‘drinking and non-drinking’ inevitably came up. I sniffed someone else’s glass of cool white Villa Maria (I did ask first!); even if you don’t drink and I’m no advocate of abstinence, you can still appreciate the smell of fermented grape juice. Just a thought!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

*From the Book of Common Prayer

** Sorry! This is a sailing/nautical term used to describe the sea state!! As the wave breaks, the water foams and appears white, rather like a horse’s mane. The more ‘white horses’, the stronger the wind. They don’t normally appear below Force 3

The afternoon drinkers on George Street here in Hove are a rum lot, a glorious mix of ages and gender, most seemingly down on their luck, others lost in their personal reverie. Makes me sieve the memories of my own life and my relationship with alcohol and other drugs ….. although I am certainly not ‘down on my luck’ and probably never have been!

At one point in my teenage days, I vowed not to drink ….. but that didn’t last long. After ‘prep’ at boarding school one evening, we went off on bikes to The Owl, probably the smallest, grottiest village pub imaginable. I should add here that ‘pubs’ were out of bounds! My chums suggested a half pint of the basic draught beer, probably Wadsworths from the local brewery. I remember lifting it to my lips; bitter, watery, my face wrinkles even now at the thought of it. Somehow I drank it, not relishing the taste. And then I was persuaded to have another! Didn’t take much for my vow to lie shattered on the straw-strewn floor. Besides, alcohol plays a huge part of the fabric of our Western society, a lubricant for work, love and play, so why not just do what’s expected?

And everyone smoked!! Silk Cut, Passing Cloud, Gauloise, B&H, Dunhill, Marlborough; you name it, I probably smoked it! My grandparents lived in Bath and on a day off school I would take the bus to see them. My grandfather smoked unfiltered cigarettes and the ash would drop onto his waistcoat; the butts went into the wastepaper basket and then Granny, before retiring for the night, poured in some water to ensure there were no live embers!!! Once, on my way back to school on the Sunday evening, I got off the bus in Devizes to stretch my legs, with a cigarette in my mouth. Down the steps, straight into one of the school prefects! Oops! That earned me 6 strokes of the cane and much street cred! We got rather blasé about it as we got more senior. Ray and I would have a cigarette after breakfast ……. and then go off to the Applied Maths lesson; it took Mr Hiscock the teacher to remind us that cigarette smoke sticks to both breath and clothing!

At home as a family, my parents, brother and I would watch Saturday night television – smoking; on some occasions you could hardly see the screen through all the smoke! And to think it was permissible to smoke on the London Underground, on aeroplanes and in the cinema; I think we’ve moved in the right direction here, banning it from all public places! You remember that wonderful Nina Simone song “Don’t smoke in bed!”? Well, I think I used to start and finish the day with a cigarette; such is the addiction, the craving for nicotine. There were long periods in my life when I didn’t smoke and long periods when I did, but I had my last cigarette in 1994, well on Tuesday 21^st April at 9pm if you were wondering! Do I miss it? Sometimes, if I’m honest, yet smelling second-hand smoke is …. revolting!

Attitudes to alcohol and other drugs in the British Army simply reflected what was going on in civilian life, although thankfully the use of drugs other than nicotine, soft or hard, was rare. We smoked and we drank, both often to excess. My step-father gave me a silver cigarette case when I graduated from The Royal Military Academy; I still have it ……. and his father’s pewter hip flask circa 1890. I was posted to Germany, to a small town called Lippstadt, to help deter the Russians, for the Cold War was at its height. The hip flask came into its own filled with ‘ferrets’, a 50/50 mix of brandy and cherry brandy, on the bare-arsed live-firing ranges of Bergen-Hohne when the temperature dropped to minus 10 deg C.

We drank at lunchtime and in the evening. We ate in dinner jackets once a week and had formal ‘dinner nights’ once a month; we drank, often to excess! In the old Luftwaffe Officers Mess where we single officers lived, there was an interesting addition to the fittings in the ‘Gentlemen’s’. Made of good quality porcelain were two objects which looked like urinals, but were in fact receptacles for …… vomit! Yes! Truly; complete with long vertical side bars, brass and polished daily, to grip on to. Can you imagine? Even today I think how simply awful …… but so practical if alcohol had got the better of you! By the way, I don’t want to give the impression that we were always pissed! When we were out of barracks training, often for weeks on end, we were dry! We simply worked hard and played hard!

When I first started giving blood, the National Blood Transfusion service offered tea & biscuits afterwards; and still does I guess. But men were also asked whether they would like a bottle of Guinness, on the basis that this famous Irish stout would replace some of the iron that was contained in your donated pint of blood. Seemed madness to say ‘no’! So The State encouraged you to drink!

Not a great fan of beer, I developed a taste for wine, which when I was growing up was still a bit of a celebratory drink. The white wines were dominated by Liebfraumilch and Black Tower, cheap German imports – about the only good thing about them, in my opinion, was the name! I loved red wine, the gutsier the better. In my youth it was generally French although you could get decent German reds if you happened to be in that country. Gradually wine from the Antipodes made its way to England and Shiraz and Grenache became a favourite tipple. It was fine to drink as the advice at the time was “Red wine is good for you!”

Sailing and drinking seemed to go together too. There was one occasion when my hired yacht was tied up alongside a German one in the port of Soenderborg in Denmark; the crew had gone ashore – probably for a drink! The skipper of the German one asked whether I wanted to join him for a gin; my mind immediately imagined good gin, lovely tonic, a slice of lemon and lots of ice. Belong decks he opened a bottle of Gordon’s, and poured a generous amount into a glass …… and that was it; after a while neat gin isn’t that bad, but it does give you a headache!

I won’t recount how we felt the following morning after a few of us tried every drink on the bar list of the local teachers’ mess; or tell you at what time I had a first beer at the start of a yacht race in The Baltic. I will however offer my rather untutored observation after a Wine/Food Tasting event ……. that dessert wine will go with any type of food and I’ll advise you against drinking too much Pimms, with little lemonade and in strong sunshine.

Twelve years ago, I completed an ordinary detox of food and drink for the month of January; you know the sort of thing, no red meat, chicken, coffee, alcohol, wheat etc. Being quite an obsessive character, for me it’s often all or nothing. I couldn’t, for instance, just have one cigarette a day or a week, as some people can; it’s nothing or 20. I recognised that this was almost the case with alcohol. Was there a day in the week when I didn’t have a glass of wine with supper? Or could I not really remember??!!  Ha! Ha! So whilst I happily went back to drinking coffee and eating red meat, I sort of delayed drinking alcohol again. And that’s where I am today, looking for good non-alcoholic beers, and there are some, and coping in a society where it’s normal to drink. “Still not drinking then?” the husband of a friend asks. “No!” “Oh! Go on, just one won’t hurt!” For some drinkers it’s impossible to see that you can survive without alcohol, for it makes us more relaxed, less inhibited, so surely you would, wouldn’t you?

There was a discussion on the radio about alcohol some time ago and someone suggested that 99.9% of all human relationships in our Western culture generally started over a bottle of wine or a pint of beer. Celina and I had our first supper almost three years ago; she had some wine, I had some water. Someone said one drinks alcohol to make other people more interesting!! If this is the case, I leave you to draw your own conclusions!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

It’s funny being back here in Hove after so long in Rio de Janeiro, but at least we had some relatively warm local weather to welcome us back. Even places familiar to one seem strange at first but you soon get back into the grove …… and you notice what’s new, what’s changed and what’s stayed the same …… if you keep your eyes open. There are those lovely lines from TS Eliot’s poem “The Four Giddings”:  “….. the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started ….. and to know the place for the first time.” To know the place for the first time, huh! So we walk, looking, observing, finding the familiar and the new, unconsciously remembering and realigning.

Our neighbours had said that the sea had been extremely rough in January and February; we walked the 200 metres down to the shore. We looked; it looked at us, benign and calm at low water with relentless small waves lapping the sand. Had it really been rough? Had tons and tons of pebbles been hurled up off the beach, up onto the Victorian promenade, up against the beach huts? It looked so innocent, this sea that lapped the beach, as though it was teasing …. as though it was disclaiming all knowledge of its power.  Woes betide us when we forget, when we disregard the power of nature.

A photograph from February shows the whole promenade, some 20 metres wide, covered with pebbles to a depth of 50 centimetres or so ….. and the ‘beach’ only sand. I suspect the council shovelled it back, and the sea threw it back on a few more occasions before those winter storms finally abated. Can the sea have a sense of humour? Although it’s not alive as such, it acts, in cahoots with the moon and the wind, as if it is, doesn’t it? I bet a few council staff looked at the sea and said: “OK! Don’t do that again!” And of course it did, like some naughty boy, testing, teasing. Looking at the calm water shimmering in the afternoon sunshine, it’s easy to forget its power.

But I’ve experienced the same sea, turned malevolent and churned into turmoil by gale-force winds, when I’ve been sailing. Storming into The Solent past the Needles on an overnight trip from The Channel Islands many years ago, it doesn’t take a moment today to feel the lurching of the boat, the torrential rain and the sound of the screeching of the wind on the rigging; it was gusting severe gale force 9. Sure, I shouted at the sea: “Enough! Enough!” ……. and it ignored me! I never forget that power, that power of the natural forces on this planet; one is safe at sea because you develop a very healthy respect for the sea and understanding that makes sailing such an exhilarating sport. But I digress! Hove, Oh! Yes!

Further along the beach that destructive power has wreaked further havoc on the old West Pier, one of only two ‘listed’ piers in the United Kingdom. Closed since 1975, it was always going to be refurbished. Sadly, in 2003, just as money was allocated for its rebuilding, a fire completely consumed that which could be consumed. The Victorian ironworks have stood, twisted, bent and actually rather beautiful, abandoned in the shallows off the beach since then; a red buoy sits to seaward, warning of the danger. And now the power of the sea has reduced the remnants still further, large pieces having given up the survival battle and surrendered to the elements. I sense it’s time for the council to remove it completely, if only to save this magnificent Victorian structure further embarrassment.

Funnily enough this gaunt skeleton of past glories reminds me of some of the regular daytime drinkers at The Clifftonville Inn in nearby George Street!! (“Oh! God” Where’s he off to with this PC?”). Pedestrianised George Street is one of those streets that seems to attract certain types, and Hove is full of ‘certain types’!! In nearby Tesco’s you occasionally see Elvis, but it’s George Street which has the full panoply of life, in all its rich pageantry!! There are Goths galore and then those delightful old men and women who insist on dressing up before they venture out, never mind the hat, scarf, lamé suit and brogues or the smudged lipstick. Turkish men smoke and drink coffee at the outdoor tables of the café, the busker tries his luck with boxed musak accompanying his songs, at another café a regular has animated conversations …. with herself (!) and then there are those who congregate for a snifter. For them a drink or two and a smoke are essential elements of the day. Of course the stereotypical black clothes, the gaunt face, the odd pony tail and numerous tattoos don’t help to challenge my prejudicial and judgemental observations! The men look as though their ‘food’ is in a glass, the women exhibiting that rather ‘smoked’ look, taut paper-thin skin and wrinkled, from too many cigarettes … and their voices betray the smoker’s cough! If you’re feeling a little low, go and walk up George Street; you’ll soon feel better! Here the cry “Don’t forget your ‘5 a day’!” has a different meaning; more likely 5 pints and 25 cigarettes (roll-ups in this case) and not a piece of fruit or a carrot in sight! I wonder how they got to be the way they are, for surely it’s not healthy; maybe they don’t care, just enjoying the lift of alcohol and nicotine ….. I know I did!! But that’s another story!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

If you’re a tourist going to Brazil you need, not surprisingly, a tourist visa.  There are plenty of other categories of course, catering for every type of visit or sexual persuasion! According to the Brazilian Consulate website the tourist visa is valid for 90 days and can be renewed for another 90 if necessary. You simply fill out the form on your flight and hand it to the person manning the Passport desk when you arrive. Sounds good, huh? Having cancelled our planned trip out to Rio de Janeiro in September last year, we looked at dates for the end of the year, 2013 that is. We knew we had to be out for Celina’s father’s 80th birthday on the 1st January 2014 and then thought about when we’d come back. February? Nah!  March? Well! OK! The end of March. That sounds about right; come back as the UK changes its clocks to British Summer Time. So we duly book our flights.

Looking at travel insurance, we began to realise we have, somewhat inadvertently, booked to be in Brazil for 92 days. And believe me, being older than 60 and wanting to stay somewhere for more than 90 days, getting travel insurance is NOT easy. Rather than change our flights by a couple of days, we plough on with our arrangements, succeed in getting some insurance, knowing of course …… we could extend my visa.

We arrive in Rio de Janeiro International airport, which in my opinion ranks way below, say, Delhi, around 2100 (midnight UK time) on the 27^th December last year. Our BA chum, Jorge San, welcomes us, well me (!), with flowers; maybe he thought my heart surgery would have finished me off and he wouldn’t see me again? We queue up to clear our passports; secretly I hope that they would give me a visa for 92 days and not simply 90. “Ē possivel estender o visto por 92 dias?”  (“Is it possible to have one for 92 days?”)  “Nao!” But the lady said we could simply extend it at any Policia Federal station/office, in fact the piece of paper stuffed into my passport reiterates this; there would be a charge (about Rs70 – almost £17). We are through.

Now I should explain at this point that I like obeying the law. Hey! I spent 20 years being paid by Her Majesty (God Bless Her) to protect the Kingdom, its laws and way of life, so it’s as ingrained in my DNA as the annual rings are in a tree. Surely my attitude towards Brazilian law should be no different. I put a note in my electronic diary to make sure we have got the extension way before the visa runs out …. and relax into the way of life in the tropics. Celina, who lets these things bother her, drops into a nearby Policia Federal office in Leblon when she’s finished at her dentist, during our first week. “Oh! No! Not us.” “ Eu nāo sei!” (Don’t know!) Try the British Consulate.” “But it’s not a British visa, it’s a Brazilian visa!” Eu nāo sei!”

We are flying down to Sāo Paulo from Santos Dumont, the ‘city’ airport in central Rio. We take the opportunity to see the Policia Federal there. “ Eu nāo sei!” The computer sits on his desk and I assume he could have found out what he should do by going onto a website, or even picking up the telephone; but no, a shrug of the shoulders and a “Try the Policia Federal in Sāo Paulo.”. Talk about passing the buck! This we do on arrival, not pass the buck, but try another Policia Federal and meet the same response! “ Eu nāo sei!” Later we have dinner with some Belgium chums, working in Sāo Paulo. They have had a nightmare trying to get extensions to work permits; sometimes they have paid a fine, and sometimes immigration passport control hadn’t noticed. “Don’t spend any more time on this; pay the fine!” I feel so uncomfortable doing this, against the grain so to speak, that I ignore this useful advice. In retrospect, stupid!

Back in Rio de Janeiro, we get in contact with our BA man, Jorge San. He would ask his chums at the airport. “Come out on Friday; I’ll introduce you to the Policia Federal and they will extend your visa.” By this time the visa has two weeks to run. Rio de Janeiro International airport is not the best place to be on a Friday afternoon, actually on any afternoon, as travelling back into the city takes forever; the traffic is horrendous. Jorge San is being kind, so we accept and spend two hours travelling out to the airport in a taxi (Rs60). We go up to the Department of Immigration. The world and his wife are ahead of us! Some have clearly camped out for days; others have that resigned look that one develops when confronted by bureaucracy. Jorge San disappears into the melee, re-emerging minutes later and waving us in. We sheepishly jump the queue and go into an inner office. I do not understand much Portuguese yet, but I’m good at reading body language and facial expressions. After the initial pleasantries ….  “Tudo Bem?” .. “ Bem! Voce?” …. “Bem!” there’s a serious conversation between a policeman and Jorge San. After a few minutes Jorge starts looking ‘worried’ and Celina blushes. It transpires that yes, he could extend it but …….. wait for it …… the computer wouldn’t connect to the printer, which anyway was out of ink, and so he couldn’t give me a receipt for my R$70. (And of course public officials in Brazil are not able to take cash without giving a receipt. Er! Is that right?)  His suggestion, and ‘he’ being a public servant and member of the Policia Federal, was to turn up for the flight and pay the fine for the 2 days – ie become illegal! Celina had blushed I suspect out of embarrassment for her country and the way things don’t work. We said: “Thanks.” and left; 2½ hours later we were home, having achieved absolutely zilch/niente/nothing/nada!

On Thursday 27^th March 2014 I become an illegal ‘estrangeiro’ (foreigner) in Brazil. Do people notice? I think initially I have some sign over my head; “I’m not legal! Arrest me! Deport me!”. But then I gradually relax …… as no one notices ….. and if they do they don’t care. On the Saturday, our BA Jorge San, who by this time was probably as embarrassed as Celina about the state of the Brazilian civil service, has helpfully said he would ensure our departure is as painless as possible, so we turn up for our flight in good time. Within minutes our suitcases are on their way and we make our way to ……. the Policia Federal, full of hope that I could admit my guilt and pay my fine (two days at R$8 per day – I have it in change in my sticky little hand). The chap is really really nice ……. and once he understands the issue ….. he smiles and starts interacting with his PC. A frown crosses his forehead; he slides his chair across the office to another PC at another desk. I look over his shoulder at the PC. It shows a box with a large red cross in it; he can’t interact with the office in Brazilia ……. and can’t print the receipt. I CAN’T PAY THE FINE. I want to scream, I want to shout, …… but actually it’s more appropriate to laugh, to laugh at the ridiculous nature of the situation, stymied at every turn, wanting to be ‘legal’ but not allowed to be …… by the police!! There is more discussion, a date stamp is found in a bottom drawer ….. somehow he finds an ink pad that actually has not dried out …… and my passport is stamped; I’m, er, legal! I press my damp notes and coin into Jorge San’s hand as he volunteers to pay the fine on the Monday. We leave, go through Passport Control to get ‘airside’ and relax.

This is Latin America. The middle class criticise and rail against corruption, the poor queue. If you live in a country such as England where the administration of the law works, it’s extremely difficult to understand just how this continent and in particular this country works … when it doesn’t work. But it does …. “Amanha”!! Living in the tropics will never be easy for those of us northern Europeans where respect for the law is in the DNA, because it works. But here, it’s the way it is ….. so why bother to get steamed up about it? You need to resign yourself to waiting, maybe in the queue, like the people in the airport, or not. Turn up and pay the fine!!??

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. The irony is that Policia Federal in Brazil will have made a note that I overstayed my visa and that I paid a fine (I have a scanned and emailed receipt to prove it!) But actually the next time we fly to Rio, I’ll be on a new passport, with a different number ……. and there will be no record of me ever being in Brazil. I can imagine being told: “Enjoy your stay with us!” as I’m handed back my passport!