60 Going On 16

Back to the lost domain

When I first visited Cothay Manor in Somerset last year (and which I wrote about here), I was reminded of Alain-Fournier and the lost domain of Le Grand Meaulnes. I went to Cothay again today and this wonderful house and its beautiful gardens worked their magic once more.

It was a glorious day, with proper sunshine and a cloudless sky, and I was with my Dear Friend, the Only Other Blonde in the Village (who, strictly speaking, is now the Only Blonde in the Village, since I stopped highlighting my hair - after 40 years or so - and discovered that I was no longer any sort of blonde, merely a light brunette). The Dear Friend is off to France next week and, as she will be celebrating a milestone birthday while she is away, we thought that a brief escape from the Village that Time Forgot would be in order, before she goes en vacances.

Cothay was the ideal spot: not too far to drive on a hot day and an antiques and decorative arts fair taking place all weekend. Tickets were extraordinarily good value at £5 a head and, as many of the stands were in the house itself, we were able to step across its ancient threshold for the first time. (And, yes, the interior is as magical as the exterior.)

I was sorely tempted by this vintage silk sari length:

but commonsense prevailed and I held back. And then I spotted this tiny chap:

while the Only Blonde was rather taken with the cricket print, propped against his chair.

We were transported back to a 1940s childhood by a Margaret Tarrant vintage print (think elves in pointy hats, anthropomorphic woodland creatures . . . ). But there was more. This dear old dog on wheels:

and then this fellow, ancient and one-eyed and, presumably once loved:

I want someone else to fall in love with him and take him home. The fair runs until tomorrow (27 June) so there is time; there is hope! 

Cothay still feels very much like the family home that it is; there is a quality of intimacy about it. Sheep wander across the drive:

and dogs (witness this properly Golden Retriever; NB golden, not almost white)

and hens are always in evidence outside the cafe. The hens are not a bit shy and are very well fed; they know just how to endear themselves to visitors:

We didn't do badly either. Large coffees and excellent rolls (ie delicious and very generous fillings). I treated the Dear Friend to a birthday special: a Coronation Chicken-filled roll, which seemed appropriate and which is probably the nearest I will get to anything vaguely Jubilympical. (See how I cunningly avoided using the 'O' word? I have no desire to be clapped in irons or carted off to the Tower or dragged through the courts by any of the sponsors . . .) Coronation Chicken is all the retro rage at the moment. Apparently.

After lunch there was still time to wander round the gardens. We had been talking about Monet's garden at Giverny, which we had both visited, when we spotted this:

and, for a moment, we truly could have been 'lost in France'.

But no visit to Cothay is complete without a sighting of the resident unicorn, which - of course - has magical powers, so I make no apologies for including another photo this time round.

It will take all my willpower not to return tomorrow. But I will be back, hopefully on 9 June, to see Richard III al fresco and, on 16 June, for a garden, plant and food fair, which is raising funds for The Daisy Garland, a charity that provides vital and pioneering support - focusing on the Ketogenic Diet - to children with epilepsy and to their families. You can read more about this year's events at Cothay here.

Meanwhile, an idea that came to me during that very first visit has reappeared; perhaps I should discuss it with the unicorn.

Out of the labyrinth

After two months of spending part of each day thinking that I was going to fall over, I am pleased to report that the labyrinthitis has been sent packing. (Thanks, in no small part, to homeopathy, which came to the rescue; I like to give credit where it is due.) Whenever I mentioned to friends or acquaintances that I had been diagnosed with this frustrating condition, I heard alarming stories - people confined to bed for weeks on end, work and studies interrupted, complete inability to carry out normal everyday tasks. 'Ye gods!', I thought, 'How will I manage?' Well, when you live alone, you manage all sorts of things.

I even managed to drive to Surrey for my youngest niece's wedding, a wonderful day, that I would not have missed for anything. My niece is one of the sunniest, kindest people I know but I had never seen her looking happier or more gorgeous than she did in her dream dress . . .

standing alongside the man she loves.

Her husband and his family are from Dublin and I shared a table at the wedding feast with his uncles and aunts and my sister's closest friend and her partner. The craic was very good indeed and I did allow myself a glass of champagne to toast the happy couple. (In these post-Massive Inconvenience days, alcohol is normally a no-no for me.) 

Sláinte to two very special people.

* * * * *

Now that I am out of the labyrinth, I have been able to put the finishing touches to some pop-up writing workshops that I am running this summer, here in Mid-Devon. If you'd like to know more, just email me via the link over in the right-hand sidebar. I'm quite ridiculously excited about these; they have been in the pipeline for a while, having originally been planned to start in the autumn of 2010. At the time, I had no idea what life was about to chuck at me. Still, that was then and this is very much now. Not only that, after many, many months of vile weather, daily rain and no sun (apart from March) and having had no spring to speak of, it appears to be summer and, suddenly, everything is quite transformed.

Ebb and flow, yin and yang, coming and going

I started writing this blogpost on 12 April and it is now the 22nd; blame it on the labyrinthitis, which, really, I could have done without. My GP tells me to expect up to six weeks of vertigo etc etc. Oh joy, oh rapture. She didn't mention that I would also get a streaming cold to add to the mix. Meanwhile, outside it is cold, wet, windy and grey - plus ça change - and it's almost May. Sometimes, I struggle, I really do, to love this country. Anyway, back to where I was ten days ago.

The spring holiday has been something of a bumper time for visitors at 60 Going on 16 Towers. The Dear Family (ie my daughter and her husband) were here until the morning of Easter Monday, leaving just enough time for a swift turnround before my Dear Friends, Mr and Mrs Gaucho, and their Border terrier, arrived from Scotland via the Cotswolds later that afternoon for a few days. They have now headed off to stay with a cousin in South Devon and I've been preparing one of the guest bedrooms ready for the arrival on Saturday of another Dear Friend, the Duchess. 

The Gauchos, the Duchess and I go back a long way. As Mr Gaucho said when we went out to dinner on Wednesday: 'You are my oldest friend . . .' And Mr Gaucho is most certainly my longest-standing male buddy. We first met c1970 at the architectural practice that he had joined as a newly qualified architect. I ran the practice library, ordered drawings, kept the accounts, did the PAYE, and grudgingly made coffee for the all-male architectural team (until I rebelled and the senior partners had to install coffee machines so that the chaps could make their own coffee). The Duchess arrived at the same practice c1972.

Mr Gaucho met the young woman who was to become Mrs Gaucho in the early 1970s and I just knew from the way he spoke about her that something special was happening. Which it was. Later, I was witness at their wedding and a proud godmother to their firstborn - a daughter, now a mother of four herself. 

'I'm trying to remember where and when we first met,' I said to Mrs Gaucho.

'You were standing at the top of the steps to your (basement) flat,' she replied.

That was here. (Not during the siege itself, you understand; that came later and there wasn't any hanging around at the top of the steps when that was going on. It was a matter of ducking one's head down and running as fast as possible, accompanied by a police officer, until one was safely inside the front door.) So we raised  our glasses to decades of a very happy triangular friendship. These don't always work but ours has, brilliantly, and I am proud to count Mrs Gaucho among my closest female friends.

For much of the year, I am entertaining canine guests, whom I love dearly, but conversation is, inevitably, somewhat one-sided. So the arrival of family and friends means proper, grown-up, human coversations about cabbages and kings, as well as the usual catching up.  In the past week or so, we have meandered, among many things, through writing, art, flowers, photography, politics, architecture, favourite blogs, and books, and food - in particular, food writers, most notably, a favourite food writer, Claudia Roden.

Mrs Gaucho, a fine cook herself, and I have both had the privilege of standing in Claudia Roden's kitchen, watching her at work, listening to her flow of stories, learning . . . For me, this was in the mid-1980s, when the company I was then working for published  a selection of recipes from A New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Watching, listening to, learning from and reading Claudia Roden changed the way I cooked and thought about food and Mrs Gaucho said she thought I might enjoy this recent post by Eat Like a Girl, who - almost three decades later - had also been standing in that same kitchen, watching, listening and learning. (I did enjoy it and I thought you might too.) 

Right, I have caught up; it is now - today.

While she was here, Mrs Gaucho and I put our heads together to create the foundations of her blog, something she has been wanting to start for a long time. I'm pleased to report that the running wave is now launched and I am looking forward to regular updates. Mrs Gaucho loves words and images as much as I do (and we like the same music) and I feel sure that you will find the running wave to be a source of delight.

Here's to friendships, tried and true, that stand the test of time. And to Claudia Roden. Why not?

Coming soon - to a cinema near you

You may recall my occasional mention of the monumental efforts we so often have to make, here on the fringes of Exmoor, to enjoy a smidgen of culture: round trips of 50 or a 100 miles or more to tap into all that a large town or city has to offer. Living in London, as I did for the first half century of my life, it was all there on my doorstep and I was spoilt for choice. Added to which, in the 1980s I was working for a blue chip company that was a major sponsor of the arts and I just happened to be a member of the sponsorship team . . .

The National Theatre was a short walk alongside the Thames from our head office and I was truly in drama heaven when the company decided to sponsor the newly opened NT Studio because, yes, there were tickets - to all NT productions. As I was the only member of the sponsorship team who lived in central London (so didn't have to fret about missing the last train home), I ended up with the lion's share and saw as many productions as I could, including Pravda, Mrs Warren's Profession, Wild Honey, Yonadab, The Cherry Orchard, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Dalliance, The Mother, Coriolanus, and Anthony and Cleopatra, with actors such as Ian McKellen, Anthony Hopkins, Irene Worth, and Judy Dench.

Up in the attic is a trunk full of programmes, not just from that time, but for every single theatre performance I've been to since 1961, when I was 13 and saw Stop the World I Want to Get Off , starring Anthony Newley, at the Queen's Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue (for those of you who like historical detail).

So, yes, much as I appreciate the beauty and peace of the spot I now call home, a small piece of my heart remains in London, although I rarely visit these days. However, if I can't get to see London productions, it seems that some, at least, will come (almost) to me, thanks to the advent of NT Live. This brings live NT performances to cinema screens not just in the UK but, as I discovered last week, to screens around the world.

Which explains how my dear friend, the Only Other Blonde in the Village and I, managed to see a live performance of Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer in the unlikely setting of Taunton Odeon last Thursday. Like me, the Only Other Blonde, loves the theatre - we are both old enough to have seen Olivier in Othello and The Entertainer at the Old Vic - so we wondered how watching a screened live performance would compare with actually being there.

We're happy to report that It compares very well indeed, not least because you can see the actors in close-up, which means that you don't miss a gesture or an expression. Then there are the bonuses: Emma Freud's interview with director, Jamie Lloyd, and panning shots of the NT audience, for example, all of which help to create a hint of that unique anticipatory atmosphere at the NT just before a play starts. Discovering that we were part of a global audience of many thousands was, we had to admit, rather thrilling.

Our anticipation, as it turned out, was well founded. It is a superb ensemble production*, of the kind at which the NT excels, although that in no way detracts from some excellent individual perfomances, including David Fynn as Tony Lumpkin

Sophie Thompson as Mrs Hardcastle

and, for Corrie fans everywhere, the wonderful Katherine Kelly as Kate Hardcastle

who, in a clear case of art imitating art, is required to spend part of the play masquerading as a barmaid.

Our West Country audience loved it, laughed long and loud, and joined in the applause at every opportunity - and no-one munched popcorn. That must be a first for the Taunton Odeon, which sells popcorn on an industrial scale.

So, yes, we will definitely be going again and please can the NT send as many productions as possible our way? And, for once, I'm going to give the sponsor, Aviva, a bit of a plug because this truly was an inspired and apposite use of a major company's sponsorship budget. Unlike my bank's, which is used largely to sponsor motor racing . . .

If you live in the UK, mainland Europe, the USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand and love theatre, check here to see if NT productions are shown at a cinema near you. There are also Encore screenings, so if you missed a production the first time round, you might be able to catch it at a later date. I'll be back in Taunton in June to see an Encore screening of Frankenstein, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller and, this autumn, there's the prospect of a new play starring Julie Walters, Helen McCrory and Rory Bremner. I'm trying not to weep about what I've missed to date.

NT Live is, like the best of ideas, impressively simple and it means that many thousands of people who are unable to go to the National Theatre in London, for whatever reason, can still enjoy what it offers - at an affordable price. Our concessionary tickets were just £14 each. 

On the downside, we think that if it is going to host screenings from the UK's most prestigious theatre, Taunton Odeon really does need to up its game in terms of customer service. There was confusion at the ticket office, whose staff could find no record of my online order or payment. Not the first time this has happened. And why does the Costa franchise not serve decaff coffee, only mega-strength blow your socks off stuff? (Really, not everyone wants to be awake after midnight, buzzing from a caffeine overdose.) As for the young man who checked our tickets, 'Enjoy the film' wasn't quite what we were expecting to hear (did he really not know?), prior to an NT performance. And, please, could he remember to hand out the castlists, which were - as later became apparent - stacked in front of him and not expect members of the audience to have to troop back from their seats to ask him for copies? Small things, maybe, but together they make a significant difference to the overall enjoyment of an evening . . . at the theatre. Because that was the thing, inside the auditorium, it was easy to imagine that this was exactly where we were. Front of house, it was most definitely Taunton Odeon.

However, let us end on a high note. I give you - the cast:

I've just learned that She Stoops to Conquer was NT Live's most successful screening to date, so congratulations - and many thanks - to everyone involved in bringing it to us. And special thanks to Sara Israel of NT Live for her help with the photos, all of which are by Johan Persson.

(*Michael Billington's Guardian review here.)

Music, Einstein and creativity

Picking up wehere I left off in my previous post . . . my own writing mentor, Briony Goffin, and I have often discussed the importance of finding ways of keeping one's creativity stimulated, to keep the ideas - and, in our case, the words - flowing. I live a long way from the cultural delights and opportunities offered by a city - art galleries, theatres, museums, exhibitions and that vibrant buzz generated by a city's diverse communities - so have learned to tap into what I do have.

Music is the most easily accessible pathway to creativity for me: singing with a choir and pushing my own boundaries, in terms of what I listen to. Which means that I now spend as much time tuned in to BBC Radio 3 as I do to Radio 4. R3's Late Junction, for example, described on the BBC website as 'a laid-back, eclectic mix of world music, ranging from the ancient to the contemporary', has long been the starting point for musical journeys of discovery and wonder. These days, I am never awake at the time it is broadcast, so have to rely on iPlayer to catch up, but no matter.

I usually listen to R3, driving to our choir sessions on Tuesday evenings, when the repeat of that morning's Composer of the Week programme is broadcast. Last week was devoted to the music of American composer, Philip Glass, whose work I find both compelling and mesmerising. I think it all started for me back in the 1980s, when I saw the film, Koyaanisqatsi, for which he composed the score, and then a televised production of his opera, Akenhaten; I had never heard anything quite like it before . . .

Glass describes himself as a 'a Jewish-Taoist-Hindu-Toltec-Buddhist', so therein lies some spiritual and personal resonance. Added to which he has worked extensively with so many writers, poets, singers, musicians, performers, film makers and artists whom I admire, including Leonard Cohen, Doris Lessing, Twyla Tharp, Martin Scorsese and Ravi Shankar; if they love his work, it follows that I might too. And I do.

So there I was on Tuesday evening, in the car park, all set to spend a couple of hours making music myself, when the programme presenter, Donald MacLeod, introduced this, Einstein on the Beach, Knee 1. It is an extraordinary piece, from an even more extraordinary, five-hour opera based on Einstein's life and theories, which therefore has a certain circularity about it . . .

I knew nothing of the relationship between mathematics and music until I was 30-something and studying the Open University foundation course, An Introdution to the Humanities. Oh, I thought, if only I'd learned about this at school, I might have paid more attention during our dreary Maths O-level classes. Ditto physics, where I got no further than a very basic introduction; in terms of the school's O-level timetable, opting for history, which I did (how could I not?), meant dropping physics. Only later, much later, did I realise what I had missed. The Tao of Physics, which I am convinced would have made a huge difference to my appreciation and understanding of the subject, was not published until 1975, more than 10 years too late for my schoolgirl self.

If only we'd had a better teacher for maths; someone who could have fired our teenage imaginations, as did our arts and humanities teachers, instead of spending her time dreaming up endless new stratagems to keep us away from the temptation of boys, back-combed hair, make-up, fashion, rock and roll, and just about the entire 1960s. If only . . . but we were left to get by as best we could and there was certainly no help available for anyone who was floundering. (Rather too many of us. Where were the school inspectors?) What a wasted and lost opportunity, not just for me but for the hundreds of young girls who struggled (or slept/gazed out of the window/read furtively under their desks) in her classes throughout the decades she spent at our convent school. Years later, my work enabled me to meet some truly inspirational and gifted teachers of maths and physics and I would listen to them in awe, wondering if their students knew how lucky they were. (It should not, of course, be a matter of luck. Young minds deserve the very best teachers.)

But back to Philip Glass and Einstein on the Beach. You can read more about the entire work here, which is probably more reliable than any attempt on my part to explain it. Meanwhile, I invite you to listen to Knee 1, as music, as meditation, as . . . what you will. For me, it is like listening to the heartbeat of the universe.