Vienna: the Wiener Prater and the Hundertwasser House

Prior to visiting Vienna, a little of our research was watching the classic Orson Welles film of Graham Greene's The Third Man, filmed in the war damaged city in 1948. Of course there aren't piles of rubble everywhere now, but the iconic ferris wheel still stands in the Wiener Prater. This area of the city is now a large park - partly green space with sports facilities and walking/jogging trails and partly a funfair with dozens of terrifying-looking rides. Fortunately Dave and I think similarly about being flung upside-down dozens of feet up in the air so we stayed firmly on the ground while everyone else screamed above us!

I was a little disappointed by the lack of street art in Vienna. The city is built on a grand scale and has glorious avenues of impressive buildings, but mostly lacks the little streets and alleys where guerrilla artists hone their work. There are unexpected public sculptures though and I liked this army of bird boxes - Warten auf Vogel IV (Waiting for Birds IV) by Josef Bernhardt. It is part of an Art For All initiative which has artworks installed in odd locations. This one is on a wide street corner in an unassuming neighbourhood.

Most fun is an inventively decorated apartment block known as the Hundertwasser House after the artist who designed it, Friedensreich Hundertwasser. He worked with architects Josef Krawina and Peter Pelikan to create a wonderfully quirky structure. The Hundertwasser House is actually a residential building so visitors aren't allowed to go wandering around inside, but we loved being able to see the outside. Fab details include mosaiced pillars and an undulating cobbled street on which several selfie-taking tourists struggled to balance!

Read the book or watch the film?

I've done a spot of eBay listing this week, mostly DVDs, and it got me thinking about the number of books that get adapted to film or televised versions. I wondered whether people who love the movie ever go on to read its book and, vice-versa, if someone loves a particular book, are they more or less likely to see its film version. What do you think?

Personally I choose to avoid films of books I adored because I tend to be disappointed by their adaptations. If I do see and read, I prefer the film first because I know there will be lots more detail in the book and sometimes a completely different ending! This does mean I don't get to imagine characters and locations though because I envisage what I have seen - even when, with films such as Still Alice for example, the main character's appearance bears no relation to the written description. I also tend to use BBC television adaptations as an excuse not to get stuck into some classics, especially the ones with small print and hundreds of pages!

These are the literary adaptations I'm selling on eBay right now: (Click on each photo to visit its sale page!)

Cycling from Benicarlo to Peniscola

Peniscola old town 

After the shock of a rainy day on Friday we made the most of Saturday's glorious sunshine by taking our bicycles to the beach. Camping l'Orangeraie is a little inland, but it's only about a fifteen minute drive to the coast. We parked up just outside Benicarlo to do a cycle ride that Dave had planned along the seafront. There is a dedicated cycle path linking Benicarlo with Peniscola.

Initially bicycles have to share the road through the edge of town, but even on a Saturday morning there wasn't much traffic and Spanish car drivers are very good about giving cyclists a wide berth. I always feel far safer cycling on roads out here than I do in the UK. Soon though we saw the cycle path start up on the left pavement from where it continues for about five miles. Although the space is shared with pedestrians, the separate spaces are marked with white lines that were generally well observed. The coast is perfectly flat and we were lucky with only a light breeze so the cycling was a pleasure in both directions. The promenade was considerably busier with cyclists and pedestrians in the late morning. Returning mid-afternoon we practically had it all to ourselves.

Peniscola Castle behind an odd sculpture which may also be a fountain 

Looking up the hill to the castle 

Peniscola was a pleasant surprise as, although right down by the beach is built up with modern hotels and apartment blocks, the old town climbing the hill to the castle retains much of its charm. It's not such a steep climb as in Onda and we were both reminded of Mojacar pueblo although I couldn't say exactly what prompted me to make that connection. We didn't pay to go up the castle itself, preferring to explore the outer walls and the town itself. One street was overfilled with touristy tat shops, but the narrow residential streets are peaceful and pretty and almost all surfaced with small cobbles. We lunched TexMex at La Frontera. The food was ok, but not a patch on the decor which was great fun. I especially liked a door curtain made of upcycled beer bottle caps.

Virgin de Ermitana church 

The baroque Valencian style church high up in the town is named for the Virgin of Ermitana. Tradition has it that a small hermitage stood on this spot in the first years of Christianity and over the centuries that dwelling was rebuilt and rebuilt until it grew into the 18th century edifice we see today.

Peniscola is proud of its cinematic heritage and has signboards dotted throughout the streets showing where scenes from films such as El CID were located. A dedicated map for cinema fans is available at the Tourist Office. We unexpectedly strolled through a Juego de Tronos (Game of Thrones) courtyard location too, albeit for a season we haven't seen yet so I will have to remember to watch out for Varys and Tyrion in Meereen! They would have had this amazing view across the bay from the walls above their heads.

#ThrowbackThursday - where we were on this day in Octobers past

I can go back through four years of blog posts for October's ThrowbackThursday because I know that about this date in 2012 we went to see a French film, Les femmes du 6e etage, at Hailsham Pavilion. I don't actually remember much about the film other than it was a light comedy. I haven't found a similar art house cinema in Torquay yet, our nearest being at Dartington which is a bit of a hassle to get too. There is a monthly film club at St Matthias church though. It's only about a ten minute walk away. I had to miss last month's screening due to illness, but am hoping to make it to The Butler on the 3rd November.

At the end of October 2013 we were just about to set out on our First Big Caravan Adventure! We had a ferry booked to Bilbao to arrive on the 30th and were excited and a little nervous too. It looks like I was using up whatever we had left in the kitchen for meals because I blogged a Jambalaya recipe which is a great one for utilising oddments and leftovers! It was the last time we were going to see our lovely Whittard's dining plates for six months too. They're still going strong now.

On the 27th of October 2014 we were in Valencia, Spain, and our Second Big Caravan Adventure was well and truly underway! This journey would end up being nearly two wonderful years of caravan living. I blogged two posts about being in Valencia and I still love this gargoyle statue which overlooked on of the bridges. Highlights including discovering the incredible City Of Arts And Sciences and watching a film in the iMAX cinema there. We tasted our very first Horchata from a street seller outside and marvelled at the stunningly bonkers architecture.

By this time in October 2015 we were in Lyon, France, and I loved their street art. There are a few examples shown in this post from there. We also admired this dramatic fountain sculpted by Bartholdi - of Statue Of Liberty fame - in the 1880s and originally intended for Bordeaux. Lyon is a perfect city for just wandering around. Its centre is compact enough to be manageable on foot and there are fascinating details around every corner. Dismal concrete is everywhere, but then we saw a Roman amphitheatre and the Lyon Opera House too. I especially liked the old silk weaving district.

This year we are, of course, in Torquay, but with only about three weeks left now until we are on the road again. Having been reminiscing here, I can hardly wait!

Review: Where To Invade Next, a documentary by Michael Moore

I'm quite a fan of Michael Moore films having enjoyed being both educated and shocked by Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling For Columbine. Therefore I was happy to spot his newest documentary Where To Invade Next in the Ritzy Cinema listings for the very evening when we were staying up near Brixton. The film was only released here on the 10th of June so, for once, I was one of the first to see a movie!

'Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore returns with what may be his most provocative and hilarious film yet: Moore tells the Pentagon to "stand down" — he will do the invading for America from now on. Where to Invade Next is an expansive, rib-tickling, and subversive comedy in which Moore, playing the role of “invader,” visits a host of nations to learn how the U.S. could improve its own prospects. The creator of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine is back with this hilarious and eye-opening call to arms. Turns out the solutions to America’s most entrenched problems already exist in the world—they’re just waiting to be co-opted.'

It's an unusual premise for a film and the three of us - myself, Dave and his daughter Carrie - were engrossed throughout the two hour screening. It helps that the Ritzy has very comfortable seats! I did feel a bit uncomfortable about Moore's marching everywhere carrying a large Stars And Stripes, but I guess that would appeal more to the folks back in America and it was a successful parody of their current imperialism. What fascinated me was the difference in views about work-life balance and how to live well between many of our European neighbours and ourselves. (Well, between them and America obviously but much of the UK's self-perception seems similar to America's.) We gawped at Italy's standard eight week holiday entitlement and Slovenia's universal free university education, and were impressed by France's school meals system - both the food itself and the the children eating as though in a restaurant - Tunisian women's bravery is inspiring and Iceland's gender laws with regard to company board composition could have prevented the banking crisis. Plus having not so long ago read One Of Us, about Anders Breivik, seeing Norway's rehabilitating prison system was particularly interesting especially as it was contrasted with brief glimpses of the brutality of American prisons.

A timely release considering the current Brexit hysteria, I wondered whether the common sense portrayed in Where To Invade Next will persuade any Leavers that some European ideas are actually pretty good. After all, we in Britain have EU legislation to thank for the 48 hour working week and paid annual leave (great article about this by Snigdha Nag here). Moore does present a rather one-sided view by plucking the best idea from each country he visited and not always presenting a realistic view of the struggles needed to achieve it. However these isolated idea grabs were pretty much the idea of the film and, overall, I thought we were left with an uplifting utopian view, but one which could actually be very achievable - if there wasn't always more emphasis on profit for a few rather than good lives for many.

Miles Ahead - Don Cheadle's Miles Davis biopic movie

We're back in Hailsham for three weeks at our usual

campsite here catching up with friends and Dave's getting to play some tennis which is great. Looking around at what's on locally we got lucky with an art-house type film showing at our old favourite cinema, Hailsham Pavilion, yesterday. Don Cheadle was long ago chosen by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis' family as their favourite to play the legend onscreen and the resultant film, Miles Ahead, is finally doing the rounds of cinemas. I learned by reading up on its background that getting the whole production together was quite the labour of love for Cheadle. Not only the film's star and director, he was also heavily involved in its writing and financing, even going so far as crowdfunding in Indiegogo.

Miles Ahead begins in 1970s New York where a reclusive Miles Davis (Don Cheadle) hasn't worked for five years, choosing to remain secluded in his mess of an apartment instead. A heavy drinker and drug taker, he is coerced by Rolling Stone journalist Dave Brill (Ewan McGregor) into being interviewed. Instead of speaking however Davis begins to play and the resultant music morphs into a film that is part truth and part fiction. The tag line is 'His story - with a little improvisation'. I'm not a Miles Davis aficionado by any stretch, but I'd say there's actually a lot of improvisation! I really enjoyed the film though.

Like our last cinema film, Carol, Miles Ahead looks fantastic. It jumps from the 1970s to the 1940s and back with wonderfully evocative sets and costumes. I love the long coats and am quietly hoping they come back into fashion on the back of this film! Emayatzy Corinealdi is great as the dancer Frances Taylor who became Davis' wife. Miles Ahead is far more about impression and atmosphere than true reportage and I thought it achieved its aims beautifully in that sense. I accept that the main plotline of the stolen music probably never happened and I don't think Davis did ever run around waving guns - maybe I'm wrong, there was a lot of coke - but I feel I do now have a stronger sense of him as a man as well as a dedicated musician.

Miles Ahead will be released on DVD in the UK on December 31st and is available for pre-order now.

The film soundtrack is available for download now as is the original Miles Davis album which gave its name to the film.

Arthur Miller's The Crucible and a brand new home for my book reviews

We were so impressed by the NTlive screening of Arthur

Miller's A View From The Bridge in May that we both immediately wanted to see more Arthur Miller plays. Of course we couldn't find any productions nearby, but were happy to find a cut price DVD of The Crucible (download from Amazon) when we visited Trago Mills shortly afterwards. Coincidence or witchcraft?!

Miller's play is set during the Salem witch trials of 1692, but was written as an allegory of the 1950s McCarthy-era witch-hunts. In Salem, accusations of witchcraft are rife. John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his wife Elizabeth (Joan Allen) are innocent of any such charges, although John has committed adultery with their former serving girl, Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder). When witch expert John Hale is called in to investigate the reports of witchcraft, Abigail attempts to implicate Elizabeth, thinking that she will then be able to resume her affair with John. This film was directed by Nicholas Hytner whose work we previously saw when he directed the superb Timon Of Athens in 2012.

The Crucible is just as powerful a drama as A View From The Bridge and Miller had a fantastic talent for writing realistic and believable dialogue. The film is now twenty years old, but hasn't dated and it was fascinating to see how easily religious fanaticism can be manipulated for personal gain, especially in times of hysteria as it was in the 1690s and the 1950s and still is today. It was interesting to see similar themes explored in the different settings of the two plays. One such is the importance of retaining a good name when all else is gone, even at the expense of life itself.

On a different note, today is the launch of my new book

reviews blog, Literary Flits, which you can find at
http://litflits.blogspot.co.uk
It's a candy-coloured sweetshop of bookish delights!

Book review posts seem to have been taking over Stephanie Jane so I thought it was high time they had a room of their own. I am planning a daily book review with each post dedicated to a single book, rather than squishing trios together as I do currently. I've already got some great new books lined up including fiction from Sweden, Japan, Jamaica and Turkey. Plus I'll be interspersing my new reviews with the best of my book finds from over here. There might also be giveaways!

If you already visited LitFlits in the past week, you probably saw the countdown clicker. If not, you have got until noon today which is when the first review will publish. I'm all excited!

Exploring Torbay and watching Wild in lieu of walking ourselves

We are pitched up on The English Riviera now, at a huge

campsite in between Paignton and Torquay called Widend Touring Park. It is a good location for exploring the Torbay area and we zoomed over to Totnes on our very first day here. Totnes impressed us a lot. It has lots of independent shops, many of the hippy-green variety that appeal to me! There are three health food shops and more organic cotton clothing than I have seen since WOMAD! We bought tofu in The Green Life, delicious fennel and garlic sausages from C.M.McCabe butchers, and a second-hand dvd copy of the Reece Witherspoon film Wild from a fabulous shop, Fretwork Music, that stocked a range of musical instruments, dvds and books. Great mix and the dvd was only £2.99!

In 1995, a young woman called Cheryl Strayed decided to walk 1100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail across the American wilderness. She was a heroin addict struggling to overcome her grief at losing her mother to cancer. She had never hiked before and set off, alone, with a ridiculously overstuffed backpack and too-small boots. Cheryl published her memoir of her hike years later, in 2012, and it was read by Reece Witherspoon who was then convinced that she had to make a film of Cheryl's journey. Together with director, Jean-Marc Vallee, I think she has done a fantastic job! Wild is just under two hours long, but it flew past for me and I was actually a little disappointed when it finished. The Pacific Crest Trail scenery is stunningly beautiful and Cheryl's story is one of real hope and motivation. I am now so inspired to set out on a long-distance walk of my own! I loved that the real Cheryl was very involved with the filmmaking - her whole family appear in minor roles and her daughter plays Cheryl as a child - and the work feels truthful. Dave did find a lot of the dialogue difficult to hear so we might well watch the film again with subtitles on. Otherwise it is superb!

Back to my reality and a few words about Widend Touring

Our pitch at Widend Touring Park 

Park. I was seriously underwhelmed on arrival. We had booked by phone a few days earlier and had to pay the whole cost of our stay upfront, however they failed to mention Reception's lunchtime closure so we were left stranded in their carpark for twenty-five minutes. An officious woman who said she would find someone to show us to our pitch but failed to do so got quite snarky with Dave when she reappeared. She gave the impression that we should have known Reception would be closed even though we hadn't been told and there's no mention on the website either. Grrr! Not a good start!

The site is large and most pitches are taken, but with unoccupied caravans so it feels like a ghost town. We wonder if there will be an influx at the weekend or over the Bank Holiday. It's pretty peaceful at the moment and cheap for the UK - a deal of stay-six-nights-and-get-the-seventh-free means we are paying under £12 a night including electric - less than many CLs. We have fantastic wifi reception here - our Osprey has five bars of 4G! Water and grey water disposal are close by and the shower block is in good condition, but the doors are kept tied open so it's chilly at this time of year. There was only eight seconds of water on the shower press-button too, though after my shower I tried the next cubicle and that ran for twenty seconds. We are surprised that the only recycling facility is a wheelie bin for newspapers. Everything else has to go in large bins that seem to be just for landfill and we were strongly encouraged to use the tumble driers rather than hanging out our washing - I guess they're not big on environmentalism!

Widend campsite is conveniently located for exploring the Torbay area by car though which is our main objective here as we start our flat-hunting in earnest. I don't yet know if we can do any walks from Widend - I wouldn't fancy walking or cycling on the road past the entrance - but we are only a few minutes' drive from Torquay and Paignton, and a scant fifteen minutes from Totnes. The scenery around here is beautiful, as you would expect from Devon, and we've even had one gloriously sunny day.

Cinema trip to celebrate our 18 months in a caravan

Yesterday, the 8th of March, was not just International

Barbara Lennie by Marta Nolla 

Women's Day, but also marked our eighteen month anniversary of caravan living. It certainly doesn't seem six months since I was blogging our one year CaravAnniversary posts. How time flies when you're not paying attention! We had a great sunny cycle ride in the afternoon and then treated ourselves to a film at a little cinema in Cambrils after dinner.

Rambla de l'Art is the cinema and cultural centre for Cambrils and is situated on Rambla Jaume I, just about where it crosses with Carrer Roger De Flor. It is only a twenty minute walk from Camping La Llosa. They show a good range of Spanish films as well as global releases dubbed into Spanish and in original language with Spanish subtitles. For us, the key word to look for is VOSE. This indicates an original language screening so then we just have to make sure that the original language is English! Rambla de l'Art has a light and airy foyer with lots of DVDs for sale and, at the moment, a truly eyecatching display of artworks by Cambrils artist Marta Nolla. I don't know if this is a permanent exhibition and I didn't have a camera with me so have 'borrowed' a couple of images from Nolla's website to give you an idea of her work. Barbara Lennie is a Spanish actress and I loved the Fosse vibe of her portrait. I've also included the Robert Redford and Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid painting below because it is one of my favourite films.

Last night we were lucky to catch a VOSE screening of

Carol which we had hoped to see weeks ago in Perpignan, but didn't get around to it. I wasn't really sure what to expect and can imagine that Carol is quite a Marmite film (love it or hate it!) It is absolutely beautiful throughout and the 1950s fashions, cars and interior decor are wonderful. The deceptively simple storyline is from a Patricia Highsmith novel originally entitled The Price Of Salt, and tells of the meeting and romantic attraction of two women. To be honest, not much really happens and there are lots of lingering looks, wistful and moody cinematography, and thoughtful pauses. It's the sort of film where you lose yourself in its artistry and in the subtlety of understated performances. I thought Cate Blanchett was superb as Carol and I also really liked Sarah Paulson as Carol's longtime friend, Abby. I wasn't so blown away by Rooney Mara as Therese, but her naivete was a real contrast to Carol's confidence and worldliness. If you like slow-burning arthouse cinema, I would highly recommend seeing Carol.

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid by Marta Nolla 

We see the new Macbeth film in Perpignan

Three great discoveries today - a bus, a cinema and a film! First up, the

340 bus route which we grabbed a flyer for at Le Boulou Tourist Information Centre. It advertised a 1€ per person each way fare and, although I admit to being somewhat sceptical, that's exactly what we got. Newish and clean coach-style buses, hardly late, and each 1€ fare allows two hours' travel along the route from Arles-sur-Tech to Perpignan. Perpignan is only half an hour from St Jean Pla De Corts so we are already planning to use this bus again for further visits and also, possibly, to get to some Amelie-Les-Bains walks. It's cheaper than paying for car parking and certainly easier.

Second discovery, for which Dave can take full credit, is the Cinema Castillet in Perpignan. A bit like Hailsham Pavilion in the foyer as the ticket queue was stretching out the door and there was only one man at the till, but good facilities inside including large comfortable seats that were surprisingly upright compared with UK versions. I think six different screens had 'seances' today, all starting at 2pm and all with different films. Cinema Castillet shows lots of films in their original language with subtitles and our choice was the new Macbeth. Several other films were tempting too, but their original language wasn't English so we would have been reliant on French subtitles to prop up our (non-existent) Dutch, Icelandic, ... !

So what did we think of Macbeth? I loved its look and we were both gripped by its realism. The first battle scene is superb with inspired use of slow motion and still shots. Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender are both perfectly cast, each bringing a new freshness and interpretation to even the most familiar lines of dialogue. The new interpretation of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane is brilliant and provides amazing visuals and Lady Macbeth's damned spot speech was very moving. I liked how the witches were presented too. Many scenes are filtered through colours - red, blue and yellow - which gives the whole work an art house feel, but the outdoor scenes are unlikely to encourage much tourism. That is one bleak landscape! Perhaps the accents could have been more consistently Scottish across all the characters and Dave complained that too much of the dialogue was unclear, however overall we were both very impressed.

A weekend in London - Brixton

We were invited to spend last weekend with Dave's daughter Carrie who

New streetart mural near Brockwell Park 

has a gorgeous little flat in Tulse Hill, London. I drove up on the Saturday afternoon which was a little stressy, but nowhere near as fraught as city driving has been on previous occasions. We got there in just over two hours and even managed to park right outside! Carrie had booked for us all to see the new Suffragette film in the evening so we spent the late afternoon walking around Brockwell Park towards Brixton which is one of my favourite London districts. To be fair, I don't know much away from the touristy centre, but I do love the vibrancy of Brixton. There are so many different peoples and cultures represented giving us the opportunities to try cuisines from all over the world, see fruit and vegetables that I haven't a clue how to cook, browse gorgeous fabrics and homewares, hear music and chatter in dozens of languages ... love it!

The new mural being painted in the first photo (top right) was just over

Brixton Market 

the road from the Herne Hill entrance to Brockwell Park. The Park has a miniature railway too, but it wasn't running. We paused for refreshments in The Lido Cafe which was nicely busy and cosy against the October chill although there were some tough swimmers doing lengths in the outdoor pool. I had a rooibos tea and a very good carrot cake while Dave treated himself to a new taste experience: an Espresso Martini. Apparently it's delicious!

Brixton Market was surprisingly calm for a Saturday evening and Carrie said this was because we were much earlier than everyone else. It was only about half past five! This gave us a good chance to browse the vintage clothes shops and also to start narrowing down our choices of where to go for dinner. There was already a bewildering choice in the Market, but then we also went to visit a new commercial area called Pop Brixton. This is a brilliant iniative utilising waste ground where a temporary ice rink used to be. The shopping, eating and office-y area is entirely constructed from shipping containers. I remember reading about a similar space created in Christchurch, New Zealand, after that terrible earthquake. Pop Brixton is now home to microbusinesses, artisans and bars and looked fabulous in the dusk with plants in tubs and lights strung across the walkways. The only think I didn't like was being able to see through the stairs - not good for those with vertigo! I wonder how many of my woven bags I would have to sell in order to pay the rent on a little shop unit?

Pop Brixton

Pop Brixton

After much wandering and deliberation we decided on a Latin American style tapas meal and returned to Brixton Market and The Provincial. This tiny looking restaurant actually seats about two dozen people and had a good offer of six tapas dishes and a litre of sangria for £35. The Broken Eggs with Onion and Fries was good and slow cooked Aubergine was fantastic. We can also recommend the Meatballs and the Cassava, but the Chorizo With Beans and Potatoes wasn't so good - the veg was nice, but the chorizo a bit tough and burned. Overall I we enjoyed our meal and the retro music playing was fun.

I was very impressed with The Ritzy cinema where we went to see

Vintage mural near to The Ritzy 

Suffragette. There's a popular bar area - which was full and loud - and a few quieter tables in the lobby. The screen seats are comfortable with loads of room and a good unobstructed view. It's £12 a ticket though!! We're certainly not used to London prices!

We all loved the film. It is pretty hard-hitting and doesn't shy away from showing the violence meted out both by suffragettes against property and to their persons by policemen, prison guards and (indirectly) by the political establishment of the 1910s.  Such basic inequalities as a woman being unable to sign a cheque for her own money - her husband must sign - or having any rights over her own child - her husband's decision is all that is legally needed - or even to run her own pharmacy - her unqualified husband owns the business. (We learned about the pharmacy inequality during our summer travels, but I can't remember exactly where now. Women could train and qualify as pharmacists because an oversight meant they weren't specifically excluded. All other professions had made sure to state 'men only'!)

The performances, especially from Carey Mulligan and Anne-Marie Duff, are superb. This is definitely a film that everyone should see! Before the credits a list of dates shows when various counties around the world gave their women the right to vote. Switzerland was particularly surprising, not having gained equality until the 1970s. However, I would also have liked a statistic showing what percentage of British women actually USED their right to vote in the recent General Election. Hopefully seeing what the suffragettes endured will encourage more of today's women not to waste their vote.

So many restaurants, so little time!

Just as in April, our few weeks back in Sussex is packed with meet-ups!

Dave and I at The Taj Mahal, Bexhill 

I'm going to blog about the places we have been to this week, but this is definitely more of a foodie post than one of travel tips. The photo, taken by our friend Steve Royston, is of us at The Taj Mahal in Bexhill yesterday evening where we went to dine with both Steve and Frances. It's always great to catch up with them and swap travel experiences and suggestions. Their northern England trip didn't coincide with ours timewise, although they also went to Whitby. Frances recommended Brimham Rocks which I have googled this morning and Steve, a massive Beatles fan, enthusiastically described the Lennon and McCartney childhood houses in Liverpool. In return, we suggested the Cinema Museum in Almeria, in the house where Lennon stayed while filming How I Won The War.

The Taj Mahal serves good Indian cuisine with a wide range of freshly prepared dishes and there's an excellent deal on Sundays and Thursdays: a starter, main, veggie side and rice-or-naan for £10.95 per head. Plus it's a bring-your-own alcohol establishment so that saves money too. However, for non-drinkers, I can recommend the sweet lassi yoghurt drink which is delicious. My Satkora Dhansak was very good and the lemon really gave the sauce a lift. The only problem was that there was far too much to eat - fortunately foil takeaway containers were at the ready.

Wednesday lunchtime we took advantage of the Senior Citizens deal at the Eight Bells in Bolney. We met up with friends Dave and Margaret who are real music aficionados. None of us actually knew about the lunchtime deal until we arrived and the staff nervously asked if we had booked. We hadn't. Fortunately we arrived on the dot of noon and there was just one four-seat table left. The pub was packed. Ordering from 'the pink menu' means a main and a dessert are about half price - £6.50 and £3.50 respectively - and there's a pretty good choice, plus all the full priced options too. (The waitress let me choose from 'pink' too which was kind.) My veggie quiche was tasty with good thick cut chips, but Dave wasn't overly impressed with his Hog Roast Pie. The double cooking meant the meat had lost most of its texture. As the lunch was to be our main meal of the day, I had a winter warming Toffee Apple Bread Pud too - with proper hot vanilla custard!

On Monday evening The Cajun Dawgs were the guest band at White Horse Folk in Bodle Street Green. We hadn't seen them for months so pootled out there. The pub has changed hands again since the last time we were there and is now all painted white inside which makes it feel much bigger. I wasn't sure how the Dawgs music would fit into the White Horse as I think of them as a dance band, but their acoustic setup sounded great and it was good to have a catch-up chat with everyone as well as a bit of a jig about.

On a different note, I got an email a few days ago letting me know that a

short film I helped to fund is complete and ready for viewing. Compassion In World Farming are asking people all over the world Who Do You See In The Mirror? It's a great way to share the #EndTheCageAge message and fun to see my name in the credits too. I've included the YouTube below so please do take a minute to watch and share. (The film isn't full of distressing images.)

Darkness And Day by Ivy Compton-Burnett / Weeping Susannah by Alona Kimhi / Traveling In Place by Bernd Stiegler

Darkness and Day by Ivy Compton-Burnett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Buy the ebook from Amazon.co.uk

I received a copy of Darkness And Day from its publishers, Endeavour Press, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

I love the elegant new cover for the reissue of Darkness And Day which, together with its Virginia Woolf quote of 'intense originality' convinced me that I had to read the novel. First published in 1951, Darkness And Day does have a certain period charm to it and might well appeal to fans of Downton Abbey. It is written as a series of conversations and discussions between the inhabitants of two distinguished houses and, as readers, we get to eavesdrop both upstairs as the families converse and downstairs as the servants do likewise. Ivy Compton-Burnett created some memorable characters. I particularly liked the selfless Mildred, the irascible Bartle and the haunted Bridget. I did think that the words of the children often seemed way beyond their professed ages, but their treatment of Mildred is funny to read.

The themes of class and family are eternal, but Compton-Burnett's addition and treatment of incest is surprisingly modern so this novel must have been incredibly shocking in the 1950s. Her unfolding of the story through gossip and speech is a perfect device for the tale. It is tricky to keep up with who says what at the beginning of the book as the speaker of each line of dialogue is not always identified. However, as the characters develop, their personalities shine through in their words, frequently making identification superfluous. I often felt as though I was reading a play rather than a novel and I think it would be interesting to experience Darkness And Day as a full cast audio recording.


Weeping Susannah by Alona Kimhi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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I bought my copy of Weeping Susannah at the OXFAM bookshop when we were in Petergate, York, attracted by the premise of a contemporary Israeli novel. I love discovering different cultures through my reading. Set in Tel Aviv, Weeping Susannah is written in the first person and takes us through several months in the life of a thirty-three year old woman. Susannah lives basically as a child, cared for by her aging mother, as her chronic depression leaves her unable to cope with every day life. She has a horror of bodily functions including simply eating so cannot eat in front of anyone, and has never had a job or adult friends other than those of her mother. When an American second cousin unexpectedly arrives and expects to stay in Susannah's home, she initially shuts herself away in her room, but gradually begins to discover that she can be stronger and more social than she believes.

Weeping Susannah is a thought-provoking novel that transcends its storyline to become a fascinating view into depression and mental illness. Susannah is not a sympathetic character. In many ways, she behaves like a child even expecting her mother to pick up her underwear from the bathroom floor after her shower. The unnaturally close relationship between mother and daughter, while allowing Susannah to function, also smothers her rare chances at independence and ultimately leads to disaster when Susannah decides that she could leave. The small central cast of five are brilliantly portrayed and none are exactly sane! Friend Nehema is wonderful and I liked reading her scenes very much.

In criticism, perhaps Weeping Susannah is a little longer than it needs to be and the image of cousin Neo on the front cover was obviously chosen by someone who hadn't read the book - he is supposed to look like the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley - but otherwise this is a good read and a great insight into the culture and blend of nationalities that make up modern day-to-day life in Israel.



Traveling in Place: A History of Armchair Travel by Bernd Stiegler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Traveling In Place is the August free book download from the University of Chicago Press and I am glad to report that I got far more enjoyment from this than from the July download of Dona Barbara, even though I slightly misunderstood the synopsis. I expected a short story collection of micro-scale travel writings. This book is actually a scholarly survey of many examples of the genre written over the past two hundred years.

I had not previously thought about my room - or my caravan as I should say at the moment - in the same way as I appreciate it now. Stiegler has studied dozens of novels, essays and memoirs, mostly by French and German authors, who have chosen to look at the everyday and the mundane through the eyes of a visitor and a tourist. Apparently the original and example - Voyage Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre - is quite famous and extensively quoted. Who would have known?!

Traveling In Place is not an easy read, especially as the only one of the quoted writings that I knew of is Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. I admit to being at the limit of my comprehension when we got to early twentieth century experimental film making. However, I am quite taken with the basic premise. The examples of 'flanerie' - exploring one's own familiar environment with new eyes - struck a chord with our current travels around our own country and also reminded me of a character in Bleeding London who resolves to walk every street in the London A to Z. Stiegler's extra reading suggestions at the end of each chapter are a great touch and I am inspired to seek some out. I have already found the Xavier de Maistre in English on Kindle and will be joining his journey around his room sometime soon.


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