The territorial imperative in practice

It’s curious the impact neighbours can have on your life.

Right now, I’m thinking of the neighbours at the front of our house, a pair of house martins, and one from next door, a Siamese cat.

The house martins I mentioned once before, when they turned up a few weeks ago and moved into the nest over our front door. It’s unlikely to be the same pair who were there last year, though one of the two of them may well have hatched there then. Since one of the things they’ve done is drive away a pair of larger house martins who clearly had their eye on the same nest, I can’t help suspecting that this is an ungrateful son or daughter taking over the parents’ place and kicking them out.

Kids, right? Think they’re owed a living.

My suspicions are reinforced by the fact that the female of the pair isn’t just smaller than the male, as they tend to be, but far smaller. Clearly a very young lady. Perhaps just a bit too sure of herself, a bit too convinced of her right to call the shots around the place.

We had a neighbour like that once. That was when we were living in Luton. She used to have parties that went on from about 10:00 at night until about noon the next day. We assumed that they were cocaine-fuelled, if only because I couldn’t imagine anyone being able to keep going that loudly for that long without some artificial stimulant to give them the energy.

The noise they made tended to follow a cyclical pattern. There’d be some silence when we’d think that we might perhaps be allowed to sleep. Then the voices would start up again, growing louder and louder as the revellers fell out with each other, until they were shouting abuse. That would sometimes culminate in the noise of breaking crockery, weeping, or loud lovemaking – well, sex, anyway - before returning to silence. Then rinse and repeat.

This was several years into the austerity programme of the Tory government, so the resource-starved police couldn’t do anything about the noise. One policewoman I was talking to did actually say, “Good God! I can hear her down the phone line!” That was through the intervening wall. 

The policewoman was sympathetic but couldn’t help.

I’m glad to say that the young lady who has moved in over our front door is far more attractive and far more well behaved than that neighbour from hell. But pretty or not, she and her partner are just as good at making their presence felt. Not, I’m glad to say, at night. During the day, though, if we have the gall to step outside, or merely open the front door, they like to share their views on the matter with us.

The house martin making her displeasure known to us
Small in size but highly communicative

Now, I had a limited education, and was never taught house martin. So when they go and perch on the phone line that crosses our yard and chatter away to each other, to any other passing house martins, and above all at us, I really can’t make out what precisely they’re saying. But I have no trouble with the gist. It’s “who the heck do you think you are, wandering around this place as though you own it?” I’m cleaning up the language here a bit, but I think they add a request roughly translatable as “go away” though I suspect expressed somewhat more forcibly. And who can blame them?

It’s clear that they regard the place as theirs and our irruption into it as a gross and unwarranted invasion of territory, bitterly to be deplored. And they tell us so. Loudly and at length.

Another creature that makes that kind of point indisputably clear is our assault poodle Toffee. She now weighs in at not a terribly long way off 4 kilos, making her a no doubt daunting presence to any passing creature the size of a squirrel or smaller. But like Queen Elizabeth I, she has the heart and stomach of a King, and she thinks foul scorn that anyone should dare to invade the borders of her realm.

That was made clear to me when I saw her, flat on the ground at the bottom of our garden, barking into the hedge while her tail flailed from side to side so fast that I swear, had we been able to attach a generator to it, we could have driven a dishwasher off it.

Toffee making her displeasure known to the Siamese
Small in size but not in heart

The object of her anger? The Siamese cat from next door.

The previous occupants of our house had no animals, so the Siamese clearly got used to wandering in and out of the garden as the whim took him. Toffee, though, has no intention of allowing such liberties. So there she was, barking her heart out to defend our territory. Sorry, correct that: her territory.

It really is an imperative, isn’t it? The protection of territory. Humans have that instinct too. It inflames anti-immigrant rhetoric: we don’t want him here, he’s foreign. Or, indeed, racist thinking: we don’t want him here, he’s different. Or the American or British hostility towards international institutions: we don’t want to be with them, we’re different.

Natural, I suppose. Though also a bit sad.

After all, aren’t we supposed to have bigger brains and more powerful intellects than house martins or poodles?

The cat who travelled to Spain

I thought it would be hell.

Back in March, when we moved from England to Spain, we took our dogs but not our cat Misty. We were moving into a flat and, the poor chap, he’d never lived in a place he couldn’t get in and out of easily – and boy he’s lived in a lot of places: as of today, eleven addresses in four countries, not the kind of existence a cat generally finds congenial.

Misty in Luton
where, sadly, we left him behind for far too long

Fortunately, we sold our house to friends and they agreed to look after him until we had a more suitable place for him. A great arrangement: he was with people he liked, in a house he knew, with the same easy garden access as ever.

But then the months rolled on. We began to feel guilty towards our friends – they said they were enjoying having Misty with them, but how long can you really demand that other people look after your cat? – and we began to feel guilty towards Misty himself, after losing contact with him so completely for such a time.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, all the circumstances aligned. We’d moved out of the flat and into a house, with a garden at the back and a bit of parkland beyond that – just the kind of place likely to appeal to Misty. We’d opened a gap in the fence at the front so he could get out easily and visit the neighbouring cats if he wanted. And I had a business trip to England which I could combine with fetching him.

That’s when I began to dread what I foresaw to be a likely trip from hell.

First, I had to get from London to Luton, where we used to live. That wasn’t a big deal and I completed that stage without much difficulty.

In the BA Lounge at Heathrow
Misty hates the carrier...

Second, I had to get Misty into a zippable pet carrier, which he loathes. The vet had given me something to calm him, which I had to scatter over some of his food, but he’s too savvy for that: he took one smell of the meat, realised it had been adulterated, and wouldn’t touch it. I also had some sprayable happy-cat pheromones with which I liberally anointed the inside of the carrier, and that may have worked: he didn’t complain too much once inside it.

Stage 3 was getting from Luton to the airport. That was OK because we went by cab, which cost a fortune but at least was comfortable and relatively quick. The good thing is that the driver asked whether I had his passport. He thought he was joking, but there really are pet passports, and other documents he needed to fly, and I had indeed forgotten them. The driver’s irony rather saved the day for me, or more to the point, saved the trip.

On the way to Heathrow, Misty peed on me, but I couldn’t hold that against him. He was, after all, badly pissed off so it was probably entirely appropriate. A little emergency washing in an airport toilet dealt with the worst of the problem.

Stage 4 started at check in. Carrier and pet together had to weigh under 8 kilos, but Iberia, one of the only airlines that allows pets in the cabin, has a beautifully Spanish view of that kind of regulation: “8.2 kg,” the man said, “that’s close enough,” and through I went.

Then came security which was where I was terrified that things would fall apart. Fortunately, thanks to the cab driver, I had all the papers. They checked them carefully. They had me take Misty out of the carrier while they searched it – he wasn’t pleased, because I held him firmly and he wanted to wander off – but at any rate, everything turned out to be in order. So I got to the other side of security, breathing a sigh of relief. The most worrying part of the trip was behind me.

I took him out in the plane, briefly
He wanted to go wandering, so had to go back in the carrier...

All that was left was stage 4, the two and a quarter hour flight to Madrid, followed by stage 5, the three and a half hour drive to Valencia. Which turned into something more like five hours because of the storm that lashed us nearly the whole way.

Taking a look around the new place and taking possession

But finally we were home. Misty explored the place with great enthusiasm and slept on our bed that night, since he had us to himself. The next day, we picked up the dogs from where they’d been looked after, and at last all the animals could get together again. There was some slight awkwardness as they got used to each other once more, but they knew each other at once and realised that they were going to be sharing a house again.

Reunited with Toffee and Luci

So the household was complete after a long gap. Misty has settled in straight away and seems to enjoy the place, just as we do. Cat, dogs, humans: we’re set for a life together in Valencia which I hope we’ll all enjoy.

Misty fully settled in

Getting him here hadn’t been anything like the hell I’d feared.

The heart of Spain: it may be emptying but it still beats warmly

Our gradual introduction into Spanish life continued this weekend. Indeed, we went for a deep dive to the very roots of Spain: a visit to a mountain village on the border of Castille and Aragon, right in the Spanish heartland.

I say Castille although the official title of the region to which it belongs is Castilla-La Mancha. The place is full of wind farms and I made a weak joke about where was Don Quixote, the man of La Mancha, when we really needed him among all those windmills. All I got in return was a faint smile and the tired reply: “this isn’t La Mancha. Here, we’re in Castille”. The region may embrace two historical provinces, but the old attachments die hard.

The comment was from our host, Teo, in the village of Tartanedo. He and his wife are dear old friends, but that didn’t stop us failing to catch up with each other for 25 years. In many ways, it’s a real test of friendship when one meets someone after that kind of a gap, and the conversation simply starts up again as though it had never been interrupted.

The first connection between us had come when Ernestina, his wife, had travelled to England with their daughter Leticia as part of a teacher exchange. Although Tartanedo has a great spiritual pull on them, especially on Teo who was born there, they actually live down in the plain at Guadalajara, a proper town just about within commuting distance from Madrid. Ernestina had been teaching in Guadalajara back in the eighties and she swapped with a teacher from Luton for a year.

Now Guadalajara is warm and sunny, with a lovely centre and deep cultural roots. Why, at our first visit to our friends after that long gap, Ernestina took us to an inspiring flamenco concert in the town’s well-appointed and attractive theatre.

Luton, on the other, has all the joys of English weather, a depressed and depressing town centre, and only a middling-sized room in the library to act as a theatre.

This made it amusing to learn that Ernestina had happily returned to Guadalajara as soon as her year was over. On the other hand, the teacher she’d exchanged with met and married a man from Guadalajara and, to the best of our knowledge, never went back.

In a Tartanedo street, looking at St Bartholomew’s Church

As for Tartanedo, it’s a lovely if embattled place. The houses are mostly built of sandstone and many are beautiful: in excellent repair with fine façades and an air of permanence. But many of these are holiday homes, uninhabited most of the time. Around the edges of the village, there are buildings, many agricultural, but some residential, that are falling into decay, with caved-in roofs, glassless window and doors falling away from their hinges.

Tartanedo is suffering from the same phenomenon that affected many British villages in the past: rural depopulation. The work opportunities are in the cities, as are the bright lights, the restaurants and the main sources of entertainment. Tartanedo had 500 inhabitants at the start of the twentieth century; today there are only 50 permanently living there. 

It has to be said that those who remain, and even many of those who return at holidays, are from the village and have strong roots there. But there were once two shops and a bakery; now there are vans in the summer that come to sell fresh produce but otherwise there is only a bar and a church. It does have to be said that the church is remarkable: it is crammed with breathtaking works of art, in an architectural setting that mixes styles from several centuries of Spanish development. But even the church is struggling. We were there on Sunday and the congregation was just five strong.

Superb baroque altar. But there were only five worshippers

As Teo explained, Tartanedo is part of “España vacía” – empty Spain. In Tartanedo’s case, that has helped a little: the emptiness around it makes it an excellent area for wind farms, and the taxes they pay have provided a much-needed financial boost. But still, emptying is never easy for a village, and leaves it trying to define what kind of future it might have.

Empty Spain: the surroundings of Tartanedo - big sky, big space
With the ubiquitous windmills and no Don Quixote
Oh, and our poodle Toffee in the foreground

Some of the other aspects of life there are familiar to an Englishman. Of the 50 permanent inhabitants, 25 are from Morocco. Why? One of the few businesses still flourishing there is sheep breeding. There are 4000 sheep, providing work for five shepherds and a living for their families. All of them are Moroccan. It seems the Spanish, like the English, aren’t attracted to certain jobs which have to be carried out by foreigners instead.

As in Britain, Spain sees some racism directed against such immigrants, who come over to take “our” jobs even though “we” don’t want to do them. The Spanish, however, are managing to keep such xenophobic feelings mostly in check for the moment. Spain remains a far more welcoming place, generally, to foreigners than Brexitland has become. There’s no talk, certainly, of Spexit – or perhaps, in España, I should say no talk of Espexit. In Tartanedo, there is far more: there is a warmth between all the inhabitants, displayed in hugs and handshakes, whether the individual’s roots are in Spain or in North Africa. The Moroccan children are even being educated, by volunteers, in the old school house which had long been closed.  

A degree of openness, a level of tolerance, and a willingness to work with her neighbours. They make Spain a refreshing place to live in after Britain. And it was encouraging to come across much of that spirit even in a small place like Tartanedo, which has to find a future for itself.

It’s particularly encouraging because, in Tartanedo, we were deep in the very heart of the nation.

The Brexile starts: so far, so good.

“So far, so good” are the words of the man plunging past the 50th floor of the Empire State Building towards the ground. Which makes the expression a little limited in value. Still, with all the caveats that implies, I can say that our Brexile in Valencia has got off to a good start.

Not that getting here was all that easy. Blanche du Bois always relied on the kindness of strangers. We always rely on the kindness of friends. In this particular case, our thanks would go to our friends Bruno and Jose who provided us with breakfast before we left, after which Jose took us to Gatwick airport, supervised the process of getting our dogs through security and our luggage onto the plane, and then headed back so that he and Bruno could repair to our old house in Luton (which they are buying) to keep our cat Misty company.

Because Misty, sadly, has stayed behind for now. He’s a cat who’s always been used to going outdoors or coming back in when he pleases. But, until we can find a suitable house (where suitability is a compromise between desirability and our budget), we’re living in a flat. Misty’s 12 now and I think it would kill him to be locked in all day.

So he waits in his old home until we can provide him with a new one. With Bruno and Jose to look after him, he’ll do just fine. And we’ve tested to make sure that he gets on swimmingly with their dog Nina, too.

The dogs, on the other hand, came with us. Which wasn’t pleasant for them. They had to go into carry cases which they hated, and at the airport security officials took them away from us to put them through various checks before returning them to us at the departure gate. The dogs took a very dim view of that. Indeed, Toffee, the more devilish and nimble, went so far as to open one of the zipped-up ends of the case and get out, making a beeline for the baggage conveyor belts. Who knows where in the world she might have ended up had the border staff not caught her, stuffed her back and tied up the openings with string.

The dogs had to go into the cases in the plane, too, which they didn’t like either. I travelled with Toffee, Danielle with Luci. Toffee gave me such a pitiful look that I took her out and put her on my knees. But then I saw that Danielle had done the same thing with Luci, which made me feel less guilty. And the cabin crew, being Spanish and sharing the Latin sense that rules are merely guidelines, markers for aspirations rather than descriptions of behaviour, made no comment until we began to land at Madrid.

Toffee fed up in the plane

We were happy to take the dogs, because they can cope with apartment life for a few months, even if it means that we’re popping out with them four or five times a day. A small price to pay for the benefit of leaving Brexitland before the xenophobia there turns even more toxic. I hope Brexit may yet be avoided but, if it isn’t, I’m glad we got out when we did.

Not that we’re really refugees, here in our rather pleasant self-imposed exile. We didn’t have to pay money to people traffickers, unless you count the airlines. We didn’t have to climb onto overloaded inflatable boats and attempt a dangerous crossing with only an inadequate life jacket between us and drowning.

Why, we didn’t even face the same difficulties as my grandmother. Her father travelled from Vilnius to London in 1902, so he had a job and accommodation for them before she, her mother and brother followed him the next year. And we weren’t fleeing pogroms in the deeply anti-Semitic Russian Empire.

Instead, we were able to find a flat here, equip it properly, and even try it on for size last autumn, with the dogs, so that our departure into ‘exile’ felt more like a homecoming. Comfortable refugees rather than desperate ones.

All the more so as I’ve always preferred warm weather to cold. I was glad to cast aside last night the jumper I wore from London. And this afternoon, it was the long-sleeved shirt and cords. And that was after having breakfast out of doors this morning.

Breakfast out of doors

The dogs, too, seem to be doing well. Pretty much fully recovered from the trauma of the trip. But then, they’re back on the couch they came to know and love when we were last here.

Sofa so good, as I’m sure they’d say.

Toffee and Luci: sofa so good

Many endings

We’re doing lots of things for the last time these days.

Our last dinner in our favourite curry restaurant, Punjabi Haveli, in the predominantly ‘Indian’ neighbourhood of Bury Park (Indian in quotation marks because the population is increasingly English – second generation or even, in many cases, third. But the food remains distinctly Indian and great).

Our last friend chicken from Chicken George, repeatedly awarded the prize as England’s best takeaway restaurant

Our last session at the Saturday badminton club, after perhaps 200 over the last eight years.

And these were just the things we knew we were doing for the last time. Earlier there were things we did for the last time without knowing there would be no further occurrences.

Our last Sunday afternoon chamber concert in a very little chamber with a minuscule chamber ensemble (never more than two players) in the lovely setting Wardown House.

Our last standup comedy evening where for a fiver you got to see six acts and, for an extra two or three pounds, you’d get a curry too

Even in winter, Wardown Park is a lovely place for a walk
Especially at sunset

Taking the dogs for a walk through Luton’s most wonderful feature, the string of parks, all grassland alternating with woodland and parkland, from People’s Park, to Pope’s Meadow, to Wardown Park and beyond, to ancient orchards and more woods by the stream that we like to glorify as the ‘river Lea’.

Still, though I’ll miss many of those things, what I shall miss the most are the people – and I hope that despite the geographical separation, we’ll keep in touch as much as possible. The friends from the Labour Party, including those who have become adversaries in today’s increasingly bitter battles; the friends from our two badminton clubs with whom we’ve spent many a wonderful hour on or off the court; and those who were just friends, and great to know. In a town where ‘White British’ is not the majority in the ethnic mix, it has been a delight to know this extraordinary mix of peoples, backgrounds, faiths, convictions, cultures, and sheer personality.

Many have asked me what I’ll miss the most, and that’s my answer.

This may all sound gloomy, but that’s just the nature of partings. This is the time of farewells, which are always cheerless. We’re looking forward to some new beginnings, but for now we’re dealing with endings, and they’re never happy moments.

Still, I can’t pretend that we’ll miss everything about Luton. And right at the top of the list of the things I shall be happy to see the back of will be the Luton Mall. It, as I see things, represents all that is least prepossessing about the town – and is also emblematic of what I see about Britain today that I’m only too happy to be leaving.

The Luton Mall was one of the earliest American-style malls in Britain, and it shows. It’s old and shabby, mildly claustrophobic which gives it a feeling of dinginess, lacking the airiness or light of more modern shopping centres. The only redeeming feature of the place is the quality of some of the shops.

Two of the best are Marks & Spencer and the department store Debenhams. I visited both last time I was there – another of that series of last-time moments – and reflected on the fact that both are threatened with closure. A Mall that badly needs redeeming losing two its most important redeeming features? What will be left? Just an empty shabby shell?

Luton Mall. Debenhams in front, M&S behind
Both slated for closure

That feels like the country writ small. What made Britain exciting was its openness and drive. It was the wealth of people from different places, with different concerns and different tastes, rubbing shoulders, learning from each other and building something better and more exciting together. Brexit has marked a break in that process, at least for a time. Like Luton’s Mall, the country is in decline.

The difference is that Luton didn’t choose its fate. Britain did and could stop it yet. Perhaps I should have stayed to help.

But, with two sons living in Spain, the prospect wasn’t attractive enough to prevent us deciding to go there. Hence the many endings. And I hope, after Saturday, a few new beginnings.

Forced march to a metaphor for life

For months – or is it years now? – my wife Danielle has been joining Nordic walking sessions run by one of Luton’s fine leisure centres.

‘It’s excellent exercise,’ she would tell me, ‘you really know you’ve done some sport when you’ve finished. It’s a lovely setting, too. And the people are great. You ought to come along.’

Somehow, I always had something else to do. Excuses, of course, for not taking part. What I don’t understand is why I was even looking for excuses. I enjoy walking. I enjoy sport, for that matter. And when we used to live in Germany, I even took part in Nordic walking sessions there, and they were tough: they started at 6:00 in the morning. Ah, yes. The Germans. When you’re doing something demanding, you just have to make sure it really is demanding.

Having followed Danielle into Nordic walking,
I followed her around the Nordic walk

For whatever reason, I dodged and ducked and avoided taking part. Until just now. Which is pretty silly, since we’re planning on moving away (from the country, not just the town) early in February. If I’m to enjoy, and benefit from, these Nordic walking moments, I’m truly going to have to get my act together: I only have a few weeks to do so.

Because I really did enjoy it. And no doubt benefited, too. Certainly, if the ache in my legs was anything to go by, I must have done. As a good Englishman, steeped in the country’s puritanical traditions, I know that it’s only if it hurts that a thing can possibly be doing you any good.

It surprised me that it was so much fun. For me, walking is something I do with the dogs. And I do it – slowly. Generally I’m chatting with the other people out with me or, when alone as is more commonly the case, I have earphones in and I’m listening to an audio-book. Recently, that’s been some Le Carré novels (or his autobiographical sketches, The Pigeon Tunnel) interspersed with a couple of recommendations from colleagues: Prisoners of Geography, a highly readable account of how geography often determines a nation’s behaviour, and Lawrence in Arabia (note the ‘in’ rather than ‘of’) which is proving a fascinating study not just of Lawrence but of all the extraordinary, seismic events that took place in the Middle East in World War One and whose consequences we’re still feeling today.

What that means, of course, is that though I pick places I like, I tend not to notice them that much. I’m generally listening to the book and paying little attention to what’s going on around me. Which is a bit sad. Sometimes I become aware of that and decide I should snap a photo of a scene that’s particularly striking in its beauty, but that only means I’m looking at things through my phone instead of listening to it.

Sometimes I stop listening to the phone
and use it to take a picture of the scenery

Nordic Walking’s different. It’s a social activity so something as solitary as listening to a book is out. And, in any case, it’s much more of a forced march than a country stroll, so I’m not sure I’d be able to spare the attention to a book. That may have been what put me off.

But, naturally, it has other charms. It’s certainly more physical. It feels a little more like a challenge. And it isn’t that bad: I had no trouble keeping up with the leaders. Which gave me a certain satisfaction.

Of course, I found myself following Danielle all the way round. Straining to keep up with her. But that was satisfying too.

After all, there’s no better metaphor for a marriage that has lasted 35 years – so far.

Walking no dogs

The thing about dogs is that they get you out of doors. Which is just as well, because indoors they’re good at interrupting, or at least restricting, your work. You don’t believe me? Try typing with a dog resting her head on your elbow.

Luci being endearing. But making it hard to do much work

Getting me out of doors is a fundamentally good thing. I’ve taken to heart the injunction to take 10,000 steps a day, even though I’m far from convinced that this limited form of exercise does me all the good that’s claimed for it. In fact, because when I get one of these fixations I generally go way over the top, I try to do 15,000 steps. Even though, in my heart of hearts, I know that even that level is unlikely to be that beneficial.

Still, if you set yourself a target, the least you can do is try to hit it. For that the dogs are invaluable. Rain or shine, summer or winter, day or night, they have to go out. And when you’re out, well you’re racking up the steps. Great.

But what happens if you’re deprived of the dogs, even temporarily?

This happened when my wife, now happily retired, decided to take them to Ashridge Forest the other day. When lunchtime came around and I realised I was terribly short of my daily step target, I felt strangely embarrassed at the notion that I might go for a walk without the dogs. It felt as though I was proposing to go out naked.

How could I justify my presence in the park without Luci or Toffee?

It was only at the price of some serious soul-searching and internal debates that I convinced myself that people do, after all, often go out on walks. Admittedly, mostly they’re with friends, or family, or indeed dogs, but some of them walk on their own. ‘You’ll never walk alone’ the song proclaims, but the most enthusiastic singers of that song are fans of Liverpool Football Club, among whose number I have to admit I’m not to be counted.

What was there to stop me getting out there? Even alone?

So I went.

At least I could walk more quickly than I usually do with the dogs. I feel no inclination to keep my nose on the ground, or to dart off into the bushes in pursuit of a squirrel, the remains of a mouldy sandwich or, quite often, as far as I can see, absolutely nothing at all. That makes for significantly better forward progress.

It meant I could even see a few things that I hadn’t counted on. In Wardown Park, surely the most prestigious of the parks which are Luton’s best feature, I popped into the museum and, specifically, the room in which we attend occasional Sunday concerts. On this occasion, there were no musicians, but an artist, Nicola Moody working on a loom, creating a piece to be called Running with Thread.

Nicola Moody working on her jack loom
in Wardown House

Every Saturday, there’s a 5 km Park Run in Wardown Park. One of my sons, Nicky, has taken part three times, winning once and placing in the top three on all those occasions. A number of my friends also run, though they tend to place less far up the leader board, especially when pushing a buggy around with a child in it. It’s a great illustration of the joy of simply taking part. That’s something to celebrate, though I don’t participate myself as it happens, preferring to watch the illustration and celebrate it from the finishing line.

Nicola Moody’s weaving will produce three pieces incorporating the length of stride, heart rate and running time of three participants. She tells me that her kind of weaving is now recognised as a true art form. Indeed, the Tate Modern is running an exhibition of one of its major exponents, Anni Albers, right now.

Back outside, I went on to the old cricket field nearby. This was where, nearly a quarter of a century ago, I came to watch that same son Nicky playing a match against a team which, if I remember, consigned them firmly to the position of second best. But I was as always simply pleased to see the place, with its stone banks of seats on two sides and a pavilion on the third, and a perfectly even, smooth surface for this noble game between them.

For my recent dogless walk, I had chosen a fine day, with a clear sky and bright sunshine. There was however a touch of sharpness to the air that made me grateful I’d chosen to take a jacket. Autumn was definitely on us, summer was no more.

That was an impression confirmed by the sight that greeted me when I reached the field. In the winter, it’s given over to football instead of cricket. And, indeed, a game was in progress when I got there.

The cricket ground in its winter manifestation as football pitch

Ah, well. The tougher time for the walks is coming fast. But the thing about dogs is that they make you go out. Rain or shine, summer or winter, day or night. Soon it’s going to be a lot more rain than shine, a lot more night than day. The dogs won’t mind, because they just like to go out. For us? Not so much fun. But at least they’ll ensure we do our steps.

So my walk without dogs made clear what awaits me with them. Far, far too soon. But that didn’t stop me enjoying it.

Sunshine in an oddly artificial but strangely attractive spot

Some curious places can be surprisingly appealing.

Take the Buttes-Chaumont park in Paris. For a long time, it was a refuse and sewage dump, a place where the bodies of executed criminals were put on display and, in one part, a gypsum and limestone quarry The gypsum was used to make plaster, so it was an important substance in building, which at least makes the purpose of that part of the site constructive – in the most literal sense – and that’s more than can be said for the other bits.

Eventually, though the city of Paris decided to make a park of the place.

I don’t know whether the presence of all that gypsum played a role in how they set about it, but they used a lot of concrete in modelling the park to their design. A waterfall, outcrops of boulders, a stream running between rocky banks – they were all built, not found, laid out by man not nature.

That’s what makes the place so odd. Little or nothing about it is natural, the landscape itself is artificial.

Natural it may not be, but the lake’s an attractive spot for all that

And yet, oddly enough, it manages to be attractive. The waterfall is worth a visit, and the lake is beautiful, especially with the rocky crag in the middle of it, crowned with a belvedere from which one can just glimpse the distant Sacré Coeur in Montmartre. So it’s fun to go to.

OK, I admit, it’s a bit remote, but that is the Sacré Coeur there

Danielle and I hadn’t been to Paris for years, though we lived on the western edge of the city for three years back in the nineties. My brother and his Danielle live now, and it was good to visit them for a couple of nights. Especially as the day before he left was his birthday so we took them out for a pre-birthday celebration.

During the day, while they were both working, we popped down to the Buttes-Chaumont to enjoy the park again. Which turned out to be wonderful. It helped that the weather was glorious, even well into October. What helped the day less was that it had been cold in the morning, so we ended up having to carry coats and sweaters as soon as the clouds cleared.

We even had lunch in a little restaurant opposite one of the gates. We could have eaten outside but chose to go inside, because it was simply too warm in the sun. So it was a fine way to enjoy the last day of our nearly six weeks in Continental Europe.

Of course, by the time we got home to Luton, it was chucking it down with rain. But, hey, it wouldn’t be a welcome home, would it, if it didn’t feel like home?

The waterfall’s fake too
But I like it anyway

Brexit exit: first step. With a stumble

There’s always one thing that goes wrong, isn’t there? Still, as long as it all works out in the end, it’s hardly worth complaining. And I call an excellent unplanned Chinese meal a good ending.

Some time ago, I mentioned that my wife Danielle and I have brought forward our plans to move to Spain. That’s our exit from Brexit and if we’re reasonably quick, we can probably pull it off before the UK leaves the EU.

The first concrete step was selling Danielle’s car. It was a small car and already second hand when we bought it so we knew it couldn’t be worth much. In fact, a little online searching suggested the best we could hope for would be around £3100.

So she advertised it for £3200.

First step towards the Brexit exit:
a bit of a wrench but we had to part company with Danielle’s Aygo

She also contacted one of those online organisations that buy cars for the trade. Once she’d given all the details, they suggested they might pay £3100. That sounded fair enough, so we agreed they could send someone round to check out the car.

‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Danielle said, ‘these guys are well known for always finding reasons to knock a price down after an inspection.’

The character from the company showed up on Saturday. A large cheerful man, all hail-fellow-well-met, with lots of jokes, and an open, friendly countenance. So naturally I decided I couldn’t trust him any further than I could kick him, and given his size, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to kick him far.

He checked out the car and expressed himself satisfied with its state. He liked the fact that the service record was bang up to date. He liked the fact that Danielle had all the documentation ready for him. So he phoned his head office. Then turned to us and cheerfully announced, ‘we can offer you £2300.’

Danielle looked shocked.

‘Down from £3100?’

‘What’s the least you’d accept?’

‘Not less than £3000,’ she said, firmly.

He rang his office again.

‘The best we can do is £2600,’ he told us.

We said goodbye.

Danielle immediately re-advertised the car. Again at £3200.We weren’t best pleased with the trader, so we were delighted that it was the very next day, on Sunday, that someone expressed an interest in it.

It was a family from Milton Keynes, about 40 minutes away from where we live in Luton. They wanted the car for their daughter. All three turned up to see it.

They too were impressed. By the state of the car. By the service record. By the fact that all the documentation was available.

So we reached the key moment.

‘Are you OK with our making an offer?’ said the father.

‘Please do,’ said Danielle.

‘Would you take £3000?’ he said.

Danielle looked at me.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

‘It’s your car,’ I said, which was a copout, I know. But I’ve cocked up this kind of negotiation more than once in the past.

A silence fell. I’ve learned the power of silence so I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to break it.

‘What about if we split the difference?’ he said. ‘Would you take £3100?’

Since that was exactly the figure she’d first thought of, Danielle didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes, that’ll be fine,’ she said.

Given we’d been offered £2600 the day before, that had to represent about the quickest £500 we’d ever made.

Everything had gone smoothly up to then. Now we just had to manage the financial side of things. That, sadly, involved a bank.

‘I’ll send you a pound first,’ said the buyer, ‘to check that the details are right.’

Minutes later a pound showed up in Danielle’s account.

‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘now for the £3100.’

‘3099,’ I corrected him.

‘The pound’s on me,’ he said, jovially, as he pressed Submit on his phone.

And then his face fell.

There was another silence. Not a powerful one this time. More distraught, really.

‘Is there a problem?’ asked his wife.

‘They’ve blocked the transfer.’

Well, I’m not going to bore you with the details. Let me just say that twenty minutes later he was still arguing with his bank.

‘I know it’s a security question,’ he said repeatedly, ‘but how can I possibly tell you how much the last payment from my account was for, since I’m not at home and don’t have access to any statements?’

His wife had been able to access the account, and she showed us that the £3100 had already been debited from their account. It just hadn’t reached out ours.

We could hear the bank representative talking to her husband.

‘That’s fine now, sir,’ they were saying, ‘the payment will go through. It shouldn’t take more than two hours.’

‘Two hours? But I’m sitting in someone else’s house. And trying to buy a car we were going to drive home. You expect us to sit here for two hours?’

We suggested that we could take them out for dinner somewhere. They didn’t like that idea, since their dog was at home and no doubt getting sad.

‘No,’ he said, looking defeated, ‘we’ll just have to come back tomorrow.’

We weren’t keen, particularly as it would mean we were looking after someone else’s car overnight. What if some moron scratched it? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

And then an idea dawned on us. The Taipan restaurant in Central Milton Keynes is one of the best Chinese I’ve ever been to. We hadn’t eaten there for ages.

The Taipan in Milton Keynes:
one of my favourite Chinese restaurants. Anywhere

‘We’ll go and have a Chinese in Milton Keynes,’ we told them, ‘and you can pick up the car there when the money comes through.’

Which is how things worked out.

They were pathetically grateful.

‘It’s so good of you to have come up here with the car,’ the father told us.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m indebted to you for a great dinner I wouldn’t otherwise have had.’

‘Oh, yes. I suppose I made that possible.’

‘You and your bank.’

‘Right. I can’t take all the credit.’

So things all worked out fine in the end. Everyone was happy.

And I enjoyed the object lesson as much as the meal: things go well while people of good will are working with each other. But that doesn’t include professional car dealers. And once a bank gets involved – watch out. They don’t make those massive profits for nothing – they’re world-class champions at turning a simple transaction into a major inconvenience.

By strange twists of fortune to relief for the soul

There are times when we just need to let the stress out. Little does that as well as music. Especially music in good company. Especially when part of the good company is provided by the musicians.

My family’s going through a stressful time. Well, the worst stress is for my mother. At 93, things can go wrong quickly, and they’ve been going pretty badly wrong for her just recently, as she bounces between a hospital and an intermediate care facility, a step down from acute care but still a medical establishment, not home.

She’d done well to get to 93 still able to live in her own flat. There was a part-time manager in her building but no medical care. Until a few weeks ago, my mother has coped with her own cooking, shopping and washing, only drawing on the help of friends when it was offered. Now, though, the pain she has suffered for some years has become worse and a series of other problems have led to her transferring in and out of different forms of medical care, and the sight is a sad one to see.

It’s the harrowing paradox of human existence: none of us wants to die young, but reaching advanced old age is no fun either.

The stress is worst for my mother, but the rest of the family has suffered from it too. So it was wonderful to find relief from it at another concert in the museum in Luton. These take place, as I’ve mentioned before, in the lovely surroundings of Wardown House. On this occasion, the concert involved two violinists playing a series of pieces; an unusual, and attractive, aspect of the event was that they stopped regularly to talk about the music they were playing or their composers. That was fun and it established a friendly rapport between the players and the audience.

Let me quickly indulge in what will feel like a digression, though it isn’t really.

Back the late 90s, a scandal hit the papers. It was a financial matter but not confined to the financial pages. Nicola Horlick was that rare creature, a woman who was a highly successful player in the financial services market. She was managing director of UK investments for Morgan Grenfell Asset Management, until she was suspended in January 1997 and resigned two days later. She was accused of preparing to move to another company, which was the excuse for her suspension; there was, however, widespread suspicion that she had irritated her employers by being far more successful than any woman was expected to be in that profession (or, it was felt, had any right to be).

In 2005, she set up Bramdean Asset Management. One of the partners there was Enrico Alvares. Now, he had a most unusual background to be a financial manager. The son of a professional violinist in Nairobi, he had been more or less obliged to take up the instrument at the age of three. He studied music at prestigious schools in London and eventually joined (by invitation) the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, where he played for ten years.

But then he decided that he wanted to make a little money. So he joined Nicola Horlick and made, in his own words, hundreds of times more than he ever could from music. Hs initial passion, however, never deserted him and in time he decided that money could only go so far. He returned to the violin.

Meanwhile, Stephanie Waite had done something not dissimilar. She had played the violin from the age of two. At eighteen, she went to Cambridge to study English literature and moved into teaching after graduating, including several years teaching English and Music at Pentonville prison.

One night, however, she attended a string quartet concert at London’s Wigmore Hall. She remembers neither who was playing nor what they played. Her principal recollection of that evening was the overwhelming feeling that this was what she wanted to be doing. She had to get back into music.

By different routes, both Enrico and Stephanie found themselves playing in one of the major orchestras, she with the violins, he as first viola. The orchestra was too big for them to meet but, by what turned out to be a happy coincidence, they got to know each other on the homebound train. Soon after, they were married and since then they have frequently given violin duo concerts together.

Stephanie and Enrico: wonderfully performing glorious music
in the beautiful setting of Wardown House

One of those concerts was in Wardown House, which is where we met them.

Two odd and serendipitous paths to that place. Where, by further serendipity, we listened to them at just a time when we most needed the balm they provided.

Life, as my mother’s experience shows, often gets things badly wrong. Sometimes it does them exactly right. And this was one of those occasions.

For that, at least, I’m grateful.