Three score years and ten

It’s been a curious experience, turning 70, as I did this week. 

It’s a bit of a milestone. The aged inhabitant of the little village of irreducible Gauls in the Asterix stories is called ‘Agecanonix’ in French. That’s based on the notion of canonical age, although it misapplies it, since canonical age is the age specified by Catholic canon law, and it’s different for different things – like when you can first go to confession (ridiculously young – seven) or receive confirmation (twelve). 

Sprightly but no spring chicken
Agecanonix, or Geriatrix to his English-speaking fans

The Asterix people are clearly referring to the span prescribed for human life, three score years and ten or 70 years, as specified in the ninetieth psalm. Which is why they show the character as old, if sprightly. 

In the English versions of the Asterix books, Agecanonix is renamed Geriatrix. That’s probably more accurate. On the other hand, it’s a bit galling. I know that ‘geriatric’ just comes from the Greek for ‘old age’, but in my mind its connotations are all about decrepitude. Others may think that notion applies to me, but whether it’s simple denial or not, I refuse to apply it to myself.

On the contrary, I feel it’s a bit of a breakthrough to have reached 70. After all, if that’s the allotted span, then as of this birthday, I’ve been enjoying time added on. A bonus. Which is a good thing, right? After all, doesn’t ‘bonus’ mean ‘good’?

So I’ve started on my bonus time. I completed my seventh decade, my allotted span, as my birthday dawned. Then I started on my seventy-first. Which puts me ahead of the game.

Tom Lehrer once announced, “it is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years”. It’s an even more sobering thought that by the time Mozart reached my age, he’d been dead for as long as he’d lived.

I suppose a rather less agreeable sense in which I’ve gained some additional years is with respect to my father, Leonard. I’ve now lived nearly nine years longer than he did. More to the point, it is approaching forty years since he died. I do keep thinking how much he’d have liked visiting us here in our home near Valencia. I can imagine he’d have found it very much to his taste. It would have been fun to have him join us for my birthday, though he would have had to make it to 101 to pull off that trick.

As for my mother, I have a long way to go to catch her, and it would surprise me if I did. Of course, it wouldn’t surprise me if I didn’t – I assume that not catching up with her would leave me in a state incapable of surprise. She managed the neat trick of splitting the difference between her mother and grandmother. 

Blume, my great-grandmother, got out of Vilnius to escape Russian oppression – and, boy, don’t we know about Russian oppression today – and lived, as a Jewish immigrant to England, until she was 97.

My grandmother, Yetta, made it to 91.

And my mother, Leatrice, neatly bisected them. She reached 94. And, as I’ve mentioned before, cleverly made it to her own birthday before shuffling off this mortal coil.

The big question is which side of the family do I pull towards? Time alone will tell.

Meanwhile, we made an excellent celebration of the day. One of our sons, Michael, was with Danielle and me. He too will be celebrating a birthday with a zero in it – his fortieth – in a couple of days’ time. He’s decided he wants to go to our local cheap but immensely cheerful local Chinese for dinner, followed by drinks at our local curious but immensely cheerful Irish pub next door. That should be fun.

For my birthday, we all three went to the local restaurant I like the best, Vaixell, which means ‘little boat’ in Valencian. The cooking is wonderful, the setting delightful. And, it turns out, they were running a four-day truffle fest – it seems it’s the season – so we had truffles with every course, of which there were four, including the dessert which was a truffle (in the chocolate sense), including truffles (in the other sense).

Celebrations. 
Note that I wore grey, so our hair wouldn't feel lonely

To make sure joy was unconfined, our daughter-in-law Sheena, son Nicky, granddaughter Matilda and grandson Elliott (the last two may not have had much agency in this fine gesture, being three and one and a half respectively), had the restaurant provide us with a fine bottle of Cava, Spanish sparkling wine, at the end of the meal. While Danielle had made one of her extraordinary orange cakes, which even the restaurant staff sampled and found exquisite (that’s my rough translation of ‘muy rico’).

We had a great time. It struck me as a fine way to enter my 71st year. And just the kind of celebration we needed.

After all, there was plenty to celebrate. One of my favourite Spanish authors claims that the thing about old age isn’t to complain about it, but to be glad you made it.

Or, putting it in other words, the only way to avoid growing old is to die young. And, having reached 70, it’s clearly far too late for me to do that. 

Which, in a way, is a relief, isn’t it?

 

Beware the Bight of Benin

It was a pleasure to go and watch a group from Benin, many of them children, performing the other night in Valencia, our local city.

Voices for Benin:
enthusiasm, commitment, passion in a great cause

In any case, we had to make allowance for the fact that these weren’t professionals – at least not yet – but students from a music school set up and run by the non-governmental organisation that arranged the evening. Besides, the fact that we were contributing, simply by having bought tickets, to assisting that organisation made the whole evening worthwhile. Not least because it seems to me that it’s a restitution that we in the wealthy west owe to the people of West Africa, including Benin.

One of the photos projected onto the back of the stage during the performance was of an archway – a sort of triumphal arch, except that what it commemorates has nothing to get triumphant about – which is called ‘the gate of no return’. 

Benin’s gate of no return

Benin’s not alone in having such a gate. Several other West African countries have one too. They’re memorials to the millions of Africans who were shipped across the Atlantic to the European colonies in the Americas to work as slaves until they dropped dead. And not just for as long as they remained colonies: thirteen colonies later won their independence to create what would become the world’s leading power, the United States, a beacon of liberty to all other nations, even though they went right on importing slaves and keeping slaves, even using slave labour to build the presidential mansion that is now the home of Joe Biden.

The latest estimate is that there were 12.5 million slaves transported across the Atlantic, of whom 10.7 million arrived alive. 

It was a trade that demonstrates as powerfully as anything could that profit trumps morality. Plenty of people defended it. They regarded the growing numbers, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who were calling for its abolition, as dangerous radicals. To backers of slavery, making money by condemning millions to a lifetime of suffering with no hope of release, was perfectly respectable.

Such was the lure of the trade that it attracted many men seeking a fortune, even though the dangers were pretty acute, even to the privileged whites who took part. There’s a piece of sailors’ doggerel from the time that makes the point:

Beware, beware the Bight of Benin

Where few come out though many go in

Benin today is a small independent country. It has still to recover fully from the devastation that allegedly Christian slave traders let loose on it. That’s a good reason to support organisations like the one that ran the concert we attended. 

It’s also good to be reminded, by monuments such as the Gate of No Return, of the shameful events in the history of the West. More particularly, we need to be reminded that what we now realise was an atrocity was regarded as a perfectly legitimate trade, to be defended by respectable people, back then.

It’s the kind reminder we need when we look at such behaviour as that of Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron de Santis when he flew illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard in the middle of the night without notice and without making any arrangements for their wellbeing. Even worse is the British government’s determination to fly refugees to Rwanda and dump them there. Transporting unfortunate people to an uncertain destiny, and in the Rwanda plan, to a place of which they know nothing, is regarded as legitimate today, just as the slave trade was in the past. 

In reality, it's a denial that the victims have human rights. Indeed, it’s treating them as though they barely belonged to humanity at all. Which is how we once treated slaves from Africa.

I wonder whether at some future date, people might attend concerts for the victims of British or American inhumanity, and ask, as we now do about the slavers, “how could they do it?”

An island nation isolated

You may think that, following Brexit, Britain has rather abdicated any leading role it might previously have enjoyed in Europe. So it’s curious to find that in one respect, at least, it hasn’t. Or, at least, if it isn’t playing a leading role, it has at least acted as a highly effective teacher.

It seems that attitudes across the remaining nations of the EU have shifted substantially since Brexit. In those countries for which comparative figures exist, it seems that far fewer people favour leaving the Union in the latest survey in 2020-2022 than in the previous one in 2015-2016.

The mess Britain is in has served as an invaluable object lesson to the rest of the EU on how deeply damaging it can be to leave.

Curiously, the same change in views seems to have happened in Britain itself. Where the original referendum of 2016 was won by 52% favouring departure against 48% preferring to stay, today 54% think Britain was wrong to leave, against 35% who think the decision was a good one while 10%, rather amazingly, don’t know.

Meanwhile Britain continues to suffer the baneful effects of a decision which just 35% still think was good and 10% can’t make up their mind about. 

• The country is being torn apart by strife. 
• Over 2 million people had to use a foodbank at least once in the course of the last full year for which we have figures. 
• Heart attack and stroke victims are waiting on average over 90 minutes for an ambulance to reach them.
• Record numbers of those who make it to hospital are waiting for treatment longer than the stated maximum time. Over 43,000 people waited more than 12 hours last year.
• Economic growth is being seriously hit by the loss of trade with its nearest neighbours, from which Brexit isolated Britain.

Some of these difficulties are direct consequences of Brexit (such as the impossibility of recruiting enough staff for the National Health Service, for catering or for farming). But even the others are made indirectly worse by a crisis which, though it’s undoubtedly affecting other nations too, is made for worse for Britain by the fact that is emerging from it more slowly than any comparable countries. 

The decision to leave the EU is the factor that clearly differentiates Britain from those other nations. 

A lone demonstrator getting it right

That is the legacy of Brexit. Its supporters promised that it would let the country take back control. It seems, as Remainers warned, simply to have plunged it into the control of people who are systematically wrecking it. 

The saddest aspect of all this is that the 35% of people who still back Brexit seem to be exercising a disproportionate and baleful influence on British politics. The Conservative Party, architects of Brexit, naturally remain committed. But Labour, anxious to win back votes from among that 35%, are refusing to do the right thing. They oppose ruling out making any change to Brexit to mitigate its effect, despite that being the view of 54% of voters.

Labour instead has launched the slogan “Make Brexit Work” which is rather like saying “Make this legless horse win the Derby”.

The words ‘island’ and ‘isolate’ come from the same Latin root. It’s dangerous, however, to confuse the two.

It seems to me that Britain was once a strong, proud island nation. But now it’s merely insular. And in decline.

Which is nothing to be proud of.

Keeping the grandkids well entertained

The grandkids came to see us soon after Christmas. They brought their parents along too, so that they wouldn’t get all lonely at home.

Poor old Elliott wasn’t too well, and nor was Nicky, his father. Still, being a little sick has never stopped Elliott hungering for entertainment and new experiences. Fortunately, we were well placed to offer him plenty of both.

One of the first was the playhouse we’d set up in the garden. We bought it in the supermarket I always like to think of as ‘a Lidl bit better than you imagine’. German commitment to quality shone through (Lidl is German) since, despite being affordably priced, the house was made of wood.

Matilda in her house

Both kids liked it, although Matilda made more use of it than Elliott did. Well, she’s a big girl now, being three and a half, while he’s still a bit of a toddler (not, repeat not, a baby even if he does like the occasional – well, frequent – portion of breastmilk, whenever he can get it), at 20 months.

In my naivety, I thought Matilda would view the house as a house. My capacity for fantasy is far too limited. In fact, it was occasionally home, sometimes school, at other times a shop. 

When it was school, we had to take Matilda there and then pick her up again, apparently hours later (at the end of the school day) though in my limited, realistic judgement only minutes had passed. To make things more interesting still, sometimes we were the kids going to school, and Matilda accompanied us there and picked us up again later. This was slightly more awkward, as sitting at the supposed school desk was a little harder given our size, and getting out of the house harder still, given our age.

Matilda serving a customer in the shop

When the house became a shop, Matilda would serve us through the side window, a transaction to be taken, I discovered, extremely seriously. It’s true that the products we bought were all non-existent – my apologies, imaginary (which isn’t at all the same thing) – but then the money with which we paid for them was equally imaginary, so the exchange remained fair.

Matilda watering the flowers outside the house

There was fun to be had with the house even in its capacity as a house. Danielle had put plants in the flower boxes that hang on either side of the door. Matilda appreciated the flowers and took great pleasure in watering them.

What the discerning grandchild chooses as
his means of transport in the woods

But back to Elliott. Despite being under the weather, he enjoyed trips to the woods, as he always has. But not being well (just look at his eyes in the photo), he found it a little hard to make his own way around the place. Fortunately, his granddad – your blogger – was available as an alternative form of transport, and a good time was had by both of us, even though the price paid by my shoulders was by no means trivial.

Woodland metro at sunset

The point where he did want to get off my shoulders and move a little closer to see the sights was near our metro station. I never get bored with our station deep in the woods, and apparently nor does Elliott. We were privileged as, without having planned it that way, we arrived just in time to see two trains, one going each way. 

This was an awe-inspiring sight. Apparently. Judging by the look in Elliott’s eyes.

So awe-inspiring was it, that Danielle and I decided to take the two of them on a metro trip the next day. Boy, did that go well. I’m full of admiration for the fellow travellers who made space for us, so that the kids could sit on the bench or, even better, stand up on it to look out of the window.

Inside a train! Wow! Amazing!

And, hey, you can even look out of the window

We didn’t choose to go anywhere in particular. In fact, we just went to the end of the line, but that was pretty irrelevant. The irrelevance, I felt, made the trip a wonderful metaphor for life: the destination doesn’t matter, it’s the journey’s that’s there for the enjoying.

I’m not sure the kids saw it that way.

Then there was the trip into town, to a permanent funfair outside a major shopping centre. That went well too. There was a bouncy castle, on which Danielle joined the kids, much to their joy, to say nothing of mine, as an entertained spectator. 

Danielle with Elliott and Matilda on the bouncy castle

Elliott and Danielle discovering a bouncy castle’s
only fun if it’s a struggle to stay upright in it

Matilda wanted a second go, so Elliott and I wandered off on our own. He has a strong will of his own, and I more or less had to force him down the way I wanted us to go. He resented that until he realised that I was taking him to a place with merry-go-rounds. It suddenly dawned on him that, though this be granddad’s madness, yet there is method in’t.

Matilda and Elliott on the merry-go-round

Meanwhile, Matilda had kindly wished the bouncy castle man goodbye as she left and he was so touched by her good manners – I blame the parents – that he gave her a free ride token. So, of course, Elliott got a second ride with, this time, his sister travelling with him, enjoying her free turn.

Getting the harvest in

And then there was a the trip to Danielle’s allotment. We cycled there, which was fun in itself, each kid perched on the back on a grandparent’s bike. And then they helped their grandmother do some harvesting - they got two strawberries each (well, it’s January), which they enjoyed, and then lots of radishes, which they liked picking and washing (flowing water! wow! what fun!) but weren’t so keen on eating. “¡Qué asco!” said Matilda, “How disgusting!”.

Queen Matilda

They left on 6 January, the feast of the Three Kings, a big day here in Spain. That meant most people were with families, some of them perhaps in church, and the roads were fairly clear, making it a good day to travel. It also meant that we had to make a bit of a moment of the night before, Twelfth Night. Our local bakery had this year decided to produce the kind of cakes the French eat on this feast day. The one we bought contained a bean and a ceramic figure. By sheer coincidence, Matilda got them both, with only minimal cheating by her grandmother.

The bean means you pay for the cake, but we already had, so we didn’t demand that Matilda cough up.

The figurine means you get to be the King for the day. Or the Queen. Or, as our good gender-neutral stance has it, the Monarch.

I thought Matilda looked great in her crown.

As I thought Elliott had looked great, earlier in the day, perched in an almond tree. Clearly much recovered from his illness. Living proof that a short break away from home can do wonders for your health.

Elliott surveying the park from an almond tree

His Dad too was better. Though, sadly, if his cough and cold had more or less cleared up, in the meantime his back had gone on him, so he was in pain again. Unfortunately, recovery’s never quite the same as you near the end of your fourth decade as at the beginning of your first…

Postscript: we like to leave our shoes in plastic boxes we keep outside the front door. To fit the shoes in easily, I tend to put one flat, the other on its side. Matilda saw me do that once and immediately intervened, without saying a word, although her air of serious resolve was quite rebuke enough. Carefully, she turned the shoe I’d left on its side, so that like the other one it was sole down. Then, with a look of satisfaction, she closed the box. Things were as they should be. My chaotic behaviour had been corrected.

Shoe storage
In far too chaotic a state for Matilda’s taste

“She’s very meticulous,” Danielle explained to me. And she’s right.

Nature enhanced by Man

The woods of La Vallesa, full of wonders, natural and manmade

As you’d expect, the charms of our local woods are mostly natural. But mixed in with them, there are occasional manmade creations, no less charming for being artificial. Some are long-lasting, but not all, since they may be vulnerable to the weather, or to other people more orientated towards destruction than creativity. 

Some of these manmade constructions have historic importance. The bronze age settlement, for instance, on Betxi Hill (la Lloma de Betxi). 

The Lloma de Betxi, from outside and in
With a latter day visitor

More recent, and sadder, are the remains of trenches from the time of the Spanish Civil War. They were built to protect our local city of Valencia, which for a little while was the capital of the Republic. The trenches were never used in combat, since the Republic had surrendered to the Nationalist forces of the dictator Franco, before his armies had even reached that far.

Still, their traces stand as a reminder of that terrible time.

A memorial? Perhaps a grave?

Still closer to our times, and weirdly mysterious, is the pile of stones with a cross on top. Is it a grave? Is there a body underneath it? I’ve never been able to find out.

In memory of Francisco González Fernandez
Apparently quite a guy
Apparently with quite a fist

There’s even a plaque by the side, declaring that it’s in memory of someone called Francisco González Fernandez, pointing out that he was a great guy, but including a picture of a fist. Was he a boxer? A brawler? A sportsman perhaps? Maybe the fist is just to underline what a force he was in company. I don’t know, but whenever I see the place, I enjoy wondering about him.

Touching in a different way, and with great charm, are the smaller and less historically significant creations. The stone rings, large and small, sometimes mixed with circles of sticks or pinecones, sometimes incorporating flowers or even fruit.

One of the few stone circles that seem to last permanently

Then there was whoever made a pattern without any stones, simply carving it into the earth itself.

Somebody once used stones to build a house layout, a fine place to exercise a child’s fantasy or even an adult’s.

And someone recently made a stream of stones.

Then there are the wigwams, big and small, constructed with great care and effort but, unfortunately, lasting barely a few days before someone takes them apart in a fraction of the time they took to build. Glowing examples of that appealing branch of creation, ephemeral art, giving you a brief glimpse of beauty, which you catch today or miss forever.

Among my favourite sights are the tall cairns of stones, balancing precariously, vulnerable to the first strong breeze, even if no person knocks them down.

Teetering with elegance

You've got to admit these are all pretty great, right? The natural wonders are of course breathtaking enough. But having the manmade ones to enjoy too only enhances the experience of being in our woods. 

A place of wonder then, a privilege to have practically on our doorstep.