News from Nowhere

Once again, and despite two significant absences, the carol evening worked its magic. Both of the missing were long-term - maybe even founding - participants. One we knew in advance would not be there: he committed himself to a band a while ago, and has since then been even harder to pin down. But he was so appalled to discover that they had a booking for the night of the carol evening that although we muttered serves him right!, it was hard to men it. Anyway, he was much missed... The other had e-mailed to say that he would definitely be with us, but has for some time been finding socialising difficult, and we weren't entirely surprised that he didn't turn up (worried, yes, but not surprised). But there were new people, who fitted in admirably; there was another regular returned after missing a year for medical reasons; and there was someone so physically transformed since last we met that I didn't recognise him (until the singing started, and then he was unmistakeable).

The mulled wine mysteriously required much less honey than last year, but was still very good. Each year we consume less of it: we are getting older, more of us don't drink at all - and then, as boybear pointed out, those absentees are among the most enthusiastic consumers. Memo to self: the original four-bottle batch would probably have been enough. I refreshed it with another bottle at half time, and then worried that I am turning into my mother - but no, she would have insisted on adding the last bottle in the case. There were fewer mince pies than usual: as the person responsible for warming up the mince pies for the half-time break, I was happy not to have to find baking trays for additional contributions. M. had baked the usual supply, and I think they were ample, but certainly there were none left over.

This is all good, but it's all about the carols. We sang our way through our songbooks (compiled long ago, duplicated and illustrated by our absent friend). We seem to have given up arguing about the order of the carols (mostly as in the book, but starting with O Come Emmanuel because it's an Advent carol, and ending with We Wish You A Merry Christmas because we do), and entertained ourselves instead with the confusion of the musicians, whose books are in alphabetical order. We couldn't find the supplementary sheets (which turned up at the end of the evening under one of the music books) but we sang the Sans Day Carol and Shepherds Arise regardless. I would have said that I left Shepherds Arise to the musicians, who have a fine harmony arrangement, because I don't really feel I know it. But I woke up a couple of days later earwormed by it, so I must know it better than I thought. A. and I disagreed about the pace of In Praise of Christmas (I'd like to try it a little faster, she feels that people take it too fast), but agreed that we would like to sing O Come All Ye Faithful in Latin...

Bonus carols: we did not listen to Radio 4's Sunday Service that morning, even though it was about the Sheffield carolling tradition. But I listened to it today, and enjoyed it.

After this, we were ready for a very quiet Monday. It was cold and bright, and we took the bus to East Finchley, to lunch at Egg and Bake. It's a slow bus ride but a scenic one, through Highgate Village, and it was an excellent lunch, with a choice of vegetarian breakfasts (East Finchley has become trendy since durham_rambler and I lived there.

On Tuesday we visited durham_rambler's family in Essex. In complete contrast, the day was grey and dark, and I decided against taking my camera with me: I very rarely photograph people, so it's just a dead weight on family visits. This was a mistake, as durham_rambler's brother suggested a quick visit to a local nature reserve (the Essex Wildlife Trust Thurrock Visitor Centre), on a former landfill site by the Thames, in aptly named Mucking. The café - because we didn't explore beyond the café - is an impressive circular building, with a ramp around the outside so you can walk up to the roof and admire the view: the silver grey wood of the building, the hazy grey of the river, the darker smudge of Kent on the far side, the leaden grey of the sky. At the top was a poster, one of a series of 'Watermarks' artworks. Inside the building, another ramp leads up to the café itself, circling a shop and providing display space for some fun textile hangings by the Kite Spirit textile group (and I wish I could find some better pictures).

And on Wednesday we came home. That drive doesn't get any shorter, but it went smoothly enough, and we had time to eat and to read the last chapter of Swallows and Amazons for the pub quiz - which we won. So it's good to be home, too.

The Carol Evening last Sunday went well. The mulled wine that I had left to mature after breakfast was pronounced the best yet by several different people: so, for the record, Banrock Station shiraz mataro and heavy of the (fresh root) ginger. A slightly altered seating arrangement meant that GirlBear was in the middle of the musicians and had a slightly different view to her usual, and when I grabbed the seat by the door (so I could slip out after Down in Yon Forest to put mince pies in the oven and refresh the mulled wine) I was just at her shoulder and could enjoy this. Some of the usual singers had carelessly absented themselves, and one had to withdraw at the last minute with which covid: we have been doing this for 40 years, so we are always conscious of absent friends. But A is still finding copies of the songbook in which she has not yet corrected the spelling and punctuation. At the Winter Songs concert boybear had asked me how old was Il est né, and I had looked it up. The initial response, of course, is "We learned it at school," but now we were able to add a proper provenance, that it was first published in a nineteenth century collection of Christmas songs from Lorraine (which doesn't actually go much further than "Nobody knows!") As we say each year: always different, always the same!

On Monday we celebrated durham_rambler's mother's centenary: for many years, trying to allocated our Christmas visits among three sets of parents, we would spend her birthay with her, a week ahead of Christmas Day (I'm not sure she ever found this an entirely adequate substitute for spending Christmas with them, but better than nothing): this year we met with those members of the family not detained by work (his brother, sister-in-law and nieces at the cemetery where durham_rambler's parents' ashes are interred on the margins of the memorial to his illustrious relative; after which we adjourned again to the home of Younger Niece, who had prepared a lunch which would remind us of her grandmother (she had not recognised durham_rambler's suggestion og banana custard, and prouced a very elegant cream, in the manner of a fancy restaurant deconstructing a familiar dish).

In the evening we went with the Bears to Unity Folk Club, which is where we learned to sing Deck us all with Boston Charlie. C. startled me by singing A Sailor Courted a Farmer’s Daughter (what Mainly Norfolk describes as Dominic Behan's version): why was this song which no-one else seemed to recognise so very familiar to me? (Mainly Norfolk blames Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor, which means I knew it very well more than 50 years ago). It's a very supportive club, and wedid actually take up our turns on the singaround: since we had had some (political) parodies of Christmas carols, I, with the help of boybear sang Hark the jelly babies sing..., and durham_rambler with the help of the assembled company, sang The Man who Waters the Workers' Beer and Alex Glasgow's Socialist ABC.

What did we do on Tuesday and Wednesday? A little light shopping: guided by GirlBear, we went to Kentish Town, to the Phoenicia Food Hall and the Owl Bookshop, and then to the Wellcome Collection, whose gift shop filled the last few gaps in my Christmas present list. We had planned to meet boybear at the East West restaurant which serves various Indian inflected pizzas; I wasn't sure about this, but the Bears recommended it. Anyway, it was closed, so we crossed the road and ate Thai instead, which was fine. Back at our flat, durham_rambler and I caught up with an episode of Only Connect which delighted me by including a reference to Peter Dickinson in a sequence of fictional detectives (his was the difficult first one, which you aren't supposed to recognise, and I didn't, until we reached 'the second son of the fifteenth Duke of Denver' whom none of the contestants identified).

Wednesday was mainly packing. Lunch with Bears, an evening of tapas with helenraven in Southwark. High points, catching up with helenraven, fishy rice, excellent wine (Montsant,adjacent to Priorat); low point, spilling a glass of said wine over myself (and the table, but luckily no-one else).

And yesterday we left London via Waltham Cross, where we had coffee with A. Now we are in Ely, with D. and valydiarosada. Not going anywhere right now, just lazing with crosswords and internet, watching the wild muntjac deer browsing in the garden, being looked after by our hosts.

We are in London. Yesterday's drive down was long, but much smoother than last year's [mis]adventures: we left home just before 11 - as ever, not as early as I would have liked - and reached our accommodation just on six o' clock. By the time we had unloaded the car it was 6.30, which meant parking was free. We don't seem to have forgotten anything that we can't replace (we went to the supermarket this morning, for coffee and cereal).

Usually, of course, we stay with the Bears. There have been changes there - home improvements, all good news - and my mobility got bad enough that I was worrying about the many stairs between the new spare bedroom on the attic and the bathroom on the half-landing, so we booked an AirBnB just round the corner - really very close indeed. It turns out that my mobility is better than it was, and that our flat here is up several flights of stairs, but even so, I am glad that night-time bathroom visits are on the level...

We dined with the Bears last night, on curry from the Bengal Lancer. They make a pie, served in the same rectangular foil tray as their other dishes: I didn't think the pastry was very successful, but the filling was excellent (mostly chickpeas and paneer; boybear says it usually has more aubergine, which would also be good). And we breakfasted with the Bears this morning. Now we have some quiet time, while the Bears prepare for tonight's concert, and we lunch, visit other family and then join them at the concert.

Onward!

Christmas eve already: how did that happen? The solstice has passed, the sun is returning: yesterday there was actual sunshine (which we wasted in a supermarket) and today, right now, it is not yet dark at four o'clock. All that carol singong last week seems to have worked. So, picking up with the notes I made on that internetless train:

Sunday was all about the carol concert. Some of that, of course, was more directly 'about', some less. I accompanied boybear to the supermarket / hall of wonders, where he was probably very focussed on preparations, but I just swanned about saying "Oh, look! Camel milk!" (no, I didn't buy any). The Christmas cards had to be admired, arranged, displayed, discussed: why are there so many hares this year? The party in residence had to be sustained with soup and the progress of any early arrivals determined, in case they too needed soup.

In the absence of F., I had a free hand with preparing the mulled wine, and assembled the wine, fruit and spices well ahead of time, to allow the flavours to blend. I don't know how much difference this made, but the end result was pleasing. Other variables are that in the absence of F. I went easy on the honey, and was nervous about this until an Ent arrived and pronounced it good; also the choice of wine, so, for the record, this was the Wine Society's Lascar Chilean carmenere, probably the cheapest wine on their list but very rich, good in the mulled wine and good in itself later. Also for the record, four bottles, and add another before the break.

The Carol Evening is always the same and always different (that's what I always say) and this time the difference was the absence of F. No doubt he has missed years before (and no doubt so have I) but he has been a regular since the very early days. He contributes an expertise with the mulled wine, which by now is more traditional than actual, and a powerful bass (for which we substituted S's rather more musical version). But you couldn't look at the carol books (which F. compiled and illustrated, long ago) without thinking of him. He had told us that he was spending the evening with an old friend (in both senses of that expression) who was visiting from Scotland, and this, though disappointing, was hard to resent. i would have been more upset had F. not been part of our lunch date the following day (when we learned that actually, his absence from the carol evening was based on his misremembering the date as the Saturday, the previous day. Oh, well...). Other than that, it was a splendid evening, with much fine singing and many fine songs. Only two Shepherds this year, Cranbrook and Sweet Bells, and some interesting information from people who had been watching programmes about carols on television (that Oh come all ye faithful is 'the Portuguese hymn', and a Catholic rallying cry, for example).

Monday felt like a continuation of the Carol Evening, in various ways. Lunch was a chance to talk to A., with whom I had conversed only briefly between carols, and F., whom I had missed. The 'absent friend' from lunch was A.'s husband (another A.) who died shortly before our corresponding lunch last year. That's not the reason for the change of venue, simply that A. had identified a better option: and although I knew this was in Waltham Abbey, it was only as we walked from the bus stop that I realised it was directly opposite the house where I used to visit her when we were schoolgirls (now the town museum). Old friends in old haunts, the conversation dwellt on old times - and also on the awfulness of Christmas cracker jokes!. That evening, a different selection of the carol singers reconfigured themselves as Dorten Yonder, and durham_rambler and I accompanied them as guests of the Cruising Club for a very select musical evening at the Waterpoint. Not all of the songs were the same - I hadn't heard Dorten Yonder's King Harry's Men before, and durham_rambler led the singing of The Man who Waters the Workers' Beer.

We managed to make a Tuesday lunch date with his niece and, on condition we met near his office, her husband: but that's a day out in London which deserves its own post, and illustrations. Wednesday was more family visiting, in Essex this time, but home early enough to catch Dorten Yonder's weekly band practice (more carols).

Then we came home. And now it's Christmas ...

The fourth and final picture in William Hogarth's Humours of an Election (click for a larger view) shows the successful Tory candidate being carried through the town in a chair, from which he is about to fall, because his bearers have run into a fight in the street. Meanwhile, a family of pigs seem to have emerged from under the chair and are rushing across the scene.

Thank you, Mr Hogarth.

Northbound on a busy evening train. But first there were two musical evenings (and two quiet days).

( The Carol Evening )

Yesterday a friend of the Bears was in town for the day (she lives in Brighton) and we went out to lunch at the Rabbit Hole Café, which is only a short walk away. They offer a whole range of all-day breakfasts, some vegetarian, some not, but to my surprise durham_rambler followed me in choosing chakchouka (that's not how they spelled it, but it's the spelling I know) with a side order of chips. Neither of us has any regrets.

( Carols with the boat people )

And today was quiet, sleeping late and wrapping presents and packing the suitcase. Since Dorten Yonder had a gig this evening near King's Cross, the Bears came with us to the station, and we had something to eat at the Parcel Yard before they went to their gig and we caught our train.

We saw this Chrismas show at Cecil Sharp House last night; the band don't seem to have their own website, perhaps because they are an alliance of two bands, Lady Maisery (Hannah James, Rowan Rheingans and Hazel Askew) and Jimmy and Sid (Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith). boybear suggested we go, with some hesitation but arguing that it's harder to go wrong with this kind of material.

Which is pretty much how it turned out. I liked the (Yorkshire, a capella) carols, and a nice sequence from Shetland fiddle tune Da Day Dawn (played by Rowan Rheingans) to Hazel Askew singing The snow it melts the soonest. I wish Jimmy Aldridge hadn't interposed a poem between them - 'The Thrush'? I felt I ought to recognise it, but didn't. In general, I wish they had given sources for all the spoken pieces. Oh, and we were invited to get very excited about the banjo duet (Rowan and Jimmy) on Please to see the King with much explaining of why the wren is the king of birds, and how there are many versions of this song, and this one came from Pembrokeshire - it seems to have passed very close to Steeleye Span in transit (the words were not identical, but close, and the tune was closer).

I wouldn't rush to see either band again, but I'm glad to have seen the show, and found much to enjoy in it. and C# house had a little exhibition of prints by David Owen, which was a bonus.

I posted only the briefest note of the day we spent in London before Christmas, walking by the canal from Paddington to Little Venice. It was cold, and bright, and I was pleased with this picture:



Looking for information about the area, I found this listing on the 'Hidden London' website, which claims the name 'Little Venice' originates with Margery Allingham's novel Death of a Ghost: "The name caught on with estate agents after the Second World War and is still much used for the pricey properties in the locality." I hadn't heard this before, and I'm hesitant about it. It's certainly true that the murders in Death of a Ghost (which was published in 1934) take place in a house called 'Little Venice', by the Regent's Canal. Is it more likely that post-war estate agents would adopt the name from an old detective story, or that the canalside location should inspire the same idea independently? I'd love to give credit to Allingham, who I think is the most underrated of the Queens of crime's Golden Age, but I think I'd need to see the missing link before I was convinced.

Once I'd taken Death of a Ghost down from the shelf, though, and flicked through it to find the recurring references to the house called Little Venice by its artistic owner, I couldn't put it back without re-reading it. It starts out as a classic Mr Campion mystery, with a cast of eccentric characters, the household of the late John Lafcadio R.A. - his widow, his 'muse', his model-turned-cook and his granddaughter, plus assorted hangers on. There is a murder with no apparent motive, which takes place at a curious social occasion, the unveiling of one of a series of paintings which the late artist has specified should be revealed at yearly intervals after his death. So far, so whimsical.

But as the narrative progresses, it takes a turn, and I think this is what the author has in mind in her prefatory 'Note on Mr Campion'. Every now and then, she says, he encounters cases which are "less highly coloured but even more grave" and this is one of them. What distinguishes it from his usual mysteries is that by halfway through the book, not only has Mr Campion identified the culprit, he has shared his suspicions with the police (and with the reader) who agree that he is right, but that he has no evidence which justifies an arrest. The remainder of the book is a game of cat and mouse, a thriller in which Mr Campion tries to protect his friends by making himself the target of this very clever and unscrupulous opponent, to provoke actions which will enable to police to intervene, without actually getting himself killed. People - and I'm one of them - talk about The Tiger in the Smoke as if it were unique among Allingham's books in being a thriller, a novel of suspense rather than of deduction; but that is what Death of a Ghost turns into.

( But. There will be spoilers, about the character and fate of the murderer. )

This sounds as if it is a large enough matter to spoil my enjoyment of the book. It isn't, but it may go some way to explain why I had remembered so little of the plot.