Floods in France

You don’t expect floods in France in June. It had rained on and off for days while we were in our old house in Lot-et-Garonne, but on the 1^st June it poured all day. We sat and watched the water run down the road and sometimes went outside to see if the rain was easing off. Most of the time, we sat and read. It wasn’t until the next day that we realised the consequences.

As the weather was still grey and drizzly, we drove to Villeneuve-sur-Lot, crossing the Lot on the way. The river is usually so placid it is full of reflections but, on this occasion, it was brown and foaming, overflowing into trees and footpaths along its banks. We heard on the news there had been heavy rain throughout central and northern France, sending rivers over their banks and killing at least two people. In Paris, the authorities watched with alarm as the Seine rose 6 metres above its normal levels. People protected their properties with sandbags and museums moved art works out of their cellars.

On the 6^th of June, we started our trip home. We usually break our journey by spending a night in a bed and breakfast house in central France. On this occasion, we’d booked a place on the banks of the Cher near Vierzon. We left the A10 and made our way through a couple of villages, with the view of crossing the Cher on a minor road. We found a sign saying ‘Route Barree’ and beyond that, a stretch of water. We retreated, tried another couple of minor roads which were supposed to cross the Cher, with the same result, and gave up. In the end, we took the motorway to Vierzon and crossed the Cher there.

When we reached the bed and breakfast, we found another ‘Route Barree’ sign and a barrier. Fortunately this was just beyond the car park of the bed and breakfast, so we made it. The owners told us the water had reached to their drive. They had moved a couple of guests to a local hotel as a precaution, but the water didn’t enter the buildings. They also told us the water had reached 1.6 metres in the streets of the nearby town of Romorantin-Lanthenay and the President, Monsieur Hollande, had come to see for himself.

The next day, we had to get to Dieppe for our ferry. Searching the web, we found the road was blocked between Vierzon and Orleans to the north. We went west, passing Romorantin-Lanthenay on the bypass, and reaching the Loire at Blois. The Loire is an impressive river at any time, but that day, the water was near the top of the arches of a bridge downstream. Further north, we had to cross the Seine at Rouen. It looked as if the river had flooded low-lying tracks and quaysides, but stopped short of the main road.

For us, the floods were an inconvenience but it must be terrible to see your home or business filling with filthy water and be unable to do anything. So my heart goes out to all those people in France who were flooded.

 

 

 

 

Demonstration Against Brexit

I was gutted by the referendum results. Britain had voted to leave the European Union and, to me, this seemed a triumph of xenophobia and distrust of the ruling classes. So, on Sunday 2^nd July we took the train to London for a demonstration against Brexit.

We headed for Park Lane but, as soon as we reached Hyde Park Corner, we saw crowds of people assembling. The subways under the roads were jammed and it was a while before we emerged into the open air. We were looking for the Green Party, but the throng swallowed us, blocking the road and pavements. We tried climbing up into a green space between trees but came to a dead end at a junction.

The demonstration had been organised in a hurry, so many marchers flourished home made placards. Some featured unflattering photos and cartoons of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Michael Gove. Many of the slogans used puns. ‘I can’t live without EU’, ‘We’ll be missing EU’. Others called ‘Tories out’, and ‘Lies Don’t Make a Mandate.’ Everywhere people carried EU flags. Many of the marchers were young and we heard several languages spoken. For an hour, the crowd stood, throbbing with clapping and chanting. Whenever onlookers cheered or waved, there was a roar of approval. A woman guest at the Hilton Hotel ventured out onto her balcony in the nude, to a roar from the crowd.

Eventually, we shuffled down Piccadilly, completely filling the road. An occasional shower made little difference, except producing a flurry of umbrellas in the EU colours. Waves of chanting ran down the throng. ‘What do we want? EU. When do we want it? Now.’ Some marchers unfurled a huge EU flag down the middle of the road, floating over heads. The marchers fanned out across Whitehall and stopped at the entrance to Downing Street. People yelled ‘Shame on you’ in the direction of number 10. A line of policemen, with yellow jackets over their uniforms, stood impassive.

The clouds cleared and the temperature rose as we reached Parliament Square. It was packed with people listening to the speakers. Although a big screen and loudspeakers had been erected, from the edge of the throng, it was difficult to see and hear. We peeled off and went in search of lunch.

I get the impression the real winner from these events is the city itself. London copes well with demonstrations. The police stand by but remain calm. Spectators stare and take photos. London remains a tolerant, multi-racial, vibrant city. Let’s keep it that way.

April in South-West France

The cold chills our bones when we arrive at our house in South-West France. We have an old farmhouse in a little village on a hill near the River Lot. We think it was probably built in the middle of the 19^th Century and everything is hefty. The walls are built of limestone blocks at least 30 cm thick, which keep the place cool in summer, but it takes a long time to warm up. We build a fire in the big fireplace with wood from the orchard and go to bed early.

When the sun comes out, the place is transformed. I walk out into the back garden and down the slope into the orchard of old fruit trees. The grass is green, long and full of weeds, but among them are early spider orchids and grape hyacinths. In the commercial orchards, the lines of lacy white plum blossom are fading. In our garden, cherry and pear trees are still white and the old quince tree has pale pink blossom. When we go for a walk we see butterflies we never see in Britain, such as the Cleopatra and the Swallowtail.

We go for a cycle ride. This is an area of limestone ridges, separated by stream valleys. We pass another little village on a hill. These are bastide villages, built in the Middle Ages and fortified. The hills are not high but can be steep. As we cycle up a hill, three local women walking along the road smile and shout ‘Allez! Allez!‘ Do we look very strange? Two elderly people struggling up hills on bicycles in rural France? I only get off and walk once and, by the time we return home, I feel a bit weak in the legs but delighted I made it.

Indonesia Trip 2016 – The Eclipse

Our trip to see the total eclipse of the sun proved an amazing experience. We set out early from the island of Ternate and boarded the car ferry to nearby Tidore. There were six bus loads of Westerners, equipped with cameras, binoculars and tripods. As I watched from the deck, it looked unlikely that the buses would all fit in the ferry. But they did. We were heading for Tidore, as it was in the centre of the line which the total eclipse was predicted to follow.The Sultan had permitted us to watch from the grounds of his Palace.

Ternate and Tidore are small, volcanic islands in the Moluccas, towards the eastern end of the Indonesian achipelago. They were spice islands, and the trading of cloves and nutmeg made them rich and their sultans important. When we arrived, Tidore was bright with flowering trees: bougainvillea and frangipane, and the roads were lined with pennants in various colours. The Sultan’s Palace has a large, grassy space with a view of the sea and a raised area behind, ideally placed for watching the eclipse. Two areas of seating had been set up under awnings.

When we arrived, we were greeted with a welcoming dance by a group of girls, dressed in red and twirling parasols. The eclipse watchers were soon busy setting up tripods and cameras. The Sultan walked across the grass, grand in gold-coloured jacket and black hat and accompanied by his retinue. Local people joined in: families with children, men in uniforms and schoolgirls in hijabs and long skirts. Young girls came up and asked if they could pose with us for photos. Boys asked where we came from. When I said south of London they replied: “London? Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspurs, Chelsea.” They carried solar specs, mobile phones and lengths of bamboo.

At 8.36, we spotted the first notch at the top right of the sun. The morning cloud gradually cleared, giving a brilliant view. My husband took a series of exposures, using special solar filters. After a while, the light levels dimmed, shadows became unusually sharp and the temperature dropped. At 9.51, the sun vanished and the local people banged their bamboo drums. With binoculars, I was able to see a clear, bright edge to the dark disc and a pink prominence on the left. Ghostly coronal streamers appeared around the sun. After three minutes, the sun’s light flared and a lovely ‘diamond ring’ appeared.

After the total eclipse, people started milling about. Food was brought to one of the seated areas. The Sultan and the Mayor of Tidore both gave speeches. There were dances. The first, involving a group of young men and girls in gold costumes was decorous. The second started with lines of girls in short, white dresses and boys in bowler hats. However, the compère invited others to join in and soon people of many races and ages were dancing. We helped ourselves to a buffet lunch, which included rice, vegetables, fish, langoustines and chicken. The local people joined in, the Sultan posed for photographs with tourists and everyone had a great time.

I’d like to thank the Sultan of Tidore for his generous welcome and Intrepid Travel for organising this amazing trip.

Indonesia Trip 2016 – Bali

In Bali we stayed at the Pramar Beach Hotel, Sanur. Here we met several other groups who had come to Indonesia, as we had, to watch the total eclipse of the sun. Members of the group swapped accounts of previous eclipses, and walked to the beach to get a view of the southern stars: the Southern Cross, Canopus, Alpha and Beta Centauri, Sirius and Orion on its side.

On a hot and humid day, we walked down the road outside the hotel. Bali is an island where Hindus predominate. We saw little boxes of leaves and flowers left as offerings and glimpsed dancing in an ornate Hindu temple. It is more obviously touristy than the other places we had visited. We passed rows of shops: some sold clothes, hats and shoes; others woven mats and carved wooden ornaments; still others silver jewellery. There was a huge choice of restaurants, offering everything from the ubiquitous nasi goreng (fried rice) to Western food like steaks and pizzas.

After the solar eclipse, our group returned to Bali and we went on a tour of the island. We went first to a village in the forest,where we were greeted with sweetmeats and coffee or tea. The village consisted of several houses and a temple to gods and ancestors, all set in a walled compound. Two little girls were helping an older woman make bamboo ornaments for offerings. I tried making one, with little success. From here we walked to the rice paddies. A man was levelling the paddy field: walking slowly behind two oxen, with his feet in deep mud. Our guide, Mar, explained the flow of water down the hill was carefully controlled.

We went on to an important Hindu temple at Bangli. Those of our group who were wearing shorts were issued with sarongs before they were allowed to visit. The temple was started in the 9^th century and rebuilt several times. It was on three levels, with the lowest being the oldest. The higher levels had Chinese plates set in the walls. The temple was dwarfed by a huge banyan tree, where the aerial roots had become a forest of trunks.

As the bus climbed towards Batur Mountain (1730 metres), the clouds closed in and it poured with rain. However, we stopped for lunch at the Lake View Hotel. As we ate, the clouds cleared, giving a view of the lake and the volcano. From here we drove to a coffee plantation, where they make some of the most expensive coffee in the world. Mar called it ‘Poo-Poo’ coffee, but the real name is Kopi Luwak. The beans are fed to civets, which excrete them. They are then washed and the outer layers removed before the beans are roasted. We tried a selection of coffees and teas. The plantation was interesting because of the range of plants grown among the coffee: cocoa, ginger, turmeric, chilli, nutmeg and cardamon. But the real excitement was caused by a huge yellow and black spider hanging on its web among the trees.

The evening before we left for home, we had dinner at a restaurant at Jimbaran Bay. Here, long tables had been set out on the beach and dancers in grotesque masks performed between them. We chose the fish or seafood we wanted and the restaurant grilled them. As the sun set, the sky glowed in a lovely mixture of pinks and greys.

Indonesia Trip 2016 – Yogyakarta

When we arrived at Yogyakarta airport, our guide greeted us with necklaces of sweet-smelling jasmine flowers. Our hotel, the Phoenix, was colonial in style. A wrought iron staircase curved down into the dining room, which had lights like candelabra, and waitresses walked around in sarongs and jackets, with scarves over their shoulders.

The next day we each sat in a rickshaw and the drivers threaded through the traffic on their bicycles to the Sultan’s Palace. As Yogyakarta used to be the capital of Indonesia, the Sultan was important. His palace included primary and secondary schools and, in one building a collection of gamelan instruments was laid out. Our guide showed us through rooms displaying ceremonial clothes and gifts to the sultans. We went on to the Water Palace, where there was a pool where the sultan’s wives used to swim. He could watch them bathe from a tower and choose one to invite to the conjugal bed. The pool was inviting blue against hot white walls.

In the afternoon, we visited the Prambanan Temple, which is the biggest Hindu temple in Indonesia. It was built in the 9^th century and has three main shrines, dedicated to Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. However, we were visiting Indonesia in the rainy season and our tour was punctuated by downpours. We climbed to the biggest shrine, and saw the statues of Shiva and Ganesh. Around the shrine is a beautifully carved frieze telling the Ramayana story. My husband and I climbed to the shrines of Vishnu and Brahma as well, but some of the group struggled with the steps.

The next day, we got up at 3.00am and travelled to Borobudur, with the intention of seeing the sunrise from the Buddhist Temple. At first sight, the temple looked like a wall of rock rising through mist. We climbed 150 steps to the top and waited for the dawn. A big party of visitors assembled, equipped with cameras and sat around the stupas. However, the sky was dark and thundery and all we saw of the dawn was a pink fringe to the cloud. The guide explained the temple was built on three levels: the lowest representing uncontrolled desires, the second controlled desires, and the top nirvana. We were standing listening to his account of the life of Buddha when the rain came down in torrents and we hurried for shelter.

After a breakfast which we’d brought on the coach, we were taken by horse drawn buggies to a local village. The buggies lurched on the uneven ground. A local man took us to a point where we could see across a racing river, and told us about growing cassava. It is interspersed with other crops, including maize and chillies. In the village he showed us how cassava is dried, then took us to a building where children learn to play in a gamelan orchestra. Some of us had a go at playing. Our tour finished with tea, a spring roll and some local sweetmeats. This proved a long day, and I fell asleep in the coach on the way back.

Indonesia Trip 2016 – Jakarta

I didn’t realise how big Jakarta is. Our guide said the weekday population is 15 million, although many go home at weekends. Our room in the Alila hotel was on the twenty first floor and provided a view of both skyscrapers and humble houses. The traffic was chaotic. Hundreds of mopeds wove between cars and taxis and, occasionally, pedestrians tried to cross by walking out, holding up a hand. Some of the mopeds seated whole families – a man and his wife with a couple of children clinging precariously. The air was scarcely breathable and many people wore face masks.

We were taken on a tour, starting with the Chinese quarter. There are few remaining Chinese houses but the one we saw was distinctive with its swept up ‘swallowtail’ roof. A Confucian temple offered a peaceful retreat, with many burning candles and wooden joss sticks. From here, we walked down a little alleyway with a street market. People were selling song birds in cages, as well as live crabs and other shellfish and a range of exotic fruit and vegetables. I noticed breaks in the pavement, beneath which I could see foul water running. Our tour ended at the old port, where white painted, wooden boats with sloping prows waited along the quayside. They are still used for shipping material between the islands and we saw one being loaded with cement. Nearby was a lifting bridge, which was built by the Dutch and looked like the subject of a Van Gogh painting.

The next day, we were taken to an open air musem – the Taman-Mini Indonesia Indah -where there are reproductions of historic houses. Indonesia has over 300 tribes, all of which have their own traditions. The first houses we saw were built of wood which had been intricately carved and painted in several colours. Another group had thatched roofs, which swept upwards to an overhanging end. We also saw a house of the dead. We were told one of the tribes of Kalimantan used to leave their dead in houses like this for some time, while they got together the money for a funeral. Then the dead were carried to the top of a cliff and left there. The tour finished at the Bogor botanical garden. Here, we wandered between trees typical of the rain forest. Some were covered with epiphytic plants, while others had enormous butress roots. Dragonflies and butterflies flitted around.

The next day we flew to Yogyakarta. Despite the interesting sights, the independent traveller might find Jakarta daunting and I was not sorry to leave.

Can You Write About Loneliness?

How many people know their neighbours? Are more lonely? I sometimes find myself asking these questions, when I hear a reporter talking about the reaction of a ‘close knit community’ to a murder or terrible accident. I couldn’t describe the place where I live like that. I know some of the neighbours but others are strangers.

As I look out of the window I see a row of similar houses: all with white plastic window frames, garages and drives with one or more cars. When we moved in, about thirty four years ago, the houses looked as if they had come straight out of a box of Lego. They have changed since then. Nearly every house has a conservatory or an extension of some kind. There was a fashion for planting Leylandii hedges, which waned when people realised how tall they grew. Now, some of the front gardens have been paved to allow more parking space.

But where are the people? There is a flurry in the morning, when parents take their children to school. After they have gone, the place seems deserted until the children return home. The truth is there is very little to do on the estate. Apart from the school, and a couple of play areas for children, there are no community facilities: no church, or pub or corner shop. Most adults of working age travel out to find employment. So, if local residents find it difficult to travel, how do they cope? This isn’t an idle question, because some of the residents are becoming elderly and housebound.

I remember, when I had a young son to care for, I used to go out as much as possible to meet other people. There was a play bus which parked on the estate once a week, and I belonged to the local branch of the National Childbirth Trust, which ran coffee mornings. Otherwise, I walked or caught the bus to the centre of town, and took my son to the local sports centre, or a mothers and toddlers group. Even trailing him round a supermarket was better than staying at home.

The truth is loneliness and depression are two of the biggest problems of our time. If I were to write a realistic story set in contemporary Britain, I would want to include them. But how do you write about loneliness? A fiction writer needs at least three characters to create tension and drama. I suppose a writer could create a charismatic character, who sets out to establish a community hall, and gradually draws in an odd collection of local people. Or start a story with a suicide and show relatives discovering a history of failed relationships and attempts to make friends. I’ll have to think about it. In the meantime, there’s always poetry.

How Much Research?

I have been reading Eleanor Catton’s Booker-prize winning novel The Luminaries. It’s very complex. It starts with Walter Moody’s arrival in the New Zealand gold fields of the 1860s and confronts him with a mystery, which seems to implicate all the people he meets. I wondered how she did the research which provides the intricate detail of the characters’ lives and occupations.

In an article in The Guardian in April 2014: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/11/eleanor-catton-luminaries-how-she-wrote-booker-prize, she said she had wanted to write an adventure mystery. The West Coast of New Zealand was a natural choice, because she knew it fairly well and a gold field was an ideal location for such a mystery. As well as non-fiction, she read as much nineteenth century fiction and crime fiction as possible, noting anything that interested her. It was only towards the end of two years research that the idea of The Luminaries was formed.

This approach is typical of the way a good writer works. Drawing on both personal experience and extensive reading. I had assumed the idea comes first and the detailed research later. However, it would make sense, if you are intending to write a historical novel, to research the period first and develop the plot later. Otherwise, you might be caught up in your story, only to find the events you’d planned wouldn’t have happened at that time.

But if you want to place your story in the England of your own childhood, do you need to do much research? Perhaps we need to remember John Gardner’s description, in The Art of Fiction’ of fiction as a vivid and continuous dream.  You need enough authentic detail to keep your readers in that dream.  So, if your hero has an occupation about which you know little: fireman, for example, you would need to research his working life. Provide enough detail about fire engines, breathing apparatus and the culture in the fire station, to ensure your readers are caught up in the fireman’s story.

Of course, research can take many forms. It can mean walking around with a notebook, jotting down the appearance and conversation of people you see. Or talking to a friendly fireman about his job. The arrival of the internet has made research much easier. In writing my novel Dreaming in Stone,I found Google Maps useful. But maybe, for detailed research, a good library is still the best resource.

What is a Good Short Story?

People say that short stories are the hardest form. I can understand why, because short stories consist of the same elements as novels: plot and characterisation, but the writer has less space to develop them. Besides, short stories vary widely. They can range in length from 1,000 to about 15,000 words and it is difficult to say what makes a good short story. A comparison of stories by writers from Checkov through Katherine Mansfield to Raymond Carver shows a wide variety of approaches.

When I first learned to write short stories, I read that the writer needs to give her character a problem. The character sets out to solve it, but encounters complications. By the end of the story, he has either solved the problem or completely failed to do so. However, in a short story like Hemingway’s Hills like White Elephants, it is not obvious what the problem is. Is the girl pregnant? Does the man want her to have an abortion? The reader gets the impression the girl has become disillusioned with her lover. That is all.

It is, I think, safe to say that, at the end of the story, something should have changed. That change may be dramatic. For example, Prosper Merimée’s story Mateo Falcone ends with the title character shooting his own son. But the change can be much more subtle. One of your characters may have come to a realisation about his or her life.

In Writing Short Stories Flannery O’ Connor advised writers that, if they start with the character, something would happen. However, you need to place your character in a situation where his peculiarities produce actions. If you want to write about a man who is obsessed with collecting junk, you might want to give him a house or a flat which he can fill with junk and a wife who objects. So your character and plot evolve together to build a story.

Obviously, you can’t develop a character in a short story to the depth you might in a novel. However, you do have a range of tools. Physical characteristics: does this man stoop, or frown all the time? Does this woman wear a lot of make up, or slop around in dirty jeans? The way people speak can tell you a lot: class, level of education, place of origin. And the place they live in tells you more. Does your character leave his clothes on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink? Does she fill her house with ornaments from far-off places?

Asking all these questions makes me think. Perhaps I need to go back to my stories and think a bit more about my characters.