marramgrass

The sky looked ominous this afternoon, so we did what anyone sensible would do: we loaded the dog into the back of the car and headed out to see what we could see.

By the time we reached Newcastle, the omen had been shown good. It’s this kind of downpour that shows one of the essential points of tension between my wife and me, which is to say her deep optimism as contrasted with my usual pessimism. At her suggestion, we kept driving in the hope of coming out the other side of the weather.

By the time we reached the Silent Valley, the rain had stopped. At least, it stopped until we’d paid our £4.50 (eep) and the barrier had come down behind the car – but this perfectly poetic moment was too much for the heavens to resist. Right on cue, downpour once again.

That said, the Silent Valley is a beautiful place with the reservoir hidden in a bowl of Mournes.

I’ve only been there once before, when my parents took my brother and me up on what I remember as a blazingly hot summer afternoon several years ago. Contrast indeed. I remembered it as rather great, although under-appreciated by the younger me, and it did appeal to me today. My wife may disagree and tell of the moaning I did about the weather, but it was great. Intriguingly, reservoirs and dams tend to take me that way. I’ll have to return sometime with a camera other than the one in my cellphone.

The weather did pick up, with the sun raising steam from the tarmac. But not before we were wet and the dog was wetter. She’s sitting here by my feet drying off quietly.

I don’t understand cows.

I’m a city boy. Also, I have my doubts that cows understand me. Then again, when those eyes are looking at you from unnervingly close by, who’s to say what’s going on behind them? Maybe they do understand.

As a species they provide milk, steaks, burgers, short grass and more cows. I wasn’t aware until yesterday that they are also good at providing… let’s call it ‘the willies’.

Taking a long weekend in my father-in-law’s little cottage on the north coast (a semi-regular holiday haunt), I lay on the sofa reading a book by the fading window-light. A chewing noise invited me to look up. Less than three feet from my face was the face of a cow. A really big cow. It looked somehow affronted. Do you like it when people watch you eat?

Later, as tends to be the evening routine, I took the dog outside for activities she’d rather not have observed either. She saw the cows (yes, plural). They saw her. They came over, and looked. Seven of them, all in a row, looking hard. A short distance from me. The dog, the cows, I don’t think they’d be friends.

I was very aware that the fence there is only a couple of feet high. Despite the fact I’m a city boy, I was also aware that cows can run, that cows can jump. That cows are big and heavy and probably not too weak. I can’t imagine they got bullied at school.

To sum, I was mostly aware that what keeps the cows on the other side of the fence is nothing more than that they are happy there. I wondered what it takes to disturb that happiness.

That’s when I took the dog back inside.

We ended up in Belfast this afternoon to grab a couple of things, and while my wife was in the bead shop (not altogether my bag, I’m sure you’ll appreciate) I stood outside and watched the crowds go past.

I was struck by the number of obvious tourists and people with honking great big digital cameras hanging around their necks, and that that wasn’t something you would have seen much of seven years ago when I left Northern Ireland. It’s a happy thing to notice in this week when our legislative assembly has got itself up and running again (even if the “historic day” consisted of many of the same people saying most of the same things as the last time our society changed for good). The other husband standing outside the shop agreed with me.

This weekend Belfast City Council have been running Enchanted Evenings in the Botanic Gardens. We were put onto it by my brother and his girlfriend, so we stopped in on Thursday evening for a look.

Coloured lights, candles, acrobats, shadow puppets, entertainers, costumes… All kinds of things going on, up to and including a dragon hiding in the bushes calling out riddles as you walk past (“what breaks when you say it?… Silence.”)

I’m pretty cynical about such events, but even I walked around with a stupid grin on my face. Not bad for three quid at the gate, and the many, many children there were obviously having a ball.

It’s on until Sunday night if you’re in that part of the world. Recommended.

(By the way, please don’t forget this – voting until the 11th.)

Saturday 21 May 2005.

The idea, I believe, had been to try and overcome some of the friction between the various parts of the Marchmont community: families, older people, students…

For me, it was a chance to get out and burn some film.

There was a free (I think – I didn’t partake) barbecue on the go, and a little bit of clowning and juggling.

It was quite fun, and satisfied my curiosity as to what a street party in Marchmont would look like. Even when the incredibly heavy rain came on, things were still cheerful.

Once again, clicks will take you through to Flickr. I must remember to do some explaining about that later on. Remind me…

Further to my fascination with buildings: the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern has become one of my favourite places, I think. It’s the hugeness, yet the indoor-ness of it.

(Click these two to see them bigger – the link will take you to my pages on Flickr.)

The exceedingly warm pair of gloves turned up – they were in tiny shreds spread out under our bed where a certain four-legged f(r)iend who shall remain nameless had a great old time. You get used to that.

So yeah, the grumpy guy at the Black Diamond. The place itself is a huge and scary-pointy extension to the Royal Library. It looks something like this:

See how cold it was? (Thanks to my wife for the photo, although the dodgy scan is entirely my fault.)

I’ve been noticing buildings, lately, small cool ones and big impressive ones. Depsite not being able to do much (on account of not being readers), we spent a ridiculous amount of time inside. This was partly because it was warm and partly because we couldn’t resist the urge to photograph the inside repeatedly. Also, both the guidebooks and the information leaflet promised that the National Photography Museum was in there somewhere.

Which brings us to another grumpy wee man: he told us that there is no National Photography Museum, rather that it was a (long-since ended) temporary exhibition that shouldn’t be in the publicity anymore. From his manner, I guess he was tired of explaining this to tourists.

Of course, I’m left wondering if he was having a laugh at our expense. Either that, or there was some sort of language barrier at work. However, the phrase “That is wrong. There is no museum.” is pretty unequivocal. Maybe someone will notice that their visitor figures are down.

More photos at pgallery.net, and if you’re confused then check out this post.

The taxi driver who picked us up at the airport must have been British. At least, when he discovered neither of us could speak Danish (usually we make some attempt at a language, but couldn’t find any sort of connection between how the words looked on paper and how they were supposed to sound, so we chickened out) he dealt with this by speaking the same Danish slowly and loudly, and then huffing when we still didn’t understand. He was also especially impressed when the (obviously foreign) couple he’d picked up from the airport didn’t have any change, only banknotes, what with only just having got off the plane. Welcome to Denmark! I wonder has he ever picked anyone up from the airport before? I wonder if he’ll ever go back there…

Of course, he wasn’t the only grumpy wee man we encountered. There was a particularly strange hot-dog seller, not to mention the gent on the information desk at the Black Diamond (well, not on the desk, more behind, or even within the desk – you know what I mean), but we’ll get back to him. Forunately for us, everyone we encountered after that first car journey spoke English, so at least we were grumped at understandably.

It was cold, very cold. It snowed. A lot. Yes, we chose to travel to a Scandinavian country at the start of March, but apparently the weather was quite abnormal for the time of year. We enjoyed two or three days of blizzards, beginning just as we got off the plane, but the snow has a certain appeal. I had to buy a woolly hat, and an exceedingly warm pair of gloves which I have since mislaid. It did let up eventually, the day before we left. I don’t think it got any warmer, though. The neon thermometer around the corner from the Central Station didn’t budge from -2C any time we walked past it, day or night, so I’m taking that to mean it was broken. Cold, but broken. Possibly broken by the cold.

If you want to spend money, Copenhagen is the place to be. Shops, shops, and shops, with the emphasis on labels and extravagance. Even the cafes (of which there are many – it seemed there were even more than in Vienna, which I’m sure violates some kind of natural law) require a quick telephone call to the bank manager. When I’m spending 13 quid on hot chocolate and cake for two people, I tend to break out in a rash.

That’s how you know I’m British – I come back from holiday, and the first thing I say is that the weather was bad and it was expensive. You’d wonder, otherwise.

But it was good.

More photos at pgallery.net

Back here I alluded to some further comment I had to make from our brief visit to Vienna at Easter. While it is in my nature to promise to post things (or do things, or say things, or clean things or tidy things) and then show no sign of actually following through on my big talk, I thought I could take the time (on my way out the door to a youth cafe launch event thing I’m a bit hazy on the details of) to note where my thoughts had been going on those things I mentioned.

High-quality street performers.

I mean it. For example, the lady playing the harp just off Michaelerplatz at about 10 o’clock on our last evening in town. Or the group of Eastern European (sounded like it, anyway) breakdancers who not only were impressive performers, but knew how to work the crowd so well that I would have given them a couple of euro just for that alone! Less technically brilliant but just as arresting was the little (really, small) old (makes my grandmother look like she’s just reaching her prime) lady saxophonist sitting on Graben, coaxing a frighteningly mournful sound from her instrument. (The cynic in me wonders if she was playing on her vulnerable appearance just a little, but the rest of me says, so what if she was?)

Some of the entertainment we caught really shames the stuff I’ve been known known to buy a ticket for.

Minimalist art at the Albertina.

I just don’t get it. I’m sorry. Why is a big black parallelogram (how many l’s should there be in there?) in any way interesting or impressive?

The Spanish Riding School

We weren’t around for a show, so we went to a training session. That has got to be the biggest con going.

To re-iterate, we loved Vienna and will be back.

Things that appeared rather popular in Vienna:

• Italian restaurants.
• Statues of guys on horses.
• Emporia specialising in ladies’ undergarments (seriously, we were standing around one day, and I realised there had to be at least five or six – maybe more – within less than ten minutes’ walk).
• Pigeons.
• Expansively sculpted nipples on shop-window mannequins (we just don’t have that over here).
• Horse dung (the carriages may be pretty cool, but no stopping that farmyard smell; on the other hand, the part of town we were in was spotlessly clean, otherwise).
• Churches, of the impressively built, photogenic if there had been room to back up far enough, variety.

Not to mention the cafes – there’s got to be as many cafes in Vienna as there are pubs in Edinburgh, which is no small achievement. Those we visited were great for a coffee and a cake. Mig had pointed us towards Cafe Central and Hawelka, which contrasted fairly sharply. Hawelka in particular is one to return to.

For return we shall. In five days we hardly stepped outside the Ring, so it may not be too long before we catch a bit more time and see some more.

In there it was quite touristy, but in a relaxed, friendly sort of way. And I make no bones about us being tourists; not ‘backpackers’ or ‘travellers’, ‘visitors’ or ‘guests’, we were honest-to-goodness sightseeing tourists. Actually, I was quite glad of the tourist-friendly nature of the city, as my German is much worse than I remembered and we were regularly relieved by the way everyone we encountered spoke English better than we did. It would appear that for me the language isn’t still in there somewhere…

Vienna is definitely worth a look, especially if you like parks and museums and great-looking buildings to wander among.

Expect more posts on the subjects of high-quality street-performers, minimalist art at the Albertina, the Spanish Riding School, and possibly a photo or two.