South Seas, Trees and Happy Christmas!

We're having Christmas at home this year, so the twins helped me make a Christmas cake. This year I tried a "wholefoods" recipe from an old Cranks Cook Book which used 100 percent brown flour.  That's serious flour, so the cake weighs a ton, but it's delicious.

The twins also helped us to decorate our tree. It is not quite as good as their tree, (they solemnly informed me) firstly because it is black, and secondly because it is small. However, it does light up different colours with lots of little LED lights inside the plastic needles, which they thought very pretty, and they loved having two trees to decorate.

We went out with our friend Annette a few days ago to catch the last of the "Oceania" exhibition at the Royal Academy.   It covered art ancient and modern originating from the South Seas, and Annette loved it so much that was her third visit!   As soon as we got inside I heard the sound of Beethoven, and went through the exhibition till I saw this....

Messrs. Steinway might not thank me for the sound recording quality of that clip, but in fact their grand piano is an artwork from New Zealand, by Michael Parekowhai. It's called "He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu"  and is carved and decorated in traditional style by Maori craftsmen.  An astonishing thing. Here's a detail complete with paua shell eyes. 

The other amazing NZ creation was a gigantic film installation, called "The Pursuit of Venus,(Infected)" It is based on a huge and costly hand painted wallpaper diorama of the South Seas that dates from 1806.

The NZ artist Lisa Reihana uses the wallpaper as a lifesize background and combines live action, green-screen and animation to tell the story of Western colonisation in the area - both the good and bad aspects.  

Here is a tiny clip...

...but it is impossible to give an idea of the scale of this and also to convey that in fact this life sized diorama is actually moving from right to left so the scenes constantly change.  I've never seen anything like it before, so if it ever shows near you, you might want to go and take a look. 

My favourite traditional object in the exhibition might have been this feather headdress. 

Here is some very different artwork here, which the twins made for their Auntie Aoife. I can tell you a lot of hard work went into these cards, which depict trees, windmills, suns, exciting battles and lots of stars, hearts and stickers.

So, what else? We went to the mini-pantomime at Kings Head Theatre Pub, in Islington, London.  The pub's usually busy, and the theatre is in a back room, although it's moving soon to bigger premises.   The company, Charles Court Opera usually does great performances with a cast of about 6 trained opera singers and one guy who's a magician on the piano - we once heard him play the entire orchestral score of "The Magic Flute" without a mistake. 

If you are not from these parts and haven't attended a British panto, I'll tell you it's generally some approximate adaptation of a traditional fairytale and has certain stock characters and phrases which the audience shouts in appropriate places. There is lots of cross dressing and anything can happen really. There's always a Dame, who is a man in over-the-top frocks.  Here s/he is with an audience member who has been pulled onto the stage to be the man s/he is in love with.  

 I loved the music, which was amusing covers for well known songs, including "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Single Ladies"  and "Thriller."  And the plot, such as it is, revolved mostly around Cinderella's teddy bear Buttons, with the handsome Prince posing as a #metoo "woke" male, but, perhaps predictably,  turning out to be anything but that....

I'm trying to take some exercise most days even if it is just a cycle ride up and down a few hills.  We passed Fenton House the other day and as I slogged past up the hill I thought it looked so pretty with the morning sunshine illuminating its front gate.  I blogged about it here, in 2013, but it hasn't changed much. 

We collected the twins from school yesterday.   Their school is about a mile and a half walk away up (and then down) a very very steep hill.  So we walked up, hung about in the cold and then picked them up and set off back.  The first thing that happened was that girl twin ran into a bollard.  It was the same height as her and bashed her forehead and under her eye, which was horribly painful. We did not continue home, but instead detoured to a nearby cafe to sit down and get her a drink to settle her down again - not to mention boy twin who was upset to see his sister in such a state. 

The cafe was VERY crowded and the only seats available were bar stools at a counter, and the seat of each stool was approximately at the eye level of the twins.  We somehow managed to get them on and staying on without falling off the stools, and they drank their drinks without anything getting spilt, and then we set off again, avoiding bollards. Halfway down a very long steep hill, boy twin suddenly realised he desperately needed the bathroom. Like, NOW.  And no, discreetly behind a tree was not possible.  Luckily T remembered an arts centre at the bottom of the hill so we raced down, telling boy twin to just hold on one moment longer...

However, the arts centre was shut.   

I then remembered a cultural centre just across the busy main road.  So we waited for the traffic lights, and reached the cultural centre. Unfortunately it is a centre for a group which is a bit sensitive about security so we had to wait till our backpacks were searched before they let us in.  So we got in and T and boy twin disappeared to the bathroom while girl twin and I sat down to watch the skating rink from a large picture window in the centre.   She was fascinated, (and so was boy twin when he returned). Neither wanted to leave, and to be honest, nor did we. It's a lovely place and so relaxing...  

When we finally got home, our mile and a half walk had taken two hours.  So they were quite glad to get their tea.  I thought that when I was a busy mum of young kids, that kind of thing would have driven me round the bend,but now it's great to be relaxed about it and see it as the way life goes. After all, we did enjoy a nice drink and some entertaining skating that we were not expecting!

 So that is what I've been up to, as well as working on the Durrell project, sorting out gifts and cards and getting on with the ordinary things of life. 

I hope that you will all find good things, hope and happiness at Christmas and in the coming year.  Have a lovely holiday!  

Berlin and London, August.

I'm much better and so glad not to be focusing on the stupid ankle any more.  Since my last post I've been to Berlin with T and young S,and it was fun, even in temperatures of 37 deg (around 99F).  On the first day we went right up in to the dome of the Reichstag Building where the internal temperature was hitting 40 degrees - 104F.   The police (I was told) would have stepped in and closed the dome if it had got just a bit hotter. But, they didn't, and we survived without heatstroke.  The central core of the dome is all mirrors and windows - dizzying and wonderful. This picture is taken from the bottom, looking up to the top of the dome. 

As you walk round and round, slowly climbing higher,  you get panoramic views over Berlin.

This is the Tiergarten park from the roof on which the dome stands, but as you see, we did go higher.

Online brochures exist with detailed info on this complex, symbolic and interesting group of buildings.   But to stick to the Reichstag Building, it was built in the 1890s on the site of a palace belonging to someone called Count Raczynski (poor fellow, it seemed nobody warned him that this was the plan)  It  burned down in 1933, was patched up in the 1960s by the Communists as an exhibition hall, and finally remodelled after German reunification by Norman Foster.  

The German parliament is now called the Bundestag, but the Reichstag Building was such a landmark that the old name was kept.  Every detail of the rebuild was carefully thought out, even down to the MPs' violet-blue adjustable seating. Not only is "Reichstag Blue" a gorgeous colour, but, it was chosen to be politically neutral, and so has actually been copyrighted! (Made me wonder what colour one might associate with our own Houses of Parliament.   "HP Sauce Brown", perhaps? And what colour would symbolise the US Capitol Building?)

Care has been taken not to obliterate all evidence of the building's past - I liked this section of preserved ruined wall, complete with graffiti from  Russian Zone days.  If you read Russian, please tell me what it says. 

S. is a history nut and shares our own love of museums, so most of our time was spent in the city's many historical museums.  My favourite was the DDR Museum, which offers glimpses of the weird world of Communist East Germany,  known (misleadingly) as the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, since it was only democratic in name.

One thing the museum shows is that the ideas behind East German communism sounded pretty good.  What's not to like about a job, a home and paid holidays for everyone?   But as we know, the rhetoric didn't match the bullying reality, and the Wall was built to stop people escaping from this would-be political paradise.  And if you visit the fascinating but uber-touristy Checkpoint Charlie museum,....say this isn't touristy -

....you'll see the many ingenious, pathetic and startling ways people risked their lives to be free of the DDR.    

Still, I was touched by a few of the films in the DDR Museum which showed how, even under a corrupt and monolithic system, efforts really were made to create a better society.     The gigantic blocks of Plattenbauten, though hideous to our eyes, did replace vermin ridden slums, and they did have have children's playgrounds, fountains and squares. And among the oldies visiting the museum, there were a few muted cries of joy at the sight of Clown Ferdinand children's TV programme and the dear old "Trabi" car.

 I don't think many were nostalgic for the Stasi, though. 

This is the Secret Police eavesdropping room, from which you can listen in to some of the bugs planted about the museum - pink arrow points to the listening-in point, with electric typewriter at the ready for your reports. 

Another attention grabber was the unexpected group of nudist dioramas.  

 I don't think it was actually compulsory to have those paid holidays in the buff in the DDR, but in his fascinating blog, John Paul Kleiner suggests that taking your clothes off and "being yourself" might have been one way in which residents of Communist Germany could assert their own individuality.  

The mighty German Historical Museum was S.'s favourite, and we spent a whole day there. It's excellent but very serious, focusing heavily on politics, trade and Germany's place in the wider world.   I have to admit that while S. was considering the Hanseatic League, we spent some time in  the museum's very pleasant riverside cafe. But in its section on the Weimar Republic of the 1930s,  I spotted a picture which reminded me to visit the Käthe Kollwitz house next time I go to Berlin.  As you see, when spotted casually from a distance, the picture looks like Hitler in his SS uniform.

Close up you see what it really is - Hunger. Disturbing, but brilliant, I though. 

Käthe Kollwitz  was recommended to me by a cousin, and reading about her life and visiting these Berlin museums (and also the Hiroshima Peace Museum) has made me aware of the lessons that Germany and Japan have, in general,  learned from being the losers in war. The biggest of these seems to be that cooperation and peace serve ordinary people better than any amount of flag waving and foreigner-bashing.  

And now I'm home, I'm more than delighted to be getting out into London again. Have been joining in with picking blackberries and elderberries in overgrown corners, and would pick rosehips except that they look so pretty on the bushes....

And I have been cycling to the South Bank where everyone had such a good time in the hot weather.  Here's a "sandy beach" installed alongside the Thames.  Ideal for amusing the tots. 

The nearby fountain shown below also never fails to amuse.  It shoots up "walls" of water unpredictably, at different heights, and adults and kids alike were so loving it in the boiling weather, even when clothed.  

 In the background you see a yellow tent with live music - some of it very quirky and lots of fun. 

This was one of the acts -  "Figs in Wigs", aka the "Dancing Beings"  giving an eye catching performance of 70s dancing, and also running a pea-eating contest.  No, I don't know what the point of it was either, but everyone had a good time.  The London Eye was slowly going round in the background and the many eating places were sending up some good smells.   And they don't even mind kids climbing on the sculptures here.....

We have just been to the Royal Academy Summer Show.... wow, was that busy. And full of astonishing pictures and ideas.  But too much to write about right now, this post is long enough. 

I hope you are continuing to enjoy your summer!