At Stanford

Gum trees at Stanford

On Monday July 29th, I took the No. 22 bus down El Camino Real to Palo Alto station, the last stop, which was easy enough, except that the driver had braked suddenly on the way there, jolting his passengers. I grazed my knee on the seat in front — lucky I had a band-aid in my purse. I entered the campus through an arch then walked down the bike path beside Palm Drive. As well as that long row of palms, I couldn't help noticing the clumps of tall eucalyptus with their bare, golden trunks: their sight and distinctive smell took me straight back to the grounds of Macquarie University on the edge of Sydney, Australia, close to where my son lives; that made me feel happy, for a start. Back in the 19th century, the founder of the university, Leland Stanford, had 1000 eucalypts planted, and here they still are. The only element missing from this incongruous scene was the cry of parrots or kookaburras, although I did see an occasional California scrub jay, with blue head, back and tail.

I had a map with me — a screen shot from Google Maps that I'd printed at home — and aimed for the campus art gallery where I discovered that it didn't open till 11 a.m. but there's a sculpture garden accessible outside. Someone here has been obsessed with collecting Rodin's sculptures. I have never seen so many at once. Here are his full size Gates of Hell, with the (famous) Thinker in miniature at the top. (If you ask Google for a cartoon version of The Thinker, you get 11,700,000 links.) The Thinker in his original full size, is also to be found inside the gallery, where he has a room to himself, as I discovered later in the day. I was also impressed with Rodin's Adam and Eve, standing pensively naked beside the Gates of Hell, and by the huge head of one of the self-sacrificial Burghers of Calais (Pierre de Wissant).

Jane Stanford

To pass the time till the Gallery opened, I walked on into the centre of the campus, where the 87 m tall Hoover Tower (in honour of President Hoover who'd studied at Stanford and was a generous donor to its history department) dominates. The architecture all around is very hispanic. The Romanesque Memorial Church was built by Stanford's wife Jane to commemorate him after his death. Inside, it's a European cathedral, opulently decorated. The Stanfords must have been rich beyond measure. Long, shady cloisters and spacious courtyards with lovely trees and flowerbeds surround the main buildings. The story of the university's origins is tragic and touching. Leland Stanford Junior, a handsome youngster, had died in his teens, and his parents founded the university to give other young people the education they wished he'd had. I wandered around this part of the campus with my mouth agape, whispering Wow! to myself and taking photos. Families of Chinese tourists were doing likewise. The younger ones probably wanted to enrol or were perhaps already enrolled in a student programme here. I also noticed ambitious American fathers bringing their sons or daughters along to be inspired by these surroundings to the extent that they'd want to apply for a place here. I feared for the future of one such child, only about 10 years old, whom I observed in the bookstore, miserably disengaged, his eager father prodding him to buy a guidebook to the university. Actually Stanford is not one of the Ivy League schools, although still highly selective and prestigious.

Island Universe, by Josiah McElheny

In the art gallery, cool in contrast to the outside world on this hot day, was a wealth of exhibits, a painting in 2006 by a Chinese artist, Liu Xiaodong, for example, called A Highway by the Yangzi. One installation by Josiah McElheny (2008) explored the concept of the multiple universes in the cosmos. Still thinking of the dreadful images in Rodin's Gates of Hell, outside, I found a painting of The Last Judgement by Hieronymus Bosch and his students, another interpretation of damned souls. A 17th century painting of a woman called Maria, by Pieter Nason of den Haag, was more likeable. One item in the collection was an impressionist painting by Picasso, executed in his early days.

A Concert hall, a Visitors' Centre, a solar power station and multiple sports facilities are also to be found on the campus. It's an amazing place. On my walk back towards Palm Drive I discovered the Arizona Garden, full of exotic cacti.

*****

That evening, after Chris' first day at work in Palo Alto, I was invited to join the whole team for a grilled supper in a new restaurant at the San Antonio Center (sic) or "Village". It took us ages to park and find our way through the parking lots to the venue. We were at a table for 10 men and me, not one of us a true-born Californian. Geoff, the man in charge that evening, is a New Zealander who lives in Tokyo; Chris and I are English born Canadians; the others, software engineers all, come from Slovenia, Switzerland, India and Japan. This may well be a gathering typical of the Silicon Valley.

A drive to the Pacific coast

The road through San Gregorio

On Sunday 28th July, the day after our arrival in California, we got lost several times, up and down the winding roads. Along the Arastradero Road in Los Altos to start with, then up Page Mill Road, and then effectively in circles, losing our sense of direction in the forests of the Palo Alto foothills, with their steep sided coniferous slopes down to the creeks. In the end we gave up trying to follow the inadequate paper map and resorted to the GPS app. on the phone. That took us back almost to where we'd begun, so we tried again, along Portola Road up Portola Valley to the Skyline Boulevard where it joins La Honda Road. There are "rustic redwood cabins" at this junction, selling stuff, but the Mountain Terrace restrooms were closed, so to Chris' chagrin we had to move on, following a convoy of low-slung vintage cars. Bikers were also much in evidence but rode off in another direction. We followed La Honda Creek downhill to San Gregorio which consisted of very few habitations and no restrooms until we reached the parking lot at the beach: $8 well spent for the time we spent at this spot! The first thing you see is the magnificent view of Highway 1 snaking its way down the cliffs to the San Gregorio State Beach and San Gregorio Lagoon, with the Pacific Ocean beyond it flanked by the long, sandy shore. The lagoon is a "fish nursery" protecting young fish from the ocean. You start taking photos with enthusiasm. The next thing you notice, with a gasp of alarm, is the long mottled snake that wriggles out from under the picnic table in the grass above the lagoon, at your approach. I thought this was a rattlesnake, at first, but (having looked it up) I now believe it was a gopher snake. Chris said, it's called a gopher because, if you tread on it, it will go for you. Oh dear. But they are considered harmless to humans.

Gopher snake?

Once at the beach, I took my shoes and socks off and set off walking to Australia. The waves that rolled in over my bare feet were freezing cold so I didn't get very far. Further out were sizeable breakers. A few would-be surfers in wetsuits were gazing dreamily at them, but spent a long time getting into the water and didn't surf. I kept the warm find sand under my toes and climbed the dunes against the cliffs to take photos of the wildflowers for my botanist sister. Latin American fishermen stood hopefully with fishing rods on the shore. Mist obscured the distant cliffs. Kelp with dried out bladders (pneumatocysts) had got tangled in the driftwood, with shells and stones, creating intricate pieces of natural sculpture. We sat on a bleached log to enjoy the views and the breeze for a while before walking back to the car. A Muslim family, the ladies wearing full burqas, carried their picnic and pushchairs over the sandy rocks down to the beach.

Nasturtiums in Half Moon Bay

We drove on down Highway 1 (passing some more dramatic views of the cliffs) to Half Moon Bay for lunch, which we parked on Main Street and walked on to find at the Ark North Indian Cuisine on our way to the town centre. Half Moon Bay is an attractive and interesting place to stop, with bougainvillea, camelias and cacti in the gardens, not unlike coastal towns we've seen in New South Wales. Where the road bridge crosses a creek in a ravine, nasturtiums have rampaged over the undergrowth in a mass of colour. In 1906 a shocking earthquake of magnitude 7.9 destroyed most of Half Moon Bay's adobe houses, but a man called Joseph Debenedetti made a vow to rebuild the town, reinforcing its important structures with steel, and he did. There's a memorial to him here.

On the faster drive back to Los Altos, we passed numerous rose-growing farms by the San Mateo Road and then the Crystal Springs reservoir in the hills above Silicon Valley. We were hoping to drive down Canada Road along the left hand side of the lake, but it was closed to traffic on that day. I should have spelled that name Cañada, which is the Spanish word for glen.

Poolside at the Country Inn Motel

We have flown from Ottawa to San Francisco today, and I'm writing this on a chaise longue by a swimming pool in Palo Alto under a clear sky. It was pink a moment ago but the darkness is arriving and the stars are beginning to show. The kidney shaped turquoise pool is lit from below the water level. All around it a garden seats with cushions, patio tables, parasols and raised flowerbeds with roses and hibiscus blooming. The water temperature felt just right for my evening swim. Chris came down from our bedroom floor here at the Country Inn Motel on El Camino Real, to sit with me.

The incoming plane at Toronto was late, so we were delayed by about an hour, but our seats at the front of the plane were comfortable. We flew past the western end of Lake Ontario, north of Lake Erie, cut the corner of Lake Huron and thence over the mid west to the Rockies near Denver, huge towering cumulus on the horizon there. After the attentive flight attendant had served us a pleasant meal (we could choose from a menu) on real plates with real cutlery and wine in a real glass, I watched some of a feature film about Japanese businessmen hoping not to lose face in front of one another. Then I slept a bit. After my sleep we were out over the Utah desert; I think I saw the Grand Canyon or something like it. We have taken this route before. The snowy Sierra Nevada and some more desert and salt pans follow, then the coastal mountains and hills, bare, pale brown and scrubby.

We had gained half an hour en route but lost it again waiting for our gate to come free. Planes sat at their gates from all over the world: Portugal, Sweden, Australia, Turkey. Another longish wait for the luggage to arrive at the carousel, but a little Chinese boy ran over to play with Chris, reaching to touch his hairy arm out of fascination. Then we caught an airport train --- the one after the train they threw us off because an unclaimed piece of luggage sat in it, surely an innocent mistake, but "for your security..." they said --- to the car rental area. The AVIS agent granted us an upgrade and we ventured out into the concrete junctions, getting lost immediately, but managed to turn round and find the correct way onto the freeway, the 101 South. It was a 25 mile drive to Palo Alto, exiting at San Antonio Road.

We walked down the Camino Real to a Vietnamese restaurant for supper.

Luxuries

Time is a luxury as I have realised again, now that I finally have more of it to myself, this summer. Autonomy, fresh air and restful solitude feels luxurious too. It invigorates me.

We weren't wealthy in the early days when we lived in a tiny bungalow, when I used to fiddle the household accounts to keep the true state of affairs from my husband, and had to choose between affording vegetables, for example, or a 1st birthday present for my daughter. I made a decorated bag for her toys out of pieces of old cloth. No such worries any longer. I recently discovered from a philanthropic website that our annual income before tax puts us in the top 0.1% of wealth, worldwide. It is a statistic that shocks me, shocks me in the old fashioned sense, i.e. horrifies rather than takes me by surprise, as the younger generation would have it ("She was like shocked to see how many likes she got!") — and makes me feel guilty.

This month I'm feeling guiltier than ever (hypocritically so, because also looking forward to it): we've booked business class seats on the flights for our upcoming business trip for Chris to California and Tokyo. It will be a demanding couple of weeks for Chris, with back-to-back assignments, on his feet all day in different time zones and with six separate flights to endure. We decided that he at least ought to travel as comfortably as possible. We set off tomorrow morning. I hope the experience isn't going to spoil us more than we're spoiled already. It may. I have twice before sat in business class seats, on those occasions as a result of unexpected courtesy upgrades, once for a short flight, once for a long-haul. This time I chose to redeem several years worth of Avion points, as well as spending a few thousand extra dollars. Chris doesn't have to pay for his flights out of his own pocket, and the cost of our lodgings will be refunded too.

In Bath

February 9th - 11th, 2019

Even more so than in Bristol, the first thing you notice in Bath is the pale yellow, Cotswolds limestone used for its walls and towers. Most of the city seems to have been built in the Hanoverians' heyday, the 18th century, and those that are more modern imitate that Regency style, the classic columns framing doorways, tall, arched windows, terraces and crescents, or are at least deliberately built from the same kind of stone so that the city has a uniform look to it. On Sunday morning we walked up to the Royal Crescent, like Park Crescent at Regent's Park in London, but on a hill above a park (the Royal Victoria Park), so more imposing.

Pulteney Bridge and the flooded River Avon

When it finally stopped teaming with rain, after I'd festooned our damp clothes over the whole room  where we were staying, we ventured out and saw that the River Avon had overflowed its banks. A pale sunset lit up the clearing sky, but more rain fell that night. By Saturday morning, the weir below Pulteney Bridge had became so full of water that its curves had practically disappeared. The Parade Gardens gave us a good view of it. We walked past the bridge to stop at the café above the Waitrose supermarket by the Central Library, a surprisingly comfortable, quiet and uncrowded haven in the city that swarms with tourists at all times of year. At lunch hours or supper time it is quite difficult to find places a table for four without a prior reservation. We managed to find one at Las Iguanas on Friday, where we could choose from a menu of Mexican, Brazilian, or Peruvian dishes, at an impressive Bengali restaurant (the Indian Eye on Quiet Street, sited in a splendid upstairs assembly hall), a whole male rugby team (we guessed) dining at the adjacent tables, on Saturday, and at an equally splendid but considerably quieter Thai restaurant on Sunday. For breakfast we chose a corner coffee shop, offering coffee ground and roasted by the owner, near our hotel.

It is well known that he Romans called the place Aquae Sulis, but not so well known that King Bladud, King of the Britons in 1000 years before the Roman invasion, dedicated the healing power of its springs to the Celtic goddess Sul. Bladud couldn't inherit his throne, at first, because he had leprosy. Banished from the palace he became a swineherd, roaming over the country with his herd of pigs, he came to this area, where the pigs, rolling around in the mud warmed by the hot springs were cured of scurvy and other skin complaints. Bladud did the same, and was cured himself. On becoming king he founded a city at Bath. There is a pig sculpture in the Parade Gardens to commemorate this.

Homeless people were sleeping on the stone seats under the columns. Part of the gardens were a small cemetery for pets, complete with Latin inscriptions on their gravestones, e.g.: "My Nookie. February 13 1924. Age 14 Years. Sempre Muitas Saudadas." (Now that I've had a chance to look it up I see that means Always many greetings, in Portuguese. I shall refrain from commenting.)

On the other bank, the city is called Bathwick. There's a bridge to this district, crossing the Avon, with shops on it; we walked as far as Laura Place and back.

Bath Abbey, with the Roman Baths (aka Kings and Queens Baths where 18th and 19th century people used to wallow in the warm water) behind it, developed from an 8th century Benedictine monastery, is worth seeing from the inside, with a lovely, fan-vaulted ceiling, some of it built in the 16th century, the same era as Kings College, Cambridge, the rest tastefully copied from that style in the 19th century.We didn't get the full effect because they were renovating the choir end of the Abbey and had it sealed off. At the side of the nave were memorial stones, some carved with touching or tragic stories like this one:

In memory of Lt. Colonel Joseph Maycock who died at the Cape of Good Hope in 1860, aged 41, from the effects of exposure during the Indian mutiny [...] while serving on the staff of Sir Henry Havelock... 

The story sadly continues,

...And in memory of his children Francis William Mellowes, who died at Kurrachee, Scinde, Feby 19th, 1849, aged 1 year, Mabel Ross, who died at sea, May 17th, 1860, aged 15 months, Maud Mary, who died at sea June 14th 1860, aged 3 years and 4 months, Mabel Maud, who died at Merther, Cornwall, November 30th 1860, aged 4 months. This tablet is erected by the afflicted widow and mother.

On Saturday Emma sent us messages to say that she, Peter, Alex and Tom had managed to catch a train to come and spend a few hours with us in Bath; we duly met them at Bath Spa station, shared lunch at a nearby restaurant, the boys very well behaved during the wait for our food, and then we all visited the Roman Baths together. Thomas (aged 7) used an audio-guide: according to his mother, the first time he'd taken a real interest in information from a museum.

Alex, Rob, Thomas, Emma, amused by the Ancient Roman

Imagine discovering a gold-plated head, when you are digging a hole to make a sewer! — that's exactly what happened in 1727. It is the head of the goddess Minerva (her Latin name), the goddess of the hot spring. The Celts who lived here before the Romans had called her Sul, as I mentioned above when speaking of Bladud. The statue to which Minerva's head was once attached must have been very large indeed! As we continued our tour towards the other end of the central bath, an Ancient Roman (an actor, that is) kept us entertained. He showed us "an Apple Tablet" — an ancient slate for writing on, made from apple wood! The boys thought that was very funny.

We didn't go to the modern "Thermae Bath Spa" during our stay in Bath. It would have been a marvellous wallow, but is too expensive, £40 each for two hours. Nor did we ever saw the Victoria Art Gallery, the Assembly Rooms or the Jane Austen Centre. Next time?

Model of the 40ft telescope

On Sunday, after walking to the Royal Crescent, we circled back into town through the pleasant Royal Victoria Park, along a hillside, then visited William and Caroline Herschel's house, now the small but well laid out Herschel Museum of Astronomy. We learned that those famous sibling astronomers, employed as musicians in those days, had lived next door to Lord Nelson. For half a century, the 40 ft (12.9 m) telescope, made by William Herschel in the 1780s and situated in Slough near Windsor, where the King lived, was the biggest telescope in the world. It rotated on its base and had a 48 inch (122 cm) mirror. The observation platform was at the top. We saw a replica of the workshop where Herschel made his own lenses at home; he and his sister spent many hours grinding and polishing them. He discovered what came to be known as the infrared wavelength on the  spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Caroline was an extraordinary person herself, tiny, only 130cm tall (the museum has a model of her wearing her dress) but with a tough constitution. She had a frustrating childhood in Germany, full of ill health and drudgery, and seems to have been so grateful to escape from it by becoming her brother's housekeeper and general assistant that she utterly dedicated herself to him, although she did complain of being "much hindered in my practice by my help being continually wanted in the execution of [his] various astronomical contrivances." In the early days, she performed the soprano solo part in Handel's Messiah. On her 96th birthday (in 1846), the King of Prussia presented her with a gold medal for her achievements; she lived another two years after that, in Hanover.

Another walk we did with our friends Rob and Sally was along the towpath by the Avon downstream from the railway station, seeing the old warehouses by the river now renovated and converted to other purposes. We followed the river upstream to Bath Deep Lock at Widcombe on the opposite bank, where the Kennet and Avon Canal emerges.

Resistance Museums in Sweden and Norway

We went to two military museums in Scandinavia, both good museums.

*****

The displays at the Brigadmuseum Värmlad (Värmland being the name of that region), near the Klarälven River in Karlstad, are presented in tribute to the Swedes who did their best to cope with the aftermath of World War II, during the troubled times of the Cold War. The museum also tries to answer the question VAD ÄR EN BRIGAD --- what is a brigade?

I was suffering from a painful back while touring this museum, having jarred a muscle, so I had to move gingerly and didn't take many notes. However, I was impressed by the many dioramas of the Swedish soldier's living conditions during his service from those days (late 1940s) to the end of the 20th century, and by the old photos.

Swedish point man on a bike, with blackened face

It was interesting to see how basic their mission was. Mass conscription was kept in place for fear of invasion by the Soviet Union (and conscription for both men and women is still in effect in this country). The Swedish infantry used skills acquired in the northern parts of their country to train what would effectively be guerrilla warfare, during the Cold War. They had dog-sledding squadrons that resembled detachments of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. While training in the summer season, they still kept things simple and appropriate to the rough terrain. For instance, cycling units were towed by tractors along the back country, gravel roads. A camouflaged soldier on a bike was the point man of his brigade. He and his eight man squad would be tasked with destroying the enemy's tanks; he'd be equipped with a signal pistol that would fire a red warning signal when contact had been made with an enemy tank, to say: "Pansar kommer!" Then the advance platoon would take up defensive positions. The cyclist would have anti-tank mines, loaded on his handlebars, which were to be laid across the road. As the enemy tank approached, they'd have to take cover by the roadside and fire rockets at it.

1950s Swedish conscript, off-duty

Even today, in case of invasion by a foreign power, Swedish people still receive pamphlets entitled "If a Crisis or War Comes" (based on the pamphlets of the mid 20th-century): Om krisen eller kriget kommer, distributed nationwide, including this (given here in translation):

Every statement that the resistance has ceased is false. Resistance shall be made all the time and in every situation. It depends on You - Your efforts, Your determination, Your will to survive. 

*****

The Akershus Resistance Museum, Oslo

The museum we toured at the 17th century Akershus fortress on the bluffs above Oslo harbour was called The Resistance Museum (in English) or Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum (in Norwegian, i.e. Norway's Home Front Museum), telling the story of Norwegians who had stood up to the Nazis and their supporters, most notably to Vidkun Quisling, during the 2nd World War.

At the start of the war, the German naval campaign in the northern seas involved high losses. Hitler had hoped that a short, sharp invasion of Norway would paralyse any resistance, yet the fighting lasted 62 days. Although the outcome was a "crushing defeat" for Norway, it sparked the resistance movement that was to be backed by the whole nation.

On April 9th, 1940, Quisling announced that he had taken control of the Norwegian government, declaring that resistance to German troops was henceforth to be designated a crime, and ordering the officers of the armed forces as well as civil servants to obey this law. In German, the declaration read:

Aufruf der Regierung an Volk und Wehrmacht, jeden Widerstand gegen die deutschen Truppen bei der Besetzung des Landes zu unterlassen.

A copy of this was pinned by the spike of a bayonet to a heap of guns near the entrance to the exhibition. It went on to demand "loyale Zusammenarbeit [...] mit den deutschen Befehlhabern" (= faithful cooperation with the German commanders). The German authorities were clearly uncertain about whether this would work, trying to enforce their improvisatory rules by means of bullying tactics, like insecure schoolboys playing games:

Zum Zeichen der Bereitschaft zur Zusammenarbeit ist auf den militärischen Anlagen, denen sich die Truppen nähern, neben der Nationalflagge die weisse Parlamentärflagge zu zeigen ...

Meaning: As a sign of willingness to cooperate, the military compounds which [German] troops approach must fly the white parliamentary flag alongside the national flag ...

I also found the following in the museum, headed UNDERGROUND:

Open resistance was the natural reaction of a community based on law. Norwegians, however, were soon forced to the conclusion that their struggle against a ruthless enemy would have to be organised in secret if it was to prove effective. This resistance was labelled "illegal" by the Germans. The Resistance movement proudly adopted this term: from now on, the eyes of all patriotic Norwegians, "illegal" received the cachet of legality.

In other words, normal civic obedience in such times of stress is turned upside down. Perhaps this has modern relevance!

Where the Norwegian merchant navy went in World War II

The attempted nazification of schools also failed. In the Autumn of 1940 the Nazi régime demanded that teachers teach propaganda. They refused to cooperate. A decree from Quisling in 1942 stated that all teachers must enrol in a National Socialist organisation. Again, the teaching profession resisted this pressure almost to a man. These rebels were supported by the church, the universities and by "hundreds of thousands" of Norwegian parents. Quisling consequentially closed down the schools, arresting every 10th teacher. Many were sent to forced labour camps in the harsh north, to remote Kirkenes on the Arctic coast.

The museum includes recordings of the heartening speeches made by Churchill to the British people in those dark days. In Norway too, courage was needed on both land and sea.

Model of camouflaged resistance quarters

Resistance posts were established in the forests, their prefabricated sleeping quarters camouflaged with branches on the roofs.

In January 1944, Quisling's so-called Minister of Justice proposed to the German Waffen-SS that 75,000 Norwegian troops be deployed with the German army on the Eastern Front. The Norwegian Nazis were therefore trying to get all able-bodied men born in 1921 and '22 to register "for work of national importance". The Norwegian resistance intercepted the proposal and planned a nationwide campaign to prevent this from happening, persuading "Labour Service" recruits to ignore the summons to report for service. Ordering these men into hiding, the Resistance destroyed the call-up premises in Oslo and sabotaged the register. In the end only a few hundred men were recruited.

At the end of the war, Quisling, whose name became synonymous with "traitor", got his comeuppance, being condemned and executed by firing squad at the place that had been his headquarters, here, at the Akershus Fortress. In another twist of historical irony, his family house eventually became Oslo's Holocaust Museum. His wife Maria survived until 1980.

A film about Beethoven's ghost

It is set in Ottawa, filmed over the course of a year at a private home here and at Elmwood School (a posh and old-fashioned independent school for girls) in Rockcliffe Park. (I've been inside Elmwood and know people involved with the school, so it all looked familiar.) One scene takes place at the National Arts Centre downtown, and there are some outdoor scenes shot in the local parks and woodland. At the end of the film an aerial sequence was filmed from a drone.

This is how the creator of the film sums up the plot:

A 12-year-old disenfranchised girl is visited by the ghost of Beethoven because he can’t stand the way she is destroying his music at the piano. Both her mom and her music teacher have failed to raise her musical interest level. Meanwhile, her friends have been trying to lure her to the soccer field or to practice gymnastics — without much response. It’s the power of music and Beethoven’s bombastic belligerence which shakes Sarah out of her doldrums and leads her into a local piano competition where she plays his Moonlight Sonata. Sarah is rejuvenated by these life experiences and is finally able to celebrate with her friends on the soccer field.

Sarah MacDougall Meets the Ghost of Beethoven is the title of this film. I was in the audience in Freiman Hall at the university when Music and Beyond screened it, and when the director Kevin Reeves (who also conducts a local choir) answered questions about it. It was fascinating to hear him explain how he prepared for the at-home scenes, where the girl is practising the Beethoven pieces on her piano:

...most of it was shot in my living room, around the piano, where Beethoven coaches Sarah, yelling at her frequently. For nearly a year I had seven windows covered in black, like a studio, so that we could control the light for the piano scenes. We even had to simulate a massive lightning storm.

The ghost, played by one of Mr. Reeves' friends, well cast in the part and charismatic, especially once he'd donned the wig, apparently, enters the story quite early and from then on plays the dominant role in it. There are some recognisable actors. Julian Armour, Music and Beyond's Director, plays the part of the music teacher, Mr. Edwards. "Call me Tom!" he says, in a scene with the girl's anxious mother. He plays his own personality, but is just right in this role. The mother is played by another friend of the director's.

The girl herself was well coached and could play the piano very musically too. Her own schoolmates (from the school's Drama Club!) acted as her schoolmates in the film. Because the project took a year, there were times when the actresses had grown up a year between one scene and the next, but the fading in from one sequence to the next was so cleverly done that I didn't notice. "Sarah" hugs the ghost in the scene where she says goodbye to him, and tells him she loves him, a touching moment. There is of course a didactic message in this story. At the end of it, on the sports field, the girl lists all the other classical composers she'd like to discover. In future, I'm sure the film will regularly appear as a teaching tool.

Mr. Reeves has a twinkling eye and a great sense of humour. At one moment, in the scene played at the NAC, another recognisable Ottawa musician and personality, Matthew Larkin, is mistaken for Beethoven's ghost, because (in reality, and especially when seen from behind) he has similar hair.

I and the old gentleman sitting beside me chuckled throughout and thoroughly enjoyed this event.

In case you'd like to watch the film or skim through it yourself, I attach the whole YouTube recording here:

Caroline and the Despax family

Unlike the last concert I described, which I was immediately before this one, with a brisk walk between the two venues on that hot day, the 5 o'clock event at All Saints was easy to watch, easy to follow, and easy on the ears. It is always a great pleasure to see the young Quatuor Despax in action, they are siblings with a graceful way of playing together and encouraging one another. Being a French speaking ensemble from Gatineau, I daresay they have a preference for French music. 

For this performance they were joined by Caroline Léonardelli, Ottawa's best known harpist. She was born in France, and most of the programme was by French composers: Marcel Grandjany's Aria in the Classic Style, Debussy's Danse sacré et danse profane), then the impressionistic Féerie: Prélude et Danse --- two movements of a suite by Marcel Tournier, from 1912. Here are the performers, playing this music a couple of years ago:

The concert concluded with the Prelude, Aria and Rondeau from Suite Lyrique, by John Rutter, that very British, very popular composer, whose style often seems (to me) cloyingly sweet. The Aria was obviously inspired by listening to Bach. The following is a recording for harp and orchestra, rather than harp and String Quartet:

 The Rondeau had moments of originality where the harmonic progressions were not quite so predictable. 

A disconcerting experience

Usually I know what I am going to be listening to; this time I didn't. For some reason, getting exhausted or blasée after so many other concerts in the festival, I'd forgotten to bring a printout of their programme with me when I arrived at the concert hall to hear the prestigious Borodin Quartet play, last week. I had the vague recollection that something by Schubert was going to be performed.

When the four Russian gentlemen began playing the first item, my first (correct) impression was that this wasn't Schubert, or if it was, it must be early Schubert. Puzzled, I noted "multiple variations on a folksy theme, dance rhythms" but that didn't seem to be an adequate description of this music, during which the musicians kept stopping and starting with quite long pauses between the short movements, or whatever they were. Not a conventional string quartet by any means.

The Moscow Conservatory in 1940

The second item was similarly confusing, again with big pauses (no applause) between the mumerous sections of whatever we were hearing. They played faultlessly, but the music left me rather cold, perhaps because, sitting near the front, I was put off by the lack of eye-contact between the first violinist and the other quartet members on stage, so different from the way the younger Bennewitz Quartet had interacted with one another. In general, the body-language of the Borodin Quartet is severe: very little swaying to the music, no smiles. Either the leader of the group is emotionally inhibited, or it is not the done thing to be demonstrative in their milieu (the Moscow Conservatory). Or were they simply too tired, from having to play while jet lagged. Their faces remained terribly serious even when bowing to the audience's applause.

After the interval a more traditional string quartet was played, with seemingly more depth to it. I recognised parts of the music, but once again failed to identify it. It wasn't till I reached the door to the next concert of the day that I got the chance to look at the programme --- the attendant at the table let me take a photo of it! --- that I realised that what I had been failing to recognise was Schubert's Rosamunde Quartet, D.804, some of which was based on the Rosamunde Overture.

The two items in the first half of the concert had been suites, Tchaikovsky's Op. 39, a Children's Album, and a medley of rather similar Minuets (5 of) and Trios (6 of) by Schubert. No wonder I had lost count of all the "movements"!

The goose with the bad leg

This story appeared on my page on Facebook last week, but for the record, I'm repeating it here.

My first post went as follows:

Chris, with two neighbours accompanying him, is driving a goose with a broken leg to the wild bird hospital. The goose is in a cardboard box with a towel round it. So long as it doesn't get out and flap around in our car, all will be well. 

What had led to this was that a Cathcart Street neighbour, Sandra, with a couple of friends along, had come across the bird in our local park and had approached us when we were out walking, asking for suggestions of what to do about it. Then I'd remembered, from an incident where a small bird had knocked itself out by flying into one of our windows recently (later recovering, I'm glad to say), that there is a place where you can get advice in such situations: the Safe Wings Ottawa website. It gives a "Bird Emergencies" phone number (613-216-8999) which Chris had rung, and the person taking the call had recommended the procedure described above.

When he got home again, Chris added his own description of the experience:

 Just in case you find a goose with a broken leg tomorrow, here's what you have to do.

1. Find some competent women, one of whom has a large towel.
2. Get a large cardboard box, preferably with a lid. 
3. Get one of the competent women to approach the goose carefully and place the towel over its head. It may object to this. 
4. Wrap the goose in the towel and put it into the box. 
5. Do not allow the goose to get out of the box. 
6. Put the box and one competent woman on the back seat of the car. 
7. Put another competent woman who has a GPS app on her 'phone in the passenger seat and allow her to lead you to the place that takes in broken geese. Do not kill and eat the goose although the competent woman in the back, from Iran, will tell you that that is what they do there. 

That led to a few tongue-in-cheek comments from my friends & relations about whether it would have been a good idea, or not, to kill and cook the goose, rather than rescuing it by taking it to hospital.

Anyway, a couple of days later, we got a thank you in the mailbox from Sandra (who rode in the car with Chris) saying,

Good news: the leg was not broken. Instead fishing line was embedded in its leg. It had been there a while, skin growing over it, the leg infected and inflamed. Anouk removed the fishing line. She said it took a long time; [she] administered an antiseptic on it and the next day [the goose was] taken to the wildlife sanctuary. It will take a long time to heal. They were appreciative of our efforts.

More about Maine

"Whenever I hear of places with names like Pretty Marsh, I wonder if there's another town called Ugly Swamp, just down the road." said a witty friend of ours, when he saw a picture I'd taken of the Pretty Marsh on Mount Desert Island in Maine last month. It was all attractive, though.

We landed at Bar Harbor airport, BHB, crossing the water on the final approach in what Chris calls "squirrel-y" winds (ahead of a storm front) after an exciting flight from Ottawa on Sunday, June 23rd, via Sherbrooke and Bangor. Sherbrooke to Bangor had taken half an hour less than estimated, because we'd been allowed a direct heading across the non-active Military Operations Area we might have had to avoid, and because of a tailwind of 50 knots, we'd made an unprecedented 150 knot ground speed. I'm glad the flight was that much shorter. It was turbulent up there, due to the gusts. The speed of our journey meant that we landed at BGR well ahead of our given arrival time at the immigration point. Fortunately, the border guard was friendly, allowing us out of the plane immediately and hardly glancing at our passports, let alone asking a heap of official questions. We appreciated that. The last hop from Bangor to Bar Harbor also threw us around in the air.

View from outside our room at the Acadia Sunrise Motel

BHB (officially named Hancock County airport) is actually 12 miles away from Bar Harbor, in a township called Trenton. Having studied the map before we came I had booked us into a motel hardly more than walking distance from the airport but a long way from anywhere else, so the first thing we did on arrival was to pick up a car. The rental was expensive, probably because many of their usual clients land in private jets to pop into their 35-room cottages on the coast, and can afford anything. The Acadia Sunrise Motel was not of that ilk, but the polite staff there gave us a room for $69 (US dollars) with a bath and everything else we needed, apart from breakfast; we drove into the "village" of Bar Harbor for that, down Bar Harbor Road, crossing the causeway onto Mount Desert Island, the largest island off the coast of Maine. We did this drive several times.

The island's rather odd name comes from the 17th century French explorer Samuel de Champlain who called it l’isle des monts-déserts when, sailing by, he noticed the bare, rocky summits of these hills, nowadays the Cadillac Mountain area of the Acadia National Park. Mount Desert has been a hideaway or playground for the wealthier residents of New England since the 19th century. In 1947 a great fire raged across the island forests, destroying most of the posh cottages; many were never rebuilt.

The Egg Rock Light

The bay we sailed across on June 25th (Tuesday morning) --- from the dock below the Atlantic Oceanside hotel, with a party of old folk on a coach trip from Pennsylvania --- is known as Frenchman's Bay. We were on a pleasure boat called The Acadian that took us round the Porcupine Islands, through calm water and, round a headland of Mt. Desert Island, into choppier water --- "It's like a roller coaster here sometimes!"  which inclines to make passengers queasy --- beyond which the open Atlantic could be seen. Woollen blankets on board kept the cold wind out. Swinging back round, with the waves calming down again, we headed toward the Egg Rock with the Egg Rock Light on it. Here was a colony of seals, flopping about amongst the seaweed and looking from the distance amazingly like smooth, pale brown rocks. I noticed a couple of those "rocks" shuffling into the water for a swim, but most were sleepy, too lazy for swimming, except for the young ones already in the water with their whiskered noses poking out. An American astronaut had been the lighthouse keeper's son, on this island. The commentator kept up his educational spiel from the top deck. Formerly a high school teacher, he did this with plenty of humour, lecturing about how a lobster gets into a lobster pot, demonstrating with a plastic model. "And if you examine its claws closely you can work out where the lobster comes from. Look, here we are: Made in China!"

Back at the islands in Frenchman's Bay, now sailing close to their cliffs, we could see that these rocks are stratified, with very ancient layers at the bottom, Precambrian. I don't know much about geology; that is what our knowledgeable commentator said. The rocks had formed into a natural bridge at one point. Early settlers tried to inhabit the islands, a good defensive position, but what they could do there, other than fish, was limited. Now they are called the Porcupine Islands because they look like those animals from a distance. The cliffs here and on the main island are the home of bald eagles; we saw several perching by their nests.

The Porcupine Islands, seen from above Bar Harbor (Wikimedia image)

At low tide, one of the Porcupine Islands can be accessed on foot. It's not a good idea to linger there for long. We saw the seabed starting to appear, at sunset on our third evening there.

Bar Harbour in the early evening

During the two days we were on Mount Desert Island, we explored it by car and on foot, Bar Harbor itself, pleasant to walk around, with its Shore Path, parks and gardens, well appointed eateries and so on, the beach at Seal Harbor, the small towns of Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor with their marinas, along the scenic road up Somes Sound and down the other side to Bass Harbor Head, where an old lighthouse stands on the rocks. We left the car there for a walk to the lighthouse, not much of a walk, and the rocks were crowded with sightseers. We did get the Pretty Marsh to ourselves until a party of kayakers turned up, but again could only walk a few paces along the rocky shore, no trails there.

At Seal Harbor, Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Road by Somes Sound

To hike properly, maybe we should have used the trails of the Acadia National Park, paying the hefty entrance fee and finding a parking spot, but as we could see from the lines of glinting vehicles visible on the roads there, this would have been difficult on this sunny day, perhaps impossible, certainly frustrating and time consuming, which was not what we wanted. We decided not to bother, and kept driving. It would be a good idea to return in the off-season, although that could mean encountering fog or high winds.

By the shore at the Lamoine State Park

We wondered if Elsworth would be worth seeing on the mainland, but there was not a lot there. In the end we discovered the Lamoine State Park, beyond Trenton, which did have a reasonable trail, allowing us a walk through the trees and parkland, at East Lamoine, where there was a deserted pebbly beach, a quiet campsite, and a jetty.

I have already described our return to Ottawa in a previous blog post.