Madeira - Overview

 

I've probably said before that Madeira has been on my bucket list for a long time so I was pleased to spend a week there and 'tick it off'. It was a bit of a spontaneous decision to go; a combination of a voucher from BA for our cancelled Christmas in Canada, that we were running out of time on, the BA sale for which we were getting e-mails on what seemed like a daily basis and an overwhelming desire to see some sun without having to fly for too long to find it. Madeira was a good fit we thought. 

As it happens it wasn't as warm as I would have liked, we were maybe two weeks too early for that, and the tourist infrastructure in Madeira is very built up and getting more so by the month apparently. To that extent I wish we'd gone there twenty years ago when there were many fewer hotels, and much less concrete. That said when you get out of Funchal the island is very beautiful and well worth seeing, and to that you  can add friendly people and lovely food - especially the cake. 

I didn't take a photo of our rom, which was remiss of me as it was very nice, large, with a lovely balcony and some basic cooking facilities, that we didn't use except for making coffee, but this is the view from the balcony towards the rest of the hotel

It really was very pretty and the gardens were quite large so that you didn't feel that you were on the main road into Funchal, even though we were. There was also a lovely area inside that they called the Winter Garden which was very reminiscent of some places we had seen in Andalucía

Some day by day posts coming up over the next few days. 

Readng Round Up Part 2 - The Posh Stuff

 So lets start with Maggie O'Farrel's Hamnet. Apologies that I can't find a picture of this one; I thought I had taken one but if I did it's not leaping to the eye. 

Loads of people I know have raved about Hamnet, which is about Shakespeare,  his wife and their son who died. I can sort of seen why. It's beautifully written, I thought a bit overwritten until  I had let myself relax into the style, That said I had a huge issue with it, which is the way that Shakespeare's wife is portrayed.  I am sick to the back teeth of historical novels where the main female protagonist is portrayed as some sort of fey seer, as well as a whiz with natural remedies. It has become a cliche.My sympathies were all with the elder daughter Susanna who was embarrassed by her mother's inability or unwillingness  to organise a household in a conventional way. Not that I'm necessarily a slave to convention, especially when it comes to housekeeping, but  there's a difference between not doing something just because everyone else does it, and not dong something and  ending up with chaos and dirt. Some nice moments though and the descriptions of how people express grief in different ways were excellent. Glad I've read it, not rushing off to find anything else she has written.  

Then, as previously mentioned, there was The Hare with Amber Eyes. This was recommended to me by several people because of my Vienna trip. It's a long way from the things I normally read, and certainly twenty years ago I wouldn't have given it the time of day. Non-fiction, written by a posh rich bloke about his researches into his posh rich family, and my reactions would have been, research your family all you want but don't expect me to subside it by buying your book, I don't expect people to fund my hobbies. And yes, I realise that's very reductionist. 

In the event I dd enjoy the book, which is structured around the travels within his family of a collection of Japanese netsuke originally purchased by a relative in Paris n the latter half of the C19, and which subsequently travelled to Vienna, to Tokyo and thence back to London into the author's own keeping, at  the beginning of the C21.The family concerned were the Ephrussi; enormously rich Jews whose fortune was founded originally on  trading grain from Odessa and who went on to rival the Rothschilds in the scope of their business interests and  wealth.  

I learned lots. In particular I earned that the oft repeated 'fact'  that the Jews of Austria and Germany were the most integrated in Europe is a glib meaningless cliche which I will never now repeat. Because they weren't integrated, they were tolerated, and they were tolerated for their wealth and because their presence couldn't be denied or ignored.The men had comfortable busy lives in which their Jewishness was barely an inconvenience. It was different for the women though, who were not so much part of Viennese female society as operating  their own parallel one. And at the first opportunity most of the movers and shakers of Austrian society were more than happy to seize the liberty afforded them by the Anschluss to terrorise, loot from and expel their Jewish neighbours. The Austrians do not come out of this book well, and for me their conduct after the war towards those few Jews who expressed a desire to return to Vienna (although who knows why they would want to!) was almost as despicable as their conduct during the supremacy of the Reich. 

But, but, but.... here's the thing I trip over. I can't bring myself to have a huge amount of sympathy for the exiled refugee Ephrussi. There's very poignant passage in the book about how, after trying for days and weeks to get together the money to buy and bribe the necessary papers out of Austrian officialdom, and a long and uncomfortable train journey, the patriarch of the Viennese branch of the family lands in Kent with only a single suitcase to his name. The thing is, millions of his fellow Jews ended up travelling on  trains in the opposite direction, with a single suitcase only to end up in Belsen/Birkenau or Auschwitz or Sobibor. When they got off their trans it was the end of the line in more ways than one. I appreciate that the escape of every single Jew from the horrors of nazi Europe was a small and significant victory, and goodness knows I don't want to suggest that I'd rather he hadn't made it. But overall the widespread Ephrussi family generally managed to escape the clutch of the Nazis wherever in Europe they were settled and it's a stark and unavoidable fact that they were able to do so largely because of their wealth. Most of it was taken away, quickly and efficiently by the Nazis, and that was unjust and indefensible, but the fact remans that their money and their international business contacts meant that most of them survived, while the less well off and less well connected members of their community were shipped in their millions to extermination camps. Money really does talk, even in the most extreme of circumstances. 

Reading Round Up Part 1 - The 'Tecs.

 It must seem that I haven't got very far with the pile of books I designated as holiday reading back at the end of December since they haven't been mentioned much - bar Stone Blind which I reviewed enthusiastically in January and the book on Egon Schiele. I have however read several more of them and another couple of 'off pile' ones too, so here goes with the crime ones. 

Basically this means the trio of Sophie Hannah's Poirot novels from the pile plus a random Ann Cleeves. Not quite random enough as it turned out; I bought it at he airport on the way to Funchal and I hadn't got very far into it before I realised I had read it before. On the upside, although I remembered characters I didn't remember the plot. This is it

I probably enjoyed it more this time around to be honest as I am more appreciative of Cleeves' ability to conjure up atmosphere and place these days, whereas previously I read detective novels purely for the plot and the characters and found what I would then have called 'boring superfluous description' - well, boring and superfluous. It's a Vera Stanhope novel, the second of the series and perhaps if I'm ever really stumped for something to read I should revisit more of them; as I've mentioned before they've never been a favourite but perhaps I was missing something. 

The only thing I was missing with the Sophie Hannah Poirots was the reason why (almost) everyone raves about them. They were pretty dreadful. I didn't review them one by one because having read the first one and not enjoyed it very much, I thought I would wait until I had read the others because sometimes it takes writers a while to get into a new series and they improve as time goes by.  These did not improve. The main faults I found were the same as I found with Hannah's own novels; over complicated plots, to the point of them becoming simply non-credible, and very weak characterisation. You might think that the latter fault wouldn't really matter in a pastiche Poirot since Christie is often lambasted for ignoring character in favour of plot, but Christie was a better writer of character than she is often given credit for. OK, maybe a lot of the people in her novels were stereotypical, but they were credible stereotypes, and there is a reason that stereotypes exist ....

The plot in the first one was ludicrous, and there were so many wrong solutions offered that I can't remember who actually was responsible for the crime. The second one had a character with Victim hanging over his head like a red flag from the word go. I can't remember who killed him, and I don't really care. The third one stretched my credulity rather further than it was willing to go and had a truly cop out ending. 

Rather than send these to the charity shop I have donated them to the library so that lots of people can have access to them, rather than just a solitary purchaser in a charity shop. They are very highly thought of and were critically well reviewed when they came out, so maybe it's me. But given all the wonderful crime writers that  are currently out there  I think Hannah was an odd choice by the Christie Estate to write these. 

Friday was a Day for Finishing Things

 And hurrah for that.

I finished a jigsaw puzzle. When I was in denial last winter about how bad my eyes were getting I attempted several jigsaws and was forced to give up on them as I really couldn't see sufficient detail on the pieces to recognise what they were. I've been trying several of these again recently; the one of my sisters that I finished just before we went away, the current one started this morning, and this one finished on Friday.

I'm a huge Anne of Green Gables fan, for no reason that I can think of particularly and I was thrilled when my grandsons bought me this last Christmas. I wasn't so thrilled when I tried to do it, and tbh I wasn't so thrilled with it this time around either, except that I managed to finish it, which was an achievement. It's not of particularly good quality; the combination of the shiny finish and the extremely thin cardboard from which it's made mean that the pieces fall part from one another at the slightest provocation, honestly  I could swear some of them moved away just because I  looked at them. As such I don't see me ever doing it again, but I won't be giving it away either since it was a gift from my grandchildren. 

Next up was a book 

and I'm not going to say to  much about it in this post as I am planning a Reading Round Up  one shortly. 

And finally there was a pair of socks which were part of the Sock-A-Long I was hosting on a Ravelry group and which are a pair from my list of craft plans for the year. Litlle Paddocks socks, like I made for my sister at Christmas. They are lovely and I used up some stash yarn to make them so double hurrah for that. 

It was quite a satisfying day. 

I went away, and so

it follows, as night follows day, that I bought some wool. Two lots. 

I bought some in Glasgow. We walked past The Yarn Cake several times going to other places so it was inevitable that I would go in and buy some wool eventually. The fact that it was sock yarn was totally down to the OH who looked in the window and said 'Isn't that West Yorkshire Spinners Kingfisher there?'. Well you could have knocked me down with a feather, not only because he recognised it, but because had you asked me I wouldn't have been able to tell you that WYS even did a Kingfisher colourway. So in we went, and out we came with the following

The WYS is at the top and the only reason that it looks smaller than the other two balls is that by the time I got around to taking a photo I had already cast on with it. I did in fact take it away with me and yesterday I finished these

He's really pleased with them. 

The other two I got because one (the middle one) was really pretty and the bottom one was something which is about as easy to find as hens teeth, being one of the Opal Vincent Van Gogh special edition colours from last spring. I scoured the web trying to get my hands on one of this collection wen it first came out, honestly, any one of them would have done, but everywhere was sold out. No idea how Antje came to have some after several months but I was delighted to see it, and double delighted because of all the collection this was the one I hankered after the most - Bedroom at Arles. I could hardly leave it there. And as it happens I had a full loyalty card so I only paid for two balls instead of three and I've no idea which was the so-called free one, and I don't really care. 

There was a wool shop in Funchal. In fact there are two and I think the one we went into was the new one. It was certainly very nice. I wanted some Portuguese wool and I came out with this

It's beautifully soft and strong and eventually the blue/lilac ones will be socks and the cream and rust ones either fingerless or flip top mitts. Not this week though. 

As an aide memoire for myself I will just record that not long before we went away I did actually donate 1300g of yarn to  a worthy cause. So I'm still ahead. 

It's a short one

Partly because I am coping with a bad flare up of a chronic health condition and partly because I have exhausted my admin spoons for today already by gathering, collating and sending out info regarding a Charles Rennie Mackintosh weekend in Glasgow that I am coordinating for a group of friends in May. Also I am rather depressed about the First Minister's somewhat unexpected resignation this morning. That said I really need to get back into the habit of blogging so on the grounds that a short post is better than no post at all - 

-  this is a slightly out of focus photograph of my first ever Pastel de Nata, the Portuguese custard tart. The hotel included them in the breakfast buffet every day with the result that, although this was my first, it was far from being my last. 

There may well be pictures or mentions of more cake over the coming days. You can say what you like about French patisserie, but I defy anyone to do a better all round job of making cake than the Portuguese. 

Squeezed in just before we left

 was this

I was really pleased it got done before we went, although it was a close run thing. I borrowed this one from my sister and although it is a lovely image I have to say that if it were mine it would be going to the library because it was quite challenging and  I don't think  I would ever want to do it again. Luckily that's not my call to make and I will be returning it to my sister as and when. Probably in August. 

Meanwhile we are, obviously, back from Madeira - a day late thanks to the weather and I look forward to blogging all about our trip over the next few days. As I only took my phone with which to take photographs, this is dependent on the OH demonstrating how to upload photos from my phone to my laptop, together doubtless with  few sighs and eye rollings. I do need to delete some too, there were a lot of what I call 'snap and hope' pictures because I couldn't always see my phone screen clearly. I don't think I am a natural phone photographer, if you see what  mean.