Cornflower

King and country

    During a rare break in the weather last week we took a walk on Uig beach, the place where the Lewis Chessmen were discovered in 1831. This oak sculpture of the King was carved in 2006 by Stephen Hayward and erected on the path down to the sands.

    Apparently, these views inspired the setting for Arthur Ransome's last (finished) Swallows and Amazons adventure, Great Northern?, when the author was a guest at nearby Uig Lodge in 1945 and '46.

Note the absence of people.

Wide blue yonder

    A souvenir of our stay in Lewis last week, a shallow bowl and a small vase from Borgh Pottery (source of the mug, on a previous visit).

Where is Postman Pat when you need him?

 

    This is always a very positive, upbeat blog, and I have no plans to change that, but today the usually calm Cornflower is fuming because of the inefficiency of companies whose job it is to deliver goods.

    Steam is coming out of my ears because yesterday I ordered an item from a well known, upmarket British clothing company, and needing it quickly I paid extra for their Priority delivery option. The lady I spoke to there couldn't have been more pleasant and helpful and she put herself out to see that my order went through quickly so that the package would meet the day's despatch deadline and I would get it today, Friday.

    Their despatch email gave me tracking details, so this morning I went to the website of the courier company, Parcelforce (for it is they), to discover that it was 'delivered' and 'signed for', ostensibly by me, at 10.26am - but I have been at home all morning and nothing other than ordinary mail was delivered, and no signature required.

    I duly phoned Parcelforce and after going through a menu of options and giving details to a robot, eventually spoke to two members of staff and was told they'd contact the driver, find out what had happened and get back to me. Half an hour later I had heard nothing more from them so I checked the tracking page again to discover the status had changed and the parcel was now 'held' at a local Post Office: 'addressee advised to collect'.

    I called Parcelforce again and when I asked why this was and how I could get my goods was told, somewhat rudely, "I don't know, I'm looking at a computer screen in Bristol". That member of staff gave me the number of the Edinburgh depot (she didn't offer to put me through directly), I phoned them and the lady I spoke to there confirmed that the package was at the Post Office and would not now be delivered until Monday (this was at 11.20am, Friday). When I pointed out that mine was a Priority parcel and I had paid extra to ensure I got it today, the lady offered to contact the driver to see what could be done. She called back some ten minutes later to advise that someone was en route to the Post Office to collect the parcel and deliver it to me - hopefully within the hour.

    It has now arrived. I asked the man who brought it what had happened and he told me that he had been drafted in from another route to collect it and bring it to me because 'the agency driver' who should have brought it had failed so spectacularly to do so. (Ructions are predicted.)

    I've emailed the company from whom I made my purchase because I felt they should know how badly their courier had performed, all the more galling in the light of the exemplary service they themselves gave me. Had I not tracked the parcel (and followed that with phone calls) but simply waited in in good faith, getting on with other things, expecting delivery at some point today, or alternatively had I gone out and left another member of the family to sign for the parcel, I would not now have my goods.

    Vexing as this is, it's also all too common - I've had similar experiences with other delivery companies, all of whom are letting down their primary customers - big online retailers who offer an otherwise very speedy service - and the consumers themselves. Why is it so difficult to get goods from A to B, and to what extent does this second-rate effort affect the trust in and reputation of retailers themselves, I wonder - particularly damaging, I should have thought, in this poor economic climate.

Perennial pea

    No scent, but a pretty thing.

White frills

The first of the sweet peas, this is White Ensign.

Red dots

Shirley poppies, the first of the 'meadow' flowers, are out at last.

Artist craftsman

 

 

    If I have time to pop in before it closes I shall visit Maker: the Malcolm Appleby exhibition currently on at The Scottish Gallery. Follow that link to see some items and the catalogue itself which illustrates the range and beauty of the work of this silversmith/engraver.

    Shown here is the design for the limited edition exhibition bag - at £3 that may be the only piece I can afford.

    (Malcom Appleby's website is currently under construction, but you can read about him and see more of his work, e.g. the Scots Pine Bracelet, at Thistle & Broom.)

Towery city ...

"... and branchy between towers. Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded...",

not to mention gargoyle-dotted.

    That's a line or two from Gerard Manley Hopkins, and a few more shots of Magdalen Tower from my recent day in Oxford,

posted because we're talking about Oxford crime fiction on Cornflower Books.

Words and birds and bicycles

 

    Over on Cornflower Books today I have a special guest: novelist Suzanne Joinson is with me to talk about her new book, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, and to give us a fascinating insight into the creative process.

    Do please join us.

 

Sunny spells

    Let's scatter the ever-present British rain clouds with a few things to brighten the day, starting with the painting above, a portrait of the artist's wife and her sister with cornflowers, by Igor Grabar (1914). The cornflowers in my 'meadow' are still in tight bud, and I doubt I'll have enough to cut as many as the ladies here have done, even if the sun does eventually bring them out, so I'll make do with these bunches of beautiful blue.

   Elsewhere:

    Deborah is back at her lovely house in Provence, and the sun's streaming in. If you haven't already come across it, do read her latest novel The Lantern; it evokes that part of the world beautifully and it's a super read - there's more on it here. (It so happens that Harriet paid her first visit to France last week, staying in Aix-en-Provence. She has come home completely smitten with all things French, not least the climate.)

    Charlie is making fabulously photogenic, summery soup. Any post which can combine pretty ceramics, gorgeous food, a wonderful book and sublime music is a must, and Charlie's are always a treat to read.

    If you're a fan of Paul Hollywood's and have your eye on his new book How to Bake (there's a taste of it here and here), go and watch him make some Stilton and grape flatbreads in this short video, and don't blame me if he makes you hungry.

The rain it raineth everyday

    Maule's Corner after Rain, Edinburgh (1925), by Robert Easton Stuart.

    Maule's department store (the large, lit building on the right) was later known as Binn's and is now House of Fraser, the woman in the foreground is approaching the Caledonian Hotel, but that part of Princes Street between it and the entrance to Charlotte Square opposite (in which you can see the dome of West Register House, then St. George's Church) has been much altered due to the city's ongoing and highly controversial tram works.

    The rain continues to fall.

Any man for Nyman?

 

    Harriet and I often swap music - I put her on to songs I think she will like and she does the same for me. Today she steered me towards The Cinematic Orchestra and To Build a Home, the chorus of which is lovely, I think (go from 1.39 in this abbreviated version), and which reminded me of Regina Spektor.

    Listening again, I caught something of Michael Nyman about it, and he's getting an airing just now being composer of the week on Radio 3 - he's also getting a roasting from Michael White on the Telegraph culture blog, and so I wondered whether he was a Marmite composer: do you love him or hate him? I've been a fan since watching Peter Greenaway films in my student years; Nyman's scores were marvellous (I've yet to hear properly his music for The Piano, though).

    "Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure" said Schopenhauer, and be that as it may, a harmonically pleasing and frequently repeated musical motif (as you find often in Michael Nyman's work) does the trick for me. By way of illustration I'll offer you Time Lapse from A Zed and Two Noughts (the score described by Alex Ross in The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century as giving "a courtly Baroque air to chugging minimalist patterns") or Chasing Sheep is best left to Shepherds from The Draughtsman's Contract.

A Year in the Village of Eternity

 

    Back in the winter months, my lunchtime reading each day was Tracey Lawson's A Year in the Village of Eternity, her account of twelve months in the Italian village of Campodimele, a place whose residents are extraordinarily long-lived and active and who have the gift of living well.

    Every day as I ate a simple sandwich I read about the lengths Tracey's village neighbours go to ensure that everything they eat is seasonal, local, organic, cibo genuino - "an all-encompassing philosophy - a regard for food that requires that produce is grown, harvested, prepared and served with respect for every link in the chain: the land, the produce itself, the people who eat it and the wider environment". Their diet is rich in beans and pulses, vegetables and fruits (eaten at the peak of freshness or preserved for use later), extra-virgin olive oil and red wine, but it's comparatively low in salt and red meat. Add to that the fact that the Campomelani are physically very active, walking almost everywhere, living off the land with all that that entails from harvesting the wood to fire their ovens to tending their gardens and foraging for wild food, or rising early for the daily baking of bread and making of pasta, their labour undertaken willingly for the convivial, sociable meals it results in and the sustenance it provides, and you have not only contented people who seem happy with their lot but who have a far lower than average incidence of cancer, heart disease and obesity.

    "In the countryside, there is always something to do," the ladies say as in July they stone tiny sour amarena cherries to be made into jam or preserved in their own syrup, "a methodical, repetitive task but one that's part of the social fabric of the village". In Campodimele the pattern of the year is set by the seasons and the sun and the phases of the moon; the farming calendar and the festivals of the church also dictate "the irresistible rhythm to which life is lived". Ogni cosa ha il suo momento - everything has its moment -  so whether it's cinnamon-flavoured ricotta tart in March, the tomato harvest and bottling in September, or potatoes for gnocchi in November, there is a time for every ingredient, a season for every dish.

    The book is full of recipes to illustrate the villagers' culinary habits and traditions, but it's their philosophy of life, their modus vivendi, which make it such an engaging and enjoyable read.

A winner and a runner-up

      Congratulations to Roger Federer, a worthy champion; commiserations to Andy Murray who, gracious, articulate and emotional in defeat, enhanced his reputation today.

Hurrah for Marray and Nielsen!

    Did you see the Wimbledon Men's Doubles Final? What a match, and what a marvellous victory for Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen!

(For more of the Wimbledon experience see Anyone for tennis -2.)