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That was Christmas sorted

We don’t really “do” Christmas in our family. But we do make an effort to all get together sometime between Christmas and New Year at my parents’ house, to have a big family dinner and exchange stocking-filler presents. So I stopped off in Kent on my way back from Greece, and my sister and her husband came over to join us. We’re all frankly too old for “proper” Christmas presents, but puzzles, toys, and books always go down well. I was travelling back by train, so had to leave the heavier and bulkier presents with my sister, who will bring them up by car next time she comes to visit. That includes a frankly tasteless present from her – a tissue box holder in the shape of an Easter Island statue head! The tissues come out of his nose! It looks like the poor moai has got a cocaine problem, with his nose running the whole time…… I definitely wasn’t able to find space in my suitcase for that!

My presents to the family were marginally more serious than that – they were mostly pottery commissions I’d taken throughout the year. The most recent pots were ready the week before Christmas, and I packed them up well in bubble wrap and posted them down to my parents, where they arrived in time for me to wrap them up when I got back from Greece. Ethan, the new apprentice at Eastnor Pottery, took some photos of the pots when they first came out of the kiln, which I have shamelessly reproduced here.

Mugs and candlesticks

The candlesticks were a commission from my sister and brother-in-law. As a wedding present, they were given a rather striking glass bottle-stopper, and wanted somewhere to display it. My sister sent me a photo of it, with a tape measure also in the field of view, so that I had some idea of the size required. However, clay shrinks as it dries, by around 10%, give or take, which makes it very difficult to throw something to a specific size.  I ended up throwing seven candlesticks, all with the same basic pattern but varying in size. When I went back to the pottery to turn and decorate them, they had already shrunk a fair amount, and I was able to discard the smallest and largest ones. I painted (in plain cream, as requested) the middle five, and crossed my fingers that one of them would fit the bottle-stopper once they were all fired. I’d never thrown a candlestick shape before, but I had a clear idea in my head of what I wanted to achieve, and I think I got fairly close to it. I also rather like the green and blue stipple effect on the mugs – it’s very simply done, spattering on the blue with a toothbrush, but I think it’s rather effective. It reminds me a bit of duck eggs.

05 01 2014 Gillian photograph Comments Off on That was Christmas sorted Permalink

Roman ruins in the middle of town

One of the things I enjoy about walking round cities built on ancient foundations, is that you can turn a corner and find yourself face-to-face with 2000 year old remains, just sitting there in the middle of the street! That was certainly the case with Thessaloniki. There was a large Roman forum, still right in the middle of the city, which surprisingly had escaped being built on. One of the things I particularly liked about it was the Roman baths – but not any old Roman baths like I’m used to seeing all over the empire. This was actually a set of individual bath tubs, set in a circle, so that you could sit and chat while you were soaking. I’ve seen communal latrines before at Roman sites, but never communal bath tubs.

Roman baths - a circle of individual bath tubs!

Another impressive Roman monument was the so-called Rotunda. It was built by the emperor Galerius around AD300, and was possibly intended to be his mausoleum. It certainly looks very like the existing mausoleums of other Roman emperors, particularly that of Diocletian in Split, who was a contemporary. However, Galerius was never actually buried in it, and within 100 years Christianity became officially tolerated in the Roman empire, and the building was subsequently converted into a church through the addition of an apse. A thousand years later, the Ottomans invaded and converted it into a mosque by adding a minaret. When the Ottomans were kicked out in the late 19th century, it reverted to being a church, and today is dedicated to Ayios Georgios, known to us as St George. Although these days it is mostly a museum, it is still a consecrated church, and occasional services are still held inside it.

The Rotunda of Galerius / Church of St George

It was interesting to think about how the same building had been used, maintained and adapted for over 1700 years, though the specific use changed over time from a pagan building, to a church, then to a mosque, and back to a church again. Rather than knocking down a perfectly serviceable building when the official religion changed, the people just added bits on to the side and kept using it.

03 01 2014 Gillian Day out Comments Off on Roman ruins in the middle of town Permalink

The Royal Tombs

The absolute highlight of the trip for me (as I think for most people, unless they had a frankly unhealthy obsession with early Byzantine basilicas) was the museum at Vergina, displaying the contents of the Macedonian royal tombs. These had been the subject of a superb exhibition at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford in 2011. I had seen that and enjoyed it so much that I really wanted to see the original site – hence my decision to visit Thessaloniki.

The ancient Macedonian city of Aigai, now called Vergina, is about an hour’s drive inland from Thessaloniki. It was the royal burial ground of the Macedonian kings – including one identified as Philip II, and another of a teenager tentatively identified as Alexander IV, respectively the father and son of Alexander the Great. They were both murdered, and buried very elaborately with masses of grave goods in sunken tombs. A few generations later a huge tumulus was erected over the top of a group of the most important tombs, apparently to deter tomb-robbers. I would have thought that instead it would be like highlighting the location with a huge flashing neon sign “Here Be Treasure”! But perhaps the tumulus was so big that the tomb-robbers couldn’t work out how to tackle it. Whatever the reason, the tombs were undisturbed until those modern tomb-robbers, the archaeologists, excavated it in the 1970s. They found beautiful gold funerary wreaths, gold and silver banqueting sets, and complete sets of armour, amongst lots of other grave goods.

The museum is one of the best site museums I’ve been to – it’s been built on the site of the graves, with the tumulus re-erected above it. You can actually walk down the ramp to the entrance to Philip II’s tomb, while his extremely rich grave goods are displayed spot-lit in cases around it. It was rather spine-tingling to be standing on the spot where Alexander the Great buried his father. The only problem was that the museum was very strict about prohibiting photography, so I had to make do with buying postcards to remind me of what I’d seen. I’ve found a photo of one of the wreaths online on the official Visit Greece page. That will have to do to give an impression of the richness. It is made of beaten gold oak-leaves, with acorns nestling in between the leaves. The workmanship was breath-taking, and I spent ages just gazing at this one, and its companions – some of which consisted of golden oak leaves, others of gold myrtle leaves and flowers.

One of the delicate gold funerary wreaths

It was a very interesting museum, well-displayed, and very atmospheric. There was also a small museum shop selling postcards and guide books. It was late afternoon on Christmas Eve, and our coach party descended on the shop just before it closed, all determined to buy souvenirs as we hadn’t been able to take photos. The museum shop, not just here but also the others we visited, had a policy of providing hand-written receipts itemising everything that was bought – including the titles of books and the identification numbers of the postcards (i.e. not just “4 x postcards” but “4 times postcards, numbers 30, 110, 25, 14”. So making one single sale took ages, and coping with a shop-full of eager tourists nearly overwhelmed the poor chap behind the counter! You would have thought that a modern point-of-sale system, with bar-codes and a printed receipt, would be much more efficient. But this was Greece, and they do things their own way there…..

01 01 2014 Gillian art
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Scattering the Ashes on Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, all of the museums and most of the sites were closed – the drawback of going on holiday over Christmas in a Christian country! The group went for a long and rather tiring walk around Thessaloniki – we visited a few historically interesting very early Byzantine  churches in the morning, nipping into them between services.  Then we all were led on a steep walk up to the walled acropolis – the name in itself should have been a hint that the Upper Town would be on top of a hill! The walls though were rather impressive, when we finally reached them.

The walls of the acropolis in Thessaloniki

Unfortunately, it was a very misty day, and there was absolutely nothing to be seen from the view-point just behind where I was standing to take the picture above. The group was tired and hungry at this point – it was 2pm, and we’d been trudging around the sites of Thessaloniki for several hours, without even a coffee break as everywhere was shut. However, our local guide had persuaded a rather good taverna just inside the acropolis to open on Christmas Day to feed us, even though the owner had planned to be shut. He decided to make the best of the fact that he would be working after all, and filled up the rest of his restaurant with his extended family. So our group felt like guests at a huge Greek family Christmas lunch, which was very enjoyable. We had plate after plate of delicious meze, flagon upon flagon of wine, and after a while the ukeleles came out and the owner and his brother-in-law started playing Greek folk music. The waitress, who was the owner’s daughter, danced with her father to Zorba the Greek, with everyone clapping along in time very enthusiastically. It was a lot of fun, and we pretty much forgot the steep climb we’d endured to get there, and the fact that we’d have to walk back down again afterwards!

The sea front at Thessaloniki from the hotel restaurant

Our hotel was on the sea front in Thessaloniki, and later that afternoon, I scattered some of Christopher’s ashes into the sea – just about in the middle of the picture above. Even though we were in the middle of a busy city, it felt a surprisingly tranquil spot, and I think he would have approved.

31 12 2013 Gillian Day out Comments Off on Scattering the Ashes on Christmas Day Permalink

Escaping the Christmas Weather

I find Christmas a very difficult time of the year, and I really don’t want to spend Christmas Day moping about the house on my own. So I was determined to go away again this year. I was feeling a bit less anti-social than I have for the past two years, so decided to join a small group tour rather than doing a completely solo trip. So I started looking for a tour somewhere interesting in Europe that I hadn’t visited before. I ended up choosing a trip to Thessaloniki in Northern Greece, run by my favourite archaeological holiday company, Andante.

We flew out last Monday, on what must have been the leading edge of the storms that started to batter Britain over Christmas. My plane was delayed due to the weather, and when we finally got out onto the taxiway we could see that the runway at Heathrow looked like a river. I swear that the aircraft aquaplaned down the runway – it was certainly the roughest takeoff I’ve ever experienced! I had a very tight connection at Athens, made worse by the delays at Heathrow. In the end I practically ran the length of Athens airport and just got to the departure gate as they made the final call, joining the back of the queue of people already boarding the aircraft. Phew! Tighter and more stressful than I would have liked! Fortunately, my suitcase also made the tight connection, as I wouldn’t have fancied a week in Greece without it!

Thessaloniki and the area around it is a part of Greece I didn’t know at all. It came to prominence with Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, who were then superseded by the Hellenes, the Romans, the Byzantines and the Ottomans. So lots of layers of history and culture all on top of each other. Unfortunately, it was deeply and disappointingly non-photogenic. I’m sure that Christopher would have managed to get lots of interesting photos of small details, but I’m more interested in capturing big panoramic views, of which there were precisely zero. I’ll aim to post some pictures in a couple of days time, when I’ve had time to post-process and crop them, but I don’t think there are any that are particularly spectacular. The weather wasn’t particularly good either – much better than back home of course, but mostly low grey cloud, fog and rain.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself. The group was mostly very congenial (there are always a couple of obnoxious people one tries to avoid, but the group was big enough that I could do so), the guide lecturer knew his stuff, and there were some interesting sites and museums to visit. The food was particularly good – lunch breaks lasted nearly two hours, and consisted of plate after plate of meze (frequently unidentifiable savoury dishes, but always delicious) accompanied by fresh bread and plentiful wine. Since dinner was never less than three courses, and on occasion was up to ten courses, also with unlimited wine, I have been totally overindulging!

30 12 2013 icyjumbo Day out Comments Off on Escaping the Christmas Weather Permalink

Still gradually updating the house

When we moved into our Victorian cottage fifteen years ago or so, it needed complete refurbishment – re-wiring, re-carpeting, and decorating inside and out. But of course we didn’t have enough money to do the complete job, so the more urgent jobs got done first, with the rest following over the years as and when we could afford it.

Yesterday I finally got around to one of the nagging things that’s been on the To Do list for many years – I got an electrician in to fit an extractor fan in the main bathroom. The bathroom has a nice big double-glazed window looking out into the garden, and it’s pleasant to laze in the bath on a summer’s evening with the window open. But it’s far too cold to open the window at this time of year, and if I’ve got shirts or sweaters drip-drying over the bath it gets pretty muggy. So I thought it would be a good idea if I had an extractor fan fitted, making the room more usable all year round.

I thought it would be a fairly straightforward job, and took the day off work yesterday to be home for the electrician. Fortunately, I was paying him for the job, rather than by the hour, as it actually took him all day! Drilling a hole through the wall seemed to take all morning….. However, he seems to have done a good job, and although it was horribly messy at the time, he’s tidied it up well, and I won’t even need to redecorate the bathroom.

Unfortunately, it took him so long that he didn’t have time to do the second job I had lined up for him – to fix the extractor fan in the en suite shower room which has stopped working. He did diagnose the problem – power is getting through, but the fan unit has failed and simply needs replacing – but by then it was too late for him to go to the wholesalers and buy a replacement. I was a bit annoyed, as I had clearly told him I wanted both jobs done, and if he’d been a bit smarter about what order he did things in, they both could have been done in one day. As it is, I’ll have to take more time off in the New Year to get the second fan fixed.

19 12 2013 icyjumbo house Comments (1) Permalink

The Annual Sprout

This week I went from one end of the Malvern pub-grub scale to the other. The pubs for my recent meals with my friends were chosen to have good food, and an atmosphere conducive to a good chat over a few drinks. In contrast, on Wednesday it was the work Christmas Lunch, for the whole extended team, held at a town-centre pub that was clearly chosen for its highly affordable food, cheap wine/beer and the ability to seat 70+ of us in one sitting in its function room. The occasion was very festive and jolly, and the graduates and students did a good job of organising entertainment. My table even won the quiz (though we were perhaps over-competitive, and there was some mobile-phone based cheating going on. Google is your friend on such occasions!) But it is safe to say that the food is unlikely to be the highlight of my Christmas. The service was atrociously slow – over three hours to serve three courses – and the food lived up to its “highly affordable” billing (to quote my boss).

The broccoli and Stilton soup was fairly pleasant, but although there was some mild cheddar grated into it, I could detect no hint of Stilton. The accompanying bread was white sliced. My colleague to my right had pâté with toast as her starter, but left half of it after finding a hair in the pâté. They certainly didn’t stint on the portion size for the turkey dinner – it came piled high on a large plate, and many of my colleagues seemed to enjoy it as they cleared their plates. I was not so keen. There was turkey breast roll (not fresh turkey), a sausage, yorkshire pudding from a packet, roast potatoes ditto, lots of peas, slightly over-cooked carrots and a jug of mass-produced gravy also from a packet. The fish option was exactly the same meal, but without the gravy and with the turkey replaced by a slice of salmon – a less than classic combination! The worst abomination was the Brussels sprouts. I don’t particularly like them anyway, though I force myself to eat one per year as a seasonal gesture. These were so overcooked and mushy that I think they must have been put on to boil in November, to be sure they were ready in time. I just about managed to force one down, but there was no way I could face a second.

After the main course, one of the team came round with a charity bucket, collecting donations in the form of a “greens tax” from anyone who still had greens left on their plate. I successfully argued against the sprouts counting towards that, on the grounds that they weren’t green at all, but rather an unpleasant khaki colour. I did have to pay up though for the virulent green peas that I’d been unable to finish.

At that point, the fire alarm went off, with flashing lights and a very loud klaxon that even drowned out the mangled Christmas songs on the tannoy. It was a false alarm, but I was coming down with a migraine, and that was the final straw. I managed to last until I’d had my dessert (a perfectly pleasant if bland individual Christmas pudding with what was allegedly brandy sauce without any apparent trace of brandy in it) then made my excuses and walked back into work in a rather futile attempt to clear my head. By the time I’d finished the work that absolutely had to be done that afternoon and made it home, I had a raging headache and had to go straight to bed.

It’s good of work to arrange a Christmas meal for us all, and most people seemed to have a good time. It didn’t help that I was on the verge of a migraine, but even if I’d been feeling 100% I wouldn’t have enjoyed the food. I think that if the meal is held at the same pub next year, I’ll find an urgent deadline that I have to work towards to give me an excuse to miss it!

13 12 2013 icyjumbo Day out
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Meals with friends

I’ve been doing a fair amount of catching-up recently with friends, mostly ex-colleagues, over a meal, which has been very enjoyable. First, I met up with a group I used to work with a number of years ago, who have all left the company to join a spin-out which they set up on the science park. They are doing so well that they’ve recently outgrown the incubator units in the science park and have moved into a small factory unit on the industrial park on the outskirts of Malvern. And in the year they’ve been there, they have grown again and had to build a mezzanine floor inside their warehouse building to cope with the additional staff and extra assembly space for their products. It was really good to see them thriving – their Technical Director is an old friend of mine, and he gave me a guided tour of their factory before he and one of his team (also an ex-colleague of mine – we once went on a memorable business trip to Japan together) took me out to lunch at the Swan at Newland. I’ve not been there for years, but can report that the food is pretty good, and it’s got a “proper old-fashioned pub” atmosphere, with a blazing fire.

I’ve also been back to the Inn at Welland, which is the local gastro-pub. Our Head of Sales took me and two of our colleagues out for lunch there the other week to celebrate the second anniversary of his joining the company. The passion-fruit cheesecake dessert was particularly good! I think I need to find more excuses to go back there…

Finally, just last week I met up with three ex-colleagues, and the wife of one of them, for dinner at the Malvern Hills Hotel. We have a regular, though infrequent, arrangement to meet up for dinner, and it was really good to see them again. The waitress came round to ask if everything was ok, at which point I said that, actually, the braised lamb was far too peppery and nowhere near as pleasant as it should be. The guys all laughed, and started reminiscing about the time that I was their boss, and was sent on a management training course which included a module on assertiveness. Apparently, the whole team was horrified that someone would think that giving me assertiveness training would be a good thing!

It’s been very enjoyable to meet up with everyone, particularly accompanied by good food that I’ve not had to cook myself. Although I do occasionally take myself off for lunch on my own, I much prefer to meet up with friends if I’m eating out. And it’s been good to catch up on all their news and gossip.

10 12 2013 icyjumbo Day out
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Facebook Party

You know the parties you sometimes read about in the newspapers? The ones where some naïve teenager advertises it on Facebook, loads of strangers turn up, get drunk and noisily trash the house? Well, I think that’s what the mice were doing last night! There was most definitely a riotous party going on directly above my head, and there were some very loud crashes and bangs from the loft. I know that everything sounds louder and scarier at 2 o’clock in the morning, but some of the crashes were so loud that they really made me jump. I don’t actually know what is in the loft in that part of the house, as it’s pretty difficult to get to (for a human anyway – obviously not for the mice!). But whatever it is has clearly been knocked over.

I’m hoping that what was happening was that the mice had found the bait and were greedily consuming it – it does seem to make them clumsy and therefore louder. If so, things should quieten down again in a day or two. If not, I think I’ll have to move to the spare room for a few nights – I can tolerate a bad night at the weekend, but it’s harder to deal with when I’ve got to go to work.

08 12 2013 icyjumbo house
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An Unseasonal Plague of Flies

I’ve been noticing a fair few very dozy flies in my kitchen this week. It’s far too late in the year for them to be happy, as the temperatures are too cold for them. They are so slow that it’s easy to swat them, but it’s still not pleasant. I think they are another sign of the dead mouse above the larder – the flies presumably have hatched out on the corpse, and are small enough to fly through the air vent into my larder and hence into the kitchen. Yuk!

Fortunately, Martin the pest killer has been around to put more poison down to deal with the new signs of live mice in the loft. He had a good poke around looking for corpses, but although he (and indeed I) could smell them strongly above the kitchen, he couldn’t actually find any. He did though give the loft a good spray with a strong fly-killer, so that should deal with the fly problem at source. I’ll just have to leave the Neutrodol in the larder to deal with the lingering smell of decomposing rodent……

07 12 2013 icyjumbo house Comments (1) Permalink