She would rather have been in Cartagena - or Southgate

It's hard to believe that two years have passed since we heard the awful news that Cherry had developed liver cancer, a situation which,  all too soon after, we knew would only get worse and were forced to realise in fact that the last year of our life together was already half gone. The first casualty of this was a long agreed trip to Cartagena de Indias in Colombia. The organisers had been very generous; business class flights had already been sent us, the hotels booked, the arrangements made. It would have been a return trip as we‘d been to Bogota and Cartagena two years before that. We both rated that trip very highly indeed, having been looked after superbly, and had been really looking forwards to the trip. But of course in the circumstances, we abandoned it without a single regret.

I received a replacement invitation about a year ago and wondered how I would feel going back again and what it would be like to go there without Cherry. Of course,  it was different from the very start as this journey began in Newport not Allington. Our hosts of four years ago were a Colombian admiral and his wife, a lawyer and naval reservist who had spent a lot of the time with Cherry – to the extent of guiding her in a scramble up to a mysterious lake near Bogota where they say much Colombian gold was hidden from the Spaniards. Cherry had really enjoyed the climb up into the mountains it but her hostess got bad altitude sickness ! They were in Cartagena too, though not my hosts, and were really kind saying how sorry they were to hear about Cherry, asking about how I was getting on and being generally solicitous throughout the three days. Last time we stayed in the naval mess in Cartagena where there was no hot water.  This didn’t go down well with Cherry, but this time I was in the Intercontinental hotel where there was.

Otherwise, there were lots of reminders and revisits from our time here together when Manuel, my minder, conducted me around the old city in the ‘downtime.’ The narrow, colourful little streets overhung with the ancient balconies that Cherry loved so much; the Churches – only they were all cursed with coin-operated electric candles so I couldn’t add to the total of lighted candles to her memory that Philippa and I are trying to amass.

 

 There were the little coffee shops and exotic stalls that Cherry  loved to patronise, buying pressies for everyone else,  especially when being conducted around by the usual young female naval officer that she always charmed into all-girls-together complicity, the warm weather and flowers and so on and so forth. Also Cherry did like an arms fair – an opportunity to charms bags, note-books, pens  and other such pressies for the kids out of the  exhibitors. Now I had to do it !

I remember though that she balked a little – as did I to be fair- at clambering up to the truly massive San Felipe castle in the blistering heat and especially its dark and totally claustrophobic little tunnels that were designed to be blown up underneath the feet of attackers who had got over the walls. This time it wasn’t quite so hot. And I started the trek by getting inside the gigantic bronze shoe at the base of the castle. My minder, Manuel, told me it was a memorial to a poet of the town; they say that you immediately lose two pounds weight if you manage to get in and out in one piece. That experience was new. As were some of the others; I don’t think we had been to any of the restaurants that I was taken to this time, including one place where they dance on the tables in the evening. The food was excellent and had it not been for the giant shoes I'm sure I would have come back a few pounds heavier.    

All in all, Colombia has a lot going for it. Since the end of the civil war against the FARC narco-terrorists the country has got much safer, although there was a big bombing attack on the police in Bogota the week before I arrived. Even the old centres of the drug cartels in Calli and Medellin are now beginning to attract the tourists again. Colombia's most immediate problem these days is being next door to Venezuela. 

The academic side of the visit was completely different too.  I was the Keynote speaker at the conference that accompanied a big exhibition on naval ship-building and I ended up my review of the future for navies with a slide saying ‘Conclusions ?’ and then said, ‘Not from me, that’s your problem !’ They all thought that was very funny and a picture I saw and am trying to get showed a galaxy of very senior admirals laughing. It was a very high profile event with both the President and the Vice President of Colombia attending – and lots of fascinating ceremonial with bands and anthems that we just don’t do  in Europe. Real old-fashioned public patriotism. 4000 people attended at least some of the event, the organisers thought.  It all ended with a late dinner party on the COTECMAR site near the water  and beneath the old massive walls with me, like all the other men,  wearing my new traditional white Caribbean shirt. Under the stars.  Food, wine, all the naval ladies decked out in their best, a loud local band, dancing. Cherry would have loved it and had me out on the floor embarrassment, notwithstanding.

So all in all a good visit despite the inevitably sad associations. One of the worst things is not having a travel companion to share experiences and to swap news with at the end of different days. I talk to her photo of course and weirdly enough there is a kind of answer - perhaps because I pretty well know what she would have said.     

Shortly afterwards I flew back to a UK tumultuously enveloped in Brexit. I stayed for a whole week and so was able to see some local friends to catch up with local gossip, engage in arrangements for house and cat-sitting with some long-term friends from University days and even do  some academic stuff. Here's a picture of me and a colleague in the inner fastness of the Foreign Office where we had been enquiring about the UK's intentions in the Indo-Pacific region. We got the feeling that their mids were on something else just at the moment.   

But, of course by far and away the main reason for my return at this time was the grand christening of Violet Sarah, my -our- third grandchild. It was a brilliant occasion with all the dynasty gathering in a charming mid-Victorian church in London's Southgate that had some amazing Burne-Jones windows. The Vicar was excellent. We got the feeling he'd done it before. Violet though had  her reservations and eyed him with deep suspicion as you can see. Other than that she was really well-behaved throughout the ceremony.

 

 

Afterwards everyone gathered for the customary collective family photos. We then repaired to the very ancient 17th Century  (?) Cherry Tree pub for a jolly lunch. It was a good thing that we all like each other  as the service was very slow and until various family members took charge of the proceedings, quite disorganised.

 

It was all good fun. All the same, for me there was an undeniable gap in the proceedings and in the family photos. Cherry would have been in her absolute element on this occasion. A second granddaughter would have delighted her. So, much as she liked Cartagena, there's no doubt that Cherry would far rather have been in Southgate that day.    

 

Newport: Snow and Grandfather Clocks

Innumerable people have warned me of how bad Newport winters can be but until recently, its all been a bit of an anti-climax. Over the past couple of weeks though there's been a last-minute lash of winter's  tail with one quite heavy fall a couple of days ago and another bad storm on the way, they say.  As a result the College either opens late or closes altogether as the Admiral doesn't want any of his people putting themselves at risk on the roads - and few of them has as easy a drive in to work as I do. I must say I am very impressed by Newport's very professional reaction to snow. Dozens of snow plough trucks appear from nowhere - usually quite small ones - pick-up trucks with a plough (or should I say 'plow') attached to the front. I think many are privately owned. Certainly someone appeared and cleared the long drive to the main house and my rather  short one soon after I left on Friday morning and I was even more impressed to see people clearing the pavements along Bellevue with what looked like leaf-blowers, when I drove past at 0715. The following Monday, after more snow, we were given another snow day off (which only means I work at home !). I was a bit surprised actually as I can recall driving into Greenwich  from Kent in conditions far worse than this, weaving my way between lorries jack-knifed across the A2.  

Perhaps the Navy is frightened of being sued.   In that connection, it's certainly solicitous of its people. I had one rather alarming e-mail at college last week entitled "Upcoming Mandatory Suicide."  Rather than being a way of thinning staff numbers out ,I was relieved to find it was a training course  of what to look out for in the behaviour of your colleagues....

                There might not be that much snow apart from the great heaps left by the snow-loughs but it lasts for ever as it's really cold most of the time, way below freezing. One unfortunate consequences is that a squirrel has taken to living in the loft and its really noisy at the moment, despite my shouting insults at it and banging the loft hatch with a broom. I gather though that the pest control man is coming tomorrow so I'm hoping that will solve the problem. Despite the cold though, Spring is on its way. Daffodils are showing and I've noticed more little birds around, including this quite striking Cardinal.

                The Saturday morning before was sunny and inviting  so I walked into town along the Avenue, camera in hand to capture views of the Mansions in a blanket of snow, and also the many magnificent beech trees in their grounds, and noticed that some long stretches of pavement were clear and some weren't . It looked as though some houses assumed responsibility for it and some didn't. I remember years ago  Grandma  Till telling me that in her mother's day households in Portsmouth had to keep the pavements outside their houses clean. Perhaps the same thing applies here  - I'll have to find out.

                Its interesting spotting similarities and dissimilarities between life here and back in the UK. One thing I've noticed that's different is how many locals start an answer to a question with the word 'so'...  Very curious. They are also extremely polite.  Often motorists will stop or markedly slow down if you  look as though you might want to cross a road even if nowhere near a  zebra crossing - and absolutely rigorous if you are. Quite embarrassing  sometimes.  It might be a local thing because I recall we were once quite shocked in Hawaii of all places seeing a Japanese tourist actually arrested for jay walking, or that's what it looked like anyway. Certainly she was given a very hard time. I can't imagine that happening here. Another thing that's different are the adverts for health products on the TV. Whatever they advertise is followed by a long and detailed description of the side-effects you might have all the way up to premature death that's so graphic they sound far worse than whatever it is you are trying to cure. The BBC presence  is very marked too. The local radio station switches over to the BBC world service at 2100 or 2200 for the rest of the night. A similarity      

                Another difference is their veneration for anything 'old'. The Newport Preservation Society is really a force to be reckoned with here, extremely well-funded, and to judge by the number of mansions they have bought extremely wealthy. The result is a wealth of 17th-19th Century houses, big and small, and places like the Redwood Library which I mentioned last time. I went in as a member for the first time,  to get some books, to revel in the atmosphere and to 'do' their fantastic collection of Grandfather clocks. Apparently there was a famous clock-making dynasty called the Claggetts here in the first half of the 18th Century. I learned all about tombstone doors, urn-and-flame finials,  laquered putti, rocking escapements and all the rest. They were certainly very grand and made our family one from Chichester of about 1783 look quite plain. But ours is just a 'country' clock even though it's very unusual in having an external strike mechanism that makes clock-menders exclaim. It's been through the wars too. For a long time its face was black and it didn't work (perhaps from the time when it was in a  small Portsmouth house with a floor that sloped so much that it had to be propped up, something to which pendulum clocks really take exception) until my father got his hands on it. Part of the front panel of the top isn't wood but cunningly disguised lino.  I'm quite looking forwards to seeing it again, and shall do so with new eyes, as there's nothing quite like it in Newport !