You know how sometimes nothing seems to go right? Well, that sometimes started last night and hasn’t stopped. Your trampess decided to crawl into bed with her Kindle and read until lights out. Here in the Austrian countryside (once all the cars go to bed), it is very quiet: the cows are in the barn, the goats are tucked up, children are in bed, and so are the farmers. All in all, very peaceful. There was the slight hum of the dishwasher, but your trampess knew that would not be for very long and in any event was not loud enough to keep anyone awake (despite not being a German dishwasher, which would definitely not keep one awake even if in the same room). All of a sudden the WLW started to shake (not good) and a large hum began – a very large hum, the sort of hum that takes over the brain and makes it very difficult to concentrate on even very riveting books. Still, the trampess decided not to panic; the tramp was in the living room and was no doubt doing something important. Several very long and painful minutes later (the humming was very penetrating and the trampess was trying very hard to use all her meditative skill to ignore it), she called out to the tramp – just by way of enquiring whether this would persist for much longer. No answer. Then the slamming of external compartment doors – the tramp was obviously outside dealing with complexities. Best not to appear critical and wait for some explanation – assuming, of course, one would be forthcoming. And no point going outside in one’s pyjamas to find out (not with an external temperature of 2C) and the almost certain likelihood on encountering a grumpy tramp.
The noise (hum was really a very kind word for what had now gone on long enough to give anyone a migraine who was that way inclined – luckily your trampess is not that way inclined) continued and much pacing was heard (well, it is hard to do a lot of pacing in a confined space, but your tramp was doing as much as humanely possible) as well as the door opening and closing with subsequent slamming of outside compartments. Still no word. Finally, the tramp put his head into the bedroom, and the trampess (with perhaps a touch of concern in her voice – always a mistake – she did try to control it) enquired when the misery might end. The tramp made some comment to the tune of the hydraulics adjusting themselves and did I think he was having fun. And then, as an almost throwaway line he said, “This could go on all night,” and disappeared. 45 minutes was bad enough (I had contemplated wrapping myself in a duvet, going to the car and driving to one of the very empty hotels in the village, but that seemed like desertion and behaviour unbecoming a devoted wife, not to mention clearly not in keeping with the vows of for better or for worse, no question which this was) but all night could prove a real challenge., I mean one could run a marathon in less time. Wrapping a pillow around my head seemed a little less extreme than either running into the mountains or repairing to an hotel. After a few minutes of unsuccessful mediation the circuit board sprang to mind. I climbed out of bed, hoping that I had latched on to a solution for stopping the noise, if not curing the problem (11pm put any external help way beyond the pale: German engineering is world class, but German engineers do sleep and no solution would be found from the local Austrian farmers), and went to put it to the tramp, surrounded by manuals and on his computer. I suggested that perhaps if one pulled out the appropriate circuit breaker (after all they are so well labelled if one speaks German, and the tramp is German, so surely he would know which was the appropriate one) then the noise would stop. By this time your trampess was worried not only for the tramps’ good night sleep but the neighbours as well, and believe me no one wants the Austrian police to show up in the night trying to enforce noise abatement legislation (especially if one can do absolutely nothing about it!). The tramp looked up, clearly appreciative of the trampess’s effort to help, and not remotely dismissive of the suggestion, replied in a rather low voice, “I already tried that.” And so the trampess went back to bed, wrapped a pillow around her head and concentrated on pretending she was somewhere else in the universe. Remind me to reread Thomas Aquinas. Miraculously, a few minutes later the noise, as precipitously as it started, abated. As it was well past the trampess’s bedtime, sleep came fast on the heels of silence.
The next morning, the tramp was sitting at his computer when the trampess rose. Clearly the silence was not necessarily the result of the tramp’s intervention. But thinking he looked slightly better than the previous night, your trampess ventured a timid what-was-that-all-about sort of question. The tramp smiled (not one of his joyous, exuberant, whole heart on the face sort of smiles you understand, but a smile nonetheless), and said, “the compressor, I think we have pneumatic problems.” He went on to explain that the WLW periodically self adjusts and balances itself (in order to remain perfectly level – this is a German machine – Vorsprung durch Technik und so weiter – level must mean level, not almost level, or quite level or level enough). This self levelling is, obviously useful and not to be sneered at since it means the interior doesn’t feel like a listing boat even if one is parked on a rocky, uneven field. Naturally, it is a very sophisticated, self-regulating suspension system that can achieve such perfection. Why did it go wrong? Perhaps it was unhappy to be sitting around for so long without exercise. Perhaps it noticed the stakes in the field and tape (electrified no doubt) connecting them, that had gone up the previous day around it, on one side less than a foot away – no doubt indicating that soon the local cows would move from the lower field to the field the tramps have their backside in (a bit like Pooh in Rabbit’s kitchen when he got stuck). Perhaps it didn’t like the thought of cows rubbing their backside on its nice shiny walls. No one knows what is in the mind of a self-adjusting suspension system but it clearly was not a happy SASS. The tramp it seems did not control it so much as listen to it die (at least that is my interpretation of “ich glaube der Kompressor gestorben ist” that was part of a longer conversation with the beloved factory where we stayed so long to make sure everything was under control, so to speak, or so it seemed at the time).
Now when the tramp stays up late, the dining room table is not always, how shall I put it, quite as tidy as the way the trampess left it. Sometimes, the tramp will have snacks and forget about plates (well, they do mean that the dishwasher gets used more frequently and the tramp is on a campaign to improve – ie lengthen the time between washing cycles – it is not the trampess’s view that making the cloth placemats dirty is a way to save water since the washing machine probably uses even more , but when the trampess is not around . . . ).
It clearly was one of those nights when extra nourishment came in the form of knaeckerbrot without the benefit of a plate underneath. Obviously the tramp had had a hard night so the trampess just removed the placemat and went to the door to shake the crumbs for the little birds that can often be seen in the morning before the cats start stalking. But the door wouldn’t open. The door always opens from the inside unless the mechanical bolt is thrown in addition to the electronic locking device. The bolt was not thrown. Your trampess tried again. She tried pressing the button on the handle – this turned on the red light signalling the electronic lock was on. She tried again to open the door. Dear reader, the door stayed shut. She turned to the tramp and explained she couldn’t open the door. The tramp’s eyes rolled, but he came over. He tried. The door did not move. Not only was the Kompressor gestorben, the tramps were trapped in their own home. There is only one door, and the windows are very high off the ground. Luckily, the trampess pointed out, the tramps had gone food shopping yesterday so they could survive for several days until help came. In addition, in extremis, the trampess could be lowered through a window and escape (the daily uphill hikes had paid off in that respect) which would at least mean food could be purchased and passed in at a later date should it come to that. And after all getting back in would surely be easier. Also, it did occur to the trampess that perhaps, just perhaps, the keys, used on the outside, might open the door. After breakfast (never begin difficult tasks on an empty stomach), the key theory was tried (the trampess did not have to prove her agility in exiting through the window – the neighbour was called and the keys tossed down – Rapunzel did come to mind though), but the door remained shut. The lock seemed to be as stubborn as the compressor.
In the meantime, between phone calls, and sitting at our respective computers, the tramp looked at me with a pained expression and asked if I was online. Full signal I said confidently but offered to confirm by opening an article in yesterday’s NYTimes. Ha! And Ha! again - total abject failure with the usual cryptic note saying that the server had not been found (how do you lose a server? This is one of the 21st C’s greatest mysteries). Luckily, restarting the wifi and then restarting my computer – thrice (!) did finally result in a successful connection. But to be locked indoors, unable to move (I mean literally unable to drive), with no communication via the internet, and with less than a week before departure (and two days of driving to get to the airport) could make even the most optimistic trampess feel just a touch of pessimism.
By this time, the tramp’s iPhone (which inconveniently cuts off conversations after it thinks he has talked long enough) and been engaged in numerous calls to the WLW’s home base. The neighbour’s tool kit was passed through the window. The tramp, luckily very skilled with all manner of tools (summers spent on the factory floor as a boy), set to work dismantling the door handle – while talking on the phone in very technical German (at this point your trampess was well beyond her comprehension level and eavesdropping ceased). Still the door remained shut. Finally the neighbour was called back – could she please bang against the door (I think, but I am not sure, this was to help eject pins in the handle). No luck. Then finally a cool draft – I turned around and the tramp was triumphant. The door handle was something else again – cover removed, wires dangling, pins on the steps (would I lose another night’s sleep having to do guard duty?). The trampess was asked to go outside and shut the door – with force. Usually, the trampess is asked not to use so much force on doors so this wasa pleasant change from the norm - until I realised I might be locked out – who knows for how long! (Had I put on a fleece? Was it 3C? was I crazy??). I could hear the tramp babbling away on the phone inside, possibly on another very long conversation. But at least the sun was coming out – and I knew the neighbour would give me shelter if necessary, possibly even a coffee. Life was beginning to look almost rosy: the noise hadn’t gone on all night, the tramps were back on the internet, the door was unlocked (perhaps permanently), and clearly, pessimism is unacceptable on a sunny day in the Alps. Besides, it is well known that problems come in threes (though why it should be so is less well known) and clearly the tramps had had their three. The next report will be triumphant I am sure.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Verbier foxes, wild blueberries, stranger alternative life styles and the inevitable crustless pie
I have failed to mention the excuse for not writing as the fall into a stranger, alternative life style. And, indeed, while the tramps have shifted to what tramps 1, 2, 3, and 4 do consider a somewhat crazy way of living, it cannot be said to have prevented the putting of fingers to keyboard, but it has resulted in change, and a failure to reduce the stock of tinned sardines in the WLW’s pantry (if only tramps 1, 2, 3, and 4 had visited this year that problem might have disappeared). Like the former President, who lost a truly amazing amount of weight for his daughter’s wedding (even more than she had demanded), the trampess read the China Study (but, trend setter that she is, even at a remote distance from anywhere where trends are being set, a year before the President – or at least before he took action). Half way through the book, she looked at the tramp and suggested that they might have to become vegan. Now, it should be said that the tramp in recent years has not been a big meat eater, much prefers fish, is allergic to cheese, and on the whole (despite being of large and tall frame) thinks most people eat too much, including himself (though again, it must be said that he is not overweight) and therefore is always imploring the trampess to serve less meat and altogether less food. Notwithstanding, he let out a small gasp followed by a rather louder “What? You’re not serious???” The trampess declared she was, and like most discussions of this nature, it was agreed that she would send a summary (it is surely a comment on modern living that two people sitting less than a foot away from each other – in fact our feet often collide under the dinner table – send emails to each other with long attachments ) of the book that was causing her to reassess rather basic life style issues that would inevitably affect us both. The summary took some time, not the least because I was only half way through the book when I suggested a change might be in the offing. The tramp was not holding his breath for the summary, but when it came he did exhale deeply, looked up and said the change should occur immediately. He then set out to re-write the summary (it should be obvious by now that the tramp has a very logical and structured mind and finds many books not written in the best way to deliver maximum clarity and impact) of a better book with the same content. It is that summary, reviewed and re-written, again and again, that was sent to tramps 1, 2, 3, and 4, as a reason for the tramps new approach to food.
While the tramp has never been overly interested in food (unlike the trampess who grew up in a family who did) and the trampess would often eat her most extravagant meals with girl friends (destroying any stereotypes waiters had of skinny women pushing salad leaves around plates) or even on her own (the few times the trampess had to go to Paris on business, and not very pleasant business at that, she consoled herself with lunch, on her own but with a good book, at Arpege where on one occasion she had the menu de degustation and on the second – having so impressed the maitre d’ with her enthusiasm and capacity the previous week – the carte blanche – not on the menu but giving the chef carte blanche to produce the meal. I seem to recall that it came to 12 or 13 courses and remarkably, since the chef had gone vegetarian (turbot was allowed) – highly unusual for a restaurant of such calibre – everyone thought he was crazy – was very light). So it somewhat surprised the trampess, when the tramp said, “but this cannot be hairshirt vegan – I mean the food still has to be good.” Continuing in this vain (obviously somewhat worried) he suggested that many great cuisines of the world did not depend on meat: Indian, Chinese, Lebanese and Italian all offered a large variety of meat free dishes and would the trampess please get to work on become a master in each of these. He did admit that the tramps already ate a diet which was heavily Italian influenced, but it would be good, wouldn’t it to add the others?
Not long after, the trampess was observed, by an Indian friend (and a renowned cook), at a Thanksgiving lunch, not to be eating turkey. When the reason was explained, she suggested that the trampess should come to her for a day and learn the techniques of the oldest vegan cuisine in the world. Was this a gift from the gods? A clear indication that the decision was inspired? You make your own judgement, dear reader, but it was clear to the trampess this was an opportunity not to be foregone. And so the trampess put herself on a train to the distant reaches of the home counties and set out to learn the secrets of Indian cuisine from one who had to learn it from her cook (transplanted Indians sometimes discover that things they took for granted – in this case endless perfect meals – have to be learned once they are removed from the support staff of the subcontinent). She refused to let the trampess take notes during the cooking asserting with imperial majesty that her book was extremely clearly and thoroughly written, I would be given a copy, and I was just to watch (and occasionally stir or flip). After the cooking was done (over much chatting and comparing of techniques) the meal was eaten – sublime. Clearly, there is no sacrifice in eating a meatless, fishless, dairyless diet, if one can eat like this. And so the tramps now do. Which leads us to the crustless blueberry pie.
While at the Verbier Festival this year – scene of much happy hiking with tramps 1. 2, and 3 with GF’s the previous year – the hiking was much reduced due to the compelling master classes (voice, acting, piano and chamber music). After the festival, the tramp decided that vertical assaults were much needed and should be taken very seriously if the rather delicious post concert dinners were not to turn the tramps into unfit specimens. The trampess, still holding her edge on the speed to summit, often took different, more demanding, routes in order to slow her down. These often proved to be challenging (when the path stopped) or difficult (very steep or with large trees fallen across the path, often both) but as the trampess’s path would intersect occasionally with the tramp’s they could keep track of each other’s position and have a fair idea of when they might meet at the upper lift station for the trip down (keeping solidly to the view that hiking up is good for the heart and hiking down is bad for the knees – the opposite approach to that taken by most people their age). Often, there were amusing encounters or surprises: three blondes passing each other on a non trail each hoping to get to one they knew – addressing each other in perfect French (as by now you would expect) until one of us let out a word in English and we discovered to our amusement that 2 were native English speakers and the 3rd (with a name like Asrid you might guess) was Swedish. We laughed and switched languages, wished each other well and continued our search. And another time, sure that I was miles ahead, I received a text (this makes hiking on different paths so much less anxiety making) saying the tramp had reached chez Dany and would wait on a bench overlooking the valley). How mortifying! The next sign said 20 minutes to the restaurant but happily your trampess made it in 10. It must have been the sight of all the blueberries which had waylaid her.
Ah the blueberries. One of the trampess’s fondest culinary memories was of the blueberry pie made by a Swiss friend of the trampess’s parents. A most outstanding cook (imagine, unsurrendered feminists, a woman who made fresh croissants for her husband every morning????!!! Indeed, she made them for the tramp and the trampess their first morning at the parent’s house after their wedding – obviously setting me an example I was not quite destined to follow to the letter, but one which made an impression nonetheless – would he ever, I mean ever, even thought of divorce? Clearly not.) who would leave me divine dinners whenever I went to babysit her daughter. (I never said no to their requests for babysitting). On one of these occasions, she mentioned a blueberry pie in the oven and very sweetly said, if I didn’t mind, please be sure to leave some for her husband (now, dear reader, it is true, as you might have already surmised by the recently recounted lunches in France, that as a teenager I was capable of eating quite a lot, but having been raised by a mother who believed overeating was not a good thing and thus severely controlled portions, I had a remarkably un-Catholic ability to show restraint, well, at least some of the time). A very large portion of the pie was left and I was asked back again. So, in Verbier, after tasting one berry, just to make sure it was a wild blueberry (obviously significantly smaller than its cultivated counterpart), I thought that on the next hike a container might be a good thing. After all blueberries on the morning porridge would be quite tasty. And I did recall a rather tasty blueberry pie that tramp 1 and I made in Maine one summer when a brave girl friend and I (11 children between us – not all of them our own) decided to entertain the troops one afternoon by taking them blueberry picking (on a farm). Such was the enthusiasm of little fingers that that night in the face of a bucket of blueberries, I looked at tramp 1 and suggested the best way to get rid of a good proportion was to make a pie. He was on kitchen duty with me and agreed that the benefit of a pie was far greater than the work involved.
As it happened, after supper the night I discovered the Verbier berries, while sending out emails, I had occasion to thank a friend for giving me a lift back to the WLW after a late supper following the previous evening’s concert. I mentioned my hike and the wild blueberries and how I planned to take a container the next day and use the time difference between my walk and the tramp’s to good advantage. An idea which the tramp, it will not surprise you to learn, heartily endorsed. A reply came screeching back begging me not to eat the blueberries (as I have eaten wild, golden raspberries in Nepal and any number of wild blackberries in Wiltshire, I was really a bit startled by this virtual command). He went on to explain that the foxes (I must confess I had no idea I was trespassing on fox territory) in Verbier were know to carry a terrible virus which could be transmitted to humans via their urine (oh happy thought!) and since blueberries are low hanging fruit (so to speak, I can assure you that they take a very long time to pick, more about which later), no one, but no one in Verbier any longer eats wild blueberries, which I suppose goes some way to explaining their abundance. He then went on to say, as if this were the wildest thought imaginable, that the virus was destroyed in cooking (but not by washing). I relayed this to the tramp, who said he didn’t see a problem, surely I could think of some way to cook blueberries – a pie perchance?
I will not mention that, with backpack and Nordic sticks, picking anything close to the ground is a precarious venture (unless, of course, one removes them – but with various patches of blueberries some distance apart on a continuous upward path, taking off and putting on all the gear seemed rather tiresome so your trampess chose to cope with added weight and the possibility of being thrown off balance). Nor will I mention that the blueberries were in a particularly steep patch. Nor do you really need to know that picking blueberries is a one at a time operation, and remember these are much smaller (think fraises du bois). What is worth thinking about is just how much fruit cooks down in a pie and therefore the pre-cooked volume that is necessary to achieve the final volume. After over a half hour of picking (and the realisation that if I dropped the container at any time before the lid was firmly on, suicide was probably the only honourable option) I realised I still had a long way to go to have enough for the innards of a pie. It was probably at that point that I thought a pie would not be vegan (after all I only use real butter in my pie crusts – anything else is – well just not up to standard, we won’t even talk about transfats in non butter substitutes), so perhaps a compote would do. After another half hour, I decided a compote would definitely do. I sped up the mountain texting the tramp that I would be there shortly and he could grab a table at Ruinettes (lunch out was to be my reward). When I arrived, the tramp smiled, said I had made it in time to catch the last lift down, and after all I was a much better cook than . . . It’s hard to turn a man down in the face of such flattery, so the blueberries (safely in their container) and I joined the tramp on the lift back to town from where we hiked back to the WLW and the trampess once more found herself in the kitchen. That evening it was proved that a blueberry pie without the crust is almost as good.
While the tramp has never been overly interested in food (unlike the trampess who grew up in a family who did) and the trampess would often eat her most extravagant meals with girl friends (destroying any stereotypes waiters had of skinny women pushing salad leaves around plates) or even on her own (the few times the trampess had to go to Paris on business, and not very pleasant business at that, she consoled herself with lunch, on her own but with a good book, at Arpege where on one occasion she had the menu de degustation and on the second – having so impressed the maitre d’ with her enthusiasm and capacity the previous week – the carte blanche – not on the menu but giving the chef carte blanche to produce the meal. I seem to recall that it came to 12 or 13 courses and remarkably, since the chef had gone vegetarian (turbot was allowed) – highly unusual for a restaurant of such calibre – everyone thought he was crazy – was very light). So it somewhat surprised the trampess, when the tramp said, “but this cannot be hairshirt vegan – I mean the food still has to be good.” Continuing in this vain (obviously somewhat worried) he suggested that many great cuisines of the world did not depend on meat: Indian, Chinese, Lebanese and Italian all offered a large variety of meat free dishes and would the trampess please get to work on become a master in each of these. He did admit that the tramps already ate a diet which was heavily Italian influenced, but it would be good, wouldn’t it to add the others?
Not long after, the trampess was observed, by an Indian friend (and a renowned cook), at a Thanksgiving lunch, not to be eating turkey. When the reason was explained, she suggested that the trampess should come to her for a day and learn the techniques of the oldest vegan cuisine in the world. Was this a gift from the gods? A clear indication that the decision was inspired? You make your own judgement, dear reader, but it was clear to the trampess this was an opportunity not to be foregone. And so the trampess put herself on a train to the distant reaches of the home counties and set out to learn the secrets of Indian cuisine from one who had to learn it from her cook (transplanted Indians sometimes discover that things they took for granted – in this case endless perfect meals – have to be learned once they are removed from the support staff of the subcontinent). She refused to let the trampess take notes during the cooking asserting with imperial majesty that her book was extremely clearly and thoroughly written, I would be given a copy, and I was just to watch (and occasionally stir or flip). After the cooking was done (over much chatting and comparing of techniques) the meal was eaten – sublime. Clearly, there is no sacrifice in eating a meatless, fishless, dairyless diet, if one can eat like this. And so the tramps now do. Which leads us to the crustless blueberry pie.
While at the Verbier Festival this year – scene of much happy hiking with tramps 1. 2, and 3 with GF’s the previous year – the hiking was much reduced due to the compelling master classes (voice, acting, piano and chamber music). After the festival, the tramp decided that vertical assaults were much needed and should be taken very seriously if the rather delicious post concert dinners were not to turn the tramps into unfit specimens. The trampess, still holding her edge on the speed to summit, often took different, more demanding, routes in order to slow her down. These often proved to be challenging (when the path stopped) or difficult (very steep or with large trees fallen across the path, often both) but as the trampess’s path would intersect occasionally with the tramp’s they could keep track of each other’s position and have a fair idea of when they might meet at the upper lift station for the trip down (keeping solidly to the view that hiking up is good for the heart and hiking down is bad for the knees – the opposite approach to that taken by most people their age). Often, there were amusing encounters or surprises: three blondes passing each other on a non trail each hoping to get to one they knew – addressing each other in perfect French (as by now you would expect) until one of us let out a word in English and we discovered to our amusement that 2 were native English speakers and the 3rd (with a name like Asrid you might guess) was Swedish. We laughed and switched languages, wished each other well and continued our search. And another time, sure that I was miles ahead, I received a text (this makes hiking on different paths so much less anxiety making) saying the tramp had reached chez Dany and would wait on a bench overlooking the valley). How mortifying! The next sign said 20 minutes to the restaurant but happily your trampess made it in 10. It must have been the sight of all the blueberries which had waylaid her.
Ah the blueberries. One of the trampess’s fondest culinary memories was of the blueberry pie made by a Swiss friend of the trampess’s parents. A most outstanding cook (imagine, unsurrendered feminists, a woman who made fresh croissants for her husband every morning????!!! Indeed, she made them for the tramp and the trampess their first morning at the parent’s house after their wedding – obviously setting me an example I was not quite destined to follow to the letter, but one which made an impression nonetheless – would he ever, I mean ever, even thought of divorce? Clearly not.) who would leave me divine dinners whenever I went to babysit her daughter. (I never said no to their requests for babysitting). On one of these occasions, she mentioned a blueberry pie in the oven and very sweetly said, if I didn’t mind, please be sure to leave some for her husband (now, dear reader, it is true, as you might have already surmised by the recently recounted lunches in France, that as a teenager I was capable of eating quite a lot, but having been raised by a mother who believed overeating was not a good thing and thus severely controlled portions, I had a remarkably un-Catholic ability to show restraint, well, at least some of the time). A very large portion of the pie was left and I was asked back again. So, in Verbier, after tasting one berry, just to make sure it was a wild blueberry (obviously significantly smaller than its cultivated counterpart), I thought that on the next hike a container might be a good thing. After all blueberries on the morning porridge would be quite tasty. And I did recall a rather tasty blueberry pie that tramp 1 and I made in Maine one summer when a brave girl friend and I (11 children between us – not all of them our own) decided to entertain the troops one afternoon by taking them blueberry picking (on a farm). Such was the enthusiasm of little fingers that that night in the face of a bucket of blueberries, I looked at tramp 1 and suggested the best way to get rid of a good proportion was to make a pie. He was on kitchen duty with me and agreed that the benefit of a pie was far greater than the work involved.
As it happened, after supper the night I discovered the Verbier berries, while sending out emails, I had occasion to thank a friend for giving me a lift back to the WLW after a late supper following the previous evening’s concert. I mentioned my hike and the wild blueberries and how I planned to take a container the next day and use the time difference between my walk and the tramp’s to good advantage. An idea which the tramp, it will not surprise you to learn, heartily endorsed. A reply came screeching back begging me not to eat the blueberries (as I have eaten wild, golden raspberries in Nepal and any number of wild blackberries in Wiltshire, I was really a bit startled by this virtual command). He went on to explain that the foxes (I must confess I had no idea I was trespassing on fox territory) in Verbier were know to carry a terrible virus which could be transmitted to humans via their urine (oh happy thought!) and since blueberries are low hanging fruit (so to speak, I can assure you that they take a very long time to pick, more about which later), no one, but no one in Verbier any longer eats wild blueberries, which I suppose goes some way to explaining their abundance. He then went on to say, as if this were the wildest thought imaginable, that the virus was destroyed in cooking (but not by washing). I relayed this to the tramp, who said he didn’t see a problem, surely I could think of some way to cook blueberries – a pie perchance?
I will not mention that, with backpack and Nordic sticks, picking anything close to the ground is a precarious venture (unless, of course, one removes them – but with various patches of blueberries some distance apart on a continuous upward path, taking off and putting on all the gear seemed rather tiresome so your trampess chose to cope with added weight and the possibility of being thrown off balance). Nor will I mention that the blueberries were in a particularly steep patch. Nor do you really need to know that picking blueberries is a one at a time operation, and remember these are much smaller (think fraises du bois). What is worth thinking about is just how much fruit cooks down in a pie and therefore the pre-cooked volume that is necessary to achieve the final volume. After over a half hour of picking (and the realisation that if I dropped the container at any time before the lid was firmly on, suicide was probably the only honourable option) I realised I still had a long way to go to have enough for the innards of a pie. It was probably at that point that I thought a pie would not be vegan (after all I only use real butter in my pie crusts – anything else is – well just not up to standard, we won’t even talk about transfats in non butter substitutes), so perhaps a compote would do. After another half hour, I decided a compote would definitely do. I sped up the mountain texting the tramp that I would be there shortly and he could grab a table at Ruinettes (lunch out was to be my reward). When I arrived, the tramp smiled, said I had made it in time to catch the last lift down, and after all I was a much better cook than . . . It’s hard to turn a man down in the face of such flattery, so the blueberries (safely in their container) and I joined the tramp on the lift back to town from where we hiked back to the WLW and the trampess once more found herself in the kitchen. That evening it was proved that a blueberry pie without the crust is almost as good.
Friday, 8 October 2010
Learning the Ropes – all over again – and why it took so long to get back on the trail
Having everything go wrong has its upside. The tramps were in Miami hoping to sort out a new home (you remember the badly delayed delivery of an apartment, the unacceptable view once it was ready and the need to find an alternative) and as a result managed to be there for an event the trampess had promised to co-chair which otherwise might have proven to be badly mis-scheduled , requiring a hasty flight back from another part of the world to fulfil her obligation. (it is always good, though not necessarily critical to be at an event one is hosting). Notwithstanding there were a few minor problems, after all the trampess had been asked to co-chair the event since she was expected at the time of the event to be a local (which by this time you can see she wasn’t), but there is nothing quite like agreeing to introduce college friends to an insider’s view of the art scene in Miami to encourage one to learn quite quickly what an insider’s view is. Following a Bismarckian approach to learning she called out for help. Luckily help was forthcoming in the form of helpful NY art dealers (who did know the Miami art scene, as you would expect, being New Yorkers) and more importantly the Miami mother I had always needed but never had (introduced by her real daughter), not to mention a co-chair who knew the area and had lots of ideas. Rule 1: always work with people who are better, know more, and can do excel spread sheets in their sleep. Rule 2: if you find a good mother keep her and always follow her advice. Rule 3: initially unappealing art can be hugely interesting if explained by people who are knowledgeable and like it. And thus an outsider became an insider and failure turned to success.
Returning to London and expecting to be able to move into the main set at Albany turned out to be another of those misplaced hopes, slightly (well perhaps more than slightly) redeemed by having a favourite actor smile good morning at your trampess as she walked along Albany’s rope walk on her arrival. Face it, having a resident actor smile at you on a nearly daily basis goes a long way to making living in a very small, but completely re-furbished from Gosford Park state, upper set palatable (one hotplate, a large bed, a small sofa, a computer; true, a proper shower and under floor heating helped as well – of course the builders had turned off the heating to save the trampess money while she was in Miami so sleeping under a duvet fully dressed with a coat on top of the duvet so the first night wasn’t quite ideal – the trampess does know how to send the sort of SMS that gets the builders round quite early in the morning though so the next night proved to be rather better). Not the same though as living in the large, high-ceilinged rooms of the main set. It is also a well know fact that being on a building site daily does inspire builders to hustle, in the case of the tramp’s builders, hustling is not the issue, it is showing up. If they show up, they work. Showing up oneself seems to be the key to persuade them to do the same. And once again, having a fixed arrival date for the carpets and the furniture seemed to cause an increase in the number of men on site, though some remained for some time after, carpet and furniture arrival notwithstanding. A celebration dinner party did not occur, but the carpet was laid and the furniture was delivered, and dearly beloved friends who introduced to Albany (thus saving our lives) came round for a glass of champagne. (Did I mention, that tramp 4 had hoped to move into the upper set at the same time as the tramps? Or that tramp 3 and GF were also arriving? And strangely they all hoped to stay in the family home? Ah well, just another small complication that had to be sorted out and that became more complicated before it became simpler. But then, that is how it always happens if Einstein is to be believed).
(I won’t mention the small matter of the shower – beautifully designed and just off the bedroom – a walk in wet room. The tramp had carefully instructed the shower designer on the slope of the floor of the shower to make sure that the water drained properly and the bedroom carpet would never be in danger. The shower experts, thinking that they were shower experts, assured the tramp that he was really out of his depth – a word they might well regret using given what happened – went ahead as they intended ignoring the tramp’s advice. After a hard day moving furniture and unpacking boxes, the tramp thought a shower before Gillian Tett’s lecture on the collapse of the financial system was in order. When the trampess went into the bedroom to see why they tramp wasn’t ready and it was, of course, time to leave, she was rather distressed to see him wrapped in a towel on the bed mobile phone to ear unleashing a stream of invectives that are not appropriate for me to relate here. Let’s just say that turning off the shower quickly and throwing a towel on the floor where the shower floor and carpet met prevented the bedroom from being flooded. The trampess went alone to the lecture. Luckily wine was on offer. The rest I leave to your imagination.)
The picture hanging was another story, but as tramp 4 is an aspiring artist, he was put in charge of the picture hanger whom the trampess had never met and who could only come after the tramps had left to resume their gypsy life. It always pays to have lunch with brilliant girl friends with large houses and even more children than the tramps – they need so much help just to survive, they have a solution to every problem. In the case of picture hanging, a solution was handed to the trampess over the second glass of wine and a wonderful risotto and the “come back and see how spendidly the paintings in the two storey hall stairwell are hung” was not an invitation to decadence (after all it was a girl friend, and the mother of 5) but a chance to see the work of a man whose judgement could be trusted with the most complex problems (if this man were in politics instead of picture hanging the world would be at peace). That left the trampess and tramp 4 (who made some quite creative suggestions), to merely allocate paintings to rooms and grant the magician the scope to determine positioning (remember the trampess had once aspired to be an art historian, so we are not talking 2 paintings per room). The trampess had, of course, hoped that this brilliant, talented man would help before she had to leave, but unfortunately (this tends to happen to brilliant, talented men) he was off to Paris to hang 800 (!) paintings for a client – rather more than one day’s work. Explaining this all to the tramp required more than one attempt, (is there only one person in London who can hang pictures??) but the pictures are hung and the second home is close to feeling like one, at least so tramps 3, 4 and GF asserted. Tramp 4 dutifully acted as the House and Garden photographer and sent the tramps an email of the results. He was quite pleased.
The tramps received the photos in their new WLW. I have already hinted that marquee II is vastly superior to marquee I, as comfortable as it was. I also mentioned the 6 ring binders (which were not available on day 1 just to make the use of equipment that much more challenging) full of instructions in virtually all languages from Indo-European to Asian and a few others as well. Bigger, better and more luxurious is ,in the end, better, of course, but it sometimes takes awhile to be sure that that is so. It is decidedly better not to have to remember to turn the water pump on and off when one wants to use water. It was not at all difficult to remember that I didn’t have to remember the pump, it came quite naturally. Other things were not quite so straightforward. The generator was not difficult to master, and it caused a bit of mirth one day when the tramps had guests to lunch and the generator had to be switched on in order to turn on the Nespresso machine. It did seem extravagantly excessive - one can imagine Katherine Hepburn saying, “Darling, give me a generator, would you?” in the Philadelphia Story, so being able to deliver that throw away line was quite fun. While the generator is relatively easy (one large switch, hold down until it catches – rather like the ignition in a car), the circuit board is a model of intricacy, delicacy and precision German labelling and as long as you know words like Licht: befahreseite, Decke vorne, relaisverteiler 10A (and that’s only one of 28) then everything is really very clear. Luckily this is not the trampess’s area of remit.
Sadly, the televisions and the wi-fi (which are) were neither straightforward nor amusing. After multiple instruction sessions from the foreman in charge of our WLW, and each time adding notes in the iPhone to remind me, I thought I could at least turn the bedroom television on, if not quickly find my favourite channels. Ha! Each time I thought I had it, something went missing - mostly the picture. No pressure of course with the World Cup on and the German team performing much better than expected. Eventually, after several days and much mirth on the part of my instructor, I seemed tolerably competent. (no German games were missed). Nonetheless, and for other more important reasons, we remained in the factory grounds for some weeks – it is never wise to cut the umbilical too quickly. It is well known in the trade that those who drive away on the day their vehicle is ready usually resell quickly, have a nervous breakdown, or have very high telephone bills. With the WLW the ultimate hedge in the case of a total collapse of the global economy, option one was not acceptable, option 2 is clearly very costly, and option 3 seems wasteful). Besides, living in a factory by day and on the side of a country road by night (the factory gates are locked at night and no one can be locked inside – Germans have very strict health and safety rules) can be instructive, educational and amusing.
If the television took days, the wi-fi took weeks and several conversations between our London geek and the German ones, with the tramp in the middle as the only one remotely capable of handling the interchange. At one point it was even assumed hackers had broken in and changed all the password links to the server (and indeed the server name itself – not just identity theft, identity switch!). I felt like M when she discovered Bond and broken into her computer – except it wasn’t Bond. Not good, but happily since the tramps were just about to cut the cord, but hadn’t, the only inconvenience was staying put a little longer.
Apparently, it is possible, with a small load to have the washer/dryer do both operations with one instruction. Armed with German/English dictionary, your trampess still has not figured this out. Nor has she figured out how to interrupt a one time fits all drying cycle. The tramp refuses to look at the manual (he finds them, on the whole, as clearly written as I do, and as we each have specialities and washing machines are not in his remit . . . . ) so at the moment the drying is probably not as green as it could be and a wash put on at the beginning of a hike will not be dry at the end. Perhaps, when I pass through London next, a stop at Harvey Nichols and a quick skim of the instruction manual in English will reveal the keys to efficient operation. In the meantime, the trampess rejoices that she has figured out how to dry the sheets when the sun is hiding.
I will save moving in day for another time, let’s just say it would seem intuitively obvious that moving from a small vehicle to a large one would present no difficulties. Intuition is not always right.
Returning to London and expecting to be able to move into the main set at Albany turned out to be another of those misplaced hopes, slightly (well perhaps more than slightly) redeemed by having a favourite actor smile good morning at your trampess as she walked along Albany’s rope walk on her arrival. Face it, having a resident actor smile at you on a nearly daily basis goes a long way to making living in a very small, but completely re-furbished from Gosford Park state, upper set palatable (one hotplate, a large bed, a small sofa, a computer; true, a proper shower and under floor heating helped as well – of course the builders had turned off the heating to save the trampess money while she was in Miami so sleeping under a duvet fully dressed with a coat on top of the duvet so the first night wasn’t quite ideal – the trampess does know how to send the sort of SMS that gets the builders round quite early in the morning though so the next night proved to be rather better). Not the same though as living in the large, high-ceilinged rooms of the main set. It is also a well know fact that being on a building site daily does inspire builders to hustle, in the case of the tramp’s builders, hustling is not the issue, it is showing up. If they show up, they work. Showing up oneself seems to be the key to persuade them to do the same. And once again, having a fixed arrival date for the carpets and the furniture seemed to cause an increase in the number of men on site, though some remained for some time after, carpet and furniture arrival notwithstanding. A celebration dinner party did not occur, but the carpet was laid and the furniture was delivered, and dearly beloved friends who introduced to Albany (thus saving our lives) came round for a glass of champagne. (Did I mention, that tramp 4 had hoped to move into the upper set at the same time as the tramps? Or that tramp 3 and GF were also arriving? And strangely they all hoped to stay in the family home? Ah well, just another small complication that had to be sorted out and that became more complicated before it became simpler. But then, that is how it always happens if Einstein is to be believed).
(I won’t mention the small matter of the shower – beautifully designed and just off the bedroom – a walk in wet room. The tramp had carefully instructed the shower designer on the slope of the floor of the shower to make sure that the water drained properly and the bedroom carpet would never be in danger. The shower experts, thinking that they were shower experts, assured the tramp that he was really out of his depth – a word they might well regret using given what happened – went ahead as they intended ignoring the tramp’s advice. After a hard day moving furniture and unpacking boxes, the tramp thought a shower before Gillian Tett’s lecture on the collapse of the financial system was in order. When the trampess went into the bedroom to see why they tramp wasn’t ready and it was, of course, time to leave, she was rather distressed to see him wrapped in a towel on the bed mobile phone to ear unleashing a stream of invectives that are not appropriate for me to relate here. Let’s just say that turning off the shower quickly and throwing a towel on the floor where the shower floor and carpet met prevented the bedroom from being flooded. The trampess went alone to the lecture. Luckily wine was on offer. The rest I leave to your imagination.)
The picture hanging was another story, but as tramp 4 is an aspiring artist, he was put in charge of the picture hanger whom the trampess had never met and who could only come after the tramps had left to resume their gypsy life. It always pays to have lunch with brilliant girl friends with large houses and even more children than the tramps – they need so much help just to survive, they have a solution to every problem. In the case of picture hanging, a solution was handed to the trampess over the second glass of wine and a wonderful risotto and the “come back and see how spendidly the paintings in the two storey hall stairwell are hung” was not an invitation to decadence (after all it was a girl friend, and the mother of 5) but a chance to see the work of a man whose judgement could be trusted with the most complex problems (if this man were in politics instead of picture hanging the world would be at peace). That left the trampess and tramp 4 (who made some quite creative suggestions), to merely allocate paintings to rooms and grant the magician the scope to determine positioning (remember the trampess had once aspired to be an art historian, so we are not talking 2 paintings per room). The trampess had, of course, hoped that this brilliant, talented man would help before she had to leave, but unfortunately (this tends to happen to brilliant, talented men) he was off to Paris to hang 800 (!) paintings for a client – rather more than one day’s work. Explaining this all to the tramp required more than one attempt, (is there only one person in London who can hang pictures??) but the pictures are hung and the second home is close to feeling like one, at least so tramps 3, 4 and GF asserted. Tramp 4 dutifully acted as the House and Garden photographer and sent the tramps an email of the results. He was quite pleased.
The tramps received the photos in their new WLW. I have already hinted that marquee II is vastly superior to marquee I, as comfortable as it was. I also mentioned the 6 ring binders (which were not available on day 1 just to make the use of equipment that much more challenging) full of instructions in virtually all languages from Indo-European to Asian and a few others as well. Bigger, better and more luxurious is ,in the end, better, of course, but it sometimes takes awhile to be sure that that is so. It is decidedly better not to have to remember to turn the water pump on and off when one wants to use water. It was not at all difficult to remember that I didn’t have to remember the pump, it came quite naturally. Other things were not quite so straightforward. The generator was not difficult to master, and it caused a bit of mirth one day when the tramps had guests to lunch and the generator had to be switched on in order to turn on the Nespresso machine. It did seem extravagantly excessive - one can imagine Katherine Hepburn saying, “Darling, give me a generator, would you?” in the Philadelphia Story, so being able to deliver that throw away line was quite fun. While the generator is relatively easy (one large switch, hold down until it catches – rather like the ignition in a car), the circuit board is a model of intricacy, delicacy and precision German labelling and as long as you know words like Licht: befahreseite, Decke vorne, relaisverteiler 10A (and that’s only one of 28) then everything is really very clear. Luckily this is not the trampess’s area of remit.
Sadly, the televisions and the wi-fi (which are) were neither straightforward nor amusing. After multiple instruction sessions from the foreman in charge of our WLW, and each time adding notes in the iPhone to remind me, I thought I could at least turn the bedroom television on, if not quickly find my favourite channels. Ha! Each time I thought I had it, something went missing - mostly the picture. No pressure of course with the World Cup on and the German team performing much better than expected. Eventually, after several days and much mirth on the part of my instructor, I seemed tolerably competent. (no German games were missed). Nonetheless, and for other more important reasons, we remained in the factory grounds for some weeks – it is never wise to cut the umbilical too quickly. It is well known in the trade that those who drive away on the day their vehicle is ready usually resell quickly, have a nervous breakdown, or have very high telephone bills. With the WLW the ultimate hedge in the case of a total collapse of the global economy, option one was not acceptable, option 2 is clearly very costly, and option 3 seems wasteful). Besides, living in a factory by day and on the side of a country road by night (the factory gates are locked at night and no one can be locked inside – Germans have very strict health and safety rules) can be instructive, educational and amusing.
If the television took days, the wi-fi took weeks and several conversations between our London geek and the German ones, with the tramp in the middle as the only one remotely capable of handling the interchange. At one point it was even assumed hackers had broken in and changed all the password links to the server (and indeed the server name itself – not just identity theft, identity switch!). I felt like M when she discovered Bond and broken into her computer – except it wasn’t Bond. Not good, but happily since the tramps were just about to cut the cord, but hadn’t, the only inconvenience was staying put a little longer.
Apparently, it is possible, with a small load to have the washer/dryer do both operations with one instruction. Armed with German/English dictionary, your trampess still has not figured this out. Nor has she figured out how to interrupt a one time fits all drying cycle. The tramp refuses to look at the manual (he finds them, on the whole, as clearly written as I do, and as we each have specialities and washing machines are not in his remit . . . . ) so at the moment the drying is probably not as green as it could be and a wash put on at the beginning of a hike will not be dry at the end. Perhaps, when I pass through London next, a stop at Harvey Nichols and a quick skim of the instruction manual in English will reveal the keys to efficient operation. In the meantime, the trampess rejoices that she has figured out how to dry the sheets when the sun is hiding.
I will save moving in day for another time, let’s just say it would seem intuitively obvious that moving from a small vehicle to a large one would present no difficulties. Intuition is not always right.
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