Venice 8th October
We've been here 24 fun-packed hours, the city is banging, charged up by the huge cruise ships which loom over the skyline towards the west and disgorge thousands of tourists every day, mostly American. It's a VERY long time since I was here (1962 I think) and it's cleaned up a bit but now must offer the most concentrated selection of shops selling decorated masks in the world. The nicest bits (apart from the stupendous palazzi, the cheerful boats on the shimmering water, the tiered footbridges and the carved stone) are the dead-end alleys and domestic courtyards. It is all stunningly beautiful and impossible to see more than a tiny fraction of things in any given amount of time. This is a great time of year to come, with damp foggy mornings (mesmerisingly beautiful to look at), and then warm sunny afternoons and musky hot evenings where eating out on the street is very attractive.
One great innovation is the liberal display of street names or arrow-based route guides, some of which are (amusingly) hijacked by shop owners who want to divert you past their windows, so you think you are going to (say) Piazza San Marco but you end up somewhere else instead.
During supper last night we struck up (as the saying goes) a conversation with two Londoners, David and Albert, who've been coming here for a week every spring and autumn since the early 1970s, always staying in the same hotel, eating every meal in the same resto, outliving the management of both hotel and cafe in fact, several times, because it suits them. Very constant.
Our camping is small and quiet-ish, very near a bus route into the city, and also near the conference centre which I'll be at for the next 2 days. Access to the site is precarious due to horrendous roadworks, all carried out with great Italian verve and completeness so that pavements, road, signs, fences, everything has been torn down and jumbled together in a sort of local chaos. Even the campsite management are unable to fully describe how we should reach the bus stop. We take our life in our hands when we walk out to the road.
We went into the Guggenheim museum this afternoon, what a treat, full of works she mostly had bought from the artists directly – the Futurists, Dali, Man Ray, Leger, Klee, Picasso naturally, Picabia, Antoine Pevsner, Miro, Mondrian, Malevich, Magritte, Giacometti, Kandinsky, Chagall, all, all the great names of the 20th century and then they've added a few more. We absolutely LOVED the Anish Kapoor in the garden, a big slab of black granite with two dish shaped polished out of one side, equal in size and slightly overlapping. These dents are like mirrors and give you a terrifying experience of seeing yourself magnified as you approach the stone, so that at one point you are forced to stop as your reflection apparently leaps out to meet you. A trio of young and happy German women sat on a bench beside this, watching the sequence of people like ourselves, all reacting in different ways...they understood this behaviour was as much a part of the art work as the stone itself. Wonderful.
Then a vaporetto (no 1) grinding its way back to the Roma (where we catch our bus back to Mestre and the camping)....in full glorious light, the boat crowded with schoolkids and commuters and tourists and grumpy old people, and on the water dozens of gondolas and water-taxis and boats carrying workmen and their stuff... all bobbing about and jostling for clear water.
Impossible to describe it all (and really you should come and see for yourself).
I just want to add a word about Como where we stayed on Tuesday night – a centre for luxury and brilliant design, not cheap but a feast for the eyes everywhere you look. We ate a light supper in a tulip shop – what they described as a pre-dinner snack but exquisitely presented in an antique building roughly and thoughtfully revealed and restored, with white painted walls and timbers, casually arranged bucket and bouquets everywhere, loads of things available to buy.... they neglected no chance to offer a spending opportunity to visitors and all so artless and subtle and accessible. Fantastic.
I'm sitting here now under the poplars with huge leaves falling to ground every few moments, and soft dusk light filling in the spaces between the trees. We're waiting for a friend who's flying in from London...her plane is delayed 45 mins so we have some extra time. Not sure whether to arrange to eat here or take her straight to the city. I can hear the end of the works outside on the road, and a factory hooter, and some dogs barking somewhere... It's very peaceful and calm.
The holiday has gone v fast...we've done about 1000 miles so far and have to race back the minute the conference is over, to make our crossing from Dunkerque on Monday evening. Texting friends in England has been fun, too, a sort of pepper-and-salt for the daily experience. I wish, sometimes, I could have all my friends with me on trips like this. When I am a multizillionaire I think I'll start buying ludicrously difficult modern art, put it all in a fab building in a faraway place, and then open the doors to see who comes. S Beckett told Peggy Guggenheim to only buy living artists' work. Our friend Alex in Lausanne would probably not agree with this, as he has a fantastic collection of art mostly created before 1750, but I think I can't afford that sort of thing. Yet.
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Contrasts
When Caeser wrote the history of his wars against the Gauls, he described Vesontio in some detail - a settlement inside a deep loop of a river - about a kilometre wide, and with hills and mountains to one side and rich plains to the other. The name Vesontio transformed itself into Besancon,(cedilla on the c).
It seems to have been very rich for a very long time, with an amazing collection of wonderful building still in daily use dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, rather like Oxford, with cloisters and courtyards and hidden spaces. From the middle ages it had hospitals and refuges for women, children, the sick, and the poor and a vivid tradition of taking care of its people, so there are numerous public fountains, with elegant sculptural adornments. It claims to have the oldest public art collection in France. This may be true, but we have noticed several places such as Dijon where claims are made about public art.
It must be hard being in charge of building up a public collection, as your personal taste or judgement may be harshly judged in the future. These collections are historically formed out of the personal collections of some rich individuals by bequest, but here in Besancon there are some striking features. There are a lot of pictures of women being safe, doing safe things.... minding children, holding dishes, weaving, etc. There is also a picture from the late 18th c of a child (boy? girl?) holding a whip over a prostrate puppet...the picture is called 'Gratuite, obligatoire', very sinister. And another nasty piece called La Somnabuliste or something like that...a very gothic image, not Fantin-Latour (I think) but a horrid vision of femininity, dark and threatening.
This morning, disdaining breakfast costing 8 euros in the otherwise excellent Hotel Granvelle, we ate at a cafe round the corner for half the price and there on the wall was a poster/calendar of a naked girl lying on a scaled-up plate of spaghetti in a rolling landscape. Woman as food. How safe is that?
So, in this wonderful old place I am left with the feeling that they have a fine history of public maintenance but they have been terrified of their women, and still are, maybe.
It seems to have been very rich for a very long time, with an amazing collection of wonderful building still in daily use dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, rather like Oxford, with cloisters and courtyards and hidden spaces. From the middle ages it had hospitals and refuges for women, children, the sick, and the poor and a vivid tradition of taking care of its people, so there are numerous public fountains, with elegant sculptural adornments. It claims to have the oldest public art collection in France. This may be true, but we have noticed several places such as Dijon where claims are made about public art.
It must be hard being in charge of building up a public collection, as your personal taste or judgement may be harshly judged in the future. These collections are historically formed out of the personal collections of some rich individuals by bequest, but here in Besancon there are some striking features. There are a lot of pictures of women being safe, doing safe things.... minding children, holding dishes, weaving, etc. There is also a picture from the late 18th c of a child (boy? girl?) holding a whip over a prostrate puppet...the picture is called 'Gratuite, obligatoire', very sinister. And another nasty piece called La Somnabuliste or something like that...a very gothic image, not Fantin-Latour (I think) but a horrid vision of femininity, dark and threatening.
This morning, disdaining breakfast costing 8 euros in the otherwise excellent Hotel Granvelle, we ate at a cafe round the corner for half the price and there on the wall was a poster/calendar of a naked girl lying on a scaled-up plate of spaghetti in a rolling landscape. Woman as food. How safe is that?
So, in this wonderful old place I am left with the feeling that they have a fine history of public maintenance but they have been terrified of their women, and still are, maybe.
Some of the ways in which France is different,
It's a huge place. You drive for days, literally, and you still haven't covered quarter of it. The landscape arrives in huge swathes, and the occasional district of small fields and woods suddenly reminds you how tiny England is.
They have had a love-affair with concrete for decades, painted or more usually bare, so it forms the skins of their houses, their walls, fences, telegraph poles, bridges, road signs, lamp-posts, everything.
They still believe in family life and little children walk along holding their parents' hands, and it's normal to see the whole family out for a stroll, any time.
Everything stops about midday for lunch. You can park for free in any city centre from 12 - 2 because the whole world is having lunch.
When you go into a small shop, whether you know anyone there or not, you say 'Bon jour messieurs, mesdames!' and when you leave you say 'Au revoir'.
At about 7 in the evening, or when it gets dark, or before that, everyone goes into their houses and shuts the shutters and that's it. All street life ceases.
When you choose meat in a resto, and they ask how you want it cooked, always choose 'saignant' or very lightly cooked. All Frenchmen know that cooking meat 'well' means it goes tough, and only the English ask for it 'bien cuit'. They do not care if your meat is inedibly tough as you are an English person.
The French often have much longer to stand and chat than English people do at home. You can talk endlessly about very little - the weather, madame's dog, the local food, the rise of the euro, whatever you like - as long as you pronounce it properly. For the French, conversation itself is endless fascinating, an art form.
In any town or city it is worth seeking out the Musee des Beaux Artes, or d'Archaeologie, as these places are very well-funded and the exhibits are brilliantly presented and very educational.
Looking for a meal, we all know - follow the lorry drivers... the plat is always good value, and unlike in England, the cheapest thing is often the best.
The French label all their rivers as you drive over them, an excellent idea.
They also have wonderful cultural road signs in brown or shades of brown...telling you of the local sights and heritage. We should do this in England too.
They have had a love-affair with concrete for decades, painted or more usually bare, so it forms the skins of their houses, their walls, fences, telegraph poles, bridges, road signs, lamp-posts, everything.
They still believe in family life and little children walk along holding their parents' hands, and it's normal to see the whole family out for a stroll, any time.
Everything stops about midday for lunch. You can park for free in any city centre from 12 - 2 because the whole world is having lunch.
When you go into a small shop, whether you know anyone there or not, you say 'Bon jour messieurs, mesdames!' and when you leave you say 'Au revoir'.
At about 7 in the evening, or when it gets dark, or before that, everyone goes into their houses and shuts the shutters and that's it. All street life ceases.
When you choose meat in a resto, and they ask how you want it cooked, always choose 'saignant' or very lightly cooked. All Frenchmen know that cooking meat 'well' means it goes tough, and only the English ask for it 'bien cuit'. They do not care if your meat is inedibly tough as you are an English person.
The French often have much longer to stand and chat than English people do at home. You can talk endlessly about very little - the weather, madame's dog, the local food, the rise of the euro, whatever you like - as long as you pronounce it properly. For the French, conversation itself is endless fascinating, an art form.
In any town or city it is worth seeking out the Musee des Beaux Artes, or d'Archaeologie, as these places are very well-funded and the exhibits are brilliantly presented and very educational.
Looking for a meal, we all know - follow the lorry drivers... the plat is always good value, and unlike in England, the cheapest thing is often the best.
The French label all their rivers as you drive over them, an excellent idea.
They also have wonderful cultural road signs in brown or shades of brown...telling you of the local sights and heritage. We should do this in England too.
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Dijon
Dijon
I'm writing at the end of a day wandering round Dijon... a lovely place, very lively and full of young people thronging the antique streets. Yesterday (Friday) we spent a day driving gently south from Chalon, had a picnic by a canal, saw a menhir (at la Haute Borne) which was tightly railed in to prevent the farmer from knocking it down..whoever did the negotiations obviously drove a hard bargain as there is barely a foot around it. It is quite something, limestone and eroded, it may have been much taller when put into place. In England one would associate this with stone age or maybe bronze age people, but here it is labelled Gallo-Romain, so who knows?
We arrived at Dijon in the late afternoon. Again the campsite is now surrounded by roads, rail, etc. but has the most marvellous collection of different trees of all kinds. Lots of bean trees, pines, things I have never seen. They are mostly losing their leaves so we get lots of crunch underfoot.
Sadly no WiFi as in the last place, though the man in the accueil says we can get it if we sit on the ground outside the cafe, which is now shut, but claims to be a hotspot.
A couple checking in at the same time as us asked us to go and play cards with them later...in the event our supper was too late and I was too tired but I was relieved at this, wondering if they were in fact professional wandering cardsharps. Silly.
We walked out of the site to the nearest local supermarket – an old-fashione shop by modern French standards, with relatively little choice. It was a Spar in a slightly tatty district and just as in so many English supermarkets there was a child being smacked by its very young harrassed mother, and wailing for a while afterwards.
Still we got a few bits and bobs and came home to the tent to make a shrimp risotto, with a salad including our own home-grown tomatoes. Very nice too.
Then bed – and oh, it got cold. Down to 5 degrees. Cold noses, cold anything not buried in duvet or rugs.
And explosions – really loud bangs, presumably fireworks though we saw no flashes. And being so near the railway we had goods trains passing all night.... so not restful, but somehow an adventure and we got up this morning in good humour. It turns out you can make v good toast using a heat-spreader if you move the slice of bread about a bit.
The bus into Dijon leaves from very near the site, costs one euro and is a modern bendybus. Once in Dijon you can use the free navettes which whizz around, so access is easy. The town is great fun, wooden and stone buildings, lots of pride, history, carving, statues, huge churches, a palace or two, lots of shops, hustle and bustle and masses of young people. We did a bit of a walking tour, went into les Halles (huge cast-iron covered market), bought fruit and spinach for supper tonight. I bought a long cardigan, we had lunch in Cafe Kent which was thronging with locals, went to the Musee d'Archaeology, the Musee des Beaux Arts, the cathedral, etc etc etc. Wonderful expensive medieval architecture, crypts, tombs, church organs, etc. Bought a new card for the camera as I had somehow inadvertently put the file size to 8Mb which meant I filled it up without realising, dammit.
At lunch, Andrew told me he's invented a new pudding, called Boue Meringue, with some sort of chocolately sauce... which comes back to you.
Wearily back to the campsite, quite tired. I fear this is not a very interesting blog, because I am so tired, but I am soaking up the sounds and sights and we are having a lot of laughs. My dreams are also interesting: arranging a rendezvous for all my schoolmates at my granny's house, but fixing no food and making 2 of them do a radio interview against their will. Now, bugger it, I've forgotten the other two which were really good. I will try to recall them, but this is a very interesting area of fragile memory.... at one moment they are clearly held in the mind, and then pouf! gone!
Now I will go and try to load this sitting on the ground outside the shut cafe.
Aha! it works!
I'm writing at the end of a day wandering round Dijon... a lovely place, very lively and full of young people thronging the antique streets. Yesterday (Friday) we spent a day driving gently south from Chalon, had a picnic by a canal, saw a menhir (at la Haute Borne) which was tightly railed in to prevent the farmer from knocking it down..whoever did the negotiations obviously drove a hard bargain as there is barely a foot around it. It is quite something, limestone and eroded, it may have been much taller when put into place. In England one would associate this with stone age or maybe bronze age people, but here it is labelled Gallo-Romain, so who knows?
We arrived at Dijon in the late afternoon. Again the campsite is now surrounded by roads, rail, etc. but has the most marvellous collection of different trees of all kinds. Lots of bean trees, pines, things I have never seen. They are mostly losing their leaves so we get lots of crunch underfoot.
Sadly no WiFi as in the last place, though the man in the accueil says we can get it if we sit on the ground outside the cafe, which is now shut, but claims to be a hotspot.
A couple checking in at the same time as us asked us to go and play cards with them later...in the event our supper was too late and I was too tired but I was relieved at this, wondering if they were in fact professional wandering cardsharps. Silly.
We walked out of the site to the nearest local supermarket – an old-fashione shop by modern French standards, with relatively little choice. It was a Spar in a slightly tatty district and just as in so many English supermarkets there was a child being smacked by its very young harrassed mother, and wailing for a while afterwards.
Still we got a few bits and bobs and came home to the tent to make a shrimp risotto, with a salad including our own home-grown tomatoes. Very nice too.
Then bed – and oh, it got cold. Down to 5 degrees. Cold noses, cold anything not buried in duvet or rugs.
And explosions – really loud bangs, presumably fireworks though we saw no flashes. And being so near the railway we had goods trains passing all night.... so not restful, but somehow an adventure and we got up this morning in good humour. It turns out you can make v good toast using a heat-spreader if you move the slice of bread about a bit.
The bus into Dijon leaves from very near the site, costs one euro and is a modern bendybus. Once in Dijon you can use the free navettes which whizz around, so access is easy. The town is great fun, wooden and stone buildings, lots of pride, history, carving, statues, huge churches, a palace or two, lots of shops, hustle and bustle and masses of young people. We did a bit of a walking tour, went into les Halles (huge cast-iron covered market), bought fruit and spinach for supper tonight. I bought a long cardigan, we had lunch in Cafe Kent which was thronging with locals, went to the Musee d'Archaeology, the Musee des Beaux Arts, the cathedral, etc etc etc. Wonderful expensive medieval architecture, crypts, tombs, church organs, etc. Bought a new card for the camera as I had somehow inadvertently put the file size to 8Mb which meant I filled it up without realising, dammit.
At lunch, Andrew told me he's invented a new pudding, called Boue Meringue, with some sort of chocolately sauce... which comes back to you.
Wearily back to the campsite, quite tired. I fear this is not a very interesting blog, because I am so tired, but I am soaking up the sounds and sights and we are having a lot of laughs. My dreams are also interesting: arranging a rendezvous for all my schoolmates at my granny's house, but fixing no food and making 2 of them do a radio interview against their will. Now, bugger it, I've forgotten the other two which were really good. I will try to recall them, but this is a very interesting area of fragile memory.... at one moment they are clearly held in the mind, and then pouf! gone!
Now I will go and try to load this sitting on the ground outside the shut cafe.
Aha! it works!
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Citadel and Municipality
Day two. We passed this last night at Chalon en Champagne, in a municipal campsite which must have been created in a rural setting but is now surrounded by fast roads. suburban houses and hypermarkets – a bit depressing on arrival but with such superb facilities and service that we are enjoying it. The sun is coming up as I write. I bought two foaming coffees from the booth across the pathway half an hour ago. Four small mosquito bites in the night (we didn't zip the 'bedroom' curtain into place last night) and two daddy-long-legs ejected before went to sleep. Magpies chattering in the plane trees, and some distant woodpigeons. This site has a lake apparently, but as it's the end of the season, it's been locked off along with most of the pitches, so we are all huddled near the gates, loos, etc. Freezing a water bottle for our coolbox was gratuit.
Andrew has just put on one of his recent charity shop buys – a huge pale grey sweater. He says it's 10 degrees outside now, and already warmer than an hour or so ago. At night he feels the cold more than I do, so he had extra sleeping bag and blanket layers on him in the night,
I must mention Reims, where we did not stop, but where we saw a new tramsystem being installed. Gaston and his wheelbarrow had some help for this project – the whole of the Roman road entry to the city has been dug up and they are installing this wonderful service, all with European money no doubt. Why can't our towns have these upgrades?
Our main discovery was the citadel town of Laon. A few years ago I was very tempted by the online chance of buying a lovely old warehouse in the town very cheaply but it seemed so far away and irrelevant. Now I wish I had at least come to do a recce, as the place is magic. A great block of (presumably) limestone rises out of the huge Picardy plain, and on it is a vast church with myriad towers and columns and twiddly bits – not exactly Gothic but almost Classical in style, very odd and interesting. Once you get closer to look at it you can see it is halfway between Romanesque and Gothick, what they call Transitional, but – my word – it is gorgeous. The town itself is polished and cleaned up, with one-way systems for the traffic and lots of antique shops and architectural practices specialising in conservation. The view from the terrace road around the top is spectacular. There is also an ingenious and very funny funicular system between the top and the railway station down at the bottom with a single wagon whooshing along a track every two and a half minutes, costing 1.10 euros single or return and excellent value.
OK – today we are heading for Beaune, I think.
Had a shower - whoosh! Lots of hot water and a well-designed cubicle with somewhere to hang your dry stuff.
Had breakfast, chatted to various English - all in caravans and heading home. All say it is much warmer down south.
Was thinking about my shower on Tuesday morning...it was at the headquarters of the Boy Scouts Association at Gidwell Park, where I went on an overnight course. The house is lovely, white, historic, Georgian, set in 200 acres of woodland and camping fields. There are modern additions for conferences etc. and we were allocated to the old part of the house for our accommodation and workrooms. How lovely.... especially the so-called crinoline staircase, the alcoves, mouldings and elegant rooms. The paintings are amazing, mostly showing beautiful young boys in scout uniform in various casual-but-purposeful poses: talking earnestly to a starving child whose mother is trying to earn money making paper flowers, poring over a map with friends also in uniform, interviewing a nervous but upright scout-candidate while adopting a lordly posture and with a Union Jack draped prominently in the corner (this was exhibited at the RA in 1914 so presumably most if not all the boy models were wiped out before a further 4 years had passed). All these paintings which are beautifully painted, are by E Stafford Carlos, who might, these days, be nervous about his constant subject matter - lovely blond boys in knee-high socks and lace-up shoes and with keen dedicated faces. How odd that in this liberated age we should still have these fears. When the paintings were made, quite likely no-one stopped to question any of it.
Anyway,back to the shower... The wonderful thing about it was that the water-part was held to the wall by a magnet, so it could be easily moved. The room was comfortable, reinstated as a proper chamber having once been divided into booths. Being in the old part of the house, the corridor outside was a shambles of doors, steps up, steps down, corners, angles, more of all of those... Fawlty Towers is by no means the only place with such mad architecture.
We had a lovely time there, including a session on the High Ropes, in which exercise I did not do very well, only reaching the third hanging pole while others scaled to the 30? 40? foot dangling contraption. (Though I did well on the written test). Luckily, on a camping holiday the only ropes I have to worry about are the guyropes, only one in this case, tied to little tree, as the weather though autumnal and cooling, is very calm and mild.
Camping first day (bloody French keyboards)
Wednesday's Times (30th sept, p 19) said customers in a china shop in lavenham were surprised when a woman (described as being 15 stone) fell through a skylight into the shop, onto a table dispay. She had stepped out of her flat upstairs onto some sort of ledge or balcony for a fag. This kind of thing is less rare than you might think. Last Sunday while we took our daughter Lucie out to supper in Finchley, a similar accident took place at her flat. Some people in the apartment upstairs had been drinking when their guest went out for a pizza. Coming back without a key and unable to wake them from their torpor he decided (of course) that the best thing to do was to climb up the back of the building to get in. It was pitch dark and he was carrying pizza, so he did well to get up above the glass roof covering the groundfloor patio (outside my daughter's room). However he fell through the glass and who knows how badly injured. When we came back from supper the ambulance was there and a crowd of coppers. We had to wait to get our car out while they patched him up for the journey to hospital. My daughter and her flatmate were left with blood, broken glass, smashed patio furniture and shock. So, beware people falling through your ceiling.
Here we are in fine autumn weather east of Arras, at the beginning of a long week's camping holiday heading down to Venice for the Juice Plus conference. Norfolk Line crossings are excellent, business like, calm, etc. First call for me in France was to take some photos in the bizarre chemical/industrial landscape just east of Dunkerque, in a place called la Grande Synthe. You have to keep heading for the back road near the sea, crossing unmanned level crossings, and going through this mad area which has tiny farmhouses and willows and harvested fields on one side, and huge steel furnaces, flares, spheres, retorts, fences, stacks, flues, hoppers, tanks and spoil heaps on the other. To your left is the old history of northern France – land reclaimed from the sea, feudal farms, peasantry, obsessive care of the terroir, then wars and rebuilding. To your right is newer France – chemical industry, huge-scale metal working and aggregates, massive lorry-loads of materials, filthy air, brown smoke, stinks, nausea, and this absolutely fantastic landscape. Then, as you drive away, it all goes back to quaint, pretty, orderly farming again.
One field very amusing... the onion harvest had been made, and all and sundry had arrived to glean the leftovers. We saw cars driving as fast as possible into the field and people scurrying around snatching up the left-over onions.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
The man walking in the river
When we walked along the towpath towards the Paper Mill Lock, we were very surprised to see something never seen before. You know already what it is from the title of this essay. We saw a man walking steadily along in the middle of the river, downstream as it happened. Immediately what came to my mind was the Betjeman poem about Matthew Webb, the Dawley man, who went swimming along the old canal which carries the bricks to Bawley (not sure of the spelling at this precise moment).
This man was about 50, maybe, and slightly bearded and solemn and steady. He had a short haircut and was wearing some sort of special clothing with an inflated patch across his shoulders - some sort of life-saving device, I suppose.
It seemed so extraordinary. It looked almost medieval, or even mythic. I don't think I have ever seen such a thing, so solemn and so unexpected. Here we were in the middle of open countryside, with tall ashtrees and willows along the banks, and the river running bright and clear, and quite deep too I guess, but with a man processing very vertically through the water right down the middle of the stream. He did not look as if he were trying to swim, or was lost, or had fallen from a boat.
A group of people further along on the bank were talking to him.
We said 'Are you alright?'
'Yes' he said.
'What are you doing?'
"Training dogs.'
We listened as he explained to the others. There is a group called Lowland Search and Rescue who use dogs to track and trace missing people. These dogs need to know how to find people who may have fallen into the water and he was setting a scent for them. We said we thought water was the way to put dogs off the scent.
'No,' he said. 'They can find a person even in deep water. The main scent from people comes from the oil in their hair, so I am letting some of my hair scent get into the water like this.....' and he wetted his head and then trailed his hands into the water again.
He said "The police in Essex don't like us much because we are volunteers' (can this be true? maybe I misheard). 'We found two people recently - one was a young black guy, you remember?' He thought we were local. We did not remember. 'And one was a young girl, committed suicide. Very sad'.
We all stood in silence.
'But mostly, it's for Alzheimer's people. They go for a walk, maybe in the woods, then they get lost, and we help find them.'
We walked on and later found not one but two of the young dogs in training. The first, called Indiana, is owned by a German lady who loves living in England and works in a care home. She let us take a picture of the two of them. The other dog is called Folly, owned by a local guy called Richard. These two had met at dog training classes. Folly was more experienced than Indiana, and very hyped up, waiting for his turn.
When we met them again later, we learned that they had each found David - the man walking in the water - quite easily. The dogs had signalled with their barks where he had gone into the water. Then much further along the banks they had been able to pinpoint his hiding place to within a couple of feet.
It seemed absolutely amazing that the dogs could focus in on the right scent, with so many people - probably dozens within the space of an hour or so - passing by while David was walking in the river, and distracting smells from horses and other dogs. They can do this work without being given any kind of object to work from.
These two young dogs are to be tested soon, so their training was timely. Both are Belgian Shepherds - like our Alsations in some ways, but lighter and smaller. All the work is voluntary.
This man was about 50, maybe, and slightly bearded and solemn and steady. He had a short haircut and was wearing some sort of special clothing with an inflated patch across his shoulders - some sort of life-saving device, I suppose.
It seemed so extraordinary. It looked almost medieval, or even mythic. I don't think I have ever seen such a thing, so solemn and so unexpected. Here we were in the middle of open countryside, with tall ashtrees and willows along the banks, and the river running bright and clear, and quite deep too I guess, but with a man processing very vertically through the water right down the middle of the stream. He did not look as if he were trying to swim, or was lost, or had fallen from a boat.
A group of people further along on the bank were talking to him.
We said 'Are you alright?'
'Yes' he said.
'What are you doing?'
"Training dogs.'
We listened as he explained to the others. There is a group called Lowland Search and Rescue who use dogs to track and trace missing people. These dogs need to know how to find people who may have fallen into the water and he was setting a scent for them. We said we thought water was the way to put dogs off the scent.
'No,' he said. 'They can find a person even in deep water. The main scent from people comes from the oil in their hair, so I am letting some of my hair scent get into the water like this.....' and he wetted his head and then trailed his hands into the water again.
He said "The police in Essex don't like us much because we are volunteers' (can this be true? maybe I misheard). 'We found two people recently - one was a young black guy, you remember?' He thought we were local. We did not remember. 'And one was a young girl, committed suicide. Very sad'.
We all stood in silence.
'But mostly, it's for Alzheimer's people. They go for a walk, maybe in the woods, then they get lost, and we help find them.'
We walked on and later found not one but two of the young dogs in training. The first, called Indiana, is owned by a German lady who loves living in England and works in a care home. She let us take a picture of the two of them. The other dog is called Folly, owned by a local guy called Richard. These two had met at dog training classes. Folly was more experienced than Indiana, and very hyped up, waiting for his turn.
When we met them again later, we learned that they had each found David - the man walking in the water - quite easily. The dogs had signalled with their barks where he had gone into the water. Then much further along the banks they had been able to pinpoint his hiding place to within a couple of feet.
It seemed absolutely amazing that the dogs could focus in on the right scent, with so many people - probably dozens within the space of an hour or so - passing by while David was walking in the river, and distracting smells from horses and other dogs. They can do this work without being given any kind of object to work from.
These two young dogs are to be tested soon, so their training was timely. Both are Belgian Shepherds - like our Alsations in some ways, but lighter and smaller. All the work is voluntary.
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