I freely admit it was the sound of Sharon Shannon that made me want to be a squeezebox player. That was fifteen years ago, and things didn't exactly turn out that way, in that the good woman plays the diatonic melodeon and I ended up playing the chromatic piano accordion, but I'm happy enough with my own style of playing.
Here's a recently uploaded live performance of the excellent 'Galway Girl' with Steve Earle crooning. A gentleman to the end, Mr Earle has always protected the eponymous lady's identity, and as her hair was black and her eyes were blue, we have to discount Shazza as a suspect. Enjoy
Friday 21 March 2008
Out of the blue, and into the black
As I have mentioned the Black Diamond, there is a small bit on the electric internet about her:-
http://www.philsfoils.com/Diamond/diamond.html
The new rudder makes her a dream to steer, even on a shy reach in a blow with the asymetric spinnaker stalling.
http://www.philsfoils.com/Diamond/diamond.html
The new rudder makes her a dream to steer, even on a shy reach in a blow with the asymetric spinnaker stalling.
To infinity....... and beyond!
OK, Juliet, here goes. I'm definitely the last person out of 4,635,040 to enjoy this animation, but it's a good maiden voyage for glueing anything more complex than a photo to these pages. Here's hoping it'll work........
Heard
As Ellie's fifteenth birthday was being celebrated Wednesday last, and she was sitting amid heaps of discarded wrapping paper, I was rather taken aback to have the tables of yesteryear turned on me. It was standard practice when the three were tinies for 'consolation' presents to be given to the two 'Unbirthay' celebrants, and I had forgotten that I had received an IOU for a present on March 1st, my big day. So imagine my delight to have my very own consolation present pushed into my unexpectant little hands.
It was the ipod thing that I had cried out for in the midst of tribal music gym hell!
It says Walkman on it, and as monumentally out of step and bewildered by the modern world as I am, even I had a Walkman in the days of C90 tapes and worn out batteries. But this thing is smaller than the meanest biscuit, and it hasn't got any screws so one can take it apart to see how it works. All you can do is look up its arse, for that is the only orifice, other than a suspicious-looking docking mechanism guaranteed not to talk to any other contraption from the panoply of audio reproduction that we are swamped with.
However, only have bred irresponsibly to guarantee little people in the house that can operate video machines and microwave ovens, one came down from university in the nick of time and tethered this Walkman to this thing I'm typing on, and downloaded (see how infectious their newspeak is?) lots of good stuff from Radio 4, and amazing things have happened.
The first miracle was sawing three minutes off my recent record for a 6 mile run. Midweek (my favourite - Libby is a fellow trad boater) took my mind completely away from the brainless activity of running, and dulled the pain of effort. The second was going to the gymnasium and not wanting to punch anyone in the squabble over which tribal music booms out from the tinny speakers in the particularly unpleasant sweat box I attend.
Which brings me to my point of what was heard. Two soundbites, one on 'Start the Week' concerning the difference between the genders - 'There are more male geniuses, but also more male idiots' and the other was in 'From Our Own Correspondent' that asserted that America looks upon terrorism as a war whilst Europe looks upon it as criminality, and our respective reactions differ accordingly.
It was the ipod thing that I had cried out for in the midst of tribal music gym hell!
It says Walkman on it, and as monumentally out of step and bewildered by the modern world as I am, even I had a Walkman in the days of C90 tapes and worn out batteries. But this thing is smaller than the meanest biscuit, and it hasn't got any screws so one can take it apart to see how it works. All you can do is look up its arse, for that is the only orifice, other than a suspicious-looking docking mechanism guaranteed not to talk to any other contraption from the panoply of audio reproduction that we are swamped with.
However, only have bred irresponsibly to guarantee little people in the house that can operate video machines and microwave ovens, one came down from university in the nick of time and tethered this Walkman to this thing I'm typing on, and downloaded (see how infectious their newspeak is?) lots of good stuff from Radio 4, and amazing things have happened.
The first miracle was sawing three minutes off my recent record for a 6 mile run. Midweek (my favourite - Libby is a fellow trad boater) took my mind completely away from the brainless activity of running, and dulled the pain of effort. The second was going to the gymnasium and not wanting to punch anyone in the squabble over which tribal music booms out from the tinny speakers in the particularly unpleasant sweat box I attend.
Which brings me to my point of what was heard. Two soundbites, one on 'Start the Week' concerning the difference between the genders - 'There are more male geniuses, but also more male idiots' and the other was in 'From Our Own Correspondent' that asserted that America looks upon terrorism as a war whilst Europe looks upon it as criminality, and our respective reactions differ accordingly.
Thursday 20 March 2008
Bizarre Diamond Blogspot
Having a multi-thousand Googleganger name, I haven't bothered 'Advanced Searching' Greg Dunn since the initial fascination with the electric internet in 1996, but every year or so, I do have a good look through the pages specifically relating to the Yachting World Diamond design.
I am lucky enough to be the current custodian of Black Diamond, sail number K44, of which there will hopefully be much more mention in these pages if I can achieve the potential summer racing programme on offer in the Blackwater this year.
Having a good old Google this evening, I found a rather bizarre site from a fellow blogspotter called 'diamond-r', who seems to have a thing about diamonds and random sentence generation. Since February, this site has racked up and incredible number of posts, well into the hundreds, that tell one absolutely nothing!
This is the page that relates to the Yachting World Diamond:-
http://diamond-r.blogspot.com/2008/02/yachting-world-diamond.html#yachting%20world%20diamond
If anyone can make bow or transom of it, please let me know!
Yours, in confusion........
I am lucky enough to be the current custodian of Black Diamond, sail number K44, of which there will hopefully be much more mention in these pages if I can achieve the potential summer racing programme on offer in the Blackwater this year.
Having a good old Google this evening, I found a rather bizarre site from a fellow blogspotter called 'diamond-r', who seems to have a thing about diamonds and random sentence generation. Since February, this site has racked up and incredible number of posts, well into the hundreds, that tell one absolutely nothing!
This is the page that relates to the Yachting World Diamond:-
http://diamond-r.blogspot.com/2008/02/yachting-world-diamond.html#yachting%20world%20diamond
If anyone can make bow or transom of it, please let me know!
Yours, in confusion........
Thursday 13 March 2008
Incredible India the Last
We left Chethalli with almost a sense of anticlimax, in that the focal points of our pilgrimage had been achieved, and anything after that intensity was going to pall. Our plan was however to carry on in the footsteps of our forebears and head up to Ooty.
Ooty was the Anglicised jolly hockey sticks corruption of Ootacamund, but the name endured the departure of the British, and 'Ooty - Queen of the Hill Stations' is still proclaimed on the town sign. We were booked into the best hotel in town, the Savoy, again fondly imagining our forebears staying in our very rooms, just up the road from the Ooty Club. Polite society in Ooty was based around a horse race meeting once a year, and long before spin doctors and image consultants, the protagonists of upper class warfare coined the acerbic strapline 'Snooty Ooty', which can only be pulled orf with received pronunciation.
However, actually getting to Ooty is a major undertaking, and we made an early start to cram in as much as possible along the way, leaving Chethalli at 7am. First stop was at the Tata Coffee Curing Works at Kashalnagur. I was particularly interested in this trip, as they also process organic coffee, and that was what I was interested in sourcing.
This is the handraulic coffee turning machine. This is a time-honoured method, and some old fashioned barley maltings in the UK still use this method
And this the organic coffee store
The walls were dotted about with mission statements with a difference, of which this was typical
After a very short visit, we left indecently fast, as we had many miles to cover, and we were keen to visit a Buddhist temple close to Kashalnagur. This is the main temple, which was quite a fantastic architectural feat, and the largest temple in the world outside Tibet
As luck would have it, we witnessed a major festival in the Buddhist calendar, when the monks had been observing a vigil for several days, but didn't show outward signs of exhaustion
We were befriended by a Taiwanese female monk, who explained the whole festival, and the basic tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. She was, however, a foreigner, and therefore outside the hierarchy of monks, but was one of the few 'lay' members who spoke English, so her role was to greet foreigners and explain the ropes. For anyone struggling with gender recognition, she is on the right.
Time pressed again, so we were back into the Tata, with the aircon on (1 rupee extra per mile, mind!) and speeding, when possible, towards Mysore. It was time for lunch, and we stopped at a reasonably up-market hotel cum diner. It was there that I realised how heartily sick of curry I had become. Jules saw the whole trip out on curry for breakfast (idly is an acquired taste!), tiffin, luncheon and dinner, but whilst nursing an ice-cold Kingfisher, I spied noodles on the menu, and they were absolutely deelicious.
We then skirted Mysore City and then turned right, heading due south on the Ooty Road. I have a mobile phone that is the techno version of a Swiss Army Knife, and one of its 'blades' is satnav that includes altitude. The plain to the south of Mysore is at about 2,000', but still very hot, as the phone also told me we were only 12 degrees north of the equator. It was on this road we saw our first monkey colony.
About an hour out of town, we happened upon Vasantha's favourite diner, and he knocked off for twenty minutes and disappeared inside for his scram. We respected his space and poked around the side of the road in the heat and dust. That diner could have been anywhere in the arid parts of middle earth, complete with the obligatory truck, a herd of goats and staring people.
Onwards, and eventually upwards. We passed through a nature reserve that was absolutely beautiful, glimpsing the occasional elephant, and then, climbing slightly we drove towards and then into the bottom of a massive mountain. It dawned on us that they aren't called 'Hill Stations' for nothing when we were confronted with a roadsign on a hairpin bend that had the figure '1' over a figure '36'. Yes, the first of 36 hairpin bends on a single track road that climbed from 3,500' to 7,500', four thousand feet climbing into downcoming traffic of all shapes, types and HGV/PSV classes, in a country where the concept of an MOT is alarmingly remote. I cannot recount how many times Vasantha sat on the horn on the way up, the gaps between were probably the shorter of the two. Suffice to say it was hairy, and we did pass several vehicles that had boiled. However, with every 500 feet we climbed, the temperature dropped another degree, and getting out of the car in the chill evening air was quite shocking, 12 degrees north of the equator.
But that was after we had to pass into Tamil Nadu. We had been in Karnartaka State for the trip so far, so it was quite a surprise to come to a halt just as we had breasted the top of the mountain, where Vasantha had to buy a pass to travel in the state. This seemed a bit rich, as the moment we passed the post, there was two miles of the most shocking road we had yet encountered, but again, there was evidence that something was in process of being done about it.
Ooty is lovely. There is a successful campaign to keep Ooty 'Plastic Free'. The plastic bag is the curse of India, and China, for that matter; it is the new carpet for the towns, villages and highways. Why the Indian Government can't grant a bounty on every sack collected is beyond me. But Ooty has made this plan stick by banning the shops and stalls from wrapping goods in plastic bags, and good on 'em.
It was now dusking as we drove into the opulent grounds of the Savoy. Allix and I drew the long straws and got the most fantastic suite, with our own bedroom and bathroom each, whilst Mary and Jules slummed it in the modern end. The ayah came by to light our fire, and we got stuck into some gin and mango before dinner, and got quietly pissed, to put it frankly.
And as we all know, drinks before dinner, then drinks with dinner.....
......meant I woke not feeling my best. In fact, I had a horrible night, as what had started as the most comfortable bed of the trip so far, with lovely cool, crisp sheets, when warmed up gave off the aroma of having been previously enjoyed by someone with incontinence issues. As there were two enormous single beds pushed together, I cut my losses and climbed into the other bed after having pumped the bilges out of all that beer and wine, but sad to say that they must have been an incontinent couple, so it was horribly whiffy. I planned my invective in the wee small hours, but as is usual in imaginary speech writing, when it came to the denouement, I was probably too delicate, as all they did was turn the mattress and put a protector on, which although it made me feel like the incontinent party, was 90% successful at hermetically sealing the stench.
We had one full day in Ooty, so made the most of it. The day started with a boating trip, as we were able to hire a rowing boat. As with all rules in India, the sign that firmly stated 'NO SELF ROW' was flouted as we hired a heavy carvel dinghy and waved off the services of the lascar.
Drunken people not allowed? Glad I wasn't breathalysed!
But, of course, I couldn't resist turning it into a race with another of the 'skippered' boats. I fancied my opponent didn't understand boat trim, so I made a pain of myself shifting the girls for'ard and getting my transom out of the water and reducing drag. It worked and we were pulling ahead nicely, but I hadn't reckoned on the thin air, and as I was pulling my tripe out like a spinach-fuelled Popeye, I started to feel quite sick.
But you should have seen the other bloke.......
We paddled right round the lake, far away from any of the other rowing boats or pedalos, and then Jules took the oars and showed us she had learned a thing or two down at Woodup all those years ago. As we two are close in age, when we were growing up, I was mad on boats, and she on horses, and it was a strange day indeed that we both were allowed to indulge ourselves in 'our' thing, as she hired a nag later for a canter in the hills. And all this at 7,500'. When I flew back into Heathrow, my plane flew the length of the City at exactly that height, and it is a hell of a long way up.
When we went ashore, Jules couldn't resist a go on the dodgems, or the 'Dashing Cars' as they are charmingly named. Just look at th unbridled aggression as Jules teaches the locals a thing or two about road rage.
From the Boating Lake it was off for a serious cup of coffee, and this was when we happened upon teh Indian version of Starbucks, called Coffee Day, and the coffee was knockout, so much so that we called back in the next day on our way out of town for another scoop. Then it was off to the church where our forebears had worn their knees out with piety (ho ho)
.... where I saw this wordy gravestone. The words are probably used in every second eulogy, but they were new to me, and I captured them for a good friend who is nursing the recent loss of her mother
Then we were back to the Savoy where Jules had hired this 'ornery critter for a hack in the hills. I have to say my sis does sit well in a saddle. She had a wonderful ride, with a Toda syce on a tiny pony as a guide, whilst the rest of us had a snooze and a trip round the shops
It was all a bit end of holiday then, as we dined in the Savoy restaurant. We made firm plans to return for the Christmas of 2009, with as many of the family as we can possibly amass. Next morning, we packed to leave, Vasantha strapped the suitcases to the roof, and we got this one final shot of the good old days
Then it was off, over the appaling road back to the border, and then into Karnartaka and down through 36 hairpin bends. Those who know about my 'thing' for speed bumps won't be surpirsed by my fascination with how Indian drivers avoid them. Simple, just drive on the other side of the road!
It is impossible to show the scale and majesty of the mountain, but here's trying
The trip back to Mysore was enjoyable, but was retracing our outward journey, but this time Vasantha got to dine first. Whilst we waited for him, two goats gave birth to kids, which were of great interest to the dogs, who were gathering to move in for the kill, when the family rushed out and rescued the valuable newborns
We dined regally in the Metropole in Mysore, which was outstandingly good food, but then it was back into the car for the final grind back to Bangalore and the real world beyond. It took an age to traverse town again, but eventually we found our old apartment, unloaded an bade our fond farewells to Vasantha, who had now been with us for six days.
Man
And Machine
We went out and dined lightly in a restaurant near the apartment, and I was struck how differently I perceived the town for only a week before, when I found it a filthy third world ghetto. I realised we were lucky to be in a posh part of town, and the shops and restaurants were quite cosmopolitan. It was undeniably Indian, but had a strange chic about it, one that I really warmed to, and makes me want to go back to Bangalore soon and spend much more time there.
I had forgotten Mary's inability to say goodbye, but remembered it as she retreated, closing the apartment door firmly behind her, for which Jules congratulated her by text, 'best one yet!' There is nothing left of import to impart, other than I am glad I have let a month pass to put the trip into perspective before finishing the narrative.
The defining feature of the trip for me was, perhaps surprisingly, not Dalquarren. It was meeting my sisters for the first time as travelling companions, sharing the very best of quality time, and lots of it, and this is going to sound mawkish, and you know it's coming, but realising quite how much I love them.
Ooty was the Anglicised jolly hockey sticks corruption of Ootacamund, but the name endured the departure of the British, and 'Ooty - Queen of the Hill Stations' is still proclaimed on the town sign. We were booked into the best hotel in town, the Savoy, again fondly imagining our forebears staying in our very rooms, just up the road from the Ooty Club. Polite society in Ooty was based around a horse race meeting once a year, and long before spin doctors and image consultants, the protagonists of upper class warfare coined the acerbic strapline 'Snooty Ooty', which can only be pulled orf with received pronunciation.
However, actually getting to Ooty is a major undertaking, and we made an early start to cram in as much as possible along the way, leaving Chethalli at 7am. First stop was at the Tata Coffee Curing Works at Kashalnagur. I was particularly interested in this trip, as they also process organic coffee, and that was what I was interested in sourcing.
This is the handraulic coffee turning machine. This is a time-honoured method, and some old fashioned barley maltings in the UK still use this method
And this the organic coffee store
The walls were dotted about with mission statements with a difference, of which this was typical
After a very short visit, we left indecently fast, as we had many miles to cover, and we were keen to visit a Buddhist temple close to Kashalnagur. This is the main temple, which was quite a fantastic architectural feat, and the largest temple in the world outside Tibet
As luck would have it, we witnessed a major festival in the Buddhist calendar, when the monks had been observing a vigil for several days, but didn't show outward signs of exhaustion
We were befriended by a Taiwanese female monk, who explained the whole festival, and the basic tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. She was, however, a foreigner, and therefore outside the hierarchy of monks, but was one of the few 'lay' members who spoke English, so her role was to greet foreigners and explain the ropes. For anyone struggling with gender recognition, she is on the right.
Time pressed again, so we were back into the Tata, with the aircon on (1 rupee extra per mile, mind!) and speeding, when possible, towards Mysore. It was time for lunch, and we stopped at a reasonably up-market hotel cum diner. It was there that I realised how heartily sick of curry I had become. Jules saw the whole trip out on curry for breakfast (idly is an acquired taste!), tiffin, luncheon and dinner, but whilst nursing an ice-cold Kingfisher, I spied noodles on the menu, and they were absolutely deelicious.
We then skirted Mysore City and then turned right, heading due south on the Ooty Road. I have a mobile phone that is the techno version of a Swiss Army Knife, and one of its 'blades' is satnav that includes altitude. The plain to the south of Mysore is at about 2,000', but still very hot, as the phone also told me we were only 12 degrees north of the equator. It was on this road we saw our first monkey colony.
About an hour out of town, we happened upon Vasantha's favourite diner, and he knocked off for twenty minutes and disappeared inside for his scram. We respected his space and poked around the side of the road in the heat and dust. That diner could have been anywhere in the arid parts of middle earth, complete with the obligatory truck, a herd of goats and staring people.
Onwards, and eventually upwards. We passed through a nature reserve that was absolutely beautiful, glimpsing the occasional elephant, and then, climbing slightly we drove towards and then into the bottom of a massive mountain. It dawned on us that they aren't called 'Hill Stations' for nothing when we were confronted with a roadsign on a hairpin bend that had the figure '1' over a figure '36'. Yes, the first of 36 hairpin bends on a single track road that climbed from 3,500' to 7,500', four thousand feet climbing into downcoming traffic of all shapes, types and HGV/PSV classes, in a country where the concept of an MOT is alarmingly remote. I cannot recount how many times Vasantha sat on the horn on the way up, the gaps between were probably the shorter of the two. Suffice to say it was hairy, and we did pass several vehicles that had boiled. However, with every 500 feet we climbed, the temperature dropped another degree, and getting out of the car in the chill evening air was quite shocking, 12 degrees north of the equator.
But that was after we had to pass into Tamil Nadu. We had been in Karnartaka State for the trip so far, so it was quite a surprise to come to a halt just as we had breasted the top of the mountain, where Vasantha had to buy a pass to travel in the state. This seemed a bit rich, as the moment we passed the post, there was two miles of the most shocking road we had yet encountered, but again, there was evidence that something was in process of being done about it.
Ooty is lovely. There is a successful campaign to keep Ooty 'Plastic Free'. The plastic bag is the curse of India, and China, for that matter; it is the new carpet for the towns, villages and highways. Why the Indian Government can't grant a bounty on every sack collected is beyond me. But Ooty has made this plan stick by banning the shops and stalls from wrapping goods in plastic bags, and good on 'em.
It was now dusking as we drove into the opulent grounds of the Savoy. Allix and I drew the long straws and got the most fantastic suite, with our own bedroom and bathroom each, whilst Mary and Jules slummed it in the modern end. The ayah came by to light our fire, and we got stuck into some gin and mango before dinner, and got quietly pissed, to put it frankly.
And as we all know, drinks before dinner, then drinks with dinner.....
......meant I woke not feeling my best. In fact, I had a horrible night, as what had started as the most comfortable bed of the trip so far, with lovely cool, crisp sheets, when warmed up gave off the aroma of having been previously enjoyed by someone with incontinence issues. As there were two enormous single beds pushed together, I cut my losses and climbed into the other bed after having pumped the bilges out of all that beer and wine, but sad to say that they must have been an incontinent couple, so it was horribly whiffy. I planned my invective in the wee small hours, but as is usual in imaginary speech writing, when it came to the denouement, I was probably too delicate, as all they did was turn the mattress and put a protector on, which although it made me feel like the incontinent party, was 90% successful at hermetically sealing the stench.
We had one full day in Ooty, so made the most of it. The day started with a boating trip, as we were able to hire a rowing boat. As with all rules in India, the sign that firmly stated 'NO SELF ROW' was flouted as we hired a heavy carvel dinghy and waved off the services of the lascar.
Drunken people not allowed? Glad I wasn't breathalysed!
But, of course, I couldn't resist turning it into a race with another of the 'skippered' boats. I fancied my opponent didn't understand boat trim, so I made a pain of myself shifting the girls for'ard and getting my transom out of the water and reducing drag. It worked and we were pulling ahead nicely, but I hadn't reckoned on the thin air, and as I was pulling my tripe out like a spinach-fuelled Popeye, I started to feel quite sick.
But you should have seen the other bloke.......
We paddled right round the lake, far away from any of the other rowing boats or pedalos, and then Jules took the oars and showed us she had learned a thing or two down at Woodup all those years ago. As we two are close in age, when we were growing up, I was mad on boats, and she on horses, and it was a strange day indeed that we both were allowed to indulge ourselves in 'our' thing, as she hired a nag later for a canter in the hills. And all this at 7,500'. When I flew back into Heathrow, my plane flew the length of the City at exactly that height, and it is a hell of a long way up.
When we went ashore, Jules couldn't resist a go on the dodgems, or the 'Dashing Cars' as they are charmingly named. Just look at th unbridled aggression as Jules teaches the locals a thing or two about road rage.
From the Boating Lake it was off for a serious cup of coffee, and this was when we happened upon teh Indian version of Starbucks, called Coffee Day, and the coffee was knockout, so much so that we called back in the next day on our way out of town for another scoop. Then it was off to the church where our forebears had worn their knees out with piety (ho ho)
.... where I saw this wordy gravestone. The words are probably used in every second eulogy, but they were new to me, and I captured them for a good friend who is nursing the recent loss of her mother
Then we were back to the Savoy where Jules had hired this 'ornery critter for a hack in the hills. I have to say my sis does sit well in a saddle. She had a wonderful ride, with a Toda syce on a tiny pony as a guide, whilst the rest of us had a snooze and a trip round the shops
It was all a bit end of holiday then, as we dined in the Savoy restaurant. We made firm plans to return for the Christmas of 2009, with as many of the family as we can possibly amass. Next morning, we packed to leave, Vasantha strapped the suitcases to the roof, and we got this one final shot of the good old days
Then it was off, over the appaling road back to the border, and then into Karnartaka and down through 36 hairpin bends. Those who know about my 'thing' for speed bumps won't be surpirsed by my fascination with how Indian drivers avoid them. Simple, just drive on the other side of the road!
It is impossible to show the scale and majesty of the mountain, but here's trying
The trip back to Mysore was enjoyable, but was retracing our outward journey, but this time Vasantha got to dine first. Whilst we waited for him, two goats gave birth to kids, which were of great interest to the dogs, who were gathering to move in for the kill, when the family rushed out and rescued the valuable newborns
We dined regally in the Metropole in Mysore, which was outstandingly good food, but then it was back into the car for the final grind back to Bangalore and the real world beyond. It took an age to traverse town again, but eventually we found our old apartment, unloaded an bade our fond farewells to Vasantha, who had now been with us for six days.
Man
And Machine
We went out and dined lightly in a restaurant near the apartment, and I was struck how differently I perceived the town for only a week before, when I found it a filthy third world ghetto. I realised we were lucky to be in a posh part of town, and the shops and restaurants were quite cosmopolitan. It was undeniably Indian, but had a strange chic about it, one that I really warmed to, and makes me want to go back to Bangalore soon and spend much more time there.
I had forgotten Mary's inability to say goodbye, but remembered it as she retreated, closing the apartment door firmly behind her, for which Jules congratulated her by text, 'best one yet!' There is nothing left of import to impart, other than I am glad I have let a month pass to put the trip into perspective before finishing the narrative.
The defining feature of the trip for me was, perhaps surprisingly, not Dalquarren. It was meeting my sisters for the first time as travelling companions, sharing the very best of quality time, and lots of it, and this is going to sound mawkish, and you know it's coming, but realising quite how much I love them.
Wednesday 12 March 2008
Incredible India 4
If one looks at the following two photographs from 1944 and 2008, just about the only identifiable feature linking the two is the flowerbed in the foreground.
This is my favourite shot of the auld place, taken from down in the coffee drying terrace
And this is the beautiful view, 3,500' up in the clear air, looking northeast towards Mysore.
India was a crazy mix of first and third world, the notable firsts being mobile signal EVERYWHERE, unlike this creaking country, where one struggles to have uninterrupted calls driving up the M1, and the obligatory satelite dish for enjoyment of Bollywood. This beauty is attached to the estate worker's cottage immediately adjacent to Dalquarren Bungalow.
Next door to the satellite dish is this Buddhist shrine.
These are the sheds where the dried coffee beans were stored
This is the back of Dalquarren Bungalow, with Jules acting as a useful perspective
And finally, the roof line of the storage sheds and Dalquarren Bungalow beyond
After the tour of the coffee processing plant and poking around the estate, we were treated to Coorg coffee and cakes by the very welcoming and helpful staff of Mr V Alaggapan, who is the incumbent proprietor of Dalquarren and had very kindly granted us permission to visit our ancestral home. Three hours had elapsed unnoticed, and it was time to leave. The place looked fantastic in the low evening sun as we bade our farewells and climbed into the cars to descend to Chethalli, one mile distant.
We were very keen to find the Post Office in Chethalli, where our mother called daily to collect letters from her beloved Gerald, who was away enduring some pretty rough times in Burma. They wrote to each other daily, but each had the frustrations of a fractured postal service piling up six or seven letters at a time, followed by a week's famine. What was apparent was that the there was no Post Office in Chethalli, so Jepu ascertained that it used to be this building
One interesting fact is that Jules has had more names than Prince, TAFKAP or whatever he is called these days. She started by being Juliana Toffny in the 60s, largely due to my inability to pronounce 'Dorothy' (ha ha, Jules!). She then started the 70s as a woman of the people as 'Julie', but had upgraded to 'Julia' by the end of the decade, only to revert to her birth certificate in swinging 1980s Hong Kong as the much more Empire-friendly 'Juliana'. It was only on marriage that she climbed to a seven syllable name, which is quite an achievement for a non double-barreled surname, but 'Juliana Uniacke' was just too long, so she sawed the legs off Juliana to become 'Jules' her fifth and hopefully final incarnation. She rarely acknowledges these facts, so this is a rare shot of regression therapy:-
As dusk fell, we wandered up and down the single street of Chethalli, the subject of intense local interest. Allix and Mary had some coffee ground in the local hardware store (?) and Jules and I bought some fruit and some lemonade, as we were tiring of our great invention of the trip, Gin and Mango. We then bade Jepu good evening and went back to the Bopaya's homestay.
The next morning it was off to Pollibetta. This was where our great grandparents had a coffee estate called Beechlands, so it was also of great interest to us. We met Jepu at the Anglican church where our great grandparents had worshipped, as our grandfather had until he 'turned to Rome'.
However, he was rehabilitated enough to have hsi adored son included on the war memorial in the church
From there, it was off to a meeting at Tata Coffee Limited, from whom Jepu had retired some years previously. Here we were ushered into the boss's office and had an interesting discussion on the Coorg coffee industry. Jepu had written this charming account that was hung in the branches of a preserved coffee bush that stands outside the swish offices of Tata Coffee Limited
From there we were whisked to Beechlands, and what an eye-opener that experience was. It is the third Michelin star of homestay, and before we had been there many minutes, plans were firmly made to spend Christmas 2009 there with a close nucleus of 25 family members. It is unique, largely down to the monumental snobbery of our maternal great grandmother, in that it is two storey, and as all the Brits thereabouts settled for the the Empire Bungalow, she insisted on an upstairs. It has been largely/totally rebuilt over the years, but we are lucky enough to have a before and after.
2008
1891 - The feminine-looking child is in fact George Parsons at 3 years old
Then we were away to the Bamboo Club, formerly known as the Pollibetta Club. Here we saw three interesting artifacts; the trophy cabinet, containing many well-known Indian and British names, the President's nameboard confirming that great grandfather had been president the year grandfather was born and some bits of rigging from the Zeppelin that Coorg man Leife Robinson VC famously shot down in WW1
Then it was back to Jepu's house where we met his beautiful wife Vani, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch. Looking through Jepu's photo albums of Coorg Coffee Planters reunions was simply marvellous, as previously witnessed. Jepu is a great Anglophile, and it was the only time on the trip that we heard classical music.
Jepu took me up to show me his coffee estate, of which he has 50 acres. Here is a really useful tip if you are suffering allotment damage from elephants. I noticed a heap of dried elephant dung, and asking what it was, Jepu broke open a dried Bismark and revealed that humans aren't the only species that is mad for coffee. He has had significant wild elephant damage inflicted on his estate, and he was trying a sure-fire deterrent - elephant dung and chili powder mixed together and burnt - the smoke drives elephants insane, and they scarper and never return to the source of the stench.
We said our farewells to Jepu and Vani, thanked them for a wonderful lunch and promised to return soon. He is one helluva bloke.
From Pollibetta, it was a longish drive back to Mercara, and I buried myself in an internet cafe whilst the girls did what women do and went shopping for clothes. Therefore the rest of the afternoon and evening was un-newsworthy, and we returned to the Chethalli homestay for our last night.
Next installment - Incredible India the Last - Snooty Ooty!
This is my favourite shot of the auld place, taken from down in the coffee drying terrace
And this is the beautiful view, 3,500' up in the clear air, looking northeast towards Mysore.
India was a crazy mix of first and third world, the notable firsts being mobile signal EVERYWHERE, unlike this creaking country, where one struggles to have uninterrupted calls driving up the M1, and the obligatory satelite dish for enjoyment of Bollywood. This beauty is attached to the estate worker's cottage immediately adjacent to Dalquarren Bungalow.
Next door to the satellite dish is this Buddhist shrine.
These are the sheds where the dried coffee beans were stored
This is the back of Dalquarren Bungalow, with Jules acting as a useful perspective
And finally, the roof line of the storage sheds and Dalquarren Bungalow beyond
After the tour of the coffee processing plant and poking around the estate, we were treated to Coorg coffee and cakes by the very welcoming and helpful staff of Mr V Alaggapan, who is the incumbent proprietor of Dalquarren and had very kindly granted us permission to visit our ancestral home. Three hours had elapsed unnoticed, and it was time to leave. The place looked fantastic in the low evening sun as we bade our farewells and climbed into the cars to descend to Chethalli, one mile distant.
We were very keen to find the Post Office in Chethalli, where our mother called daily to collect letters from her beloved Gerald, who was away enduring some pretty rough times in Burma. They wrote to each other daily, but each had the frustrations of a fractured postal service piling up six or seven letters at a time, followed by a week's famine. What was apparent was that the there was no Post Office in Chethalli, so Jepu ascertained that it used to be this building
One interesting fact is that Jules has had more names than Prince, TAFKAP or whatever he is called these days. She started by being Juliana Toffny in the 60s, largely due to my inability to pronounce 'Dorothy' (ha ha, Jules!). She then started the 70s as a woman of the people as 'Julie', but had upgraded to 'Julia' by the end of the decade, only to revert to her birth certificate in swinging 1980s Hong Kong as the much more Empire-friendly 'Juliana'. It was only on marriage that she climbed to a seven syllable name, which is quite an achievement for a non double-barreled surname, but 'Juliana Uniacke' was just too long, so she sawed the legs off Juliana to become 'Jules' her fifth and hopefully final incarnation. She rarely acknowledges these facts, so this is a rare shot of regression therapy:-
As dusk fell, we wandered up and down the single street of Chethalli, the subject of intense local interest. Allix and Mary had some coffee ground in the local hardware store (?) and Jules and I bought some fruit and some lemonade, as we were tiring of our great invention of the trip, Gin and Mango. We then bade Jepu good evening and went back to the Bopaya's homestay.
The next morning it was off to Pollibetta. This was where our great grandparents had a coffee estate called Beechlands, so it was also of great interest to us. We met Jepu at the Anglican church where our great grandparents had worshipped, as our grandfather had until he 'turned to Rome'.
However, he was rehabilitated enough to have hsi adored son included on the war memorial in the church
From there, it was off to a meeting at Tata Coffee Limited, from whom Jepu had retired some years previously. Here we were ushered into the boss's office and had an interesting discussion on the Coorg coffee industry. Jepu had written this charming account that was hung in the branches of a preserved coffee bush that stands outside the swish offices of Tata Coffee Limited
From there we were whisked to Beechlands, and what an eye-opener that experience was. It is the third Michelin star of homestay, and before we had been there many minutes, plans were firmly made to spend Christmas 2009 there with a close nucleus of 25 family members. It is unique, largely down to the monumental snobbery of our maternal great grandmother, in that it is two storey, and as all the Brits thereabouts settled for the the Empire Bungalow, she insisted on an upstairs. It has been largely/totally rebuilt over the years, but we are lucky enough to have a before and after.
2008
1891 - The feminine-looking child is in fact George Parsons at 3 years old
Then we were away to the Bamboo Club, formerly known as the Pollibetta Club. Here we saw three interesting artifacts; the trophy cabinet, containing many well-known Indian and British names, the President's nameboard confirming that great grandfather had been president the year grandfather was born and some bits of rigging from the Zeppelin that Coorg man Leife Robinson VC famously shot down in WW1
Then it was back to Jepu's house where we met his beautiful wife Vani, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch. Looking through Jepu's photo albums of Coorg Coffee Planters reunions was simply marvellous, as previously witnessed. Jepu is a great Anglophile, and it was the only time on the trip that we heard classical music.
Jepu took me up to show me his coffee estate, of which he has 50 acres. Here is a really useful tip if you are suffering allotment damage from elephants. I noticed a heap of dried elephant dung, and asking what it was, Jepu broke open a dried Bismark and revealed that humans aren't the only species that is mad for coffee. He has had significant wild elephant damage inflicted on his estate, and he was trying a sure-fire deterrent - elephant dung and chili powder mixed together and burnt - the smoke drives elephants insane, and they scarper and never return to the source of the stench.
We said our farewells to Jepu and Vani, thanked them for a wonderful lunch and promised to return soon. He is one helluva bloke.
From Pollibetta, it was a longish drive back to Mercara, and I buried myself in an internet cafe whilst the girls did what women do and went shopping for clothes. Therefore the rest of the afternoon and evening was un-newsworthy, and we returned to the Chethalli homestay for our last night.
Next installment - Incredible India the Last - Snooty Ooty!
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