Up, up and away

To celebrate my exceedingly advanced birthday last October, Nº1 Son gave me a gliding voucher. I tried to cash it in during our Exmoor family holiday, so that he could be there, but the gliding club cancelled at the last minute. So we re-scheduled, at a different club, for the end of July.

It was a beautiful day for taking your life in your hands, and the instructor Ian gave me a briefing…

and then ensured that I (and my parachute!) were well strapped in.

It's 52 years since I was last in a glider – when I was in the cadet force I got my "A and B certificates" on a week-long course that culminated in three solo flights. The glider I flew then had an open cockpit and we were launched by winch. This time we were towed up by a small powered aircraft.

This was not only much more civilised, but it meant we reached 2500 feet before releasing. Ian flew us around for a while, and even found some thermals to take us a little higher. Then he said "You have control", to which I responded in kind.

I'd expected to be a little nervous, but I really hadn't anticipated that it would take me to the edge of terror! I flew for a while, but never felt in control. Although it was a fine day, there was a lot of turbulence in the air, which seemed to give the glider a mind of its own. After we landed, Ian suggested that, because of the turbulence, we re-schedule the other two flights and hope for calmer conditions. So today we returned.

This time, Ian was piloting the towing aircraft, and I had a different instructor, Graham. Conditions were cloudier but less chaotic, I managed to stay on top of the panic, and it was an amazing experience. Graham was complimentary about my handing of the controls in the turns, and even in situations where the small amount of turbulence we did encounter demanded management. I put it down to 2-dimensional practice on Erin Mae's tiller. So, thank you to Nº1 son for the voucher – a fabulous treat.

At the end of this week we are hoping to get up to Erin Mae at last and have a few weeks on the waterways. So posts to this blog, singularly lacking this year, might even start appearing again.

Tour d'Avebury

What with all this time on the south coast away from Erin Mae, we were due a day out. We drove to Avebury in Wiltshire, a small village sitting within a stone circle.

The National Trust cares for the site and owns the manor house.

They have done a superb job of creating a visitor centre, making good use of some of the old barns.

The stone circle itself is far larger than Stonehenge,

and some of the stones have fascinating shapes.

There's an avenue between the main circle and an associated site, which we explored on our bikes.

Up hill and down dale – inspired by the TdF, my best beloved was daunted by nothing,

though she did need a bit of a rest at the end!

We picked the best day of the week for our visit. For anyone on the Kennet and Avon, it's perhaps within hiking rather than strolling distance, and thoroughly worth the effort.

Celebrations continue!

Since coming home from our European cruise we've spent only a few days on Erin Mae, what with one thing and another. Appointments and decorating, for a start, and now the second major part of our birthday celebrations – the family all gathering for the inside of a week at an AirBNB on the edge of Exmoor. I'd planned my birthday gliding "experience" for the Sunday before we were all due to meet up, but the airfield cancelled it the day before, on the grounds of the towing aircraft having a fault (very encouraging!). Still, we came down and stayed overnight in the guesthouse we'd booked and on Monday morning found ourselves strolling along the towpath of the Great Western Canal at Tiverton.

It's a nice enough walk, and there were different kinds of floating craft to catch the eye.

Then it was time to meet up and settle in at Haddon End – an absolutely brilliant place for an event like this. There are eleven of us – my best beloved and myself, three sons, two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren, some over especially from Norway.

The view from the front of the house, and therefore from most of the bedrooms, is stunning.

Yesterday it rained copiously, so we all went off to the 10-pin bowling alley in Taunton. Today it was dry and sunny, so we drove over to Simonsbath and went on a walk to Cow Castle.

An ideal spot for lunch and swimming!

It was a good, deep pool and we all got wet, in spite of the hypothermic shock provided by the river. Then it was home for a barbecue on the front terrace.

Some cooked.

And some enjoyed being played with.

It's been a brilliant day, and a fabulous family holiday so far. It's going to end too soon. I'm afraid Erin Mae is feeling rather left out.

Birthday girl

My best beloved has finally joined me at the milestone we were celebrating this month with our European cruise – assiduously reported in this blog. So today we went for coffee in the Rhinefield Hotel in the New Forest, to have a card-opening session. And very nice it was too.



This was the view out of the window.



We wanted to go for a meal at The Ship in Distress at Mudeford today, but when we rang up to book they said they couldn't do lobster or crab because, for some reason, the local boats can't get out to harvest them at the moment. Since one of those was my best beloved's chief desire, we decided to postpone it until they're back on the menu. We shall ring in the morning to see whether the boatmen are out, and make a booking if they are. Otherwise we'll probably get to Erin Mae for a few days.

Symbols

Travelling east, we've been learning more and more of the convoluted history of this neck of the woods, and of the historical figures around whom so much of it revolved. In Vienna we found a fascination with Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and a garden dedicated to her memory.

She'd hated the position she acquired by marrying the young emperor Franz Joseph and became, increasingly, an absentee, for which she was criticised. Her murder in 1898 by an Italian anarchist turned her almost instantly into a revered and beloved figure, and there is evidence of her impact everywhere, including a fascinating museum dedicated to her in the Hofburg palace in Vienna. The anarchist intended a symbolic act – the consequence was the creation of a legend of a sort he would probably have detested.

Vienna is naturally very conscious of its identity and the ways in which that is expressed, from the horse-drawn tourist carriages…

to the soaring spires of St Stephen's cathedral.

When we reached Bratislava, we found that an earlier, 18th century, Habsburg empress had left her mark on that city. Slovakia was then part of Hungary, and Empress Maria Theresa, in modernising mood, declared that the old walls of the city should be removed, since their mediaeval function was no longer relevant. But she excused one of the towers from this destruction, probably because it supported a resplendent upper section which she herself had donated.

Budapest is our third capital in three days, and just as full of symbolism. We were taken by coach past a square with statues commemorating the original seven Hungarian tribes which had migrated in the 9th century from the Urals, and the figure of the angel Gabriel, who supposedly appeared to the pope of the day to tell him to accede to the Hungarians' request to become a recognised kingdom.

Gabriel thereby became something of a national symbol, and representations can be found all around the city. One was as part of a monument which, as we examined it, turned out to have been highly contentious.

It shows an eagle representing German forces occupying Hungary in 1944, and Gabriel, holding an orb, as a peaceful victim. But along the fence in front of the monument is a protest, backed up by people gathering every afternoon, against what is seen as a whitewashing of Hungarian history. There are personal and household objects that people have left, and explanatory leaflets pointing out the complicity of the Hungarian government and people in the Nazi project, and in the forcible removal and / or murder of many Hungarian citizens, principally Jews and Roma. Down on the edge of the Danube is another, very different monument remembering the war.

This is the place where many Jewish men, women and children were shot so that they fell into the river, but were required to remove their shoes first because of their value. It's a very moving spot.

We fly home from Budapest tomorrow. This has been an extraordinary cruise, and it's appropriate that we say farewell from such a historic city.

This fella was in Bratislava. He must symbolise something, though I'm not sure what it is. But perhaps Jeremy Corbyn might add this to his nominal collection of manhole covers, and manage a visit if he becomes Prime Minister on Friday.

The great and the good

We arrived before breakfast at Melk, best known for its Benedictine abbey, which dominates both the surrounding countryside,

and the town below.

The abbey was originally a fortress gifted to the Benedictines in the 11th century, but it had a major make-over in the 17th.

Its opulence was not really to our taste, but one feature was quite extraordinary. The “marble hall”, intended for use as a dining room by visiting royalty, has a flat ceiling painted to give the impression of the room being surrounded by a balustrade open to the elements. The artist used perspective techniques to create a completely convincing 3-dimensional illusion – so long as you were at the centre of the room. From there, the pillars of the balustrade were perfectly orientated. However, when you moved off-centre, all the painted pillars suddenly seemed to be at very odd angles. Intriguingly, it was almost impossible to see how the artist had achieved his effect – I couldn’t even see where the flat section of the ceiling began. But since no photography was allowed, I can’t show you what it was all about.

One of our cruise leaders gave a commentary as we cruised on down the Rhine after lunch. There were some castles, used these days for weddings and so on.

There were hamlets along the banks, where the churches often had a bell-shaped structure as part of the spire.

And there was Dürnstein Castle, where Richard the Lionheart was famously imprisoned on his way home from a crusade.

Tonight we shall reach Vienna, and the Ars Mundi string quartet are coming on board to give an after-dinner recital. That will be a delightful preparation for a day to spend in the city tomorrow.

Recital

Passau cathedral is pretty impressive from the outside.

But the real gem is inside – the second largest organ in the world.

Its design centres around having five separate organs which can be played independently, but which can also be played all together from the central console. Two baroque organs sit, one each side of the main organ.

At the east end of the church is the “choir” organ, to the left of the sculpture over the altar representing the martyrdom of Stephen, the patron saint of the cathedral.

Overhead there is a fifth organ in a chamber above the roof, with its sound cascading down from a grill in the centre of one of the frescos.

Half of the passengers on our ship attended the thirty-minute lunch-time organ recital, which was out of this world – Bach and Buxtehude, etc, as they could never have imagined it but, you have to believe, would have thoroughly appreciated.

Passau itself is pleasant enough, a place where the Danube is joined by other rivers, and where we pass into Austria.

The city relies a lot on tourism these days, and there are usually several ships tied up. Our ship had to double park, leaving us rather farther from the quay (and a much longer potential drop!) than when Erin Mae breasts up to another.

After leaving, we found ourselves being pursued and overtaken by the enemy, who were obviously going a bit faster than 4 mph.

However, we joined them in the next lock.

The name of the barge that we drew up behind was telling. I’d be calling out “Save me!” if I found the MS Charles Dickens bearing down on me from behind at a rate of knots.

Thereafter we have cruised down a wonderful section of the Danube's gorge. Just a sample of the shots from our cabin window…

As a certain radio station might put it – relaxing classics in the afternoon.