Avocado Glut

Today's featured Lady Traveller is none other than LTLS, my archaeologist sister.

***

An alternative title for this post could be ‘Advocating for Avocados’, but alliteration (Alliterative Advocacy for Avocados?) is so passé, and besides, do avocados really need advocacy? Perhaps they do here… the Lady Traveller’s Little Sister is in Johannesburg for a week, on her way to do exciting fieldwork with witchdoctors in Lesotho (watch this space). The LT asked her for a couple of guest blogs, but I’m fairly sure this isn’t exactly what she was expecting/hoping for. Tough luck, I’m afraid, because my passion can no longer be kept quiet. I must speak out. I LOVE AVOCADOS. Can you imagine living in a country where avocados can have a season? Where you don’t encounter them, rock hard, freezing and jet lagged in a supermarket aisle, where to buy one costs about the same price as rewiring a house? Can you imagine having enough avocados that you can cook with them, rather than watching them mournfully, waiting for them to become yielding enough to eat?

Readers, welcome to South Africa, where they are currently experiencing an avocado glut. They can be purchased in every shop in Johannesburg, cheap as chips. I can’t get enough of them. Pasta with avocado, avocado salad, guacamole, avocado cheesecake (no lie), and mostly (like just now – I’ve taken to having avocado breaks rather than coffee breaks) just cut in half and sprinkled with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Happiness. 

Guest Blog: Toronto/St. Patrick

Kia ora from Auckland!  (You never stop learning: kia ora is, it turns out, NOT just the name of a fruit drink with a catchy jingle, it's actually a Maori greeting.)


I am planning to update from here, but yesterday Lady Traveller's Big Brother (nothing sinister, actually my big brother) sent me the following guest post about the St Patrick's Parade in Toronto.  Hurrah!  


***
March in Toronto and it's getting warmer (although the doomsayers here exaggerate a lot about the weather). LTBB and LTBBW decided to go for a walk this afternoon [Sunday] and we bumped into the Toronto 2011 St Patrick's day parade! It was a relatively big event in a very multiicultural city with some interesting mixing going on. 


True to all St Patrick's day parades there were dodgy floats pulled by dodgier tractors (note the legs of the man sitting on the toilet):

Lots of irish dancers, cold majorettes and a large, yellow, irish school bus:

There was a bloke on a lawnmower handing out chocolate:


The usual groups of people walking down wearing green t-shirts with catchy phrase (Irish for a day) or with shamrocks:


There were marching bands - the Clare/Galway chinese marching band:



Proud Cork people:


St Patrick:


A "grand marshal" (Brendan O'Carroll):


and my personal favourite, the Ontario Delorian society with real, live Delorians made in Belfast (one was kitted out like the Back to the Future car):


Can't wait for next year, maybe we'll join in?

Guest Blog: Sejour in Sweden

Yay for Guest Blogging!  I thought you might like a change from descriptions of the SUNNY SUMMER in the SUNNY Southern Hemisphere where it's WARM and, y'know, SUNNY.  Róisín, my favourite big sister, kindly supplied the story and photos of her recent trip en famille to Sweden.  Featuring: snow, cake, hilarious knitting/museum crossover, The Adorable Nephew.

***

It’s too warm in Provence, let’s go somewhere cold – like Sweden. No it didn’t really happen that way but rather that we were invited to visit our kind friends the Berggrens in Linkoping. For me it was the first time in Sweden (and for Gregory), my only experience coming from an embarrassing combination of the Swedish chef and the Millenium trilogy… (at least I didn’t say ABBA!)

The first night we arrived late but woke up early to a beautiful view of the lake near Linköping. Apparently there was skating planned on the lake but the 15 cm of snow that fell during the night changed the plans and further snow fall during the day decided us to visit an airplane museum in Linköping –not necessarily my choice but you can imagine how happy Gregory was.

Our visit to the museum had been preceded a week earlier by the Linköping Knitting club, who decided to decorate the fuselages with their knitted inventions. I am not a museum expert (unlike LT) but it was certainly an original effect! This combined with the flight simulator and the fighter jet cockpit with helmet for small (and bigger) boys to enjoy made life almost too good to bear for some.

 

Our visit to Sweden also happily coincided with a three week period during which a special kind of cake (another oft visited LT theme) called Semla is eaten. Semla is like a type of brioche split in two with cream and almond paste in the middle. Our verdict: very good especially instead of lunch. We ate our Semla in the old centre of Linköping, one of those recreated 19^th century villages with artisans and people walking around in costume. The houses are all really pretty, mostly painted a bright red colour, a remnant from days of copper mining.

 

A visit to Sweden in winter wouldn’t be complete without some snow-associated activities so we all headed down to the lake to roll around in the snow. Gregory thought it was much like playing in sand and made ‘snow castles’. He also enjoyed sledding.

Given this is also a place for hints to lady travellers, may I just recommend cross country skiing for pregnant ladies. Provided there are no hills of course. Followed by a hot dog grilled on the beach by our accomplished host and his son….

***

Thank you and a big MAH to Róisín for her survey of all the best Sweden has to offer.  

Guest Blog: Cathedrale d'Images Revisited

My mama has been spending time in France and sent me this guest post about the Cathedrale d'Images. See here for my account. Hers is below and, really, I think perhaps I should retire and get her to write all my posts in future. (All photos are taken from the Cathedrale d'Images website.)

***

July in Aix en Provence is hot, and exploring the town and countryside was giving rise to too many cups of coffee, glasses of Rosé, orange pressé so LT’s Aged Parent scrolled down through the blog to find some other recommendations. Back in September LT went to St Remy and Les Baux, places I have visited before and really had no desire to experience, crowded with tourists on a hot July day. But when I read that LT gave Cathédrale d’Images the ultimate accolade, I looked to see how to get there. Initial disappointment that the show based on Picasso was over, was replaced by a conviction that a visit was essential – check www.cathedrale-images.com and see what jumps out.

For readers without internet access, the theme this year is Australia.

Arriving at Les Baux I steered through the thousands of cars, bikes and pedestrians and found parking (non-payant) at the cathédrale site, paid my money and went into the cavern which was distinctly ‘blessed coolness in the heat’. As I walked in I could hear fireworks reverberating to the sound of Waltzing Mathilda and see giant images of the explosions over Sydney Opera House projected on the near wall, clearly the end of the show. It looked magnificent. As LT described, I walked further into the cavernous space and the show began again. On the walls, ceiling and floor images were projected of life forms originating, pulsating shapes gradually giving way to plants, fish, flowers and animals. The pictures are repeated on different planes, the same but different, some still and some moving. You see a landscape, distant on one wall, close up on another and simultaneously all around you. A kangaroo is pictured lying peacefully in the sun, a still image until one ear flicks away a fly; a koala crouches in the fork of a tree just asking to be picked up and cuddled, but mind the fleas.

Jean Charbonneau and Dong Wei, who put the show together, wanted to pay homage to the Aboriginal history, which they do magnificently. Images taken from cave and body paintings kaleidoscoped through the cavern, foreshadowing Matisse, Miro, Kandinsky, and transformed by camera/computer technique from reality to pointilliste or impressionist paintings and back again. Vibrant colours and patterns all around, up and down, ever changing. Far from being intrusive, the spectators walking around, coming and going on different levels, were part of the landscape and the pictures, the flash of cameras, pinpoints of light adding depth to the landscapes. One man lay down on the groung and let the colours play on his face and body. Aboriginal music, pipes and didgeridoo, echoed in the vast space.

The portrayal of the white settlers was less sympathetic – they came (inexorably, wave after wave) saw and set out to change and conquer, importing sheep to clothe the nakedness which they thought immoral, subduing what they could of the vast continent by violence, gunpowder and eventually motorised power. A telling detail on the monument erected to Captain James Cook, was that it was presented to the nation by BP. Another was the reduction of the native animals to yellow road signs on the Northern Territory Highway, as you travel 500 miles where no fuel is available.

I watched twice through, enthralled and found the fireworks of less interest each time. My only quibble with LT is that she didn’t mention that one needs an extra layer in the cathédrale, otherwise one begins to freeze.

So if you are in Provence, don’t miss this experience which is a definite ‘VLD’. If you are in Australia, look for some of what Jean Charbonneau found as indicated on website.

Hints on Things Best Avoided

A Cautionary Tale from my little sister, LTLS

***

LTLS really had no intention of ghosting in HTLT again so soon, but events (and siblings) have conspired against her. Due to recent sad events, she has the following hint for Official Hints Day:

‘Don’t let the bed bugs bite. No. Really. Don’t. Otherwise you will be very sorry.’

Returning from Morocco, I brought home many presents: painted pottery from Fes, leather babouches from Rabat, a tagine from Marrakech. And bedbugs: yes, friends, despite my flatmate’s conviction that bedbugs are fictional, they pose a very real threat to Lady (and gentlemen) travellers.

LTLS is an archaeologist, a member of a proud, strong-willed and friendly race. Unfortunately it is also a race that is ever teetering on the brink of penury (from which her kind parents occasionally pull her back. See below). So when LTLS and LTLSBF (you can work that one out) travelled around Morocco for a week, seeking to economise, they did not stay in the most salubrious of establishments. This was a mistake. We thought the squat toilets were the worst of our worries, but when we got back to our respective houses earlier this week, after a brief discussion, it was realised that the strange bites on our bodies (they don’t look at all like mosquito bites, but a bit like pink warts. Nice.) which had mysteriously appeared (bedbug bites may not become apparent until nine days after impact) were in fact bedbug bites. Having travelled in India, LTLSBF has experience of these things. To be honest, if you’re staying somewhere that has bed bugs, it’s hard to know how you could avoid contracting them - your best bet is to stay well covered at night, but even then, you could easily carry the buggers back in your clothing (like me). Wikipedia says to look out for the tell tale signs of little squashed brown bodies on the sheets, but if you’re not paying attention, you could easily be unlucky. Then again, if you’re staying somewhere that has strange brown stains on the furnishings for any reason, it might be wise to rethink your holidaying priorities. I certainly have.

Here began the onset of acute paranoia. Extermination firms were called, surveyors dispatched to estimate the extent of the infestation (eeew). Bedbugs, it turns out, are tenacious house guests. It can take up to 6 weeks to remove them fully from the property, and while treatment is being carried out, every wardrobe and drawer in the house must be emptied of clothing and soft things, the contents put into plastic bags. The contents cannot be put back into the wardrobes and drawers until the treatment is complete. Then, everything that can be washed at 55-65 degrees Celsius must be washed. Anything that can’t be washed must be dry-cleaned. Anything that can’t be dry-cleaned must be thrown out. All of my belongings are currently in bin bags in the front garden, and my dreams at the moment take their inspiration from the end of The Velveteen Rabbit, but on a more apocalyptic scale.

The whole process is also extremely expensive (this is where the very nice parental bodies step in), stressful, and unlikely to engender feelings of love in one’s flatmates (especially if they get bitten). Avoid.

***

Hints to Lady Travellers adds: Between LTLS sending me her sad story this morning and me getting home, some good news arrived from the front (courtesy of the man from bedbugs.co.uk). Following his inspection today, it seems that earlier reports (courtesy of the man from the opposition fumigators) were greatly exaggerated and Lui's flat was not, in fact, hosting bedbugs. And the bites? Hard to say. Still, as our mother points out, this has been a valuable lesson for all would-be travellers and counsels us all to bring plastic bags to wrap our belongings in when staying in accommodation that looks anyway less than pristine.

Happy endings are the best.

Postcard to Gregory

Dear Gregory,

I hope you are well. I’m well but I don’t know what happened. FIRST I was watching cartoons with you and Suzie the Dog and then the cartoons were finished and then you weren’t there

and then Auntie Nehneh came downstairs and said well Panda this is a disaster and you were on the AVION and you went to France that’s the name of where we live. Then she said I could be on holidays at Mamó’s house and Mamó said I should have a bath. So Mamó put me in the thing you call the bvwashing and it went round and round and Miffy the Bunny was with me so I wasn’t lonely. Now we are resting while our ears dry.

Dodo is here too and when I’m dry Auntie Nehneh says I can have dodo and we will go on ADVENTURES. I will see you soon love from PANDA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

From our Correspondent in Morocco

Lady Traveller's Little Sister is currently spending her nights in a tent on the roof of a house in Rabat,

and spending her days digging for Neanderthals.

She had kindly furnished us with an account of her adventures.

***

LTLS is back. As an itinerant archaeologist, I often get to go to cool places (last year in Lesotho, ‘cool’ was the operative word). This year I’m in Morocco for four weeks, digging a Middle Palaeolithic cave site (called Grotte des Contrabandiers, or Smugglers’ Cove near Rabat.

The site is particularly cool, because although the technology is similar to that used by Neanderthals, it seems to be associated with modern humans (i.e. Homo sapiens, i.e. us), but with some interesting differences: we have perforated marine shells (used as ornaments) and pigment (like ochre and haematite) at our site. Archaeologists call this ‘symbolic behaviour’, the onset of which (probably about 200,000 years ago) makes every thing we manufacture and produce today (like hairbrushes, hammers, and email) possible. It’s all pretty cool, really.

Anyway, our site is in a beautiful location, but unfortunately I can’t show you any pictures of it because my pictures and I are now the property of National Geographic. Last year, some pieces of modern human bone (some finger bones) were found, and have been called ‘Bouchra’. Most early skeletons found by archaeologists get nicknames (as well as a lab code), and ours is called Bouchra for two reasons: a) it means ‘good news’ in Arabic, and b) Bouchra is the name of one of the crew members, and it was her birthday the day the bones were found. Anyway, last week, we found another foot bone, which is probably another part of Bouchra, and because of all this, a crew from National Geographic are coming out to film a documentary about the site.

The National Geographic Society have also part-funded the dig, which means that no pictures of the site can be published (even those taken by the excavators) without their consent. Which I don’t have. But this one’s in the public domain. Also, here’s a picture of the tool I found last week, called an ‘Aterian Point’, or a ‘pedonculate’. Basically, it’s an arrow- or spear-head, but about 70,000 years old! Isn’t it pretty?

They took a picture of me and it with the site camera last week, which apparently means I’m the property of National Geographic too. Goodie.

The site crew consist of eight Americans, two Australians, a New Zealander, two French, a Romanian, a Canadian, a Portuguese, a Moroccan, a Dane, and me. We work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., digging, analysing finds, wet-screening artefacts, labelling artefacts, and, of course, drinking the mint tea and donuts that the Moroccan workers (all of whom are called Mohammed) bring us. It’s a hard life.

Guest Blog: Taking the Boat to England

Hints to Lady Travellers, uncomfortably aware of impending deadlines, has been leading a quiet life the last week or so. To provide you with a bit of excitement, I asked Luíseach to write a guest blog about her travels over the weekend and she did! Here it is, in its original, unexpurgated glory.

* * *

The year is 1845 2010, and this morning the Lady Traveller left her bed at an early hour in order to put the Lady Traveller’s Little Sister (LTLS) on the boat. A coffin ship, setting sail from Ireland’s green shores, in search of a better life, far from the famine volcanic ash cloud which has lately plagued us.

Only select elements of the above are true (disclaimer: the one about the search for a better life is definitely not, as I’m returning to attend to a rock-drawing project), but nevertheless, it is true that LTLS is going back to London 1845-style. It is perhaps unlikely that the original coffin ships had shamrocks on the outside and sold bad cappuccinos within, but there were definitely huddled masses yearning to breathe free this morning. The Jonathan Swift was swift enough however, and there was little need for the piles of sick bags (‘spuckbeutel’ in German apparently. Mellifluous, no?) that the cabin staff had thoughtfully placed on every available surface. God knows what went on earlier in the week when the airlines first shut down...

A mere two hours later found LTLS in Holyhead. No doubt many of you are familiar with the port of Holyhead, but it is my fervent hope that fewer of you are familiar with the town itself, where I had the dubious pleasure of spending four hours (I saved much money on my train ticket this way). Actually it’s not that bad, but there really isn’t a whole lot there to see. As the nice lady in the left luggage office told me “if you shut your eyes you’ll have a better view”. It was a nice day though, so I sat on a bench by the sea and read my book, ate an ice cream, and then got very lost while trying to get back to the train station (I nearly made it up a mountain).

The second leg of my journey was far more luxurious: saving roughly £50 by waiting in Holyhead for four hours, I decided to upgrade to first class on my four hour train to Euston, and was rewarded by free wifi, free tea, and lots of free biscuits.

Heartily recommended. The route the train takes is very pretty too, along the Welsh coastline, and past several llama farms (no lie). You even get to see the Menai suspension bridge too, so you get all the comely sights you would from the car journey, but with nice train people to feed you (sadly no complimentary alcohol on the cheap weekend upgrades) and handy toilets too. Unfortunately LTLS’s skill with a camera does not compare with the LT, so I have spared you my photographs of blurry llamas and trees (LT can show you my Austrian efforts if you wish – some interesting diagonal photos of trees and the side of the car window)

I still have another two hours on the train (we’ve stopped at Crewe) before I take my pack (the size of a small house; with a tent attached, see the upcoming attraction ‘LTLS goes to live in a Moroccan cave for four weeks’) and get on the bus to my house in London – I did think of offering a hint to lady travellers on London transport (Hint #1: don’t open fizzy drinks on the 390 bus to Archway; there are a lot of speed bumps) but am not entirely sure they’re particularly helpful. I will thus leave you with my general hint for the day: have an experienced LT serenade you with traditional ballads (See below) as you depart the port. Sadly she didn’t wear the hat, but I have hopes that some day she will don the peach polyester beret she had for her confirmation and sing to me.