'Another good one': more bathing in Dublin Bay

The quoted remark was made by Dublin's oldest bather - as far as anyone knew - after every daily dip up to his death at the age of 93. I heard it from two senior folk while changing for a swim in Sandycove. One of the beauties of these swimming locations is the friendliness and ease all around, and the fact that you meet all ages, sizes, shapes...a far cry from the time when the Forty Foot was men-only (nude bathing early in the morning), though the jumping from the rocks remains the same.

This was the Dublin fortnight in which I found the value of the immersion reaching an almost metaphysical level. It was a big thing for me since, apart from a trial run in the Estonia Resort Hotel's spa back in July, I hadn't really taken the plunge since the consequences of my big op a year ago: namely could I, should I, swim with a stoma? Reassurances didn't banish nagging doubts. And so on my first day back at the Forty Foot, trunks hoiked up over the bag, I stayed in very cold water for a short time, anxious about the aftermath though having already enjoyed the social scene before immersion.

But it was fine: no change needed (though I'd brought supplies), and time for a snack and a coffee just up the hill at an old furniture salesroom turned into a wacky cafe. 

It was important that I did this with my wonderful bathing pal in Dublin, Catherine Bunyan, a convert to daily sea swimming, and also with one of our recent guests, dear friend Ashley from Australia (on the left in the selfie she took above). Not every visitor would want to indulge in so-called 'wild swimming' - the wild bit about it, I'd say, would be the sea temperature - but both Ashley and our next arrival, Cally, were delighted to do so. Both swam around for longer than I did. 

The options at Sandycove are the Forty Foot itself - still no clarity on the naming, since the Fortieth Foot Brigade turns out NOT to have been stationed at the Martello Tower here, though the rumour may have stuck - or, if the sea is too turbulent, in the sheltered bay, where the white wall is lovely to lean against in full sun. Swim Two was another good one at the Forty Foot

and in fact Sandycove was more blustery, with a wind from the west. 

Do look at the names given to the jellyfish on the noticeboard. We actually met a friend of Catherine's here who'd been stung the previous week, but was happy to get back in the water.

The sun didn't properly materialise until my big day out with Cally (swimming below at a highish tide when the colour of the water shows that Joyce's 'snot-green' wasn't necessarily a negative).

We repeated part of the route on which I'd taken Ashley, walking from Dalkey Station to Coliemore Harbour, scene of my near-fatal swim out into the straits. Here are shots from two days - one blustery and sea-swelly but exhilarating, with seals swimming and fish to be caught, the other on a golden Saturday).

Then up to the panorama in Sorrento Point (wider view taken by Cally - you'd best click to enlarge),

in this case back round down Sorrento Road to catch the lobster festival in town (though not to eat there, since 3pm lunch called at the fabulous Andhra Bhavan), 

then on to Sandycove for the swim, enhanced by the pleasant company of two turnstones,

 and back to Dun Laoghaire for the DART back into town. That was livelier on the previous Saturday, when a zumba class taking place where the much-missed sea baths used to be enlivened the scene. Casement's statue (another bathing-place) beyond.

Sadly our excursion south to the coastal cottage of mutual friends Rosanna and Anthony found the sea too rough. But paddling proved good enough, especially on this lovely, deserted bay which may be sandy one year and shingly the next.

My last discovery has embedded the top image deep in my heart. Seapoint is closest, from home in central Dublin via the DART, and as time was limited I used the train - Catherine so often drives - to enjoy two last swims with her. 

The first day was grey but with fascinating lights, especially looking over to the Poolbeg Towers with cormorant-surmounted rocks (a small group of terns were further along),

 the second a dream late afternoon after a morning of rain. 

At last it was possible to swim with the sun on one's face, and to walk back to Seapoint DART station looking at the sun on the rocks and Howth magical behind. 

It's given rise to so many images, not just in the first chapter of Ulysses but also in another Irish masterpiece, Jamie O'Neill's At Swim, Two Boys. I haven't finished it yet; when I do, I hope I'll return to enlarge on its infinite richness here.

An election, two funerals and a festival

J came back to London to vote - and every vote counted in our redrawn borough: we'd been removed from Hammersmith and Fulham, where the excellent Andy Slaughter has held a big majority, to Chelsea and Fulham. The Tories had always held sway in Chelsea, and it was only because I saw Labour folk out at the tube stations every day, including our new MP Ben Coleman, that 'we' won by a very slim  majority of 132. We stayed up until about 5.30am watching the results with our very politically savvy near neighbour Peter Rose, catching Rees-Mogg's defeat - managed with dignity - but missing the demise of Liz Truss - mismanaged with the opposite.

My mum's good friend Joy Teunion died recently after a fairly miserable last few years, and of course mum wanted to go to the funeral service in 'our' church, All Saints Banstead, the next day - her first outing from the brilliant Greenacres Care Home since pre-Christmas lunch; again, J wheeled her there. The service was a happy celebration of a quirky life, and refreshments were held afterwards in the Open Door, the cafe where until the middle of last year mum used to take her cakes. The jelly babies were a Joy favourite.

J had been due to return to Dublin on Monday evening, but we heard that Max's funeral - see here for a celebration of her wonderful but too brief existence - was to be held in Amsterdam on Tuesday. This meant some rapid rearrangements - I was due to leave for the Pärnu Music Festival on Wednesday - but I'm so glad we did it. 

I finished my Zoom class and we got an evening flight to Schiphol, staying there very comfortably in the Marriott with a view of sunset beyond the airport. Then after a hefty breakfast we made our way into town, walking across many of the canals to the Begijnhof, where the service took place in the English Reformed Church within the lovely grounds. Shrieking flocks of swifts marked part of the way (click to see them properly below).

It was a relief to see so many familiar faces and old friends afterwards, but by 3.30 we were off to get the bus back to the airport. A storm broke while we were both sitting in our respective planes - mine to Gatwick, J's to Dublin - and Schiphol was closed for an hour. But it didn't matter being later back because I'd been booked into another airport hotel - same price, but a mere pod - so that I wouldn't have to go home and back out again for the flight to Riga the next morning. A contrasting view at 7am.

Pärnu this year was a very different experience from 2023. Then I was feeling great, cycling, walking and swimming on the eve of the big operation, so supported by everyone in the meetings at the Passion Cafe. This year I was less mobile, and still mourning, so didn't do many of the big socials but was still glad to see familiar faces in ones, twos or threes. Best news of all was when married violinists Ben Baker and Marike Kruup met me for tea at my favourite cafe, Supelsaksad, with Lucy Maxwell-Stewart, the great organiser, and told me Maarike was expecting. It caught me emotionally by surprise - one life untimely gone, another coming into the world with the best parents imaginable.

Otherwise, the musical experiences were unforgettable as usual - I duly chronicled them for The Arts Desk - but somehow solitary walks in nature accorded more deeply with my mood. There was the nature reserve toward the southern end of the beach

where my Merlin app picked up golden oriole (saw a flash), dunlin, green sandpiper, reed and snow bunting and redshank, inter alia, and there was no end of pleasure to be got from terns soaring and plunging. One can just be seen at the top of this beach shot.

One evening I walked back from the concert hall with good friend and master photographic artist Kaupo Kikkas, left him to return to his hotel and continued to the stone jetty at the mouth of the Pärnu River. There were still some Baltic orchids in the sea meadows

huge flocks of starlings (you can just about make them out here)

and among the other birds a solitary Brent goose - last seen in big flocks in Dublin before they headed north for the summer.

The sunset that evening, in four days of variable but always warm weather, was the best.

The best was yet to come, a fortnight later, when I discovered an Estonian coastal resort further north, Haapsalu, and a very different music festival. More on the wonders of that place anon; here's the Arts Desk report in the meantime.

Sailing towards Wagner's Dutchman

'The Complete Wagner' experience on Zoom actually has its source in the Trossachs, where I stepped in to take over a summer course at the beautifully-located Gartmore House for the Wagner Society of Scotland. With only a week's notice, I had to adapt what I'd already done - an Opera in Depth term on Das Rheingold. The Scottish Wagnerites liked it, asked me back for successive summers on the other Ring operas. I did the same for Die Walküre, but then in 2020 Covid struck, so Siegfried needed to transfer to Zoom. Online, I've since gone through Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Parsifal. Keen Zoomers from America and elsewhere will be able to catch up on Die Walküre in the summer term of the Opera in Depth course, to coincide with the second instalment of Barrie Kosky's Ring at the Royal Opera. Special guests? Who knows, just yet. But I'm so proud and happy that Antonio Pappano and Richard Jones actually overlapped in one of our Puccini Trittico classes (click to enlarge).

Where next, for summer Wagner? Back to the beginning, of course. Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi seemed only to merit one two-hour session each, and Der fliegende Holländer, being much shorter than the big 'uns, needs five classes rather than 10. So it is that next Tuesday afternoon we embark on the early journey. Do join us: if you can't attend live, I can send the videos. Full details on the flyer below (click to enlarge).

Mourning Max

There she is, with the radiant, open smile as always, the last time I saw her at the local cafe last October. Our beloved Max/Machteld Hopperus Buma died on 29 June, aged only 64. Wife of Nick Hills, J's good friend from Glyndebourne days, mother of J's godson Frank and of Charlie, nominally mine since another premature loss, and equally beloved of all of us. She packed more in to her too-short life than many ever do - an avid traveller (as KLM steward, and way beyond that) and photographer (so much will be documented, amen!). Perhaps the most empathetic person I've known other than J, curious about everything, adored equally by her two sisters Eline and Dorette, whom we've also got to know well over the years, and by so many others who packed the English Reformed Church in Amsterdam's beautiful Begijnhof last Tuesday.

The cover image sums up her vibrancy - on top of the world (the Edelweiss is an appropriate symbol) -

and her glamour is to the fore here in another photo within the order of service.

 KLM style, leaving home on the Sarphatipark

and with Nick and the boys at the Chiddingstone wedding, where J sang Gluck. 

The Amsterdam wedding party was unforgettable: we were met at the station by Eline and her then husband, taken around the canals by boat and joined another for the wedding reception. So many happy visits; the last was around one New Year, where we had a fun supper on the eve with friends of theirs in Scheveningen (we met again on Tuesday; I was so happy to see them again). Fun times in Max's higgledy-piggledy flat off Lange Leidse; a visit to welcome the firstborn

The next day I found I had chickenpox, but fortunately Frankie at that stage didn't catch it (our friend Jo in Brussels wanted her son, somewhat older, to get it, but he didn't either). Max was also a mover and shaker of Orkestival, the Dutch school orchestras competition at the Concertgebouw, no less, and got me along to help judge it (there are more photos of her in this blog entry). 

There were also shorter stays in Chiddingstone, Hills territory. 

No mum could be justifiably prouder than Max was (is) of Frankie and Charlie, who've grown up to be sensitive, kind, loving young men both, gifted in very different ways. One saving grace is that they're in their 20s now, and not younger; another, which I shared with Charlie on Tuesday, is their having had time before the end to say all the things they wanted (I remembered Oliver Sacks's partner saying how much laughter there was in the final stretch of his illness).

I was also glad to have regular WhatsApp exchanges with Max in the last three weeks. She sent me a treasurable message with these photos and others: 'Cornwall August '96. I am grateful for the wonderful walking days, the beauty of Cornwall you showed us [we actually started in Devon and crossed the border before reaching Morwenstow, ending at Crackington Haven]. Such a joy to think back on those very special days. Dorette, Charlie and I looked at the photos and a huge joy came over me. You swimming at Hartland Quay and the colourful heather we climbed up to reach the hotel. So many dear memories. I cherish those days with you. A year later was the arrival of Frank'.

(A fuller shot of our last meeting).

Joy, then, to nearly the end (I hate to think of the pain, which I thought could be avoided - or so Nell, the first friend I lost to cancer, told me). It will, as Nick's address put it, be fascinating to see how Max now lives on with us.

Český Krumlov: up the castle way to paradise

First came four blissful days in and around the lovely Czech town of Litomyšl, which we'd seen only briefly back in 2016 on the way to Polička to see Martinů's church-tower childhood home but where we now got four Smetana operas in four nights (full report on The Arts Desk here). Then  J and I headed south by train from Prague to much-feted Český Krumlov on a meander of the Vltava. I had no idea it's become so popular with tourists, not least Chinese and Japanese tour groups - Brits mostly haven't heard of it - but the prime spot is deserved.

Walking down from the station - the last stage of the journey from České Budějovice is idyllic as you enter the hilly, eventually mountainous Šumava region, the South Bohemian woods which extend in to Germany - the tourists were apparent but also the time-capsule, perfectly restored, as we crossed two bridges to our destination. Which delivered view-wise what it promised as the Castle Bridge Hotel.

I had no idea until I saw it that this is a reference to the high walkway above the aqueduct along the higher stretch of the castle route. A wonder of Czechia in itself, but then the castle itself offers the best of its kind anywhere I've been (Krac des Chevaliers included):  a (free) upward journey to ever more blissful zones (tours of castle apartments - avoided - and 18th century theare - gladly accepted, even though only a German-language version was available - have to be booked).

And so, on the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures going above 30 degrees, I went on ahead to book tickets for the theatre tour and started the ascent. Didn't have the heart to snap the poor bears in the pit of the first courtyard (why were they put there in the 18th century? One account is that it was toadying to the Orsini of Italy). But the glories of the first best phase are apparent in the Renaissance buildings commissioned by Wilhelm of Rosenberg during the second half of the 16th century and executed by Balthasar Maggi d'Arogno. The Redoubt with its tower dominating the town's skyline as well as the first two courtyards was decorated c. 1580 with paintings by Bartolomej Jelinek.

Entrance to the upper castle is through a steep corridor. The coats of arms are those of Wilhelm (1535-1592) on the left, Anton von Eggenberg (1610-1649) and his wife Marie Ernestine von Brandenberg (1609-1680) on the right.

The corridor opens out on to two further, smaller courtyards, again restored with the Renaissance work that had been plastered over.

After the second of these, it's out on to the magnificent covered bridge finished in the second half of the 18th century, linking the old building to Baroque glories. The statues are replicas, the originals on display in the Castle Lapidary. This is St Felix of Cantalice. Our hotel is down below on the left.

Good views over the town (top image) and back to the old castle and its tower.

Glad of refreshment on a terrace with a large group of vocal Czech teenagers, then onwards and upwards on a beautiful shaded path. Hollyhocks in an idyllic cottage on the right.

The castle gardens changed their appearance over the centuries - in the 19th, they were remodelled according to the English-park style. They've been irreproachably well restored to the Rococo look. The cascade fountain of 1750-65 to a design by Andrea Altomonte has replacement statues; again, the originals are in the Castle Lapidary. The goddess Amphitrite is on the highest level with (rather than on) a dolphin

 and alongside her Neptune.

Around the copper beeches in the centre was a huge range of birdsong - thanks to Merlin for identifying them all. Cool was of the essence, so instead of going down to the foot of the castle to meet J, I asked him to meet me outside the theatre for the 1pm tour. Our guide was a German-speaking Czech who had lived here all her life. I wanted to ask what saved her family from expulsion after World War 2 - only those Sudeten Germans who hadn't supported Hitler or who were essential for rebuilding were allowed to stay on. Anyway she saw the Baroque Theatre in various stages of dilipidation on visits with her mother when rain stopped play in the gardens. The building dates from 1680 and its present appearance dates from 1765-6. It's now restored to maximum splendour, original sets and stage machinery included.

Altogether on a granders scale than the pretty little theatre we'd seen in the Litomyšl Castle, pictured below; here the stage is larger than the auditorium. I'd love to experience performances in both; sadly the latter isn't secure enough right now. It would be ideal for string quartets.

Our guide gave demonstrations of noisemakers, including the truck wheeled above for thunder, a veritable hailstorm and the wind machine (pictured here),

 and we also got to look below, though, alas, no further demonstrations here.

Out into the daylight and the heat, we felt reinvigorated, even though lunch called, and I was keen to see what my guidebook rather cumbersomely calls 'Monastery of the Order of the Knights of the Cross with a Red Star (originally a monastery of Minorites and Clares) with the Church of Corpus Christi and St Mary in Pain'. 

The grounds are a very quiet haven - not many tourists seem to have this high on the list. I must say that for all the naff concessions to the mass influx like the Wax Museum and Museum of Torture, money is well spent on excellent restoration in this UNESCO treasure among towns. 

The church, consecrated in 1358, had a Baroque makeover in 1649-81 hardly in tune with the simplicity of the 'poor Clares'

Eggenburg extravagance was responsible for the high altar and that of the Virgin Mary.

The cloister of 1500 was what attracted me to coming here. Among the statues returned for the first time in 70 years and placed between the pillars, the Krumlov Madonna is only a copy - the story of its purchasing by an Austrian dealer and how it ended up in Vienna's Kunsthistoriches Museum is worthy of an article in itself.

After a much-needed afternoon nap, I strolled the most frequented streets of the old town around the main square (by this time St Vitus was closed, but walking around it was still a pleasure).

We had supper by the Vltava at Barvirna, located in the old dyers' factory, big brother of what became our regular, Jelenka, and more expensive (though not a lot) because of the river view.

Here the swifts swooped and shrieked, grey wagtails bobbed about, while by day - J found himself a lunchtime seat - the pleasure was in watching canoeists overturned and helped out. These two were experienced, though.

Walked back via a big loop in the balmy night air, taking in the Chaplain's House of 1520.

Further along is the splendidly sgraffiti-ed former Jesuit College, designed by d'Arogno in 1586-8, the Hotel Růže (the 'rose' of the Rosenbergs) since 1889.

Opposite it there's a small park with more glorious views over to the castle and the streets below (see Schiele spiel below). 

The next morning we walked around the lovely, shady Municipal park on a bend over the other side of the river. Lost each other once past it heading for the Synagogue and Egon Schiele's house, and I took a very big detour by accident. Glad I did, because Plešivecká, running above the Vltava once the river has straightened itself out, is one of the prettiest streets, though well out of the centre.

Then there's a rose garden running down towards the Synagogue.
 

My time, though, was short, and since J had told me the Schiele studio was closed, I simply crossed the Vltava to get a glimpse of it.

Schiele lived in what was then Krumau from 1911 to 1914, and his works depicting the town help to give it a bit of a 20th century kick.

Should we return, there's still the Egon Schiele Centre to visit, with some of his original drawings and paintings on show. But Prague called, and a blissful direct train journey back in the afternoon gave us time to rest in the excellent Hotel Klárov before taking a tram to the Villa Müller, a late design by Adolf Loos now owned by the Czech state. A colleague of our friend Tereza Porybná had set up a concert there for movers and shakers in the arts, with no less a guest than the Pavel Haas Quartet (in other words one of the very greatest in the world).

The 1930 house is fascinating from the outside, and its balcony has a wonderful view, but inside is in many places a bit creepy - a far cry from Mies van der Rohe's light and airy Villa Tugendhat in Brno - near-contemporary, but Mies was younger - which we visited with our Viennese friends Tommi and Martha in 2010 long before it became more regularly open to the public. The men's smoking room - engineer František Müller was not as advanced as all that - is old-fashioned and lugubrious; the children's rooms on the top floor smack of the sanitorium. Photos were discouraged inside, and of corse no-one was going to take any during the performance, but J was permitted a curtain-call shot, not perfect, but it gives you an idea of the setting (very stuffy with the windows shut on a peculiar evening when storms raged around Prague, but avoided it).

The concert was a stunner, as is everything the PHQ does. I was expecting it to be a try-out of the forthcoming Litomyšl recital, but by no means entirely. It began with Suk's atmospheric Meditation on the Wenceslas Chorale, but then we got Tchaikovsky's Third Quartet. Had the Haases wanted to give themselves, and us, an easier time, they could have chosen the famous First. The Third veers from melancholy and fury to playfulness; I haven't heard it live for a very long time. J was gobsmacked, above all by the ferocity (always in tune!) of Veronika Jarůšková, a true force of nature. Unforgettable, especially at only a few metres' distance from this inferno.

I stayed on in Prague for most of the next day, Zooming my Berlioz class from the Rudolfinum. When I arrived a public rehearsal was in full swing - wish they'd told me; it was Dalia Stasevska conducting the Czech Phil in Sibelius 5. 

While problems with the conference room I was supposed to use got sorted, I managed to slip in for the very end. 

What a shame I couldn't stay for the evening, but I'd had a rather good musical feast over the course of the week.