Dear Readers, last week I took a trip to my favourite city in the world (after London of course), with my intrepid 89.5 year-old friend, M. M had mentioned that she had a yearning to see Venice ‘one last time’ and, as I’ve spent many happy weeks there over the past ten years, and really enjoy M’s company, we decided to take a chance on a visit. Last time M. visited, she had an unfortunate stumble when she was rushed off of a vaporetto, and ended up with twenty stitches in her shin and a rather exciting ride in a speedboat ambulance across the lagoon. We were determined that nothing so unfortunate was going to happen this time, and indeed it didn’t.

Casa Tre Archi – our apartment was on the top floor

For the past four visits, I have rented an apartment with a company called Visit Venice: it’s on the Cannaregio canal, which is much quieter than ‘the main drag’ around St Marks, and it gives me a chance to shop and cook, which I enjoy. I was a little worried that M would have trouble with the precipitous staircase, but she managed it like a trouper, as she did all the other steps and trip hazards of the city. Indeed, her turn of speed when we wanted to visit a 12th Century basilica on Murano that was due to close in 20 minutes was such that I had to hurry to keep up.

But surely such a watery, stony, cramped environment would be somewhat bereft of animals? Well, dear readers, what it lacks in biodiversity it makes up for in opportunism, for I have seldom felt every mouthful of croissant being watched so carefully. If you sit by the canal with a panini, you will soon be accosted by all manner of seabirds. Huge menacing yellow-legged gulls stand on the mooring posts, eyeing up your mozzarella with a calculating look.

The smaller black-headed gulls swoop like sea-swallows. Pigeons peck at your feet, some of them with interesting patterns of iridescent and white feathers on their necks, and sometimes a cheeky sparrow will land on the back of a chair and consider, with tilted head, whether he can make an assault on your half-empty plate.

In short, all the usual seaside suspects are here, and if you want to examine gull behaviour I can recommend a coffee next to the fish stand by the Guglie Bridge, where you can witness every possible gull tactic, from distraction (one gull struts along at the front of the counter while another gull is pulling squid from a bucket at the back), ambush (one gull steals a sardine and is then chased until he drops it by a bigger, older gull) and subterfuge (a gull sneaks underneath the fish stand and pulls at a fish until it falls off, unnoticed).

Egrets can sometimes be seen patrolling the edges of the quieter canals, watching for the tiny fish that eat the algae on the steps that are used by the gondoliers, or picking at the crabs that haunt the hollow places. They are not averse to using the gondolas themselves as a perch.

Venice is located on some of the main migratory routes from Europe into Africa, and so it was no surprise that there were many flocks of starlings heading south. Men in camouflage gear often puttered quietly out into the lagoon at first light, sometimes with a little dog standing at the bow, nose twitching, as if it was already possible to smell the scent of wild duck. And as we stood on the Tre Archi bridge one evening, a man pointed skyward, and we all watched as a flock of birds flickered overhead, on their way to warmer climes. I am always moved by these vast movements of animals from one place to another  and mentally bid them good luck as they run the gauntlet of hunters and starvation, ill winds and sudden freezes. May they reach safe harbour, may they prevail.

But most of the biodiversity of Venice is tucked away out of sight. You are never more than a few steps from a canal here, and the sound of water slapping against stone, the sun dancing on ripples, is the quintessence of this place. It all seems somehow unreal, like a dream, at least until the chug of a waterbus or the mewing of a gull brings you back to reality.

The walls of the canals quickly become home to algae and snails and all manner of invertebrates, who are in turn eaten by crabs and fish. Each waterway, each set of steps, becomes its own microhabitat, washed by the tide twice a day like any stony beach. In general, the water is cleaner than it has been for years – although Venice has a reputation for being a smelly place, I have never noticed this (although in fairness I do visit out of season – the combination of crowds, mosquitoes and heat in high summer are a bit more than I care do deal with). There is even talk of the lagoon becoming a destination for divers  who want to explore the many wrecks and the undersea communities that have grown up around them. For animals, I suspect that the whole of Venice is a kind of stony island, full of wasteful creatures who aren’t too careful where their crusts end up. It always interests me to think about how a non-human would view a city, and somehow nowhere is this clearer than in that magnet for everyone who visits Venice, the Piazza of St Marks. There are some of the most important historical sights in Europe crammed into this space, and yet, for the seagulls, these matter not. Yellow-legged gulls cruise around the mosaics of the Basilica, circle the campanile, and terrify the small children who are attempting to feed the pigeons. All our works are nothing more than a potential perch and, probably, a bit of a nuisance. There is a Venice that is navigated by the birds, and a Venice that is visited by us, and these two cities are superimposed, one on the other, just as there is a ‘dog’ Venice, and a ‘cat’ Venice, and a Venice as experienced by small children. The Venice of a sailor or a gondolier must be very different from Venice as loved by a rather scruffy middle-aged insect fan and her 89 and a half year-old friend. How interesting it would be to bring all these experiences together! It makes my head spin to think about it.

All photographs copyright Vivienne Palmer. Free to use and share, but please link back to the blog, thank you!

When I threw back the curtains on Thursday morning, it was to see that the hills closest to Obergurgl (Austria) had been sprinkled with snow, and the higher peaks had disappeared completely behind a curtain of white cloud. In all my years of coming here, I have never seen snow so late. The locals say that it isn’t ‘unknown’ to get snow in July – after all, this is the highest parish in Austria, and snow can fall at above 2000 metres at any time of the year. But still, there is a novelty to looking out of the window onto a winter wonderland.

Our neighbours at breakfast are ecstatic. The lady can’t wait to get up above the snow line.  Her enthusiasm is both touching and exhausting as she bounces off, dragging her long-suffering husband behind her although he hasn’t quite finished his boiled egg. After they’ve left, the restaurant seems very quiet.

We wander off to get a coffee, and I take photos of the church, and the local hills. I often wonder what the village is like in the winter, and this is just a little taster. During this holiday we have talked to several people who have come to Obergurgl to ski, and to me it sounds like hell. The figures speak for themselves. 450 people actually live in the parish of Obergurgl. In the winter, a further 1500 workers arrive to service the 4500 visitors who can be here at any one time. There are tales of two hour queues for the pizzeria, and of discos that go until the wee small hours. In other words, it wouldn’t suit a tired old introvert like me. I love the peace and quiet here, the chance to hear myself think.

We  head up in the lift to the Hohe Mut.As we rise, the hills and rocks become whiter and whiter. Everything is monochrome. The path that we walked earlier this week is a black scar against the snow. Icicles hang under the rocky outcrops, and all sensible marmots are bedded down in their burrows for the day. Near the top, everything whites out, and we are almost into the lift station before we really see it.

There are men sweeping away the snow, which is about eight inches deep at the top. The children’s playground is covered in snow, and someone has built a little snow man. On the roof of the hut there is a single bird, some kind of baby robin or stone chat. It chirrups pathetically. Has it lost its parents somehow in all the confusion? I look around, but can’t see any other birds.

We go inside where it’s warm, and I have a cup of hot chocolate. There aren’t many other people. Some folk will still decide to walk, I’m sure, but after three solid days of rain and then this snow, it’s too dangerous for us to attempt anything significant. We discuss Theresa May’s reshuffle, and how on earth Boris Johnson is now Foreign Secretary, but fortunately it all seems a little distant. We can see exactly nothing through the window.

Finally, we decide to head back down. Out by the lift, the same little bird is standing all on its own in the snow, chirruping. We didn’t bring our lunch packs up with us, but when John finds a few crumbs and throws them to the bird, it ignores them. I suspect that it is just out of the nest, and would normally still be being fed by its parents. I wonder if this is what climate change looks like – a lost bird calling out in a wilderness of white. Sometimes it takes something small to bring things into focus. We cannot bear the immensity of the world’s problems, but we can relate to a single story, an individual.

As we journey back down through the whiteness, I see that a flock of sheep are moving at speed back down the hill, looking for forage that isn’t frozen. I’ve noticed this before with the domestic animals on the mountains – the horses come down in advance of a storm, and the sheep will stand in patches of snow if the weather gets too hot. The cows are indoors today, so the silence is intensified by the lack of the omnipresent cow bells. Everything is at a standstill, everything is waiting for this cold front to move on so that summer can come back, which it is due to do in the next few days. But by that time, we will be home, and back into the normal run of things.

In truth, it’s time to be going home. I miss my bed, and cooking my own food, and my friends and family. I miss the foxes, and the cemetery, and my garden. But my batteries are recharged, and I’m ready for whatever comes next. That’s the beauty of this place: it forces me to live a bit more in my body, and a bit less in my head. It reminds me that humans are animals, and that we are meant to move, rather than to sit hunched over a computer. And most of all, it reminds me of our relationship to the animals and plants around us, and how interconnected we all are, in London as well as here in the Alps. We are all subjects of nature, however much we deny it.

The path to the Arolla Forest

Dear Readers, I am on holiday in Obergurgl, Austria for two weeks, so, as usual, I thought I would share a couple of my walks with you all. On Monday we went for a hike through the Arolla pine forest, a nature reserve that I can see from my balcony window.This is what I would describe as our first ‘proper’ walk, which means one where we actually break into a sweat, and where I notice that my heart rate, measured on my little Fitbit watch, has gone over 140 beats per minute. I should mention that once it goes that fast, I often demand a breathing break, or find something to look at that means that we stop. Like ‘ooh, an ant!’ or ‘Look at that tree!’ or even, once, ‘that’s a pretty cloud’. However, I think that my daily walks to the cemetery to feed the foxes have helped – the climb today, though tiring, required far fewer ‘ant stops’ than usual.

Meadow flowers

The trip starts easily enough as we skip through the meadow, and pass over a bridge. The bridge has a little shrine to St John Nepomuk, the local saint and a protector against floods and drowning. I notice that folk have started to attach padlocks to the metalwork to signify their undying love for one another.

I hope that this doesn’t become too much of a trend, as it can weaken the bridge, but at the moment, it’s just rather sweet.

Alpenrose (Rhododendron ferrugineum)

The Alpenroses are gorgeous this year – they are actually azaleas, not roses. Normally by the time we’ve arrived in Obergurgl , they are already past their best. This year they are perfect. We stop on the edge of the forest for some water and some Toblerone (actually Swiss, but it feels like enough of an Alpine treat to indulge in in Austria). A woman in a white beanie hat is sitting on the seat, and we get chatting, like you do. She is watching her husband, who is doing some mountaineering on the rocks opposite. This little area has become very popular with daredevils who like edging around precipitous drops and crossing ravines via terrifying wire bridges, and I am impressed that her husband, who must be sixty if he’s a day, is giving the youngsters a run for their money. It suddenly occurs to me, writing this, that I shall be sixty in a few years. Funny how your impressions of age change as you get older. I have an Auntie who is 88 years old, and refers to a friend in her seventies as ‘a nice girl’.

We all agree that this mountaineering lark is  ‘not our kind of thing’, however. The husband takes his hand off the rocks to give his wife a cheery wave, and she heads off to meet him at the bottom of the climb. John and I head on up the path.

It’s so cool under the trees. There’s a chiff-chaff singing his heart out way up in the branches. I always wonder why some birds cross from Africa to Austria and stay, while others come all the way to the UK. It also occurs to me that most of the plants that I see here I could also see in Britain, though not in such splendid abundance. Our plants, animals and geology are inextricably linked with those in Europe, and until rising sea levels severed our connection to the continent as recently as 6500 years ago, we were physically joined to the mainland. What a difference that hop, skip and a jump’s worth of water has made to our national attitude.

We carry on up the zig-zag path, hearing the nutcrackers’ calls all around us, but seeing nary a one.Spotted Nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes) (Photo One – see credit below)

For such big birds, the nutcrackers are very shy, although the evidence of their work is everywhere, in the tiny baby trees that are sprouting randomly at the edge of the wood. Nutcrackers plant the seeds from the pine cones all over the place, and don’t always get around to digging them up, which means that they spread the trees far and wide.  In this particular wood, all the trees are either very old, or very young, which the local naturalists think indicates that there was a forest fire in the 1880’s that took out all but a few of the ancient pines (some of the trees are over 300 years old).

A baby Arolla pine tree, probably planted by a Nutcracker Jay.

At the top of the wood, we stop for yet more Toblerone and a look around. There is a tiny bog here, full of cotton grass, and dragonflies zip across it, making triangles and quadrilaterals in the sky. There are berry bushes here, growing close to the ground to avoid the worst of the winter weather. You get a wonderful view of Hangerer as well – this is the highest local peak, a fine pyramid against the sky. It’s possible to walk up it (allegedly) but this involves crossing snow fields and, as one of the mountain guides said ‘a degree of exposure’, so we will be admiring it from the ground for the moment.

A tough last climb brings us to the road, and our first view of the new Schonweisse hut. It used to be a classic Alpine hut, with a big sun terrace, the usual pitched roof and a tiny indoor area, where we would huddle if the weather was particularly inclement. Now, it appears to be a strange glass and shingle box. However, we are glad to see it, whatever it looks like. Inside, it has huge tinted glass windows which frame the incredible view of the Rotmoos valley beyond, but there is less outdoor seating than there used to be. We take a seat inside and, after a bowl of tomato soup with basil pesto, I realise, with some regret, that the berry pancakes that used to be on the menu are gone forever. Still, the food is good, the atmosphere a bit more ‘upmarket’ than it used to be, and the toilets are a lot less basic. Everything changes, I suppose, and there is much to like about this new incarnation. Except for the loss of the pancakes. Maybe I should start a petition.

As we walk back down the hill, we pass a herd of Haflinger horses, mares and some foals. These have to be among the most beautiful horses in the world, with their golden skin and flaxen manes and tails. I love the life that they have in the summer, out here in the mountains, free to wander and eat and behave like horses. They ignore the tourists who want to have their photographs taken with the horses in the background, and I am pleased to see that no one feeds them. Which is just as well, as nothing spoils the relationship between man and horse as much as getting the equines addicted to sugar.

So, after this hike I feel as if I’ve got my ‘mountain legs’ back. It takes a walk or two to regain confidence in my ability to get up and down tricky paths, but after all the years we’ve been coming to Obergurgl, we’ve finally worked out a way of making each day’s walk a little more difficult than the one before, so that we reduce the risk of injury or of just knackering ourselves out. It’s very lucky that we can come for two weeks – after a week, I’m just getting into the swing of it all! And there is so much to see and do here, if you like walking. It really is a small slice of heaven.

View down the Rotmoos valley

Photo Credits

Photo One : By Original author and uploader was MurrayBHenson at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3708573

All other photos copyright Vivienne Palmer. Free to use and share, but please attribute to me, and link back to the blog. Thank you!

Hogweed seedhead

This week, I was in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset, with my parents. As usual, I have been making pancakes and cooking casseroles, but on Wednesday I went out for a walk, to see what was going on in the village. I headed on down towards the Londis shop, passing a man walking with two Newfoundland dogs, and, further along, a little blind cat. Milborne seems to be a place where disabled pets are welcomed – there is a man here who has a blind dog, and I’ve seen a dog with three legs as well. I love it when people recognise that a pet who is ‘different’ in this way can be just as splendid a companion, and live just as happy a life, as one with the full complement of legs or eye.

Bumblebee on purple toadflax outside my parents’ bungalow

Whenever I come to Milborne, I realise that I need to slow down. My brusque, speedy London ways cut no mustard here. It’s important to say hello to people, to spend the time of day, to make sure that you acknowledge any greetings from passing cars. In a small place, people rely on one another, and keep an eye on what’s going on. This can be either claustrophobic or comforting, according to your temperament and state of mind. Mum and Dad consider themselves very lucky to have moved to such a friendly place, and it certainly suits them very well.

One thing that is always prominent in Milborne at this time of year is the red valerian. This should be the village’s designated flower, for it is popping up everywhere, not only in the standard red, but also in pink, white, and in a rather fetching pale pink. It peeks out from old walls, churchyards, and cracks in the pavement. All I need to see now is a hummingbird hawk moth (as occasionally witnessed by my mum in her garden, where the valerian even grows out of the drains) and my life will be complete.

There are also patches of that most ephemeral of flowers, the poppy. Last year, Mum and Dad’s garden was full of it, but this year it seems to have moved up the road. I also saw it in the area of Milborne known as Little England, a collection of old cottages and more modern houses that runs along behind the main road. Milborne is a ‘real’ village, not chocolate-boxy, but full of a variety of folk. As a result, it still has a shop, a post office, a school and a pub, and long may this continue.

I stop just before the shop because I hear a flurry in the apple tree, and get a quick glimpse of a newly-fledged collared dove. It’s only half the size of an adult bird, and has a ridiculously long beak. One glance is all I get, and then the bird rustles away into the foliage. The way that baby birds scramble about in the branches reminds me that the ancestors of birds were probably arboreal, climbers rather than fliers.

Newly fledged collared dove

I cross the road, and pass the statue of a stag that stands outside one of the houses. This has been a cause of some controversy. At one point, I seem to remember, the stag was painted pink. On another occasion, someone painted his testicles pink, which outraged the village so much that questions were asked at the parish council . Today, the stag is a uniform raggedy white colour, and the house is for sale, again . I wonder if whoever buys the house realises the nature of the local monument that they will be purchasing? One can only hope that they have no plans for any stag-related psychedelia.

I walk on up to St. Andrew’s Church, founded in 1069.

This is one of my favourite spots in Milborne. The churchyard is a designated wildlife area, and the air is so clean that all manner of lichens thrive on the headstones.

In the churchyard opposite, a view over the adjoining field shows the house martins swooping and chirruping over the thistles as they hunt for insects in the humid air. I love these black and white wanderers, and I hope that, much as we dislike a damp summer, it will provide rich pickings for them.

One of Mum’s best friends, a lady called Pat Tribe, was buried here in 2012. Her simple headstone, which simply gives her name, her dates (1941 to 2012) and the words ‘With God’, is the epitome of the woman herself: straightforward, devout, no nonsense, the very heart of her community. I know that she would approve of this spot, close to the church which she served faithfully for so many years. It is a hard fact that, as we get older, our friends fall away. All the more reason to love them while they are here.

I decide to follow the path from the church that runs alongside the little river upon which Milborne St Andrew stands. There are springs and streams all over the place here, one of which caused a flood at the end of Mum and Dad’s road a few years ago, effectively sealing them in. Recent roadworks seemed to have tamed the rivulet, but I do worry for the houses that back onto the existing stream.

When I peer into the stream I see that it is garlanded with water crowfoot, a kind of buttercup that grows actually in the water. I have some in my pond which has produced exactly one flower so far. The stuff in Milborne was doing much better. I love the white and yellow flowers, the way that they carpet the surface of the running water.

I was so impressed that I  accosted a besuited man who was coming out of the village hall with a clipboard under his arm.

‘ I was just admiring your water crowfoot’, I enthused.

‘Were you indeed?’ he said, backing away with a worried expression.

Ah well, even in a village as friendly as Milborne St Andrew, it’s possible to overdo it.

Update

Dear Readers, since I wrote this piece, the UK has voted to leave the EU. Whilst the metropolitan areas (including the paradise that is East Finchley) voted to Remain, nearly everywhere else (except Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar) voted to Leave. The area where Mum and Dad live voted overwhelmingly to leave, which was no surprise, judging by the bright red ‘Leave’ posters which were every bit as ubiquitous as the valerian. As this is a largely rural area, which receives extensive farm subsidies from the EU, it feels a lot like the turkeys voting for Christmas, but there we go. We live in ‘interesting’ times here in the moment, and I, for one, am deeply concerned about the divisions that this whole process has exposed, and the uncertainty of what lies before us. But I also know that, while 50% voted to Leave, 48% of us voted to Remain, because of our vision of this country as an inclusive, generous place, working with other nations rather than in splendid isolation. And that vision is not going to go away because of a single vote, however drastic the consequences.

On another note, poor Mum managed to have a bad fall on the very night of the Referendum (and no, it wasn’t a Brexit protest) and is currently in Dorchester Hospital, wearing a rather horrible collar that she’ll have to wear for the next six to eight weeks. She’s possibly fractured a bone in her neck, but we may not know about that till she’s seen a specialist, which may be next week. So, she’s ok, but not delighted with this turn of events. Hopefully, she’ll be out of hospital soon, and fortunately my brother is doing all the legwork at the moment. It really feels as if everything is out of joint at the moment, nationally and personally. We will all need to make ourselves ‘comfortable with uncertainty’ in the weeks and months to come.