‘A Whole Life’ by Robert Seethaler

Dear Readers, when picking a favourite Austrian novel, it really was a choice between two. For those of you wanting to understand the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its demise, I have no higher recommendation than Joseph Roth’s Radesky March. I’ve read it several times and it never fails to engross me with its sweep of history, its characters, and its cinematic quality. I love this book, as you might have gathered. But I have an even greater love for Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life, maybe because it is centred on the Austrian Tyrol, and because in its  it tells the life of one ordinary man, Andreas Egger, who survives a brutal childhood, finds love, is swept up in to the Second World War, and returns to see his village changing.

Translators are often forgotten when reviewing books by overseas authors, so a shout out here to Charlotte Collins, who manages to capture the clarity, the poignancy and the humour of Seethaler’s prose.

The book starts with an incident.

‘On a February morning in the year 1933 Andreas Egger lifted the dying goatherd Johannes Kalischka, known to all the valley dwellers as Horned Hannes, off his sodden and rather sour-smelling pallet to carry him down to the village along the three-kilometre mountain path that lay buried beneath a thick layer of snow’.

And as the story unfolds, you might think that you are about to enter one of those magic-realism worlds. Fortunately not. Although there is much that is uncanny about these first few pages, the novel is grounded in reality.

‘A cable car was to be built. An aerial cable car powered by direct-current electricity, in whole light-blue wooden cabins people would  float up the mountain, enjoying a panoramic view of the whole valley.Cables twenty-five millimetres thick and intertwined like pairs of mating adders would slice through the sky across a distance of almost two thousand metres…..With the cable car, electricity too would come to the valley. Electric current would flow in along buzzing cables and all the streets and houses and barns would glow with warm light, even at night. People were thinking of all this and much more as they threw up their hats and sent their shouts of delight into the clean air. Egger would have liked to cheer with them, but for some reason he stayed sitting on his tree stump. He felt despondent, without knowing why. Perhaps it had something to do with the rattling of the engines, the noise that suddenly filled the valley. Nobody knew when it would go away again, or whether it would ever go away again‘.

Heading up in the Hochgurgl lift

As a child, Egger is deposited with a relative in the Tyrol following the death of his mother. The farmer who he is left with treats him viciously, but this a tale completely without sentimentality: Seethaler tells the story with a keen eye for a telling detail.

‘Once, he saw a mountain  start to move. A jolt seemed to pass through the side in shadow, and with a deep groan the whole slope began to slide. The mass of earth swept away the forest chapel and a couple of haystacks, and buried beneath it the dilapidated walls of the abandoned Kernsteiner farm, which had been empty for years. A calf, separated from the herd because of an ulcer on its hind leg, was thrown high up into the air along with the cherry tree to which it was tethered: it gawped out over the valley for a moment before the scree surged in and swallowed it whole’. 

And so, Andreas grows up in the valley, as strong as the proverbial ox, but with a limp from an encounter with his ‘guardian’.

‘He thought slowly, spoke slowly and walked slowly; yet every thought, every word and every step left a mark precisely where, in his opinion, such marks were supposed to be’. 

Andreas finds work, and love. I defy anyone to read about the way that he proposes to his beloved and not be moved. But, be warned, it pays not to be too attached to anyone in this book. Like the calf in the avalanche, Andreas finds himself caught up in the great sweep of history. He ends up in the Caucasus during the Second World War:

‘It was as if in these pitch-dark Caucasian winter nights, when shell-fire blossomed like blazing flowers over the mountain crests on the horizon, casting its light on the soldiers’ fearful or despairing or blank faces, any thought about purpose or the lack of it was stifled before it could be formulated’. 

And, as tourism comes to the valley, he reinvents himself as a tour guide:

‘He always led the way, with an eye on potential dangers and the tourists panting at his back. He liked these people, even if some of them did try to explain the world to him or behaved idiotically in some other way. He knew that during a two-hour uphill climb, if not before, their arrogance would evaporate along with the sweat on their hot heads, until nothing remained but gratitude that they had made it and a tiredness deep in their bones’.

Towards the end of his life he takes a trip on the post bus for the first time. When he gets there, he is utterly overwhelmed and confused, until the bus driver sees him.

‘”Where exactly is it you want to go?” the man asked. Old Egger just stood there, desperately searching for an answer. 

“I don’t know,’ he said, and slowly shook his head, over and over again. “I simply don’t know”.

In the end, Andreas is very much a man of the valley, a particular soul from a particular place. But so much of his story resonates with me, especially now, after all that has happened personally during this past few years, and in view of what is going on in the world. This is a book about living through history, and about making meaning out of the hand that you are dealt. I read it in a morning, and will remember it for the rest of my life.

‘He went on along the narrow path up to the mountain, all the way to the Pichlersenke. Up here the ground was soft and the grass short and dark. Drops of water trembled on the tips of the blades, making the whole meadow glitter as if studded with glass beads. Egger marvelled at these tiny, trembling drops that clung so tenaciously to the blades of the grass, only to fall at last and seep into the earth or dissolve to nothing in the air’.

Tiroler gröstl (Photo One)

Dear Readers, it’s just as well that I only go to Austria once a year, and that when I’m there I’m exercising vigorously. The food of the Tyrol is highly calorific (as befits people who spend a lot of their time outside, in all weathers). It tends towards root vegetables, pork products and copious quantities of dairy food (from all those lovely Alpine cows). It is just the thing at the end of a slog uphill in freezing rain, but it doesn’t always translate to a more sedentary London existence. However, I am going to attempt my own version of Tiroler gröstl tonight, as I have spare potatoes, spare cabbage, spare onions and a number of eggs to use. As I am vegetarian I shall spare the bacon, though I should point out that, for once, this isn’t typical – normally in Obergurgl it’s made with leftover beef , maybe from the tafelspitz shown below.  Austrian cooks are nothing if not resourceful.

A lot of Tyrolean cooking features things that my parents would have recognised. They have their own version of boiled beef called tafelspitz, for example, served with boiled potatoes and carrots and creamed spinach plus horseradish (essential). I’m sure my grandmother would have loved it. Like a lot of cooking from the region, it uses cheap cuts of meat, cooked slowly. The beef in a tafelspitz is normally soft enough to cut with a spoon.

Tafelspitz (Photo Two)

As Obergurgl is on the border with the Italian Tyrol, you won’t be surprised to learn that the Tyroleans have developed their own form of ‘pasta’ – spätzle. Normally served with meat ragout, or in a sauce stuffed full of cheese and cream, it sometimes feels like it might be the final straw for my grumbling gallbladder (though it has never actually caused any problems). spätzle is made with a dough similar to that of Italian pasta, though heavier in eggs – the traditional formula was to add one egg more than the number of people who would be dining. Traditionally, the dough is scraped into long, thin strips and added straight to boiling salted water, though you can use a proper spätzle maker to form the shapes (spätzle means ‘little sparrow’ in German, as the dough can also be made into little cushions that more closely resemble the bird). Once made, it can be turned into a savoury dish, as described above, or mixed with apples or cherries to form a dessert (though I’ve never seen this in Obergurgl, where they like their spätzle as a main course).

Käsespatzl (spätzle with cheese) (Photo Three)

Dumplings are also a staple food. Known as knödel,  – they can be popped into soup, accompany a main course or be served as a dessert. In the Tyrol, you can find speckknödel (dumplings with bacon), spinatknödel (with spinach) or leberknödel(with liver) along with plain old knödel. Often these turn up in one of the clear soups that the Austrians are so fond of, but a big slab of fried knödel may turn up next to your goulash (Hungarian being another big influence on Tyrolean cooking what with it being part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for all those years) or to a hearty pork stew.

Pork stew with dumplings (Photo Four)

How I love the sweet dumplings of the Tyrol, though! They come in all shapes and sizes, and again I’m sure my parents would have recognised and loved germknödel, a massive steamed dumpling with poppyseeds and ‘vanilla sauce’ aka custard. Mum was a life-long advocate of the steamed pudding as a way to cure all ills, and I’m sure she was right. Although this looks as if a normal human being wouldn’t be able to eat all of it, I can assure you that it’s much lighter than it looks. Plus, you can always have a nap afterwards.

Germknödel with vanilla sauce (Photo Five)

And I fell in love with the tasty little apricot dumplings that turn up occasionally – these are usually crispy on the outside, slightly tart on the inside, and come with custard. Known as Marillenknödel, these are so exquisite that a trip to Austria doesn’t feel complete without a plateful. Marillenknödel (Photo Six)

And finally, on the dessert front, there is kaiserschmarrn, named in part for Franz Joseph I and in part for the German word for ‘mess’. What a strange dish this is! A baked pancake with rum-soaked raisins in it is torn to pieces and then served with apple sauce or jam. In my book on Alpine recipes, it stipulates that kaiserschmarrn made with 3 eggs would serve ‘one advanced eater or two beginners’. It is certainly a hearty dish, though if you can manage a germknodel on your own I’m sure you’d be able to manage this.

Kaiserschmarrn (Photo Seven)

And finally, what to wash it all down with? The traditional after-dinner drink of the region is schnaps, which comes in dozens of varieties – the Tyrol tourist board is now offering a schnaps route that takes you to the many local distilleries, though driving home along those mountain roads might be something of a challenge. A very local Tyrolean version is zirbenschnaps, made from pinecones picked in the spring which have been soaked in grappa for a couple of months. This came as something of a surprise to me, as I had always assumed that it was made from the fragrant pine needles, but no.  After all that fat and sugar, you might as well commit yourself completely with one of these. I can guarantee that you’ll fall unconscious as soon as your head hits the pillow.

Zirbenschnaps (Photo Eight)

Photo Credits

Photo One by Benreis / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Photo Two by Karl Gruber / Wikimedia Commons

Photo Three by Takeaway / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Photo Four by Kobako / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)

Photo Five by FakirNL / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Photo Six by fotogoocom / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)

Photo Seven by Takeaway / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Photo Seven from https://www.starkenberger.shop/produkt/zirbenschnaps-01l/

Yellow corydalis (Pseudofumaria lutea)

Dear Readers, I have long wondered why it is that some of our most successful urban ‘weeds’ are those that come originally from alpine regions (those between the treeline on a mountain and the upper limit of vegetation). Whilst most of the ‘weeds’ that I’ll talk about here also come from the Alpine region (i.e. in the European Alps), some of them come from mountainous areas on other continents. Interestingly, as far as I know none of our native alpine species have made the transition to urban life, but let me know if you can think of any examples. The plants below have mostly come into the UK as garden plants, but have made their way off the rockery and onto our walls with great enthusiasm.

For example, yellow corydalis (pictured above) comes from the foothills of the Alps in Switzerland and Italy. This attractive plant, a member of the Fumitory family, is the twelfth commonest ‘weed’ to be found on urban streets.

Trailing bellflower (Campanula poscharskyana)

Trailing bellflower comes from the Dinaric Alps in the former Yugoslavia.

Ivy-leaved toadflax

Ivy-leaved toadflax is found all over the Mediterranean, but has a great fondness for the Southern Alps.

Buddleia

And then there’s Buddleia of course, from the foothills of the Himalayas.So, what do they have in common? There are a number of things that make some mountain plants well adapted for life in the big city. Firstly, they have to be able to withstand exposure to a lot of light and wind. Secondly, they have to be able to manage in thin pockets of soil. Thirdly, they need to be able to withstand the drought that often happens in a place with non-permeable surfaces and not a lot of available water. And finally, in order to persist, they need to find a way to reproduce that enables future generations to survive.

Let’s have a look at these plants in turn. Yellow Corydalis is nearly always found growing on walls in London – I have a splendid example nearby, where the yellow of the plant often offsets the yellow of the graffiti. However, I often wondered how come it ended up there. My Alien Plants book by Stace and Crawley points out that the seeds of yellow corydalis contain something called an oil-body – this is irresistible to black ants, who gather the seeds and take them back to their nests. Often the ants have nests behind crumbling brickwork.  They eat the oil body, and then the plant germinates in the nest, presumably busting through the mortar. I imagine that yellow corydalis has a similar relationship with the yodelling, clean-living ants of the Alps, and it finds that the niches in the tatty walls of Kentucky Fried Chicken remind it of the gaps between the rocks in its mountain home.

Trailing bellflower is another mountain specialist, and has again taken to our walls with gusto. It was only introduced to our gardens in 1931. By 1957 it had been recorded in ‘the wild’, and now it is even commoner on our London streets than yellow corydalis. It has a low-growing, straggling habit which protects it from the scouring mountain winds, and as it inches along the gaps between the brickwork in search of moisture and rootholds, I can just imagine it doing the same in the Dinaric Alps. It loves the stone steps of the Victorian homes here in East Finchley, and in Islington it popped up in the Georgian basements.

Ivy-leaved toadflax is a favourite plant of mine: I love the three-lobed flowers, and the way that the plant thrives in such hostile places. There is a fine collection on a very run-down wall locally, much favoured in the old days by men who were ‘caught short’ after a few too many pints and felt obliged to water it.

Ivy-leaved toadflax is another very successful muraphile (‘wall-lover’, though I think I might have just invented a word).  It reproduces both by stolons (long stems that spread out from the mother plant and take root when they find moisture), and by seed. The flowers grow towards the light until the plant is pollinated, but once the seed matures, the flower turns and points downwards, so that the seed will hopefully drop into a moist niche in the wall. What many of the successful mountain ‘weeds’ have in common is the ability to maximise the chances of their offspring’s survival, whether by finding a damp place to pop the seeds or persuading ants to take them away.

Ivy-leaved toadflax

And finally, that most successful and flamboyant of mountain ‘weeds’, the buddleia. In Alien Plants, Stace and Crawley remark that the buddleia is one of those rare plants that has found a ‘new’ niche for itself – the gaps between the bricks in urban buildings, not at street level but high up. I well remember noticing a buddleia that had seeded itself some thirty feet above the ground, on the grimy walls that led into Liverpool Street Station. It had grown into a substantial bush while gripping on to what must have been the tiniest of recesses. While all of our plants have managed to make a living on walls, none takes it to the extreme that buddleia does. It generally seems to love the railway lands, which remind it of the scree slopes of the Himalayas where it originated, and on a trip to Dorset I used to love to see the forests of buddleia as they advanced along the sidings, the airy-light seed having been blown there by every passing train.

Buddleia beside the railway tracks at Dusseldorf-Zoo station (Photo One)

Buddleia is superbly adapted to city living – watching the one outside my window being blown almost horizontal by the wind without breaking, I can see how it can hang on even when the substrate is very thin. It produces a veritable sandstorm of pollinated seed, both because it is so popular with insects and because the flowers are perfect, containing both male and female parts, and so the plant can self-seed (something that yellow corydalis does too). And here, a quick word about buddleia’s value to wildlife – although we all know about the popularity of the flowers, it has recently been noted that the caterpillar of the Mullein moth (Cucullia verbasci) sometimes feeds on buddleia as well, which will be a relief if you’re trying to grow verbascums. What a magnificent caterpillar, though and, if the comments from my gardening friends are anything to go by, it’s having a very good year.

Mullein moth caterpillar (Photo Two)

So, the alpine plants that have made the switch to city living seem to have a number of things in common: they thrive on exposure and thin soil, they have switched from rock-crevices to walls, they have seed mechanisms that increase the chances of the next generation, and they can survive drought. However, not every alpine plant is able to survive in the harsh world of the city: I don’t see gentians popping up (unfortunately) and I’m not tripping over edelweiss. Many alpine plants are slow-growing and extremely specialised, growing in tiny microniches. In all my years in the Austrian Alps, I have never seen the aforementioned edelweiss growing in the wild, because it likes rocky limestone above 3000 metres, it has no tolerance for disturbance or pollution, it is always scarce, and it is also extremely short-lived. It has grown a coat of hairs to protect it from the cold, aridity and exposure of its chosen habitat, and has become the symbol for rugged alpinism. I admire the alpine species that are all around me in North London, whilst recognising the precarious foothold that plants like the edelweiss have in their native lands. How vulnerable these extreme mountain specialists are, living on the very edge of what is possible. As global heating changes their environment, they will have nowhere else to go.

Edelweiss (Leontopodium alpinum) (Photo Three)

Photo Credits

Photo One By Noebse – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51991998

Photo Two By Bobr267 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61678532

Photo Three By Böhringer Friedrich – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11882229

Flower meadows outside Obergurgl

Well, Dear Readers, you all outdid yourselves this week, with FEARN, Sarah, Alittlebitoutoffocus and Fran and Bobby Freelove all getting 12/12, so I will have to scatter the gold stars around with complete abandon! I imagine that Mike at Alittlebitoutoffocus is feeling especially relieved, what with him living in Switzerland and all. Thank you all for having a go, and next week I am going to have to come up with something Very Tricky.

Dear Readers, here are the answers to Sunday’s quiz.

Some of these plants are very common, but others are vanishingly rare in the UK.

Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) is limited to a few sites in the Midlands; it needs short, species-rich turf over chalk or limestone, and is often found on ancient earthworks. In the Austria Alps it grows in abundance.

Early marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata) is not uncommon as orchids go, but it does have very specific requirements: it loves wet, marshy meadows and fens.

Round-headed rampion(Phyteuma orbiculare) is another chalk-lover, found mainly on the South Downs.

Spring gentian (Gentiana verna) is found in two spots of limestone grassland in Upper Teesdale and the Burren in Western Ireland.

Although the UK is an international hotspot for mosses and liverworts, its flora is somewhat impoverished following the Ice Ages, which scoured a lot of our plants from the landscape forever. All the more reason to hang on to what we have, I think.

1) e) Bladder campion (Silene vulgaris)

2)i) Wild thyme (Thymus polytrichus)

3)h) Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris)

4)g) Early marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata)

5) a) Kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria)

6)j) Round-headed rampion (Phyteuma obiculare)

7)c) Melancholy thistle (Cirsium heterophyllum)

8)k) Spring gentian (Gentiana verna)

9)d) Rosebay willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium)

10)l) Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

11)b) Red clover (Trifolium pratense)

12)f) Wood cranesbill (Geranium sylvaticum)

Dear Readers, one of the things that I like most about Austria are the way that the plants seem to grow in great drifts of colour and shape. In the meadows they are a feast of colour, while along the riverbanks they mass in cool shades of blue, pink, lilac and frothy white.

Meadow view

River view

I had pretty much despaired of finding anything so splendid in East Finchley and environs. But then as I walked around Muswell Hill Playing Fields yesterday, I was stopped in my tracks by the site of a swathe of plants that looked almost like an early work by Piet Oudolf. Creeping thistle, greater knapweed, ox-eye daisies, red deadnettle, black horehound, greater burdock, lady’s bedstraw, common mallow and a dozen other species vied for attention.

Piet Oudolf’s garden in Maximilian Park, Hamm, Germany (Photo One)

Greater knapweed and creeping thistle

Greater knapweed, ox-eye daisy, comfrey, dock, creeping thistle, lady’s bedstraw

Greater burdock

Greater knapweed

Now, the rest of the area between the Fields and St Pancras and Islington Cemetery is much, much less diverse than this: there are some baby sycamores and crack willows, some thistles, some brassicas of different kinds, and a lot of brambles and Japanese knotweed. But this looks almost as if it was once planted on purpose, and has retained some of that sense of ‘stuff planted in groups’. Plus, there are a few plants that have popped up that are not what you would expect.

Here, we have some Lambs-ears (Stachys byzantina), which is not native, but is much loved by wool carder bees, who stroke the hairs from the fuzzy leaves to use in their nests.

Stachys byzantina

A few months ago I also spotted some aquilegia here, a typical cottage garden plant. It was right in amongst the other plants, so it hadn’t been just dropped in. What on earth is going on?

I spoke to some of my friends who have lived in East Finchley for much longer than me, and asked about the history of the playing fields. It used to be ‘Horseshoe Farm’ until some of the land  was bought in 1854 to create the cemetery. In the Second World War, a lot of vehicles were dumped on the area that is now the Fields and then the whole lot was grassed over. One friend told me that the council used to cut the grass right up to the cemetery fence, but they were asked to stop so that there could be a bit more diversity for bird and bees. There’s certainly plenty of that in this little patch here.

So, I wonder why this corner of the Playing Fields is so much more biodiverse than the rest of the area. Could it be that it was once the garden of the farmhouse, and that those plants have, somehow, persisted in the seedbank? Is some lovely person throwing a few seeds in now and again? I have no idea, but I do know that there are plants here that I haven’t seen anywhere else in my ‘territory’, and this has become my go-to site for new ‘Wednesday Weeds’. I also know that I didn’t expect to find a little patch of Austrian meadow so close to home, and it lifts my spirits so much to see it. On a breezy afternoon with the bees wobbling on their way into land on the thistle heads, I could be marching along a hilltop path on my way to get an Almdudler and an apfelstrudel.

Almdudler. A delicious fizzy herbal drink much loved in the Tyrol (by me, anyway) (Photo Two)

But, would I have noticed it if I hadn’t been primed by thinking about the mountains, if I hadn’t been trying to distil the essence of what my holiday so special into my present situation? I like to think that I would have been impressed, but maybe I wouldn’t have made the connection. I do believe that if we go out with an open mind and a longing in our hearts, we often find an answer.

Photo Credits

Photo  One by Esther Westerveld from https://www.flickr.com/photos/westher/15063832640

Photo Two By Loimo – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46016694

Flower meadows outside Obergurgl

Dear Readers, on our first day in Austria we would normally take a gentle stroll through the meadows above Obergurgl, before winding through the woods and ending up at the Sahnestuberl for cake. The restaurant’s cat would wander over for a quick scritch behind the ears before taking up her post watching for the next visitor.

This year, the meadows will bloom unseen by us, but no doubt the first haymaking is already underway or planned. They get two harvests in per year, and the Alpine cows look splendid on their diet, as do the Highland coos (further down the valley there are some belted Galloways as well).

Alpine blue cow

Highland cows

What is amazing to me, however, is that most of the meadow flowers in the Alps are not Alpine specialists at all – we can find them at home, or we could if we had better-managed meadows. I am most heartened by people’s enthusiasm for grassland and meadow flowers, but it’s really important in this case to choose native species – many meadow mixes contain a lot of ‘pretty’ plants that are not really adapted for the UK. And let’s not forget that native grasses provide food for many of our butterfly and moth caterpillars. 

So, have a look at the Alpine flowers below, and see how many of them you recognise from the UK. As usual, answers in the comments by 5 p.m. on Monday if you would like to be marked, and if you don’t want to be influenced by those who have commented before, go ‘old-school’ and write your answers down first.

Here we go!

Meadow Flowers

Your choices are below. So, if you think plant 1 is kidney vetch, your answer is 1) a).

Good luck!

a) Kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria)

b) Red clover (Trifolium pratense)

c) Melancholy thistle (Cirsium heterophyllum)

d) Rosebay willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium)

e) Bladder campion (Silene vulgaris)

f) Wood cranesbill (Geranium sylvaticum)

g) Early marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata)

h) Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris)

i) Wild thyme (Thymus polytrichus)

j) Round-headed rampion (Phyteuma obiculare)

k) Spring gentian (Gentiana verna)

l) Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

1)

2)

3) NB these are the seedheads. The flower is very different 🙂

4)

5)

6)

7)

8) This one is an Alpine specialist but can still be found in upland areas in the UK

9)

10)

11)

12)

The Rotmoos Valley in Obergurgl

Dear Readers, for the past fifteen years (roughly) we have headed to Obergurgl in the Austrian Alps for two weeks at the beginning of July. It has always been such a pleasure, not just because of the clean air and the mountain vistas, but because the short season means that the flower meadows are extraordinarily diverse in plants and in invertebrates.However, this year what with all the Covid-19 shenanigans, I will be staying here in East Finchley instead. This is not such a hardship: when we do go away, I always have the sense that, when we come back, the decline into autumn is already advanced, even though it’s only mid July. This year, I’ll be able to experience the changes first hand, and indeed they’ve already started – there is a hazy, lazy feeling to most of the birds, though there is a male sparrow who is heavily into provisioning for his family (I am reminded that females prefer males who look after their families, and this little guy is extremely busy, diving in even when the young starlings are at their spikiest.I am wondering, though, what this squirrel is up to. He slinked along the fence as if he was tracking something, but I have no idea what. Every time I looked up he’d freeze, as if playing some version of ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf’.And there are hoverflies everywhere. I think my yellow dress might have attracted them. Certainly, every time I looked up there was a hoverfly a couple of inches from my knee. A more useful attractant, though, has been the meadowsweet which is just coming into flower, and seems to be a magnet for the smaller, less conspicuous members of the family.

I’m not sure if this dress is yellow enough. What do you think?

And in other good news, my great willowherb, the buds of which have been infested by moth larvae for the past few years, seem to be fine. I’ve pulled a lot of it up to make room for the meadowsweet and some angelica, but I like to keep a bit of it because it’s very popular with all sorts of invertebrates. Plus, how pretty it is!

Greater Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum)

But anyway, back to Austria. On arrival in Obergurgl (which involves a taxi to Heathrow (or a train to Gatwick), a flight into the Category Four airport at Innsbruck after a bumpy landing between the mountains, a wait at Innsbruck for people on another plane that have been delayed, and an hour and forty minute drive along switch-back roads) we fall into the restaurant at the Hotel Weisenthal and I beg for a Hugo. This is a long drink made with prosecco (or fizzy water) (or a combination of both), elderflower cordial, mint and lime, and this is when I know that the holiday has started. I note that some people also add gin, but this makes it all a bit too alcoholic and heavy for my tastes.The Hugo was apparently only invented in 2005 in the Italian town of Naturno by bartender Roland Gruber, but from there it spread through South Tyrol at a rate of knots, as an alternative to the Spritz (white wine and soda) which was all the rage back when i first visited in the 1990’s. Originally it included lemon balm syrup, but this was replaced with elderflower because this is much more readily available. Apparently Herr Gruber initally thought of calling it the ‘Otto’, but he decided that ‘Hugo’ was a bit more international.The first few nights in Obergurgl are already likely to involve a lot of wakefulness and strange dreams – I think it takes a while to acclimatise, even though the altitude is only 2000 metres. I certainly experience breathlessness at the beginning of the holiday, which is always a cue to take things easy at first. A Hugo seems to help just a little with the insomnia (that’s my excuse anyway). At least we won’t be having these problems in East Finchley (though I could probably simulate them by walking briskly up and down the stairs until I feel light-headed). I think I’ll just stick to the Hugo.Prost!

Common Swifts by Bruno Liljefors

Dear Readers, I was sitting in the garden on the hottest day of the year, and pondering whether swifts are the only animals that are named after their most important physical attribute. They are certainly swift, and they were cutting through the air as if they were flying scimitars – it wouldn’t have surprised me to see the blue sky peeling away in pieces as they tore past. It looked as if some of the birds were newly fledged – one almost flew into an open upstairs window, and another actually landed on the roof for a split-second, something an adult bird would never do unless it was breeding. Soon, they ‘ll be gone. Summer is only just getting going for us humans, but for many birds and insects it’s already almost over. The feeders are much quieter, the baby starlings visit in twos and threes rather than in mobs of thirty, and I suspect that some birds are going into the moult already. I don’t think the excitement is quite over yet though – I distinctly heard baby jackdaws a few hours ago, so I’m expecting them to visit and wreak havoc on the bird table.

But back to my new visitor. In the film above, you can see a female broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa). We knew they were around, because a friend of mine photographed one on her bird bath a few weeks ago. At this point in the year, it’s all about reproduction: the female drops her abdomen into the water and deposits the eggs a couple at a time, over and over again. How did she know the pond was here? She flew straight up the alley by the side of the house and started laying. A broad-bodied chaser was the first dragonfly to visit the pond back in 2011. Is it fanciful to think that this female is a descendent? My European Dragonflies book describes this species as one that ‘wanders freely in search of new ponds, sometimes appearing within hours of their creation’. Apparently it is also one of the creatures that is benefitting from climate change – it has extended its range north by over 100km in the last fifty years. Pity the creature who is already as far north as it can go, however.

Female broad-bodied chaser (Libellula depressa) Photo by Linda Alliston.

What magnificent, ancient creatures these are! This one looks to me as if she’s been hammered out of molten metal. Dragonflies can be a little frightening at close quarters, with their fierce flight and that clatter of wings. My book mentions that, although the male sometimes hovers nearby to deter other males when the female is laying her eggs, the females often also seek out water where there are no males, so that they can get on with the business of procreation in peace. The only creatures on my pond were the usual red and blue damselflies, who keep a very low profile when a dragonfly appears because the larger insects are not averse to munching on their smaller, daintier relatives.

Blurred action shot!

And, in other news some water and bog plants have arrived: I get mine from Puddleplants who have been a most reliable source of all things aquatic since I started the pond. They rang me up yesterday to tell me that they weren’t happy with the quality of one of the plants that I’d ordered so they suggested a couple of alternatives, and now I’m the happy owner of a water plantain, along with a teasel, a bog-bean and some other pollinator-friendly bog plants. I shall let you know how I get on with them all! Though I’ll be hoping that the temperature has gone down a bit by the time I get stuck in to planting. Like all the plants in the garden, I wilt when exposed to too much heat.

Buddleia blooms just getting going…

Dear Readers, one of the unexpected pleasures of being in lockdown has been how I’ve been able to pay attention to little things. Out of my office window I have a view of one of the two  monster Buddleia(s) that are growing in the front garden. Earlier in the spring, I wrote about how one of them was smothered in aphids, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped either plant from producing a bumper crop of sweet-smelling flowers. The scent wafts up and has had a calming effect on my nervous system during several of the never-ending series of Zoom calls that work entails. But as the days have gone by, I have noticed how the whole shape of the panicle changes. First of all we get the wispy little things as in the photo above, which give no real idea of what’s to come.

As time goes on, each of the groups of flowers opens, creating an effect rather like those topiary box features that I used to see before the advent of box moth put a stop to all that nonsense, as you can see in the inflorescence to the left of the photo. The one in the centre is rather further along its journey, with the different layers of flowers gradually growing together.

And in the end, you have a perfect flowerhead (literally – the flowers are what is known as ‘perfect’, meaning that each flower has both male and female parts and is effectively a hermaphrodite). The individual flowers die back from the end closest to the stem, rather like a sparkler in reverse – in fact Buddleia always reminds me of a firework.

The lavender is in flower too, and there are bees everywhere – mostly honeybees and bumbles, but there are a few mysterious smaller bees, tiny zippy critters with white faces. I’m hoping to get a photo so that I can identify them, but they are proving to be tricky at the moment. There are also some hoverflies who look so much like honeybees that it’s only their eyes that give them away. There will be photos of them coming soon, too (if they cooperate).

Out in the back garden, a hebe belonging to the folk next door is proving to be an absolute bee-magnet. I think there is more of it in our garden than in theirs, which suits me fine.

And their cherry tree has more fruit than I can ever remember – the young starlings were getting into the cherries earlier though so I don’t imagine they’ll be around for long.

And the first little waterlilies are appearing in the pond. We split and repotted all the waterlilies in January so I wasn’t expecting much, but these are very pretty and delicate. I have a bumper order of water plants coming in the next few days, so it’s just as well I’m on a fortnight’s holiday from tomorrow.

One thing that has surprised me this year is that I have had not a single leaf of duckweed. It’s true that the pond was cleaned out earlier this year, but even so, the stuff is so pernicious that I expected some to come back. Fingers crossed that this happy state continues.

There are a lot less tadpoles than there were, but there are still a few adult frogs around – I think it’s been far too hot and dry for them to want to leave.

And there are still lots of large red damselflies about, some of them laying their eggs into the water. I expect to have a bumper crop of damselfly larvae at some point too.

And so, as I head into a couple of weeks holiday, I’m very pleased that I’ve got my eye on the small beauties that are very local. Normally at the beginning of July I’d be heading off for my annual fortnight in Austria, and my challenge is to distil the essence of what that holiday means to me and apply it to East Finchley. This will be something of a challenge, what with no mountains or chairlifts and a grave lack of cow bells, but like all things, it’s not just a physical place, it’s a state of mind. So, come with me as I try to recreate the peace of an Austrian meadow in my back garden. I suspect that, at the very least, apricot cake will be involved.

Black horehound (Ballota nigra)

Dear Readers, I might have mentioned that this plant was described in my field guide as ‘easily overlooked’, and so it is. It has none of the green freshness that red dead-nettle often shows (although it’s in the same family), and it is said that the foliage has an unpleasant scent when bruised (hence its alternative name of ‘Stinking Roger’) and may turn black if damaged. So, all in all not a plant to make one leap around rejoicing, but I have a fondness for all dead-nettles, and the little flowers have a teddy-bearish look to them (if you squint). The plant has a characteristic downy appearance, which may have contributed to its rather Gothic common name.

Photo One

The origins of the name ‘black horehound’ are up for debate. Most people agree that the ‘horehound’ bit comes from the Old English word ‘har’ (meaning hairy) and ‘hune’, meaning plant. Apparently it has also been linked to Horus, the sun god of ancient Egypt. The Latin name ‘ballota’ means ‘to reject’, because grazing animals are largely deterred from the plant by its smell, described as ‘mildewy’, ‘humid’ and ‘rotten’. As usual I didn’t have the opportunity (or in truth the inclination) to give the plant a good trample, so do let me know what you think if you haven’t had so many scruples.

In spite of the smell, you can apparently make a syrup from the young plants, but a bit of digging about on the interwebs makes me think that the syrup is probably more of a cough syrup than something to pop into a cocktail. In past times, it was frequently used as a cure for dog bites (probably another reason why the ‘horehound’ name has stuck), and was also used as an expectorant, a stimulant and as a cure for worms (The Morning Star (august organ of the Communist Party in the UK) describes it as ‘a rare and exotic plant’ and mentions that it was used during the Second World War as a vermifuge).  It has a history of use as a cure for anxiety, and to reduce flow in heavy periods, and has sometimes been used to alleviate motion sickness.

In Southern Italy, the whole of the plant was burned to fumigate a room and repel insects.

Black horehound is also an ingredient in the medieval ‘Four Thieves Vinegar’, which was considered to be a way to protect oneself from catching the Plague. The legend has it that there were a series of burglaries in the houses of plague victims, where all sensible people were too afraid to enter. The eponymous Four Thieves were caught in the act and, to save themselves from the gallows, they gave up their ‘secret recipe’ that had kept them safe from the dread disease. One recipe goes as follows:

‘Take three pints of strong white wine vinegar, add a handful of each of wormwood, meadowsweet, wild marjoram and sage, fifty cloves, two ounces of campanula roots, two ounces of angelic, rosemary and horehound and three large measures of camphor. Place the mixture in a container for fifteen days, strain and express then bottle. Use by rubbing it on the hands, ears and temples from time to time when approaching a plague victim.‘

Well, if only we’d known a few months ago. I suspect the smell from all that camphor would have made the social distancing a whole lot easier too.

In Germanic legends, black horehound is apparently known as ‘old woman’, and was believed to be associated with Frau Holle, a forest goddess who is described as being both ‘friendly and punishing’. This seems like a rather complicated combination, but then the gods were ever quixotic.

And now, of course, a poem. I rather like this very much, especially the last few stanzas, though I find myself mentally inserting commas. See what you think.

Photo Credits

Photo One byH. Zell / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)