Zurich and the Zoo

Clearly the product of a country
that knows how to enjoy itself... 

Zurich might seem an odd place for a holiday. Efficiency and high prices seldom make for the best jaunts. But when an old bandcamp friend, Maestro-in-Training (MiT), moved out there, a visit was planned. And this is how I found myself in the wilds of urban Zurich last weekend with Pegson in tow.

MiT's encyclopaedic knowledge of Zurich was such that, if the conducting thing goes to pot, a fallback guided tour career awaits.

After local architecture, interesting geographical features and places of worship had been covered, we took a tram to the zoo. There are only four topics of conversation possible at any zoo. As follows:

1. Levels of liveliness of favoured beasts. Subtitled: 'Is it dead?'

2. Enclosure size. A certain space meets layman understanding of what is  appropriate for [large-ish animal] to live in. All others declared cruel.

3. Security of dangerous beast enclosures. Subtitled: 'That tiger could absolutely get out of there if it tried'. (Taking into account moats, electric wiring etc.)

4. Physical similarity of beasts to mutual friends. (This should really be at 1. My oft-remarked facial similarity to a monkey makes zoo trips endlessly hilarious. I love it, obviously.)

Passing the Chimp Enclosure for the fourth time that day, I finally dragged Pegson and MiT into another enclosure - the Seal House. They were still chortling about the monkey thing when a seal slid down the window and lay on its back on the tank floor not moving. At that moment a parent carrying its child pushed in front of us to get a closer look at the cute seals.

For Reference: A live seal

Fearful that seal death would scar the child for life, we knew we should intervene. 

'Right.' [whispered]

'So…'

'Is it dead?'

The seal just lay there. On its back. Not moving.

'Did we just see a seal … die?' I ventured. 

Roaming meant googling 'how do seals sleep?' was out. The silence of death came upon the Seal House. Even the neighbouring months-old child had started to stare.

Other seals slipped by: their cheerful swimming highlighting more and more the stationary dead-ness of our floored friend. 

'Let's hit the gorillas!' Pegson said, gratefully seizing the opportunity for more monkey-based gags.

Nothing to be done. We scuttled past the forlorn seal-loving crowd. The Dead Seal opened one eye. He waggled a fin. Relief broke across the city.

On the road to nowhere (Morocco Part III)

Who needs Bogart anyway?

The man at the ticket office suggested a place called Benguerir instead of Casablanca. Little disappointing for our silver screen dreams, but only fifty minutes away instead of a trek longer than our flight home. 

'Is there much to do there?' MD asked hopefully.

The Ticket Man laughed. 'No! You stay for one hour. Then you come back.'

We looked at each other. It was 60 Dirhams for the two of us - about five quid - so we decided to give it a go.

Our train was divided into carriages that had been tacked together from what appeared to be the wrecks of six or seven different trains. We found a six-seater compartment that seemed to be women only. It was hugely genteel. Second Class, where we sat, boasted air conditioning. Outside, a couple of little boys played football up and down the corridor. MD helped a lady to put her bag into the rack, unhappily cutting her finger in the process. (I only found this out later. MD - not wanting to turn her kindly gesture into a possible litigation issue - discreetly mopped the blood away.)

The landscape as we travelled was oddly similar to Courcheval, albeit red-brown, rather than snow-covered. Scraggy trees were dotted about and the occasional donkey, but hardly any other signs of life. MD fretted about us riding blindly into the middle of nowhere and some 'one-horse town', a phrase not heard since the days of the Wild West. 

An hour later, we were there. Leaving the station we found: nothing. The train station was in fact a short journey from the air base, so there weren't even shiny guns to look at. The place was deserted apart from a cart-driver and his one horse. MD, chuffed about her earlier use of Wild West terminology, bought our tickets for the return journey and then went outside to hire the cart. It had gone. 

Majorelle or Oundelle?

On arrival back in Marrakech, we headed to Yves Saint Laurent's garden, the Majorelle, for a bit of shade, some cheery pottery and an ice cream. Inspired by the sunshine and (I suspect) heatstroke, MD began making suggestions for a reinterpretation of the garden back in Oundle. In particular the colourful pots. It's true, they're charming, but I fear they wouldn't stand up to English countryside climate.

Making the compulsory scoot round Yves' gift shop, it felt as though we'd wandered into the Armani store in Milan in boardshorts. The shop assistants tittered dismissively when we asked how much something cost and, when I dared to pick an artefact up with my hand, one came up to stand so close behind me that I could hear him breathing. I smiled at him, flung the little wallet casually back amongst its fellows - completely destroying the clean lines of the display - and accidentally trod on his foot as I withdrew to reorganise their soap presentation. MD, for her part, snuck up behind him to stand in his way as he retreated, causing another completely accidental collision.

Having satisfied our anarchic urges, we left - not even shutting the door behind us.

Kate and the Motorcar

Prompted by concerned readers of Kate in the Countryside, I ditched Baz the too-friendly driving instructor. Things were getting serious now with my driving test so soon. Also I was struggling to cope with the stress of Baz's fluctuating moods (dictated - as far as I could tell - by his coffee + cigarette intake, as well as whether he'd had much success on Angry Birds lately). 

Granted, the Driving Test is something that many seventeen-year-olds overcome with ease. But at my advanced years, I could only fear it. 

Lohan attends
Driving Test

So when the morning of the test arrived, I went for a lengthy distracting run and spent an hour or so deciding on a jacket and skirt combo, (court appearance attire) to fully acknowledge the solemnity of the occasion. 

Off to the test centre we drove - getting lost on the way when I took the wrong turning from the A406. For reasons still unclear to me, I was taking the test somewhere halfway to Scotland called Borehamwood. It's a quiet and leafy suburb which frankly made my jaunts up to Marble Arch dodging homicidal maniacs seem a bit unnecessarily Real World.

Cozy.

I tend to talk fast and to excess when nervous. My poor new driving instructor smiled benevolently as we waited for my test somewhere that was a soothing cross between a doctor's waiting room and a detention centre. 

Soon Derek the Driving Examiner processed out of his Driving Examiner Lair: 'Kate Mason?'

KitC: 'That's me!' 

I agreed with everything Derek said to the point of hysteria. (D: 'Good weather we're having eh?' KitC: 'Good? Great more like! BRILLIANT weather!') When he asked me to complete 'Turn in the Road' (three point turn to you and me) I thought all my luck had come at once. The easiest one!

Enough said

It was a rather narrow road. 'Hope I only need three points to my turn eh?' I joked, desperately. Derek looked blank.

'Proceed when ready,' he intoned.

In no time at all I was sweating and shaking as I grappled with steering wheel and gearstick. I checked my mirrors so much I mostly forgot to move.  This I teamed with an onslaught of driving-related jokes in an attempt to charm Derek. It didn't work. He was uncharmable.

At last, it was all over. Back at the test centre, dear old Derek passed me. Then, summoning my instructor to listen, he harrangued me for my inane commentary during my appalling turn in the road: 'It was irrelevant. You did too many points.' etc. I tried in vain to explain that I'd been attempting jokes. He didn't buy it. 

I fled back to Hanger Lane (Where? I have no idea) to catch the tube back to the Pad. There, I was so overcome with relief and adrenaline at being no longer L that I struck up conversation with a mother and daughter waiting on my platform. Luckily, they were Australian and seemed to think such friendly tube chatter was normal, rather than fleeing in fear, as I'd expected.

By the time the train arrived, we were old friends. They asked why I wasn't at work today. I explained (with pride) that I'd just passed my driving test. They were baffled. 'Oh OK. But you're twenty-three right?' asked the sixteen-year-old daughter, looking confused and perhaps a little superior. She - of course - was already driving. Last time I make conversation on the Underground. 

A Valuable Lesson

Enough said.

Learning to drive when you're twenty-three is a fairly humiliating experience all round. As Pimlico Chap pointed out the other day [not to be confused with Pimlico Guru - they don't get on. It's a smaller place than you'd think, London]: 'You have to learn to drive soon Kate, otherwise imagine it - you'll end up like one of those chavvy birds in council houses who are kept at home by their husbands because they can't go anywhere by themselves.' An odd and terrifying thought - but compelling.

So I took my Theory Test (again - turns out these things expire) and acquired a driving instructor (again - as above). And what an instructor old Baz turned out to be.

Driving in London is terrifying enough let me tell you, without the addition of a libidinous middle-aged sleazeball beside you providing a running commentary about 'the women' and his astonishing hit rate with them.

'Wow Baz, amazing,' I'd contribute, at half-hour intervals.

And, while I don't think I'm a bad driver (not in comparison with the others in Central London anyway), it is pretty off-putting when the man responsible for your safety spends half of your 90-minute slot playing Angry Birds in the passenger seat, and the other half expletively wondering how you managed to get lost / kill that granny.

He also seems to have some offensively strong addictions.

Baz: Let's stop for coffee then.

Kate in the Countryside: No thanks.

B: I'll buy you one.

KitC: No thanks.

B: Oh go on, we've been going for ages. O look - there's a Starbucks!

(KitC silent)

B (leaping from car): I need to smoke OK!

So I follow him across to Starbs where he makes an extended charade of his generosity in buying me my own personal latte. I am grateful. Or I would be - except I don't really want one. I want to learn to drive. I have friends for the latte thing.

Baz engages in some prolonged banterous repartee with the Starbucks ladies. I can't tell if this is for my benefit or theirs. No one seems to be enjoying it much. Except Baz.

As we leave, Baz explains. 'Those girls! What are they like?! They think I have so many girlfriends! (Modestly) Yes - I know. And I tell them "No girls, I'm a driving instructor" but they just won't believe me!'
 

Conversation like that money just can't buy. Oh wait.

Spring Cleaning at Buckingham Palace

In the run up to the most discreet nuptials ever conducted, I'm seriously concerned that this curious bash will stir the Met into decisive action over my work walk short cut by the palace. Every morning I fear today will be the day. 



Buck Pal Fountain: Subtle Imperial Iconography

It was when I first observed the pre-wedding buffing of the (already clean) bronze sculptures outside Buckingham Palace that I realised my fence gap's days were numbered.

You see, BOF and I had a dinner party the other night. As we prepared, I realised I'd absorbed MD’s attitude to entertaining. [Yes, dear reader, I'm about to contrive a comparison of MD to the Queen: bear with me.] Back in the countryside if guests were coming I would be enlisted to help with polishing, table-laying, hoovering, pot-plant-reorganisation - that sort of thing. No matter that the upstairs cupboard would have no part in the proceedings (unless confused guests got lost perhaps), no corner was left unmolested.


So at the Pad this week, I got crazy with the hoover MD-wise, while BOF constructed deliciousness. At some point I decided a cake was necessary - then threw flour all over the place before conducting an inept floor clean and forgetting the actually visible expanses of carpet. Twenty minutes before our guests were due to arrive, I realised that the sitting room [sorry - The Dining Room today] furniture needed moving. Too worried that BOF would try and talk me out of my labour-intensive completely unnecessary new room plan, I threw sofas about by myself for fifteen minutes. 

In the end, the room looked - frankly - exactly the same. I'd had little or no impact - other than to traumatise BOF enough that he poured almost an entire extra bottle of wine into the coq au vin.

Back at the Palace (Liz's, not ours), fountain-cleansing has been going for about a month now, all sweat and comedy brow-rubbing from the workers to indicate endeavour. As I walked past last week, protective wooden crates around the statues were being removed to show that ... nothing had changed. The marble supports were perhaps a little more water-stained, but that was it.

Alas, shocker - no pics of Queenie plus
Mids Senior to be found. Nice plate-hat though

What happened was this: one day Queenie was sitting up in the palace with Mrs M observing the outrageous dullness of the bronze statues from the window. ‘Something must be done, Mids’, she doubtless said. So it was. The impact is less than marginal, but that’s not the point.

Like MD in the countryside awaiting her guests, or BOF and Kate in the Pad, having people over requires manic and obvious commitment to cleanliness. Bess knows this. She knows about dear Sarkozy's eagle eye for discoloured bronze and Princess Leitiza of Spain's disgust for gappy fences. Forget the Olympics, this Big Sloane Send-off is the Queen's house party including dinner with six courses. My poor wonky fence doesn't stand a chance.

Next Episode: Goodbye Childhood Home - The Conclusion

You Shall Not Pass

So freed at last and safely back to London, I find signs of city eccentricity everywhere. Traits I'd thought were unique to the cut-off countryside abound in London, the place with the highest Starbuck-density in the world.

My walk to work has by now been honed with such precision that it now most days falls under twenty minutes in length (the trainers are becoming a fixture, I'm afraid - now teamed with a balaclava to save my pride). This walking record can only be achieved with a slightly anarchic attitude to roads: not for Kate in the Countryside the authorised crossing route. Don't be absurd.



Damn impediment

Past Buckingham Palace I go, cutting across the traffic with cheerful London-learnt unconcern. Occasionally unsuspecting tourists follow me. When a royal motorbike cavalcade speeds round the corner towards us, their shrieks of French or Chinese incomprehension amuse me for the remaining journey.

I sneak through a gap in the railings lining the pavement, which saves an extra twenty seconds, and then march down the Mall to the office.

This gap in the railings was a particular route-coup, only recently found, but it's proving the most difficult to employ. Near the Palace, Police loiter purposefully all day, mostly directing tourists and seeking out idle terrorists on a day trip to see the queen. But one, it seems, has a campaign of his own.

Disclaimer: this is not me



Last week, I reached my special railings-gap to find some police tape fastened across it: 'POLICE LINE. DO NOT CROSS'. A fearsome barrier indeed. In the morning, weakened by sleepiness, I obeyed, and paid the 20-second price. Happily, by evening some rogue had torn it down and fashioned it into a bow round the nearest lamppost.

The following day, things got serious. A large orange cone had been placed in the gap. My opponent means business. Except that if anything, the cone makes progress easier, acting as a handrail when I skip through the still-perfectly-adequate gap.

It was on the return journey last night that I found I had an audience. A parked police car yards from the disputed territory contained a single, focussed-looking gent. I saw him looking at me, smiled, and, in deference to his brainy cone scheme (I assume it's his - what else could he be doing there?), walked round the railings once more.

Defeated today, true. But I'll be back.

To be continued…

Kate in the City?

And while life in London Village feels more friendly every day (with one notable bike-based exception), I fear that Kate in the Countryside might be getting some bad habits from the city in return. Anticipating a brief jaunt to the countryside this weekend, some of my new Londonisms became clear.

Corporate Spice?

Once, I would have been fascinated by the hooded hordes thronging the pavements outside Victoria - now they are an irritating impediment. This morning, a politely chattering crocodile of charmingly uniformed schoolchildren seemed only an obstacle. Even the hardened BOF could only look on in terror as I concussed the nearest two with my bag before toppling the wheeliebag stack of an errant tourist.

But there's worse. Seeking speed for my walk to work last week, I panicked. I admit it. Reasoning I'd gain minutes, I adopted the trainers-work clothes look beloved of businesswomen in transit across the city. Attired in the twenty-something's equivalent of white socks and Jesus sandals, I looked like Sue Sylvester on her way to a party.

I could look no one in the eye. All around me I saw the glinty white trainers shining off reflective surfaces, and when I bumped into a big cheese from the office I could only nod curtly and flee in the opposite direction. The catastrophic combo rendered me incapable of speech.

This horror of human contact teamed with the trainers' super-speed made a post-work trip to buy food hazardous. I braved Giant Sainsbury’s (GS) - a shop so-called to distinguish it from the Small Sainsburg (SS) in Victoria Station, which frankly has nothing in it except manky flowers, 4 Muffins for £1 and copies of Heat.

GS adopts the policy that as long as you're trapped inside, you might conceivably buy. So it arrays items with abandon - draping garlic amongst the catfood, and milk by mustard. The only response is to curl up in a corner rocking backwards and forwards until it closes.

Worth it.

Empowered by trainer super-speed however, I used my trolley to bash through aisles and grannies, grabbed the first twenty things I saw, pushed to the front of two queues, attacked a man for the last of the half price prawns, and legged it. It's not me - it’s GS.

Trainer-free, I was back to restful Oundle to see MD and Dogface. MD fills me in on all the big local news: dog-training is still closed, there's a film on at the local theatre this Sunday and (the best saved to last) ... the Co-op has been refurbished! ‘They’ve moved everything around, it’s really rather good,’ she assures me.

So in we go. A combination of SS’s emptiness with GS’s design flaws greets me. Told they have 'the best cookies - better than Waitrose', I try to stay positive. But it's not long before I'm hiding in the rocking-and-crying corner. No bashing or wrestling allowed here in The Countryside. How do I escape?