One month into lockdown
Hi Gang and welcome to the second issue of The Lugg Blogg.
You probably know Greg Lawson best as the fabulous wild-haired fiddle player of Moishe’s Bagel (who claim Presteigne as a sort of second home). However Greg has other strings to his bow and here he is giving it the full Leonard Bernstein while conducting 'Aye?’ The GRIT Orchestra's performance of Martyn Bennett's Bothy Culture live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Festival.
This brings us neatly on to Helena Attlee’s new book which should have been published now but has been postponed till next year. I will let her explain and give you a taste.
Pete
LEV’S VIOLIN - Helena Attlee
Seeing Greg play with Moishe’s Bagel at the Assembly a few years back gave me the idea for my latest book. It’s called Lev’s Violin, and under different circumstances it would be coming out next week, along with a broadcast as ‘Book of the Week’ on Radio 4. Publication is postponed now until April Fool’s Day 2021.
Following the story of the violin Greg played that night took me all over Britain and Italy, and eventually to Rostov-on-Don in Russia’s deep south. But like so many good things, it started here, in Presteigne’s Assembly Rooms:
I still remember everything, the warm night, the rows of seats, all taken, and mine right at the front. It doesn’t matter now what tune it was that made us restless on our chairs, or pulled some people to their feet and had them dancing in those narrow spaces. What matters is the moment two steps took the violin player to the front of the stage, and all the other instruments, accordion, piano, drums and double bass, fell silent. For that is when I heard the violin speak for the first time, with a voice powerful enough to open pores and unbuckle joints, and a shocking intimacy that left us all stupid with longing for emotions larger, wilder, sadder and more joyful than we had ever known. And after the applause faded and the lights came up, my old friend Rhoda turned her laughing face to me and said “How dare he speak to us like that? We’re married women!”
As we left the building I saw the violin player standing outside and so I went straight over to pass on Rhoda’s joke, explaining she was an old friend in every sense, being well over eighty at that time. I suppose I expected him to laugh and move on, but instead he drew me aside and muttered something about what he called his violin’s ‘mongrel history’, as if this could be an explanation, or perhaps even an excuse, for the seductive depth and unsettling power of its music. “I’ve been told it was made in Italy at the beginning of the 18th c,” he said, “but it came here from Russia, and everybody knows it as Lev’s violin, after the guy who owned it before me.” An Italian violin called Lev? It could hardly have been more unlikely. Then he turned away, saying “Have a look if you like,” and pointing at the case leaning against the wall beside me. When I opened it and looked inside, my immediate impression was of an object so weathered and streamlined that it looked like something you might find on the tideline of a beach, a bit of driftwood perhaps, a sea-worn pebble or the sleek remains of some sea creature. Glancing at violins in the past, I had always perceived them as a mix of curves and corners, their crisp edges accentuated by a dark line of inlaid wood. But life had worn away the edges and knocked the corners off this instrument, so that in places its seams were almost flush with its sides, as if music lapping at its outline for centuries had eroded them like a fragile coastline. Lying in its case, it looked as inanimate as some small piece of furniture, but then I bent down to pick it up. I had probably held more birds than stringed instruments at that time in my life, and the feeling reminded me of scooping a hen from its perch, its small body always so much lighter than I expect, and pulsing with life. Hens smell of hen, but Lev’s violin had a strong, human scent, an intimate residue of sweat left by generations of musicians. It was a very quiet, nut brown, and it wore a history of mishaps on its body, a labourer’s uniform of dark scars and deep scratches as expressive as the lines on an old face.
GARDEN @ No 3 - Sabina Rüber
My garden has always been a refuge to me, a sanctuary - more so this year. It is also a studio where I work, my profession allowing me to indulge and fill it to the brim with bulbs and plants and flowers of all kinds. It is the perfect place to retreat to and switch off from the troubles of the world. Each year I grow hundreds of different flowers and usually get to share them with friends and customers too… this year the images will have to suffice... Here's a snapshot of what has been showing in the garden @ No 3 last week.
Scent - No garden should be without it:
The deliciously sweet scent of Verburnum carlesii is one of the best in early Spring … and scented narcissi !!! Some old favourites are ‘Acropolis’, ‘Androcle’ and ’Sir Winston Churchill’. Narcissus ’Starlight Sensation’ is a new discovery this year. Yellow buds opening to pale lemon yellow flowers and fade to white with age. Up to 8 flowers per stem and as an added bonus, a lovely sweet cowslip scent.
A colour combination I can’t resist - Purple and Orange:
Lunaria annual ‘Corfu Blue’ and tulip ‘Orange Emperor’. Tulips ‘Candy Prince’, ‘Orca’ and buds of ‘Double Negrita'
Dark foliage plants providing an interesting backdrop:
Euphorbia ‘Chameleon’ a happy self seeder and blue Anemone blanda growing through the leaves of Anthriscus ‘Ravenswing' and Ajuga ‘Catlins Giant'.
MUSIC - Pete
I am really missing the Mid Border Arts evenings at the Assembly Rooms and I noticed that on May 8th we had booked the bands for a return of The Velvet Violin. As a poor substitute you will have to make do with a couple of videos.
The bands we had booked were Whiskey Moon Face, who rather blotted their copy book last time they were here by getting outrageously drunk, talking rubbish and really upsetting their hosts. However they are brilliant musicians and I couldn’t resist the chance of hearing Ewan, their fabulously talented clarinet and sax player again. The other act we had booked was DLM a Bath based trio formed by Andy Davis ex Stackridge and The Korgis. The bit of music you see here is a sort of Bath love letter and the second half was filmed in front of the fire at that venerable Bath music institution The Bell on Walcot Street. But first Whiskey Moon Face with an uplifting little ditty called Dead Dog - Enjoy.
A JOURNEY TOWARDS A POEM - Christine Lawson
Several years ago I was in Northampton, Massachusetts with Tony while he was working on a film. During the shooting of a film the crew is working to a strict schedule. It's hard work and there's little time for anything else so, apart from having breakfast with other film wives and anyone not on set that day and then dinner with Tony and his editing team in the evening, I was alone and had to find things to fill the days. It was relatively easy in Northampton where I could go to lectures at Smith College and visit some fascinating places on the old frontier. It had been the country of the Puritans where settlements such as Old Deerfield were often raided by Native Americans who took hostages, marching them sometimes as far as Canada. Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter' sets the scene of Puritan life in those times and 'The Unredeemed Captive' by John Demos is a riveting account of the daughter of a Boston clergyman who refused to be redeemed preferring to stay with her Native American captor thus being damned forever. I like to think I'd have done the same to escape that restrictive society.
Northampton is near the Connecticut River, stunning in the autumn colours with fields of pumpkins bordering it at that time. The first Europeans to successfully cultivate the fertile land running along the river were Polish. They were able to succeed because their wives were prepared to work in the fields saving the expense of extra labour - they weren't the descendants of the Puritans! All along the river was evidence of past Indian life destroyed by 'civilisation'.
There were times though, wherever we were, when I didn't know what to do and just wandered around the shops. I invariably found myself heading to my favourites where I would spend time with the shopkeeper - in Northampton the owner of the wonderful book shop. It was he who introduced me to the poems of the Pulitzer prize winner, Mary Oliver, who lived not far away in Provincetown. For me she is in the realm of poets such as Edward Thomas and Robert Frost. The back cover to her book 'American Primitive' reads:"Mary Oliver celebrates the primitive things of America - the wilderness that survives both within our bodies and outside".
Modern America doesn't draw me to it but 'the old country' does - time spent near the Navajo and Zuni in New Mexico or in a pioneer's log cabin in the Ozarks were glimpses of a past world, a world of survival and having to live with what nature provides.
This is the Mary Oliver poem I read in times of trouble:
Mary Oliver’s poems obviously touch many people. Here’s one more:
VIEW OF THE WEEK
The bluebell woods at Stapleton.
@Andrea Gilpin photography
THEATRE - Kay Foreman
For those searching for some fun and interesting theatre experiences during lockdown, there are a lot of performances out there since the theatre community has been extremely generous.
The National Theatre is providing some amazing, top quality theatrical entertainment - National Theatre at Home streams on Youtube. Twelfth Night is streaming now, until 30 April. Frankenstein with Danny Boyle directing Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, who alternate the roles of Frankenstein and his creation, will be streaming from Thursday 30 April until 8 May.
The Globe Theatre have also been actively streaming Romeo and Juliet on YouTube for a few weeks…not really a happy ending of course but uplifting and beautiful nonetheless.
Cirque de Soleil are putting 60-Minute-Specials of their performances on YouTube - one a week I believe! Incredible viewing.
Also the wonderful, much acclaimed production of Wise Children by Emma Rice is available on iPlayer here.
There are lots of activities to do with making - making characters, making stories, making masks provided by the innovative Knee High Theatre company in their project, Windows to the World (www.kneehigh.co.uk/windows) on YouTube. In this, they issue a challenge for people to make characters out of vegetables (don’t ask!) and coach people how to become top choreographers in 10 minutes - The grandparent dance is fun.
We have our own local talent of course. What about making some lockdown sync performances to share? Those of you who feel the need/are up for a bit of a performance could perhaps join in on a Presteigne lip sync - we welcome all age groups, the more the merrier! Choose your own song or, if you need a suggestion, email us and we will give you a song to lip sync to. Perhaps lockdown households would like to make costumes and props too.
Send the video in to us via email. We will air the performances that wowed us the most. Have fun!
Here’s one we made earlier by a famous resident of Presteigne area:
VISUAL ARTS - Sharon Hall Shipp and Richard Shipp
We work from home and so are carrying on with that as usual, but we normally send out works for exhibition in various places all over the country and beyond. With no real exhibitions possible at the moment, we are taking part in a number of virtual shows in the UK and worldwide. These provide a welcome focus to carry on working, especially when enthusiasm and energies are flagging. One such project is 30/30, one artwork per day for every day in April - if you miss a day, you are out! Over 1100 artists in 42 countries are taking part. Some are following a theme set each day by the organisers - Richard is mainly doing that - and some are submitting any work they choose. Many works are about the process of making art in lockdown conditions. The website is www.thirty.works/about - click on the 30/30 logo to see the artworks. Here are examples of the work we have sent in so far:
Richard Shipp Only the hands are mine. Photograph. The brief for that day was Try cheating today.
Sharon Hall Shipp Game. Digital photomontage.
One challenge we have set ourselves is to each post an image per day on Instagram. We are both enjoying going through our archives, looking at film and digital images from the last 40 years of taking photographs. On Instagram we are #sharonhallshippartist and #richardshipp_artist.
MUSIC - Alison Giles
A lovely clip. Apparently there was a schedule muddle and these two thought they were called in for a radio interview. They were surprised to find an audience waiting for a lunchtime concert…
AN ARTIST IN LOCKDOWN - Ruth Kirkby
Lockdown for me has been a chance to catch up on some painting (I had some commissions to do) and time for experimentation. My main medium is watercolour but I have been grappling for some time now with oils, which as I am sure you know, is a completely different kettle of fish. These past few weeks – unbroken by appointments or outings – has been a time of playing with paint, something which I firmly believe we should all do more often. My commissions were for tulip paintings, which of all the flowers is probably my favourite – beautiful and elegant at all stages of its flowering cycle. My brain is far too busy for meditation, but I do find a degree of peace and mindfulness in the minute detail of botanical illustration. I hope this comes across in my work.
Whereas with oils – well you can just let loose, as basically you can cover up any mistakes with another layer of paint, which is something of a revelation to a watercolourist. So I have gone for a completely different approach and subject matter:-
I have had three courses cancelled, but fortunately two of these have been re-scheduled in September. They will be at the Bleddfa Centre on 26th September and at Bobby Britnell’s studio in Bettws-y-Crwn on 24th September. In both of these I will be demonstrating unusual ways with watercolour, and here are some of the effects we will be looking at:-
There is some brilliant stuff out there on the internet to do with art. One fantastic site on Instagram is isolationartschool – loads of artists giving free demos - and on the Norfolk Painting School Facebook page, scroll down for the Paint-in where there are some marvellous demonstrations for both adults and children. Make the most of this time!
SOURDOUGH IN A TIME OF QUARANTINE - Jenny Ellison
As someone who bakes two loaves of sourdough every week in ‘normal times’, the irony of the lengths I am going to buy strong flour in Q-time has not passed me by… I am setting aside any cynicism and hope everyone is taking all that flour home and Using It! In case you need any inspiration, encouragement, starter (more about that later), or just a bit of distraction - I thought I would write a bit about the ‘Mother’ of all breads.
Although, I didn’t start baking sourdough until my mid-thirties, my connection to sourdough runs right back to the very beginning of me. My parents, both natives of Los Angeles, ‘upped sticks’ about a year before I was born to fulfil their utopian dream of a small-holding in a little town not far from Mexico called Escondido. There were fig, apricot, lemon, grapefruit and avocado trees; grape vines, gardenia hedges and more… it truly was a garden of Eden. I like to think that’s where my mom started taking care of a new sourdough ‘baby’ before my arrival, but I suspect it is more likely that it all started in my parents cramped rental in Glendale- but let’s stick to my romantic version for literary purposes. Either way, I was born into a sourdough house, on the sourdough coast of America- home to San Francisco sourdough for which the most sought after of bread-making bacteria- L. sanfranciscensis is named. I have vague memories of my parent’s struggle to keep the ‘mother’ starter going in the hot weather of that border country, a struggle which thankfully does not exist in cold, damp climate of the borders I now bake on.
Flash forward 35 years and I began to look after my own starter right here in Presteigne. It came from a friend, whom I mistakenly assumed had acquired it from a local woman, whose starter hailed back to the caves of Spain. Sadly, the origins were in fact a bit less exotic (as I would find out years later) - the starter had come from my ex-husband! At first, I baked in my comfort zone: ordinary looking wholemeal bread loaves, baked in tins using a method from one of my mom’s old cookbooks. These loaves were delicious and I would have happily gone on baking this way if it were not for a visit from my cousin - fresh off the Santa Cruz organic farm and Norway where she was studying for her masters in agroecology- Julie arrived and blew my mind with a whole new level of home baking possibilities. The secret to this new world arrived in a very heavy package, a mysterious gift, and the subject of many giggles since no one could fathom why her boyfriend had chosen the most transient time of her life to give her such a hefty item! All was revealed on Christmas morning, when a Lodge cast iron combo cooker emerged from the box and what followed changed my bread baking forever. The difference cooking in a cast iron Dutch oven made to my bread, combined with the Tartine method Julie showed me during her visit, was astounding and I have not looked back since.
Here is a rough recipe for a basic sourdough boule- but feel free to experiment: since Isolation Time has started (and when I can get my hands on strong flour) I have used my starter to make rolls, baguettes and, of course, pancakes! If you decide you want to give sourdough a go, get in touch with the ‘Editor’ of this blog and I can arrange to share jars of starter in a social-distancing appropriate manner…
The method:
Start with a generous tablespoon of the old starter and add 200ml warm water, 100g strong wholemeal (or rye, spelt…) flour and 100g strong white flour. Mix together in a bowl and leave covered with a cloth in a sheltered position in the kitchen overnight or for at least 8 hours.
The next morning the mix should have bubbles and look lighter - take 200g of this sponge to start your main loaves and what remains can be mixed in with your old starter and refrigerated until the next time you bake and begin the process again. (You can diminish the starter by making sourdough pancakes from time to time... see recipe below...)
Add 500g strong white flour and 500g strong wholemeal (you can use all white flour or a higher percentage of white flour, as long as the total weight of flour is 1000g) to the sponge. To this add 700 ml of warm water, mix thoroughly and cover with a cloth and leave for an hour. Then add 2 Tblsp of salt to 50ml of warm water and mix into the dough.
From this point use a bread scraper to the lift the dough from the edge of and fold toward the opposite side of the bowl; rotating clockwise around the bowl for between 4-6 folds of the dough every half hour or so until the dough feels nice and light… over the course of a few hours. Use gluten free flour (or normal flour- gf flour is just especially good to prevent sticking) to dust a clean, dry work surface, tip the dough out of the bowl and using your scraper cut into two halves. Each half can be form into 2 round loaves by gently rotating and tucking the edges under the loaf- or maybe one round loaf, some rolls and a baguette. Rest your loaves seam side down for 20 mins on the work surface (covered with a cloth) and then turn into baskets lined with gf dusted flour cheesecloth or any other light cloth and cover over with overhang of cloth. They will need to rise at least another 2hrs at room temperature, or you can do a slower rise in the fridge overnight. If you do the overnight rise take them out an hour or two before you bake them.
The oven should be heated 235c (I usually turn down to around 215c once I put bread in) and whatever you are baking on or in- a baking sheet or heavy, lidded cast iron pot, should be pre-heated or the bread will stick. Tip boules out of the basket into the pot or slide rolls and baguettes onto your sheet/stone and cut some slashes in them to allow maximum expansion while baking…If you cook in a pot, remove the lid after first 20 mins then bake for a further 25 minutes, if baking on a tray or stone, put a dish of water in the bottom of the oven and cook for a total of 45 mins. The bread should release easily from the pot or sheet, just tip out carefully and rest on a rack or an upturned bread basket until cool.
If you don’t want to make this much bread in one go - feel free to make a half recipe, however the bread freezes well - so I find it more worth the effort to make 2 loaves.
To use up starter- Sourdough Pancakes
For sourdough pancakes I take 200g of the starter (or a bit more, it doesn't really matter) and add 150g of plain flour and 150g of a darker flour of some kind plus a handful of oats, maybe some unsweetened coconut or polenta- it is a bit flexible...
I then add in 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg and mix together.
Separately mix up 375 ml of milk, 3 eggs, a tablespoon of agave syrup or honey and 2 tbsp of melted butter- add to other ingredients, mix together, rest for 10 mins and then cook on a griddle or in cast iron pan! In our house only Maple syrup will do to go on top - but you be you - icing sugar and lemon, honey, fruit salad and Greek yoghurt… the topping possibilities are endless! Bon appétit!
And just a reminder, if you have something lighthearted and inspiring in the form of art, photography, music, travel, Presteigne history, literature, local lore, gardens, food which you think might fit into future issues, please send your stuff to luggblogg@outlook.com.