Aug-2017 London

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Hi all.  

This is instead of a long personal newsy letter to each of you.  My excuse is that 1-left-finger typing is too much like hard work.

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And talking is rather difficult for me.  I can't talk loud or fast enough, and I hesitate, and of course it gets worse through lack of practice.  And after a glass or two of wine, forget it!

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We got back from Buenos Aires on March 8.  We always get back then, 'cos round then the garden needs seeing to.

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This year I am 75, with all the feelings about 75 that you read about.  My friend Iain was 75 a couple of months earlier, and he celebrated it with a dinner for 24 at the Garrick Club, which he has joined.  A really special evening, and the room had fantastic paintings all over the walls.  There was of course a dress code, and his brother James, who lives in Geneva, had on a tie which had, in big letters, "Cravat obligatoire" on it.  And the napkins were good, they had a button-hole in one corner.

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We went to Harewood in Yorkshire for a hill climb, and loved it.  We stayed in Boston Spa, which is a lovely village/town.  And we visited Harewood House, which was impressive.  It is amazing how many of these grand old houses there (still) are.  Like France, but in France I don't think they are supported financially like they are here.  Of course, if they had modern equality movements in centuries past, none of that would exist now.  How dull!

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Amber also did a hill climb at Prescott, and did a really fantastic time (perhaps new Dunlop Racing tyres helped).  As a reward she will get a new properly fitting race suit.

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We went to Hong Kong and Beijing for a month in Apr/May.  Very impressive, as ever.  And we went in a Tesla electric car, by Uber.

In August we went for a week to Spain, near Barcelona, with Astra, Cass and families, for Oak's 40th birthday.  A lovely old house, with a swimming pool, and large outdoor dining table, in the middle of a hilly forest.  The forecast had been 42 plus degrees, and forest fires might have been a danger, but it stayed in the low 30s.  One day was a trip to Barcelona, for the Gaudi Sagrada Familia and the Ramblas.  One week later....there was a terrorist on the Ramblas.

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Mercedes has put off her trip to UK as she has decided she will be too busy.  The CasaSan project at her house in Boca seems to be going very well, with classes in English (Martha, whose husband Mickey is the jazz singer), Yoga (Ruth, Amber's yoga teacher), music, dance, photography, etc, for mostly poor kids in Boca, and lots of people contributing.  www.casasan.org

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Amber goes once or twice a week to see her cousin Faith, who is 85, and lives in a fairly big house in Hackney, and who is severely disabled, and is amazing.  She has a young Australian teacher living there, and a lady who comes in as and when to help with things (staying over if necessary), and daily visits from people to make sure she is OK.  The NHS care is, as usual, mixed.   Some of it is fantastic, some of it is truly appalling.

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We had Amber's friend Laura, a BsAs newpaper art critic (and tennis partner) and her husband and 15 year old son staying in our flat in Chiswick for a couple of weeks.  It is amazing to us how much visitors do, maybe an open top bus tour, a gallery, and Buckingham Palace, all in one day.  And they went to Dublin and saw U2, the music was good but Bono's right-on lecture was a bore.  They came round to dinner 3 times, and we had other people here too, and our new IKEA dining table was excellent, coping with 12 people quite comfortably.

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Astra and Finn were here for 6 weeks, Finn to go to  2-week RADA summer course.  He is 16, well over 6 ft, thin as a rake, good looking, with big floppy black hair, and really serious about acting.  In Beijing we would hear him doing voices, and singing, all the time.  Not in London, because he would spend all his time shut in the garden room - he is, after all, a teenager.  The strange thing is, he does not have (or believe in) a mobile phone.  16!

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We are both in good health.  It is 8 years since I had my stroke, and I am not aware of any deterioration in my condition, and bits  I think are slightly better.  I do not walk to the end of the road and back, and people say I should (what do they know) because it will increase my ability to - er, what, precisely?  Well, to walk down to the end of the road, and, er, maybe escape a forest fire or something...  I have plenty of stamina, as measured by walking up 54 steps up to the flat in BsAs once or twice a day without getting out of breath.  My main problem is lack of balance confidence i.e. in my head.  I only fall over about once a year, which is a bit pathetic.  

 

People who have my sort of stroke in their 30s get a fair amount back, people who have one in their 50s get a bit back (like Andrew Marr, but zero in his left arm) and people in their 70s, well, you don't hear about them generally.  So I think I am quite lucky really.   I guess in part your amount of recovery depends on how many years you think you will have to cope.  Watching grandson Oren in Spain, who is just starting to walk, I see that the amount of effort and practice he puts in to it is really fantastic, 100 times more (seriously) than Andrew Marr would do, and 1,000 times more than I would do, even if I wanted to.  Which I don't, because Amber does it all (thanks, Amber!).

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I often say that Argentina is 30 years behind UK.  How do I know?  In UK, if you want some screws, you go to Homebase and get them pre-packaged.  In BsAs you go to a little shop, you have a conversation with the man, he goes to the drawer and checks that it is what you want, then counts them out into a paper bag.  And if once home you decide that they are not the right sort, you can take them back and swap them.

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Amber has had her eyes done.  I had mine done 2 years ago, it was a success, so she had hers done (without me there is no way she would do it).  It is quite scary, really, they cut out your lens, and replace it with a glass lens.  It takes just 10 painless minutes, and boom!, right away you have 20/20 vision, and a week later you have forgotten how your vision was before.  Of course they do all sorts of tests first, and if they have the slightest doubts about whether you would be happy with the results they will refuse to do it.  And it is for life, the lens does not weaken, or get cataracts.  Go for multifocal glass replacement lenses.  Laser treatment of your existing lenses would, I feel, be dodgy.  So Amber is very happy not to have to bother with glasses or contact lenses any more.  Mind you, it costs more that £5,000!   But if you have it, it is well worth it.

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In May/June artist Jennifer McRae and husband David spent 6 weeks in our flat in BsAs.  We have two of her paintings (we met at her Thackeray gallery) and she also has stuff at the National Portrait Gallery, eg Michael Frayn).  They liked it in BsAs, and will probably go back next year, to work on gauchos for her next exhibition.

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Went to Fortnum & Mason for Oscar's annual birthday present of a shopping basket full of stuff which he might not normally buy.  Like eg fennel pollen.  He didn't do as Astra says Chinese might do at help-yourself salad bars, which is to increase their bowl size with a fence of tall carrots round the edge.  At the restaurant Oscar spotted Mel Brooks coming in, and Indra went up and chatted with him for 10 minutes - he's very friendly.  He's here for a new production of Young Frankenstein.  

 

Oscar is off today to Naples, where he and his Belgian artist friend Damien rent a flat in a principessa's palazzo in Sanitá, a rather rough district.

Amber is in good nick, and plays tennis 3 or 4 times a week.  George and Julie and families are also in excellent nick and doing well.

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We go to BsAs on 1 November, till March.  We look forward to it - Brexit, Trump, "How does it feel?", etc hardly seem to matter much over there.

Toodle pip!
Gavin