The Great Outdoors

Startling blue eyes greeted me.  Their owner, Lars, stereotypically tall and blond, had been assigned as my buddy and led me into the office.  Everything that could be made from wood was, and a resinous odour mingled with the scent of ripe apples heaped in bowls.  ‘Let’s start with fika,’ he suggested.  There was a cluster around the coffee machine.  Everyone was drinking coffee strong enough to stand a spoon in, and nibbling cinnamon pastries.  The chatter was in Swedish but my introduction flicked a switch and the conversation continued seamlessly in English.  Fika is a cultural institution, I soon discovered; it’s when work colleagues swap ideas and friends exchange gossip.

‘I haven’t been at work since July, so I’m a bit out of the loop,’ Lars confessed.  It was now early September; I calculated he must have had at least 5 weeks holiday.  He’d spent the holidays at his summerhouse. ‘It belonged to my parents and my children love it.  We walk in the forest and there’s a lake nearby for swimming. ‘ The blue eyes lit up as he talked.  ‘And I hunt moose, too.’  He paused. ‘They need to be culled, especially near towns,’ he added, noticing my consternation,  ‘in the autumn, they gorge on fermenting windfall apples and get drunk.  One blundered into an empty swimming pool recently and had to be lifted out with a crane.’  ‘You’re lucky to have such a wonderful retreat,’ I commented.  ‘Not really, ‘ he replied, ‘ most Swedes have a summerhouse, or at least access to one through friends.  Many people have a boat as well.’

Summer’s end is signalled by rituals; winter tyres are fitted to cars, the patios outside cafes are dismantled and in the office canteen there were candles on the tables and little ginger biscuits appeared.  Lars suggested a skating party.  The rink was outside the city and surrounded by woods.  It resembled a cavernous barn, the shape and size of a running track with a high corrugated iron roof, open sides and seating for spectators.  Harsh floodlights reflected off the ice and there was no music; this was an environment where relaxation was taken seriously.

The skaters were a mixed bunch.  Middle aged men in office attire circulated at dizzying speed without exerting any apparent effort, as if propelled by invisible hands.  A small child wearing a helmet and scarcely old enough to walk skated with the assistance of a brightly coloured wooden frame.  Couples cavorted.  All had one thing in common: no one fell over.  I managed a couple of halting circuits, arms flailing to avoid losing my balance; it was a relief when Lars announced a break and produced a flask of hot chocolate.  Our backs to the dark forest, we sat on the edge, our breath condensing in the chilly air and watched people flash past, many as adept at skating backwards as forwards. 

On the way home, we passed a real running track snaking through the trees.  The lights were still on.  ‘That's deliberate,’ Lars explained, ‘some people like to run at night.’ I was beginning to appreciate the depth of the Swedish obsession with the great outdoors.

© David Thompson 2015

Trinity Buoy Wharf

Henry VIII entrusted Trinity House Corporation with ensuring the safety of English navigation and for five centuries they made, tested and repaired navigation buoys at Trinity Buoy Wharf.  It sprawls at the end of a cul de sac by the confluence of the River Lea and the River Thames and wears the air of an abandoned island.

I'm sitting in Bow Creek Café, a shack perched at the edge of the wharf. Instead of an awning, customers are shaded by a torn sail, no longer seaworthy but still bearing its insignia. Nautical ephemera are scattered around. Planters are roughly fashioned from recycled metal sheets and ships' lanterns adorn the invasive buddleia.  Behind the low wall floats a restored lightship, pillar box red and hankering for stormy seas.  A memory of seaweed scents the air.  Cormorants arrange themselves neatly on a railing, each exactly a foot from his neighbour. They stretch their wings to dry, maquettes of the Angel of the North, and scan the water nonchalantly. The Thames is clean now and fish are plentiful.  At the next table, entrepreneurs huddle over a laptop and discuss business plans furtively.  Across the creek, clanging and grinding from a metal reclamation yard competes with periodic assaults from City Airport planes, a reminder that Trinity Buoy Wharf is poised between a secure past and an uncertain future.

The site is an unkempt jumble of low buildings, yellow London stock tattooed with Victorian soot, empty storage sheds, defunct boiler rooms and dusty offices with cracked windows.  Presiding over it is London’s only lighthouse, not a lissom white seaside tower but a squat brick edifice topped with an out of proportion glass beacon.

As a defence against encroaching gentrification, Trinity Buoy Wharf has reinvented itself as arts centre, epitomising the country's transition from manufacturing industry to service provision. The lighthouse now emits sound not light: Longplayer is an electronic programme set to generate music without interruption or repetition for a thousand years.  Its plangent strains creak and whistle, like whale song.  The hangar-like chain store is a hospitality venue and, as I watch, is being tricked out with lights and decorations for a wedding.  Its maritime heritage endows an unassailable brand; shorn of this association, Trinity Buoy Wharf could not compete with the bumptious O2, smugly astride the Greenwich peninsula opposite.

Studios are shipping containers, gaily painted in orange, yellow, red and white. Portholes are cut in their sides and open doors frame small balconies with potted plants.  A nearby artist sketches a fire escape supported by two figures reminiscent of ships' figureheads. 

This is a junkyard of the sea curated by a rust fetishist: whimsical metal sculptures; a moon and tide clock mounted on a reclaimed cast iron pillar; a confection of concentric gears with bronze body parts attached to each ring reimagine the human figure as they are rotated.

Tucked in the corner of the site are the offices of Thames Clippers, a fitting link between our seafaring history and post industrial future.

© David Thompson 2015

The Pennine Way

The granddaddy of long distance trails ends in Kirby Yetholm and I was celebrating my achievement in the company of the free pint traditionally provided to finishers at the Border Hotel.  

The Pennine Way is a dreary trial of endurance at the best of times and that winter had been the wettest on record, bequeathing a legacy of unrelieved bogginess. The moorland was treacherous and in places passable only with the help of paving stones rescued from defunct mills which had been transported by helicopter. These protect the delicate peat from erosion but result in a path as characterless as a city sidewalk. The endless unchanging expanse was initially relaxing after months of captivity in an airless office. Featureless moors make few demands, either physically or mentally, and are an ideal environment for solitary cogitation.  But after a few days, the monotony became a torture of sensory deprivation; increasingly my thoughts centred on the ill-conceived absurdity of exchanging the revelry of the London Olympics for self-imposed exile in this dismal landscape. Gradually, overcoming tedium became the main challenge, greatly exceeding the effort required to trudge a dozen or so miles a day.

Other walkers were a rarity. One day I was overtaken by a lone hiker who stopped to explain that the patterns on nearby rocks were fossils of prehistoric ferns.  When I reached a cafe, he was sitting outside, airing his feet. He showed me a photograph of the fossils in his guidebook and said he'd picked up a loose piece which he passed me. 'Those regular dimples look like the pattern on asbestos sheeting,' I remarked. He examined it carefully and turned it over. The back was machine-smooth. He tested the edge with a fingernail; small flakes fell off. He looked up, smiled and tossed it into a nearby bin. 'Just as well you didn't take it to a museum for carbon dating,' I commented. 

Summer is mythical in these latitudes and the passing days served up an unvarying diet of heavy rain and chilling wind so that I was simultaneously cold, damp and sweaty, despite the promises of my unconscionably expensive kit.  The unseasonable weather culminated in an afternoon of impenetrable fog. When a breeze hoovered it up, a horseshoe shaped cleft was revealed, half a mile wide and deep enough for a hang glider.  This was High Cup Nick, a precipitous chasm gouged by a giant claw.  Subduing vertigo, I edged forward gingerly.  At eye level, a pair of red kites circulating indolently on the thermals paused and hovered ominously. Suddenly, their suspending threads snipped, they dropped a thousand feet on to invisible prey. Through the dissolving mist, a distant pastoral scene, Housman's land of lost content, slowly materialised. A dream of English shires, theatrically lit by slanting sunlight, with neatly jigsawed fields, soporific villages and spired churches attached to long shadows.

Ruminating on three weeks of muddy plodding, this was the memory which, framed by its murky context, made the journey worthwhile. 

© David Thompson 2015

Basel

I sauntered out of the airport towards a taxi.  'Hilton Hotel, Aeschengraben,' I instructed the driver.  He gave me that look of pitying disdain of which Parisian waiters are the masters.  'You’re in the wrong country,' he growled wearily, 'take the exit for Switzerland.'  Startled, I retreated to the baggage hall and found signs to France, Switzerland and Germany.  The three countries meet in Basel and there is evidence of their influences everywhere.

I was on a business trip but Basel encourages exploration; all hotel guests are given a card providing free access to the multitude of bottle-green trams which clatter and whoosh along the streets.  At intersections, a dense thicket of overhead power lines darkens the sky.  An open-sided 1920s tram offers vintage tours, trundling along the tracks and contrasting with its sleek modern counterparts which operate to timetable with Teutonic precision.  During peak times they’re packed with chattering school children, bleary-eyed students and smartly dressed commuters.  At the central market, well-coiffed old ladies struggle on board with bulging bags of vegetables, sweet-smelling hams and cheeses. 

The calm magnificence of the Rhine is a welcome relief. Crossing a bridge, I was puzzled by a strange flotilla of orange jetsam: they were large waterproof bags protecting the belongings of swimmers who hug them as buoyancy aids and drift downstream with the current.  I decided to try it.  At the edge, the river is shallow and unexpectedly warm.  The current is sedate, nevertheless at one point a large buoy appeared in my path, racing towards me implacably like an obstacle in a computer game.  Just in time, I steered round it, grazing my leg on its anchor cable.  Hauling myself out after a kilometre I was exhilarated and trotted back to repeat the fun, passing knots of students who colonised the riverside.  Basel’s fifteenth century university attracts studious types and the atmosphere seemed relaxed, somewhere between a scouts' jamboree and an officers’ mess.

Returning me to the city, an ancient wooden ferry traverses the Rhine mysteriously without sails or oars. The boat is attached to an overhead cable and oriented at an angle to the current which gently urges it across the water.  Silently sliding over the broad river is a serene experience.  Huge cargo ships tower over us but give way to this tiny vessel.  On the bank, expensive apartment buildings glow roseate in the setting sun, their generous balconies splashed with geraniums.  In the distance, tall chimneys signal the presence of Basel’s thriving chemical industry, where my business lies.

At dinner time I head for the medieval district, a twisted skein of steep, narrow streets.  Worn stone steps corkscrew between crepuscular passageways lined by quiet churches, crooked houses and obscure university departments.  Exclusive boutiques attract disoriented tourists to fastidious displays where rare watches and jewel-like Swiss chocolates are accorded equal status. Comforting stillness drapes the quarter. In the secret heart, cosy candlelit restaurants celebrate Basel's French influence. 

© David Thompson 2015