Beaucoup de chocolat ...

Organised by the City of York Libraries, York Big City Read is an annual event where everyone comes together to read the same book and the share events celebrating the chosen novel. This we have been asked to read Joanne Harris' Chocolat, a dark and decadent story about chocolatier Vianne Rocher's attempts to set up a chocolaterie in a conservative French town.

The festival programme was a treasure of events based on this famous book including chocolate-making workshop, events related to French art and culture, chocolate testing for adults and kids, guided walks around York looking at the city's chocolaty history. Copies of Chocolat were available free from all libraries, in hard copy, audio format and even in other languages. It was a fantastically interesting summer and the best event of all was the closing one last Tuesday with Joanne Harris returning to York to spend the evening with her readers.

For the very few people who don't know Joanne yet, her third book Chocolat became so famous and celebrated around the world that was made in an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Since then, she has written eight more novels, of which The Lollipop Shoes is a beautiful continuation of Vianne Rocher's story, as well as short stories and two cookbooks. Although I read the book 10 years ago when the film came out, I re-read Chocolat for this occasion as I didn't remember the book very well (old age is approaching!) and enjoyed reading it immensely. I also read The Lollipop Shoes and I liked it even more, as the setting moves to Montmartre in Paris and and the plot gets enriched with more fascinating characters.

(The lovely Joanne Harris)

The Evening with Joanne Harris was wonderful. She is a very knowledgeable and witty lady, very French and English at the same time (her mother is French and her father from Barnsley, Yorkshire and she lives in Yorkshire) and she managed to sparkle up an audience of usually very quiet English people. We also had the opportunity to sample some delicious chocolates offered by Hotel Chocolat, a wonderful chocolate store that I can only recommend if you are a chocolate lover like myself.

Waiting for Spooks 9 ...

The team at Section D is in mourning following the tragic death of Ros Myers, who was killed in an explosion while trying to save the British Home Secretary, as the award-winning spy drama Spooks returns for its ninth series. After killing off most of its main characters in the past series, I had promised myself not to watch it again, having spent quite a lot of tears mourning Adam (Rupert Penry-Jones), Jo (Miranda raison) and finally Ros, Hermione Norris (Yes, I know, I'm a bit of a saddo!), not to mention the disappearance of Tom, Danny and Zoe a few years ago, but now I know that I won't be able to resist the first episode tonight at 9 o'clock on BBC1! But now, dear BBC, hands off Lucas North (Richard Armitage), my new favourite.

Good-bye, dear Friend

He’s gone. He left us. And our life will be less complete, less happy without him. After a 10-months battle against cancer our wonderful friend Colin was defeated. He fought with bravery and dignity all the time. He never lost his hope, his sense of humour, his dignity. But he lost his life. We all lost. I feel numb and powerless. Devastated. But now we have to try our best for his kids, we have to support them. And we will. He was their rock, their strength. He was our rock too.

Good-bye, dear friend, we will love you forever!

Butterflies

Everyone loves to see butterflies in the spring and summer... colourful jewels which brighten our day... but, although I live in the countryside, I have noticed their number reducing slowly in the last couple of years...

(Peacock)

Butterflies (and moths as well) are key indicators of the state of the natural world because of their short life-spans and complex lifecycles. Their lifecycles (egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly) have specific environmental needs to survive each stage, reach adulthood and produce the next generation. Their presence or absence provides a rapid and undeniable indication of the health of the environment.

(Large White)

This summer, however, I have seen many more butterflies around. Does it mean a pollution decrease or simply that they have adapted to our environment changes?

(Small Tortoiseshell)

The Historian

Steve’s comment on my last post made me think back to a great book that I read some time ago, long before the Twilight saga and similar sloppy vampire stories. It’s called the Historian and is Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel. When I bought it I was a little worried as I thought it could be for the lovers of vampire books that drip blood and are full of gore and scantily clad females. But this is a very intelligent book, falling into the genre of great classical literature. Elizabeth Kostova has made Dracula truly terrifying, and more importantly, historically significant, yet again.
It’s about time somebody got Vlad the Impaler right.

(Vlad Tepes/The Impaler)

There have always been two different ways to approach the Dracula legend: through the literature, which is most famous due to Bram Stoker’s classic, or through history and the life and times of Vlad Tepes who lived in Wallachia (part of Romania) and died fighting the Ottoman Turks in 1476. Yes, there really was a Dracula. But the legend, particularly the literary legend, long ago eclipsed the history. Not many people know that Dracula was a warrior, that he led successful fights against Ottoman invasions, that he was religious, or that he served as both a hero and ferocious enemy of his own people.

The legend has always been more appealing and as the vampire cult has grown over the years and pervaded pretty much all aspects of popular culture. Dracula the man has faded into the deep recesses of medieval history. No one stays awake in those classes. Kostova credits her father in the book’s dedication as telling her the stories that grew into this book, and clearly she has always had a different vision of Dracula, a more serious and scholarly vision then the average theatergoer. She knows he was dangerous because he was real, because a man once committed the acts that are credited to a monster. This is something that often eludes people. We want to believe that Hitler was a beast, Stalin inherently evil, that the 9/11 hijackers had to have been demons and never ordinary, average men. What is bad must always have been monstrous and not like us; never like us. Dracula was a vampire, the undead. Dracula as soldier or even a child hostage? How could that be?

(Rennes-les-Bains)

Well, that’s where the book comes in handy. The Historian is a mystery, a thriller, a romance. It is first and foremost a story of a father and daughter who each becomes embroiled in the Dracula legend. It is also though the story of a missing man, a forgotten love, and another daughter who wants the truth. It is the story of men of God who protect a devil and Turks and Romanians and Bulgarians and a lot of monasteries. There are libraries and archives and ancient clues, even an ancient society of warriors. In short, The Historian is all things that make a book compulsively readable and everything that a truly gifted author can produce.

The first main storyline follows Helen and Paul in the early 1950s as they try to find Dracula’s grave and the secrets it might hold to the disappearance of Paul’s college adviser and mentor, a man who had also pursued the Dracula legend in the 1930s. The current storyline is that of Paul’s daughter in 1972, who ends up on her own adventure after her father abruptly departs on a business trip that she is convinced is actually a resumption of his Dracula research. Over both time periods the specter of Dracula is everywhere it seems, throughout the historical documents they read; in the places they visit, in the faces of those who try to stop them. Ultimately he proves to be crueler then they could have imagined and his effect on all of their lives is incalculable.

The Historian was a great read and what contributed to make it that way was also my timing. I read most of the book when I was on holiday near Rennes-les-Bains, a small village in the Languedoc, on the borders with the Pyrenees, where a rather disturbing part of the book is set. The gîte where we stayed was a bit isolated and the surrounding country side was very dark and silent at night. One night a terrible thunderstorm infuriated through the area the wind was whipping around the house, it was really scary weather. I was so frightened that I ended up sleeping with all the lights on! All in all, a book and an experience I will never forget.

Dracula's Whitby

Following my newly discovered passion for fossil hunting, a few days ago we decided to go on a trip to Whitby. It is small town on the North Yorkshire coast, about 50 miles from York, reachable by road through the heather-covered beautiful North Yorkshire Moors.

(The ruins if St Hilda's Abbey founded in 657 AD)

Whitby is known for its well preserved ammonite fossils, which can be found on the seashore or purchased from stalls or shops in the town. Whitby's skyline is dominated by the ruins of St. Hilda’s Abbey, high on Whitby's East Cliff. Spreading below Whitby, a maze of alleyways and narrow streets run down to the busy quayside.

(St Mary's Church and its graveyard)

From the old town of Whitby, 199 steps lead up to the parish church of St. Mary, whose churchyard on Whitby's East Cliff gave Bram Stoker the inspiration to write his world famous book, Dracula. Part of the novel was set here, and incorporated various pieces of Whitby folklore, including the beaching of the Russian ship Dmitri, which became the basis of Demeter in the book. Furthermore, it was at the original public library on Marine Parade in Whitby that Stoker discovered the name "Dracula”.

Chapter 6 of Dracula begins with a description of Whitby, recorded by Mina in her journal. Mina has just arrived to join her friend Lucy for a summer holiday, and admires the beauty of the town:

"This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour … The houses of the old town – the side away from us – are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes and which is a scene of part of ‘Marmion’, where the girl is built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay, to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea"

(The 199 steps)

The church and the graveyard feature prominently in the Whitby chapters of Dracula. It is here that Mina and Lucy spend time sitting on their favourite bench. Here they meet the old fisherman, Mr Swales, who regales them with stories gleaned from inscriptions on the headstones. This is also the spot where Dracula first attacks Lucy. As Mina climbs the 199 steps and approaches the bench she sees “something long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure” and catches a glimpse of his “white face and red, gleaming eyes.”

Amazingly, many visitors to Whitby ask where Dracula's grave is located, forgetting that he is a work of fiction. The Count's devotees search St Mary's Church graveyard, after scaling the 199 steps, in search of his last resting place!

Quality Time in Lyme

Just a few days holidays but in one of the most beautiful locations in the United Kingdom. Situated in the South West of Dorset, England, Lyme Regis is an historic unspoiled seaside resort and fishing port on the world famous Cobb harbour.



The Cobb is an important feature in Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion (1818) and in the film The French Lieutenant’s Woman, based on the 1969 novel of the same name by local writer John Fowles.

Surrounded by beautiful coastlines and countryside, the area has now been awarded World Heritage Site Status; famous for its geology and fossil finds.

The cliffs around Lyme Regis constantly crumble and slip into the sea, revealing fossils from the ancient Jurassic past of 180 million years ago. The best experience in Lyme Regis is taking a fossil hunting walk organized by the Museum to discover the fossilised remains of giant ichthyosaur, plesiosaur, belemnites and ammonites that can be found on the beaches.

Families return time and again to search with Paddy Howe, the Museum geologist and his colleague Chris among the sand and rocks for fossils that have been washed-down onto the beach. For adult and children alike it’s an unforgettable experience.

(Paddy at work. But you will get your fingers dirty too, don't worry!)

Your fossil walk ticket gives you free access to the museum where you will be able to see displays of rare fossils, learn all about Mary Anning, the famous early palaeontologist who once lived on the site of the museum and much, much more.

This is Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch on the Jurassic Coast near Lulworth, not far from Lyme. It was a film location too. In Nanny McPhee (2005), the children go for a picnic on the beach at Durdle Door. Scenes from the film Wilde (1997) starring Stephen Fry and from the film Far from The Madding Crowd (1967) were shot here.