CITY OF DERBY RETIRED TEACHERS

NEWSLETTERISSUE NO 96

May 2020

CONTACTS

Chairman: Mr. R. Horth (01332 551624Secretary: Mrs. B R Ward (01332) 550383

Treasurer: Mr. F. P. Wilson (01332) 771658

2. A Newsletter with aDifference – Rick Horth

3. The Thirsk Yarn Bomb-ers – Diana Grange

5. That don’t impress memuch! (Marathon Des Sa-bles) – Rick Horth

6. Maastricht– Sally Mason

8. Camping ‘Don’t youget a lot of spiders?’– Eileen Monk

9. My Wild Garden– Bill Grange

12. A Trip Down MemoryLane…Normandy May2001 – Barbara Ward

14. Casablanca– Val Holmes

15. Lock-down– Val Holmes

16. My Self-IsolationQuarantine Diary- Supplied by BarbaraWard

For future issues send material to Visit our website:www.codretts.co.uk

Compiled by Bert Mason

Main Items in This Issue

Newsletter May 20202A Newsletterwith a Differenceby Rick Horth, ChairmanI hope you are keeping safe and wellduring these strange times and copingwith the challenges of being confined tobarracks.

At Bill's suggestion we thought it wouldbe good to do this newsletter eventhough most of the events, which wouldhave featured in it, have not taken place.It will help us to keep in touch whenmany of the normal communicationchannels have been closed and it hasprovided an opportunity to field somearticles outside the usual scope. Thanksto all who have risen to the challenge andprovided these articles.

There are a couple of issues I wanted tobring to your attention:

1. Trips

As you know we had cancelled the trip toStoke and the April coffee morning. Wehave also cancelled the trip to ‘We willrock you’ and we do not expect the tripto Torquay to go ahead but this has yetto be confirmed.

For those who have booked to go on anyof these trips there will be refunds ofmoney to come. At the moment we donot know exactly how much.

For the Torquay trip we still have thebalances in our account and we are wait-ing to hear from the hotel how to dealwith this.

We will refund the money due to thosewho have paid for any trip in one exer-

cise as soon as the situation is clear. Thiswill avoid having to write many cheques.

If anyone needs a refund earlier than thisthen please contact Frank or me.

2. Email list

As many of you know, we have estab-lished an email list of members whichhas proved invaluable for notifying post-ponements of trips and coffee mornings.I know that not everyone has an emailaddress, which is fine, and we will con-tinue to notify those members by theusual methods. If, however, you do havean email address and are happy to beadded to our list then send me an emailto horthrj@talktalk.net. The list is onlyused for City of Derby Retired Teachersmatters and if at any time you wish yourname to be removed from the list, thenthat will be done.

We all look forward to more usual timeswhen we can resume our programme butin the meantime we hope you enjoy thisnewsletter with a difference!

A Note from the Editor

My thanks to those people who have con-tributed to this newsletter at a time of suchworrying news.

Whatever happens with ‘lockdown’, wehope to produce another issue later thisyear, so any further articles will be verywelcome. I hope, with those people whohaven’t contributed this time, that the arti-cles in this issue will give you an idea forsubject matter.

Bill Grange

Newsletter May 2020

The Thirsk YarnBombersby Diana Grange

When Bill appealed for articles for this year’sFebruary Newsletter, I thought of a very hap-py day last May. Sometimes there are one ortwo days in a year which make you smile justthinking of them! However, it was not neededthen but it is oh so needed now - so here it is!

In May, 2019,after a few days in Whitby - thevenue of an annual holiday that we have en-joyed for many years - we did one of our‘add-ons’, a few extra days elsewhere, to ex-tend our north Yorkshireholiday.

We booked two nights ata hotel in Thirsk, as wehadn’t been there previ-ously. We thought thelarge market square waslovely but, on closer in-spection, we found a real-ly delightful scene there,as we came across thework of the Thirsk YarnBombers.

Apparently, it all startedoff in 2015, as the cyclerace, ‘The Tour de York-shire’ was due to passthrough Thirsk a year lat-er. A small group of knit-ters and crotchetersdecided to make a few flags to hang aroundthe town. By 2016 three thousand peoplewere involved and a week before the race, at2 am., the Yarn Bombers, wearing dark cloth-ing decorated the whole of the town - trees,bollards, fences. Even the shops had Knitted

items relating to their particular trade, fas-tened on to the door handles.

The next morning, everyone in the town weretaking photos and chatting together, lookingreally happy. Since then the ‘bombing’ hascontinued and the town has been decoratedseveral times, including celebrating the 100years since the birth of Alf Wight, known asJames Herriot, the author of ‘All CreaturesGreat and Small’, based on his life as a countryvet, who lived and practised in Thirsk.

One of the most moving work was for Re-membrance Sunday in 2016, when more than35,000 red poppies were made and stitchedonto yards of army camouflage netting which

was then draped alongthe walls of variouschurches in the town.Some were hung on clearnetting from the top ofSaint Mary’s, the mainchurch. Some of the pop-pies were made and post-ed anonymously bypeople who have heard ofthe Thirsk Bombers buthad no idea where Thirskwas.

The work we saw mainlyfeatured all the volunteergroups and activities thattake place in the town,from brownies to the lo-cal cricket team. It was areally a fascinating displayand it took us a long time

to go around admiring the handiwork of theThirsk Yarn Bombers.

The next day we went to see the James Herri-ott Experience, in the house where the vetlived and worked, but that’s another story

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Photos by Bill Grange

Thirsk - St. Mary’s Church from the Cod Beck

Newsletter May 20204Some of the Work of The Thirsk Yarn Bombers

Newsletter May 2020

That don’t impress memuch! (Marathon DesSables)by Rick Horth

For those who frequent the lower reaches ofthe music cannon you mightrecognise the above song titlefrom Shania Twain. I do notthink she would have sung it hadshe come to our 4th February,2020 coffee morning (She is nota member) and heard the talk byChris Vasper MGC.

A marathon is traditionally arace run over about twenty sixmiles. You might say that that isadmirable but not very unusualin this day and age. The Sablesin the title are not martens butsands, from the French, so weare talking about running therace on sand, in the Sahara.Quite challenging ? There'smore.......

The race covers 161 miles oversix stages. Stage four is a doublemarathon and you have to carryall your food and supplies for allthe race in your backpack. Youare provided with water rations en route anda basic camping bed to sleep on in a Berbertent at the appointed stages. In addition, yourkit must include a sleeping bag, gaiters, anECG certificate, salt tablets and a venompump in case you meet a hostile scorpion.There is medical support and each entrant hasa location tracker with an emergency buttonall provided within a modest £4,500 entrancefee.

It was a Frenchman, Patrick Bauer, whoinitiated the race in 1986 and he was there to

welcome those who completed the race overthe finishing line. It is not recorded what therunners said to him about his great idea !

Some nine hundred and eighty people startedthe race, fifty-six dropped out and the oldestparticipant, was seventy four years of age. Sixor seven people have died in attempting to

complete the race over its his-tory. On one occasion a Japa-nese participant did the race inwooden clogs.The tempera-tures during the day could riseto forty degrees and two de-grees at night. The coursechanges each year but alwaysincludes a mountain sectionand at least one sandstorm. Theday begins at 0800 and for dayfour, with the double distanceof fifty four miles, you are al-lowed a generous thirty fivehours. You expect to finish inthe dark aided by your headlight.

There are some elite runnersbut the majority are ‘ordinary'people !

OK, so quite impressive?So who would enter a race likethat ?

One person who has done this not once buttwice was Chris Vasper. Chris served in theRoyal Signals and since leaving the forces feltthat his life in Civvy Street needed a bit of achallenge. He told us of how he built up hisdistance capability and spent time acclimatis-ing to hill walking in the heat in Lanzarote.

You may wonder why people do this.

As with other marathons there seem to be twomain strands. For the individual it is an enor-mous personal challenge to overcome the

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Chris Vasper - Frank Wilson

Newsletter May 20206Castle Howardhuge physical and mental demands of the

race. In addition, most take it on with spon-sorship to raise money for charity. You mayfeel proud to learn that British participantsraised £1.8 million from this last race whichwas more than double the total raised by allthe others. With his background it was under-standable that Chris raised money for 'Walk-ing With The Wounded' He explained that themental wounds of ex-servicemen and womenresults in two to three suicides each week.

Watch out for the camels !

After the participants have set out each morn-ing a group of Berbers with their camels gath-er up the tents and move them on to the nextcamp. They do this at a very sedentary rate. Iffor any reason they overtake you, then you areeliminated from the race.

So what happens at the end ?

Well you are told of your time for completingthe whole race when you and your trackingdevice cross the finishing line and you arepresented with a medal.

A bus will then take you to the Berber Hotelwhere after a strange experience known as abath you may think your achievement mightwarrant a little celebration. No problem but,perhaps not surprisingly, the beer is £10 perbottle ! Well, water is wonderful and life sus-taining but it just wouldn’t cut it after anexperience like that.

Yes we were impressed by the story and theengaging presentation.

I am not sure I would want to follow in hisfootsteps.

Marathon Des Sables - Toti Fernández

Maastrichtby Sally Mason

I was out shopping one day and, on myreturn, Bert said he had found a wonderfulconcert on one of the Sky channels, which heknew I would love. So there and then, Imade a cup of tea, and we sat down to watch,quickly realising it was an outdoor concertfrom Schonnbrunn Palace in Vienna, a placewe both knew well. And Bert was right, Iabsolutely loved it, we both did, and thatstarted our interest in the ‘King of the Waltz’

That was in 2007, and we then started buyingall the DVDs and Blu-Rays that we couldfind, soon reaching our current total of 54,

along with assorted CDs. We then found outthat a couple of our friends from the RetiredTeachers Association, Gill and Rick sharedour interest in Andre Rieu’s music, and wehatched a plan to travel to Maastricht to seeone of the summer concerts. This wouldinvolve a flight to Amsterdam, and a fairlylong train journey down to Maastricht, whichis situated on the southern border of TheNetherlands and right up against the borderswith Belgium and Germany. We stayed for 5days, and included a Fan Dinner on the riverwhich was organised by Ruud and Ineke, twolong-term fans from The Hague. On our lastevening, we raised a glass and agreed wewould come the following year too. Thatstarted a trend and we have made it every yearfrom 2012 to 2019, enjoying it all as much as

Newsletter May 2020

the first time. But the travelling has changedover the years as, after trying the train fromAmsterdam for a few years, we then wentacross the Channel to Dunkirk and drovefrom there. And just last year we flew toBrussels and had a taxi ride from there whichtook about an hour.

Andre Rieu was born and brought up inMaastricht. He is a classically trained violinist,as are all 60 members of his Johann StraussOrchestra. His father was an orchestral con-ductor, and all six of his children were musi-cal, playing the harp, cello, piano, violin andsinging. Andre founded his orchestra in 1987,and they had a very hard time establishingthemselves, being told to go away and ‘play awaltz for your grandmother’! His break-through came when he played his violin in theinterval of an international football tourna-ment in Amsterdam; he played The Second

Waltz by Shostakovich, which became an in-stant hit for him and saw his popularity shootupwards, first in the Netherlands and then inEurope, and then the world.

His orchestra comprises many musicians whohave been with him from the very beginning.And at his concerts, ten to eleven thousandpeople every night wallow in the beautifulmusic and love how he can switch from apiece which brings tears to the eyes, to a piecewhich brings everyone to their feet singingand dancing. People come from all corners ofthe globe to be there for his performances andin one series of concerts, the count of peoplenumbered 90 different nationalities.

Gill and Rick joined us for dinners at some ofthe outdoor restaurants which line the edgesof the Vritjhof square. It gets quite crowdedbut there’s a marvellous atmosphere as youmix with lots of different people. Entry to thesquare is at 6.30pm, so the serving can startand finish before the concert starts at 9.00pm.However, you can order plenty of drinks tolast to the end of the concert, which is usually

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Newsletter May 2020

Camping - ‘Don’t you geta lot of spiders?’by Eileen Monk

In fifty years of camping (in a tent, not acaravan) we have had one or two interestingvisitors, such as the friendly farm dog whodecided to lick clean the bowl of butter left tosoften while we went for awalk. Then there were thehedgehogs, carefully scoopedup into a biscuit tin and thrownover the nearby hedge only toreturn the following night. Wementioned this to the farmerwho confirmed this was due tocampers feeding them. Thelargest intruder was a calf whodecided to put his hoofthrough the flysheet of ourson’s small tent causing a rath-er large tear. So much for camping in thiscountry.

Going abroad into mainland Europe gave ourvisitors more scope. As a ‘gift’ from a friendlyFrench neighbour, we had a collection offrogs, as a surprise. We knew who to thankwhen we could see him laughing, and, of

course, we joined in. The snails were as aresult of the children, young at the time, col-lecting them in buckets only to see them thefollowing morning covering the front wheelsand bonnet of our Bedford van. A clickingnoise coming from a towel hanging inside wascaused by a giant grasshopper, which we keptas a pet for a few days! We were always awareof ants, wherever we were. Sweet things were

kept away from them in con-tainers hanging from a line butwe very soon learned that leav-ing damp cloths on the floorwas a no-no. If we wereamongst trees, they would berunning up and down thetrunks but the most importantprotection was to make surethe sleeping compartmentswere always zipped up.

Midges in the evening werekept away by citron candles. A

scary moment was when we found a snakecurled up just by the door, but the campowner assured us that that it was harmless.Even so, we were pleased that it decided toleave. The last day at in international meet inGhent, when we struck camp, we found thatmoles had made a remarkable labyrinth underthe groundsheet.

8at midnight. On the way back to the hotels,people are singing and dancing in the streets,and most of the bars and cafes are open late.

Maastricht is a lovely, very old, city, withplenty of attractions. The university attractsplenty of British students, as all classes aretaught in English. There are museums galoreto visit and cruises up and down the RiverMaas. Andre Rieu lives in a pretty little castle(pictured on right)) on the outskirts of thecity, called Castle De Torentjes, ‘The SmallTowers’. It’s very old, and he has spent manyyears restoring it. He is known to have said he

would never move anywhere else, and intendsto spend the rest of his life in Maastricht.

Photos by Bert Mason

Newsletter May 2020 9My Wild Gardenby Bill Grange

I don’t have a manicured garden, far from it!My comparatively little plot at the far north-ern end of Allestree is a wild-looking assem-bly of trees and shrubs with only a couple ofscrappy grassy areas. This is how I want it andnot the result of being a lazy gardener. Whenwe moved in, back in 1986, my intention wasto convert what was to me a boring expanseof mown grass into a garden that would befriendly to wildlife of all kinds. After 34 years,I think I have achieved it! A mature silverbirch, along the back boundary is now joinedby five other large trees of assorted species,among them an oak, now, grown from asapling to a 50 foot tall monster.

I have an array of herbaceous plants, some ofthem wild flowers raised from seed, but alsoa lot of cultivated flowers, chosen to be goodfor pollinating insects. I also have two smallponds and that most important componentof a ‘green’ garden, a compost heap for gar-den clippings, plus a Dalek-like plastic com-post bin for peelings and other waste. Theresulting compost I use for raising plants andimproving the soil. It is much better than thebought stuff which, in any case, containspeat, the extraction of which causes greatdamage to wildlife-rich peat bogs.

Our garden provides me with much interestin this time of ‘lockdown’ and, especially onsunny days, there are always some interestingwildlife visitors. The most obvious are thebirds for which I provide feeders and nest-boxes. It is amusing to see the social housesparrows waiting their turn in a nearby bushwhile those at the top of the pecking orderare feeding, mostly the females! Other com-mon bird visitors are the more colourfulblue-tits and great tits. This year, a pair ofblue tits took over a nest box fixed to the rearof the house and actually saw off a pair of the

much larger great tits which ventured to nearit for their liking. I also get starlings in thegarden and one year the adults and theirbrood were, cutely, sitting in a row along thetop of a timber arch near to the house. Occa-sionally, a spectacular great spotted wood-pecker, most probably from Allestree Park,visits the feeders.

The larger of the two ponds is, in early spring,a squirming mass of mating frogs, leavingbehind a lot of spawn. It is interesting watchas the tadpoles hatch and slowly transforminto tiny froglets by early autumn, I having tobe careful not to tread on any as they disperseall over the garden.

Insects, as many of you will know, are mymain interest and good subjects for close-upphotography, another of my hobbies. I havethree Buddleia bushes which, when in flower,in mid to late summer, are magnets for someof our most colourful butterflies - the smalltortoiseshell, peacock, comma, red admiraland painted lady. In spring and early autumn,the more subtly coloured speckled woodmakes an appearance, together with the tinyexquisite holly blue.

Close relatives of butterflies are moths. Manypeople think that these are all drab-colouredeaters of clothes but most of the 2.5 thousandBritish species attractively coloured and pat-terned and most feed on plants as caterpillarsand on nectar from flowers when adult. Ihave made a moth trap out of a plastic bucketwith an old street-light bulb mounted aboveit, which I put out on some warm nights. Asmoths are attracted to the light, many falldown the hole at the top, but made comfort-able at the bottom by means of some shred-ded egg boxes. The next morning, I examinethe catch, the moths remaining (well, mostly)quiescent while I photograph them and re-lease them unharmed.

Newsletter May 202010

A Selection of Wildlife from Bill’s Garden

1. Great-spotted Woodpecker 2. Starling family 3. Marmalade Hoverfly 4. Hornet-mimicHoverfly 5. Batman Hoverfly 6. Elephant Hawk Moth 7. Peacock Butterfly 8. CommaButterfly 9. Speckled Wood Butterfly 10. Gold-spot Moth 11. Red Admiral Butterfly12. Woundwort Shield Bug 13. Harlequin Ladybird 14. Scarlet Lily Beetle 15. GreenLacewing 16. Southern Hawker Dragonfly 17. Dark-edged Bee Fly 18. Tawny Mining Bee19. White-lipped Snail Photographs by Bill Grange

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Newsletter May 2020 11The most spectacular and largest mothcaught in my trap so far is the elephant hawk,a symphony of pink and green markings.Most plentiful on most nights is the commonyellow underwing, which has greyish forew-ings and orangey-yellow underwings, bor-dered with black. Another striking one is thegold-spot which has gold and silvery shiningpatches on its wings. Many moths are day-flying. These include the exquisite tiny mintmoth (shown on the front cover), whichregularly visits flowers.

There are a host of other insects in the gar-den. Among the beetles are the ladybirds andamong the several species of these, is theharlequin, originating from far eastern Asiaand recently brought to some mainland Eu-ropean countries as a pest control agent andthen flown the channel to Britain. Unfortu-nately, it doesn’t only eat greenfly and black-fly but other insects as well, including thecaterpillars of butterflies, so it isn’t welcome!

Another unwelcome beetle is the scarlet lilybeetle, another alien, originating from Asia.As it happens, I am a devotee of lilies, theybeing among my top favourites of gardenplants. The very pretty scarlet lily beetle is thearch enemy of the lily. After nibbling thefoliage, they mate, the females laying eggswhich hatch into slug-like larvae which havethe endearing habit of covering themselveswith their own excrement, in an attempt todisguise themselves as bird droppings! Thelarvae, if undetected, can do great damage toa lily plant, completely stripping it of leavesin a short time. I don’t use pesticides, so mymethod of control is to wipe a tissue up theplant and crush any larvae so caught.

Fortunately, the vast majority of insects visit-ing the garden do little or no harm and are,indeed beneficial. Among my favourites arethe hoverflies, many resembling miniaturewasps or bees, an adaptation which helps toprotect these harmless insects from preda-

tion, with an hovering ability and agility in theair outclassing any hummingbird. The larvaeof most of them are efficient killers of aphids.Some of the bee-like ones have a larva whichlives in stagnant water, breathing by means ofa telescopic tube at the rear end, reaching upto the surface, hence their less than appealingname of ‘rat-tailed maggots’. One very strik-ing bee-like species is the so-called ‘batmanhoverfly’, because of a bat-like marking on itsthorax. All hoverflies visit flowers for pollenand nectar and are even more importantpollinators than bees.

Concerning bees, apart from visits by thesocial honeybees and bumblebees, I havesolitary bees, those that construct separatenests made by a single female, such as themining bees, which make tunnels in theground in which they lay their eggs afterprovisioning them with nectar and pollen.Each tunnel is then sealed up, leaving thelarva alone with its food supply, the adultbees then dying and the new generationemerging the following spring. One of themore striking mining bees is the tawny, thefemale being covered with bright gingeryhairs. This makes tunnels in lawns, surround-ed by a volcano-like mound of soil. Lawn-proud gardeners hate them, of course!

Mining bees are the target of a number ofinsect parasites and predators. Among themis the appealing looking bee-fly (not relatedto hoverflies), a little fluffy bundle with a longprotruding proboscis or tongue, which itholds out in front when hovering in front ofthe flowers from which it sucks nectar. Quitea lot of these insects were seen during theearly days of lockdown in late March andearly April . These rather appealing lookinginsects have a sinister side in that the femalesflick their eggs into the tunnels of miningbees, the larvae later hatching to begin feed-ing on the larvae of the ‘host’ bee.

Newsletter May 2020

Particular favourites insects of mine are theshield bugs, mainly plant feeders, sucking sapwith their long hollow tongues. Their shieldshaped bodies are adorned a variety of beau-tiful colours and patterns, according to spe-cies. Among these is the green-shield bug(nothing to do with those stamps of manyyears ago) and the tiny woundwort shield bugwhich, with its iridescent coppery and silverycolouring, is a veritable living jewel. The latterfeeds on the hedge woundwort, a kind ofwild dead-nettle with red flowers, which Iencourage.

As you have probably heard in the news,insect numbers worldwide have plummeteddrastically in recent years due to human-in-duced climate change, habitat destructionand the over-use of pesticides. There is greatconcern that if this trend continues, thencomplete ecological breakdown won’t be faraway, with dire consequences for the humanspecies. By providing suitable plants, notnecessarily wild ones, leaving at least a bit ofyour lawn unmown for much of the summer,providing a pond, and not paving over all ofyour garden, you will be doing a great deal forthe insects, and wildlife generally, of yourneighbourhood.

A Trip Down MemoryLane…Normandy,May 2001by Barbara Ward

A number of our memberswill remember, one of ourfirst outings abroad was when,in May 2001, we went on adouble-decker coach arrangedby Shirley Hadaway withBurgin Travel across theChannel to Normandy. Wewere based at the Hotel An-tares on the outskirts ofHonfleur in the  CalvadosDepartment in North-westernFrance. It is located on thesouth bank of the  estuary  ofthe Seine, across from le Ha-vre and within sight of thespectacular modern Pont deNormandie which spans theestuary.

The morning of our first day was spent ex-ploring the picturesque town of Honfleur,built round a small harbour, a haunt of artistsand once popular with Impressionist painters

like Monet and Boudin. The town was full ofhistoric buildings such as The Sainte-Cather-ine church, which has a bell tower separatefrom the principal building and is the largest

church made out of woodin France.

In the afternoon we trav-elled to Fecamp for a tourof the stunning Benedic-tine Palace, a strikingGothic and Renaissance-inspired building whichwas finished in 1898. Thishouses the distillery of thefamous Benedictine li-queur that is said to havebeen first brewed by themonks of Fécamp Abbeyin the early 16th century.We had a guided tour ofthe distillery which, ofcourse, was suitably fin-ished with a free sampleof the famous product!

That evening we went into Honfleur to sam-ple eating out in the very relaxing French stylein one of the restaurants near the harbour.

The second day we had an early start andtravelled up the Seine valley to visit Monet’s

Honfleur harbour

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Newsletter May 2020

garden at Giverny. In spiteof the crowds the gardens,particularly the famous wa-ter garden, were a joy tobehold. After lunch wemoved on to visit CastleGailiard on its spectacularsite overlooking Les Ande-lys and the flooded Seinevalley.

On Wednesday the coachtook us to the Normandycoast stopping at the fa-mous Pegasus Bridge andthe Café Gondree, the firstbuilding to be liberated onD-Day. We were luckyenough to have a talk fromthe owner, a lovely ladywho spoke of her experiences as a 5-year oldwhen the bridge was liberated. Later we hada tour of the famous invasion beaches andvisited the 360-degree cinema on the cliffsabove Arromanche where we viewed a film inthe round called ‘The Price of Freedom’, avery moving experience. After stopping at aBritish war cemetery, we went on to Bayeuxto visit the famous tapestry and the cathedral.A very tiring but emotional day!

On the final daywe were taken toRouen to the Closde Coudray wherewe explored thepeaceful gardensand many of usbought plants tobring home.

After lunch in Di-eppe, we visitedChateau Miromes-nil, where the

Marquis gave us an interesting and humoroustour of his house and gardens. As it was our

last evening, we enjoyedan excellent meal in thehotel. We travelledhome on Friday, stop-ping at Calais for a lastchance to visit the dutyfree shop. Then it wason to Le Shuttle for theshort journey to Folk-stone.

The visit was an out-standing success and thestart of many more out-ings abroad arranged byDavid Slater, when weshared some wonderfulexperiences.

LEFT: Fecamp - The ChateauABOVE: The Cafe Gondree, the owner

addressing a party of British army cadetsMonet’s Garden and House

All photos taken on the CoDRTs holidayby Bill Grange

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Newsletter May 2020

Casablancaby Val Holmes

It was sometime in the 1980s - Casablanca!Full of excitement, anticipation and totalignorance, my friend and I stepped out of ourhotel, into a blast of hot sun, to explore thisiconic, mysterious city, made immortal byHumphrey Bogart. What did he say?: “In allthe gin joints, in all the world, she walks intomine.” I didn’t fan-cy a gin joint and,anyway, this was astrictly non-alco-holic town. Won-derful fragrancesfilled the air andcolour explodedfrom pyramids ofspices: saffron, tur-meric and cumin.Robed figures si-dled close whisper-ing: “You want tobuy?” as they thruststuffed camels intoour faces. Knowing what they were stuffedwith, we politely declined.

Wandering around the docks and anothervoice: “Are you lost?” It was an Irish sailor sohungover he had missed his ship. And thatwas the start of our disintegrating day, by theend of which we were in a Moroccan policestation. But that comes later. Soon the Irishsailor was joined by his Moroccan friend,Mustapha, a jaunty, cheeky chap whose workon US boats was evident from his Americantwang. And this was where our troubles be-gan. He was determined to be our helpfulhost and shepherded us all into a shipyardcafe, where we drank mint tea from glassesthat looked as if they were full of an under-ground forest. He then insisted we ate sar-dines and following everyone else, wechopped off the heads and tails and threw

them on the floor, to join the rest of a slip-pery, slidey mess.

When Mustapha offered to show us to the“powder room” we politely declined. “Thankyou for everything, but we really must go.”“Oh no,” he insisted, “You must come andmeet my cousin.” This man would not takeno for an answer and we were frogmarchedthrough the steep, narrow, shadowy souksinto a barely furnished room to be introduced

to a stout lady wear-ing a burka. Herstoutness was dueto the fact that un-derneath her gar-ment were bottlesof forbidden beer.She was so kind andinvited us to sit on asinking sofa whoserough cloth mademy legs itch. (I laterfound that the redmarks were due tosomething otherthan the scratchy

cloth.) We tried again: “Thank you very muchMustapha but we really must go.” It washopeless. “Oh no, you just now come andmeet my rich cousin.” So back into the souks,cousin taking one arm, Mustapha the other,our feet hardly touching the ground.

Throughout all this the Irish sailor was happyto go long as part of this strange entourage.After all, he had nowhere else to go. We werepiled into a taxi and we then realised howstupidly we were behaving. Tales our friendshad told us of white slave traders came tomind, especially as the taxi soon left the citybehind and we were driving through bidonville,dusty streets of homes made from barrels andcorrugated iron. Into the scrubby desert, thetaxi at last stopped by a row of solid brickhouses. Mustapha leapt out and banged onone of the doors. It was opened by a beautiful

Casablanca - The Independent

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Newsletter May 2020

woman wearing a long colourful robe whowelcomed us into her house and immediatelywent into another room, emerging wearingan elegant black dress.

Mustapha was obviously very proud and bus-ied himself helping her to produce tea andsweet cakes. We expressed our thanks andgratitude but said: “We really must go”.

Fully satisfied with his duties as a host, Mus-tapha led us back to the waiting taxi...a taxiwhose meter had not stopped running...“Who has money?” asked Mustapha. “I’mbroke,”said the Irishman. The poor cousinsaid nothing. My friend muttered to me,“Well, we’re not paying, it was his idea.” Backin the city centre the taxi driver leaned overand announced the fare. The Irishman andMustapha started arguing, the poor cousinsaid nothing. The taxi driver locked the doorsand fetched a policeman who marched us allto the nearby police station.

The police chief took our passports and be-gan his interrogation. “Do you really expectme to believe you accept invitations to teafrom complete strangers? What was the realreason?” And he looked at the Irishman, thepoor cousin and a reduced Mustapha, allcowering in a corner of the bare, dusty office.My friend whispered, “Make sure we’re putin the same cell.” It was then I exerted myself.I looked at the taxi driver’s head, pokingthrough the window and said, “We will payfor the taxi.” And to my friend I whispered,“He thinks we are dealing in drugs!” The taxidriver accepted the payment considerablyinflated from the original demand.

We left, hoping the others would be allowedto go but not waiting to find out. “Enoughsight-seeing,” I said. “We’re leaving Casa-blanca, NOW!”.

Lock-down, Open-upNo need for clocksNo rush, no hurry,Time unfolds, no breaks or creases,No need for calendarsDays are just time passing,Nature is my calendarSpring wakes me up,Unfurling fresh, green leaves,Hatching new life,Extravagant carpets of blossomNature, taking no notice of human tragedies,Nature,Just doing her job

Hardwick Hall from the gardens,May 2007 by Bill Grange

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Newsletter May 2020

© 2020 City of Derby Retired Teachers’ Group - Telephone (01332) 550383Printed by MurrayPrint, Long Eaton

My Self-IsolationQuarantine Diary

Day 1 – I Can Do This!!  Got enoughfood and wine to last a month!

Day 2 – Opening my 8th bottle ofWine. I fear wine supplies mightnot last!

Day 3 – Strawberries: Some have210 seeds, some have 235 seeds.Who Knew??

Day 4 – 8:00 pm. Removed my daypyjamas and put on my night pyja-mas.

Day 5 – Today, I tried to make andsanitizer. It came out as Jelly!!

Day 6 – I am about to take the binout. I’m So excited, I can’t decidewhat to wear.

Day 7 – Laughing far too much atmy own jokes!!

Day 8 – Went to a new restaurantcalled “The Kitchen”.  You have togather all the ingredients and make

your own meal. I have No clue howthis place is still in business.

Day 9 – I put bottles of alcohol inevery room. Tonight, I’m getting alldressed up and going Bar hopping.

Day 10 – Struck up a conversationwith a spider today. Seems nice.He’s a web designer.

Day 11 – Isolation is hard. I swearmy fridge just said, “What the helldo you want now?”

Day 12 – I realise why dogs get soexcited about something movingoutside, going for walks or carrides.  I think I just barked at asquirrel.

Day 13 – If you keep a glass of winein each hand, you can’t accidentallytouch your face.

Day 14 – Anybody else feel likethey’ve cooked dinner about 395times this month?

Supplied by Barbara Ward– but not written by her!