There was a distinct end of term feeling yesterday morning as we loaded our trunks on the coach taking us to the airport. I was looking forward to getting home but I will be back soon for Round Two of the Presidential Election.
Fifty years after he wrote Akenfield, Ronald Blythe (now 96) was interviewed in the April edition of The Oldie by Harry Mount; but let’s digress if I haven’t already. The same issue writes up Lindy Guinness’ exhibition at Browse & Derby in Cork Street (until 26th April). Inspired by Constable’s studies of Hampstead Heath her pictures depict Clandeboye, her demesne in Northern Island. Worth a look.
Back to Ronald Blythe. He says “ I know a lot about Suffolk life. I’d seen all the changes in agriculture. When I was born, I could remember people ploughing with horses”. On Tuesday it was an 8 1/2 hour bus ride back to Kiev. As reading in a bus makes me feel sick, I abandoned Doctor Thorne and gazed out the window. Twice I saw storks nesting on the tops of telegraph poles and once one was feeding in a field. The fields are huge. It’s not for nothing that Ukraine is dubbed “the bread basket of Europe” and tractors were out and about. However, I saw horses pulling carts and twice pulling ploughs.
On Saturday, when we were exploring our area of observation, I didn’t notice a small boy outside his roadside home with half a dozen plastic bottles on a little table but our interpreter did and we stopped. At this time of year birch juice is a seasonal speciality and she treated me to a litre. It tasted of flavoured water – slightly sweet – and I wonder if a shot of vodka wouldn’t improve it? Nevertheless a new experience.
On Monday night a crowd of us went to a Ukrainian restaurant in Ternopil. It was as much a museum of agricultural and kitchen implements as a restaurant. I recognised a machine for mincing meat that clamps onto a table from my childhood. As a free starter rye bread arrived with cloves of garlic, salo, and a spicy condiment. Salo is a close relation to dripping and just looking at it clogs up the arteries. It was scrummy accompanied by a generous shot of a spirit served in this part of the world, the name of which now escapes me.