Eating in the Sinai desert

What's your favorite and most memorable meal? Some fancy restaurant in Paris, London, Rome? Mine was this meal eaten at the house of my Bedouin guide after we came down from Mt Sinai. We started the climb at 2 am and came down at around 8am. My Egyptian taxi driver suggested that we eat at the guide's house, his father did the cooking. Of course I paid for the meal. He went to the chicken coop to get the eggs for scrambling. I've never seen such yellow eggs before. We had local honey, some beans, olives, chips and pita bread. We ate with our fingers while sitting on the dirt floor. It was the most amazing meal eaten at the most amazing place, at the base of Mt Sinai in the Sinai desert. I don't know that I'll have another experience that could beat this. I wouldn't soon forget this. I still think of it with fondness.

Sinai desert, Egypt 2014

In February I was in Israel. While there I took a side trip south to the Sinai desert. I crossed the border at Taba, stepped into Egypt, all alone and decided to take the bus to Dahab, take another bus into St Catherine, climb Mt Sinai and visit St Catherine monastery. Quite a feat, I was so naive but serendipity stepped in. An Egyptian taxi driver approached me, said for a fee(a big one) he'll take me to St Catherine, arrange for me to sleep a few hours at a camp site, have a guide take me up Mt Sinai at 2am, take me down and wait till I visited St Monastery monastery and finally take me back to Taba crossing where I'll return to Israel. I accepted his offer and on the way we stopped to visit some friends of his, some Bedouins living by the highway. Here over a few cups of tea I sat with all these Bedouins and visited with them. We were in the middle of nowhere. Looking back, I marveled at my own fearlessness. What are we afraid of? To be fearful is to stay at home and be a couch potato! I'm always looking forward to packing my bag and leaving town. Unfortunately I have to be house bound for the next months. But soon I pray I'll be back on the road again.

I forgot when and where this was

I think I remember, a little village in Turkey. We were in Selcuk visiting Ephesus and took the mini van here. We had the greatest lunch.

Charleston and the Bloomsbury group

 Here is the digital, in my sitting room working on my macbook air where I check out other people's blogs and all things digital.

My dining table has been taken over by my book project. Its become a form of therapy. Here I paint and write and am trying to put together this book project. The past two weeks has been a hive of activity. My work schedule changed which allowed me time in the morning to work on this. Hopefully in the next two weeks I would have finished.

Charleston and the Bloomsbury group

I painted and wrote this before I even went to visit Charleston. I thought it would be a great idea to expand this into a book. So while at Charleston I took notes, I sketched. I came home with some material. I ordered books from Amazon and even yesterday a ton of books arrived, a set of Leonard Woolf's autobiography. I looked at the art of the Bloomsbury artists and I copied. I wrote and wrote and there is still a bit more reading to do and I should be ready to put everything together..... a book on Charleston and the Bloomsbury group, written and illustrated by me!

Charleston farmhouse

The last resident of Charleston farmhouse was Duncan Grant who lived there till 1978. By that time the house has fallen into despair. It wasn't in a great state when he and Vanessa Bell moved in with her children in 1914, around the time of WWI. It had no running water, water has to brought in from a stream outside which freezes in winter. There was no indoor plumbing, there were earth closets. I had to look up what earth closets were, a kind of outhouse with a bucket which needed to be emptied! No electricity which came in later years. There were no telephones, they had to write to each other or walked to each others houses. Due to their having to write to each other they left behind a huge body of work, written communication which we have today that gave us an insight to their lives and thoughts. They spent the war years holed up here in the country. Vanessa Bell had become such a country homebody that everyone worried that she may never thrive in the city again. Go back to London she did after the war to find it changed, the Bloomsbury she knew before the war was gone but they continued to play an important part in each others' lives till their dying days. In fact more so because the opportunities were different, Virginia, Vanessa's sister became a celebrated writer, the others went on to write and to paint.....

Charleston farmhouse

Leonard Woolf, the husband of Virginia Woolf stumbled upon Charleston which was near to where he and Virginia were living.It was the time of World War I,Vanessa Bell, her children and two other friends, Duncan Grant and David Garnett were living at a place called Wissett. Viriginia wrote to Vanessa 'I wish you'd leave Wissett and take Charleston. It is lovely, large rooms, a garden, rather wild now but you could make it lovely.' Duncan Grant and David Garnett were conscientious objectors to the war and had to find work which the war department deemed patriotic. They were picking raspberries at Wissett and this wasn't considered patriotic. Otherwise they would be conscripted. So Vanessa rented Charleston so the the two men could work at the farm nearby. That was how they came upon to be at Charleston where Vanessa lived for the rest of her life. So did Duncan, her gay lover. They were both buried at a cemetery nearby, next to each other. Charleston, when they moved in, doesn't look anything like the Charleston today.......

The Bloomsbury group

Most Thursday evenings, the Cambridge friends of Thoby Stephens would wander into their new place at 46 Gordon Square in the Bloomsbury district of London. It was cheap to entertain then since everyone would have had dinner already. The four Stephens' children would have much money. They would talk most of the evenings, drinking cocoa and eating buns. Then after a holiday to Greece, Thoby Stephen contracted Typhoid and died from it. Vanessa Stephen decided to marry one of his friends and one of the members of the Bloomsbury group, Clive Bell. She became Vanessa Bell. Clive's family had money and they had 2 children together, there was a third child but the child's paternity was different. The marriage became in name only after a few years though the two remained friends and were in each others' lives till the end. The twists and turns of the stories of the Bloomsbury group is fascinating. Tune in for the next installment....

The two Miss Stephens

Here I am writing under an apple tree in the grounds of Charleston farmhouse, the house lived in by Vanessa Bell, the sister of Virginia Woolf. Before they were Vanessa Bell or Virginia Woolf, they were Vanessa Stephen and Virginia Stephen, their father being Leslie Stephen, quite a literary giant in his day. They had two brothers and some step siblings because both their mother and father were married before and had kids from their previous marriages. Their two brothers were sent to boarding school but the two Miss Stephens were home schooled by their parents. From an early age they have already decided for themselves that Vanessa would paint and Virginia would write. So in the nursery Vanessa would spend hours standing to paint at her easel. Vanessa, being younger and not to be outdone by her older sister would stand and write for hours. Virginia would not be a celebrated author until a very later age. She spent time being nursed for a mental illness, some conjectured by the description, she was bipolar. While their parents were alive they lived in 22 Hyde Park gate, in a tall and narrow house, with dark rooms, dark furnishings and paintings. Both parents died in that house including a step sister. So the house was associated with death and gloom. Soon after they moved to the Bloomsbury area of London and here they were joined by their two biological brothers and the brothers' friends from Cambridge. They met regularly and became known as the 'Bloomsbury group'.

The grounds at Charleston

Charleston is the masterpiece of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, wrote one person. The source material for Bloomsbury and Charleston is so immense. If they'd only know (Vanessa and Duncan) what they mean to us faithful followers of their lives, they'd be amazed. Even the Charleston Trust, set up to oversee and fund the restoration and upkeep of Charleston could not imagine its popularity today. They expected a few visitors to drop by but hordes of people do make the trip to Charleston, some every year and others a few times a year.

Charleston and the Bloomsbury group

 I was here in May. How can ever forget this visit? A humble farmhouse in Sussex, England, the only one left with the memories of having been lived in by the Bloomsbury group. Who were they? They were a group of people, artists and writers, who lived in various homes in the Bloomsbury district of London while at the same time had various country homes. Charleston was one of them. The artists, Vanessa Bell (sister of author Virginia Woolf) and her gay partner, Duncan Grant lived and painted. The house still retained traces of their work. It was restored by the Charleston trust and now is opened to the public.

 A painting of the Bloomsbury group. They met in various homes, talked, partied and worked, married each other, traveled together and their friendship lasted to the end of their individual lives. It is so remarkable and inspiring.

While photography are not allowed inside the house, I was able to scan some pictures of the interiors from various books.

Old Jaffa

A few miles south of Tel Aviv, a predominantly Arab neighborhood. Everyone wants peace.

English churches

I love English churches, they always have an old cemetery next to them. This one, notwithstanding. I went in to pray and am waiting for my prayers to be answered.

Clematis

I love clematis but we don't see any here in Southern California. So I did go goo goo gaga over this clematis climbing on the house wall.

Ice cream

There's always time for ice cream even on a time packed coach tour and even when it is raining. I never pass up clotted cream ice cream when I'm in England. So good.

French therapy

Work is hellish at the moment. I need to go to France, I need to go to Paris. I need some Paris therapy. I need to eat some fromage blanc.

Gateau Basque

I think I'm going to make this for my next get together. This was in Bayonne, France a few years ago.

Lunch in Burford

 Lunch and a nice cold pear cider.....mmmmmm that's the life!

 We're a group from all over the world, they were all very enjoyable company.

 Steak and kidney pudding, chips and fresh peas. It was very nice pub food.

And some kind of pudding for dessert. What a treat!

Day dreaming

On this hot day, I'm dreaming of being in San Sebastian, Spain, partying and drinking sangria.

Ancient ruins and wild flowers

Ani, the ruined Byzantine city in Western Turkey, in the city of Kars, near the border with Armenia, who could forget. Its a magical forgotten place, desolate and yet majestic, a really must see place.