Spain – ARKS, ADAM AND AXARQUIA

“SPAIN ‘URTS”

February 14, 2023February 14, 2023 by adamhalevi, posted in Adam and Dido, Almonds, Andalusia, Andalusian wines, Axarquia, Campo and Campesinos, farming, Finca, Finca Carmel, Malaga Wine, Moscatel (Muscat) Grape, Mountain Sac, Olives, Phoenicians, Southern Spain, Spain

BLOOD, SWEAT AND TOIL IN THE AXARQUIA*

Having just returned from another fortnight stint working our finca in the Axarquian mountains, sporting our latest collection of cuts, bruises and aching muscles, I was reminded of the wise words that head this post, uttered by the late lamented Fred, an early, fellow British, expatriate neighbour.

A neighbour proudly showing off the succulent fruits of his labours…Moscatel grape has been grown in the area since the time of the Phoenician settlers, and used for both raisins and sweet, strong wine. The grape constitutes the main ingredient of Malaga wine (which predates Sherry by many centuries), and was hugely popular across the Europe of the Elizabethan age.

Fred, a taciturn Yorkshireman, when he did offer his rare nuggets of wisdom, had an uncanny way of getting right to the heart of the matter under discussion, and never were his few words wiser or truer than when he coined the now famous phrase (famous in our neighbourhood at least!), “Spain ‘urts”.

What many tourists and visitors to the region might not appreciate, in awe as they are of the stunning landscape of Andalucía, is that the agricultural land itself is mostly rocky, jagged, prickly and generally unforgiving for those who have to work it. Moreover, while the soil is often fertile, it is a fecundity requiring arduous effort to extract, and if Andalucía in general, is hard country to farm, then the mountainous slopes of the Axarquia often verge on the impossible.

*A man trudges back to his finca with a snack for his mule…There were few metalled roads in 1993, and most campesinos used mules and donkeys, for both transportation and ploughing their land.*

This is why most of the agriculture of the region was for centuries, the exclusive domain of those both sufficiently hardy, and expediently motivated – or, in other words, the local peasant citizenry of the dozens of pueblos blancos (white villages) which dot the countryside like so many bleached apiaries. And like bees, these small, tough, resourceful workers would leave their village hives for the summer months and move into their finca homes, to tend their vines, pick their crops of grapes and nuts, dry their raisins, and finally, before returning to their pueblos, make their strong, sweet, fortifying mountain sacs.

A goatherd takes a rest…Goats and sheep, and their keepers were a mixed blessing in the campo; while providing good cheese and excellent meat they could be incredibly destructive if not guarded carefully, forcing many of us to reluctantly fence off our land.

Finca’s (privately owned small farms, or small-holdings) are dotted across the countryside in a seemingly random and chaotic, ill-fitting jigsaw of orchards and vineyards, that reflects the interminable division of parcels down the generations, from fathers to sons and mothers to daughters. In 1991, when we (and Fred) moved to the area, fincas were still a major source self-employment and income for much of the Spanish agrarian working class, and being a “bueno campesino” (a good peasant farmer) earned one a measure of respect within the tight-knit pueblo communities.

But as Fred implied, this might have been an honourable life, but it was also painful and unforgiving. Hence, and quite understandably, as Spain softened and modernised, the attraction of the “campo life” dramatically decreased for the children of the pueblos whose gaze strayed hungrily to the newly flourishing cities and towns, with their universities, and their opportunities of well-paid work and rewarding careers.

*Our neighbour “Curro” – not only a fine and proud campesino, but also a skilled ploughman.*

This changing demographic is nowhere more starkly illustrated than in our own locality, where the vineyards, raisin-drying beds and almond groves are steadily disappearing, and the old finca cottages are either left to crumble back into the landscape from which they emerged, or are converted into tourist b&bs. Dido and I, together with an aging and dwindling generation of mostly 60-somethings are rapidly manifesting as living relics, as we continue to brave the constant cuts and bruises, the back-breaking tending of vines and trees, wasp stings, and extremes of weather (hot and cold, dry and wet).

What happens when we are all gone is already being mapped out, as the valleys, and easier lower slopes, are all being transformed into fashionable, low maintenance and lucrative plantations of avocado and mango. (The fact that these new “super crops” require hugely greater volumes of water to flourish than the traditional crops and that they are a disaster waiting to happen, is whole other story…)

My drawings of campesinos displayed here were done during our first summer at our new home, in 1993, and are a reminder of how things used to be, when Spain (at least our part of Spain) really ‘urt…

“Old Juan” – another neighbour, and typically long-lived. It’s interesting to note that our local village is full of noctogarians like Juan, who swear by their daily shot of brandy or anis at breakfast, and a glass or three of their own wine in the evening. Other factors, such as their active lifestyles and diets must also be taken into account. In common with all Iberians, our locals are fanatics for fresh fish, with inexpensive anchovies and squid (brought up daily to the villages by mobile fish mongers) being central to their daily diets. This, in conjunction with the fact that meat consumption was often confined to what people grew themselves – the family pig, rabbits and chickens, always accompanied by mountains of their homegrown vegetables and legumes which must also contribute to their general longevity.

Header photo is a panoramic view of the campo as viewed from our finca – looking south-east – in 1993.

DOG DAYS – revisited…

July 6, 2022July 6, 2022 by adamhalevi, posted in Adam and Dido, Aura, comic art, Comic strip art, Humour, Maremma Sheepdogs, Spain, travel, Travelling with dogs

Sometime around the mid 90’s of the last century, for some reason I can’t remember now I decided to make a series of 6-box comic strips describing amusing experiences that had had happened to us – “us” being my wife Dido, our Maremma Sheepdog Aura, and yours truly – on our travels. Thus, while all of them are based upon actual events, some are more close to actuality than others.

1: Aura’s Big Sniff

I’m starting this series off with one of the less exaggerated episodes. In fact this is true in every detail, except that it happened in London, in The Alexander Fleming Pub in Paddington and not in the famous old wine bar in Malaga (La Antigua Casa de Guardia) in which the drawings are set. In addition, the barman at the pub was so amused by what happened that he gave Aura a Cumberland sausage as a thank you for making his day!

Again, do please click on the images to follow the comics in all their glory…

2: Phoning From Bar Angel

As with the previous episode, this too actually happened as described, but at the location depicted. Bar Angel was one of a handful of bars and restaurants located in our local mountain peublo blanco (white village), and in the days before mobile phones had taken on here in Andalusia, provided one of the few pay-phones in the area…

3: A Dog in the Room

This is the first in the series where I stretched the truth somewhat, insomuch as the last box is a slight exaggeration – in reality, Dido merely manhandled the hotel manager out of the room. This happened on our drive down through Spain on the journey when we actually moved here – in the early summer of 1993. The most amazing element of the episode was how passive Aura remained throughout the contretemps – which was fortunate for all concerned!

4: Michelin Maremma

This episode also occurred during our 1993 move trip down to Spain in a 2 Michelin Star establishment in the French Pyrenees. There are just two “slight” exaggerations in this strip: Firstly; we didn’t really exchange places with Aura – as much as we wanted to, and secondly; all the chef actually gave to Aura was merely a plate of duck carpaccio followed by sautéed calves liver in butter. There’s also one priceless thing which I failed to get across in this strip, and that was the horrified expressions of the mostly-American patrons at the neighbouring tables!

And a PS: Aura really did often eat reclining, true to her ancient Roman heritage…

5: Short-Back-and-Boobs!

This is almost totally true except for the fact that the lady cutting my hair had two girlfriends in the salon with her, and for much of the time my head was compressed by three sets of boobs rather than just merely one as they passed the time of day over my poor noggin!

The “salon” was situated in our local pueblo blanco, where, back in the 90’s “men were men” and never entered – let alone got their hair cut in such a “feminine” establishment. Thus, the hairdresser’s surprise and thrill at getting her hands on a head like mine was extreme.

Fortunately, Dido took pity on me and immediately raced me down to our local town on the coast for a remedial styling…

6: Swatting the Fly…

This one speaks for itself…needless to say, we avoided further visits to this couple.

7: Dido’s Strong Swim…

The parable contained here is obvious; that a love of long distance, wild-water swimming and extreme myopia are a dangerous combination.

Those of you who know my wife Dido will be aware that this combination exists strongly within her person and the strip below tells the tale of what once nearly happened because of it. Just a couple of things to point out; firstly, the actual swim happened at La Serena on the Pacific coast of Chile, and not on a cold winter’s day in the UK – my point at the time (I made these comics in 1994) was to highlight Dido’s love of freezing conditions. She was one of those strange people who used to break the ice of the Serpentine Lake in London’s Hyde Park on New Year’s Day, and once, she even managed to shock a load of hardy Swedes by going for an inter-Island swim near Stockholm, in mid-winter. And secondly (and also obviously), she didn’t actually crash into the oil tanker (let alone sink it), but merely swam far too close to it, causing a crew-member to warn her away using a megaphone.

Aura and I spent many a terrifying hour, just as depicted in the strip, staring out to sea, waiting for Dido to return, which thank goodness, she always did, eventually, though often landing up a mile or so up the coast because of currents and her appalling eyesight.

These days, with the mellowing of age, and out of compassion for me, she only swims “laterally” so that I can keep an eye on her at all times…

8: The Last Almond

I’ve saved the most prosaic of my 1994 “Dog Days” comic strips for last. Prosaic in the sense that this is an experience, that to one degree or another almost everyone viewing this site will have gone through themselves – that infuriating feeling of the last, biggest, juiciest fruit being just out of reach. Perhaps, the only difference with almond trees though, from say apple, cherry or even blackberry picking, is that one does not customarily shake and whack the bejesus out of the host plant to acquire every last fruit. Professional farmers even have specially designed, automated tree-shaking machines for doing the job.

However, down here at least in the Axarquia region of Andalusia, almond trees are not irrigated during the drought season, and while this ensures the almonds have a richer more intense flavour, it also makes the trees highly resinous, thus causing many of the nuts to cling stubbornly to the branches.

Basically, the work is hot, sticky, scratchy, itchy, back-breaking and in the past, financially unrewarding. So, about six years after I made this comic we replaced our main almond orchard with a vineyard, the planting of which was also back-breaking, but with the promise of greater fulfillment – through the act of wine-making – and a hugely greater income. But, as our luck would have it, the market for traditional Malaga wines collapsed about the time I planted our last vine, with the almond price (due to the fruit’s recent elevation to “super-food” status) rising exponentially in the last ten years.

Still, at least we have enough Malaga wine for six lifetimes…

A “ROSIA” FUTURE FOR GIBRALTAR – and a rock-solid present…

May 15, 2021May 16, 2021 by adamhalevi, posted in Algeciras, Andalusia, Camp Bay, Gebel Musa (Morocco), Gibraltar, La Linea de la Concepcion, Morocco, Rosea Bay, Spain, The Rock of Gibraltar, The Straights of Gibraltar, travel

Following on from my earlier post on our initial return to Gibraltar after a gap of over twenty years, we have managed to visit several more times, and on each occasion, we have become increasingly impressed with life on the Rock. There’s no doubting that the drab and dreary Gibraltar of last century has been consigned firmly to the past and that a new, confident and energetic modern little city is rising in its place. Moreover, the once-faded and shabby old town centre has been sensitively spruced up and now stands above its modern surrounds like a proud grandparent watching over its thriving progeny.

“Unique” has become a much overused and abused term, but in the case of today’s Gibraltar it really is just about the only adjective that does the place justice. From its airport runway pedestrian crossing (sadly, to be lost very shortly to a new tunnel) to Rosia Bay, where one swims alongside giant container ships, not to mention it being Europe’s only truly harmonious “multiculture”, Gibraltar is a total one-off.

The iPhone snaps below hopefully transmit some of that uniqueness, and a sense of its intoxicating optimism…

*Looking south from Rosia Bay, across the Straights toward Jebel Musa (the “other” Pillar of Hercules) and the Moroccan Coast*. *An anglers and swimmers idle, a mere fifteen-minute walk from the old town…*

Looking north-west from Rosia Bay toward the southern Cadiz province coast. My intrepid wife Dido can just be made out taking a choppy swim to the right of the photo. The waters here, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic, are very cold this early in the year, and the only other person in the water was a retired Royal Navy diver, and he was in a wet suit – the wimp!

*A decaying old mooring jetty between Rosia and Camp Bays, one of the few remaining monuments to the “old Gibraltar”…*

*Concrete picnic tables at Camp Bay, looking remarkably like an Anthony Gormley sculpture (only better, for being accidental), with the busy Straights in the background…*

*For those craving authentic Spanish beach cuisine, but too lazy to traipse across the border into neighbouring La Linea*, Gibraltar is now blessed with a handful of genuine frieduras and chiringuitos, such as Cabana on Camp Bay. The only difference from La Linea, is that here your waitress or waiter is as likely to have a Scouse accent as an Andalusian lilt, but never fear! The fried boquerones (whitebait) and the grilled calamares are every bit as delicious as along the coast…

Meanwhile, just a short stroll away in the old town, one is suddenly in a different world, that feels something like a cross between Hampstead (in London) and Valetta, with a touch of Toulouse, depending upon the light, the weather and the time of day. *The one place it doesn’t feel anything like, despite being filled with Spanish workers and tourists, is southern Spain!*

*The old centre of Gibraltar has been blessed with fine* English buildings since the Georgian period, but again, it’s only in the past two decades or so that both its government and its people have restored these architectural gems to their former glory. This house is an excellent example of what I mean, and with it’s Decimus Burton-style balconies and iron work, it has a fabulously classy colonial look…

And I could not end this piece without a couple of views of Gibraltar’s most famous feature. This one, taken early on a chilly late Spring morning, with a high sea mist clinging on to the Rock like grasping fingers…

*And finally of course*, *a slightly unusual shot (from Western Beach) of what is arguably the most famous sphynx-like profile in the world (except of course for that of the Sphynx itself).*

COME FLY WITH ME?

April 29, 2021April 29, 2021 by adamhalevi, posted in Air Travel, Ben Gurion Airport, Chile, Coquimbo, Israel, Italy, Kinneret, Lake Garda, Lod Airport, Oil on Canvas, Oil Painting, Sea of Galilee, Seville, Seville Alcazar, Spain, Tel Aviv, Tongoy, travel

in my dreams at least

With all due apologies to Greta Thunberg and her righteous minions, the thing I’m missing most during these dystopian times is travel – in particular, travel by air. I find myself staring up at the eerily silent skies above our Spanish home, longing for the return of vapour trails scratched out by distant aeroplanes, like small gleaming arrowheads, hurtling toward myriad destinations. Raised in the 1960’s and 70’s, I am an unreformed creature of my era and my conditioning, brought up to regard jet travel as the ultimate expression of independence and the gateway to adventure. And deprived of it now I feel caged in and frustrated, to the point where I find myself craving the most mundane of things, like the regular noise of the jet engines approaching and leaving our nearby airport, and even the smell of aviation fuel at the airport itself.

One of my most vivid childhood memories, is from my second ever flight in July of 1967 to Tel Aviv, on arriving at Lod Airport (as it was then – since renamed Ben Gurion) late at night. There were no airbridges in those days at Lod, and I can never forget, as we walked down the stairs, onto the floodlit apron, being instantly engulfed in a blanket of humid, oven-hot air, laced with the scent of kerosene. These intense sensations – startlingly alien to a little boy from north London suburbia – had a deeply intoxicating effect that lives with me to this day.

However, attitudes and perceptions have greatly altered in recent years, and what I still look back on as a happy memory that shaped my future, would, in these apparently more enlightened times, be considered by some as a scarring and damaging episode, which condemned me to life as an environmental criminal.

Nevertheless, during the 80’s and 90’s, when my painting career was in full swing, flying opened up an almost infinite canvas for my colour-hungry brushes, as expressed below in eight examples from those exuberant and innocent times. And so I would hope, even the most virtuous of those reading this piece, would at least own that some good came out of what they might otherwise regard as merely evidence of my multiple re-offending…

***ACHZIV*** – 1982 – oil on canvas: Of all the dozens of beach paintings in Israel I made, this one, most successfully, captures the feel of the water and the intensity of the light and harshness of the colours, epitomised by the silhouetted figures against the sea.

**BATHERS AT KINNERET** – 1982 – oil on canvas: As mentioned before on these pages, the Sea of Galilee has proved a fertile source of inspiration for my art, over many years. This typical Shabbat scene, of three generations is hugely evocative for me. I’m particularly pleased with the way I captured the large bulk of the grandmother, deftly negotiating the stones, while carrying her grandchild with almost nonchalant aplomb.

**HOTELS, SAND, SEA AND SKY** (Tel Aviv) – 1992 – oil (impasto) on canvas: Tel Aviv is an addiction for me. I crave to be there when away, and yet the place drives me half-nuts when I’m there; partly through sensory overload and partly through it’s 24/7 urban intensity – like New York City, on steroids. It’s of no surprise to those familiar with Israel’s second city, that National Geographic regularly lists it in its top 10 “beach cities” of the world. This is the closest I ever got to revealing its brutal-yet-beautiful physicality in paint. One can almost feel the hot summer breeze, and taste of salt in the turbulent air – and as for the light…

**OUTSIDE THE ALCAZAR** (Seville) – 1985 – oil on canvas: “I fell in love with Seville” is one of those traveller’s clichés, like “I love Paris” (which I do not), or “I love Rio” (which I need to visit again to be certain). But in my case, this is the truth, partly, perhaps because I also experienced romantic love in Seville; twice. Generally, I’m not one for painting anything through rose tinted spectacles, but in the case of Seville, it’s virtually impossible not to. Perhaps that’s why I’ve sold every single painting I ever made of the place. People just love a bit of rose, and bit of ochre, and touch of sienna, and certainly a great deal of violet…

**JOLANDA AT GARDA** – 1983 – oil on canvas: If anywhere in the world can compete with Seville for romance, then the Italian lakes is that place. But, whereas the feel of Seville is defined by strong colours, bright light and deep shade, the Italian lakes are bathed in subtle, seasonally shifting tonalities. If Seville is all about the passion, than Lake Garda, seen here in mid-winter, is all mellow contemplation. Love takes many forms, after all.

**DIDO AT COQUIMBO** (Chile) – 1992 – oil on canvas: Sadly, this photo is slightly out of focus, but the painting remains the one I was most pleased with from our time in Chile. The region of Coquimbo (in common with much of the southern Atacama Desert) had just experienced its heaviest rains for over 40 years, resulting in the greatest cactus flowering most Chileans had ever witnessed. I’ve rarely felt more privileged as a traveller, before or since, and together with the Sinai Corral Reef remains the most wonderous display of nature I have ever seen.

***DIDO AND LYNNE AT TONGOY*** –*1992 – oil on canvas: B*ack in 1991, when we were there, Tongoy was somewhere between a sleepy fishing village, and an even sleepier seaside resort. It felt a bit like entering a scene from a Steinbeck novel, and I half expected to see the skeleton of a giant marlin lying on the pearly white sands. It was off season, and we (and the fishermen too of course) had the place to ourselves. A precious and serene memory.

NO SAD HILL, SADLY

September 14, 2019August 25, 2022 by adamhalevi, posted in Enrico Moricone, Iconic Movie Scenes, Santo Domingo de Silos, Sergio Leone, Spaghetti Westerns, Spain, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, travel, Uncategorized

WHAT WE DID NoT SEE AT SANTO DOMINGO DE SILOS

Normally, my travel themed posts concentrate on things we’ve done and seen. However, while I was preparing this short piece on our two stays in Santo Domingo de Silos I discovered that what is arguably its most interesting feature – and certainly its most famous tourist attraction – is something I never knew was there!

Briefly, Santo Domingo de Silos is a small town (more of a large village in actual fact) near the ancient royal city of Burgos in the north of Spain. Until 1968 it was most-known for its ancient Benedictine monastery (which closed its doors in 1835) and for possibly being within the estates of one Rodrigo de Vivar – otherwise known as Charlton Heston…I mean El Cid!

All this changed however in 1968 when the local cemetery, known as Sad Hill (Cementerio de Sad Hill in Spanish, apparently?) was used as the location for the final scene of the movie, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. The combination of Sergio Leone’s super-terse direction; Enrico Morricone’s slow-build-tension music; the three actors involved (Eastwood, Wallach and Van Cleef); and the surreal cemetery itself created one of the most memorable – not to mention imitated and parodied scenes in the history of cinema.

Until this morning, I had always assumed that the scene was filmed somewhere in the Almeria region, like the vast majority of Leone’s “Spaghetti Western” location shots. I’d also assumed, given its unusual configuration, that the cemetery was an outdoor set created for the film. Never did it occur to me that it was an actual place, and one that I’d been a mere five minute walk from on two occasions.

Unfortunately, my past obliviousness means that the pictures illustrating this post, of the picturesque town and its other environs, do not include any of Sad Hill Cemetery. Fortunately though, we plan to pass through the area again in the near future, and although our main reason for doing so had been to sample the delicious local roast lamb, we now have Sad Hill firmly on the agenda.

POINTS AND VIEWS

May 31, 2017June 1, 2017 by adamhalevi, posted in Adam and Dido, Atacama Desert, Biblical Landscapes, Blue Mountains, Cardona, Catalonia, Chile, County Kerry, Coursegoules, Dingle, Ein Kerem, France, Israel, Jerusalem, Les Deux Alpes, Mount Gilboa, Mount Herman, Negev Desert, New South Wales, Paradors, Pinochet, Point Sublime, Pre-Inca Civilization, Pukara de Quitor, Ryan's Daughter, San Pedro de Atacama, Santiago, Slea Head, Spain, travel, Uncategorized, Volcan Lincancabur

Standing a loved one or a friend, or even an animal before a fabulous vista is a cultural staple of the holiday snapper. For me, apart from the “I/we was/were there” element, the juxtaposing of a human and or animal before vastness simultaneously humanises and accentuates the majesty of the given panorama. Painters have been doing the same thing since the days of the great Dutch and British landscape painters of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, from Van Ruisdael to Caspar David Friedrich.

Presented here are sadly no Friedrich’s, but this set of enhanced-photos from all my years of travel do nevertheless express something of that dramatic relationship between “us” and the landscapes we move within…

Fellow Worker at Yiftach - Israel — *In 1978 I was a volunteer for the summer on Kibbutz Yiftach on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. This is the view from the north east corner of the kibbutz towards Mount Herman…*

This dates back to the late 70’s when my old mate Simon and I drove around Cork and Kerry in his old orange Datsun. This is Simon peering over the edge at Slea Head near Dingle on the Kerry coast (famous for being the location for the movie Ryan’s Daughter)…

Taken around 1981, this is the summit of Mount Gilboa. The field of boulders could seem to bear witness to the power of David’s curse in his great lament for the fallen Saul and Jonathan that nothing should ever grow upon the mountain’s slopes again…

Friend above Ein-Kerem - Jerusalem — In 1980 I spent the summer with a friend in west Jerusalem. Every day for about a fortnight we walked into the forest above Ein Kerem to draw and paint. the scent of pine needles roasting on the ancient terraced slopes was intoxicating…

Les 2 Alps Bench — One my first trips abroad with my then-girlfriend Dido was a skiing trip to Les Deux Alpes. The skiing wasn’t up to all that much but the walk into the neighbouring valley was some compensation…

Dido by San Pedro River (Chile) — Walking back to San Pedro de Atacama after visiting the pre-Inca ruins of Pukara de Quitor – the mighty Volcan Lincancabur stands proud in the distance…

Friend Marvelling at the Atacama in Bloom (Chile) — Later during the same 1991 trip we were privileged to witness the first serious rains over the the southern Atacama desert in 40 years. The subsequent desert blooming was regarded by some Chileans as nature celebrating the beginning of the post-Pinochet era…

Dido and Friend on Road to Santiago (Chile).jpg — Santiago’s de Chile’s curse and glory are the walls of mountains which surround it; a pollution trap on the one hand and on the other – as can be seen from this picture taken on the road back from Valparaiso – beautiful on the eye…

Coursegoule - South of France — Coursegoules in southern France…

Dido at Point Sublime - Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia — We started travelling to Australia regularly from 2007 thanks to Dido’s work. Here she is at the aptly named “Point Sublime” at the edge of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales…

Dido at Cardona (Catalonia) — And here’s Dido at the castle of Cardona (now a delightful parador) in the Catalan countryside…

Dido Approaching the Small Crator — And, from some 30 years after my stay on Kibbutz Yiftach, a set of images from Israel taken in the early 2010’s. Here’s Dido again approaching the edge of one of the Negev craters…

Dido at the Great Crater - Negev — And sitting at the edge of that crater…

Timna - Negev Desert — The Wilderness of Zin…

Golan - Above the Yabock Valley — And finally, from the “biblical south” to the “biblical north” – Hereford cattle notwithstanding – looking down from the Golan Heights (biblical Bashan) towards the valley of the River Jabock, of Jacob and Esau fame.

WANDERINGS AND WONDERING OF YOUTH

November 30, 2016September 2, 2022 by adamhalevi, posted in Adam Green, Art, Australia, cazuela de pollo, Chile, George Benson, Israel, Kerala, Max Factor, Melbourne, New York City, Quneitra, Sea of Galilee, Seville, Six Day War, Southern India, Spain, St Martins, Tamil Nadu, Tapas, Uncategorized, Wanderers

Regular readers of these pages will know that travel comprises a significant part of my life, even to the point that I once had homes concurrently in three different countries.

But, when I look back now, of all the hundreds of journeys, vacations and adventures since my first flight – aged three – to Zurich from London on a Swiss Air Caravelle (I remember that we sat facing each other with a little table between us, as on a train) – there are eight trips of which every detail remains etched into my memory.

All of these trips were specifically formative in that they either changed my life in a literal sense, or my perceptions of life in some fundamental way. Followers of this blog might already be aware of some of these episodes.

Firstly there was the trip to Israel in 1967 just weeks after the Six-Day War which blew both my 7-year old mind and my 1960’s, suburban British olfactory senses. I vividly remember being on the Golan Heights, walking along the safe paths marked out by Israeli mine disposal teams, into Quneitra and dozens of Syrian military documents blowing on the dusty hot winds like confetti. And equally, I recall the first time I tasted real humus and roasted eggplant and being almost emotionally overcome with the sheer pleasure of it;

Then there was a gastronomic drive along the length of France in 1970 which turned me into one of the England’s most precocious connoisseurs of food and wine;

A year later, I was treated to my first visit to Spain where I discovered the hitherto (to a typical Jewish lad like me) forbidden twin joys of fried bacon and fresh shellfish in addition to poolside cocktails and luxury hotels. The fact this was all part of a photographic shoot for Max Factor and that I spent the entire time in the company of two of the UK’s top fashion models was the icing on the cake for a sexually curious eleven-year-old;

Fourteen years after it was Andalusia again, but this time a romantic five days in Seville, in the company of a beautiful law student, where I discovered the exotic joys of tapas washed down with ice-cold fino and late-night flamenco.

About a decade later in 1991 saw my first flight across the Pond, where the sublime “New World” strangeness of newly-democratic Chile bludgeoned me back into painting landscapes and left me a life-long lover of cazuela de pollo;

Then, twelve years after that in 2003, there was our visit to southern India where I was held enthral to the equally glorious and wonderful strangeness of ancient Tamil Nadu and Kerala and where I discovered that a mostly vegetarian diet could almost be fun (not to mention hugely fattening);

In 2007, I made my first trip to Australia, which, especially in magnificent Melbourne turned out to be quite simply the most enjoyable and mentally invigorating shattering of dearly-held pre-conceptions I have ever experienced;

And finally, just this January, when the cliché “better (incredibly) late than never” took on a whole new profundity for me after my first visit to New York City left me and all my senses dazed, awestruck and ecstatic in equal measure.

However, when I ask myself what was the trip that played the biggest and most enduring role in shaping the adult I eventually became, it would have to be another of the trips I made to Israel; this time in in 1978, during the summer break of my first year at Saint Martin’s School of Art.

The pictures below are all that remain of my “Wanderers Period” and represent the most eloquent way I can describe the feeling and atmosphere of those six weeks; the highlight of which was when four of us – two guys and two girls – walked the entire circumference of the Sea of Galilee in two days. We slept on the pebble beaches, and lived on falafel and bags of crisps washed down with cheap wine, accompanied by the dulcet tones of Weekend in LA on our cassette player. Without going into details, it became my coming-of-age drama in every sense, emotional, intellectual, spiritual and of course, sensual. It was my “Summer of 42”, except it was 78. It was when I truly fell in love with life and this Earth (and the incomparable virtuosity of George Benson).

Most unfortunately, the large canvases that emerged from these sketches and scrawls I painted over the following year after my art school tutors deemed them “unsubtle, hopelessly romantic and naïve” – they were a bunch of passionless idiots, but that’s another story. Nevertheless, I think these pictures, for all their rawness, convey the power of an 18-year old’s emotions, lusts, yearnings and wondering (and one or two aren’t bad drawings either)…

…

DOG DAYS 6 – “THE FLY”

July 7, 2015 by adamhalevi, posted in Adam and Dido, cartoon strip, Spain

This one speaks for itself…needless to say, we avoided further visits to this couple.

DOG DAYS 5 – “SHORT-BACK-AND-BOOBS”

July 2, 2015 by adamhalevi, posted in Andalusia, comic art, Haircuts, Humour, Spain, travel

This is almost totally true except for the fact that the lady cutting my hair had two girlfriends in the salon with her and for much of the time my head was compressed by three sets of boobs rather than just merely one as they passed the time of day over my poor noggin!

Fortunately, Dido took pity on me and immediately raced me down to our local town on the coast for a remedial styling…