Cool Britannia

Dec/Jan 2025

Jack and I have been sharing the lounge room.

He graciously took the floor again last night.

Jack

I mean, I would’ve taken the floor too, there’s plenty of room, but I opted for the couch, regularly fending off Tom and Rosie’s kind offers of a mattress and bedding.

I’m totally comfy in my sleeping bag here.

My view

All of these got used during our killer jam last night, as did Rosie’s clarinet, the kids' keyboard, various percussive objects normally used for culinary purposes, and a collection of melodies from voiceboxes with a vocal range of 9 to 76.

Years old, that is.

It’s been a hoot staying here with Tom and Rosie, their 2 switched-on kid-adults Imani and Sahla, and their super interesting and warm friends Hayley and Fabio. There's been an abundance of social gatherings, so I've had the chance to get to know some of their amazing other friends as well. And, even better, Tondi and Tom's mum Sue has been here too.

The gatherings have, of course, featured lashings of the most delicious and healthy lovingly-cooked foods, washed down with pretty much anything we wanted.

I feel very grateful and lucky to be here. Everyone has been so incredibly generous.

I know Tom and Rosie through my close friend Tondi in Australia. Tom is Tondi’s brother, and Rosie is Tom's partner.

Tom is the sweetest guy ever - warm, intelligent, funny, well-informed, with a huge love of music, and an openly giving and welcoming nature. And I can say all the same things about Rosie, who is also amazingly artistic and creative. Both are old, deep souls, despite their relative youth.

I was adopted into their family from the moment I stepped into their beautifully artful and musical house, and it feels so good. The thing about being here is that everyone is just so amazingly open, very honest about what's going on for them, and there's always compassionate ears around to listen to whatever it is you wanna say.

The kids have grown up in this very caring world, and are both able to easily verbalise how they feel, take responsibility for their own actions, demonstrate an abundance of compassion for anyone who needs it, and display remarkable wisdom for their age.

They're also kids, and have occasionally displayed their great ability to hate each other's guts.

In the nicest possible kiddish way of course.

They're also keen little musicians, and I've had the chance to teach them some guitar or piano or recorder pieces. It's been super fun, as they're really into it, just like me.

The fog has lifted this morning, for the first time since I arrived here in Brighton, England, on the ferry from France, a couple of days ago.

Waldrems

After my working stint at the Medieval Christmas Markets in Esslingen in Germany, I trained it to Waldrems, northeast of Stuttgart, accepting a kind offer from my ex-wife Carmen for me to stay with her at her mum’s place, and share Christmas with her family.

Fuzzy self portrait on the S-Bahn

Maubach station, waiting for Carmen to pick me up

Carmen’s mum Klara’s home, from my lounge room couch-bed.

On the first night Rami and Lena came over for dinner. Rami is from Damascus in Syria, and fled the country when the civil war broke out a few years ago. His wife Lena also has Syrian roots.

Rami and his friend Mohammed once rented Klara’s upstairs apartment, when she still lived at Carmen’s family home. She’d kindly made it available through some type of government social housing programme.

In 2014-15, close to a million refugees arrived in Germany from Syria, after they fled from their homeland because their own government, under President Bashar Al-Assad, began bombing residential areas in cities and towns, with Russian help, after widespread and peaceful protests against his brutal rule.

Rami and Mohammed were incredibly grateful to Klara for taking them in at that time, and they’ve all been friends ever since.

It was super interesting chatting to Rami and Lena about Syria. They’re so happy that the ruthless Assad regime has finally fallen, but, like pretty much everyone, are unsure as to exactly what’s gonna happen next. It’s complex. But they’re already talking about visiting in March next year, for the first time since the war broke out.

I really hope it happens for them.

I visited Syria a few years before the civil war, it was an incredibly beautiful and culturally rich country, and the people there were some of the most hospitable I've ever met. But I wonder what some of the great cities, like Aleppo and Damascus for example, are like now, after the brutal bombing campaigns.

I shudder to think.

We had a beautiful dinner with those guys, compliments of the very generous Carmen and Klara, and Lena also couldn’t stop herself from bringing dish after dish of tasty Syrian delicacies. It was all super delicious.

Spooning

The next day I slept in. I had a late breakfast. I slept again. Had some lunch. Slept. Went for a walk. Slept. Had dinner. Slept. Day over.

I was totally trashed, I guess my body was taking the opportunity to catch up, after a huge month of work. But I was actually pretty surprised at how exhausted I was.

And I was so grateful to have a warm and quiet place to hang out and do nothing. Carmen and her mum graciously looked after me, as they always do. They’re so kind and generous.

I'm glad I did manage to go for a walk in the afternoon, with Carmen and Klara. Klara’s an extremely young 87, she’s a very active woman, engaged in all sorts of local activities, including helping many seniors around her town.

I wonder what she’s gonna do when she gets old.

We visited Carmen's dad's grave.

German cemeteries are all well-kept and nice. People around get here really great service once they're dead.

Yay! Sunshine!

Damn, it's gone

Honey I shrunk the kids!

Cute little Waldrems

An Angel came and hovered outside the window for a while. They do that at Christmas sometimes.

They also impregnate virgins apparently, so watch out.

Anyway, I was full of beans again the next day, which was quite timely, as Carmen’s whole family was coming over in the early afternoon, and staying till late, for their annual Christmas gathering.

It was great to catch up with them again, as I hadn’t seen most of them for over twenty years.

Luckily not all the conversations were in German, as I still have trouble following it at speed. I was able to chat in English with some people one on one, and had really interesting conversations with Carmen’s sister’s husband Frank, whom I spent a bit of time with many years ago, with Carmen’s niece Vanessa and her mum Kathrin, with Carmen’s 14 year old other niece Lina, and later with her mum Regina, Carmen’s sister.

Unfortunately I only had the chance for really brief chats with the others, but it felt really nice to hang out with everyone, it was all pretty relaxed, and, as expected, there were copious amounts of food and drink everywhere, all cooked or provided by various family members.

We had a stroll to Horst’s grave after afternoon tea, and then strolled around the fields. It was cold but really nice to walk and chat.

Frank Vanessa Klara and Lasse

Kathrin, Rupert, Lina (leaning forward), Patrick and Carmen

Patrick and his mum Regina

Mona Lisa

Mona Lina

Bon Voyage

Eventually it was time to leave Klara’s place, and the cute little settlement of Waldrems. Carmen and I were heading to Brighton in England, she had plans to help out Yasmin, a friend who’s having a baby, and my plans were to stay here with Tom and Rosie, and to visit Brad and Amy, before heading northwest to visit a good friend Rich at his home in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and another friend Dave, in Bristol.

Lucky boy aren’t I, having friends in all these places.

Just in case you haven’t intricately followed my previous blogs, Brad and Rich are the Lionhearts, those amazingly openhearted English gentle men with whom I, as a lucky Pierre, rode through much of Georgia a couple of months ago.

So Carmen and I left her mum’s after lunch, taking the local train to Leonberg, an outlying district of Stuttgart.

“Shopping can make you so happy.”

Wow, I didn't know that.

And isn’t overconsumption killing the planet? Oh yeah it is, I’m so happy.

Our incredibly scenic bus stop at Leonberg. That bright thing in the sky is apparently a star called the sun. Wow, I forgot it existed, I've hardly seen it lately.

Our bus journey to the ferry terminal in Dieppe, France, was long. And very convoluted.

This was our route from Leonberg. First we crossed the border into France at Strasbourg, and, due to holiday traffic congestion, started to think that maybe we’d miss our connecting bus, which was departing from all the way down in Lyon.

If you know your French geography then you'll know that from Strasbourg, Lyon is pretty much in the opposite direction to Paris, the way we wanted to travel. But that was the set route on our bus itinerary, because logic doesn’t necessarily feature highly in bus route algorithms, such trivial things as customer convenience are completely trumped by the need to maximise company profits.

Sunset over southwestern Germany

Crossing the Rhine River, which forms the border between Germany and France down here.

A Stau! (which means "traffic jam,” in German, and is pronounced shtow, or ow!, with an sht before it). Sorta sounds like how you feel when you reach one.

Another night, another bus dungeon

Luckily we made it to our connecting bus in Lyon, albeit with a slightly uncomfortable margin of only 15 minutes.

We left there shortly after midnight, headed northwest, stopped in three different places in Paris, and then eventually made it to Rouen by around 8am the next morning.

I slept pretty soundly, Carmen not quite so much, unfortunately.

Pre-sunrise Paris suburbs

A great way to avoid going down stairs in Rouen

Crossing the Seine River in Rouen, the same river that runs through Paris. Rouen’s not that far from Paris actually, only about 120km away, downstream, and quite close to the mouth of the river.

Rouen

Historically, the strategic location of the port city of Rouen, in a place where it could control both trade and military river traffic to and from Paris, led it to become one of the most important cities in France at various times. During its boom years it was the second largest French city.

During the Hundred Years War, a war between France and England (and a civil war in France), which took place from 1337 - 1453 (they were really bad at arithmetic in the Middle Ages), Rouen was occupied by the English, and became the centre of English power in occupied France.

Joan of Arc was executed there in 1431. Joan was a 19 year old woman who became a hero in France after donning military clobber and going to the frontline of the Hundred (and Seventeen) Years War - to fight, and to provide a morale boost for the French armies. In her earlier days, whenever she turned up on the battlefield the French troops won.

What a gal.

But that didn't last forever, and eventually she was captured by troops of the pro-English Duke of Burgundy, (who really loved red wine), and was handed to the English king.

She was then charged with such vicious crimes as wearing men's clothes, and following devilish visions, and was burnt at the stake.

The smell of her burning body on the stake smelt of cooked cow, and that's actually where the word steak comes from.

Nah, not really, sorry Joan, just a bit of humour from the colonies.

Rouen was occupied by Germany during World War II, as part of Vichy France, which was an annexed rump state controlled by Hitler. Coincidentally, Hitler actually liked rump steak too, but I promise that's the last steak-related pun I'm gonna use.

But if I were you I wouldn't steak my life on it.

Unfortunately about 45% of Rouen was destroyed during World War II, but there's still some beautiful old buildings.

Carmen and I didn't have much time to enjoy them though, as we had a train to catch, a ship to board, and people to meet.

It was foggy and cold, but not rainy.

Rouen Railway Station, and its unusual clock tower.

We made our way to the railway station, and zipped over to Dieppe, the port town from where our ferry to England was due to depart.

Because we were travelling fast, Carmen's spirit was left behind a little, you can see it trying to catch up outside the window.

French willages, as as a German would say

The French education system must be really bad. They don't even know how to spell Normandy here.

The cute little Dieppe station.

We wandered towards the ferry port, across this canal. The mouth of the Seine (pronounced sen) is not here, but further south at Le Havre. But Dieppe is still Seine, and pretty chilled.

Santa got stuck here. He kept calling out "help" in North Polish, but the locals ignored him because he wasn't speaking French.

Our flash looking ferry.

I was so looking forward to our ferry ride.

It reminded me of Lali when she was really young, and, on a trip to Sydney, was so excited to be going for a ride on a ferry for the first time in her little life. But when we got to Circular Quay and excitedly showed her a ferry, she burst into tears. It turns out she thought she was going for a ride on a fairy.

Looking back at the old town of Dieppe.

These little raised dog kennels are actually libraries of second hand books to swap. Carmen found something French to read.

Motorhoming it, European style. Not so great for sitting around the campfire.

The cliffs are nice though.

Memorial to a Belgian sailor who blew up his tugboat alongside a German vessel in World War II, killing himself, his mechanic, and 36 German naval personnel. Woohoo.

Weird isn't it.

It's also a memorial to people who were killed on a French hospital ship which was also bombed, and sunk.

I wondered why there were such huge security fences around the ferry area, and then thought that maybe it's because of the asylum seeker issue - stopping refugees from crossing from France (EU) to Britain (small island off the coast of Europe).

The ferry was quite luxurious actually, despite its relatively cheap foot-passenger price.

Carmen with a quarrific backdrop

Leaving Dieppe.

It's school hollies of course, and the ship was packed full of French and English chidlings, some speaking both languages, hanging out at tables, and playing games and cards with their parents. Very cute.

It was a four hour trip to Newhaven, on the south coast of England.

The white cliffs near Dover.

Our friend Brad kindly picked us up, and drove us to our separate destinations - Carmen'll be staying with Yasmin, a new mum-to-be - and I came here to hang at Tom and Rosie's.

The Festive Season

We've had a succession of gatherings in the past few days, celebrating very important things like life, Rosie's birthday, New Years Eve, and nothing in particular, just because we can.

We've all been having late nights, and have often been rising very late in the morning. One day the kids didn't surface till around midday.

Incredibly well trained aren't they.

Rosie's birthday chair, lovingly created by Tom. It's a family tradition.

The Christmas pandanus

This is their toilet roll holder, and may well have other uses

One of many juicy jams, which pretty much happened every night. Fun!

Jack's not a bad ol' crooner actually, often howling with the recorder, but sometimes partaking in too much lick her. Sahla doesn't seem to mind though.

Imani testing her vocal range

Tom and Rosie

Tom and Fabio

Imani being arty

We heralded in 2025 on the porch, in the freeeeeezing cold, watching the fireworks exploding down the hill, and howling like wolves.

Before that we had a beautiful sharing circle, talking about all the amazing things that happened for us in the year just passed, all the things we're grateful for, and our aspirations for the new year to come.

We did that because we're hippies.

And I'm goddamn proud of it you bastard.

I could write a whole blog about what I'm grateful for in 2024, I've had an absolutely incredible year.

Of course, there's no doubt that the amazing connections I've had with so many people over the year have been the most inspiring of all my experiences. And I haven't been shy to tell you that many times before.

But hanging out with Tom and Rosie and their friends and family has been up there with the best of them. What a start to another revolution around the sun.

Taking Jack for a walk in the woods

I've been wandering into town during the afternoons, exploring, sorting out my life, visiting Sue, writing etc, and then making my way back in the evenings.

Sue hosted me for lunch one day, it was really nice to hang out with her, she's such an interesting, vibrant and well-travelled woman. We had a lot to discuss.

It's been foggy for days, with many Christmas flights cancelled. Bummer for everyone (except the planet). This is Sue's street.

Brighton street scenes.

There's an ice rink outside the Royal Pavillion, which is an iconic Brighton building. But I didn't skate, as I didn't want to show off.

Show off my broken ankles that is.

Spies are so stupid sometimes. They give themselves away way too easily.

Now that's new. There's loads and loads of Turks living in Germany - but German doner kebabs?

Yes, it's Christmas again, New Years again, life again.

Yule is actually a pagan festival celebrating the beginning of winter. It really has nothing to do with Christmas, just in case you were wondering.

Believe it or not, but I once worked at this very shop as a volunteer. And not so long ago either, only a couple of decades back. Carmen and I lived in Brighton at that time. In fact, Manu was conceived in Brighton, when the Angel Gabriel visited Carmen while I was at work.

I was such an unjealous person in those days.

Or that could all just be a pile of ....

Borderline colourful

The Lanes. A cool part of Brighton to hang out in.

Wow, such a great invention, especially for a vegetarian like me. It completely avoids the extra hassle of having to find them something meaty.

I think I'll skip on the falafel today. I had about 439 of them at the stall at the Medieval Christmas Markets in Germany.

Massive vinyl shop. Well, the shop wasn't actually made of vinyl, although that's quite a novel idea.

Selling books in there could also be quite novel.

I sat and had a coffee, but they didn't have wifi. So I wandered across the lane to here.

And was forced to drink this. I sat very close to an older couple. It was so nice to be able to eavesdrop on their conversation, for a change. It's been so long since I've been to an English-speaking country.

They were talking about crime in their home town, and I couldn't stop myself from butting in and joining in on their chat. The woman was super friendly, but the man seemed to be a little cool on the idea of a conversational threesome, so I left them to their doomsday scenarios.

This woman is rather well-endowed, tongue-wise. Not exactly sure what the artist had in mind, but it definitely caught my eye.

One night I met Sue in town and we went to a pub for a drink with her friend. It was yet another cultural experience, the pub was packed to the rafters, and people were drinking like their world was ending, instead of just their year.

Haven't seen one of these in awhile

Decked out double decker

Another night Brad and Amy invited me for dinner, he cooked yet another of his delicious specialty meals. What a guy. It was so great to catch up with him, it's the first time we've had the chance to really chat since he was in Georgia, and I hadn't seen Amy for six months. And Carmen was there too. But it was all way too short.

Mad Brutality

A regular protest against the indiscriminate bombing by Israel of residential areas in Gaza, a Palestinian territory on its southern border.

Israel began their attacks on Gaza as a response to the horrific Hamas attack in Israel in Oct 2023, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 Israelis, about 700 of whom were civilians.

So far over 46,000 Palestinian people have been killed by Israel's aerial bombardment, which has occurred mainly in residential areas, and by their army's military incursions into Palestinian territory.

A further 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis in the West Bank.

Yeah, well that all seems fair doesn't it. One Israeli life is worth about 40 Palestinian lives innit.

44% of the Palestinian deaths in Gaza have been children, and another 28% women.

No bullshit politico-speak can ever ever justify this.

A recent poll in Gaza found that 96% of children there believed they'll be dead soon, and, even more heart wrenching, almost half the kids there want to die, as a result of the trauma they've been through.

It's impossible not to be completely devastated by such statistics. It's also unthinkable that such mindless barbarism can be carried out with impunity, and with the support of many Western powers.

99% of all Israel's weapons are provided by the US and Germany (US 60%, Germany 39%).

How any world leaders can stand by as this genocide continues, every day and every night, is beyond me. Not only should Israeli leaders responsible for these crimes be jailed for life, but so should all their weapons providers, including Western leaders who continue to support them.

And, of course, the Hamas leaders who instigated the attacks against civilians in Israel in the first place.

Humans can be brutal creatures, and we need to recognise this. People need checks and balances on their power, to stop them becoming totally corrupt and self-serving. Impunity is extremely dangerous, and will always lead to abuse.

The UN currently has no real teeth. Nothing happens when countries ignore its resolutions. This needs to change, and, in theory, change would be simple to implement - eg. a complete withdrawal of any trade or economic support to rogue nations, with no exceptions.

They'd be brought to heel immediately.

The trouble is, the big nations have their own strategic interests, and will always look out for these first, despite the horrific impacts on others. Well, I should say, the leaders of the big nations will always serve the interests of the wealthy elite in their countries, which includes themselves.

It's complicated, because these days politicians only make it into power if they're supported by wealthy donors. And, in return, politicians pass laws or provide lucrative government contracts to these people. However, many of these wealthy donors actually got their wealth from us, because we're the ones who bought (or buy) the products that their companies sell.

There's way more of us than there are of them. Almost everyone wants peace, except the arms suppliers and a handful of megalomaniac leaders.

There's currently 59 conflicts going on worldwide, the most since World War II. One in five children on the planet currently lives in a conflict zone.

Shall we all just sit down and meditate and play with our kids and refuse to do anything or buy anything until they stop these slaughters all over the planet?

And ask all the soldiers to join us, about 99.9% of whom are scared shitless and don't want to fight anyway?

After that's done we can sort out world hunger and global heating.

And then we'll have the biggest party the world's ever seen.

Imagine.

To West England

Well, I guess it's time to move on.

My dear friend Rich has invited me to his house for a gathering and jam in a couple of days, and then to house-and-pet sit at his place for a week or so after that, while he goes on holidays to visit his kids in France.

Sounds good doesn't it, and it's especially good because Rich lives in the countryside, near Stroud in Gloucestershire, across the other side of this little island of Britain, to the west.

It's winter, and winter in Britain equals cold, wet, foggy, and, if yer lucky, a bit of snow.

Cool Britannia.

Not just the weather, but the people, and the place.

And the music.

British music is huge - so many artists, genres, gigs, festivals, and there's a massive population of keen punters.

Every British person I know is totally into music.

Good innit.

So now it's time to head west, to the Cotswolds, to a place of great natural beauty.

Bewdy!

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