I’ve had an intense six weeks and my head is still whirring like an old laptop updating as I try to process an excess of experiences and interactions. The easiest way to convey this somewhat frantic block of time is by sharing some memorable moments, with photos for a change.
First stop, Morges on Lake Geneva for the annual Le livre sur les quais festival on the first weekend of September. Is that Mont Blanc peeping up between two peaks in the photo above? Yes, it is. Morges is lovely. It has a park-lined promenade, flowers everywhere and elegant buildings from many different centuries. For the festival, it hosts 170 writers in two giant tents, at least as many volunteers and 40,000 visitors.
The festival this year was hot, crowded and more stressful than I expected. I had two events to host – a workshop and a double interview with Katie Kitamura and Mary Costello (needs its own post) and spent hours on signing duty in the authors’ tent. I signed about thirty books, yay!
Moment one: A perfect swim. By Saturday evening I was desperate for swim. One of the volunteers told me about a bathing spot farther along the lake, Parc de Vertou. I set off with two other writers, walking away from the hectic festival area towards a halcyon lakeshore scene that could have been from a Thomas Mann novel. After a hot day, the air was balmy. We talked about mortality, our fathers, religion, why we write. We took turns changing in the old-style, striped changing cabin, the sight of which added to the feeling of time travel. The aloof swans allowed us to slip into the silky water in the glorious evening light. The joy of finally feeling cool and tranquil again.
Moment two: Visit to a temple of learning. My first visit to the new local library in Fribourg which was under construction for easily five years. I used to go to the old library (now incorporated into the new, much larger building) and, later, the temporary library to write, and borrow books and DVDs. I actually liked both places but this new building is in a different league – it’s a palace of books. There’s a cafe, a roof garden, three stories of books and study space. Interior views of a secret garden. Beautiful wood and concrete and elegant angles all over the place. I’m not good at describing architecture but it’s like a temple of learning and wellbeing. I feel so spoilt and lucky to be able to visit this space any time.
Moment three: Historic hilarity. The Hill of Tara is Ireland’s most famous sacred site, a place I never got around to visiting until earlier this month. It has been of massive historic significance since neolithic times – a place where kings were crowned and buried, where St. Patrick clinched the conversion to Christianity, a symbol of resistance where 750,000 people once came to hear Daniel O’Connell speak. I drove up there with my mother and sister on a wild October day on our way from Trim to Dublin. It was wet and windy but a school tour in the church/museum meant we couldn’t go in for the background video. The only cafe was closed for repairs and walking around the sodden hill covered in lumps and mounds was like exploring an abandoned golf course in a storm. The view was ordinary but we trudged around a bit and it was exhilarating and funny at the same time. I ran to the famous stone of destiny and back. Despite the hopeless timing, there was something special about being out there together, it being a first for all three of us.
Moment four: Dickensian contrast. I was in Frankfurt last week for the book fair and that in itself is like any other trade fair. Huge echoing halls, crowds of people and rows upon rows of stands, some of which are elaborate and interesting to look at. You have back-to-back meetings where you can barely hear each other. You have to walk miles and eat bad food. But it’s still nice to see the people you email the rest of the year, in my case academic and ELT publishers who supply books to Switzerland. The memorable moment in Frankfurt was outside of the fair. On the first evening, I went exploring and took a wrong turn from my hotel, near the station, ending up in a ghastly hellscape, full of staggering or passed out drug addicts, people injecting themselves, the most sordid sex shops and people hovering in doorways who looked ready to jump the next passer-by. With so many well-to-do people flooding the city for the fair, enjoying cocktails and dinners in streets five minutes’ away, it felt like a terrible indictment of something – the world, the city, German society. An uneasy reminder that our safe lives are indifferent to (or built upon?) unsafe lives.
Moment five: Cross country. Back to nicer moments, like an autumn hike near St. Ursen with my husband. We got a lift to the next village and then we walked home across fields, along rivers and through forests. I love that we can do this in Switzerland – walk from almost any point on the map to any other point across country lanes and paths. I just miss our lovely dog on these occasions. It’s almost a year since he died.
Moment six: Language revival. The last moment is actually two moments. Meetings of my newly-founded Irish conversation group in Bern (ciorcal comhrá) – one in September and one in October. I’m including a picture of the September gathering here. We’re six months into this monthly meeting and I love speaking Irish again, just chatting away about anything – helping each other find missing vocabulary, enjoying the different accents and stories. I was bilingual in Irish and English up to some point in my teens and I feel I’ve been losing my Irish ever since. It’s lovely to be back socialising in Irish again.
There’s a lot more to tell: an interview with Colum McCann in Geneva, a chance meeting with Switzerland’s first woman president Ruth Dreifuss, a school event and a lovely email from a translator of Before the Leaves Fall, but this blog post is already long enough and you have lives to get back to! I’m looking forward to quieter weeks ahead with plenty of time spent in the new library. And maybe time for a follow-up post … Have a wonderful autumn.
