The insistent snowdrop. Some say it is a miracle, and others a sign of hope. To me it is a reminder of the life we cannot measure.
While climate change, politics, wars and greed, rattle around the world, hope and snowdrops keep coming. You can ignore them or admire them, they don’t mind. Their pulse is not ours.
Here in England, when the Christmas lights go out in early January, Galanthus begins to push its way up through the fallen leaves. In February, as the fog thickens over layers of frost and damp, the small green shoots are stretching inch by inch to their allocated height. Then, when the time is just right, they shake out their petals like tiny linen sheets. Each hangs suspended, still as washing on a windless day. They are bright white in the gloom, immaculate and untouchable, poisonous to deer, and to rodents.
As we wilt through the drab winter, they survive – there not to surrender, but to encourage.
The man with the guitar is Basque poet and songwriter, José María Iparraguirre (1820 -1881)
Guernica is a place we did know something about. We knew of its horror … but not all of it.
It was grey the day we were there, as grey as Picasso’s painting that we’d seen in Madrid almost two decades earlier. His painting had been a response to this town’s devastation by aerial bombardment – the first town in history to suffer such a fate. The attack took place on April 26, 1937.
It was a Monday afternoon, when the aeroplanes came over. They belonged to Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, and were flying in support of their Spanish ally, Franco, who wished to destroy Basque resistance to his rule. The bombers’ mission was to obliterate the infrastructure of the town, and anything that moved.
Hitler was keen to see how well they did, and whether he might use similar tactics against other nations. He liked what he saw, and he did go on to assault others.
Author Mark Kurlansky describes that day, and its context, in his book The Basque History of the World. The details are shocking. It is almost impossible to believe that human beings could order, or carry out, such an attack. But they did. It lasted three hours, and included incendiary bombs, and bullets fired from above to kill anyone trying to escape.
The day we visited there were displays in the main square featuring photographs of the damage caused in 1937. It felt surreal to see the billboard reminders at the heart of what seemed to be a large and prosperous town.
The streets were busy, and some of the pintxos (bar snacks) in the cafes were the most creative and tempting we’d seen. We could not resist. We found an outside table, and had our lunch, surrounded by the to and fro – the business of being alive.
A look back (first published 17 February 2015): discovering the secrets of the papyrus scrolls of Herculaneum, now in the National Library in Naples, Italy.
It’s never a good idea to judge anything by appearances. Here’s an example.
Mid-autumn of last year I was new in Naples. The language was a challenge and I still didn’t know my way around. The city seemed hectic and disheveled.
Then, on a wet Wednesday in November, I was invited on a trip to the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli.
The Phraser 