The Lake
24 September 2009
I flew home for a few days to see my mother who was recovering from a shoulder operation at our summer house in Germany. Our house sits on the edge of the beautiful Lake Starnberg. It is one of my favourite places in the world. On the horizon the Alps protectively surround it like friendly giants. I’m still mesmerised by the light green texture of the water, its exhilaratingly cooling quality that makes it a little challenge each time you jump in. As much as I love the ocean there is something mysteriously alluring about a lake. Its deep and calm water, opaque at times, and transparent at others, permitting you to see all the way to its muddy floor that is overgrown with dangling plants. As children we used to be quite scared of the water-plants imagining that they could wrap themselves around our little legs and drag us to the bottom of the lake. The perfect serenity of the water fascinates me. How can anything be so still? Often the water is so still it looks like a painting. Not a sound can be heard.
We only spend a few weeks a year at most in this house. Nowadays I spend even less time there but somehow I feel more at home there than in the main house I grew up in. Each morning I would wake up in a huge pink bed with puffy sheets and a lacy pink and white curtain falling down the middle. It could easily be a prop from the set of Marie Antoinette. I have slept in the same bed next to my sister for as long as I can remember. Every morning our whole room is filled with a soft pink light, glowing through the matching pink curtains. I love my morning ritual of opening the big windows and letting in the misty sky with its cool morning air. There is something incredibly romantic about looking out over the lake covered in mist lying there as still and sparkling as a mirror.
At the end of the garden lies a dock, we call it the boat house. There we spend all day in the sun and swimming in the cool water. Most of all I enjoy water skiing on the lake and I have memories of doing so since the age of five. My mother spends her days sitting in the boat toeing us and our friend’s on water skis. This sounds very generous on her part and it is however telling people what to do is also an uncontrollable obsession of hers hence she is a natural born teacher. She loves teaching people how to ski. This activity can go two ways. If you are talented and a quick learner, you are in luck, my mother will love you. She will shower you with flattery and encourage you. If however sport is not really your thing it becomes pretty difficult to get in her good books thereafter. She might forgive you if you pray the rosary with her every night but that’s another story. In the past she has screamed threats and insults at people (mostly her children or nephews but it has also happened to certain friends) after repeated failure to get out of the water. Lucky for us, growing up in an ongoing boot camp means that we are quite good at most sports and pretty resilient when it comes to performing under sever pressure (terror).
This weekend the weather was warm and sunny in that crisp and refreshing way it only gets in autumn. It felt so revitalising to get out of the city and into the green hills and bright yellow fields of Bavaria. As much as I complain about Germany being provincial and small minded, the Bavarian countryside always reminds me that it must have been created by someone who knew a thing or two about sumptuous beauty.
Back in London I head to a fashion meets art (or rather art meets fashion half way) Pringle party hosted by Tilda Swinton and Ryan McGinley. It’s Pringle of Scotland spring/summer presentation – it is still fashion week after all. The photographer McGinley presented his latest installation, a film staring Tilda of course. Hhmmm! Lots of walking around in the Scottish hills I would say. I sat opposite Tilda over dinner in one of the Saatchi Gallery’s bright and huge rooms. She did strike me as a very relaxed and down to earth screen siren although I didn’t really get a chance to chat to her much. I did however speak quite animatedly with the perfectly charming Hans Ulrich Obrist (curator of the Serpentine). It is always refreshing to come across a brainy curator with a healthy dose of humour and energy. We had a little Blackberry versus Iphone debate where he told me quite a funny story regarding David Hockney’s fable for making daily Iphone drawings and sending them out to all his Iphone friends. When Hockney discovered that HO was a Blackberry user he was startled. According to the painter Blackberries are only used by Presidents and accountants. Hans Ulrich countered, albeit after some reflection, that really Iphones are for visual artists only. Indeed I say! Let’s face it – typing even a text message on an Iphone requires a Bachelor in Fine Arts. On the Blackberry however you can comfortably type away, you could write an entire novel if you wanted to. His conclusion: Blackberries are made for literary artists, writers.
Spot on Hans Ulrich, I could not have said it any better. Yes I too am a proud member of the Blackberry brigade. Eat you heart out gadget obsessed Iphone people.
