Rolling Home, rolling home

We took the train to Canterbury today, visited Canterbury Cathedral [wonderful docent, wonderful visit!], returned to London, had dinner and packed for early run to airport tomorrow. After we land in Halifax we'll drive to Lorneville, Nova Scotia and have dinner at the Amherst Shore Country Inn, one of our favorite Nova Scotia haunts. Afterwards we'll cross the Confederation Bridge and on to Stratford, PEI. First thing Wednesday morning we'll fetch Sophie and Dinah from the kennel.

We'll report more Wednesday when we're back on PEI.

Out and About

We decided to walk to our destinations in the city so as to get a more direct experience of the place. We're on the top floor of our hotel, so we get to take 72 stairs to get to our room. But the view is wonderful. You can see the London Eye and Victoria Tower from our window. You can see the night view and the day view from the pictures. We walked up to Westminster Abbey and spent two hours gawking at all of the marvelous architecture as well as the incredible history recorded there. We saw the Methodist Central Hall where the United Nations first met in 1946. We had lunch there and then went, as per Doug and Stacey's suggestion, to Churchill's War Cabinet Rooms. Going through them you get quite an experience of what it was like during the Battle of Britain and how dicey it was when Britain fought alone.

Our next destination was Her Majesty's Theatre where we saw Phantom of the Opera. Somehow Jane and I both managed to miss the play until now. So it was marvelous getting to see it in the theatre where it first debuted some twenty-three years ago. The music, the staging, the acting were all top rate. Afterwards we walked around some more. One thing large cities typically have are lots of street performers. We saw many -- a group of musicians playing Pachelbal's Canon, several mimes, one in particular who, when a mother and child came forward to put some coins in his box, gestured to the boy to join him. The boy had obviously grasped what it was all about and instantly the two of them were performing together.

I was sure I saw the Loch Ness Monster in the water. Jane insists that it isn't Nessie. But I took a picture anyway and am considering submitting it to the Daily Mirror or one of the other reliable British newspapers. Jane asked if the Olympic canoeists and kayakers would be boating in the Thames. We both agreed that they should seek another, cleaner venue.

The London Eye is a gigantic "ferris wheel". The queues have always been way too long when we've walked by, but maybe Monday it will slow down and we can see London from the sky!

The Shame Of Lambeth

Every ten years the Archbishop of Canterbury hosts all (well, mostly all, unless like Bishop Gene Robinson, you're not invited) bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion to Lambeth Palace in London, where they discuss various things. Jane thought it would be nice to visit the Palace, so we walked there. Our bad -- neither of us did any research to see if there was access to the Palace. We ended up walking around this large park and walled-off area only to find that there is no Palace access or tour. This set my National Lampoon-influenced mind to thinking about how they would treat this [please note, what follows is satire].

The first thing you see is how tiny the Palace really is. It's tasteful green paint blends well with its surroundings. In the next picture you can see the sad state of disrepair the Palace Gate is in. Elder bishops may have difficulty getting them open. Sadly, the Palace has been reduced to selling commercial waste to raise funds for upkeep. And lastly, you can see that they enterprisingly operate a gin-joint ["Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine. But will she be able to do the Lambeth Walk when she leaves?"] with a distinctive sobriety test for a marketing gimmick.

"Doing" Stonehenge

Yesterday morning we went back to Salisbury Cathedral to see a few things we’d missed. Inside the cathedral is a remarkable 14^th century mechanical clock that rings a Cathedral bell on the hour.

Next we drove the short distance from Salisbury to Stonehenge. We parked amidst a throng of vehicles and fellow tourists, paid our fee and followed the queue to the site. The stones themselves are roped off, and you can only experience them visually. I must confess that I was a bit underwhelmed. Somehow in every picture I’d ever seen of Stonehenge the stones appeared vastly larger. Granted it must have taken enormous energy, commitment, coordination, ingenuity to move the stones to the site and erect them several millennia ago. But having been able to walk amongst the Stennis Standing Stones and the Brogdar stones on Orkney (with far, far fewer other people around) I found myself, embarrassingly, paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, “If you’ve seen one henge, you’ve seen them all.” I felt I had become the jaded traveler. For the only time so far on this trip I felt that I had “done” a place rather than “visited” it. “Oh, yea, we did Stonehenge. Yeah. Ah, hah.”

We then drove on to Portsmouth. Our first stop was the Historic Dockyards to see several English national treasures. The first was the Victory, Lord Nelson’s flagship, upon whose deck he was mortally wounded during the battle of Trafalgar. The ship is immaculately kept and we took two hours touring it. We also got to see the significant remains of the Mary Rose, one of the first purpose-built English warships, and the nearly 500 year-old favorite ship of Henry VIII. It is being soaked with special preservative chemicals in a purpose built chamber. When an English fleet sailed from Portsmouth to engage a French fleet, the Mary Rose the Mary Rose, with her gun ports open, was caught by a harsh wind and sank 2 km offshore, trapping most of the 400 crew members. We got to touch and smell some rope salvaged from the wreck. It had been washed with plain water and in no other way preserved, and you could still smell the jute and the pitch on it.

Our digs are in Old Portsmouth, right down on the waterfront, and we have enjoyed watching ships pass by from our window and from our walk along the shore. We ate at a waterfront pub where we met a delightful Scottish couple, Lynn and Len, who have been living near Portsmouth for forty years. They told us of many Portsmouth sites we won’t have time to take in on this trip.

Today is a major transition. After we visit Winchester Cathedral we will return the hire car at Heathrow Airport and take the subway into London. So we will give up a measure of freedom in our travel for the freedom from driving in insane traffic.

Singing In The Rain

Our trip down the Cornwall Peninsula didn’t go quite as we had hoped. It rained or misted the entire two days. We're not complaining since we got through Scotland without encountering a single midge. And this weather is not abnormal, and helps us get a sense of English climate. As we were driving around Jane commented that it was a Wuthering Heights kind of scene.

Jane knew of my love of the old BBC series about Ross Poldark, an 18^th century Cornish tin mine operator, and noticed a brochure about an old tin mine we could visit and go through. It was and extremely grueling occupation.

We also went to Land’s End where we took the obligatory picture of Jane pointing to North America. So we essentially traveled what the English phrase describes as, "From John O' Groats to Lands End!"

Mousehole, a tiny, charming village outside of Penzance, is named for its tiny harbor and harbor entrance. We were not accosted by an pirates in Penzance.

Today we traveled on to Salisbury. We made it in time to attend evensong at the cathedral. The Romsey Abbey choristers sang and made a heavenly sound. Our lodging once again has a view of the local cathedral. Good planning or good luck?

As I was driving today I realized that I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with the English automobile controls layout and driving on the left side of a road. But I feel they have not done a thorough job. Yes, they did move the steering wheel to the right side of vehicles. Yes, they did put the manual shift lever to the left of the driver. However, they need to complete the job and put the clutch pedal to the right and the accelerator to the left side of pedal array. Doing so would truly make the British distinctive in their driving!

You Wonder How These Things Begin

You wonder how these things begin. This story begins with a problem. Some thirty years ago, when I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, I was building an arctic entryway onto my house. I decided that the new front door should have glass in it to let light in, especially in the winter. So I went to the lumber and supply yards and looked at doors with nice glass in them. They were extremely expensive, even by Alaska standards. So I decided to see what alternatives there might be. I had gotten interested in Celtic design and was perusing a book with black and white images of various designs. One design, labeled “A Celtic Revival Well Cover” caught my eye. It was a round piece of wood with wrought iron work attached to it, and the wrought iron had a magical look to it I asked my eldest daughter, Julie, who was developing her drawing skills, if she would draw out the image on paper for me. Once this was done I took it to Ginger’s Stained Glass Works and asked Ginger if she could convert this image into glass. She said that she would have to simplify some of the curves and filigree, but that, yes, she could. So I went through her glass boxes and picked out the colors I wanted for each portion of the design. A few weeks later Ginger called to say the window was ready for me to pick up. When I arrived at her shop she told me that she had gotten several offers from people wanting to buy it and upon finding out that she had made it as a special order, would she make one for them. She declined their offers, saying that some of the cuts were so tricky she’d never do it again. I had her triple-glaze the stained glass window so that it could be mounted in a storm door. I bought a windowless, foam-core Peachtree door and had the best window man in Fairbanks cut a hole in it and mount the stained glass window. The door was magnificent and when the sun shone through, it was dazzling.

When I was going to move from Alaska I went back to the window man and asked if he could remove the window for me to ship it. He demurred, saying that it would be far easier to build a wooden crate for the door than to take the glass out. So the door moved with me from Alaska to New York State, to Arizona, to Connecticut. Currently it is sitting, un-hung, in the basement of the Grace Church rectory.

While Jane and I were framing our trip we talked about making sure we stayed in the Bath/Wells area. One of the nearby towns is Glastonbury, which is (one of many such claimants) the site where King Arthur was buried. Looking through a travel book I saw a black and white photograph that was awfully familiar. It was a picture of the same well cover I had seen decades before and from which I had made the stained glass window. It is the cover of “The Chalice Well”. It is alleged that Joseph of Arimathea travelled to Glastonbury in 37 A. D. with the chalice from the Last Supper (the HOLY GRAIL) and that it resides at the bottom of this well.

So I have a stained glass window patterned after the Glastonbury Chalice Well Cover. One school of thought is that this is plausible, for there is strong evidence of trade between this part of England and the Levant. If this is plausible, then maybe Dan Brown wasn't pushing such a far-fetched idea that Mary Magdalene went to France . . . I'll leave that decision to others.

Synchronicity

Virtually all travel involves compromises: how long, where to go, how long to stay each place, what to see, where to eat, when to eat, when to do laundry, etc. We had planned to spend an afternoon in York doing laundry. But when I asked Tina at reception at the hotel where a laundrette was she said that for a small fee they could do it there. That freed us up to go to the National Railway Museum we would otherwise not have had time for.

Yesterday we wended our way from York to Woodstock where we stayed in a B&B literally less than 50 yards from the entrance to Blenheim Palace. We’re still having difficulty estimating how long it takes to drive from place to place in Britain. The color a given road has on the map doesn’t always translate into a useful estimation value. And of course there is the seasonal road repair sites as well as major construction sites as well as accidents that everyone has to rubber-neck gawk at, and of course the weather has to intrude as well from time to time.

I had looked in to staying in Oxford, but anything that was open was way too dear for our budget. So I looked at surrounding towns and found Woodstock. When we woke up this morning we looked at some guidebooks and decided that we should perhaps visit Blenheim Palace. But two wrinkles appeared that changed our direction. First, the Palace didn’t open until 10:30 a.m., which meant that we would have a later start on the day than we had planned. The second wrinkle was the 17 pounds per person entrance fee. We decided that as wonderful as Winston Churchill had been, we didn’t need to spend 34 pounds to see his birthing bed and palace. So instead we set our sails for Bath where we would see the Roman baths.

Enroute we stopped in Oxford. I had visited Oxford on my only previous trip to England almost thirty years ago. On that visit I had stayed at Pelican House, an Oxford residence where the Blackwell Bookseller organization puts up guests. Shortly prior to that visit I had re-read Nikos Kazantzakis’ “Report to Greco”. One of the influences he mentions in this semi-autobiographical book is Henri Bergson. I had sought an English translation of anything by Bergson in the States and had come up empty-handed. So I went to Blackwell’s store with Bergson on my mind. I went down the stairs to the philosophy section and found a translation of Bergson’s “Mind-Energy”. I still have it.

Today Jane and I walked in to Blackwell’s with a city map of Oxford on our mind. When we went downstairs we came to the landing that I instantly recognized. From there you can survey this incredible room full of incredible books, as far as the eye can see. [note to self: I think that Heaven should somehow involve having an unlimited account at Blackwell’s bookstore] I perused the computer book section and was disappointed that there do not appear to be any specifically English IT books anymore. Thirty years ago they were doing some wonderful, innovative things, but it appears to all be globalized now. I spotted a section on librarianship and decided to see what they had on offer. As I walked over to the shelf I heard a book call for me, I turned my head to the left, and there on the shelf was, really, this really happened this way, there on the shelf at eye-level was a copy of Henri Bergson’s “Creative-Energy”. What are the odds? So I have another book to heft home!

Walking back to the car we came upon an interesting sign. It appears that Jesus has indeed returned to earth and will start his reign playing squash. I’ve not heard of Keble and I don’t know what his record is, but I’m placing my bets on Jesus to win.

Walking along Longwall we saw the location where William Morris developed his first "Morris Garage" (or "MG") car in 1912, an event that pushed Oxford towards becoming an industrial town.

The day was overcast with intermittent showers on the drive to Bath. We totally misunderstood the city. We were expecting a smallish town that would be easy to negotiate. Instead we encountered a sprawling, tourist over-run city that was gnarly to navigate through. We decided to push on for Wells and perhaps come back later to Bath.

The road to Wells was fine, except for a number of single-track sections in particularly small towns. But between road construction site and plain old traffic delays, it took us much longer to get to Wells than we had planned. Thanks to the brilliant work by our trip planner [note to self: pat yourself on the back again for booking a room with a view of the local cathedral, this time directly across the street]. Wells is much smaller than Bath (Wells’ population ~9,500). After reconnoitering Wells for a bit we decided that it was foolhardy to return to Bath, and besides the room we had booked had a bathtub, which meant that Jane could take a nice soak in Wells rather than in Bath.

We had delightful meals in Wells. This evening we went to the Fountain Inn over on St. Thomas Street behind the Cathedral. Jane had an aubergine, red pepper, red onion, and some other things thrown in quiche. I saw a “deviled mackerel” special and ordered it imaging in my mind deviled ham – um, they must take the fish meat and mix it with some seasonings. In the event I was served a plate with three intact fish lying on a plate of greens with some sort of seasoning sauce dolloped over the top of the fish skins. I admit that I am a lazy eater – I don’t like surprises in my food, and fish bones are one of the major causes of food surprises in my life. But I sucked it up and dove in. It was quite good.

The English do have some rather interesting word usages. For instance they offer “pouring cream” which is the kind we would use in coffee in the States. But they also offer “clotted cream” for many dishes. For me “clotted” is a word with baggage, since the only other thing I have experienced, as “clotted” is blood.

This morning after breakfast we are going to the sung communion service at the Wells Cathedral.