Friday, 13 June: Summer Abroad, Day 42: Mostly the Louvre

1) The news, shall we say, impacted my sleep. Even though I knew I needed to get up early, my body anticipated the alarm by a few minutes.

2) Mademoiselle served me a café au lait and a beautiful omelette, light and golden as cannot be found in America. The day was off to a good start.

2a) I must say, for a quirky little hotel with a DJ spinning in the lobby every night, I saw more than a few well-dressed business professionals, both ladies and gentlemen, passing through the lobby.

Cousin George!

3) Today’s first destination was the Musée Guimet, dedicated to Asian art. On the Avenue d’Iéna, imagine my surprise at seeing a statue of Cousin George at the intersection; the American embassy must be nearby. Being early, I lingered outside in the hot sun before the 10 AM opening, reading the news and looking with idle concern at the number of schoolchildren arriving to tour the museum.

4) I really did not know what to expect — oddly, I chose the Guimét because I was going to the Louvre later — so imagine my delight at finding bits of Angkor Wat right there. Such graceful decay, such elegant curves.

Absolutely mesmerizing.

4a) But the most captivating (I choose the word carefully) piece was a sculpture of a woman set into a curve around her head almost like an ear. I looked at it for a good five minutes.

4b) A Korean moon jar, exquisite tiny bottles for snuff or scent, astonishing sculpture (one goddess could have been Leontyne Price in front of a large artichoke — why not?). Some of the pieces recall the old saying by I forget whom “Good design is not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away. (I just looked it up and the internet says Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said it, but the links all look sketchy.)

A pillow shaped like a tiger!

4c) Happily, the school groups had zero impact on my visit. But after about 90 minutes, I knew I needed to press on to my big destination, the Louvre. How convenient, the Métro was right there at the museum’s entrance. Surprise!

5) On the Métro platform I saw a lady put together as only a Parisienne would be: red boater with a wide brim over curly brown gray hair, white blouse not too close fitting, and a tiered and flounced skirt of a couple different bandana patterns of navy blue and white. Perfect.

Gaspard de Coligny, admiral of France.

6) Walking down the Rue de Rivoli in search of a bottle of water, I noticed the heat, the tourists, and the Louvre Oratory, now given over to Protestant worship. Streetside there was a beautiful memorial to Gaspard de Coligny, one of the martyrs of St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572.

6a) I got my water at a tourist shop just in time to hear a little boy break a coffee mug.

6b) With some time to kill, I sat on the steps in the deep shade of the Carrousel (sp?) entrance. Sadly, I found out I couldn’t use that entrance, pauvre moi, and I had to head out to the heat-blasted courtyard and the Pyramid. I was very anti-Pyramid when it was first unveiled, but I have definitely come around.

6c) That said, when the line started moving, I was at the metal detector in ten minutes.

6d) Interestingly, quite a few people were using folding fans. How Spanish! I rather wish I’d brought mine (the Medusa one Jonathan brought me back from Florence), but it was in my room. I was deliberately traveling light at the Louvre.

7) Finalment, I was inside! And the thing about the Louvre is, ya gotta keep on truckin’, no matter how tired and footsore you may get. There will be something of interest to see in 95% of the places you end up there. So . . . allons y!

Hans Hoffmann’s famous rabbit. I recognized it immediately because Mother had découpaged it in the early 1970s.

7a) I began with a special exhibition related to the collections of Rudolf II of Prague, full of the excitement of a period when people started asking questions about why the world works as it does, a period of great intellectual curiosity from the highest levels (the opposite of what we’re seeing now, alas). Full of allegories, engravings, carved ivories, and a fabulous collection of cups carved from semiprecious stones.

7b) Then began what I would call the Hardcore Louvre Experience. You just start somewhere in the permanent collection and keep going until your brain is full and your feet are gone. I started in the sculpture court on the Sully side, flooded with strong afternoon sun, transitioned through more French medieval et cetera sculpture, medieval Not Sculpture interspersed with gowns from the Louvre Couture exhibition, the Imperial State Apartments, then up to the second floor for acres of paintings (and wandering in that labyrinth forever, only once having doubled back on my path), down to the first floor, through Italian paintings to the Mona Lisa (I wasn’t going to, having seen her in 2008, but then I felt I ought to pay my respects), the painting I really didn’t want to miss, down to the ground level through more sculpture, and then out into the underground mall in the Pyramid. It took a little over three hours.

7b.i) What the Louvre needs is a nap room with foot massage. I’m totally serious.

7c) Throughout I had little jolts of recognition of when I was there in 2008, and from my parents’ copy of Art Treasures of the Louvre, which I grew up with. (Copies of it are found in every used bookstore in America today.) But I made new friends in the collection along the way.

7d) Roaming around the second floor was very easy. But the first floor, where the Mona Lisa and Winged Victory are to be found, was a mob scene. A humid mob scene, as it turns out someone had left an enormous window open. Don’t they climate control this space?! I remembered getting to visit the university library in Coimbra last fall, where tour groups are allowed to be in the library only ten minutes, and there are ten-minute gaps between groups entering and leaving — all to control the humidity.

Viewing the Mona Lisa. Glad I did in 2008.

7e) Watching people watch the Mona Lisa is more entertaining to me than Mona Herself. One of my eccentricities.

7e.i) But with a museum stuffed with treasures, the world has chosen to focus on this one rather small and enigmatic portrait. And some people will do anything. Entry to the gallery is through two doors at the far end, and you must exit through one door at the opposite end. There are two staffed barriers on either side of Mona; as I was passing one on my way out, a man with two family members in tow tried to rush past to get close to Mona the back way. The guard prevented him, but as I was leaving him I noticed him starting to attempt entry on the other side. Naughty naughty!

7f) And what was the painting I really didn’t want to miss? The Death of Elizabeth I, Queen of England, by Paul Delaroche. (Please note, not Delacroix — learn from my error.) All I remembered was that she was hung high on a wall in a large gallery; turns out that gallery is just after Mona. Had I not gone to pay my respects, I’d’ve missed the Death of Bess altogether!

7g) The other thing they make very clear at the Louvre is the Point of No Return. You may have a ticket, but once you leave, you may not go back inside. But as I left, I was just grateful and exhausted, and feeling all the power of the Louvre in my lower back. I did my best to follow the signs through all the shops (an astonishing number of shops), to the Métro.

8) I had an intense nap back in my room — like the dead, I tell you — and when I woke up about 6 PM, I knew I wanted to get a little table at the bistro in the Place Pigalle, Les Vedettes. Because it was close, and also picturesque. Well, all the tables in the front were taken, so I took a promenade around the corner to see if I couldn’t find something else as picturesque. What I found instead was a long string of sex shops with a lot of unladylike lingerie, a little leather, and unimaginable devices, all in their front windows. This will be the last time I see a miniature pink Eiffel Tower made of silicone. “We’ll always have Paris” indeed!

9) A table had opened up at Les Vedettes by the time I passed by again, and I settled down to a couple glasses of rosé and a salade césar with a chopped galliard of fried chicken and a hard-boiled egg in it. And then a negroni. The soft evening breeze and light emphasized the activity around me, as well as the placid scattering of the large fountain.

9a) The activity around me included a young man with dark hair wearing a white monk’s habit with white socks, black shoes, black backpack, and a large rosary looped into his belt. He just stood at the intersection for a noticeably long time, and I began to wonder if he was going to be soliciting funds. Before long a friend in civilian clothes greeted him and they walked off. Imagine my surprise when I discovered enjoying a drink at a table outside my hotel.

9b) My negroni came with a tiny spoon in it. How novel!

Thursday, 12 June: Summer Abroad, Day 41: Paris

1) The day began with the sort of dynamic tension between wanting to get the day started and being so very comfortable in bed that there is little desire to move at all. Eventually I made the move.

2) Without going into detail, something happened to start my day on the wrong foot. I sat in the hotel lobby, steaming and stewing, with my café au lait, which was just steaming, and I knew if I stayed rooted in that chair, in that building, that I would be in a horrible funk for the rest of the day. While several recommendations had been made, I decided that it would be best to be around the fewest people possible. So I packed my little backpack and headed to the Métro to take a little hike in the Bois de Vincennes.

3) My first trip on the Paris Métro since 2011, and I was quite bewildered by the ticket machines, but somehow got it sorted out. If you don’t know what to do, watch other people (discreetly, of course). That’s how I figured out how to use my new little Métro card.

4) I expected this to be all underground, so I was pleased indeed when the train came aboveground in a few stretches and I could see Paris around me.

One view of the chateau de Vincennes.

5) Disembarking at Vincennes, I realized I was getting both dehydrated and hangry, and claimed a table at the very first sidewalk bistro. A very plain and long ham sandwich and a beautiful glass of ruby port helped get me settled — and a very large glass of water.

6) Then it was off into the bois, first down a road with the chateau on one side and a fort or something else interdit on the left. But getting into all that green on this hot day, and only joggers or cyclists or road maintenance employees around, as opposed to the hordes on the sidewalks — this was what I needed to restore my equilibrium.

7) Back in my room about 3 PM, you will not be surprised to learn that I had a NAP. But this time it was interrupted by having to cancel a dental appointment at home. How on earth did THAT get on my calendar?

Street art of Montmartre.

8) A friend had recommended a restaurant in Montmartre that just happened to be a 15-minute walk from my hotel. Uphill, this being Montmartre. I set out early so I could investigate a cemetery the map said was a little further on — downhill, as it turns out. By the time I found the entrance, closed. But to see the street art, the tourists, the bistros of Montmartre, this is not a bad thing! I lingered in the shade to catch up on the news, and read a couple information boards about Vincent Van Gogh’s time living in the neighborhood.

8a) Walking downhill, ahead of me was a tall French resident with distinguished silver hair wheeling out his bicycle, and having to dodge a woman on her phone saying in a brusque American accent “AND IT CANNOT BE CANCELLED OR MODIFIED.” The way that man looked at her, I laughed out loud!

8b) On the fashion front, I also saw a Frenchman Older Than I walking uphill wearing a light blue suit with short pants and dark knee socks with dark shoes and a short-brimmed straw hat. I know it’s hot, but I’m not sure I could pull off that look. Somehow it seems specific to Bermuda to me, why I have no idea since I’ve never been there.

9) Coq et Fils served me an exquisite little dinner: artichoke hummus, a quarter of a roast chicken with marvelous sauce and a small dish of mac and cheese, and then a succulent chocolate mousse. (I must admit, the dessert was an extravagance.) Their specialty is poultry, and there’s a reason: they’re amazing.

9a) When I wasn’t actively engaged with my food I was scrolling the news and overhearing a lot of French dialogue between the staff, and a possible diner who ducked his head in the door to ask “Do you do duck?” Since the answer was no, he didn’t stay.

10) Then I retraced my steps back to Le Pigalle, and put myself to bed for the night.

Tuesday, 10 June: Summer Abroad, Day 39: Bristol to London

Recollected two days later in Paris.

1) Packed up, hotel breakfast, back up to my room for a couple last minute things, and a knock on the door from the housekeeper. “You checking out today?” she asked tentatively, clearly eager to get an early start somewhere. I cleared out in ten minutes for her. Travel days sometimes make me antsy; no point in unduly hanging around.

2) I walked to the train station after all. It wasn’t as onerous as expected. And then I sat outside on a bench getting to the explosive denouement of His Majesty’s Airship.

3) Which I finished en route to London. Spoiler alert: almost everyone dies a fiery, excruciatingly painful (but hopefully brief) death. Zeppelins were never really the best idea, and this team of empire builders was hampered by not wanting to pass bad news to the top — especially to Lord Thomson, who never wanted to hear it anyway. Hubris at the top, cowering at the bottom.

3a) Mysterious fact: among what little wreckage could be identified was one woman’s shoe, which was quite remarkable considering that no women were on board. The author suggests that it might have been in Lord Thomson’s baggage as a souvenir of his romance with Marthe Bibesco. Who knows?

England flies by as I get ever closer to London.

4) Pulling into London there was an announcement that one Tube line was closed and another operating with serious delays, so I chose a taxi instead.

5) Back at what is now my Old Stomping Ground, after a bit of a delay I was shown to a room on the lower level accessed through the breakfast room and the back stairs. Con: no elevator access. But, Pro: more spacious, which was helpful for the Great Repacking.

Unbelievably, my travel library has grown to this! I promise I only packed two of them, and only two were gifts. Like they said in Jaws, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

6) Which I started almost right away. One side of my small suitcase is now entirely books. It stays in London while I proceed to the continent.

7) Catching up on the news (always a risky activity these days), something (I no longer remember what) upset me so much I was overpowered by the need for a NAP.

8) And then came the conundrum of what to do for dinner. Which meant a stroll through Bloomsbury. So many possibilities, so many risks! I strolled up and down a whole street of restaurants and finally settled on an Italian place (please, contain your astonishment), where I had a very good dinner — especially the dessert.

Om nom nom.

9) And back to my room to write, and bed later than I expected!

Wednesday, 11 June: Summer Abroad, Day 40: London to Paris

1) I slept heavily, but woke earlier than I wanted to, well before 6. But about 6:15 I started the day with my pages, showered, dressed, brought my luggage to store to the front desk, breakfasted at the hotel (for simplicity’s sake), wrote some in my room, and then gathered my three bags and headed to St. Pancras Station.

1a) It was only a couple blocks away, but I felt like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn, the sidewalks were so crowded.

1b) Just as “ballet parking” for valet parking and “carrion bag” for carryon bag, so is “St. Pancreas” for St. Pancras. Stop it.

2) After a wee panic about my ticket, the Nice Frenchman pointed me toward security. Surprise, a metal detector! But at least I didn’t have to remove my shoes or my laptop. Unaccountably three young Japanese people were engaged in confused hesitation at the luggage screening. Was the operator having a problem? Were they unclear on the concept? Was this performance art? Someone on the staff finally came forward and jumpstarted them all again, and that was that.

2a) The station was crowded, so I was glad I had splurged on first class and could go to the premiere lounge (or whatever they called it) — which was just as crowded. I found a place to light and did my best to write, but it was not easy to concentrate.

3) Finalment, my train was called. In New York, they give first class a head start to the gate, but not at St. Pancras. I walked out of the lounge and was immediately part of the rat race up the flat escalator.

3a) And we were all packed on that thing, too, which made it urgent when the party of three ahead of me got off the escalator and just stood there with their bags. Somehow I got around them, but come on people — keep it moving!

Safely in my seat before departure.

3b) My car was at the extreme end of the platform, and after a wee panic about the seat numbers (they seemed to skip around a bit), I got settled in my correct seat. Ten or 15 minutes later, voilá, we were en route!

4) I had a single seat with a pull down tray for my laptop. Quite soon we were offered pouches with rolled-up moist towelettes. I was then offered a (stemless) glass of a delightful dry Champagne. Before long, lunch was served: chicken with some lovely little bits, cheese and compote, and a sweet little honey cheesecake thingy. And another glass of that excellent Champagne, all followed by coffee.

4a) The coffee service quite impressed me. The attendant came by with a coffee pot in one hand and a tray with a milk pitcher and a sugar bowl on it. He directed me to put my coffee cup on his tray so he could pour the coffee; I then retrieved it, added milk, took a sugar packet, and we were off to the races. And all this on a moving train!

4b) By the time I had finished lunch, I was surprised to realize that we had cleared the Chunnel and were now in France.

4c) Most of the journey was accompanied by the (mostly) harmless prattle of a little boy, maybe about three or four years old, two rows ahead of me with his mother. You notice things, you notice they bother you, and then suddenly you notice that they aren’t happening any more.

5) And then . . . bienvenue Gare du Nord! I couldn’t believe we were here already! And I spent a period of anxiety about getting to my hotel. I needed euros just in case the taxis didn’t take cards (you never know). Then, after finally finding an ATM, I only had €50s, and needed to find something to buy to make change. (That’s how I ended up with two chocolate bars.) And then where were the taxis?

5a) I got into what turned out to be a long and almost interminable taxi line, which confirmed that a) I no longer spoke the dominant language, b) it was hot in Paris and I was wearing my dark suit, and c) even if I was in the long line with no end in sight, I was in Paris.

5b) About 15 minutes in I ended up talking with the lady ahead of me, a Californian with a British accent traveling with her daughter, and that helped the time pass.

5c) “The darkest hour is before the dawn,” and I was at my most anxious when I was two cabs away from my own. Mother would have said “This is an opportunity to practice patience.”

6) But at last I was in a taxi, and actually making sense in French! “J’ai attendu une heure complet pour le taxi!” And later “Je me suis trompé appeler l’hotel ‘L’Hotel Pigalle.’ C’est jusqu’ ‘Le Pigalle.’” (“Je me suis trompé” is one of the things Mr. Ratchett said that fatal night on the Orient Express, which is the only reason I know that sentence.)

6a) The cabby very efficiently got me to my hotel, helped with my large suitcase, and confirmed the stereotype of Parisian cabbies as dishonest by shortchanging me €5. La plus ça change . . . to which Lauren Bacall in How to Marry a Millionaire would respond “Gesundheit.” No, he didn’t have a card reader in the taxi.

7) I was then standing immediately before a friendly open-faced man at a large red-brown marble table in a long room part café, part lounge, part hotel office. Happily he spoke English, and immediately introduced me to his trainee (sadly I have forgotten her name already), who would be observing my registration. But first, would I like anything to drink? Sparkling water, merci bien.

7a) Now invariably when I arrive at a hotel I want to be handed my key and go up to my room that very minute. And you know and I know that that is not the way things work any more, but it look less than ten minutes. I was given my key fob, instructed on the use of the elevator, and soon I was two floors up, lumbering into a quirky small room done in neutrals.

7b) I unpacked at once, and realized I was definitely in France because the toilet was in its own little room by the door, and the rest of the bathroom was as far away as possible from the toilet, next to my bed. The closet also doubles as the in-room bar, which meant I had to hang my suits with trousers full length on the bathroom towel hooks. (My seersucker suit looks quite wrinkled after three weeks in a suitcase, but I will trot it out tomorrow.)

8) I had to have some sleep, but after about half an hour I realized I ought to get up and into the city. So I put on some shorts and a T-shirt (too cold for that in England), and headed off to the Galeries Lafayette, 20 minutes on foot. Passing through the lobby, the Nice Man asked if everything was all right and I replied “Je suis contente,” which I know from Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête. He corrected me gently to use the masculine, “content.”

8a) My hotel is just off the Place Pigalle, so Sacré Coeur is visible at the intersection. I made a hairpin turn to the left, and proceeded down one of those residential Parisian streets with very narrow sidewalks, narrower sidewalk cafés, and a few too many people. I was surprised to find myself walking by Rue La Bruyere only because Charles Boyer mentions it to Hedy Lamarr in Algiers.

La Rotonde!

8b) Coming into a little, very active square, I was surprised to discover a café with a name I recognized: La Rotonde. Could that be the La Rotonde, Hemingway’s?! Didn’t I go there with Akeena back in 2008? Or was that 2011? And wait a minute, wasn’t that on the Right Bank? I filed it away for future reference and kept on.

8c) Approaching the Galeries Lafayette, I witnessed an altercation in the bike lane between three Frenchman, one of them outraged that the other two were going the wrong way or something. It was clear that they were all locals; he wasn’t flaming tourists with no clue.

They’ve added an observation platform — terrifying.

9) Finally in the store, I realized how rare it is that I actually shop like this, in the big stores. In part because the sales staff have you under surveillance. (The saleslady in Lisbon last year was even worse.) I picked up a couple (needed) pairs of dress socks and went on my way . . .

10) . . . back to La Rotonde. It was the perfect place for a first-night dinner in Paris, not least because of the volume of people milling around on this hot sunny early evening. I settled down to a proper kir (white wine and cassis, not a Royale, which is champagne and Chambord), a chicken cutlet Milanese with a glass of rosé, and then crepes La Bretonne and another rosé.

10a) The energy of Paris on this day: the heat, the disco music, the many many many people, the brasserie menu.

11) And then I retraced my steps back to my hotel, returned to my room, forgot all about my chocolate bars, and wrote. Now, what will I do tomorrow?

Sun-Mon, 8-9 June: Summer Abroad, Days 37-38: Bristol

“I must observe your country’s conduct has been uniformly wicked in the East, West Indies, and even on the coast of Guinea. The grand object of English navigators — indeed of all Christian navigators — is money, money, money . . .” — Ignatius Sancho to Jack Wingrave, 1778

Recollected three days later, waiting to board the train for Paris — and later in Paris.

1) My last two days in Bristol fell into a pattern: mornings at the hotel, breakfasting and writing; afternoons sightseeing, and evenings in my room. And that was OK.

2) Sometimes the best sleep comes half an hour before the alarm goes off. And Sunday, I let it go off twice. Finally, at 8:45, I started the day. SnoreLab proved I was asleep between 8-8:45.

3) After hotel breakfast, I returned to my room, put a few (but far from all) travel arrangements in place, responded to email messages, and finally set out for the day’s adventure.

Neptune and his Neptuning fork.

3a) One friend wrote to me that she admired my “commitment to solo travel . . . You travel so wonderfully and elegantly—as you do everything.” This made me glow a little, but what I don’t share is my strong preference for subways because of my fear of buses, my unhealthy reliance on Google Maps to get around, and especially my anxieties around where to eat and last-minute panic about travel documents. And in England, where driving is Opposite Land, I have to be doubly alert that I don’t wander into traffic and inadvertently end my life, or someone else’s.

3a.i) And also, now, the advance consideration of getting around with my hefty luggage. I’ve been so fortunate to have found a hotel where I can stash a bag as I gallivant hither and yon, but if I had to stagger up and down stairs in the Underground with all my luggage, I might inadvertently end my life, or someone else’s.

4) Today’s principal destination was the SS Great Britain, one of the many achievements of the brilliant engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I left the hotel about noon and plotted my course to go by Bristol Cathedral, so I could really see it at leisure (not possible during evensong of course).

4a) And there is really a great deal to see at leisure, especially the church’s rich collection of stained glass of almost all periods. Of special interest to me were the World War II windows commemorating branches of the service, both men and women. (My photos of them were unworthy to share, alas.)

The Lady Chapel at the back.

5) But what absorbed my attention the most was a very thoughtful exhibition in the back of the church called All God’s Children, a deeply thoughtful and courageous “[exploration of] the Cathedral’s connection with the trade of enslaved people.” The city of Bristol, and the cathedral itself, were greatly enriched by the slave trade and industries it supported (like sugar), and the evidence survives in the form of memorials and church records of births, marriages, and deaths.

5a) This is a discussion that too many people in America are actively afraid to have, which is part of why we’re having our Current Moment. And indeed, it’s part of my own heritage thanks to great-great-grandfather Trotter, and the Terrills and the Lewises that came before him, and of course my distinguished cousin George Washington. My loving cousin Susan (may she rest in peace) had the courage to address so much of this, and she was taken from us too soon.

5b) I wish I could recollect more effectively everything I was thinking and feeling while going through this small, but great, exhibition.

Morris dancers!

6) Outside the cathedral, morris dancing! A quartet of Ladies of a Certain Age and two troupes of teenagers, the later quite adept dancing with their swords to the music of three violins and a recorder. They even formed the traditional star out of their swords, and then used it as a platform for one of the dancers to stand and be lifted on!

The ferry backs in.

7) As they began a waltz I continued on my way, guided by Gyygle Maps to the small ferry landing on the river. It operated on an “as needed” basis, so I guess when there was a quorum on either side of the river, the ferry would move. I didn’t have to wait long, and the trip across was less than two minutes on a gray but fresh day.

Here’s the bottom half of the SS Great Britain in climate-controlled drydock to preserve the iron hull from as much rust as possible. Cozy and warm! The glass ceiling is water. The flooring is the original 1830s drydock flooring.

8) The SS Great Britain, one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s great achievements, had four phases of its working life, and being preserved as an attraction and a relic of the 19th century is its fifth. It’s pretty astonishing! especially how they are preserving its iron hull.

8a) I got instructions on how to proceed from the ticket seller, the man who punched my ticket at the entrance, and then from a random woman employee sitting just outside the entrance — all of which felt conflicting. IF YOU GO, first go into the drydock to see the underside of the hull (which is fascinating, I admit), then go into the ship museum, weave your way through both floors of that, pop out onto the top deck of the ship, go back inside and downstairs, go around the bow of the ship, and then into the separate two-story exhibition Being Brunel, about Isambard Kingdom Brunel Himself.

8b) Who knew that his dining room was the Shakespeare Room in his house?! How fabulous is that?

8c) All of it was interesting, and interesting to see how they planned everything to be fun for children. Just as at the Titanic museum, you could pick up a card with a passenger’s name and facts on it (but all of them living), from when the Great Britain was transporting immigrants to Australia. At one point there was a slot machine game to determine how much risk went into any one of Mr. Brunel’s many ships, bridges, or railways.

Original crockery of the SS Great Britain.

8d) If they had had a reproduction coffee cup from the Great Britain’s crockery in the gift shop, I admit I’d’ve bought it. As it is, I feel lucky to have escaped with only one book, but this one about Queen Victoria’s table manners, The Greedy Queen.

8e) While in the shop I suddenly heard a spattering sound on the floor. A sweet but rambunctious little boy had accidentally scattered more than a few marbles, and I helped to gather up a couple.

9) From there I walked along the waterfront to my next destination, St. Mary Retcliffe, to which a friend had strongly suggested I go. I was certainly beginning to feel all the walking I’d done. And alas, when I got there, the church was closed. But a couple people came along, and I got to creep through the postern at the back of the sanctuary for a moment to see how really splendid it is. Ordinarily, the nice lady said, the church would be open. But after their big Rush Sunday service for Pentecost that morning, it was decided that everyone should go home and have a rest. And as a veteran of large events, how could I argue with that?

The church was closed!

10) By the time I got back to the hotel my lower back was really hurting, and I spent the evening trying to regain some equilibrium.

11) That turned out to be quite a challenge, as I was wakeful in the night with lower back pain, indigestion, and a phishing email that led to well over an hour with my phone/internet provider trying to find out if my account has been compromised. (I had to chat with five different people, one of them inexplicably from Sales. Diabolical inefficiency.)

11a) Moral: do not look at email in the middle of the night.

12) So I allowed myself to sleep in on Monday morning, and really got my best sleep between 8-8:45 AM.

13) A half-hour walk brought me back to St. Mary Retcliffe. This was a day to be conscious of posture — no not “Tonight, Agnes, you are Queen of Rumania!” posture, but consciously elongating the lower back and tucking in the tailbone to mitigate the soreness of the previous day. If Ai Weiwei had sculpted a hornet’s nest out of marble and then riddled it with serpentine carpenter bee tunnels that would cause it to fragment, well — that was my coccyx.

14) Now St. Mary Retcliffe was open, and I could understand what all the fuss was about. A truly lovely old church, so old it was priased by Elizabeth I as “The fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England.”

But then it was open on Monday! And look at this outstanding and unusual window.

14a) The first thing to fascinate me was a collage-style stained glass window, very beautiful, and modern to my eye, though the glass was obviously very old. I thought perhaps it had been assembled from windows blasted out during a WWII bombing. Well ha ha, wouldn’t you know it, the windows were all shattered during the Reformation!

Apparently these round doodads in the ceiling are called bosses. There are 1,200 here, no two alike, and the labyrinth one is famous.

14b) A very nice volunteer, a Gentleman Older Than I, welcomed me to the church, offered me a laminated floor plan and guide, and when he heard me speak, asked with a glint in his eye “Where are you from?” I made him guess, and first he said Canada, but then New England.

14c) No mere tourist attraction, St. Mary Retcliffe is an active community of faith, as evidenced by the small children’s area set up near the back of the church with soft seats and prefab shelves of books and playthings — quite a contrast to all the Very Old Things around it.

14d) They also had a little shop at the back, quite well done, but nothing that tempted me.

So many beautiful windows, but I will leave you with only this one.

15) To get to my next destination I retraced a few steps from earlier days, and found out that one of my favorite emojis had landed in Bristol. But I stopped only briefly, wended my way past the cathedral again, up the hill toward the museum, but turning left onto Great George Street to visit what is now known as the Georgian House Museum.

The dining room.

15a) Once the home of the Pinney family (which has sugar plantations in the Indies, and therefore built its family fortune on slavery), somehow it was bequeathed to the city of Bristol in the 1930s (?) which runs it as a museum free and open to the public. It’s been furnished to approximate what it looked like when the Pinneys lived there, including with some of their possessions, but also with period furniture from other Bristol properties. The Jovial Young Man at the entrance gave me a laminated guide and a brief introductory spiel, but I was allowed to proceed alone, at my own pace.

15b) Here and there I observed little white mouse dolls, including on the grandfather clock at the entrance. The Jovial Young Man explained that they were part of their kids trail through the house. An excellent idea, I suggested that the mouse mascot (mousecot?) be called Pinney.

15c) But the loveliest discovery was on the steps of the back garden, a vine of passion flowers. When I was a little boy our neighbors had a passion flower vine growing over our common fence, and they were the most beautiful flowers a boy could imagine.

16) The little bar at the corner was not yet open, and somehow I ended up in a nearby coffee shop called Restore for a Brie and bacon toastie and the most exquisite chocolate orange brownie. And that set me up just fine.

17) And wouldn’t you know it, there was a Banksy, right there!

18) By text Craig encouraged me to check out the St. Nicholas Market, which conveniently happened to be en route back to my hotel. The sort of bazaar Whaler’s Wharf in P’town used to be like (until it burned down, oopsie) with lots of crystals, jewelry, T-shirts and tie dye, Indian textiles and embroideries, secondhand books, and of course incense. My wandering led me into a little curiosity shop, two white-painted rooms full of books and games and ephemera. I acquired a book called Weird London: An Opinionated Guide and a couple card games for parties — along with a few laughs while talking with the Nice Man of Exactly my Age at the desk.

18a) I was forbidden to walk up an alley next to the market because — surprise! — they were filming a scene for something in it!

19) And so, back to the hotel, a negroni, and a fried chicken sandwich in the lobby for a quiet, exhausted evening of packing before my return to London next day.

Saturday, 7 June: Summer Abroad, Day 36: A Day Trip to Bath

“I must dress in my best, I must brush up my curls,
For I’m going to meet the sweetest of girls.” — 1930s valentine

1) The spaciousness of my room included an electric kettle and instant coffee, so I could resume writing my morning pages in my room, and then go to the lobby for hotel breakfast.

2) The forecast had gone back and forth about rain, but when the time came for me to walk to the train station, it was decidedly raining. Since I ain’t stayin’ at the Ritz, the only thing to do was to rent an umbrella from the little machine in the lobby, and so I set off for Bristol Temple Meads, about 20 minutes away, along a couple busy thoroughfares and side streets with names like Old Bread.

2a) And across a serpentine bridge over the river.

3) The train to Bath took only about ten minutes or so. Dozens and dozens of day trippers boarded the train at Bristol, and there was a little confusion about seating (as not everyone had assigned seats, including me). And since many of us disembarked in Bath, that made it all right.

4) Bath was as I remembered it from two years ago, only wetter because of the weather. I drifted along a bit, just looking at all the chain stores, until I remembered a delightful little stationer I’d happened upon in 2023, Meticulous Ink. A brisk walk dodging the raindrops under my garish rented umbrella brought me there in about 15 minutes, and I had a really nice chat with Jack behind the counter while I picked out a couple greeting cards and other stationery.

5) And then I needed to proceed back from whence I came, to a little restaurant I’d never been to called the Cosy Club, in anticipation of a very special reunion. I climbed the hollow square staircase, checked at the desk, and settled myself onto a low stool where I could see everyone coming up the stairs. And after only a few minutes, there she was . . .

6) . . . my remarkable, wonderful, astonishingly talented Interlochen classmate Helen, unseen these 40 years. Bear hug! Sound the Call and all that! We settled in at a high top near the bar, and caught up on everything over a light lunch. (Spanish chicken and gallons of sparkling water for me.)

6a) Helen hasn’t changed a bit except for her accent, which is now unmistakably English without very much American. She was full of stories (and I guess I was, too), but hearing how she conducted a naval safety briefing before conducting a marine search for unexploded bombs near a nuclear power plant takes the cake. Also (in another story) her use of the phrase “while she was shredding newspaper for the hedghehog rescue league . . .”

7) Eventually it was time to head to the theatre, which is how this whole Rendezvous in Bath came to be. Our schedules were both in flux, but by the time I had settled on Bristol, her own plans had come together enough to know that she’d be home then. And a friend of hers, “while she was shredding newspaper for the hedghehog rescue league,” found a notice of a new play being staged in Bath, By Royal Appointment. Helen proposed we go, I suggested the matinee, and here we were, off to see it!

7a) And by this time it was chucking down rain, much worse than before, so I was very glad I had rented that umbrella after all. I just had to laugh; it was raining so much! But then Britain needs the rain . . .

The set for By Royal Appointment.

8) The little jewel box of a theatre, quite lovely, filled up very quickly. And just as every other theatre and concert hall fills up, too: the folks on the aisle (like us) got there first, and everyone in the center for whom we’d need to stand came in after. Ah well! We all handled it gracefully. The real advantage is that there was unused space between our seats and the wall for us to stow our umbrellas, hats, and gear.

9) By Royal Appointment concerns the collaborative, and sometimes rough, relationships between the late Queen Elizabeth II, her dresser, her designer, and her milliner. The play begins just after the queen’s funeral, and then takes us through 15 of her outfits from 1969 through 2022. A Greek chorus in the form of a curator conducts us through the changes.

10) I was surprised afterward when Helen told me it was only the third performance. All the performances were strong, but I did notice three or four little flubbings of lines — much more understandable if it’s so early in the run, but to me, oddly endearing. It made me side with the actors even more.

10a) Of whom my man James Wilby, as the designer, came out on top. Granted, I’m biased; Maurice was such an important part of my coming-out crisis. His interpretation of a creative man who had a difficult relationship with his father spoke to my heart.

11) The rain had stopped at the end of the play, and after a bit of confused poking about, Helen and I found a restaurant bar where we could sit over a coffee (for her) and a negroni (for me) and weave together our impressions of the play with our continued catching up.

11a) Helen pointed out to me a very handsome and well-dressed young man sitting at the far end of the bar. Later we were both happily surprised to witness him singing “Just the Way You Look Tonight;” he was the lounge singer! Too bad he had to sing to a background tape and not live accompaniment.

12) Too soon was it time to return to the train station, but we were both on the same train west. Helen knows her way around the trains, and we found a section that was mostly empty . . . except for a couple loud young men who had the potential to become rowdy. To my relief they got off at the next stop. The cute one then opened a bottle of beer with his teeth on the platform. Somehow, that didn’t change my mind about him, LOL.

13) Helen and I had a happy/sad farewell before I disembarked, but I very much hope I’ll get to see here again when I return from Paris and Vienna to London.

On the platform at Bath Spa.

Thurs-Fri, 5-6 June: Summer Abroad, Days 34-35: Bristol

All of a sudden, it’s days later, and I realize I haven’t written a thing! So this is recollected a few days later. Apologies.

1) The most notable thing about the morning was the rain. I had been looking sort of balefully out the window and at the weather app, wondering just how damp it was going to be — knowing all the time that the only place I could pack my panama hat was on my head.

2) Well, the time came to check out, stash my big suitcase with the front desk staff (they have been so nice), and head off for the Tube to go to Paddington Station. It was only a block away — or two blocks? — but being me, the journey wouldn’t have been complete without a wrong turn that led me back to Euston Station.

3) I still got to Paddington with plenty of time until my train, ideal for people watching, and pigeon avoidance.

4) Lucky me, I scored a table for four all to myself all the way to Bristol. And I started making some FOMO notes about what and how I was feeling. (Looking back at that notebook, I asked myself “Have I so little imagination?”) But a direction did come out of it.

5) Briston Temple Meads Station is a Late Victorian Pile on top of some very modern underground concourses. After a wee bit of confusion, I found a cab and made it to my hotel — which was draped in scaffolding.

6) My fifth-floor bedroom was an actual room-sized room, and I began to think that spending the past week in my tee-tiny Room That Was a Bed may have made my thinking less expansive than it might have been. Here was plenty of room to stretch out, hang things, and store them — and even an odd leather hanging pouch where I could put my morning pages notebook. I felt at home at once.

7) I got to connect with a local friend, after which I just had a burger at the hotel bar. I needed some sleep to formulate my new plans.

8) Thursday dawned, and laundry needed to be my priority. The nice young man at the desk directed me to the Happy Laundrette about a ten-minute walk away. I got change at a nearby gas station (the hotel is a cashless facility — very fashionable and practical, I suppose, but not always helpful). My local friend had told me that I was located at the “unfashionable” end of my street, and as I continued on my way, I could see his point. Passing a small building with a lovely mural on the front with the legend LOVE YOUR COMMUNITY, I found the laundrette in a run-down building that was . . . locked.

8a) I left my laundry with the front desk to take care of.

It Had Better Be Good One Day It Will One Day It Will.

9) By midafternoon, after working on some travel plans, I needed to investigate what looked like it might be a pretty little church behind the hotel. The building now seems to be some creative center, but it was locked up tight. A neighborhood park with some interesting art was in the back.

With some prominent Pre-Raphaelites, The Briar Rose by Burne-Jones and La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Dicksee.

10) Then I set my sights on the local museum, about a half hour walk away along streets named Upper Maudlin. I got there in its final hour of being open, plenty of time for me to see what I wanted to see. They have a little bit of everything in a spacious old building. I was especially taken with a Kehinde Willey, a couple Pre-Raphaelites, a Tuke, and a few other things.

10) But the best part was chatting with the Nice Young Lady in the shop, where I did buy a book.

YES!

11) Another nice conversation took place with another Nice Young Lady in another bookshop, Last Books, between the museum and the cathedral. All titles were £5 or less — how could I resist? I came away with His Majesty’s Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World’s Largest Flying Machine and The First Celebrities: Five Regency Portraits.

12) Quite unexpectedly I ended up at evensong at Bristol Cathedral, one of maybe a dozen attendees. I had thought just to have a look around. On entering, though, when the nice young lady asked “Are you here for evensong?” I responded “May I please?” before I could stop myself. And the service of five choristers with a cantor and brief readings was moving in its simplicity, its spare sonorous harmonies, and the enormity of the cathedral lit softly by an evening’s stained glass.

After evensong, in front of the cathedral.

13) Afterward I ankled back up the hill to an Italian place that had been recommended to me, Moltobuono! After an embarrassingly long time with me standing in the way of people coming and going, one of the waiters confirmed that the one reservation that had not shown up was not coming, and I could have that table, but only for an hour and ten minutes. I was conducted up a flight of stairs into a crowded white-walled mezzanine floored in wide pine, and ended up with a succulent meal of a burrata with tomato, and then a dish of cacio e pepe that could have been larger, but was too dreamy and savory to quibble about. I’m such a glutton anyway.

If you’re going to vandalize an 18th-century building, you might as well use an 18th-century typeface.

14) And then I walked back to my hotel, unashamed to have an early night, and to continue to consider my newly forming plans for . . . Paris and Vienna.

Sunset at Sea after a Storm, by Danby.

Wednesday, 4 June: Summer Abroad, Day 33: Wallace and . . . Dickens

Recollected later in the week (as happens).

1) Making a plan that requires action in the morning is the best way for me actually to do something and not just dawdle away my days. So when I found out that the Wallace Collection opened at 10:00 AM, I said “There, Robert, is your plan.” And if I allowed myself to take the morning leisurely and not be waiting at the Wallace Collection door, rattling the knob at 9:58, so much the better.

1a) En route I walked past Wimpole Street. A quick detour proved what I learned on Beekman Place in New York last year: just as there is no 3 Beekman Place, there is no 27A Wimpole Street. Nor indeed, a 27 Wimpole Street.

These people stole my life.

2) The Wallace Collection (I showed up at 10:30) overwhelmed me. A more organized maximalist paradise than Sir John Soane’s, this is a museum that is not afraid of COLOR. All the rooms were hung with vivid silks and damasks: green, blue, crimson, pink, amethyst. Glorious.

2a) I had a few Moments of Recognition with portraits I recognized as Old Friends — young Queen Victoria, George IV as Prince Regent, Emma Lady Hamilton as a bacchante (that saucy minx), Marie Leczinska, Fragonard’s The Swing — but otherwise much of the collection was new to me. And, as I said, overwhelming. After an hour wandering through all this magnificence, my circuit was overloaded.

2b) So, who wore it better: a gypsy, or Queen Marie Leczinska?

3) With no clear plan, but at least out of my bed and out and about, I ended up on nearby Oxford Street making an impromptu tour of the big department stores, including Selfridge’s, Liberty (of course!), and others. Several of them had their Pride banners and rainbow-enhanced logos on display for Pride Month, important to note in an era when corporations are making ahem different decisions. But I was not in a buying mood to begin with, and certainly not at those prices.

An exuberant display of china at Liberty. Notice especially the bat platter, second shelf center.

3a) That said, Liberty is always a joy to walk through, especially this time the china department.

4) A nearby pub served for lunch: steak sandwich and aperol spritz.

5) Deciding to walk back to my hotel from Oxford Street (no little distance) reminded me that, hey wait a minute, isn’t there some sort of Charles Dickens museum near the hotel? Ye Gyygle directed me mostly well, and I steered my way through London’s busy foot traffic.

Who wouldn’t want this coat?

5a) I spotted a man of roughly my age wearing a fantastic pleated raincoat of some sort of flexible green material. If I can’t have Kay Thompson’s raincoat in Funny Face, I sure do want this one.

5b) Impulse drove me into a bookstore (I know, so unlike me), but I emerged having accomplished an important mission for my London visit: acquiring a copy of the UK edition of William Hanson’s Just Good Manners.

Each guest, as well as the host and hostess, have their own plates! A charming detail.

6) The Charles Dickens Museum turns out to be a London house he actually lived in. Appropriately arranged by combining actual belongings of Dickens and his family with items and artwork related to his novels. In this respect it’s very much a shrine.

7) And so I plodded back to the hotel, picking up a salad and a sandwich from ye Pretty Manzhay for my dinner. The nice young lady behind the counter was unusually pleasant and inquisitive.

8) The Great Repacking took up the rest of the evening, as I was off to my next destination next day — and was still unclear about the rest of my travel plans.

An important message near the Dickens Museum.

Tuesday, 3 June: Summer Abroad, Day 32: Music and Roses

Recollected later in the week, as happens sometimes.

1) I spent the entire morning wrestling with writer’s block in several corners of the hotel: the breakfast room, the lobby, and eventually back in my bed. Businessmen should not be in Zoom meetings, or on any audible device, in public without earbuds. This entire process did not leave me feeling good about myself, for a multitude of reasons.

2) My reward, when my deadlines were met, was to walk down to Regent’s Park and see Queen Mary’s Rose Garden. Rain threatened, so I knew that might be risky. And then something else happened that made me change course anyway. St. Pancras Church was on the corner of my street, and wouldn’t you know it, for the first time the front doors were open; a music recital would be starting in about 20 minutes. So of course I went in, put my donation in one of the boxes, and commended myself to God until the program started.

The interior of St. Pancras.

3) A flutist and a pianist appeared and gave us an entirely French program for 45 minutes, mostly of composers I had never heard of: Blavet, Faure, Debussy, Bonis, and Busser. None of the music was familiar to me, but if the Blavet and Faure pieces were like sunlight reflected on water, then the Debussy was like sunlight reflecting itself. The entire concert could be described as a restorative.

3a) The flutist also turned out to be a soprano, and she included three arias by Faure, Debussy, and Bonis. Unexpected, and delightful.

3b) Her little curtain speech before the final selection was completely endearing. She had just finished her degree at the Royal College of Music and expressed appreciation for being able to share her art, at this critical time for the importance of art in public life, in every venue possible.

3c) I had to file past the volunteer ushers without putting anything additional to my earlier donation into their baskets . They may think I’m a deadbeat, but God knows I did the right thing.

4) Wouldn’t you know it, the rain was starting just as I left the church, so I returned to my room for a NAP.

Just about to take flight.

5) And later in the evening, I did indeed walk down to Regent’s Park — just keep going down Euston Road, and when things start turning green, you’re almost there — to see the rose garden, and it was lovely. Crossing a bridge, I was surprised to see a large crane on one of its pillars, before it swooped off.

5a) Roses the size of giant coffee cups. Anglo-Indian family groups. One “Tyranny of the Pretty Lady” influencer posing for pictures on a bench. And several people, including me, photographing the roses.

A little birdy and my knee.

5b) I sat on one of the benches on the perimeter, observing the scene, feeling my feet and calves pulse, feeling the descent of my mood (as happens). A teeny tiny bird — robin or robin adjacent — became interested in the area near my right foot for a bit before flying off.

6) Eventually the time came to find some dinner. With a little guidance from the internet, I found an Italian place (I seem to gravitate to Italian places this trip) where I had a couple negronis (and also negronis; I cannot account for it) and a succulent spaghettone alla carbonara with a side of spinach.

7) And so to bed!

Monday, 2 June: Summer Abroad, Day 31: Two Galleries

1) For me, it helps to have something scheduled in the morning to get out, and today it was the special exhibition Edwardians: Age of Elegance at the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace. I took the Tube to Green Park, which was very green and very park. And then through the trees, the palace itself. This felt like my first real encounter with tourists en masse during this trip. One Woman Younger Than I, walking slowly with a cane, was being persuaded by her family to move to a new place. “But we cain’t see anything from thaire!” she protested.

2) Visitors go through a metal detector at the King’s Gallery, and unfortunately I set it off. I’d forgotten my Wahby Pahkah glasses case in my jacket pocket. It seems to set off metal detectors everywhere.

3) The exhibition delivered as promised. Really an examination of the collections of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra and George V and Queen Mary, from the personal to the regal, all I can say is “Yes, please!” and “More jewels, please.”

3a) That said, my favorite piece was this four-panel screen designed to hold cabinet photos, which were arranged in it personally by Queen Alexandra and her daughters. I’ve attempted this before in much more informal ways, and I would absolutely have something like this in my home (if I had the space).

The wedding of George and Mary. See Queen Alexandra at the center of the composition, also in white?

3b) I will spare you my spreading Rhapsodic Wax over the whole exhibition and instead concentrate on another favorite piece, Queen Alexandra’s coronation dress. Now I’ll admit that I need to do a lot more reading about Alix, but aside from being a beautiful leader of fashion who suffered from deafness, her husband’s adultery, and her mother-in-law’s jealousy of her prerogatives, she was also a devoted attention whore. I forget where I read this, but on the day that court mourning changed from deep to half, she deliberately kept all the ladies ignorant of what she would wear that evening; they all chose black, and so she made her entrance radiant in mourning white — a superstar in a sea of black. She also wore white to her son George’s wedding, and I don’t care if you are the Queen, it’s still bad form to upstage the bride on her day.

Marvelously preserved, too.

3b.i) So while queens traditionally wore white to their coronations with crimson robes, Alexandra chose gold with a robe that one of her ladies described as “petunia” (which sounds like fuschia to me). While the gold in the dress has darkened with age, as you see, it’s still a mighty impressive gown.

The dress in action at the coronation. Notice also Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough.

4) After almost two hours and a desultory pass through the shop, it was time to make my way toward the National Gallery. That meant crossing back in front of the palace, except it was blocked off and throngs of tourists were lining the streets. Looks like I was about to witness a parade or something! And whaddya know, a couple legions or squadrons or phalanxes or regiments — regiments! — were marching out of the palace with their bands playing. First, toward the side where I was standing, came a unit all in black, unfamiliar to me, playing a tune that wanted to sound like “We’re the Girls of the C.I.D.” from Noel Coward’s Cavalcade, but ended up definitely not being that. Then, the easily recognizable Coldstream Guards marching on the side away from me so I didn’t get a good look.

5) A Coldstream Guard was part of a most interesting event to witness a little later. I was walking up Cleveland Row (I had gotten a bit lost, which happens), which it turns out is quite close to Clarence House. I heard this pronounced clopping behind me, the sound of the guardsman’s boots. And then a very high-pitched woman’s voice calling “Oh Sir! Would you stop and let me take a picture with my daughter?!” I didn’t hear his response, but she at least acknowledged politely that he couldn’t stop. The Coldstream Guards are actual working soldiers, not walking tourist opportunities. If that’s what you want, find the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, and don’t forget to tip.

5a) Why is it that people want photos of themselves with people dressed out of the ordinary? Certainly it’s happened to me (but when in P’town, what happens in P’town stays in P’town), but one friend had a particularly unhappy experience getting trapped into a photo with total strangers that he did not want taken. People are people, people — not props!

The Ugly Duchess and I go way back. Now nice to find her at the National Gallery!

6) A little Sherlock Holmes-themed pub did for lunch — Daddy wanted a cheeseburger — and then I tackled the National Gallery. Dazzling, and I didn’t expect the number of times I would say “I have that postcard at home!” Glorious Renaissance and pre-Renaissance paintings gave way to old friends like Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode, my beloved Misia Sert by Renoir, and Henri Rousseau’s tiger painting, called Surprised!

6a) Angels do not always wear white. It’s time to imagine a polychrome Heaven.

Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, by Gerrit van Honthorst.

6b) Mother said not to talk to strangers, but when overhearing two ladies talking about Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia and one said “Isn’t that the sister of Charles II?” I interjected, “Yes, and I’ve just been reading about her,” gesturing to my copy of her father’s biography Queen James. We ended up talking for about ten minutes, including about Boston and our museum’s acquisition this century of The Triumph of the Winter Queen, which shows Elizabeth with all her children (living and dead) and her husband (dead).

This photo does not do justice to the true colors of this glorious painting.

6c) The second conversation was about a new friend, High Tide by Jan Toorop, an artist I’d never heard of. The opalescent color palette enchanted both myself and a Lady of Approximately my Age.

6d) One final surprise: George Stubbs’s famous Whistlejacket, which came from Wentworth Woodhouse (read all about it in Black Diamonds); I certainly wasn’t expecting to find it here.

7) By this time my head and my feet had OD’d on art, and it was time to head back to my hotel. I chose to walk (!) in part because I thought I had left my notebook at the Italian place I went to dinner the night before. And that was a lot of walking, but a) I got my notebook back, thank goodness, and b) I slept like a champ.

Sunday, 1 June: Summer Abroad, Day 30: Mostly Sir John Soane's

1) I spent the morning in bed writing, but about 12:30 I turned left out the hotel door and proceeded down Upper Woburn Place, past Tavistock Square and Russell Square, and a little further beyond to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. At 2:30 a high school friend would be joining me to tour Sir John Soane’s Museum.

2) Because it was too nice a day to stay in, and because I had stayed in, I felt like it was important to go early and just be in London. And Lincoln’s Inn Fields was the perfect little London park for a Sunday afternoon, picnickers sitting in circles on the grass or on the rows of benches.

Morris dancing!

2a) By a gazebo there was even a group morris dancing, under the direction of a couple people playing woodwinds. There they were with bells on their toes, capering about and clashing sticks. Because of course.

2a) Believe it or not, my last semester in college I took morris dancing for four credits. I’ve never had such deep blisters in my life.

2b) The little café was closed on Sunday, so I could use one of the picnic tables to sit and jot some notes. Though a malevolent crow kept eyeing me from the roofline above, ominously clawing the gutter before swooping down to another table. I waved him off, but after awhile, I packed up and took a stroll around this beautiful little park.

3) From one of the naughty little books in my library there was a little poem that I kept trying to recall. (I had to look up the text below, so you have been spared several instances of “blabbity blabbity”):

The dainty young heiress of Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
Brisk, beautiful, wealthy, and witty.
To the power of Love so unwillingly yields.
That ’tis feared she’ll unpeople the City!
The Sparks and the Beaus all languish and die:
Yet, after the conquest of many.
One little good marksman, that aims with one eye,
May wound her heart deeper than any!

4) The museum didn’t seem to be getting much traffic this Sunday, but 2:30 seemed to be the time people had chosen to visit there. I got in line (well early), but by the time I got to the head of the line (earlier than expected), my friend had not appeared. So . . . how wonderful that the nice young lady said “Just wait right here and we’ll let you in directly she gets here.” Wasn’t that nice?

5) And then there she was, my favorite mudlark, Andi! Just as two years ago, coincidence united us in London. And so . . .

6) . . . we entered Sir John Soane’s, a maximilist Paradise. Our high school friend Hilary first steered me there in 2019, and I loved it. Andi had never been, and her astonishment was delight to behold throughout the house.

6a) The user experience had changed in more ways than no advance tickets. To my surprise, photographs are now allowed inside! Risky in a few very tight, very full spots, but so welcome.

6b) The one place things felt really crowded was the Picture Room. Sir John planned it ingeniously with multiple sets of panels so that he could hang two or three times as many paintings in the same space. It’s probably the most popular room in the house, and the guide stationed there had to rope off the entry until a few people were — hmm, I don’t know — encouraged to decide to leave. But we did get in, and the panels were opened to the window of the Monk’s Parlour below. It was pretty amazing!

6c) A friend of mine, vexed with the needs of influencers, has coined the phrase “Tyranny of the Pretty Lady” to refer to everyone having to stay still until her boyfriend Gets the Shot, generally in some inconvenient place. I witnessed this a couple times in Portugal last fall. At Sir John’s it only happened once, on the staircase, but it could have had a dire impact elsewhere in the museum.

7) Afterwards we settled in at a nearby Caffé Nero for a happy hour to catch up on All the Big Issues.

7a) Caffé Nero is the Starbuck’s of the 21st century, isn’t it?

It’s a bug hotel!

8) And then we wandered through Bloomsbury. In Russell Square the roses I admired so much two weeks ago (three weeks ago?) have withered and gone. Andi, however, discovered the Bug Hotel, which I had completely missed on my earlier walks.

8a) In Tavistock Square we witnessed a group of Indian businessmen or diplomats gathering near the statue of Gandhi for what looked like it might be a photo op. One of them was carrying a wide shallow bowl of deep pink rose petals.

9) I escorted Andi to Euston Station, and bid her a fond farewell. And then I had to think about dinner. Having learned the day before that today was the anniversary of the Marchesa Casati’s death, I figured an Italian meal with cheap wine would best honor her final years in London. Long story short, I ended up at the same place where I’d had lunch with Ernie and Kevin a few weeks before, and had a wonderful dinner reading Queen James.

Saturday, 31 May: Summer Abroad, Day 29: Brompton Cemetery

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.” — William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, scene ii

“I want to be a living work of art!” — Marchesa Luisa Casati

1) The extra hour I allowed myself to sleep in turned out to be the loudest, according to SnoreLab — so I guess I needed it.

2) I haven’t been having breakfast at the hotel, but today I succumbed, and they lost money with the number of lattes I made in that machine. After breakfast I found a snug banquette where I could settle down, write, and take care of some of the Business of Life.

3) This felt like the first day in a month where nothing was planned. But it was warm and sunny — a sin to remain inside. So, I said to myself, why not try to find the Marchesa Casati over at the Brompton Cemetery? Why not indeed?! So it was off to Russell Square to catch the Piccadilly Line to Earl’s Court.

4) Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without ye Gyygle Maps, but it sometimes sends me in the opposite direction, notably in Madrid when looking for the Museo Sorolla two years ago. But after I turned on precise location (which I am always loath to do), I got back on track PDQ.

5) Expecting a nearly empty cemetery, imagine my surprise walking through the gate to spot a lively little café to the right, and a populated volunteer center on the left. I wasn’t sure anyone would know anything about the marchesa. Well, ha ha — she’s number 17 in their Top 100! And one of the volunteers had been training other volunteers that morning and using her as an example! “Oh yes!” she said. “Italians love to come here and find her. They leave things for her, like lipsticks.”

There she is!

5a) “Now go down the wide dog walking path,” the nice elderly lady was telling me, “turn right, and keep going until the number 17, and you’ll see a worn path through the grass, and that’s where she is.” And off I went on an adventure. I did eventually have to get out the map, just to figure out whether to look on the right or the left. While I never did see the 17, I spotted the worn path through the grass, and the urn familiar to me from a photograph. I had found her.

Her grave. See the little tributes people left her. Notice the date; the anniversary of her death is tomorrow!

6) Just over half my life ago, someone gave me for my 30th birthday a copy of Cecil Beaton’s The Glass of Fashion, his survey of tastemakers from the first half of the 20th century; so, from Audrey Hepburn and Diana Vreeland back to Gaby Deslys, the Jersey Lily, and his beloved Aunt Jessie. Cecil had a thing for extravagant and flamboyant ladies who died bankrupt, and he wrote about them in this book. That’s how I was introduced to the Marchesa Casati*, “the mad marchesa.”

6a) Long story short (too late!), Luisa was born into a wealthy Milanese industrial family, married a marchese in Rome, bore him a daughter, and then went completely around the bend. She hennaed her hair, became a spectacular party giver in Rome, then Venice, and eventually Paris; enjoyed a continuous affair with the scandalous Gabriele D’Annunzio, used belladonna drops to make her eyes sparkle (!) and then ringed them heavily with kohl**, devoted herself to the occult, indulged every whim (especially in portraits), and then was mightily surprised when all her money was gone — before the 1929 Wall Street crash.

6b) The remainder of her life she spent mostly in London, living on handouts from friends like Augustus John (he and others set up a bank account for her, but learned not to have more than five pounds in it at a time) and continuing to dress in her increasingly ragged glad rags of yore: skintight black velvet and leopard print.

6c) I forget who it was who chose her epitaph from Antony and Cleopatra — her daughter, granddaughter, or a friend — but it could not be more specific or perfect for her.

6d) Seeing her grave made me wish I had brought something to leave her, something black and glittering like a string of glass beads (not plastic). But that sort of thing requires planning and tenacity.

This is the rear approach to the marchesa’s gravesite.

7) Walking on this narrow footpath through the tall weeds, surrounded by trees in the bright warm sun brought back a memory of my early teens. There was a block of pine woods roughly between my junior high school and my aunt and uncle’s house on 18th Street. One summer day biking from one place to the other, I saw this opening in the wood and went through it. It was a narrow footpath in the dirt, bright and sunny in tall grass, with pine trees closely by. Almost straight through from one street to the other. Why was it there? Who had made it?

Observe how overgrown!

8) Having found the marchesa and paid my respects, it was time to see the rest of the cemetery. Some sections were quite overgrown. I learned later that this is by design, to promote biodiversity. Which is all well and good, and picturesque, but I do worry about conserving the gravestones and other memorials.

9) Returning down the central path toward the north entrance, imagine my joy at unexpectedly happening upon Richard Tauber, to some the greatest tenor of the 20th century (including Pavarotti). After that “Let Me Awaken Your Heart” stayed with me awhile, and Schumann’s “Widmung.”

A detail from the grave of Emmeline Pankhurst.

9a) And then almost immediately there was the famous suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. I had been reading about her this spring in Sophia Duleep Singh’s biography.

10) After consulting the cemetery’s Top 100 guide (best £3 I’ve spent), I resumed my tour along the east wall, where I was told I’d find Sir Samuel Cunard — and did. And also a little pug dog with ice-blue eyes, accompanied by his lady human, but off his lead, against the cemetery rules. This section of the cemetery is quite overgrown indeed, but it’s not empty. Joggers, cyclists, and strollers were all there, but not so many as to feel omnipresent.

11) Reaching the end, I turned right to proceed along the south wall to find conductor and composer Constant Lambert (of whom all I know is his soundtrack to Vivien Leigh’s Anna Karenina). And I found it, with the bonus of his son Kit, “The man who made The Who.” Which just goes to show that the generations achieve different things in the same field.

12) While pausing to consult the map to find Lambert, I had attracted the interest of a squirrel. An unnatural and unwelcome interest. I tried to ignore it and was just about to photograph another grave nearby, a new grave ornamented with a new photograph and a rose bush and a beautiful wooden cross. But that squirrel hopped over, closer and closer, and while it wasn’t foaming at the mouth or chattering, it had a look in its eye like that of the Basilisk. “OK, Squirrely, I get the message!” I said to myself. “Ciao!” As I hotfooted it back to the central path I wondered whether a permanent resident of that section had taken a dislike to me and occupied the squirrel to let me know . . .

13) If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this cemetery, it’s kinda sad to see an epitaph that begins “Also.” As in “Also [name], [relation] of the above,” usually with nothing else beyond one’s dates. One grave I remember was the grave of a man, and beneath “Also his daughter-in-law . . .” Imagine having your entire life being defined by your relationship to someone in your spouse’s family not your spouse!

The Bonomi family.

13a) If you want good billing on a family marker, be sure you die first. No matter who it is, they tend to get top billing. One particularly poignant example is the Bonomi family. Their four children are on top because they all died first (of whooping cough, during Easter Week). Their maternal grandmother and mother come next, and then at the bottom the father, so often the most important member of the Victorian family.

13b) Another example with slightly more status is this tiny stone surmounted by an angel for the wife of Constant Lambert, at the foot of the Lambert family plot.

14) The Central Avenue of the cemetery is majestic, overgrown, and warm indeed in the sun. And here’s where I found the grave of that campy old British character actor Ernest Thesiger. You may know him from the original Frankenstein, but I know him first as the undertaker in Scrooge with Alastair Sim.

Fussy, finished!

15) And here’s another piece of advice for your Permanent Residence: don’t let it overshadow you. Frederick Leyland was a great patron of the arts, but his legacy is passed over because of his unusual chest tomb designed by the great Edward Burne-Jones. Let’s just say that Burne-Jones has stolen Leyland’s spotlight.

16) The west side of the cemetery, where burials continue to take place, seems much better cared for than the east side. Aside from the Chelsea Pensioners Monument (which includes a small wildflower meadow now) and the Coldstream Guards Brigade of Guards, I saw evidence of other languages, cultures, and religions. And some very beautiful roses. It’s not clear to me who’s responsible for some of these lovely flowers, the cemetery or the family/friends of the deceased. One rose I could smell six feet away.

17) As I mentioned, there were always other people present. Walking back up the Central Avenue to the entrance, a young woman passed me, quite beautiful, wearing cream silk trousers that flowed behind her like sailing over the water, Venus rising from the seafoam indeed. And an elegant tight-fitting top. Her whole look that made me think of Lady Brett Ashley and Vivian Regan and 1920s beach parties.

17a) Not that this had become a fashion parade suddenly, but maybe ten minutes later on a more remote overgrown path two women were walking toward me in those summer sundresses, you know the ones: gauzy cotton or linen, spaghetti straps or a halter top and a skirt to the ankles or lower. The woman on the left wore red, possibly edged in black and gold. The woman on the right had on a deep green with a wide paisley design at the hem. One could only wish they had hats and parasols and were on their way to tea!

An allegory!

18) My final thought, after this wonderful wonderful afternoon (thank you for your patience), comes from seeing this holly tree erupting from the plinth on which this memorial urn once stood. This is Life Conquering Death, the New Regenerating out of the Old — or the Enduring continuing after the Temporary. You choose.

19) After all this, how could a return trip on the Tube be eventful?! Happily, it wasn’t, and I walked back from Russell Square to my hotel with a bag of dinner from ye Pretty Manzhay to enjoy with a negroni in my room. Somehow the negroni has become my drink of choice at this hotel.

“Yet a little while is the light with you.” But not for always.

*Also Rita Lydig, “the fabulous Mrs. Lydig,” whose grave I found in New York in 2021, and whose heartbroken fiancé, Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, is buried at Forest Hills.

**Did she create the “vamp” look first, or did Theda Bara? My money’s on Luisa.

Friday, 30 May: Summer Abroad, Day 28: Winchester

1) Technically morning pages are to be written as soon as you get up (and make the coffee). But my room is so intimately laid out I changed the routine and showered, dressed, and brought my notebook down to the lobby Caffé Nero to write there with a latte and a sausage roll.

2) It was off to Waterloo Station on the Northern Line this morning, to catch a train for Winchester. So I spent a lot of time people watching, and observing all the people with wheeled bags like mine.

2a) The closest thing they have to Halls Mentho-Lyptus here is Lockets Honey Lemon. A little too sweet, but effective.

2a.i) Did your grandmother have Luden’s Cough Drops?

3) Seeing all the trackside graffiti as the train pulled out of London suddenly brought to mind one I saw in Sheffield, too close to my hotel there: BEAT YOUR NEIGHBOR WITH A BAT.

4) If Scrivelsby was family (ancestral), this day trip to Winchester was family (immediate). My cousin Mary’s daughter Rebecca now lives there with her family of three, and she and her mischievous little boy were outside the station to greet me. We first met when Rebecca was a very little girl, so it’s no surprise at all that she doesn’t remember me. Her resemblance to her mother made her very easy to identify.

4a) On the train down I was thinking that the generations of my grandparents and parents have completely passed, but I know comparatively little about the generation of my cousins’ children. But like my 16 cousins (and my sister, of course), they have a galaxy of achievements and experiences in fields as diverse as (scratches head momentarily, will probably use incorrect terms) pharmacology, petroleum, divinity, software, percussion, retail, golf (?), esthetics, and the military. I’m sure I’m missing a few things. And parenting! Six at least have produced offspring.

Ye Ylde Ynglande™

5) The catching up started immediately as we walked slowly through Winchester in a direction I didn’t pay much attention to but understood to be in the direction of the cathedral. Because it was noon we parked ourselves at a table outside a pub bordering a green.

5a) For those who don’t know (most of you probably do), at almost all British pubs you order at the counter, bring your drinks to your table, and the food follows after. Because it was noon, the barmen were suddenly slammed taking orders not only for drinks, but lunch. It all got sorted, but you know how much I love standing in anyone’s way . . .

6) Family stories! Rebecca didn’t grow up anywhere near Lago di Carlo, and by the time she came along the large knot of family tied there had — well, had become a slip knot. Of our legions only Youngest Nephew Who Must Not Be Tagged and his little family remain today. But I was able to tell about her infant mother’s reaction to my parents’ Christmas Eve engagement, which she had not heard, and a few other things.

6a) Rebecca was also interested to hear about my recent visit to Scrivelsby and our family’s connection there. That was so important to my granny, that and our DAR ancestry. It wasn’t until only a few years ago that started to ask myself why that was so important to Granny and her sisters. (Kate and Lal had small portraits of George and Martha Washington in their front hall.) I’m sure it had to do with their fierce mother Alice Vivian, reduced to supporting seven children and a no-account husband by running a New Orleans boardinghouse for medical students. I forget who it was who said “Gentility is what wealthy ancestors leave you when they don’t leave the wealth,” but something like that. These thinning claims to blue blood gave the Evans girls distinction.

The last home of Jane Austen.

7) After lunch her little one was eager to run on the green and chase birds, so we followed him there, continuing our talk. We didn’t go into the cathedral, but continued behind it and down a street where Jane Austen’s last residence was (more on that later). Our journey took us down a country path beside a narrow river with subaqueous plants and a few fish, and borders heavy with cow parsley.

7a) The ruins of Wolvesey Castle distracted us, and then ice cream with sprinkles, and then before long we were in a sunny pub room drinking white wine and continuing our talk while a child slumbered.

8) We three parted behind the cathedral — her little boy reminded me so much of myself at that age — and I then had the opportunity to explore one the of the most famous sites of Winchester. I was in line to get a ticket behind a very inquisitive American couple full of questions for the cashier. (“So we could get our ticket now and avoid long lines tomorrow?” he asked. I was thinking “Honey, I’m in a long line right now, and it’s just you in front of me.” 😉)

8a) My father’s parents were not readers, but one of the very few books to come from their house was a paperback of Good Intentions, poems by Ogden Nash. And this guy ahead of me in line immediately made me think of the first few lines of his poem “Dr. Fell and Points West,” which I just had to look up:

“Your train leaves at eleven-forty-five, and it is now but eleven-thirty-nine and a half,

And there is only one man ahead of you at the ticket window so you have plenty of time don’t you, well I hope you enjoy a hearty laugh,

Because he is Dr. Fell, and he is engaged in an intricate maneuver,

He wants to go to Sioux City with stopovers at Plymouth Rock, Stone Mountain, Yellowstone Park, Lake Louise, and Vancouver . . .”

8a.i) When I turned 61, a switch flipped somewhere inside and I now officially have trouble remembering names. The agony of searching for “funny midcentury American poets” online . . .

8b) To paraphrase the late Mary McCarthy, “Everything about Winchester Cathedral, including this sentence, has already been written.” One of the epitaphs stood out to me, of a 20-year-old woman who died in 1686: “Vertuous, pious, and charitable mind, pleasant conversation and discreet demeanour towards all people caused her to be both admired and beloved while living: and asmuch lamented when dying.”

8c) But among all the memorials, the most important is that of Jane Austen, and who knew, this year is the 250th anniversary of her birth. This is why Rebecca made sure I got to see her house! And now I was seeing her Final Resting Place, which includes not only the original floor marker, but also a brass memorial in the wall and a memorial window.

8c.i) And a Very Large Indeed Floral Tribute, which a sweet elderly lady was picking apart as it was now Past Its Prime. She was the nicest lady, a cathedral volunteer, the sort of person who makes your day better in 30 seconds.

8d) Also spotted: some stunning Pre-Raphaelite stained glass.

9) A late afternoon train back to London allowed me to drowse just a bit.

10) I learned on social media that today was Commencement back at ye Instytytte, which of course means Reunions . . . and I was entirely unaware. #retirement

Thursday, 29 May: Summer Abroad, Day 27: Manchester to London

1) A travel day, so it was time to get packing. The hotel made a costly error (for them!) by dry cleaning all my laundry. The advantage for me was that it was much more compact than otherwise.

1a) Also, those packing cubes I was given for Christmas have changed my life.

2) Except for breakfast, I stayed writing in my room until 15 minutes before checkout time. I had asked to check out an hour later, and they asked for £20! No, thank you kindly. That said, my hotel was a most wonderful part of my time in Manchester, and I highly recommend the Alan.

3) Less than half an hour later I was wheeling my bags into Manchester Piccadilly station to the tinkling melody of “Lady Madonna” that someone with skill was playing on the station piano. Later he moved on to “The Beautiful Blue Danube.”

4) My train journey was unremarkable, the best kind to have. But it felt comfortable, on arriving at Euston Station, to know exactly where I was going and how to get there without having to look it up: the hotel where I’d stayed previously.

4a) Manchester had been chilly and gray and damp. London was automatically warmer and sunnier.

5) For dinner I just kept walking down the street until I found a likely enough place, an Italian restaurant that looked established rather than fashionable. Garlic bread, pollo ai funghi, and rosé, in the company of Queen James.

6) Walking back to the hotel, I passed through twilit Russell Square and found the delightful memorial plaque photographed at top. What a lovely memory to have of a friend!

Wednesday, 28 May: Summer Abroad, Day 26: Manchester, Day Three

“. . . we should lay down our book, lean back in our chair, close our eyes, and ask ourselves what we see in the glowing gallery of our mind.” — Henry Guppy in The Art of Reading (1929)

1) The morning took me slowly — all I did was go across the street to the little Caffé Nero for a latte and a cinnamon roll.

2) Except the time had unavoidably come to get a haircut and a beard trim. I’d brought my beard trimmer, of course; but the first time I plugged it in (with the electrical adapter), it made such an alarmingly loud noise I was sure Karen Black would soon be screaming “There’s no one flying the plane!” And by this day I’d reached what one friend referred to as the Grizzly Adams Stage. Action had to be taken.

2a) Lucky me, there was a barber shop a block and a skip from the hotel, and a young man managed to make me look respectable. When your hair is all you’ve got, it’s an anxious thing to put it in the hands of a stranger. And his approach was so random, and I was not expecting him to apply shaving cream to my temples. But I left looking sprucer, which is what I needed.

The back of Manchester Cathedral.

3) By noon I felt I must do something and headed into a suddenly sunny afternoon in the general direction of the cathedral, about 15 minutes away. En route I discovered that Manchester really is a city of barbers. I felt I was seeing a barber show every 50 feet or so.

3a) Manchester Cathedral has many scars and styles to show for its 600 (!) years of ministry: medieval and Gothic stonework, tasteful and marvelous monuments of the 18th and 19th centuries, postwar stained glass windows. When I entered the first thing I was aware of was the amplified voice of a priest in prayer; a service was taking place in the quire. While tourists are welcome, this is still very much an active community of faith.

3b) Of particular note near the entrance were plaques memorializing personal visits made by her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate different occasions.

4) This was very much in Manchester’s shopping district. At midday it was full of both locals and tourists and chain everything: stores, restaurants, the works.

5) But I found my way to St. Ann’s, and as it happened entered in the middle of an organ recital. Silently I crept into a back pew, where I could tell that I was in the youngest 10% of the audience of about 50 people.

5a) I really didn’t know what to make of the piece being played as I came in, but it received an enthusiastic ovation as the organist came bounding out from behind the console, a Man Older Than I in a swish red velvet jacket. He told a funny story about substituting for an injured colleague at a concert elsewhere, where he met a member of the audience. “Y’know, you and [the other organist] are quite different.” “How d’you mean?” “Well,” said the audience member, “You’re a great entertainer, and he’s a consummate professional.” Insert Appreciative Laughter Here.

5b) The rest of the recital, about 20-30 minutes, was both beautiful and contemplative, though it led me as so often to my many sins. How appropriate this should take place in a church . . .

At St. Ann’s.

5c) If Manchester Cathedral was dark and spacious and scarred by battle, St. Ann’s was creamy-bright, refined, contained, and focused on higher things. (If you’ve read Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, think of Alconleigh as the cathedral and Merlinford as St. Ann’s.) The beautiful stained glass windows were all late-19th or early-20th century, some commemorating royal occasions.

6) Someone had referred me to the John Rylands Library as a feature of Manchester, and I’m glad I remembered it, and I’m glad it was rather close to St. Ann’s. If I was in the younger 10% of that recital audience, I was in the older 20% of the many people in and around Rylands. How wonderful! How vigorous, and yet quiet (this being a library)! A superb Gothic building of 1900, now joined to a more modern addition, the vibe I got was very Boston Athenaeum.

6a) And how fortunate for me, they had a special exhibition on: The Secret Public: LGBTQ pop 1955-1985, an examination of “the profound influence of LGBTQ and LGBTQ-friendly performers on mainstream pop culture.” What a romp!

7) Returning home, I was distracted by a sign that read “St. Mary’s (Hidden Gem),” which eventually turned out to be a Catholic Church accessible most readily through narrow alleys. I had to enter through a confused tourist family. The “Cleaning in Progress” sign on the door was proved by the hum of the vacuum cleaner on the right side of the church. Sun-filled and salmon pink, I had to scrunch by a cluster of activity in the little shop to sit in a pew well behind two people in prayer.

8) Back at my hotel briefly, and then — a slave to habit — I went back to Richmond Tea, this time for dinner: a double whiskey and a steak and ale pie.

9) The evening I spent doing nothing productive, just watching Persuasion and doing my best not to think. I would need to pack in the morning and return to London for another week.

Brief, concise, specific.

Tuesday, 27 May: Summer Abroad, Day 25: Manchester, Day Two

Recollecting two days later.

1) Tea was so good at the Richmond Tea Rooms that I returned for breakfast. I was the third customer of the morning; already two blond gentlemen speaking in a Scandinavian or Slavic language I could not identify were talking over their coffee at a table, but other than they, it was just me and the waitress.

1a) Really, a scrumptious little breakfast, latte and Eggs Royale, while scrolling the news.

1b) You find what’s right, and you stick with it, and in Manchester, that was definitely this whimsical little place.

2) The Manchester Art Gallery was directly across the street from my hotel; probably that’s why I chose the hotel. And this was the right morning to toddle through it. What wonders, what delights! The Pre-Raphaelite painters denied us in Birmingham (because of the museum renovations) were here displayed confidently in the permanent collection. But also Etty, Tissot, Watts, Augustus John. My happy moment of surprise came when I recognized Hylas and the Nymphs in one of the galleries (see above).

The Sirens and Ulysses (detail), by William Etty.

2a) Etty, a painter of whom I learned only in the last couple years, can generally be counted on for pulchritude, but even I was surprised by his The Sirens and Ulysses. This was practically Tom of Finland . . .

A teapot by Simon Bayliss (2021), part of an exhibition about tea.

2b) The museum consists of an older building joined to a newer one with an atrium of glass and steel containing a large staircase surrounding the elevators. In the new building a couple of the galleries had been set up as storerooms, with sculpture and other works on view as though they were being uncrated, part of the museum’s examination of issues of provenance (I hope I am describing this correctly). Hard to believe it was almost 40 years ago (!) that MFA Boston did a sort-of similar exhibition of stuff from the storerooms: items from the museum’s original collections, original works of art exhibited alongside copies and forgeries both, art too fragile to be on view very often (a sculpture of fluorescent tubes, an 1860s ballgown), art and furniture once fashionable, now risible. I wish they’d do it again.

Katherine of Aragon and the Cardinals. Are they negotiating a playlist for their next gig?

3) Unusually worn out, I spent the afternoon mostly asleep. With Manchester so chilly and rainy, my room was the warmest and coziest place to be.

4) In the evening my local friend, C_____, met me for a drink, and we walked to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner. It was he who had recommended the Richmond Tea Room to me, and he gave me more info on Life In Manchester and other recommendations over an excellent dinner. (My goodness, the arancini in that restaurant, om nom nom.)

5) And that’s it. Not a very active day — breakfast, museum, NAP, dinner with a friend — but most excellent.

Monday, 26 May: Summer Abroad, Day 24: Manchester, Day One

Recollecting all this two days later.

1) This trip I brought my tarot cards, and Monday morning felt like a good time to look for some guidance. The elements were there: unhappy memories, a quest for spiritual wisdom, sorrow widely felt. But what’s coming in shows promise: renewed hope, and the need to apply kindness to raw emotion.

2) The rest of the morning got taken up with the business of daily life, which goes on whether you’re traveling or not.

Queen Victoria, who could be singing “Macarthur Park” as the cake.

3) Midafternoon I sallied forth in the direction of Stevenson Square, borrowed umbrella from the hotel keeping off most of the rain. There I found the recommendation of a local friend, a shop of books and magazines, Unitom. Wandering through its carefully arranged stacks of beautifully designed zines, magazines, and books of all kinds — just wow, brought me back to life before the internet, when print was our principal means of reading intake. The late 1980s, when publishing was the it career. Leslie, are you reading this? Do you remember our fledgling plans for The Leif Ericson Revue? LOL.

3a) I did buy a magazine of biographical stories, which should make good reading. But I bravely resisted other temptations. Just because I got Madame Campan’s memoir of Marie Antoinette in college is no reason to get a paperback reprint of Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s little memoir now, now matter how pretty it looks on the shelf.

3b) Biblioholism is a thing. #resist

4) Manchester certainly turned out to be wetter and chillier than expected.

I mean, really.

5) The big event of the day was afternoon tea at the Richmond Tea Rooms, a rainy hop and skip from my hotel. My local friend said it would be perfect for me, and . . . and considering that it was a café with an Alice in Wonderland theme, he was not wrong! (And he didn’t know that I’d played the Mad Hatter three times . . .) Garlands of silk flowers were everywhere, heavily wound with playing cards and other recognizable bits of the Alice stories (though I didn’t see a flamingo . . . )

5a) The room was fairly full with groups of women. I was shown to my little table promptly and ordered the Hatter’s Tea which included four sandwiches, a canapé, and an incredible scone with jam and clotted cream. It was all superb, including the Andrews Sisters on the soundtrack.

5b) I appeared to have been the only person who dressed for the occasion in full canonicals, but then all my laundry and dry cleaning was subject to the tender mercies of the hotel; all I could wear was a suit and tie.

6) I spent the evening writing and reading Queen James, which was just fine.

Sunday, 25 May: Summer Abroad, Day 23: Sheffield to Manchester

1) My Overall Sheffield Experience improved significantly when I found the Hygge coffee shop about seven minutes away from my hotel. A couple lattes and a chocolate croissant in a quiet atmosphere set me up for the day.

1a) The room filled up with both with gray sunshine and with people. A family group were playing something like Monopoly at a table near mine.

2) Packed up, dropped off my key, and I trundled my bags off to the train station, filled with sunlight and . . . live music. A piano was there, and when I walked in a girl about eight years old was doggedly working through “Let It Be” while being filmed by her mother. Later more experienced musicians tickled the ivories, and I was especially happy to hear someone play “You Don’t Know Me.”

2a) The maps are outdated in this station; the first class lounge no longer exists.

3) Overall confusion on the platform when the train arrived, but somehow I was in the right place for the door of my car to open directly in front of me. As it happened most of the people boarding had mistaken my train for another train, and an announcement had to be made over the public address system.

3a) An announcement also had to be made, sotto voce, by the only other occupant of first class, a Woman Older Than I, who kept looking disapprovingly and saying “They are not supposed to be in here.”

3b) But once they were gone and our journey begun, and my seat supposedly right by hers, she became a nearly unstoppable chatterbox. Wouldn’t you know it, she was en route to join a Cunard cruise! So we talked Cunard until I turned my attention to Queen James.

3b.i) This encounter reminded me vividly of an old woman I met in a Texas airport when flying home in the mid-1980s. I remember her sniffing about airport food — “not as good as this good roll” she said, referring to her cheese sandwich from home — and her astonishment that I was a Methodist since she was as well. (She may have expected me to be a Communist or something.) Very conservative and homophobic, something I filed away since at that point I was far from coming out.

4) Walking into my hotel, the Alan, it felt instantly like a Hotel for Young People. This was because there were two steep steps to the entrance, and then two further steep steps to the lobby, tough to maneuver with heavy bags, not to mention the derisive laughter of a young woman (which probably was about something else, but still . . . ) The lobby was very modern, lots of cream stone; I remembered Spy Magazine had once described Cher’s New York kitchen as “Fred and Wilma Flintstone as cocaine dealers.” This room was a lot more relaxed. But the staff were all delightful, and my room was all dim light and spacious warmth. I felt welcome.

5) After unpacking and settling in, I ventured to find some dinner and was pleased to discover a great restaurant not too many blocks away. Negroni, pork chops, chocolate pistachio cake — heaven.

6) I sank into bed happy to have gotten safely in, and ready to contemplate the next few days.

Saturday, 24 May: Summer Abroad, Day 22: Chatsworth, with Indigestion

1) After a long sleep, I ended up having breakfast at the hotel just as a matter of convenience. I had learned yesterday where the bus station was. The man at the information booth was very helpful — “Platform 3B, pay on the bus,” and so I was off on my only bit of business here, a visit to the greatest Stately Home Run as an Attraction, Chatsworth.

2) The 218 Peakline bus takes an hour winding through Sheffield and the countryside to get to Chatsworth, where it actually pulls up in the parking lot by the entrance. I had brought Queen James to read on the bus, but I ended up absorbed in the view instead. At one point we drove by a hillside field of a couple dozen black-and-white cows, and I thought “It’s real! It’s not just a Ben and Jerry’s logo, it’s real!”

2a) Also sheep, sheep everywhere.

3) I was early by design (please, contain your surprise at this development) so that I could see the gardens before touring the house. Almost the first thing I saw in the Temple of Flora was two trunks of enormous old camellias, long since dead; a sign explained that cuttings were elsewhere in the greenhouses. I had to wonder if it was these trees that were stripped of their blooms for Debo and Andrew’s wedding in 1941, after the Blitz blew out the windows and draperies in the Mitford’s London house.

3a) Greenhouses, gardens, rare plants, tributes to the great Sir Joseph Paxton, sculpture in various states of pulchritude. I was enjoying every bit of it, but . . . somehow, I felt a bit queasy. Could it be breakfast? I returned to where I had entered, and the men’s room I’d seen there.

A poor photo of the Blanche Memorial Urn.

3b) Refreshed, I ventured further, passing the Cascade to see the Emperor Fountain and the Memorial Urn to the Sixth Duke’s niece Blanche. My curiosity led me up a path to discover a tall bust in a green enclosure, enormous rhododendrons, and the former site of the Great Conservatory (demolished in 1920, very sad). But who knew, Andrew and Debo had installed a maze! But since I was continuing to feel, um, unsettled, and my entry time was approaching, I refrained from going in and started to head back to the entrance of the house.

The approach to the maze.

3c) Sounds of middle-aged laughter came from inside the maze, followed later by the laughter of children, and I wondered idly if going through the maze we could all regress to the happy parts of our childhood. Why not?

3d) Before my second foray into the garden I saw a couple people arrive in Victorian hunting gear with a small wagon on wheels. Turns out it was a hand-cranked calliope, and soon I could hear tunes of my grandmother’s day like “Come and Make Eyes at Me Down at the Old Bull and Bush,” “The Sidewalks of New York,” and such like. It was completely charming, and made me wish American ice cream trucks would upgrade their audio from that crackly recording of “Turkey in the Straw.”

4) Refreshed, I sat on a bench not too far from the entrance. Then standing, I realized with horror that I had sat in a puddle. Consternation! There was nothing to do but tie my navy blue blazer around my waist and proceed with as much dignity as I could muster to the other nearby restroom, where a man was taking a phone call in a foreign language inside the only stall.

4a) What would you do in this situation?

4b) “Chin up, head back, tummy in! Tonight, Agnes, you are Queen of Rumania!” Also, “Say nothing, act casual.”

This is the face of one grappling between Personal Anguish and Determined Tourism.

5) I bravely moved to the gate, where the nice attendant directed me down an allée of trees to the public entrance. The weather was very changeable, and a staffer noted that they weren’t crowded this day.

5a) Because I had taken the bus, I got a free audioguide for the tour. Please note, the arch connecting the earphones goes behind your head, not above it.

5b) Years ago Dahling had given me Wait for Me! for Christmas, Deborah Devonshire’s wonderful memoir about Growing Up Mitford, marrying a man who wasn’t supposed to be a duke but became one, and bringing Chatsworth back from the dead. So I was prepared to love Chatsworth, and I did. Some of the rooms, like the Painted Hall, were smaller than I expected, but impressive nonetheless.

Look at this charming display from the entrance.

5c) “Gorgeous Nothings” was a special exhibition in all the rooms, celebrating flowers and notable floral representations from Chatsworth’s library and collections. The best part of this was two guest bedrooms hung with gorgeous hand-painted wallpaper from the 18th century, almost by itself. One included a new portrait of Georgiana Duchess.

An unexpected platter of babies.

5d) The State Apartments, prepared for a visit from William and Mary that never happened, would make remarkable museums on their own. I was more delighted to recognized furniture from the Devonshire House ballroom in the Sketch Gallery next door, so very like my beloved Vollmer Suite of furniture for the White House Blue Room.

Debo!

5e) In a small antechamber before the stairs, against a royal blue wall, I turned and found to my delight Annigoni’s portrait of Deborah Duchess. Say what you like about Lucian Freud, but overall I’m not a fan. While his portrait of Debo is acknowledged to be a success, and she did grow old to look just like it, I very much prefer this one. Here she is at the peak of elegance. (And you can also see the star ruby clasp on her pearls, which she mentions in her memoirs.)

The Great Wall of Cavendish. Andrew Duke is second from right in the top row. His father Victor Duke is at far left.

5f) A grand staircase is hung floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and back to front with Cavendishes and others, including George IV. The guide and I had a very pleasant conversation about several of them, a couple of whom I recognized. The room also featured a superb malachite table.

5g) From there I passed by the library (on view, but one could only stand at the door), and majestic red dining room, and finally the sculpture gallery and the shop in the orangery. By this time I was overwhelmed, and I stepped in the garden, bought a bottle of water, returned to the mens room, and eventually headed back to the bus stop.

Endymion (and doggie) by the great Antonio Canova. Thank goodness the Sixth Duke loved pulchritude.

5h) But I was able to put on my jacket again properly, thank goodness.

6) While waiting for the 218 bus, I got to witness a poor little girl wipe out on the pavement as she was running after her sister. I felt for her — I’ve been there! Her parents soon put her to rights, but gosh, that must have hurt.

These sofas were made for the Devonshire House ballroom in the 1890s.

7) Why did I bring Queen James with me? I barely opened it, even on the bus on the way back to Sheffield. The passing scene was too full of interest, though by this time a strained pain in my right shoulder and neck was starting to take it out of me.

8) Back in the city, I made short work of returning to my hotel (an ambulance was just pulling away . . . ) and heading to bed for a NAP. By 5:45 I was able to sally forth for an Italian dinner, succulent lasagna with garlic spinach and a chocolate pistachio tart.

In the red dining room. I love this.

9) By the end of the day I had finished Isabella Stewart Gardner’s biography Chasing Beauty. (Spoiler alert: she dies in the end.) It felt appropriate to end her story, that of a woman who created a new kind of house museum with a discerning collection, after having seen Chatsworth, which is still largely (to me) the creation of the Sixth Duke, the “Bachelor Duke,” who filled an ancestral home already bursting with masterpieces with a discerning collection. And they were able to do so because they’d been born into privilege and had the luxury of being able to indulge their discernment. Comparatively few get to do so on this scale!

9a) At one end of the spectrum you have Joseph Cornell hoarding odd supplies to create his boxes. On the other you have Rita Lydig, “the fabulous Mrs. Lydig,” collecting marvelous expensive paintings, sculpture, textiles, clothing, and calling her fortune “an accident of wealth.” It didn’t stop her from going bankrupt.

10) And then writing, and early to bed. I was exhausted!

Georgiana Duchess in the Sculpture Gallery.

Friday, 23 May: Summer Abroad, Day 21: Scrivelsby to Sheffield

“. . . and exchanged the medieval splendors of Chalfont for the modern conveniences of Number 73 Balaclava Avenue SW.” — from Kind Hearts and Coronets

1) Though not traveling until the afternoon, I got myself packed and ready before breakfast. The day was sunny and beautiful, stereotypically English (as opposed to stereotypically rainy or foggy English days).

2) In the late morning Gail drove us over to the park around Scrivelsby Court so I could photograph the Lion Gate (and the “Strictly No Lorries” sign), and we then had a good ramble through the gardens and meadows. Ponds ringed with yellow iris, white lilac, an allée of lime trees, a particularly lovely Gertrude Jekyll rose — all suggestive of the past to me.

2a) She pointed out a pair of stocks in a bit of woods, which surprised me greatly.

2b) Stanley’s eagerness to meet new people led to us spotting two men either Older or Younger Than Myself walking up the drive, lost and looking for some sort of caravan meetup. Some quick telephoning on Gail’s part led to the sad discovering that the meetup had been cancelled without notice.

2c) Our ramble continued through the sheep meadows, after which we hopped in the car to return to the Grange for a bit of lunch.

3) Gail drove me into Lincoln to catch my train, which I made easily. Our time together was wonderful, and I am now tasked with creating a list of film recommendations, always a happy assignment for me.

3a) If I had not messaged that group on ye Fycebykke in 2013 for Scrivelsby Church, this meeting would not have happened. #grateful

4) Under two hours later, I emerged from a train that had become crowded onto a crowded platfform in Sheffield, found the lift, went to the wrong exit, negotiated the lift again, made my way down a crowded platform, found the other lift, enjoyed a merry journey down one floor with other travelers laden with either luggage or afflicitions (or both), followed the signs to the taxi stand, and got acquainted with “tea traffic” — what we call “rush hour” in America. I could not understand one word the cabbie said to me, but we made it work.

5) If Edward Hopper was still painting in this century, his hotel rooms would be from this brand of budget hotel. Strictly no frills, and my 4' x 4' window faces an urelieved brick wall. Quite a contrast from the garden view I enjoyed at the Grange, but then travel is full of contrasts, yes?

6) Using Gyygle for dinner suggestions was a mixed bag because the maps didn’t look like the streets I was on. But I found a nice little place for a bit of steak and greens and rosé, and Chasing Beauty.

7) That evening I just didn’t have it in me to write or plot or plan. Early bed for me!