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
