Tag Archive | Cornwall

In Oxford Again! Giving A Lecture at Exeter College

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Oxford

Made it! Despite getting to bed about 2 am, we boarded our Megabus coach to Oxford at 6. 30 right on schedule. Llew tried to snatch some ZZZZs but I was so keyed up about my 9. 00 am lecture at Exeter College and spent most of the ride into Wiltshire reviewing my draft and editing it as I went along! As the coach skimmed the outskirts of Oxford and arrived on The High, I took a deep breath and decided that this was it—I had to just hope that all my weeks of thought and ideas would achieve success and go down well with the students.

It was still only 8. 15 am when we arrived at Exeter College. The High and Turl Street were empty and eerily quiet as we checked in at the Porter’s Lodge, introduced ourselves and made our way to the Saskatchewan Lecture Hall where I met Jacqueline Darville who has been corresponding with me for weeks as I have prepared for this very prestigious but very daunting assignment.

It wasn’t long before I met up with Sandie Bryne who had invited me to speak to the International Graduate students who are here for the summer. They were already assembled in huge numbers when I arrived in the hall and made my way up to the stage. Miraculously, the butterflies in my tummy had stopped playing catch and I was able to focus entirely on the hour that lay ahead. I decided to speak slowly as I was not sure how many of my listeners would be familiar with the authors and the works I would be discussing. Post-Colonial Literature is not necessarily their area of specialization though it might be of interest to them. Sandie Bryne introduced me and the subject of my lecture (“India Ink: Themes and Techniques in Post-Colonial Literature from the Sub-Continent”)…and then I was off.

I spoke for a full hour and fifteen minutes covering as comprehensively as possible the main movements in literature in English from the Indian sub-continent that have been inspired by Great Britain. Yes, there was a great deal for the students to take in and I was asked for a reading list at the end of the lecture. Even though I judged only by the faces of my listeners, I could tell that my words were going down well and that they were taking in a whole lot. Sandie said a few words at the end of my lecture and then told me that she thought my lecture was great. And then, before I knew it, she was inviting me to come back again next year to address the students once again. I was so thrilled, I told her right away that it would be my pleasure and privilege indeed. So I now can look forward to another visit to the UK and Oxford if not sooner then at least next summer!

As soon as the lecture was done, I had students come up and tell me how much they enjoyed it and on the way out, a couple of the members of my audience, professors of English themselves, one from Australia and another from Miami, Florida (oh, and there was a third from South Carolina), told me that they thought I was “outstanding” and wanted to know more about my background. Well, I was deeply deeply pleased and as I walked out of Exeter College with Llew, I told him that I felt as if a massive weight had been lifted off my mind and that I could now really put my work for the year behind me and start to enjoy our forthcoming travels in France.

Back to Norham Road:

Llew and I took a circuitous route around Oxford towards the North as I was headed to Mrs. Longrigg’s home on Norham Road, the place in which I had stayed a few weeks ago, as I had left my electric adaptor plug there and hoped to pick it up. This gave Llew a chance to take in the charm and serenity of North Oxford and to see the lovely gracious Victorian mansion in which I had stayed.

Taking in the Pitt Rivers Museum:
Our next stop was at the Oxford Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum where I wanted Llew to see the famed but very eerie shrunken heads. We did not stay there too long as the heads take not more than ten minutes to examine and the rest of the museum is much too large to be seen in detail. Llew did say that the architecture of the Museum of Natural History reminded him of Empress Market in Karachi and I informed him that both these buildings were built during the heyday of Victorian architecture informed by staid facades, rising turrets and an alternation in brick and granite blocks to create decorative walls. Indeed, this style of architecture is also to be found at Crawford Market in Bombay which is distinctive for its tower or turret too. Llew also loved the architecture of Keble College (again, a great example of Victorian construction) with its vast sunken Quad.

Our rambles then took us back to The High where we visited Blackwell’s, one of the world’s most famous bookstores where we browsed for a bit and then carried on along the walk that I have placed on my website (in virtual form) as this stroll takes in the main sights of the town such as the Sheldonian Theater, the Radcliff Camera, the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin on the High Street, etc. I also took Llew into a few of the pubs frequented by the Morse crew during the making of the series (as Llew too is a big fan of the TV series).

By the time lunch hour was reached, we were both ravenous having made do with a very light breakfast. I suggested we eat at Jamie’s Italian Restaurant on George Street which I had passed a few weeks ago and decided I would check out when Llew joined me. But before that, I thought it would be great to get a real ale at one of Oxford’s more historic pubs—and though there are a bunch of them, each frequented by famous writers and politicians over the years, I chose The Bear on the corner of Alfred and Merton Streets because I did want Llew to have a look at the collection of ties that line its walls and ceilings in beautifully designed glass cases. Indeed, it was once a possibility to pay for one’s drink at this tavern with a tie (alas, not any more!). Each tie is carefully labeled with the name of the wearer and his Oxford affiliation and as we sipped our Perry (pear cider, for that was what we decided upon, ultimately, as the afternoon was warm and just begged for a lighter drink), we studied the cases and their fascinating histories. And so on to Jamie’s

Jamie, of course, is Jamie Oliver, the UK’s most famous TV chef, author of a slew of books and owner of renowned restaurants such as Fifteen (in London and in Cornwall). He is also single handedly responsible for changing school menus in the UK by critiquing the heavy fat and sugar content in them and begging for alternative healthy choices for the kids who eat lunches in school.

Well, the lunch time offerings were quite delicious indeed. I had the Tagliatelle Truffle (8. 50 pounds for a main size serving though this also comes as an appetizer for 5.95) which was finely shaved wild black truffles folded with butter, parmesan and nutmeg, and described on the menu as “a real luxury”—and indeed it was silky and very subtly flavored, the truffle adding a powerful earthiness to the concoction. Llew chose the Spiedini Sicilian Pork Skewer which was free-range British pork fillet stuffed with Italian cured meats, breadcrumbs and parmesan served with lemon, garlic and oregano dressing (11.95 pounds). Believe me, it was scrumptious and I am glad that Llew and I always tend to share our choices as he is invariably the one who seems to make the better ones! Having said that, I must emphasize that my pasta was really superb and I was so glad that I did finally get to sample one of Jamie’s concoctions as I have watched him work his magic on TV for years and have always been intrigued by his extraordinary flair.

Lunch done, we decided to go for a long walk along the Meadows to the banks of the River Thames. The afternoon was warm and very typical of summer days in this delightful town. Having eaten too much of an excellent meal, we had to practically pull ourselves along to the banks of the Cherwell near Christ Church College where we watched punters glide lazily by stalked by two saucy swans who stuck their long beaks at them! A few people enjoyed the bucolic quality of the light and the breeze in the best way that they can be experienced—with a long lie-down on the grass–and it was not long before Llew and I succumbed to the temptation and did likewise.

Dinner at Exeter College Dining Hall:
We had dinner plans with Sandie again at the 16th century Dining Hall of Exeter Collegee where I had enjoyed many a delicious meal as a student and I was keen that Llew should have that singular experience himself. So I have to say that I was disappointed to discover that students are no longer invited to sit in rotation with the dons at High Table and enjoy meals within the formality of one of the most hallowed spaces in town. Instead, they sit casuallyto a meal that is served without the recitation of a Grace (ours used to be recited either in Latin or in Welsh by the excellent Geoffrey Thomas who, hailing from Wales, proudly spoke in the tongue of his native land).

We had reservations on the Megabus Coach back to London at 8. 40 pm and at the end of what had turned out to be a really good day (but for the disastrous meal), we boarded our coach and arrived at Notting Hill Gate where we switched to the Tube to arrive at Denmark House and get ready…no not for bed but for our next trip!

It wasn’t as if we could make up for our short night, for we had to awake early again—this time to get the 5. 30 am Eurostar train from St. Pancras International Station and it was a good thing that our bags for France were packed and ready. We set our alarm clock once again and prepared to sleep well as our French adventures lay ahead of us and we were ready for another meaningful week together in one of my favorite parts of the world.

Blenheim Palace and Wandering in Woodstock

Thursday, June 25, 2009
Woodstock, Oxfordshire

Ah, the supreme joys of awaking in Oxford! It was not a minute before 7. 45 when I awoke with a start and realized that breakfast was at 8am. There was not a moment to be lost! I jumped out of bed, gathered my toiletries and clothes together and padded downstairs to my basement bathroom. At exactly 8 am, I heard voices coming from the Dining Room and on getting there at 8. 05, I found that three of my fellow lodgers, academics all, were already at breakfast!

We spent the next few minutes getting introduced: a New Zealander named Marni, a Japanese named Atsushi and an American named Andrea from Seton Hall in New Jersey! The first two are long-term guests and will be staying for several weeks more, the last is only here for a night. She is on a year-long Sabbatical at Somerville College and hopes to move into her own flat soon. Breakfast was Continental (no full English–bummer!!!–I was looking forward to some scrambled eggs, sausages and bacon!) but over muesli with milk, toast and hot rolls with marmalade and a selection of jams, we ate well. However, I did not linger too long as I had a
9. 35 am bus to catch on the Woodstock Road and I did not want to miss it.

So I grabbed my things and left at 9. 15, and was at the bus stop at 9. 20. I thought so much of my friend Annalisa and her boys as I passed right by the school that her little one Giacomo used to attend when she had spent the summer in Oxford, two years ago. I had visited her then and we had walked to the school together to pick him up. The bus was late and I began to despair and while I waited, I called my parents in Bombay and told them I was in Oxford and we caught up. Then, my bus came along and I was off (five pounds return ticket to Blenheim Palace–Stagecoach Bus Number S3). The journey took exactly half an hour and I do so wish I could find out which public bus would just take me winding through this beautiful network of Cotswold villages as it had done in Cornwall. From the bus stop to the Palace gates, it was a ten minute walk but it turned out to be another spectacular morning and I could not start complaining so early in the day!

The ticket granting admission to the park, gardens and house is a pricey 17. 50 pounds but I was fortunate enough to be able to avail of a pass that is valid for a whole year at the same price! Well, I might not return to Blenheim (pronounced ‘Blen-um’) ever again (though I have now learned never to say never–I remember, as a graduate student 22 years ago, I had thought that I would never return to Oxford and I came back so many times over the years!) but I figured the card would make a good souvenir–so I had my mug shot taken and was presented with a lovely gold printed laminated card!

Thus began my forays into one of the world’s most magnificent homes, the handiwork of the famous John Vanbrugh, who, unbelievably never had any architectural training whatsoever–he was a dramatist by profession. Yes, he is the same one who created Castle Howard, another architectural masterpiece in Yorkshire which Llew and I had visited last August. Upon arriving at the main entrance (I was, by the way, the first visitor to enter the palace today!), we were informed that a bonus free tour of the garden would soon be conducted by Karen Wiseman, garden historian, and we could take that if we chose. Our tour of the house could begin after that.
Tour of the Gardens:
Well…naturally, this was too good a chance to pass up and sign up I did. A few minutes later, Karen did arrive and led us past the gravel terraces to the vast spread of green parkland (the handiwork, of course, of the renowned Capability Brown). She told us a little bit about the history of the house at this point and then about the gardens. She did encourage questions and several visitors did ask very sensible ones. They were obviously all enthusiastic gardeners themselves and I thoroughly enjoyed the tour. She also pointed out the flag that was flying to indicate that John, the current 11th Duke of Marlborough was in residence today.

In a nutshell, Blenheim has been around for so long (since 1705) and has been in the hands of so many well-known gardeners starting with Robert Wise (none of whose work exists today). Each left his particular mark upon the property and the end result is, like Cliveden, a series of separate gardens each with a distinctive style and aura. We started at the Italian garden with its neat yew hedging, classical statuary and water fountains, then went on to the Rose Garden (quite lovely at this time of year with every flower in bloom and loads of buds on each bush).

Our next stop was the Duke’s private Italian garden which was also quite lovely though very formal. Visitors are not allowed into it though we could glimpse it from the edge. The last stop was at the Secret Garden, quite the most beautiful of them all with a Japanese style bridge fording a small lyrical stream and a variety of flowers such as deep blue irises and maroon day lilies bringing patches of color to the space that alternated between shady spots and brightly lit ones.

By this point, we had already trekked through the property for an hour and my feet were beginning to ache. My sneakers are not very comfortable and I have started to develop corns, so I should get myself some medication right away as I know I shall be doing a lot of walking during the next few days. When we got back to the house, I was told that we should start our tour on the ground floor with the special exhibit on Winston Churchill who was born at Blenheim Palace as his father Randolph was the brother of the then Duke of Marlborough.

The Winston Churchill Exhibition:
Having visited the Churchill Museum and the Cabinet War Rooms at Whitehall in London, I have to say that I did not expect too much on this tour; but let me tell you that this was one of the best exhibitions I have ever seen. It is quite brilliantly curated and takes us right into the very room in which Churchill was born. There is a letter framed on the wall from his father Randolf to the doctor who attended the birth, thanking him for his pains and paying him the fee of 12 guineas (I have no idea how much that would translate into modern currency).

The exhibition then wound us through the early years of this man who turned out to be one of the finest statesmen England has ever known and about his poignant connection with Blenheim. He wrote somewhere: “Two of the happiest things in my life happened here–I was born here and I asked my wife Clementine to marry me here”. As it turned out, Karen had taken us to the Temple of Diana, a classical folly in the garden, and to the marble bench on which Winston had proposed. It was a supremely happy marriage and one based on a good solid romance.

We saw so many of his early letters to his “dear Pappa” and “darling Mamma”, written when just a lad of eight and then whilst a student at Harrow and then from the front where he served himself with the Hussars together with his cousin, then Lord Blanford (who became the 10th Duke of Marlborough). All the time, we could hear recordings in the background of some of his most stirring war-time speeches and, believe, me, the quality of the oration and the passion and the conviction with which they were delivered brought tears to my eyes that ran down my cheeks, much to my embarrassment! It was just too moving for words! Possibly because I expected so little, I was overwhelmed and my response was just as impassioned! How marvelous it was to walk through the most significant milestones of “Winnie’s” life and to realize the forces that shaped him into the steely man he became– a hedonist with a healthy love for the best things in life as well as a clear head and a determination to overcome.

But I suppose for me the most amazing thing of all (as this year for me has been, among many things, a matter of art education of the highest quality) was that Churchill was an accomplished painter (who knew??!!) and that so many of his oil paintings that I saw were based on his years at Blenheim to which he was a regular visitor. Indeed, he said, “When I die, I will spend the first one thousand year in heaven painting so that I might get a sense of exactly how it is done”. Such colossal talent in this most Renaissance of men and such modesty too!!! His paintings are truly good and were actually exhibited at the Royal Academy to which he submitted entries under a pseudonym so that no one could accuse him of being favored! If for no other reason than to achieve insights into the life and times and paintings of Winston Churchill, one ought to visit Blenheim!

Guided Tour and History of Blenheim:
At the end of the Churchill exhibition, we were joined by a guide who gave us a brief history of the Palace. Blenheim Palace came into existence after the Battle of Blenheim which ended on August 13, 1704, when the French commander Tallard surrendered to the English John Churchill bringing glorious victory to the British troops. John Churchill scribbled the news of the victory on a French tavern bill he had in his pocket and dispatched it to his wife, Sarah, requesting her to inform the Queen (Anne) of his triumph. The Queen was so delighted, she gave him 1000 gold guineas as a reward and about 12,000 acres of land in Woodstock. She also gave him the title Duke of Marlborough and John Churchill became the first one!

A year later, in 1704, John and Sarah chose John Vanbrugh to build them a magnificent house. Vanbrugh used Nicholas Hawksmoor as his assistant and with the contribution of the inimitable Grindling Gibbons who was in-charge of the stone carvings, work began on the Palace. Hence, it is incorrect (as the guides kept saying) that John Churchill was given the Palace as a gift for his victory at Blenheim by Queen Anne. In actual fact, he was given the land and the money–he built the Palace with it…the Palace did not exist prior to the Battle of Blenheim–so it is a typically 18th century piece of work with its emphasis on symmetry and balance and a nod to the achievements of Classical Antiquity–the true hallmarks of the English Baroque style. It was finished in 1713 but poor John Churchill only lived for a few years to enjoy it. He was dead by 1718 when the Dukedom and the Palace passed into the hands of his oldest daughter Henrietta as he had no male heirs. Clearly, there was an exception made in England’s then normal rules of inheritance that allowed a female heir to inherit both the title and the property. A series of Dukes followed, some more profligate than others, each bringing his own stamp to the residence and gardens and making Blenheim what it is today.

The American connection comes in with the 9th Duke who finding himself bankrupt and wanting to keep the house within the family rather than letting it fall into the hands of the National Trust or English Heritage, decided to marry for money rather than for love. He consented to an arranged marriage with Consuelo Vanderbilt who was only one of the richest women in the world. Her social-climbing mother, not content with being a Vanderbilt, wanted a title for her daughter and was thrilled when she became a Duchess. Consuelo and the Duke were bitterly unhappy though she bore him three children and brought gazillion millions as her dowry into the marriage. This saved the Churchill estate but it did not bring any personal happiness to either of the spouses who could not stand each other. They were subsequently divorced and Consuelo remarried a Frenchman. The current Duke of Marlborough is in his 80s, recently remarried for the fourth time (his wife is at least half his age) and has four children: two by his first wife, two by his third wife (and he has two step-children). Of these, the one with whom I am most familiar is Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill who owns an interior decorating company, has written several books on interior design (all of which I own) and has a Woodstock-based shop called Woodstock Designs. It was easy for me to see where her love for interior design and decoration was nurtured, as I toured the home in which she grew up and where she is a still a frequent resident.

All this history was made known to us through a tour of the State Rooms of the House which we took in the company of another very good and very humorous guide. Needless to say, he paused to explain the history of the people depicted in a number of paintings and of the grand accoutrements of the rooms. In particular, he pointed out the Boule furniture in the last room which is the best example of French Baroque. The tour ended with what must be one of the most spectacular rooms I have seen thus far in my travels–the Long Library, whose plasterwork ceiling and walls are entirely the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor. It is simply exquisite, combining pastel peach shades with white ivory ornamentation. A really massive marble sculpture of Queen Anne, great patroness and close friend of Sarah Churchill, graces one end of the room while a massive organ is present at the other end. There is really no part of this staggeringly beautiful home that I would want to miss.

Then, drooping with fatigue, I sat on the grand steps outside the Palace and ate my picnic lunch: Roast Chicken baguette from Sainsbury and a bottle of Diet Coke. This allowed me to admire Vanbrugh’s design and the special honey color of the walls all made of Cotswold stone quarried nearby! The second session began upstairs where I undertook a self-guided audio-visual tour that was very interestingly done. It takes another 40 minutes but was so worth it as it took us once more through the history of Blenheim and its colorful occupants through the centuries. This bit ended in the Shop where I spied the most darling porcelain spoons in exactly the same design as the Herend porcelain tea and coffee service that Llew and I had purchased from Budapest, Hungary, a few years ago. I had to have them and, a few minutes later, the attendant was packing 8 little spoons for me in bubble wrap and Blenheim Palace tissue paper!

Wandering in Woodstock:
Then I was hurrying out of the Palace and cutting across Capability Brown’s landscaped lakeside to arrive at the village of Woodstock which is so picture perfect I simply could not stop clicking. I entered a number of shops and found two perfect little cut crystal whisky glasses in a thrift shop for just two pounds each and which I could see as votive candle holders on my dining table! I did browse through Lady Henrietta’s shop, Woodstock Designs, but I have to say that I was so dead by then that I simply had to get back on the bus and return to Oxford. Woodstock is so pretty and being located on the very edge of the Cotswolds, it is the ideal spot to visit in case travelers have no time to see the rest of the more renowned villages. It has superb antiques shops, interior decorating places, tea rooms and all sorts of other enticing enclaves in which to browse as well as a collection of extraordinarily pretty stone churches, buildings and cottages.

Christ Church Meadows at Last and the Oxford Union:
I alighted at Oxford City Center and made my way to the Broad Walk at Christ Church Meadows to complete the walk to the River Thames’ banks that I wasn’t able to do yesterday. It was very warm today though and I settled on the grass to watch crew members row in unison down the river as more relaxed kayakers breezed alongside. The cows were in the meadows and in the distance, I could see some of Matthew Arnold’s “dreaming spires”. All was well with this bucolic little world and I felt deeply content.

On my way back home to Norham Road, I made it a point to stop at the famous Oxford Union, the place that is renowned for its weekly debates (Benazir Bhutto was the first female President of the Oxford Union). Since this is Week Nine, only a few students are still on campus; (most of them are finishing finals this week and leaving) but a few stragglers were sipping beers at the bar and in the garden. I poked my head into the various rooms and discovered that as a member of St. Antony’s College, I could become a life member of the Oxford Union for 180 pounds (a bargain if you ask me!). Then, since I was fairly collapsing with fatigue, I walked straight home, took a shower, made myself a cup of tea, ate the other half of my sandwich, wrote this blog and went to bed.

National Trust Houses in Hampstead–and Buying a Vintage Bureau/Desk

Saturday, May 16, 2009
Hampstead, London

When I awoke this morning at 7 am, I thought it would be a weekend day like any other–I did not think I would end the day with a really valuable purchase. Of course, I had heaps of things to deal with, not the least of which was completing my grading and entering my grades into the sheets as I would like to hand them in tomorrow. I brewed myself a cafetiere of good Lavazza coffee and climbed back into bed which has become my favorite place to work in partly because this flat came without a desk of any kind. I had considered buying one in the very beginning when I first moved in here in August, but I always wondered how I would carry it home to the States and the item of furniture just simply never was purchased.

I also booked my tickets to get me to Stanstead airport on Monday for my flight to Lyon and then my return ticket for the trip from Gatwick next Saturday. I ended up buying one ticket on National Express, the other on Easybus as that was most economical!

More morning tasks involved downloading, editing and captioning the 145 pictures I took while Chriselle was here–all of which ate into my time and made me miss her terribly. My flat seemed curiously empty without her lively presence and I know I will always cherish the extraordinary week we spent together.

The sun peeped out, then disappeared, then peeped out again–all morning long. Every time it shone full upon the earth, I considered going outdoors to enjoy it and then the raindrops would fall and I would reconsider!

Finally, at about 1 pm, I finished most of the tasks on my To-Do List and decided to shower and step out. The day seemed too good to waste, so what the heck…there were a few walks left in my book that I wished to complete. My idea was to get to Hampstead Heath to see the properties run by the National Trust as I do have an annual Royal Oaks Foundation Membership (the American equivalent). But God, what a time I had getting there! There was some march on; so no buses were running along High Holborn. I walked to Holborn only to find that there were no buses plying along Kingsway either. I had no choice but to take the Tube–I had preferred not to as I have a bus pass and it is, by far, the most economical way to travel around London. Well, I reached Bond Street and was all set to transfer to the Jubilee line when I heard announcements stating that the Jubilee Line was not in service this weekend. Darn! Well, then I started to think of the most creative ways to get there, and long story short, I reached Hampstead Heath at 3. 15 pm after making at least 3 bus changes!

Heavenly Hampstead:
Deciding not to waste any more time, I headed straight for Fenton House which is run by the National Trust. It is reached by a very easy uphill climb from Hampstead Tube Station. By the afternoon, the weather which seemed not to be able to make up its mind had cleared completely and the sun shone beautifully upon one of the prettiest parts of London. I do not know any other capital city (well, maybe Paris) where you need travel no more than ten miles to find yourself in the midst of bucolic rustic lanes and carefully cultivated gardens–so that the urban landscape seems far away in the distance.

Hampstead hasn’t changed at all since the 1700s when it first attracted the elite, thanks mainly to its views. During the Victorian Age, the grand red brick buildings proliferated, bringing a stately elegance to the maze of narrow cobbled streets that fringe the vast expanses of the Heath–an open park-like space that offers arresting views of the city including, far away in the hazy blue yonder, the outlines of the London Eye.

Fenton House and Garden:
Fenton House is a 17the century brick home with classic lines set in a stunning formal garden.
I left my rather heavy bag at the door and began my exploration through one of the most heartwarming properties of the National Trust that I have seen so far. The house has a complicated history but it derives its name from James Fenton who owned it in the late 1700s. His portrait hangs at the entrance as if sizing up every visitor–and I heard from one of the guides that there are 15,000 per year that come through that impressive porch. They have been doing so since 1952 when the Trust took over the House–which has resulted in frequent changes of the carpeting!

The home is very tastefully furnished in the style of the 18th century. Minimalism is the order of the day and despite the fact that the house is a receptacle for some of the most beautiful collections I have seen in recent times–mainly keyboard instruments and porcelain–they are so skillfully corralled in a variety of vitrines, wall units and cabinets that there is not the slightest sense of ‘clutter’ to mar the visitor’s enjoyment of the domestic space. I have learned a great deal from these visits to old English country homes and I am determined now to take some of these lessons in interior decoration home with me to Southport, Connecticut, and to incorporate them into my own domestic decor. I have always loved the English country style, of course, and our Southport home is decorated very much in that vernacular…but I feel I have miles to go.

Here, dark furniture, large occasional porcelain pieces and china accessories, oil paintings and subtle watercolors lend their charm to the rooms. John Fowler (of the English interior decorating firm of Colefax and Fowler) is responsible for the decoration of one of the rooms–his signature yellow is evident on the walls as are the floral drapes and sofa upholstery. There is also a John Fowler wallpaper design that climbs the main stairwell that goes by the name of Prickly Pear! Now, how very English is that!!!

Of course, for a lover of porcelain like myself, there can be no more breathtaking space than a home that includes the work of every prominent European factory including Chelsea and Meissen. There were human figurines, animals, cottages, tableaux–each of which told a story–birds, flowers, fruit. You name it, George Salting collected it, then bequeathed his collection to his niece, Lady Katherine Binning, who added to the collection. The end result is a marvelous treasure trove of painted and fired delights that stirred my imagination and thrilled me no end. The depth of color and the quality of the glazes were superior and proclaimed their price–and at the lower end were the Staffordshire animals that were once mass produced and given away as prizes at country fairs then used to garnish the mantelpieces of humble rustic cottages. These too found a way into Lady Binnings’ heart and were accumulated with pleasure.

For the musician and historian, the gaggle of keyboard and stringed instruments would be equally enthralling for there was a spinet, a virginal, a harpsichord, a lute, a hurdy-gurdy and other old world pieces that are valuable not merely for their historic significance but for the decorative touches that distinguish them.

The rooms are superbly laid out and seem almost lived-in–yes, that’s what I most loved about this house. I did not feel as if I was in a museum but in a real home that had once been inhabited and loved by real people. Everything about this house is worthy of a visit–indeed a second visit and perhaps I might return as I do love Hampstead dearly and I fall in love with it a little more each time I visit. I have the happiest memories of solitary walks taken along its serene streets and of sitting on benches on Parliament Hill as lights fell softly over the city at dusk.

After I had explored the three lovely floors of Fenton House, I stepped out into the garden that includes a beautiful apple orchard, rows of gently waving catmint in full blue bloom and, in the heart of summer, fragrant lavender bushes. There are neat topiaries shaped into curvaceous orbs and fanciful pyramids…and benches everywhere, coaxing the visitor to sit awhile and take in the quiet splendour of these surroundings. I was completely enchanted and it was with difficulty that I tore myself away to go on and explore the second property that is close at hand and also owned by the National Trust.

The Goldfingers’ Domain–Modernism at 2 Willow Road:
But much as I wanted to linger, I did want to get to 2 Willow Road, another National Trust property that is located just a ten minute walk from Fenton House. It pays to remember that though the closing time at these homes is listed as 5 pm, last entry is 4. 30–so I had to tear off in a massive hurry to make the deadline!

I knew nothing about these homes before I set foot in them, which is what made my rambles in them even more adventurous. Willow Road could not have been more different from Fenton House. This is an example of a Modernist home–one that went on to influence a great deal of the homes that were subsequently built in London. Owned by Budapest-born architect Erno Goldfinger who made London his home following his marriage to artist Ursula Blackwell (an heiress of the famous Crosse and Blackwell English pickle company). They had met in Paris early in the 20th century, fallen madly in love, and spent the next fifty odd years together in this interesting home overlooking the Heath. And yes, Ian Fleming (who was known to Erno) did name one of his James Bond novels after this extraordinary man.

Of course, for a traditionalist such as myself, this home was fascinating only in the most academic sense as I simply do not identify with this aesthetic. It is basically a glass and concrete block with little exterior embellishment to catch the eye. Indeed, it sits rather incongruously in a block of pretty homes and appeared from the outside like a primary school building.

However, it was interesting to learn (through a film) about the vision and life of this couple who shared artistic inclinations and created a synergistic relationship that was manifested in the company they kept in Hampstead among other artists and writers and in the unique home they created together.

Here too, three storeys take the visitor on an engaging journey into the heart of a marriage. The Goldfingers raised three lovely children in this home and garden–they are interviewed in the film and they speak candidly of their lives as children with their visionary parents for company. The house is also filled with contemporary paintings as Ursula had trained in Paris and knew a few of the artists who became big names as the century marched on–such as Max Ernst and Frank Leger. There are Henry Moores in the house as Moore was a good friend of the couple as were Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson who also started their careers in Hampstead before they moved to St. Ives in Cornwall. Much as I took in everything I saw, I found it difficult to connect with the space–though I have to say that having lived for almost a year in this small, minimalist London flat with its stark white walls and Ikea style furniture, I do see the virtue in living with little. Even Chriselle who lives in a crowded one-bedroom apartment commented on how serene my flat made her feel mentally. Yes, there is a great deal to be said about fighting the urge to accumulate–a virtue that my sister-in-law Lalita has mastered. There is certainly much of my Connecticut clutter that will disappear when I get back home at the end of the summer. When I am not writing, perhaps I shall spend the coming fall de-cluttering!

‘Mystery in Hampstead’ Walk:
After 5 pm when the house closed, I turned to the ‘Mystery in Hampstead’ Walk in my book 24 Great Walks in London and followed it through some of the most delightful lanes such as Flask Walk and Downshire Hill, all of which skirted the Heath. I passed by a home that was once lived in by John Constable who, when he left his beloved Stour Valley in Suffolk behind to earn a livelihood as a portraitist in London, made his home in Hampstead.

Everywhere I walked, the air was fragrant with the scents of a million wisteria petals that hung in copious bunches from grey vines. Rhododendrons are beginning to bloom in a variety of hot, torrid shades from magenta to purple. The lavish fronds of the chestnut plumes are beginning to fade away but I have had my fill of them over the past several weeks and am ready now for the coming attractions of summer–such as deep red roses that I have started to see climbing stone walls and waving at me from gate posts. I cannot wait for the full-blown flowers of the summer.

I passed the homes of more rich and famous people who over the centuries have added to the varied landscape of Hampstead’s intellectual life from Daphne du Maurier’s theater manager father Gerald to John Galsworthy to Admiral Barton who, on the roof of his three storyed home, built a quarter master’s deck and fired a canon to celebrate royal birthdays–an occurrence that led author P. L.Travers to base Admiral Boom’s home in Mary Poppins on this fanciful property.
Of course, Hampstead is synonymous with the name of my favorite poet John Keats but since I have visited his home before–the one in which he composed my favorite poem of all time (Ode to a Nightingale) and fell in love with his next-door neighbor, the lovely Fanny Brawne, to whom he became engaged but could not marry as tuberculosis claimed him prematurely in Rome. Through all these quiet country lanes, as you pass by the grave-filled yard of a stone church or peek into the flower-filled front garden of a rectory, you will fancy yourself a Victorian or Edwardian maiden who picks up her parasol and lifts her skirts gingerly as she traverses the pathways of her home turf. It is only when you venture a little outside London and explore these country lanes that you realize why walking was such a favored activity in the old days. It is my great love for walking (among a host of other things–not the least of which is my fondness for keeping a diary!) that convinces me that in a past life I must have lived in England at the turn of the 20th century!

Spying a Vintage Desk in Flask Walk:
Then, just when I was homeward bound, at the end of the long walk, I happened upon a narrow cobbled lane and decided on impulse to explore it–Flask Walk is peculiarly named but is quite charming indeed. It was then that I spied it–the most beautiful oak bureau-desk with a pull-down lid, a warren of cubby-holes within and three narrow drawers in the base. I stopped dead in my tracks thinking, “This is exactly the kind of desk I have been looking for all year long!” Just as my mind was racing ahead wondering how I could possibly transport it home, I noticed that the dealer, a brusque woman named Jackie who was smoking like a chimney, was packing up for the day.

The desk stood rather forlornly all my itself and I simply could not pass it by. I did not dare to ask for the price as I expected it to be in the hundreds of pounds. When I did pluck up the courage to approach the dealer for the price after gazing at it longingly for a few minutes, I thought I had misheard her. I asked her again and when she told me the price, you could have knocked me down with a feather. She was almost giving it away as a gift!!! I wasted no time at all in telling her that I would have it. I was so afraid that she would change her mind. It was then that I asked if she could hold it for me until I made arrangements to have it picked up.

“Where do you live?” she asked.
“Holborn”, I said.
“Oh, just put in a black cab, darlin”, she said.

I began contemplating my choices, when a man stepped forward and said he would take it home for me. Mind you, it was only later when we were chatting in his car on the way to my flat that I discovered that Matt did this for me purely as a favor as the ride had taken him right out of his way since he lived in Hampstead and not in the city as I had assumed. This was surely my lucky day, I thought, as we agreed on a price for delivery, the bureau changed hands and was placed in the trunk of his van. He took me home and helped me to load it into the elevator in my building and brought it inside my flat for me. All the way home, we talked about places that would be able to ship it home for me to the States. I guess I have my work cut out for me in the next few days as I figure out the best (and least pricey!) way to get this marvelous piece home.

Oh, and I forgot to say that what sold me on the piece was the linen fold carving in the front panels–the same linen-fold panelling that is all over the walls of Hampton Court Palace and Sutton House in the East End (which I have talked about in an earlier entry). That and the acorn-shaped pulls on the drawers did it. I simply had to have the piece–it would be my big England purchase and one that I will always remember as I sit and write the rest of my life away.

I spent the evening pruning through my books and files. There are several I am going to leave behind in London and tons of paper I will need to toss as I start to pack for my end of month move. Since the bulk of these items will go as Printed Material by Royal Mail at a special rate and the majority of my clothes will be carried in my suitcases on the flight back, I am hoping I will have enough shipping allowance left to transport my vintage bureau home. It may not be a hundred years old (and, therefore, not technically an antique) but it is certainly antiquated (probably dating from the early 1930s) and at the price I paid for it, I could not have gone wrong.

I was tired when I sat to eat my dinner (alone, after a long while) as I watched the Eurovision contest on BBC 1–a huge European cultural event and one about which we hear practically nothing in the States. By the time I wrote this blog, it was a little after midnight and I was ready to hit the sack very pleased with myself indeed about where serendipity had led me this afternoon.

Supertour at St. Paul’s Cathedral and Exploring Southwark

Wednesday, May 15, 2009
London

London slumbered under leaden skies this morning, though, thankfully, the rain stayed at bay. Wearing warm cardigans to ward off the chill, Chriselle and I set off after a cereal and yogurt breakfast to explore St. Paul’s Cathedral. Though I have been there for several services throughout the past 8 months, I hadn’t taken a formal guided tour and was waiting to share that experience either with Llew or Chriselle. So I was very pleased indeed when my new English friend Bishop Michael Colclough, Canon-Pastor at St. Paul’s and his wife Cynthia, offered me a complimentary guided tour anytime I wanted one. With Chriselle currently visiting me, it seemed like the perfect time to take them up on it and we had one fixed for us for 10. 45 am.

We arrived at the Cathedral to find it swarming with visitors–both inside and out. Tour groups, several of whom comprised students from around London and across the Channel, filled the vast nave of the church. At the Visitor’s Desk, I was ushered to the one run by the Friends of St. Paul’s, an organization of Volunteers (mainly women), who are trained to give guided tours. This Supertour took us to parts of the Cathedral not usually open to the public and we felt privileged indeed to take it at our leisure in so special a fashion.

We were told by our guide, Fiona Walker, that it would last an hour and a half and were ushered right away to a side Chapel–dedicated to one of the many formal ‘Orders’ that comprise aristocratic English life. I do not believe that even a lifetime would be adequate in helping me acquire enough knowledge to decipher the complex system that prevails in military and royal circles int this country. What I did admired in this chapel was the royal seat that only the monarch can occupy, the marvelous wooden carvings by the Tudor carver Grindling Gibbons (whose work I can now easily recognize), the many colorful banners and standards and crests and coat of arms that symbolize one’s family history.

We then moved to the massive oak doors in the very front of the church and learned a bit of history at that point including the part played by Sir Christopher Wren in the design and construction of this, perhaps London’s most distinctive landmark. At the door, we also saw how dark the interior looked until the massive cleaning and renovation was carried out through a vast endowment (11 million pounds) granted to the cathedral by the Fleming family, the same one from which was born the James Bond author Ian!

Next we were led into one of the twin towers that looks down Fleet Street and we were quite taken by the beautiful staircase with its small and very low steps and the ironwork that climbs all the way to the very top. These steeples house the bells that toll each hour and produce the marvelous music on important days. I once heard them chime a heart stirring tune on Palm Sunday–was it last year? The entire city seemed to reverberate to the melody produced by those tolling bells. Yes, they do bring to mind John Donne’s stirring lines:

“No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” (Meditation XVII)

Interestingly, there is a rather strange looking sculpture of John Donne in the Cathedral–strange because the poet appears all shrouded in a linen sheet and standing on an urn. It was the only object in the entire Cathedral to escape the Great Fire of London in 1566 because it was hit by a falling object and fell straight down into the crypt from where it was rescued when the embers and ashes were being cleared. And he appears in this shroud because Donne had actually worn the garment in which he wished to be buried while he was still alive–perhaps to get the feeling of how he might appear before his Creator at his Resurrection!

Onward we went deeper into the Cathedral, passing by the grand monument to Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and there we learned a bit more British history. Chriselle is beginning to “connect the dots” as she puts it, in that she is making connections between the guy who inhabited Apsley House and the hero of the Battle of Waterloo! It wasn’t long before we paused under the central dome to admire the Byzantine style mosaics done by Salviati, an Italian, whose work was inspired by the Italian churches. The dome also contains the magnificent paintings done by James Thornhill–yes, the same artist who painted the famous Painted Hall in Greenwich. Chriselle loved the trompe l’oeil quality of the paintings in the dome which appeared as if the inside was covered with columns and pillars. We saw primary school kids lying flat on the floor right under the dome and staring at it–I bet this is something they will always remember. Years from now, when they bring their own kids to the Cathedral they will say, “You know, when I was a little boy, I came to this church on a school field trip and lay down right there on my back and stared up at the dome!”

More detail and more history followed at the memorial to Lord Nelson, considered by many to be England’s greatest hero. The guide went into detail in talking about his relationship with Lady Emma Hamilton and the product of that alliance, a female child, “named”, she said, then paused for effect, “poor thing, Horatia!” Right opposite the Nelson monument is one to Cornwallis and I paused to tell Chriselle that he was the same one who met with a stunning defeat under General George Washington in York when trying to vanquish the rebel colonists in North America. It was probably as a punishment that he was sent off to India where he masterminded the defeat of Tipu Sultan of Mysore at Seringapatnam and, in doing so, somewhat redeemed his fallen image!

Then, we were at the altar, admiring more Grindling Gibbons’ caved choir stalls (each more breathtaking that the next, in oak and beech) and gazing upon the baldachino or altar canopy which looked to me curiously like the Bernini one in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. We saw also the ‘Cathedra’ or Seat which the Bishop occupies and which turns a church into a cathedral–it must contain a seat for a Bishop which means that a Bishop must be attached to the permanent clergy at the church.

And then we climbed down into the crypt where we saw more memorials, the most striking being the ones to Wren, Wellesley and Nelson in their striking sarcophagi. Nelson’s, in grand black granite, is particularly striking and I was not surprised to learn that it was, in fact, designed and created to hold the mortal remains of Cardinal Wolsley (pronounced ‘Wool-zy’) who was Henry VIII’s right hand man until he fell out of favor with the King for not bringing him the Papal annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. He was sentenced to death but, mercifully for him, died a natural death before he could be killed. He certainly was not permitted such a grand coffin and, in any case, the possessions of all state prisoners went directly to the Crown–which explains how Henry got his greedy hands on Wolsley’s finest buildings including Hampton Court and Whitehall Palace (of which now only the Banqueting House survives). The sarcophagus lay forgotten somewhere until the body of Nelson arrived from weeks of preservation in brandy–for Nelson really ought to have been given a burial at sea. However, since he was such an extraordinary hero, an exception was made in order to grant him a state burial. His body was preserved in alcohol, brought to London, this sarcophagus was resurrected for the occasion and the nation had a chance to mourn collectively for the death of a great hero who fell on the HMS Victory (now docked in Portsmouth) and whose blood-stained clothes are in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Climbing up to the Dome of St. Paul’s:
When the tour ended, we were told that we should not leave the cathedral without venturing up into the dome. I was doubtful about my ability to undertake such strenuous physical exercise since I am still recovering from plantar fascitis; but with encouragement from Chriselle, I rose to the challenge and off we went. 117 steps later, we were in the Whispering Gallery looking down on to the black and white checkered floors of the vast cavern below us. It was just stupendous! Of course, Chriselle and I had to try out the whispering capabilities of the acoustics of the space and discovered that we could, in fact, hear each other clearly though we stood on opposite sides of the dome. I was reminded very much of the interior of Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence and the magnificent painting on the inside of the dome by Vasari which one can see at very close quarters if you have the energy and stamina to climb the 500 odd steps to that height.

Then, another 115 steps took up to the Stone Gallery which encircles the outside of the dome and provides views of the rooftops of London. Yes, we saw the river (rather murky on this grey day) and the London Eye and the gilded statue of the Goddess of Justice atop Old Bailey and a host of other landmarks as well as the red brick of the Prudential Assurance Building that is just a block away from my building on High Holborn.

We circumnavigated our way around the dome then made the descent with Chrissie holding on to me all the way down as she felt a little dizzy. Then, because we were right in the area, I suggested a walking tour of the Southwark area instead of trying to get into a bus to Knightsbridge. Chrissie had made drinks and dinner plans with two friends of hers and wanted to get home for a bit of a rest as she has a severe backache when she exerts herself too much physically. I have to be grateful that my own stamina has remained untouched by plantar fascittis and but for the fact that I have to rest more than I used to, I can continue my daily walking routine without interruption.

Exploring Southwark:
So over Wobbly Bridge we went, the breeze feeling very unpleasant around us given the lack of sunshine. Past Shakespeare’s Globe we strolled, arriving under Southwark Bridge where we hastened to the Borough Market as I wanted Chriselle to get a sense of its delicious activity. Alas, it is not open fully on a Wednesday though a few stalls cater to the luncheon needs of the local working populace. We walked quickly on to The George, the city’s only galleried pub, where we took in the quaintness of the Elizabethan space. Then, we returned to Borough Market for a late lunch: a large helping of Thai Green Chicken and Seafood Curry served over steamed rice. It was dished up piping hot and was deliciously spicy and just what the doctor ordered on this rather chilly day.

Inside Southwark Cathedral:
On our way back to the Embankment, we paid a short visit to Southwark Cathedral that dates from 909 AD–in particular to visit the sculpture of Shakespeare and the lovely stained glass window right above it that provides glimpses into his most famous plays. This allowed us to play a little guessing game together before Chriselle made her three wishes–you are permitted three wishes every time you visit a church for the first time (at least that is what my mother told us, many years ago).

We also took in the brightly painted medieval memorial to John Gower and saw the lovely stone carved altar with some gilding on a couple of its statues. This had been under scaffolding when I had visited last March with my friend Amy, so it is great to see the impact that all this refurbishment has on the space. While we were taking pictures at the Shakespeare memorial, a lady came up and told us that there is a charge for taking pictures!!!Can you imagine that? We told her that we were unaware of the policy and she said that we’d have to pay if we took another. Of course, we had finished our visit by that point and were on our way out–but I have to say that I find these rather materialistic policies of these churches not just irritating but rather offensive.

Off to the Tate Modern:
Then, we were walking along the Thames Embankment again, making our way to the Tate Modern where I wanted to show Chrissie two things: the extraordinarily concept that converted the Hydroelectric Power plant into a Modern Art Gallery and the silver installation by Cornelia Parker entitled Thirty Pieces of Silver. She was already far more tired than I was and since modern art is not something that either one of us can truly engage with (though I understand it intellectually), we went directly to the Parker gallery to admire her work. It involved the flattening of about 1000 pieces of silverware under a steam roller. These were then arranged in thirty lots that are suspended from the ceiling on steel wire. The idea is so remarkable that it is worthy of examination for just this reason. Needless to say, Chriselle was quite speechless and didn’t quite know how to react to this…but then that is exactly what Modern Art does to me. I find myself quite lost for words!

We decided to get on the bus and head home as Chriselle badly wanted to rest. I, however, continued on towards Oxford Circus as Marks and Spencer is having a sale on lingerie and I needed to buy my stock before I return to the States. I discovered that my size was not available but if I carried on to their Marble Arch branch, they could take an order from me there. I pressed on, and another bus ride later, I was at the bigger branch placing my order and told to return after May 22 to pick it up. I will be in France at that time but on the day I get back, I can rush off back to Marble Arch to get the discounted price. Along the way, I discovered that Selfridges has been renovated and is now devoid of the scaffolding under which it was shrouded for so many months while it received a deep cleansing in time for its centenary celebrations. There are lights and yellow decorations all over it and I believe the store is worthy of a visit–so I shall try to get there when I find myself under less pressure.

Another bus took me to my office at NYU where I had to do a bit of photocopying before I send off some receipts to New York for reimbursement.

Back home, I found that Chriselle had left the house to meet her friends. This left me time to attend to my email, have my dinner and sit down to write this blog before I got down to grading a few papers and taking a shower before bed.

‘Viewing’ Arthur Miller at the West End

Monday, March 23, 2009
London

Another Monday! Another new week! Another couple of classes to teach at NYU. Luckily, I felt as if I had caught up with a great deal of pending stuff even before I fell asleep last night–so it was without too much stress that I walked to work this morning. I am told that last week was just glorious in London but this week promises to be nippier. At any rate, spring is not quite with us yet as I discovered when I crossed Bloomsbury Square and arrived at my office in the basement of NYU-London.

Both classes went off well with one working on their research essays on Cornwall, the other on their research essays on Suffolk and John Constable. I focused on citations today–how to do them in the body of the essay and on the Works Cited page as I find that so many of my students do not have a clue! I am hoping that the final essays which are due next week will show evidence of their understanding why we cite sources in research essays.

I ate my sandwich lunch at my desk while juggling so many other tasks. I had to call Aetna Global in the States to find out why my claims for private physical therapy in London have been rejected. Turns out they were pending review and have now been passed in full. I should be receiving a nice fat check in the mail soon! I also prepared a letter for my Ryanair refund for Counter Check-in services at the airport to which, as a US passport holder, I am entitled. Next, I photocopied a large number of the London Walks from the book that the Fradleys lent me yesterday. They are great walkers themselves and I am hoping that, come summer, I will be fit enough to continue my discovery of London on foot.

I taught my second class at Birkbeck College, then spent over an hour in my office before I made my way to the Duke of York’s Theater at St. Martin’s Lane to get the 7. 30 performance of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. I had never ever seen this play in performance and had no idea what it was all bout. It was the fact that the cast included Hailey Atwell (from The Duchess and Brideshead Revisted) that made me buy a ticket to the play several weeks ago as I am convinced that she will be the great actress of tomorrow.

Well, what can I say about the play that will not sound as if I am in raptures? It was beyond fabulous! My seats were lousy and the stage design being what it was I could barely see a thing. I decided to go and occupy one of the empty side box seats and from there, I had an incredible view of the stage. Not knowing what the play was about, everything came to me as a surprise and I have to say that I was bowled over.

Miller’s writing was just scintillating and I do believe that it is more powerful than the far more famous Death of a Salesman of which I have seen many performed versions both in India and the States. The manner in which these British actors articulated the lines was just astounding, their Brooklyn accents never faltering for a moment, their gestures and mannerisms so completely Nerw Yorker that for a couple of hours I truly believed I had crossed the Verrazano Bridge from New Jersey into Staten Island and Brooklyn.

Kenn Stott played the Italian-American stevedore Eddie Carbonne whose obsessive love for his motherless niece Catherine (Hailey Atwell) leads him to betray the two illegal immigrants–Marco and Rudolpho–family members on his wife’s side that he ‘rats’ out on to the immigration authorities because he cannot bear to think of Catherine’s marriage to another man. In his gradual disintegration from head of the family to powerless uncle who looks on helplessly as Rudolpho woos his niece, Stott portrays the dramatic tragic hero to perfection. He was more than ably supported by Mary Elizabeth Mastrononio who played his sexually neglected wife, herself evolving from voiceless figurehead to powerful matriarch even as Eddie Carbonne breaks down. This, in my humble opinion, is truly West End theater at its most gratifying and I was struck repeatedly by how ironic it is that I was watching one of the greatest classics of contemporary American drama in London with a bunch of English actors!

I walked home after the show as I have not yet renewed my bus pass and got into bed at 10. 30 ready for a night of restful slumber and the catching up on a lot of pending chores tomorrow.

A Self-Indulgent Saturday in London

Saturday, March 14, 2009
London

Sometimes staying around in London on a Saturday can be an adventure in itself. When Stephanie called me early this morning to say that she needed to keep her weekend travel-free to sort out her stuff after her move last weekend to Richmond, I understood right away. I tend to be rather anal about settling down and feeling organized after a move, so I figured, she needed the time and space. I could use a weekend in London anyway to catch up with my own chores and do bit of independent sightseeing.

So over a high-carb breakfast (Waitrose’s cranberry loaf with pumpkin seeds and a variety of spreads–praline from Le Pain Quotidien, Nutella, grapefruit marmalade from Harrods and Lurpak butter), I stretched out on the couch with loads of coffee and had a leisurely and very late meal.

Then, it was Chore-Time! I pulled out the vacuum cleaner from my broom cupboard in the hall, got out my Bounty and started sweeping and scrubbing and polishing and dusting and generally having a great time while up to my elbows in warm suds. Within an hour, my kitchen was polished, my bathroom was spic and span, my toilet was sparkling, and my bedroom was dust-free. I felt fabulous.

Then, I set out for Holborn Library as I finished Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire early this morning and was ready to start the next one. I had to return it though to the library from where I had borrowed it and I also wanted to pick up some travel books on Italy so I can photocopy the pages I need to carry with me on my trip on Tuesday. I usually photocopy just the pages I need on each of my trips as these books are so heavy and with the budget airlines severely restricting baggage allowance, this is the only way to go. I found the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide to Italy and another on Northern Italy and over the weekend, I shall read up and flag the pages I need to photocopy at NYU on Monday.

Then I went on a food shopping spree to Waitrose which is a ten minute walk away from the library at the Brunswick Center. I was amazed at the number of people out in the courtyard where food was being sold by vendors–it was a sort of Borough Market with everything being sold–from chorizos in rolls, cheesecake, nuts and dried fruit, cupcakes, roast pork sandwiches, falafel. You name it, you could buy it–and there were many generous samples (or ‘tasters’ as they call them here) being dished out too.

I, however, went into Waitrose for some scones and clotted cream. After having returned from Cornwall, I have developed a taste for cream teas and thought I would have one instead of my lunch today–I know, I know, I am being wicked and dreadfully self-indulgent, but I promise I will return to sensible eating soon. I am going to Italy next week and I know what the food is like out there. So perhaps I can pig out for the next few days and return from Italy with a new resolution to watch my weight again!

But for the moment, it is time to feast…so I bought some good Stilton with Ginger (my favorite cheese), a walnut loaf from Paris’ Poilane (sold in select stores here in London), some fresh ravioli (as I have a sudden craving for pasta) and an absolutely fabulous-looking Black Forest Gateau! I also bought a number of packaged soups as I had run out of those–I do enjoy a hot cup of soup with my dinner and over the winter I have tried Waitrose’s packeted soups–this time, however, I thought I would try Knorr.

Back home, I had my cream tea (Oh, Happy Day!) and my gateau with a lovely pot of Darjeeling tea. Imagine!!! England has made a tea drinker of me, I have to say, except that I have it very light with lemon and honey. I can’t even express how much of a pick-me-up this is proving to be. In my even lovelier Tea for Two Paragon China Tea Set, I sat and sipped slowly and decided that today would be a day for big time pampering and lots of little luxuries.

Then, when I had cleared up and put everything away, I had a long chat with Llew. I am also in the process of finding accommodation for us in B&Bs in Rome and Istanbul and I remembered that his cousin, a nun named Sr. Rosie, had spent many years in a convent in Rome. I wondered if she knew a convent that gave out pensione accommodation and if she would be able to organize an audience for us with the Pope! I told Llew to try to organize that with her and he agreed. It will indeed make our visit to Rome very special if we can meet the Holy Father.

And then, it was time for me to go out and do another one of my walks. It was such a mild and pleasant afternoon and the weather beckoned insistently. I took the pages I had photocopied from the DK Eye Witness Guide to London that outlined a walk around Smithfield Market (which is right behind my street in Holborn) and by 4. 45 pm I was off.

It turned out to be such a great walk. I had actually explored most of this area about three years ago with my friend Bina Ullal when she had come from her place in Harrow to meet me in London and spend a day with me. The walk took me to the famous Victorian Smithfield meat market which at one time sold live cattle and poultry; but today, thankfully, sells only cuts of meat. It is busiest early in the morning when the city’s butchers get there to select their stock for the day. Right around the lanes radiating from this gigantic building which occupies three city blocks are a number of taverns and pubs and eateries that serve enormous breakfasts with ale to the butchers who are ravenous by mid-morning. I was amazed how many restaurants are to be found in these little lanes–apart from the pubs offering good old-fashioned British food, there were very fancy French restaurants with haute cuisine on their menus and extensive wine lists.

Then, I found myself in lovely Charterhouse Square, a very old part of the city–once a monastery, it is a hospital today. Its cloisters and quiet courtyard still stand but I wasn’t able to go in and explore as guided tours are given only between April and August. I will have to wait for another month, I guess. Meanwhile, the walls of the building are deeply evocative of its history and the entire square reeks of age.

Turning around a corner, I arrived at Cloth Street, which derived its name from a medieval Cloth Fair that was held here annually right up to the Jacobean Age. In fact, it was this noisy fair that inspired Ben Jonson to pen his famous play about this event. This entire area is just fabulous–it contained narrow lanes, some of which have their original medieval buildings just oozing charm and character and medieval architectural details. Numbers 41 and 42 are two of those old preserved buildings and at Number 43, the Poet Laureate John Betjeman lived for many years (in what looks like a very tiny flat indeed).

I am a bit surprised how many references I have recently come across to Betjeman–first it was Padstow in Cornwall where he lies buried; then it was Rules Restaurant at Covent Garden which he frequented and which he endorsed and now it was his home at Number 43 Cloth Street. There is a blue plaque to mark this location as well as a restaurant called, appropriately enough, Betjamans where he is well remembered. I can just imagine how thrilled Betjeman would have been to live in such a historic part of London knowing his great passion for old architectural gems. He is responsible for saving St. Pancras Station from the demolisher’s hammer and has written many books on the old Norman churches of England. I often wish I had the chance to meet him. I think we would have had such an interesting conversation for we seem to share such a love for the same things–Nature, old churches, poetry, Oxford. Well, I guess, I have to be content that I did meet his wife, Lady Penelope Chetwode, once, a long time ago.

Next I was skirting the area around the wonderful ancient church of St. Bartholomew (which gave Jonson’s play its name) with its unique black and white checked design, its round tower and its quiet courtyard garden. I noticed that Sunday services are held at 9 am with Communion and I have decided that in keeping with my resolution to visit a new historic church every Sunday when I am in London, I will go to the service at this one tomorrow. I am so excited to be in a church that Ben Jonson and Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, no doubt, knew well. It has one of the best preserved medieval church interiors in the country and I can’t wait to see the inside of it. I also remember vaguely that one of the wedding scenes in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral was shot in here, but that I cannot confirm.

Then, I was out on the street again making my way towards Newgate where I saw the Old Bailey up close and personal and took pictures of the gilded statue of the Goddess of Justice atop the dome holding her scales forward. I cannot believe how close I live to all these masterpieces of architecture and all these landmarks of the city. I am truly blessed to be within a stone’s throw of all these renowned monuments. I had always dreamed of living in London and the fact that I have been posted here for a year and have access to all these marvels proves to me that the works of the Lord are unique and complete and that, as the Bible says, He “gives not in a measure but in its fullness”. Indeed, when the Lord gives, he gives in bountiful abundance and I often feel as if His blessings upon me this year have been beyond generous; and for that I feel truly humbled and profoundly grateful. And it is amazing how this truth comes home to me in the strangest of ways–like when I am gazing at a church that Ben Jonson might have prayed in or glancing at a monument that crowns the Old Bailey!

Next, I was entering the garden of St. Sepulcre-without-Newgate–I have noted before that these ancient churches have the oddest names–most incorporating their geographical location in them! This one –the Church of the Sepulcre–was outside the New Gate–hence its name!!! This is the church that is referred to in the rhyme Oranges and Lemons in the lines:

“Oranges and lemons” say the Bells of St. Clement’s
“You owe me five farthings” say the Bells of St. Martin’s
“When will you pay me?” say the Bells of Old Bailey
“When I grow rich” say the Bells of Shoreditch
“When will that be?” say the Bells of Stepney
“I do not know” say the Great Bells of Bow
Here comes a Candle to light you to Bed
Here comes a Chopper to Chop off your Head
Chip chop chip chop – the Last Man’s Dead.”

I have reproduced the rhyme here so I can read up the sinister references to all the public beheadings that took place in London in days gone by. It seems that the rhyme refers to these killings and they were often recited by children who seemed to take delight in the fact that so many heads rolled in those ruthless days!

At any rate, I walked a little bit further down Holborn Viaduct up to the tower of Christ Church which is the only intact thing that remains of Wren’s masterpiece–the nave of the church that was destroyed in a fire has been converted into a pretty garden that will, no doubt, come into its own in the next few months as spring advances into summer.

I came home to check email and catch up with more chores–I had to make backup CDs for all my pictures. And then I decided to spend the evening cooking myself some fresh ravioli and having a nice dinner and a glass of cider while watching a movie–Where Angels Fear to Tread based on the novel by E.M. Forster (which I had not read) and which featured Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham-Carter and Rupert Graves. Shot entirely on location in Italy (which made it significant since I will be there on Tuesday) and England, it was such a sad story that had me completely absorbed. Lovely Victorian costumes and sets (in the vein of the films of Merchant-Ivory) and marvelous cinematography had me enthralled. That’s what I love about Love Films.com–it is a matter of serendipity for you have no idea what they will mail you. To have ended my lazy day with a Forster film was bliss indeed!

It did turn out to be a perfectly indulgent Saturday for me but one I know I will remember for a long time. I have no regrets that I did not do a day trip today. I have done enough traveling in the last few weeks and it felt good to stay at home and have an unforgettable day–a staycation of sorts!

Back to the Salt Mines!

Monday, March 9, 2009
London

Spring seemed decidedly in the air today and in keeping with the bright sunshine that flooded my bedroom, I chose a lighter outfit–a cotton shirt and unlined jacket. So, soon it will be goodbye cashmere, hullo cotton! Can’t imagine being so light hearted about the arrival of spring in the beginning of March. Connecticut is still snow-ridden and spring is still a long way off.

I walked to class today on discovering that road works on High Holborn have caused traffic delays. I also started my first class an hour later to allow my students a chance to get their work organized and the first drafts of their essay printed out for me–most of them were on the trip to Cornwall with me, so they needed a little elbow room this morning. Class went off well and most of my lunch break was spent in Yvonne’s office sorting out some payment issues.

I also discovered that I had left my sandwich lunch at home on my kitchen counter, so I ate a few flapjack cookies for lunch and the two pieces of baklava that Sarah Walsh brought in as part of her presentation on Greek London. I hoped that would sustain me through my next class at 2 pm at Birkbeck.

I let those students leave a half hour earlier (meaning that I did not give them their half hour break) as I had a 5 pm physiotherapy appointment at UCL. I have not yet managed to make telephonic contact with the Podiatry clinic despite about 80 tries! Either their phone is engaged or I get a recorded message informing me that they are out to lunch! It’s become something of a joke trying to fix up an appointment for Orthotics!

Claire Curtin at UCL is of the opinion that I do not need to see her any longer. She thinks that there is no more that physiotherapy can do for me and that I have improved considerably since she first saw me. I have been told to continue the strengthening and stretching exercises, do the alternate soaking if it gives me relief and ‘manage’ the condition as best I can. She did make a tentative appointment to see me a month from now, but if I think I do not need it, I can call to cancel. When she discovered that I have been unable to make the Orthotics appointment, she told me to keep trying but not to worry too much about it as it is not imperative at all and is not likely to make much of a difference.

I stopped by at the Senate House Library at the University of London to pick up some books in preparation for the lecture I will be giving in Padua later this month–but neither of the books I wanted was available. I will need to try to get them from some other source. Meanwhile, I did some food shopping (yogurt, coffee, bread, Stilton) at Sainsburys and walked home on a lovely crisp evening.

Perhaps it was my late night last night, but I felt quite worn out and decided to vegetate on the couch with a movie. I chose Cassandra’s Dream, a Woody Allen film, with Colin Farrel, Ewan McGregor, Tom Wilkinson and Haley Atwell in one of her earlier roles. The very interesting drama about greed and guilt actually made me stay awake right through it!

I had intended to do some grading of my students’ first drafts before going to bed, but I think I will leave it for tomorrow as I am well and truly fatigued. Instead, I put a load of laundry into the machine and went to bed.

Boscastle—A Cornwall Village, Resurrected

Sunday, March 8, 2009
Cornwall

I am certain that my sleep patterns are affected by room temperature. I slept till almost 7. 30 am today—the hotel room being much cooler than my bedroom at home– finding only enough time to jump in the shower and repack before I met my colleagues in the lobby of the Sunnyside Hotel downstairs. The sun was shining upon Newquay and Sunday morning surfers were already hitting the waves by the time we sat down in Pistachio Restaurant for our full English breakfast.

Muesli and OJ started off our day as the waitress took orders for our fry-ups. Since we were not leaving for Boscastle until 10 am, I had the leisure to linger over coffee as I gazed out over the ocean and listened to the shrill calls of the gulls. A group of weekenders had descended on the hotel and as they piled in for breakfast, the place grew livelier. Hauling my strolley uphill, I made my way to the coach and at 10 sharp, we pulled out of Newquay, Surfer’s Paradise, and drove along sleepy country lanes on the journey to Boscastle.

Then, as happens to often in these parts, the sun disappeared behind menacing clouds and a light drizzle began. Raindrops splattered the windshield as our driver maneuvered his vehicle towards the little Cornish village. No one seemed to be stirring for villagers take their Sunday lie-ins seriously, it would seem.

Arrival at Boscastle:
The village of Boscastle sits in a river valley straddling both banks. We arrived and parked in the parking lot with instructions to get some lunch and return to the coach by 1 pm. Walking out into a playful breeze, I found the village still asleep or stirring very slowly and reluctantly. Most shops were clustered around the car park and none seemed in a hurry to open. At last, not right then.

Recovering from An Ecological Disaster:
It was only as I walked towards the riverbanks that it vividly came to me that I had seen the destruction that had been wrought upon this village in 2004 when a flash flood and a huge landslide had destroyed most of it. Thanks to BBC World News, I remember gasping at the scenes, so expertly shot, of houses tumbling into a gushing river. I had wondered then where in Cornwall this place was located for I had always thought of it as flat pastureland.

Well, it turns out that the flash flood had left a trail of destruction in its wake and Boscastle’s attempts to resurrect itself out of the mess are little short of miraculous. But for the occasional scaffolding that drapes itself across a stuccoed cottage, there isn’t much to remind the visitor of the disaster. This speaks so well for federal funding and the use to which it is put in the UK. Hailing from a country like India, where government assistance almost always ends up in the pockets of some slimy official, I was heartened to see the results of the valiant and determined efforts to rebuild that have overtaken this quiet Cornish outpost. Well done, Boscastle!

And then suddenly it came down again. The playful breeze became a vicious gust that wrapped itself around me as rain pelted down and drove me to the nearest tearoom. There, I found that a few of my students had treated themselves to a meal. Since I had eaten a massive breakfast, I could not face the thought of food and I waited until the rain stopped and sunshine flooded the streets again before I set out to explore.

Sunday Shopping:
Boscastle has a series of charming shops that are all interconnected—you enter one of them and find yourself walking through a whole string! As always, it is the antiques shops that first attract me and when I spied a sign for Pickwick Antiques, I just had to fish around inside. What a perfect little antiques shop I found! As the salesman later explained, the shop carries what he calls “small treasures”—the sort of antiques that tourists can carry easily with them in their pockets. I saw loads of silver cutlery including a bunch of odd pieces—butter knives and soupspoons, saltcellars and peppershakers, cut-crystal cruet sets and bits of jewelry. There was also a good variety of very pretty china—Trios, i.e. cups, saucers and cake plates. Lovely porcelain cake serving platters and many Limoges and Royal Albert sets graced the collection—all shown off strikingly in spotless glass vitrines.

My eye was drawn then to a little teapot that would be perfect for brewing one or two cups of tea. It was not an antique—in fact, it was a Victorian reproduction that featured purple violets against a pure white background. What made it special was its lid—it featured three bone china violets in a three-dimensional design that was as finely crafted as a brooch. It called my name urgently and though I took three or four rounds of the shop, I could not get it off my mind. Furthermore, the price was right—at ten pounds, I could not go wrong, not for so exquisite a piece of china.

“Right”, I said, to the salesman, “I think I will have that darling teapot”.
“Do you collect them?” he asked. (What is it that makes antiques’ dealers sniff out collectors so unmistakably?)
“I collect cups and saucers”, I responded, “but for want of space to display them, I now only buy sets that are very rare, very beautiful and very inexpensively priced”.
He laughed. “That is very wise indeed. But, collecting teapots is a natural progression from there, wouldn’t you say?”
“Maybe…but unless I am sure I will use it…”

All the while, he busied himself lovingly wrapping my little precious find in bubble wrap and tissue paper, and feeling as if I had bought a very appropriate souvenir from Cornwall—once the capital of china clay in the country—I walked out of the shop.

In Search of Boscastle Harbor along a Coastal Path:
The rain remained at bay and seeing the coastal path entwine itself along the riverbank, I decided to follow it uphill and see where it led me. My camera worked overtime in trying to capture the bucolic idyll that lay before me. As I wandered on, I passed by a National Trust gift shop and paused to buy a postcard for my travel scrapbook. That’s when I realized that so many of them featured “Boscastle Harbor”. Yet, I could see no evident signs of it. I then went up to the counter, asked one of the little old ladies whom one always finds in National Trust shops where I could find it and she simply said, “Just keep going, dear. You will not be able to miss it”.

At that point, I ran into some of my students and persuaded them to join me on the costal path. They were game, and braving the wind that had stepped up quite strongly, we began our climb to the promontory that, like Tintagel, jutted out into the sea. Pools of rain had accumulated along the narrow pathway that is maintained by the National Trust and I was pleased to see that my membership pounds did go towards these worthy causes. As we climbed higher, the wind became fiercer and by the time the harbor came into view, the scene was simply spectacular.

Gigantic waves dashed the rocks below and we saw a manmade ‘harbor’, probably newly constructed, way below us. It was clearly evident why smuggling had been such a lucrative pursuit in Cornwall for with high taxes levied on such things as tobacco and wine during the late 18th and 19th centuries, smugglers found ways to evade the tax man by bringing in contraband on small boats. In doing so, they risked their lives for such boats had only a fighting chance at reaching the small sandy strip of beach that we could see way below us.

Not content with taking in this scene, we pressed on along the pathway, determined to glimpse the other side of the rocky escarpment. By this point, the wind was almost lifting us off our feet. With many whoops and screams, we clung on to each other and posed for pictures, hoping to capture a scene that somehow seemed exclusively ours for there was no other human being in sight. In many ways, it was reminiscent of Tintagel in its remoteness and in the fury of Nature as wind and wave combined to create the sort of mystifying aura of which legend is made.

Then, it was time for us to return to the coach and when I boarded it, I could not quite believe what I had just seen. Little did I expect that I would have such an unforgettable adventure in Boscastle. I was delighted that I had asked where the harbor was located for, in doing so, I had the chance to indulge in something I had sorely wanted to do ever since I set foot in Cornwall—walk upon a coastal path towards the sea and allow myself to taste the salt spray on my lips. This walk, undertaken so spontaneously, had satisfied that desire and as I settled down in the coach for the long drive homewards, I felt as if I had enjoyed the county in every possible guise and created memories that would live with me forever.

Harry Potter came into his own as the coach ate up the miles along the highways of Devon and alongside the southeast coast as we brushed past Bristol. I could see the lovely white bridge that spanned the bay and led into Wales as we glided on. The landscape changed every few miles, the undulating waves of Cornwall and Devon giving way to the flat fields of Wiltshire. Then, we were stopping at a wayside restaurant for a quick bite (sandwiches and coffee for me as it was close to 4 pm and my breakfast had been long digested). Most of my students had dozed off by this point but I kept on reading The Goblet of Fire until we were skirting the periphery of London.

We arrived at the Nido hostel at 7. 15 pm though caught in Sunday evening traffic for a bit of the way. It took me only a few minutes to climb aboard the Number 17 bus and, fifteen minutes later, I was home, unpacking. A long call to Llew and a shorter one to Chriselle followed as I also tried to download my email and attend to the more urgent work-related messages that awaited my attention.

I worked steadily for almost five hours and it was long past midnight, when still feeling full of beans, I put out my bedside light and tried to fall asleep. I had finally visited Cornwall and toured this fabled holiday destination and I had returned home with memories that I knew I would cherish forever.

In Search of Eden and Camelot: The Eden Project and Tintagel

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Cornwall

I slept well last night despite being a little chilly. The double comforter helped—I folded it in half since I was using only one side of my double bed. Waking at 6. 40 am, I was able to write my blog for a bit, then shower and dress and get ready for breakfast, which was served at 8. 30 am. We were antsy as our coach was scheduled to leave at 9 am and there was no way we could eat a full English breakfast in fifteen minutes. Still, after muesli and orange juice, we found space (and time) for scrambled eggs and bacon, sausage and tomato, hash browns and beans and warm buttered toast with coffee—basically, a heart attack on a platter. Why is it that full English breakfasts taste so much better when someone else has cooked and served them up to you? And why is it that we had to hurry through so scrumptious a meal?

Off to Eden:

Well, we did reach the Inn at 9 am and made our way to the coach with our students to start the long ride towards St. Austell to the Eden Project. This is one of the UK’s Millennium projects, the brainchild of Tim Smith who still remains its CEO. It was his plan to demonstrate man’s ability to live in harmony with nature and it took the form of a series of biodomes constructed out of recycled material to look like giant igloos. My view of it from the air as my plane was landing at Newquay will always remain unforgettable especially as you do not spy the domes until you are a mere two minutes away from them.

The biodomes are constructed in a former china clay pit that had long remained disused, demonstrating the fact that waste lands can also be put to practical use. Our coach parked and dropped us off and we were met by Eden Project staff who directed us to the Reception Center where we received stickers to indicate that we were ticket holders.

At this point, we were met by a botanist named Kathryn who conducted a tour for us through the Humid and Tropical Garden which is the largest and most spectacular of the biodomes. She took us around the world in a an hour as each part of the dome grows plants native to specific tropical parts of the world such as Malaysia, Africa, South America (the Rain Forest). The temperature in this part of the biodomes is considerably warmer and within seconds we were peeling off our jackets. Kathryn started with a very comprehensive introduction to the aims and objectives of the Project and once on the tour, stopped by select plants to point out their native requirements and to demonstrate their typical characteristics. A waterfall cascaded through the entire project and as we moved from one part of the world to the next, we climbed ever higher. The incredible design of the region inside the dome which maximizes the use of space was ingenious indeed and spoke very well of the thought and planning and effort that went into its making

One of the more interesting things I saw was a real cacao pod from a cacao tree that was freshly plucked off and then split open by one of the guides who showed us the cocoa butter and the seeds inside. We had a chance to hold it in our hands, smell it and find that it did not smell even remotely of chocolate. A great deal of processing has to be carried out before chocoholics like myself can find cocoa nirvana! We learned that it was in South America that the Incas drank chocolate after mixing it with pounded chilli. Chocolate as solidified in bars are a British invention, however, and for that we are all very grateful indeed! I also saw a Passion Flower for the first time and I have to say that it was strikingly vivid and rare.

For me, of course, taking a tour of the Tropical Forest felt a little bit like visiting India for I saw banana, papaya, cashew and mango trees and a host of herbs and spices that I use in my daily cooking—such as coriander and curry leaf, cardamom, cinnamon and turmeric.

Our tour ended in an hour and we were free to make our way into the Temperate and Mediterranean biodome where the emphasis was on the kind of plants and fruits that are grown in sunny but less intensely humid climes such as in Greece, Italy or Southern California. I saw a giant citrus fruit called a citron which hung from the branches but is not too heavy as it has very little pulp and juice. It is the peel that is mainly used today in cakes when candied peel is called for in a recipe. Lavender, olives, geraniums, etc. were in this area but, having seen the superb quality and variety of the tropical fruits and flowers in the first biodome, I was somewhat disappointed by the second which paled in comparison.

What was also marvelous was the large number of birds that I saw inside the domes though they are almost airtight. They seem to come in when people unwittingly leave doors open or, as Kathryn explained, often through the louvers in the domes that are occasionally opened for ventilation. They were incredibly tame and a robin came and almost ate out of my hand when I was seated in the café. The birdsong, the rushing downpour of the waterfall and the fragrance that surrounds the interior was so authentic as to make me feel as if I was on a cruise along the Amazon in Costa Rica. Truly, the achievement of the Eden Project is little short of brilliant and though I am neither a botanist nor a biologist but merely a humble gardener myself, I know I took back lessons on planting and harvesting techniques that I could easily use in my own cottage garden at home in Connecticut.

Then, it was time to sink into one of the squashy leather sofas in the café and to decide about getting a bite. Despite the fact that I had eaten a huge breakfast, I did not know how long it would be before I had my next meal and not willing to start feeling hungry, I ordered a pork and apple pasty and homemade chips. Just as I sat to eat those, along came Alice and I joined her and David at their table. The lunch was enormously filling though not very tasty and with a slight spray having started to fall, we left the Eden Project, boarded the coach again and set off for our next port of call—Tintagel.

In Search of Camelot—King Arthur’s Castle at Tintagel:

It was understandable that almost everyone in the coach was asleep as it made its way across Cornwall to take us to Tintagel Head and the ruined Castle that is supposed to be the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. I too closed my eyes and within minutes, I was deeply asleep as mist swirling over the fields had reduced visibility considerably.

When I awoke about a half hour later, we were negotiating our way through the narrowest lanes imaginable and we had several hair-raising moments as smaller vehicles had to back all the way out of the roads to make room for us. Indeed, at one point, we were told by a passer-by that our long coach would never make it through a narrow passage ahead. He suggested we turn back and take a wider road even if that meant a longer route. At another point, we almost slammed into a van that stopped suddenly ahead of us as a car in front of him came to a stop in order to make a sharp right turn. I swear that it was only a hair’s breath that separated us from this van as the coach came to a halt several seconds after our driver slammed on the brakes! It was certainly not the most enjoyable of rides and a colleague even commented, “This castle had better be the best one in the world”.

Well, no one could have been disappointed. Though we did arrive at the charming village of Tintagel a little behind schedule and with a light spray still playing over the region, it was quite the most spectacular natural sight I have seen in my yearlong travels. For Tintagel Head juts out into the Atlantic Ocean over a steep promontory that is composed almost entirely of slate. The English Heritage maintains and manages the site and, thanks to some ingenious engineering, a pathway has been cut through the rock escarpment to allow visitors to access the ruins of the castle, the mansion and the little houses that belong to Arthurian Legend.

This site is not for the faint hearted as we needed to make our way down into a very low ravine first to get to the bottom where the Visitors Center in located. At this lowest point itself, the swirling waters of the ocean crash into rocks creating large caves that remain battered by the sea’s fury. The steps are repeatedly lashed by these jade green waves and scaling them takes courage and grit. At one point, you actually cross a bridge that connects the mainland with the tiny rocky island on which the majority of the ruins are to be found. All these locations make superb settings for photography and it is difficult to know where to stop in selecting sights for celluloid. To add to the mystery and the aura of the Arthurian legends, mist swirled softly around the peaks and a light spray from the churning waves cooled us off after the long climb.

Our students bounded along the steps, the setting making them light hearted as they were struck by the remoteness of the crags and the complete isolation of the pathway leading to the peaks. The steps were very high indeed and I had a hard time trying to climb them as strong winds whipped around us. Fortunately, it was not too cold and the climb to the top had served to warm me well. I did reach as far as the mansion of Earl Richard who was supposed to be the brother of King Arthur. I also saw the Great Hall of what would have been his mansion, the gateway leading to it–much of which was reconstructed in the 19th century when the pre-Raphaelites began to paint scenes from the stories of Thomas Malory’s 16th century work Morte D’Arthur which, in turn, led to Tennyson’s collection of Arthur poems called The Idylls of the King.



Of course, even as I surveyed the ruins in their fairy-tale setting, I was conscious of the fact that there is very little we know with historical certainty about King Arthur. Did he really exist? Is he a creation based on several different ancient Cornish kings of England? Very little archaeological evidence exists to answer these questions in any definitive way. What has been found at the site are Mediterranean pottery pieces that suggest strong trading links between England the Middle East in ancient times.



There was a great deal more I could have seen including the ruins of a walled garden and a little church at the very top, but somehow I did not trust my feet to carry me all the way to the peak. In fact, I was more afraid of making my way downhill and since we had a deadline for returning to the coach and I did not want to keep anyone waiting, I began the slow descent to the base reminded constantly, by the remoteness of the venue and the heights we had scaled, of Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher.

At the base, I had the pleasure of watching a film in the Visitors Center that gave some more information about the combination of myth and historical account that has led to the creation of the Arthurian Legends and the industry that they have spawned—if one went by the end-of-daybusiness being carried out in the little shops that comprise the village of Tintagel. I did visit a couple of them to purchase a magnet and some postcards, then poked my head into a bakery selling pasties and a tea room where a few of our students had settled themselves down with Cornish cream teas. I was too full to face the thought of another morsel for a while and looked forward to a good dinner instead, later in the day.

The bus ride back took us on the ‘Atlantic Highway’, a dual carriageway that ran through the length of Central Cornwall passing fairly close to Padstow en route. Back at the coach station at close to 6pm, I parted company with my colleagues and decided that it would be a good idea to stretch out and try to even get a short nap in my room at Sunnyside Hotel before we met in the lobby at 7. 30 pm for dinner.

When 7.30 pm approached, I prepared for dinner and meeting my colleagues in the hotel’s lobby, we decided to eat dinner at The New Harbor Restaurant where we had eaten last night. David and Alice bowed out, having consumed a light dinner earlier in the evening, leaving Valerie and me to find our way to the harbor and to settle ourselves at a table overlooking the boats on the dark and dimly lit waterfront.

A Seafood Dinner to Die For:

I ordered a scrumpy (apple cider) but the restaurant did not carry it. They suggested a pear cider instead made by a Cornish farm named Heany and never having tasted pear cider before, I was up for it. It was absolutely delicious and very refreshing indeed. Valerie had a glass of house white wine and ordered the Crab Trio that she had enjoyed yesterday (salad, bisque and timbale). I went for the Lobster and Prawn Cocktail which was very fresh and very good, crammed full of small prawns and lobster tail in a light mayonnaise dressing. For mains, both of us had the grilled cod with saffron mash and baby spinach in a saffron cream sauce—very fresh, very tasty and very hearty indeed. David joined us just when we were finishing our mains and ordered pudding. Since the sticky toffee pudding that Alice had ordered was so good yesterday, I decided to go with it and indeed it was great—with a generous dollop of Cornish clotted cream served alongside. This melted against the warmth of the pudding and formed a gooey mass in the toffee base. Ah, heavenly!

I was seriously worried that I would be too stuffed to make the long uphill trek to our hotel, but climb it I did and had only enough energy to complete this blog and throw myself on the bed for a good night’s rest.

In Fowey and Padstow–Cornwall’s Famous Villages

Friday, March 6, 2009
Cornwall

The view from my window stunned me anew when I awoke this morning at 6. 30 to watch dawn break over the Newquay sky that was tinged a startling pink. Immense cloud cover made it difficult for the sun to break through and the solitary figure walking towards the ocean was a dark silhouette at that early morning hour as he treaded water for a few paces, and then plunged into the foaming waves. I know that I will never again have so breathtaking a view from a hostel window and I want to keep this one preserved forever in my memory.

Devoting a Day to Writers:
Packing and unpacking, washing and dressing and getting ready to meet the day took the next half hour. I found the time to read up a bit of Cornwall tourist literature and discovered that the area on the opposite shore around the town of Fowey (pronounced ‘Foy’) would be a good place to explore. It is also rich with literary associations and it turned out that my day was devoted to following in the footsteps of some of England’s best known writers as I attempted to discover their favorite haunts.

In Search of Daphne du Maurier:
Daphne du Maurier, to whom I became introduced as a teenager, owing to my mother’s passion for her novels, spent a good deal of time in Southern Cornwall and used it as the setting of so many of her works. Jamaica Inn, the title of one of her novels, for instance, still exists in the region of Bodmin Moor but I wasn’t going to travel so far just to see in. Instead, I decided to take the Western Greyhound (“Green” Bus, as it is locally known) to St. Austell from where I was required to connect to another bus that would take me to Fowey.

Menabilly is the name of the town close by in which stands a huge mansion, which the du Mauriers had rented when they lived in Cornwall for a while. This would became the famous Mandalay of her best-known novel Rebecca. Who can ever forget that novel’s haunting first sentence? “Last night I dreamed I was at Mandalay again”. Just typing it gives me goose bumps and my reaction is based not on reading the novel alone but on the many movie versions of it that I have seen. The earliest was made by Alfred Hitchcock starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine and the most recent that I saw only a few months ago starred Charles Dance (whose work I have enjoyed and followed ever since I saw him play a very young British officer in The Jewel in the Crown many many years ago) and Emily Fox who is one of Britain’s best-loved actors with the inimitable Diana Rigg playing the chilly Miss Danvers.

So, I was keen to go to Menabilly to see Mandalay for myself. Only, when I arrived at Fowey and made my way down the steep hill that led to the harbor where most of the shops are clustered, I discovered at the Daphne du Maurier Literary Center (yes, there really is such a place!), that the Mandalay of the novel is a private residence and not open to the public. One cannot even catch a glimpse of it from the outside. The village of Menabilly does not have any associations with the author except for some shops that are named after her best-known characters. To get to Menabilly, I would have to walk about 4 to 5 miles as no public buses went to the area in the off-season.

Feeling Homesick in Fowey:
Abandoning my plans to get to Mandalay, I focused on Fowey instead and was left feeling deeply homesick for my beloved Southport. For Fowey reminded me so much of my little village in Connecticut. It shares a similar topography in that the river Fowey runs through the town and empties into the English Channel in the same way that the Mill River runs through Southport and empties into Long Island Sound. On both banks of the river are pretty houses rising in steep tiers along very narrow streets. You have to literally flatten yourself against a wall when a car passes by, as there isn’t enough room for both human and vehicle along the same street in Fowey! I realized all this, of course, only after I arrived at the waterside or what they call the Harbor (we call it the ‘Marina’ at home) where the beautifully sunny day had drawn anglers and sailors alike to the quay to keep them busy at their pursuits.

Along the street leading to the harbor were souvenir stores, bakeries selling the region’s specialty—saffron buns—books and card shops, chocolatiers, exclusive designer boutiques and jewelry showrooms and lots of places selling knick-knacks. I took pictures of the harbor because I wanted to show Llew and Chirselle how similar our lovely Southport is to an English seaside resort. I have said for years that Southport is the closest one can come to an English village in coastal Connecticut and the similarity between Fowey and Southport confirmed those impressions.

Like Southport, Fowey is dominated by the square tower of its local stone church with its gold clock face. Southport, of course, has two landmark churches—the Trinity Episcopal Church and the Congregation Church. Here too, in Fowey, stained glass windows in a Pre-Raphaelite style were visible as I passed by the steep path running along its side. But unlike Southport, Fowey can also boast what looks like a castle with its square turrets rising sharply against the bluest skies. It was only later, at the bus stop when I got into conversation with a local resident that I discovered that it wasn’t a castle at all but a private house—one that had remained in the same family, that of the Trefoys, not just for centuries, but maybe for a millennium! The lady’s son happened to be a stonemason who was at work on the house as keeping it up to snuff after all these years does take a lot of skilled local labor.

She lamented the fact that wages are so low in this part of the UK, that despite having been born in Cornwall and living there all their lives, none of her four children can afford to buy a home in the town which has been taken over by “holiday homes”—meaning seasonal houses that are rented to holiday-makers during the summer.

“I have no neighbors”, the lady lamented, “as the houses next door to me remain shut all year except for the three months of summer. I live alone and if something ever happened to me, no one would know. It’s awful!” she said.

Then, she continued: “My God, things have changed beyond recognition since I was a little girl growing up here. When I was a teenager, if I got into any kind of trouble, before I got home, you could be sure that mother already knew about it as a hundred eyes were watching my every move. Every one knew every one else in those days in the village of Fowey. I could not possibly expect that today—the place is full of strangers”.

And still later: “You don’t want to be here in the summer. It’s just crawling with city folk splashing around their money. It’s awful!”

She wasn’t quite done. “And you should see how much they are building here! Who do they expect to buy all these places? Why don’t they try to fill up the empty houses first instead of eating into more parcels of green?”

So there I was getting a lesson on the changing face of Cornwall from someone who certainly knew the area intimately. And this again is similar to Southport, isn’t it, I thought? There were all those condos being built by developers out to make a buck during the real estate boom only to lie untouched. All that lovely unspoiled Southport scenery forever altered by the arrival of those condominium colonies. It’s truly a travesty, I thought. All over the world, the same story…

Back on the bus, I arrived at St. Austell, then connected to another bus to Newquay, but not before I popped down another steep winding road into the town to buy a Mince Pasty from Nile’s Bakery as it was close to lunchtime and I was hungry. I have to say that I have become a convert to the Cornish pasty—probably because they are so much more satisfying and delicious than the ones I have tasted in London through the Cornish Pasty Company and other similar chains. This one was filled with thinly sliced potato and ground beef, the two flavors melded perfectly to make a very delicious lunch indeed.

In the bus, I enjoyed both the passing landscape and my travel companions. Many knew each other and cheery greetings were often exchanged as the bus passed through a village. Some had amusing names such as High Street and Higher Bugle! Many of the little villages had names that started with the letters “Tre’ as a kind of prefix and I believe it has something to do with some ancient language of the region. Women got on with their shopping strolleys to take a bus ride to the nearest Morrisons or closest town. The village houses were small with very modest gardens that were slowly coming into their own for the new growing season. I saw daffodils everywhere in places that made me believe they were wild—though I have always believed that since daffodils grow from bulbs they have to be planted and do not seed spontaneously as wild flowers do.

Back at Newquay, I had only enough time to browse in some of the shops on the main road before it was time for me to catch another bus—this one going to Padstow.

Padding Around Padstow:
Padstow, it is said, would have remained just another small Cornish fishing village were it not for the arrival of TV chef Rick Stein who put it firmly on the country’s culinary map and created a mini-empire in the process. His presence in the town is so ubiquitous that folks something jocularly refer to the village as Padstein. Of course, being a foodie, I was keen to eat in one of his restaurants, but since I never enter restaurants when I am traveling alone, I did not think that this would be a possibility.

In Search of Sir John Betjeman:
Apart from Stein’s celebrity, the town is renowned for the presence of another great literary figure—the poet John Betjeman whose work I have loved for years and with whom I also have a personal connection—many many years ago, when I was but a young teenager in India, I had run into his wife, Lady Penelope Chetwode, in Simla, in Northern India, and ever since then, I had followed his career with interest. Betjeman, of course, passed away a few years ago, but he lies buried in the village of Trebeterick in the graveyard at St. Enodoc Church where his tombstone is engraved with some of his most haunting lines celebrating the beauty of and his fondness for this part of Cornwall which he had made his home for most of his life. I hoped very much to see his grave and make a pilgrimage of sorts to one of my favorite poet’s worlds.

Meanwhile, I walked along the path leading from the harbor to the town where colorful sailing boats bobbed in the water surrounded by a number of equally colorful shop fronts. A visit to the Tourist Information Center told me that my wish would not be fulfilled as Trebeterick lay across the shallow waters of Padstow Bay and I needed to take a ferry to get to the other side. Once on the opposite bank, I would need to cross a golf course and then make my way into the churchyard to see the gravesite. Though the walk would take me less than 20 minutes, once I was on the other side, the ferry had stopped plying for the day at 4.30 pm and I would have to return on the morrow. I could see the general area, however, in which Betjeman lies buried and I have to say that this sight served to satisfy my deepest longings to pay my personal respects to the man that a recent poll named Britain’s Favorite Poet. As I gazed upon the tranquil land in which he lies buried, I thought of his own words:

“Lark songs and sea sounds in the air
And splendour, splendour everywhere”.

Prideux Place:
Instead, I walked through the little coastal town and on seeing signs for Prideux Place decided to climb the steep hill that led to it. My guide book had informed me that this old pile is a favorite haunt of directors of period films and TV shows as it has all the correct atmospheric details to authenticate a location.

When I did get there, passing through a jumble of narrow winding streets with modest homes whose front doors were painted in strong primary colors, I arrived at a gray granite mass complete with square turrets and a forbidding gateway. There was a sign that informed me that the place was open to visitors only after Easter (I love how Easter is used here as the equivalent of a date though it changes every year depending on the Lenten calendar!)

Right opposite the mansion is a deer park and, as luck would have it, the herds of deer for which the park is known were obligingly close at hand. A few photographs later, I wound my way own the hill, once again, pulling my cashmere scarf closer around my throat for I had begun to feel the damp chill that sudden bouts of rain can bring.

Padstow’s Pleasures:
I did not see Padstow at its best. Indeed, the rain clouds that had been swirling all morning finally dropped their moisture as my bus had woven through the narrowest country lanes from Newquay to bring me to this seaside settlement. I had a few hairy moments on the front seat of a double decker as it speeded on the single lane roads occasionally coming upon a car headed in the opposite direction.

In the baffling code of etiquette that exists among drivers on these single-lane country roads, the car backed up for quite a while, as my heart remained caught in my throat, until it found a tiny space in which to wedge itself before the bus that had advanced menacingly upon it, found enough room to squeeze through. This is not the first time that I have been witness to such a happening. Indeed, when Llew has been behind the wheel of tiny rented English cars on our many holidays in this part of the world, we have encountered the same occurrence on a couple of occasions. But never have I watched the spectacle from a double-decker bus—and believe me, I felt as if I were witnessing the denouement of a hair raising drama.

Pasdstow’s lanes weave in and out of little squares each one punctuated with another one of the cafes, delis, gourmet food stores, patisseries and restaurants that comprise the Stein empire. Many of them were winding down for the day as it was close to 5 pm. I keep forgetting that in this country, as a rule, shops still close at five, though Londoners might be used to later closings. Once the shutters come down and the cleaning begins inside, towns suddenly become shrouded in mourning for all the gusto goes out of them like a balloon that has been suddenly pierced. Apart from the suddenness with which evening descended upon Padstow in this manner, I was also conscious of the fact that last bus out to Newquay was scheduled to leave at 6. 35 pm from the harbor. Not wanting to miss it, I made my way back towards Rick Stein’s Fish and Chips Restaurant and finding that it was almost as casual as a fast food place, I made an exception to my rule and decided to dine alone.

The Stein Empire:
As soon as our bus had disgorged its passengers on to the quayside at Padstow, the presence of Rick Stein was everywhere. Rick Stein’s Fish and Chips is on the harbor front and you cannot miss it despite its very modest exterior. Since it only opened at 5 pm, I resolved to return there and have my dinner inside.

When I did get there, I foudn that the restaurant had opened fifteen minutes earlier at 5 pm and already had a few early diners seated within. Done entirely in white subway tile (as it is known in New York) with occasional touches of navy blue as in the fish tiles that march around the restaurant, the interior is simplicity at its most classy.

I settled myself down at a wooden bench and awaited a waitress who brought me a menu. I had decided to have what everyone else was having—the Winter Special Cod and Chips with bread and butter and a pot of tea—I chose peppermint—all for 6. 40 pounds. Nothing could have been more welcome for Padstow had been an overall chilly experience for me and my insides craved the warmth of good food and drink.

They were not disappointed. When my meal arrived, in a thick paper container, I found a fillet of cod superbly fried in the lightest, crispest batter I had ever seen or tasted. It simply melted in my mouth. Indeed, it was so good that I did not even need to request tartar sauce. My chips, however, were sorely disappointing. I had, quite obviously, been given the last scraping from a batch for I received nothing but a handful of tiny fried crispy bits and but for three or four real chips, i.e. chewy meaty larger fries, the chips were a disaster.

I debated whether or not I should point this out to the waitress and then, being accustomed to American ways, I could not resist it, and showed them to her. She shrugged and appeared unable to deal with my complaint. The fish was hearty, however, and the few chips that I had eaten, had filled me up.

Then I saw her approach the chef and have a word with him and, a few minutes later, she returned to my table to say, “Chef would like to know if you’d like another small portion of chips”. I thanked her for the offer but declined as I was already too full and there was still my steaming tea to be drunk. In the end, I was grateful that though she did not apologize to me for what was obviously a huge culinary faux-pas, especially in a restaurant of such an acclaimed celebrity chef, she did at least try to address my complaint and make amends.

I did board the 6. 35 pm bus and was the sole passenger in it for almost the entire ride. When we arrived at Watergate Bay, another part of Cornwall associated with a TV celebrity chef—Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Cornwall is located here–I looked everywhere for it but saw no signs. When I asked the driver if he had an idea where it might be, he responded with the kind of candor that is characteristic only of the English.

“Would you happen to know where Jamie Oliver’s restaurant is?”
“’Fraid not. Not the kind of place I could afford”.

So, while I was still mulling over his answer, the bus swung upwards along the cliffs and in just a little while deposited me at the Newquay bus stop. When I finally did find a strong enough signal, I had made telephonic contact with Alice of NYU who informed me that our student coaches had arrived there at 4 pm, leaving them with ample time to explore Towan Beach.

We made plans to meet at St. Christopher’s Inn and when I did get there at 8pm she arrived soon enough and led me down to The New Harbor Restaurant located at the water’s edge. There, I joined more colleagues, David Crout and Valerie Wells, who had just ordered a bottle of wine and were nibbling on some bread. They did ask me to order as well but I was still stuffed with my own dinner and decided to sip on a glass of white Bordeaux instead and then join them for dessert.

I wished I hadn’t eaten already when I saw their offerings which were simply enormous and superbly presented. Over fresh seafood (cod and plaice and crab for starters), they had a lovely meal while I looked on. When it came time for dessert, however, I caved in. It was close to 10 pm anyway and I had eaten at 5, so I was ready for some ‘pudding’. I chose a creamy dreamy Irish Coffee Crème Brulee which was exceptional—the brown sugar crust concealing a scrumptious custard that was delicately flavored with Irish whisky. I have to say that I have never tasted so novel a creme brulee and I thought so much of Chriselle as crème brulee is her favorite dessert!

When I did make my way up the hill to St. Christopher’s Inn to retrieve my bag, I was ready to wind down for the day. I checked in with the rest of the group at Sunnyside Hotel which overlooked the beach—though, sadly, I no longer had the stunning view of the last couple of days. My room was freezing and it was only after I fiddled around with the controls on the radiator that it started to feel better.

On a last literary note I wrote this blog and fell asleep after midnight, mindful of the fact that we had decided to meet at Pistachio Restaurant located on the ground floor of the hotel for a full English breakfast at 8. 15 am.