So, one of the blogs I follow intermittantly is Kenzie's at All the Weigh. And although I rarely talk here about weight loss- I have been slowly trying to work on changing my eating habits to lose weight. It's either that or go clothes shopping, and we all know how I hate to shop for clothes! Bleh! So I've lost a bit over ten pounds in the last year, which is incredibly slow, but I'm more concerned about yo-yo-ing due to too-rapid loss than taking it slowly. Anyway, this morning Kenzie asked a great question on her regular Friend-Making Monday post, and I decided to play.
Was there a defining moment in which you realized that you needed to lose weight? If so, will you elaborate? (If you experienced this moment in some other area of your life, please feel free to share that too!)
So I don't have a real watershed moment with regards to weight. It was creeping up, I decided it had to be dealt with. But my confidence that it *could* be dealt with goes back a ways and had to do with exercise. I’ve always been klutzy and not good at sports. But in my twenties I was living near the mountains in a small town with few opportunities for a social life–but near lots of ski areas. So I figured I’d give it a try. I took some lessons in downhill skiing, and practiced, and it was fun, and I took some more lessons…and finally realized that I wasn’t bad at sports- probably more average. I’d just never liked a sport well enough to practice it before. Skiing, like other sports, is a skill and skills can be learned. And they get better with practice.
And that was a huge life lesson, and turned out to apply to so many more things than exercise. So now I’m practicing portion control and healthier eating. I need to work harder at the exercise part- I now have plenty of exercise that I enjoy, but it’s getting the time for it into my schedule that’s the challenge. Time management remains a skill that needs additional practice!
And when I tackle something new- say, installing drywall to patch the hole in the ceiling of my garage (I'm still plotting my approach, but Real Soon Now) or tackling a new knitting technique...or when a non-knitter says, 'you're so talented, I could never do that'...I remember making my first parallel turns on a ski slope and know that my first attempt might not work out, but the next one will be better. It's not a talent or a gift, it's a skill. Skills can be learned. Skills improve with practice. Skills are not about getting something for nothing or finding the magic answer that fixes things overnight. Skills are about taking a smaller portion, eating the salad instead of the fries (at least most of the time) and about pulling one loop of yarn though another until the sweater happens.
So how about you? Did you have a memorable "I can do this!" moment? Feel free to share- and head over to Kenzie's blog and leave her a link...she's eager to hear all the stories.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Day Six- Artists and Patrons and a Walk by the River
This is the latest entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip in May. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Day Four: A Day in Alfred's City
Day Five: Déjà Vu - In a Good Way
Wednesday May 25
Wednesday started with an unfortunate repeat of the day before's digestive incident. We dropped off laundry at a local laundromat, and I went back to the hotel for a bit, while JT went out to walk around and took a few photos:
I arranged to meet him later at our first planned 'sight' of the day, the Frederic Leighton House Museum.
Leighton was a 19th century painter and sculptor. JT and I felt a certain kinship with him almost immediately, because he designed a house to entirely suit his own peculiar requirements, much as we did during our own house remodel. Though admittedly on a much larger scale. The outside looks ordinary enough, but going inside is like stepping into a fantasy. The main downstairs room was designed expressly to showcase Leighton's collection of spectacular tiles, many of them collected in the middle east. The ceiling has elaborate paintwork and gilding and a fountain occupies the center of the chamber. There is a virtual tour here- do at least peek at the magnificent Arab hall.
We watched a fascinating video on the just-completed conservation and renewal of the house (the same one advertised on the website)--we were particularly intrigued with the video on how they re-gilded the elaborately decorated dome.
Other rooms contained magnificent furniture and of course many paintings, both Leighton's own works and those of his numerous artistic friends. Up the stairs in the upstairs chambers were many more artworks, and whole back of the second floor was Leighton's studio, filled with light and with an enormous door a foot wide and 20 or so feet high- intended to allow immense canvases to enter and leave the studio.
From the studio we went into Leighton's adjoining winter studio- a greenhouse-type affair intended to let him make the most of the daylight during the winter without freezing his paints on the brush. The space has been converted for exhibitions- the special exhibition while we were there was of the work of George Aitchison, the architect who designed Leighton's interiors. We greatly admired the drawings of Aitchison's work, many of which were works of art in their own right. Many of the depicted interiors have long since been renovated out of existence.
From there we checked out another of the ubiquitous gourmet burger places—a trend we heartily approve of—and then traveled by tube and train to Twickenham, where we continued our architectural theme by visiting Strawberry Hill. Strawberry Hill is the gothic castle built by Horace Walpole, who is credited with writing the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. He was also a collector on a vast scale- everything from furniture to art to stained glass, and he built his pocket castle to house his enormous collections and give him a place to entertain his legions of friends.
After Walpole's death, the estate was broken up, and most of the furnishings sold off at an auction that lasted three days. The house passed to relatives until it was sold in the 1920s to a Catholic college. They used the building for decades until in 2004, a local group called the Friends of Strawberry Hill launched a major fund-raising effort which eventually funneled over $14 million dollars into the Strawberry Hill Trust. St. Mary's University College then leased the building back to the Strawberry Hill Trust, who has spent the last nine years in restoring the building as closely as possible to Walpole's original vision. And what a vision! This is the Gallery, the main space Walpole used for entertaining.
They just opened to visitors this spring, and many rooms are still under reconstruction. There's very little furniture- they're trying to arrange for the return of as many pieces that belonged to Walpole as possible, and are arranging to make replicas of others based on drawings and existing pieces that are currently in other museums. The Great Sale held by his heirs however has dispersed Walpole's possessions all over the world. Much of the charm of the house has survived however, including the windows which Walpole pieced together to make use of his immense collection of stained glass:
This marvelous fireplace has been fully restored:
And I was much taken with the blue bedroom, one of the guest chambers:
The gothic library is a work in progress, but will be quite charming when it's done:
A really delightful place, and one I'm eager to return to in a few years when they've got more of the restoration completed. Especially cool was the exhibit with photos and interviews with the craftsmen doing the restoration. During the restoration, one of them found a tool in a wall, which belonged to one of the original craftsmen who built Strawberry Hill- what a fantastic connection, for him to hold in his hands one of the tools of those long-forgotten artisans.
We discussed train options as we left, but decided it was too nice out and too early for us to need to return immediately to London, so from Strawberry Hill we walked into the center of Twickenham and picked up the Thames Path along the south bank. We weren't the only ones out for a promenade along the river:
And I know I'm repeating myself, but England is just a fantastic place to walk and look at scenery. We admired the magnificent trees (I don't think I've ever seen a willow that large before):
Looked at the river:
Saw other stately homes in the area we didn't have time to stop and visit:
Spotted someone's ingenious solution for finding garden space:
Admired the river some more:
And finally spotted our goal, the bridge across the river to Richmond, where we could pick up a train back to London:
We returned to London and walked to Chimes, which is in all the tourist guides for a reason- that's excellent traditional English food and a wide selection of ciders. We've been back several times and the food is always excellent. On this particular occasion, it was busier than we'd ever seen it at the unfashionably early hour we like to eat. Possibly due to extra traffic from the famous Chelsea Flower Show, which was going on then. The service, which is generally unhurried there, was rather overwhelmed. We chatted for a bit with the people at the next table (in town for the flower show, as they explained) and they were quite incensed by the slow service. I expect under some circumstances we might have been irritated ourselves but we were in no hurry and even glad to sit for a while. And the food, when it came was outstanding as always.
We walked back to our hotel, picking up laundry— (Love those wash and fold services! A great boon to vacationers.)— and called it a night.
Our last photo of the day, taken on our way to dinner, was conventionally touristy—
—but how could I resist the evening light on big Ben?
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Day Four: A Day in Alfred's City
Day Five: Déjà Vu - In a Good Way
Wednesday May 25
Wednesday started with an unfortunate repeat of the day before's digestive incident. We dropped off laundry at a local laundromat, and I went back to the hotel for a bit, while JT went out to walk around and took a few photos:
I arranged to meet him later at our first planned 'sight' of the day, the Frederic Leighton House Museum.
Leighton was a 19th century painter and sculptor. JT and I felt a certain kinship with him almost immediately, because he designed a house to entirely suit his own peculiar requirements, much as we did during our own house remodel. Though admittedly on a much larger scale. The outside looks ordinary enough, but going inside is like stepping into a fantasy. The main downstairs room was designed expressly to showcase Leighton's collection of spectacular tiles, many of them collected in the middle east. The ceiling has elaborate paintwork and gilding and a fountain occupies the center of the chamber. There is a virtual tour here- do at least peek at the magnificent Arab hall.
We watched a fascinating video on the just-completed conservation and renewal of the house (the same one advertised on the website)--we were particularly intrigued with the video on how they re-gilded the elaborately decorated dome.
Other rooms contained magnificent furniture and of course many paintings, both Leighton's own works and those of his numerous artistic friends. Up the stairs in the upstairs chambers were many more artworks, and whole back of the second floor was Leighton's studio, filled with light and with an enormous door a foot wide and 20 or so feet high- intended to allow immense canvases to enter and leave the studio.
From the studio we went into Leighton's adjoining winter studio- a greenhouse-type affair intended to let him make the most of the daylight during the winter without freezing his paints on the brush. The space has been converted for exhibitions- the special exhibition while we were there was of the work of George Aitchison, the architect who designed Leighton's interiors. We greatly admired the drawings of Aitchison's work, many of which were works of art in their own right. Many of the depicted interiors have long since been renovated out of existence.
From there we checked out another of the ubiquitous gourmet burger places—a trend we heartily approve of—and then traveled by tube and train to Twickenham, where we continued our architectural theme by visiting Strawberry Hill. Strawberry Hill is the gothic castle built by Horace Walpole, who is credited with writing the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. He was also a collector on a vast scale- everything from furniture to art to stained glass, and he built his pocket castle to house his enormous collections and give him a place to entertain his legions of friends.
After Walpole's death, the estate was broken up, and most of the furnishings sold off at an auction that lasted three days. The house passed to relatives until it was sold in the 1920s to a Catholic college. They used the building for decades until in 2004, a local group called the Friends of Strawberry Hill launched a major fund-raising effort which eventually funneled over $14 million dollars into the Strawberry Hill Trust. St. Mary's University College then leased the building back to the Strawberry Hill Trust, who has spent the last nine years in restoring the building as closely as possible to Walpole's original vision. And what a vision! This is the Gallery, the main space Walpole used for entertaining.
They just opened to visitors this spring, and many rooms are still under reconstruction. There's very little furniture- they're trying to arrange for the return of as many pieces that belonged to Walpole as possible, and are arranging to make replicas of others based on drawings and existing pieces that are currently in other museums. The Great Sale held by his heirs however has dispersed Walpole's possessions all over the world. Much of the charm of the house has survived however, including the windows which Walpole pieced together to make use of his immense collection of stained glass:
This marvelous fireplace has been fully restored:
And I was much taken with the blue bedroom, one of the guest chambers:
The gothic library is a work in progress, but will be quite charming when it's done:
A really delightful place, and one I'm eager to return to in a few years when they've got more of the restoration completed. Especially cool was the exhibit with photos and interviews with the craftsmen doing the restoration. During the restoration, one of them found a tool in a wall, which belonged to one of the original craftsmen who built Strawberry Hill- what a fantastic connection, for him to hold in his hands one of the tools of those long-forgotten artisans.
We discussed train options as we left, but decided it was too nice out and too early for us to need to return immediately to London, so from Strawberry Hill we walked into the center of Twickenham and picked up the Thames Path along the south bank. We weren't the only ones out for a promenade along the river:
And I know I'm repeating myself, but England is just a fantastic place to walk and look at scenery. We admired the magnificent trees (I don't think I've ever seen a willow that large before):
Looked at the river:
Saw other stately homes in the area we didn't have time to stop and visit:
Spotted someone's ingenious solution for finding garden space:
Admired the river some more:
And finally spotted our goal, the bridge across the river to Richmond, where we could pick up a train back to London:
We returned to London and walked to Chimes, which is in all the tourist guides for a reason- that's excellent traditional English food and a wide selection of ciders. We've been back several times and the food is always excellent. On this particular occasion, it was busier than we'd ever seen it at the unfashionably early hour we like to eat. Possibly due to extra traffic from the famous Chelsea Flower Show, which was going on then. The service, which is generally unhurried there, was rather overwhelmed. We chatted for a bit with the people at the next table (in town for the flower show, as they explained) and they were quite incensed by the slow service. I expect under some circumstances we might have been irritated ourselves but we were in no hurry and even glad to sit for a while. And the food, when it came was outstanding as always.
We walked back to our hotel, picking up laundry— (Love those wash and fold services! A great boon to vacationers.)— and called it a night.
Our last photo of the day, taken on our way to dinner, was conventionally touristy—
—but how could I resist the evening light on big Ben?
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Day Five: Déjà Vu - In a Good Way
This is the latest entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip in May. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Day Four: A Day in Alfred's City
Tuesday, May 24
The next day started slowly for me- I stayed at the hotel for a couple of hours waiting for some minor digestive issues to resolve themselves. JT went out and walked, and took a turn through the science museum, where he reported an exhibit of knitting machines (I would have been interested in this,but - so much England, so little time).
On his return we set out to walk around the city- we've done a fair amount of walking in London at this point, but it's a wonderful city to walk in, and we were much struck, as always, by the number and variety of parks and greenspaces. The roses were in full bloom in Hyde Park.
I was blown away by the size of some of these...I can't call them bushes...rose trees. Take a look:
The bench with sitting human I included for scale are normal-sized, not miniatures or facsimiles.
We strolled as far as Trafalgar square and decided to look in at the National Gallery.
For no special reason we could discern, there was a large ship in a bottle outside.
As with so many of the large museums, we generally try to experience it in smaller chunks. This time we took a docent tour that featured a variety of paintings, as well as pointing up the mosaics on the floor. The mosaics were the work of Russian artist Boris Anrep, who laid them over a period of years in the late 20's and early 30's. We were charmed to note a number of Anrep's contemporaries, including Winston Churchill, and scenes with his friends playing the parts of various classical characters. Featured scenes included Alice in Wonderland and Rutherford splitting the atom. There is a nice description of their range in this New York Times article about the mosaics.
Interestingly, Anrep laid the mosaics right side up, in place, unlike the Romans whom (we learned in Winchester) laid their mosaics face down on flat sheets in sections and then flipped them over to install them in the floors and walls they were meant to decorate.
Another work featured on the tour was (one of the umpty-bazillion paintings of ) the Annuciation by Carlo Crivelli. The scene depicts Mary as a 15th century woman, and much of the painting is taken up with a lively city scene. The docent pointed out with delightful enthusiasm many of the details- the angel Gabriel gossiping in the street instead of observing the Holy Spirit at work, a small child and a priest, who are the only ones in the scene who appear to notice the bolt of light coming down from heaven, the handsome peacock (symbolizing immortality) on the balcony.
And not on the docent tour but possibly the most entertaining, was the painting of an eighteenth century racehorse, Whistlejacket. The photo really doesn't do it justice- the horse is painted near or at life-size, and is so vividly executed that at any moment you expect him to whinny and leap off the wall into the gallery. Which is where the entertainment came in, as I spent much of the rest of the day imagining a plot for a children's picture-book, wherein a bored young child (much like me in my younger days) is looking at the painting when the horse talks to him, and then takes him on an eventful tour through the paintings of the museum. (The child has some quite horrifying adventures, and a narrow escape in Modern art. And he gets into rather a lot of trouble for eating the fruit in a still life. Museums are hungry work.)
Despite enjoying much of the painting, after a couple of hours we started to experience art fatigue, and moved on. We went over to the nearby church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, known to classical music lovers as the site of a superb concert series- and bought tickets for a concert later in the week. They also have an excellent restaurant in the Crypt, where we stopped for lunch (speaking of hungry work).
We walked on to St. Paul's—one of our plans had been to take one of the verger's tours there—but found that our timing was off, so we noted down the tour times for another day.
We walked on, admiring the scenery:
—up into Bloomsbury for Thai fusion food at Busaba Eathai, and then caught the tube to Camden for a different concert- this one folk music with Jez Lowe at Cecil Sharp House, home of the English Folk Song and Dance Society. It was excellent.
If our roster of activities sounds rather familiar, you've got a good memory- these are all places we've been before and enjoyed on previous trips. As much as we like seeing new places- sometimes the places we've been are well worth more than one visit. And yet I think no matter how often we return, we'll still be discovering new charms—to the city, to its many fine museums, and of course...the restaurants!
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Day Four: A Day in Alfred's City
Tuesday, May 24
The next day started slowly for me- I stayed at the hotel for a couple of hours waiting for some minor digestive issues to resolve themselves. JT went out and walked, and took a turn through the science museum, where he reported an exhibit of knitting machines (I would have been interested in this,but - so much England, so little time).
On his return we set out to walk around the city- we've done a fair amount of walking in London at this point, but it's a wonderful city to walk in, and we were much struck, as always, by the number and variety of parks and greenspaces. The roses were in full bloom in Hyde Park.
I was blown away by the size of some of these...I can't call them bushes...rose trees. Take a look:
The bench with sitting human I included for scale are normal-sized, not miniatures or facsimiles.
We strolled as far as Trafalgar square and decided to look in at the National Gallery.
For no special reason we could discern, there was a large ship in a bottle outside.
As with so many of the large museums, we generally try to experience it in smaller chunks. This time we took a docent tour that featured a variety of paintings, as well as pointing up the mosaics on the floor. The mosaics were the work of Russian artist Boris Anrep, who laid them over a period of years in the late 20's and early 30's. We were charmed to note a number of Anrep's contemporaries, including Winston Churchill, and scenes with his friends playing the parts of various classical characters. Featured scenes included Alice in Wonderland and Rutherford splitting the atom. There is a nice description of their range in this New York Times article about the mosaics.
Interestingly, Anrep laid the mosaics right side up, in place, unlike the Romans whom (we learned in Winchester) laid their mosaics face down on flat sheets in sections and then flipped them over to install them in the floors and walls they were meant to decorate.
Another work featured on the tour was (one of the umpty-bazillion paintings of ) the Annuciation by Carlo Crivelli. The scene depicts Mary as a 15th century woman, and much of the painting is taken up with a lively city scene. The docent pointed out with delightful enthusiasm many of the details- the angel Gabriel gossiping in the street instead of observing the Holy Spirit at work, a small child and a priest, who are the only ones in the scene who appear to notice the bolt of light coming down from heaven, the handsome peacock (symbolizing immortality) on the balcony.
And not on the docent tour but possibly the most entertaining, was the painting of an eighteenth century racehorse, Whistlejacket. The photo really doesn't do it justice- the horse is painted near or at life-size, and is so vividly executed that at any moment you expect him to whinny and leap off the wall into the gallery. Which is where the entertainment came in, as I spent much of the rest of the day imagining a plot for a children's picture-book, wherein a bored young child (much like me in my younger days) is looking at the painting when the horse talks to him, and then takes him on an eventful tour through the paintings of the museum. (The child has some quite horrifying adventures, and a narrow escape in Modern art. And he gets into rather a lot of trouble for eating the fruit in a still life. Museums are hungry work.)
Despite enjoying much of the painting, after a couple of hours we started to experience art fatigue, and moved on. We went over to the nearby church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, known to classical music lovers as the site of a superb concert series- and bought tickets for a concert later in the week. They also have an excellent restaurant in the Crypt, where we stopped for lunch (speaking of hungry work).
We walked on to St. Paul's—one of our plans had been to take one of the verger's tours there—but found that our timing was off, so we noted down the tour times for another day.
We walked on, admiring the scenery:
—up into Bloomsbury for Thai fusion food at Busaba Eathai, and then caught the tube to Camden for a different concert- this one folk music with Jez Lowe at Cecil Sharp House, home of the English Folk Song and Dance Society. It was excellent.
If our roster of activities sounds rather familiar, you've got a good memory- these are all places we've been before and enjoyed on previous trips. As much as we like seeing new places- sometimes the places we've been are well worth more than one visit. And yet I think no matter how often we return, we'll still be discovering new charms—to the city, to its many fine museums, and of course...the restaurants!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Day Four- A Day in Alfred's City
This is the latest entry in a series of posts on my vacation trip in May. The prior posts were:
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Monday May 23
Monday was a last-minute improvisation on our parts. The original plan had been to go to Bristol to see the SS Great Britain, but just before we left, we'd found out that there was a new museum opening up, the M-Shed, devoted to the history of Bristol. Just the kind of thing we most like—and it wasn't going to be open until a couple of weeks after we came home. Also, Bristol is all the way over on the west coast, which makes it a much better fit for a trip to Cornwall and Devon. So we decided to save Bristol for another time, and instead went to Winchester.
Winchester is the ancient capital of England, seat of Alfred the Great, among others. It was settled in pre-Roman times, the site of the thriving city of Venta Belgarum under the Romans, and one of the places identified with Camelot. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Wessex and the Kingdom of England. It also has a magnificent cathedral, the longest gothic cathedral in Europe.
So, we took the train to Winchester early on Monday morning. We arrived before anything was open, and headed up to the Great Hall of Winchester Castle, the only part of the castle still left standing. It was built in the 12th century. We had a few minutes to walk around looking at the ruins and reading informative plaques (we adore informative plaques, in case I've neglected to mention that lately). The Great Hall opened and we walked around. It's mostly a big empty chamber, notable for its age and history. It was used as a courtroom until relatively modern times. In it hangs the famous 'King Arthur's' Round Table. The table has been dated to the 13th century, and was repainted in the time of Henry VIII. It was taken down in (I believe they said) the 70s for conservation and dating. It turns out to weigh over a ton, which would explain why it has so rarely been moved!
Behind the Great Hall is a recreation of a medieval garden, planted with herbs and flowers common in medieval gardens, with sod seats, and woven withy screens.
I quite liked the scattering of tools. Can't you just imagine the gardener has stepped out for a moment, and will be back any moment?
We had to see the Cathedral of course. It was majestic, immense, solemn and very, very gothic.
We walked around the cathedral, reading the memorials. Though there were plenty to churchmen and dignitaries, the thing that most struck us was the overwhelming number of memorials to fallen soldiers. It's one thing to know they happened, and another to see all the names on the stones. So many wars, so many dead. After seeing the cathedral, we decided against visiting any of the several military museums in Winchester. It was just too sad.
We wanted to finish with a visit to the cathedral library, but it turned out not to be open until afternoon, so we headed back out into the town in search of lunch. We found dueling pasty shops in the center of town. One was a chain we'd encountered before and the other was new, so we checked out the new one. The pasties were quite good- but if I had to judge between the two, I think I'd need to do further taste-testing. Possibly quite a lot of taste-testing. I can't understand why the Cornish pasty hasn't come to American markets yet- it's an excellent fast meal.
After lunch we went to the Winchester City Museum- they have a lovely building:
It also had a number of Roman artifacts, and mosaics in beautiful condition, and we especially liked the series of dioramas showing how the city looked at various points in its history.
We set out in search of the Winchester City Mill, a re-created medieval water-powered mill on the River Itchen, on a site used for milling flour since Saxon times. We did some wandering around before finding it- the river Itchen flows through the center of the city, but Winchester has several other streams as well- legacy of the Romans, who rerouted the waterways to provide better drainage.
The mill had the usual models showing how the mechanisms work, and also examples of earlier grinding technology, such as a quern stone. While I would have been perfectly willing to accept that water-powered mills were superior, a very few minutes with the quern-stone gave me a much better idea of just how laborious it was to grind grain by hand.
We also walked down to stand on a catwalk just above the millrace. The force of the water is quite astonishingly strong there, and the mechanisms are impressively large.
It's also home to a family of otters. They're too shy to come out when people are there, but they have an otter-cam on a motion sensor and you can watch a loop of the otters' activities upstairs.
After exploring the mill, we returned to the cathedral, to see the Cathedral library and scriptorium. The current exhibition was on the King James Bible, and they had many fine old books, but the glory of the collection is the Winchester Bible, a large and fabulously illuminated manuscript. The script was almost entirely done by a single scribe- no doubt the lifework of the man who did it. The bible has remained at Winchester Cathedral for eight hundred years. It had a very close call at the hands of Cromwell's soldiers during the English Civil War, but was fortunately returned to the Cathedral largely undamaged. There are a few bits missing- one illustration is in at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. But the condition of what is left is amazing. The colors are fabulous- very bright. Although the text is complete, the bible is only partially illustrated- and some illustrations have been sketched in but not completed, providing a valuable insight into the illuminators' techniques. JT compared it to an exhibit we once saw of ancient Egyptian statuary from a sculptor's workshop- seeing the first lines of a sketch, as if the artist set down his tools and went to lunch- is more evocative than seeing the completed work.
After that we took a final stroll around the city. Walking around and soaking up the atmosphere is one of our great pleasures on these trips, as well as noting the details of architecture and scenery that tell us we're Not From Around Here. For example, one of the things I always notice is the ubiquitous flint, seen everywhere from the gravel on the ground to the walls and buildings:
It especially sticks out because flint is not especially common in New England, and in my youthful rock-hunting days, I spent quite a long time searching for a piece for my rock collection. It's quite distinctive-looking, so seeing it everywhere in southern England never fails to strike me as alien and odd.
By this time we were starting to think about dinner, and hadn't spotted any restaurants that especially enticed us. Before catching our train, we took one final walk up to the site of Hyde Abbey, where King Alfred the Great is supposed to have been buried. We found only the tiny church of St. Bartholomew's, and the Hyde Church Path, tucked in between blocks of houses:
We didn't miss seeing Alfred himself, however, as he presides over The Broadway:
And from there we caught a train to London, and our hotel and ultimately to Persian food for dinner before calling it a day.
Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Day One: The City of Dreaming Spires
Day Two: Eccentric Ramblings
Day Three: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Palace
Monday May 23
Monday was a last-minute improvisation on our parts. The original plan had been to go to Bristol to see the SS Great Britain, but just before we left, we'd found out that there was a new museum opening up, the M-Shed, devoted to the history of Bristol. Just the kind of thing we most like—and it wasn't going to be open until a couple of weeks after we came home. Also, Bristol is all the way over on the west coast, which makes it a much better fit for a trip to Cornwall and Devon. So we decided to save Bristol for another time, and instead went to Winchester.
Winchester is the ancient capital of England, seat of Alfred the Great, among others. It was settled in pre-Roman times, the site of the thriving city of Venta Belgarum under the Romans, and one of the places identified with Camelot. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Wessex and the Kingdom of England. It also has a magnificent cathedral, the longest gothic cathedral in Europe.
So, we took the train to Winchester early on Monday morning. We arrived before anything was open, and headed up to the Great Hall of Winchester Castle, the only part of the castle still left standing. It was built in the 12th century. We had a few minutes to walk around looking at the ruins and reading informative plaques (we adore informative plaques, in case I've neglected to mention that lately). The Great Hall opened and we walked around. It's mostly a big empty chamber, notable for its age and history. It was used as a courtroom until relatively modern times. In it hangs the famous 'King Arthur's' Round Table. The table has been dated to the 13th century, and was repainted in the time of Henry VIII. It was taken down in (I believe they said) the 70s for conservation and dating. It turns out to weigh over a ton, which would explain why it has so rarely been moved!
Behind the Great Hall is a recreation of a medieval garden, planted with herbs and flowers common in medieval gardens, with sod seats, and woven withy screens.
I quite liked the scattering of tools. Can't you just imagine the gardener has stepped out for a moment, and will be back any moment?
We had to see the Cathedral of course. It was majestic, immense, solemn and very, very gothic.
We walked around the cathedral, reading the memorials. Though there were plenty to churchmen and dignitaries, the thing that most struck us was the overwhelming number of memorials to fallen soldiers. It's one thing to know they happened, and another to see all the names on the stones. So many wars, so many dead. After seeing the cathedral, we decided against visiting any of the several military museums in Winchester. It was just too sad.
We wanted to finish with a visit to the cathedral library, but it turned out not to be open until afternoon, so we headed back out into the town in search of lunch. We found dueling pasty shops in the center of town. One was a chain we'd encountered before and the other was new, so we checked out the new one. The pasties were quite good- but if I had to judge between the two, I think I'd need to do further taste-testing. Possibly quite a lot of taste-testing. I can't understand why the Cornish pasty hasn't come to American markets yet- it's an excellent fast meal.
After lunch we went to the Winchester City Museum- they have a lovely building:
It also had a number of Roman artifacts, and mosaics in beautiful condition, and we especially liked the series of dioramas showing how the city looked at various points in its history.
We set out in search of the Winchester City Mill, a re-created medieval water-powered mill on the River Itchen, on a site used for milling flour since Saxon times. We did some wandering around before finding it- the river Itchen flows through the center of the city, but Winchester has several other streams as well- legacy of the Romans, who rerouted the waterways to provide better drainage.
The mill had the usual models showing how the mechanisms work, and also examples of earlier grinding technology, such as a quern stone. While I would have been perfectly willing to accept that water-powered mills were superior, a very few minutes with the quern-stone gave me a much better idea of just how laborious it was to grind grain by hand.
We also walked down to stand on a catwalk just above the millrace. The force of the water is quite astonishingly strong there, and the mechanisms are impressively large.
It's also home to a family of otters. They're too shy to come out when people are there, but they have an otter-cam on a motion sensor and you can watch a loop of the otters' activities upstairs.
After exploring the mill, we returned to the cathedral, to see the Cathedral library and scriptorium. The current exhibition was on the King James Bible, and they had many fine old books, but the glory of the collection is the Winchester Bible, a large and fabulously illuminated manuscript. The script was almost entirely done by a single scribe- no doubt the lifework of the man who did it. The bible has remained at Winchester Cathedral for eight hundred years. It had a very close call at the hands of Cromwell's soldiers during the English Civil War, but was fortunately returned to the Cathedral largely undamaged. There are a few bits missing- one illustration is in at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. But the condition of what is left is amazing. The colors are fabulous- very bright. Although the text is complete, the bible is only partially illustrated- and some illustrations have been sketched in but not completed, providing a valuable insight into the illuminators' techniques. JT compared it to an exhibit we once saw of ancient Egyptian statuary from a sculptor's workshop- seeing the first lines of a sketch, as if the artist set down his tools and went to lunch- is more evocative than seeing the completed work.
After that we took a final stroll around the city. Walking around and soaking up the atmosphere is one of our great pleasures on these trips, as well as noting the details of architecture and scenery that tell us we're Not From Around Here. For example, one of the things I always notice is the ubiquitous flint, seen everywhere from the gravel on the ground to the walls and buildings:
It especially sticks out because flint is not especially common in New England, and in my youthful rock-hunting days, I spent quite a long time searching for a piece for my rock collection. It's quite distinctive-looking, so seeing it everywhere in southern England never fails to strike me as alien and odd.
By this time we were starting to think about dinner, and hadn't spotted any restaurants that especially enticed us. Before catching our train, we took one final walk up to the site of Hyde Abbey, where King Alfred the Great is supposed to have been buried. We found only the tiny church of St. Bartholomew's, and the Hyde Church Path, tucked in between blocks of houses:
We didn't miss seeing Alfred himself, however, as he presides over The Broadway:
And from there we caught a train to London, and our hotel and ultimately to Persian food for dinner before calling it a day.
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