Jun 2008

May 12, 2008 9:50 a.m. en route to Avebury

It is exceedingly difficult to sleep in a rental van when you have nowhere to rest your head.
Brooke and I left Robert and Ann this morning, and I, at least, will miss the pleasant chats we’ve been having! But tonight we will get to cross into Wales to spend the night with seminary friends of Fr. B.
Last night I was too tired to write an entry, so I will record now the events of yesterday. After the early Morning Prayer and Holy Communion at St. Paul’s-by-the-Racecourse, we walked down a few streets to the leper church. This is a tiny chapel with a simple line, and has long been in disuse. The windows are boarded up and it is situated on the edge of a vacant, ill-kempt lot that has a for-sale sign in it. I suppose the property to be rather useless, because no one wants to destroy this church, yet the land can be used for little unless it is cleared. The history of the church is that it is the place the lepers from the nearby Lord Leicester Hospital were allowed to worship, since they were banned from close association with other people.
After a few moments looking at the church against the rising sun and listening to some history from Fr. Boonzaaijer, we continued our walk through the beautiful town of Warwick (which, by the bye, is pronounced “Warrick”), to Warwick Castle. On the way we passed St. Mary’s cathedral where Holy Communion service was still in progress, and could hear the organ and choir from outside (so glorious were the strains that I would have entered to listen had not propriety prevented!). Warwick Castle proved one of the most “touristy” spots we visited, but nonetheless was a fun bit of ground to cover. We watched a man shoot a longbow. I wished he had shot arrows over the wall, just to add a touch more drama, but he said there were people on the other side.
Then we walked around the premises some more, up to one of the towers and along a wall, where we got great views of the town and countryside, through the castle house, down into the dungeon, up to another tower or two and through some gardens. The castle used to be owned by Madam Toussad’s Waxworks, so lots of wax figures demonstrated throughout the house what people might have done in the various rooms. The dungeon sent a chill down my spine, the realities of the tortures that happened there being so easy to imagine. An iron cage hung from the ceiling, in which live men would be suspended indefinitely, as well as a pillory high on the wall. No doubt, after many years of habitation by prisoners and rats, this damp stone chamber would have been a terrible place to be incarcerated.
We enjoyed the gardens, though the roses were not fully blooming yet. They kept a peacock garden, so peacocks roamed the grounds in stately, gorgeous featheriness.
Next we drove to Cirencester (pronounced variously by natives; I prefer “Sē-rən-chester”), stopping on the way outside Stratford-upon-Avon to see Anne Hathaway’s (who was Shakespeare’s mistress) cottage and the beautiful surrounding gardens. After a restful stroll through the park-like orchard, we popped over to an ice cream joint where each of us got a uniquely shaped cone with a unique flavor of ice cream. Each cone had a pointy cone shape, but the top accommodated two scoops of ice cream side-by-side (kind of like a double-barreled gun).
As we continued toward Cirencester after passing Stratford, we passed more delightful countryside—it is so green there, with the green of the fields broken by the white dots of sheep, and alternating with squares of solid gold, the rapeseed fields in bloom. Some distance up in the hills we stopped for about 40 minutes at Chedworth Roman Villa, an ancient Roman villa that has been unearthed outside Cirencester. In the town itself we were able to stop for a half hour or so also at a Roman amphitheater, which is still covered by grass and buttercups. One can still see the stairway and some of the other features of an amphitheater, however, and perhaps one day they will unearth the stone structure.
Because it was Sunday, we had some trouble finding an inexpensive place to eat and ended up getting pizza at a nice Italian restaurant (Subway and Tesco were both closed). It made for an enjoyable meal, although we probably overspent the budget a little. After dinner we wound back into the hills to a public footpath in a sheep pasture for evensong. Some of us ventured over the stile, and I, who was barefoot, stepped in stinging nettle. We sang most of the way back to Warwick.
This is all a record of what happened May 11, though I did not begin the entry until May 12.

We may get to bed a little earlier tonight, though not much. Brooke and I are getting the royalty treatment here in Robert and Ann’s home (their last name quickly escaped me) in Leamington, near Warwick. Fr. B had some way of contacting a small Anglican church called St. Paul’s by the Racetrack, in Warwick, and arranged for the three ladies to be hosted by church members, while the boys slept on the church floor. While the boys will be waking up perhaps a bit stiffer, hospitality has taken on a new meaning to me.
Our hosts met us at the church, having waited for an hour or more because we were late, and drove us to their home. Brooke and I both got our own rooms, in which Ann had placed baskets of bath supplies, as well as books about England on the nightstands. My room had its own sink, where I did our hand washing, and Ann took the laundry to dry in the dryer downstairs. She also brought up tea and biscuits (cookies) with lemon slices while I was in the shower—how wonderfully relaxing after four hard days of touring! Then Brooke showered and I talked with R and A downstairs for half an hour or so about their interests, church, daughter and grandchildren, etc. Oh, I forgot to mention, this brave English couple had hung several small American flags in the decorative greenery along the stairway in the downstairs hall!
We started this day by waking up an hour late, then scrambling around frantically to get dressed, packed, and to the train station by 7:05. By some miracle, we made it on the dot, and boarded the train breathlessly, yet trying not to bump the other passengers with our bulky packs. Someone muttered, “Campers!” as we walked by. Well, we were only the next step up from campers! The train took us to the rental place where we picked up the high-roofed, royal blue 9-passenger rental van, which would take us to the rest of our destinations.
From there we traveled to St. Alban’s, our first stop really outside London. How wonderful it felt to be out of the cigarette smoke and crowds of the city! After looking around the church for a while (notes previous), we (minus Chris and Fr. B) walked through the town in search of food. The open market proved most satisfactory, after we found the right stands, and in the mean time provided interesting visual stimulation. We did end up at a Tesco for drinks, as well. I especially enjoyed the butcher’s stand, the fruit and vegetable tables, and the fish stalls (and accompanying smells!)
Successful, we set out through the town again to find the park near some Roman ruins Fr. B had directed us to. We wandered around for a while, and finally asked a couple of nice old chaps for directions. Then we were able to find the park and meet up with Chris and Fr. Boonzaaijer who had gone to park the van near St. Alban’s cathedral.
From here we drove on to Oxford, the girls singing and the guys napping (again excepting driver and navigator). Here we spent the afternoon and evening, most notably stopping to contemplate the small bricked cross in the middle of the pavement on one of the streets, which marks the site of the martyrdom of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. We visited St. Mary’s Cathedral and I admired the lovely organ, and made it to St. Paul’s in the college complex for evensong. The all-male choir overwhelmed me by its beautiful presentation of the liturgy. I believe we all heartily enjoyed the dinner at the pub as well—I know now that the plowman’s lunch is definitely a worthy choice from the menu, although bleu cheese is a bit stronger than the cheeses my American palate is accustomed to.
So! After yet another full day, we are winding down and preparing to turn in, with plans to be back at St. Paul’s by the Racetrack for Matins at 7:30 or 8:00. The boys will start without us if we’re a little behind schedule. After that, we head onward to broaden our horizons yet more!

The art above the altar in the apse of St. Alban’s cathedral was done by the same sculptor (Gilbert) who made the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. He was not able to finish this scene of the Resurrection, because he fled the country from his creditors.
Also above the altar, behind this Resurrection scene, is a detailed screen supporting many statues of saints and other important figures from church history. The second from the right at the top is a statue of the only Anglo-Saxon pope, who is also buried at St. Alban’s. In 1877 Harry Hams erected the screen that is now here, although the original was made in 1484. During the Reformation the original screen was torn down as part of the revolt against Catholicism. The picture I posted of St. Alban’s cathedral shows the new screen.

I am overwhelmed at the moment (10:45 p.m. Greenwich) by how much I could write, and weary to the bone with much walking, running, standing, listening, and looking, not to mention talking and eating. I have enjoyed St. Christopher’s, but we will be on the move tomorrow and I must say I am looking forward to being out of London.
The events of the day: matins in our room, then the Maritime Museum and British Observatory (quite a trek up the hill!), St. Martin-in-the-Field’s for a piano concert by an Australian college student (Jayson something, curly-headed, pink-cheeked, cheerful chap, skillful pianist), the Cabinet War Rooms, and the National Gallery. Then we returned to our room for evensong and a relaxed dinner. As a graduation “special event,” Taylor got to go out back with Fr. B and Chris and smoke his first pipe.
We found lots of cool artifacts in the Maritime Museum, and interestingly several rooms devoted to Lord Nelson. Many of his personal items have been preserved, including a suit of clothes, a crew list book, a mug with a porcelain toad in the bottom to surprise the drinker, weapons—too much to list. In the same complex but atop a steep hill sits the British Observatory, housing a trail of various stages of chronometers. That is also where the Prime Meridian line is that we straddled to get pictures taken.
I am glad we got to go to a short concert, but I could not see him playing. Watching the performer is quite important to me when I listen to live music, as somehow it helps me hear all the parts better if I can see them being played as well. Jayson performed a Beethoven piece, Liszt (if I remember correctly), and Chopin.
At the cabinet war rooms, we saw so many reminders of WWII, yet the history here was different for its very nearness. While many of the other historical artifacts we got to see, and the buildings, and ruins, were from hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, WWII is less than a century in our past. We saw the cabinet meeting room, the chair Winston Churchill occupied in their meetings, the old telephones, the sleeping quarters, the map room (and all the pin-pricks from marking ship and troop locations, etc, and apparently a caricature of Hitler that I missed)—wow! It really made it all come alive. Unfortunately for Brooke and I, they had installed what we later learned are anti-juvenile devices called “mosquitoes,” which emit a high-frequency whistle at intervals as a deterrent to the young and irresponsible. Only Brooke and I could hear it (it is extraordinarily high-pitched) enough to be bothered by it, but believe me, it was painful. We were glad to get out by the end of our time there.
Finally, the National Gallery! We arrived there around 4:30 p.m., and closing was at 6:00, but unlike America, closing does not mean now you start to leave. Closing means everyone has been flushed from the furthest corners of the building and shooed briskly and not exactly politely from the front door by 6:00! So, we had about an hour to look around undisturbed, which allowed enough time to find some of the high schoolers’ assigned paintings, and a few others, and then to scramble for the entrance. Someday I would like to spend a whole day or maybe two in there.
That evening, we had a good, relaxing dinner at the pub below St. Christopher’s. Funny story here: I went to the bar to order my dinner, and asked for a half pint of Guinness. Aussie bartender asked me for ID, which I had but not on me. So, I raced to the door of the hostel, my card key didn’t work, so I borrowed Nevid’s. Up the three flights of stairs (wearing my lovely, tiered white swing-dancing skirt) I dashed, and fumbled with the key to get the room open. Rifle, rifle, through my satchel to find my license—there it is! I floated swiftly back down the stairs, and arrived breathless at the bar to try again! Mr. Aussie-with-the-friendly-smile accepts the license, takes my order, hands me the half and a pint for Chris, and takes my order for an Aussie burger.
I took the drinks to our table and started on mine. By the time my burger came I had drunk about half of my half and, having worn myself out during the day, was resting my head sleepily on my hand. The poor bartender handed over the burger, murmured “Cheers,” and disappeared. What a burger! Besides the normal fixings, it also had a fried egg and slices of beets. Definitely, it was all worth the trouble.
For a while after dinner I stayed with Brooke, Josh, and Nevid while Fr. B, Chris, and Erica took Taylor out to the smallish courtyard behind the bar for his first pint and pipe. Then Erica came up and I went out with the men. We didn’t say much, but sat and, well, they smoked and I just sat. Pipe smoke is not unpleasant.

I loved the open air market! Most of them sold fruits and vegetables, but we also saw (and smelled) fresh fish, other fresh meats, fabric and crafts. We discovered a few protesters standing in the market with signs calling for the downfall of Tesco, the chain grocery where we frequently bought lunch while in England. Here is the fruit stand where we bought sweet plums and cherries in St. Albans. Taylor said it may have been his first time to eat cherries.