Chapter 23

I was thrilled to be home for three weeks after Paris! It takes longer and longer to catch up from old trips and prepare for new ones. Bills, grandchildren, gifts, shopping, and friends demand time: two lunches and a dinner helped fill my first week, and Mike was in the US for the second. I could make a mess, stay up very late, eat standing up, and finally write this month’s chronicle.

One Saturday night, we scored last minute tickets for Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, a silly story mixing fairies and pompous English law, adorned with outstanding staging and performance. This is the actual site of the original productions, and it's fun to imagine wholistened and laughed in our seats in the original productions! Iolanthe is as fresh as when new 120 years ago. The refurbished Art Deco D’Oyly Carte Theater has an alluring pre-theater prix-fixe dinners next door at the elegant Savoy. It’s making a G&S aficionado out of me. (£17 for two courses and coffee at the Upstairs Restaurant. Order the starter and the main, because you’ll get cookies and chocolate with coffee anyway!) Buy ice cream at the interval of the play if you’re inclined, or get champagne at the busy bar, if you can squeeze in! 

Mike left for the US and I met a visiting young friend at St. Paul’s for the 11:30 Eucharist. Daffodils and magnolias bloomed in the churchyard, and sunshine from the big clear windows illuminated golden mosaic domes during the choral service. Afterward, we looked at the tombs in the crypt, lunched in one of the restaurants, and crossed the Thames on the new footbridge (which has been repaired and is no longer the bendy bridge!) to the new Tate, to see the Andy Warhol exhibition. Alas! There was a huge queue, and they were selling timed admissions hours away. We opted for free art, toured other works, and tried for farewell coffee on the sixth floor, with a Thames view from the terrace. We couldn’t shoehorn ourselves into the dense crowd, and even the shop was packed. Tourist season has begun. The New Tate in the old power station is the place to see and be seen.

A coach trip to Woburn Abbey wowed me. An hour and a half north of London, this gorgeous place is one of the few stately homes in private hands, still inhabited, and a pioneer in attempting to circumvent the awful tax laws here that force sales of priceless heritage. The Duke of Bedford and his family (via eldest sons and primogeniture) have lived here since Henry murdered the abbot (for treason, as usual) to get church property. The duke was in New Zealand on his stud farm when we visited, but the curator and 2 guides gave our KCWC group loads of information. Since the house was closed to the public that day, we got to meet 8 month-old Alexandria, a little brunette butterball heiress, not yet walking.  

Outside wandered large herds of tan white-tailed deer, 10 different types, many with enormous antlers, and at the lake, a life size bronze equine sculpture of Mrs. Moss, a winning racer who bred many other race winners. I asked our guide if there was a lot of gambling involved and she spun around and sputtered, “Of course! We ALL bet!” Nearby on the grounds is a pottery and an antique market, in the old stone stables. Somewhere there is also a Safari park with elephants and other animals, a large restaurant, and a steam railway. All this is to keep the family in the house. The animal herds all would have had to be put down if Foot and Mouth Disease were found in any adjacent farm.

The house interior has Rembrandts, Van Dykes, a bunch of Canalettos, and many furniture, china, and fabric treasures. Gilded woodwork near crystal chandeliers and ceiling paintings enhance rooms with elaborate carved mantelpieces. There are tapestries made from Raphael’s renaissance cartoons, and numerous sets of china, some especially commissioned for the family. Many gold and silver serving pieces are behind glass vaults, some made after predecessors were melted to form new masterpieces—or perhaps pay bills. There are many large oil paintings of forebears, and a genuine sense of history and family. The life of a duke can still be a challenge today, often financially. Specialized repair costs on these places are stratospheric.

Nearer home, the giant Hilton Paddington has opened, no longer scaffolded, under construction since we arrived in England. Next to the train and tube stop, it gleams, creamy white, regal above narrow gray streets clogged with busses and traffic. It’s a busy part of town that will become even busier when a couple of giant glass skyscrapers are completed just behind the Paddington train station. (This is also where the Heathrow Express train ends.) This hotel joins its huge sister two blocks away near the Marble Arch, which offers the largest convention facilities in London.  

Mike and I strolled in on Sunday noon for a five-dollar cup of espresso, checking out the very sleek Art Deco interior. Gleaming chrome on patterned elevator doors, geometric large area rugs, and a giant cityscape mural carried a 30’s look throughout: one might expect a flapper to appear. A gym's not quite finished, but there's no pool. A player grand piano offered tunes under the swirling brass staircase, with large sofas beneath it. We saw very few people, but that will change. (It's minimal; I thought a few plants might warm up the place.) Once, every railroad station had one of these massive hotels handy for travelers, and this is a refurbishment of one.

London’s red double decker buses come in two different types. On one, you pay the driver—or flip your bus pass.  On the other, you climb onto the rear platform and sit downstairs or climb upstairs (lurch may be the proper verb—some busses are antiques). The conductor will come by to see a pass or sell a ticket, spewing a little white receipt from the machine he wears on a worn leather strap.  Awhile later, he makes the rounds again, remembering who’s ticketed. Many people hop on and off while the bus is still moving slightly.  I’ve only seen one person actually hit the pavement, but often gasp as tottery old ladies or women in stiletto heels try curbside acrobatics. And then there’s luggage and overstuffed backpacks.

We hosted more friends. On Good Friday, we walked along the south bank of the Thames, starting at Westminster Bridge. It was a sunny warm day, which pulls everyone outdoors, and the bridge was jammed with tourists aiming cameras downriver at sightseeing boats or the Eye, the ferris wheel in front of massive stone Town Hall.  Across the bridge on the other side are Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. We walked among dense crowds, past street musicians, mimes, “statues” that move for donations, a parakeet show, and kiosks selling sizzling Polish sausage, cotton candy (“candy floss”), and candied nuts.  We walked past London Festival Hall, theaters, the new Tate, and the Globe, with the Thames flowing on our left. Vinopolis is a wine museum build in old warehouses. Southwark Cathedral, from the 1200’s, has oyster shells in its façade. Around the corner are ruins of Winchester Cathedral, once the wealthiest church in London. Only a rose window frame and some wall remnants remain. Its walls also held The Clink, now a jail museum.  

We bought cheeses and olives at famous Borough Market, a busy outdoor area soon to be upgraded.  Butchers were deboning lamb legs and tying meats, forklifts were moving huge sacks of carrots and potatoes, and olive oil vendors were offering samples and conversation. Across the river was St. Paul’s and The City, and ahead lay our unrealized goal, the Tower Bridge. Next time. We took the tube home in time for dinner at The Grenadier, Wellington’s old officers’ mess, and all walked home under a full moon through Hyde Park.

Mike is now advised that we’re here until 2004, so prospective visitors aiming for this fall can extend trip planning. However, we may be forced to move, since our landlord wants to sell or raise the rent. The empty flat next door is for sale—for nearly a million pounds!! No attic, no basement, no side or back door, no A/C, no fireplace, no yard, no roof terrace, no kidding!

The Post Office is laying off 15000 workers and has changed its name to Consignia, after a million-pound consult. The public is disdainful. Mail to some of the outer islands can cost providers over a thousand pounds per letter, and city mail is frequently lost, but we still have two deliveries daily. The BBC has changed its globe trademark for multiethnic symbols: Maori dancers, wheelchair basketballers, break dancers, ballet artists, acrobats.  Caucasian Britain long since disappeared from cities, but the countryside holds few dark faces.

What percent of British people buy tea bags instead of loose tea?  93%. Milton Berle died this month, probably cracking one-liners at the Pearly Gates. Denmark and Italy are passing anti-immigration measures, worried about assimilation and terrorism, as are several other European communities. I’m painting an elaborate red brick house with many rooflines.  Our eldest son Ted is soon off to Ethiopia for two months for CDC, working with AIDs.  And I’m to be in the US in seven states in April, mostly visiting family but also painting with “Seven Across” friends. Happy Spring!  

Here’s a seasonal gift from Wordsworth (1770-1850): Daffodils.

I wander’d lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills, 

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch’d in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.