Tag: England

Secret maps

Amy O1 Comment

We woke very early in Cambridge and had breakfast at a Pret a Manger in probably the fanciest building we’d ever encountered for this establishment. A man was seated nearby waiting for his friend, while a man at another table drolly asked him if he intended to attend the parade to celebrate the Battler of Agincourt’s 575th anniversary. The Battle of Agincourt was one of few battles won by the British in the 100 Years’ War with France. The man waiting for his friend responded he would not attend the fictional parade; rather he would celebrate later with a bottle of wine. “Not French wine, I hope,” quipped the historical savant.

My husband had won the aBode shower lottery for the second day running. Warm for him, lukewarm for me. We headed for hopefully greener pastures with a fairly uneventful trip from Canterbury West to Charing Cross. The train had been nearly empty leaving Canterbury but became jam-packed, stop by stop, by the time we reached London. We had been wondering how on earth the Southeastern train system is able to run with any form of profitability considering how empty almost every train we’d been on over four days had been. It appears to work similar to Christmas for retailers. All the money must be made on trains as they approach stops close to London.

By the time we arrived in London, it was raining again, but our hotel was reasonably close by way of a funny alley. Our new hotel in London, The Grand at Trafalgar Square, met the new financial criteria to which my husband and I agreed before the trip. They weren’t ready to check us in, but checked our luggage and showed us to a nice lounge where we could regroup and make a latte. The hotel seemed pretty fancy for our new price point.

We were intending to meet a friend later in the day who was coming into London from California with her adult children. Their original flight had been cancelled and their new flight would be later. So we bought tickets for the Secret Maps exhibit at the British Library to stay occupied. We’ve been to the British Library twice in the past, once for the Treasures exhibit, years ago, and once for the Medieval Women exhibit earlier this year. The British Library has super interesting documents to start with, and they pull together such interesting narrative and themes for their exhibits.

This exhibit about secret maps was the best I’ve seen there. It just never occurred to me how interesting the history of maps is and how they were used–to share information as well as to obscure, deflect, and mislead to maintain an upper hand–commercially, politically, in warfare. Also, how many different kinds of maps there have been to be used for these purposes, including maps of land masses, trade routes, the heavens, escape routes, war equipment and assets. And how maps were shared with the right people.

After viewing the exhibit, we checked into our hotel, learning that The Grand is part of the Club Quarters chain. We’ve only stayed at this chain once on one of our trips many years ago. There’s a lot of work and lounge space in the hotel and it’s quite fancy. I noted that this would have been a good hotel for the times I worked from London last year. In contrast, the rooms are pretty basic and small. But, hey, hot water both days we need it. A win.

Speaking of maps used for deception, it’s long been a thing that Mikel Arteta keeps things close to the vest in his press conferences before a match. He tells the truth and nothing but the truth, but with regard to injuries, it’s often not the whole truth. There is often someone who came off the last match limping, of whom Arteta will truthfully say in his next press conference before a match whether the player has been in practice that week. But often he’ll say they’ll evaluate them on match day and see how things stand. Then that player may show up as a starter, or as a sub, or we’ll find out after the match he’ll have surgery tomorrow and will be out for at least three months.

Gabriel Magalhaes, big Gabi, came off in the match against Atletico Madrid with about 20 minutes left to play and it looked like something was not quite right with him. Arteta had said in his pre-match press conference for Crystal Palace that he was unsure whether Gabi would play against Crystal Palace. “Let’s see how he evolves,” he said. Arsenal is having a wonderful defensive season and a lot of the reason has been the play of Big Gabi. His partnership with William Saliba is considered among the best in the Premier League. And obviously, he’s been important for delivering goals from set plays. Either he heads it in himself or places where someone else can finish up the job.

But Arsenal’s defense is not only good because of Gabriel and Saliba; the whole team contributes to Arsenal’s overall stability. Arsenal has held every team goalless since September 28, yes, but teams hadn’t even been able to register a shot on target. And we’ve seen some great play from the person who can deputize Big Gabi, Christhian Mosquera. So losing Big Gabi would not be ideal, but it’s not a horrible situation either.

Arteta also used his press conference to encourage fans to bring the noise and spirit. “Play the game with us,” he requested. “If we’re going to win the league, everybody has to turn up.”

On that backdrop we arrived at the stadium the next day having spent a morning walking in the Tower Hill area and having had a nice lunch. We got to the stadium a bit late but still made time to walk through the Armoury and, as has lately been our habit, buying nothing. My husband and I were sitting apart from each other but both in the west stands. He was high up near the half way line; I was in Club near the North end. My seats were just about even with the D at the top of the penalty box. We had had a pretty easy time getting tickets for this match, none of the usual drama and not very many clicks.

I arrived at my seat with very little time to spare before the teams came out of the tunnel. There was something odd about my section that made it a little less straightforward to access from any direction and it took me some time to find the right passages. My section had quite a few human season ticket holders in it, and I’ve found that those areas of Club are almost as much fun as being in other parts of the stadium. Lots of spirit.

The whole stadium seemed to be taking Arteta’s request to heart. A lively atmosphere considering the opponent was Crystal Palace. Technically a derby, but usually one without as much of the usual rancor. This even though Crystal Palace managed to produce a tie in our last match at The Emirates.

One possible point of drama was that Eberechi Eze came to us from Crystal Palace. As I recall, he scored one of the goals in the match at the Emirates last year. The woman to the left of me wondered aloud whether Eze would celebrate if he scored a goal against Crystal Palace. There is some nonsense where players who score against their former team will not celebrate so as to be kind to their former club. To date, the Crystal Place fans have been notably classy about losing Eze to Arsenal. He did a lot for them. They appreciate that. Eze has played pretty well for Arsenal but has only scored one goal this season, in the Carabou cup. It seemed we probably would not find out the answer to that question on the day.

In contrast, Declan Rice came to Arsenal from West Ham under similar circumstances but while producing £105 million in revenue for his former club. Money that could be used to strengthen the West Ham team beyond replacing this one player. But Declan Rice gets tortured when he plays against West Ham. They do not forgive him at all. Rice didn’t score against West Ham in his first season with Arsenal. He did manage to score against them in early October at the Emirates. And while he did not celebrate the goal he scored right in front of the visiting fans, he appeared to make eye contact. A bit of a glare, I felt.

An example of a player who did celebrate against his former team: Arsenal had a player named Emmanuel Adebayor from 2006 to 2009, when he was sold to Manchester City. The first time Arsenal faced Man City at Man City’s stadium, Adebayor scored a goal against Arsenal and then ran the whole length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the Arsenal fans, who rioted. I’m sure he was receiving a ton of schtick from the Arsenal fans before that decision. The process of losing players was so painful at that time. You felt so insulted when someone chose to leave.

I was so late to my seat I didn’t have time to check out the line-up. As soon as the players came out of the tunnel, there was Big Gabi, clearly in the starting line-up. Quite a relief. And Eze, of course.

All the usual ceremony took place. Good old Arsenal (blah), North London forever (yay) and finally the kick-off.

Many times I’ve been asked why I fell in love with Arsenal. Although I fell in love well in advance of the Premier League being picked up by NBC sports in 2013, I remember a great article in the sporting press in conjunction with the rollout campaign for NBC about how, now that everyone would be able to watch every match, someone could go about selecting a team to support. It was described as being akin to the sorting hat in Harry Potter. Just watch the soccer and a team will be magically chosen for you.

I was watching soccer with my kids and husband on Fox soccer channel well before that and had that sorting hat experience after watching Arsenal a few times. When I try to verbalize why Arsenal was chosen, I say I’m a sucker for beautiful, flowing soccer. Arsene Wenger, Arsenal’s manager at the time, also appeared to have a weakness for that beauty. His teams were stacked with players with technical ability. People who could complete the beautiful pass, deception with the ball, a tricky dribble, a back heal, a lovely, arcing shot. But Arsenal was also naive in spirit and porous in defense. The Arsenal of old could also not break down a low block, but it was very susceptible to counterattacks.

But now, Arsenal is not that. This is not really a pretty team. So why has the sorting hat not rethought my options?

I’ve heard it said that the reason is Arsenal fans are hypocritical. Speaking only for me, I think I’ve become more mature as an appreciator of the sport. Not just the overtly pretty things, but things that are less obvious. I have learned that what I want and what Mikel Arteta wants are often two different things. And when someone knows more than you and sees things you never could and whose job hangs in the balance, it may make sense to try to respect that. And try to learn what that person is attempting to achieve. What is the objective when working from the back? What is the objective of the horseshoe of death (as we call it when Arsenal’s defenders are passing from right to left and back to right)? Why has Arteta selected this player in this situation and a different player in another situation? What are the different ways Arsenal attacks a set piece? I’ve learned to appreciate winning a duel, laying down a great tackle, working in concert to ensure our defensive team is the last line of defense and not the first line. And, of course, all the different ways to produce a deceptive set piece.

And when I approach a match with not just excitement, but also curiosity, a match that might have felt tedious to me feels interesting and like a learning experience. The Crystal Palace match, especially in the first half, was probably the poster child for a match I would have formerly found tedious, but at this time found fascinating. And with regard to my fellow fans at the stadium, I would say almost every time they might be starting to feel frustrated, they reacted by trying to lift up the team with chanting. Arteta’s request had clearly been heard.

Crystal Palace of course deployed a low block and Arsenal of course struggled to unlock it. I can only remember one shot on goal. And when Arsenal did unlock it, guess how?

Set piece again, olé olé. One of the Crystal Palace’s players briefly lost the plot near the end of the first half and fouled Saka, giving up a free kick, which Declan Rice took. At least 20,000 fans in the stadium picked up their phones and started taking video, including the man to my right. The ball Declan kicked naturally came to Big Gabi, who was facing Declan and away from the goal and who headed it back toward the edge of the penalty area. Eze came running in and struck the ball in a very odd way. Since the match, I’ve heard the kick he made referred to as a karate kick, a scissor kick, a hitch kick, a forward bicycle kick, and probably a few other things.

Whatever. It rocketed into the net.

Answer to the question posed at the top of the match by my seat mate: Eze did not really celebrate. He kind of also did not not celebrate.

We celebrated enough to make up for whatever it was he was doing.

At halftime I went to concessions and stood in a long line of people getting beer and ultimately picked up a cup of tea. One of the beers Arsenal is now serving at the stadium is Guinness. It takes a long time to pour a Guinness–I wonder if they regret that? The lady next to me complained fiercely to me about the inefficiency of the process of serving beer. Beer is available at no added charge to those in Club. Ergo, a lot of people want one. I appreciated her decision to read me into her frustration and nodded sympathetically, even though my empathy was not really piqued.

In the second half, Arsenal had a lot of chances right in front of me, just no success scoring. Hitting the bar, goal keeper saves, a lot of excitement, not much payout. Some set pieces that did not produce a goal.

Arsenal’s former player Eddie Nketiah was introduced late in the match to the applause of both home and away fans. Eze was withdrawn about 5 minutes from the end of normal time to the applause both home and away fans.

Toward the end, everyone seemed so tired and Crystal Palace did make some progress challenging toward the goal. I think Arteta was very willing to trust our defensive stability and not worry so much about scoring again. As much as Arteta does not worry. Whatever we are seeing on the field and however we might try to understand and appreciate it, there appears to always be something more he is looking for. I guess we are all growing up together but he’s working on it well ahead of most of us.

The match ended 1-0. The only shot registered by statisticians as being “on target” against Arsenal was this weird thing from Eddie Nketiah that David Raya easily caught. Arsenal’s six matches in October ended with no goals scored against it and only one shot taken by an opponent–Eddie Nketiah’s–being ruled “on target.”

My husband and I normally meet after the match at the Arsene Wenger statue. I got confused with the unusual set-up of my section and headed the wrong way out of the stadium. It took me forever to figure out my mistake. So long, and with crowds so thick. it just made sense to keep walking. It was raining again and when I arrived my husband was waiting under building near the statue.

We walked in the rain back to Arsenal station, 3 points in our raincoat pockets and plans for a nice dinner with our California friends.

Canterbury Tales

Amy O2 Comments

We woke to a raw, wet day, endured the cold showers I mentioned in my last post, and then walked several blocks to the highly recommended Refectory Kitchen for breakfast. We made a point to sit far from the door and were quickly served a much-needed warm drink. My husband had a dish called “Green eggs and ham” (green because of pesto) and I had a French toast with blueberry compote. Great way to start the day.

We steeled ourselves and walked through the rain in our practical footwear over to the Canterbury Cathedral. We’ve seen a lot of Cathedrals lately and I know that, to some people, they start to be all alike. While it may be true that many parts of the physical cathedral are similar to others, what I usually find so interesting is the unique history of the people connected with the Cathedral. The Cathedral at Canterbury has a notably colorful history. We used the audio tour available and found it interesting and useful.

Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer includes imagined stories of pilgrims who traveled to Canterbury Cathedral. I read parts of it either in high school or college and, although I’ve forgotten so much from many books I’ve read, the details in some of those stories are still fresh in my mind.

People made the pilgrimage to Canterbury in homage to Thomas Becket. Thomas Becket had been a nobleman and friend of King Henry II who was made Archbishop Of Canterbury. Kings and archbishops had great power over the subjects and King Henry II had reason to believe that by installing the like-minded Becket he would be able to exert more influence on the church. But as soon as Becket was made Archbishop, he began to go his own way to the great frustration of the king.

What happened ultimately is in dispute. Henry II either A) sent soldiers to kill Becket or B) said something innocuous that made the soldiers incorrectly believe they were being sent to kill Becket. Regardless of Henry II’s actual intent, the soldiers went to Canterbury and killed Becket inside the Cathedral.

Now martyred, he was named a saint by the Pope. And although pilgrims previously trickled to Canterbury Cathedral, Becket’s martyrdom and subsequent canonization turned that trickle into a deluge. Becket’s remains are buried in the cathedral and formerly could be viewed by visitors who were willing to pay for the privilege. I believe that is not possible today. (Maybe I should have displayed my crypto.)

The site where Becket was murdered is commemorated with some art that includes representations of the swords of the soldiers.

I’m a sucker for the cloisters in a Cathedral. It was still dark and rainy when I stepped out and took these photos which I think made them feel even more alive. You can just picture hundreds of years of monks coming and going.

My husband and I also loved the area called the Chapter House, which served as a place where monks learned the rules of the order. The carvings in the ceiling are gorgeous.

In the crypts, the sculpture called Transport is especially interesting. Created by British artist Antony Gormley, it’s made of nails from the Cathedral formed in the shape and size of a typical human body. It hangs from the ceiling using wires or strings. Photos aren’t allowed in the crypt but I found a picture of the sculpture online here. My husband enjoyed the display in the Water Tower that described how ink was made back in the day and also included a pocket sundial.

There is only one monarch entombed in the Cathedral, Henry IV. His uncle Edward, referred to as the Black Prince, is entombed close by. The Black Prince has an inscription on his tomb: “Such as thou art, sometimes was I, Such as I am such thou shalt be.” There is a lot more gory detail in the inscription, but that’s a good summary. You’re no different from me. The end is coming and you can’t avoid it.

As with all Cathedrals, there are some beautiful stained glass windows as well as some very plain windows that were forced into place during periods in history in which the powers that be disliked color in church and got rid of it. Or that had been removed to protect them from bombing in World War II and then had to be painstakingly reinstalled. Or that had not been removed and had been bombed and replaced. I particularly enjoyed the windows created by the Hungarian artist Ervin Bossanyi that were installed in 1960 and commemorate themes around World War II, salvation and peace.

We took a lunch break at a cute Mexican restaurant called Cafe des Amis du Mexique. I had a salad that was so yummy I’ve tried to recreate it at home. Don’t quite have it right as of this writing. I really enjoyed the papier mache art on the walls by Total Pap, which was available for sale.

With the rain now stopped, we took a short walk along the River Stour.

Our final serious destination for the afternoon was the Canterbury Roman museum.

This museum is built on the site where a Roman floor mosaic was unearthed by a public works drainage modernization project. Later, work to excavate rubble from World War II bombings exposed further elements of a Roman home on the same site. These elements are encased and visible for viewing in the museum. Prior to the section of the museum that contains the Roman house, there are interesting exhibits about Roman history in England and Roman life. By the time you get to the excavation site, you feel awfully darned smart about the Romans.

We ended the day with a nice walk through town and along the river and dinner at the oldest pub in Canterbury, the Parrot, dating back to the 1400s. Pretty cool place for a pint.

Charing Cross to Royal St. George’s

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We had such a wonderful time in East Anglia on our last trip that, with four days between matches on this trip, we decided to spend some time in Kent. The regional train system is a bit different there from East Anglia. Instead of a pass you can use any three days over a seven-day period, you can buy a three-day pass. That worked well for us given the relatively shorter time we would have in Kent versus East Anglia.

On Wednesday morning we got up relatively early to get on a train from Charing Cross. As we waited for the track the train would be on to be announced at Charing Cross, some workers were handing out samples for an immunity drink called Moju. In contrast with other samples I’ve seen handed out around London, this one seemed very popular with the arriving passengers. I saw very few decline the small bottle. My husband decided to give it a try. He was unimpressed. “Unimpressed” is the wrong word. He seems to think that rather than being given this spicy mango juice for free at the train station, people should be paid to drink it. Hopefully, he is now immune to whatever it is that Moju will guard against. After his critique, I decided to take my chances with the germs that be.

We ultimately boarded the train and rode to Swanly, changing again at Sevenoaks to ride the rest of the way to the Canterbury West station. The weather was brisk as we waited for the train changes and I was glad I had my hat and gloves.

We were expecting rain the next day, Thursday, so we designated Thursday as the day we would spend time in Canterbury. After arriving in Canterbury on Wednesday, it was our plan to drop our luggage off at our hotel, aBode Canterbury, grab a quick lunch, and then take the train to Sandwich.

Canterbury city center is roughly in a circle, like Chicago’s Loop but a thousand times smaller. (That may not be a factual representation of scale.) aBode is on High street, which cuts the circle in half, quite well located. One of the things we noticed right away on our way to the hotel was signs for punt boat operators in Canterbury. Since we had just done that in Cambridge, it was not in our plans for this trip.

We completed all the steps of our actual plan, returning to the train station to get the next train to Sandwich. What he had planned to do in Sandwich was find the Saxon Shoreway trail that allows you to walk South along the coast for seven miles to a town called Deal.

We successfully found the trail but took what I perceived as a detour on the part of the path that went through The Royal St. George’s Golf Club. I’m not a golfer, have golfed maybe three times in my life excluding the decidedly not-real golf activity of mini golf. My husband, on the other hand, is a prolific golfer and also loves to watch the sport. As an insomniac, I watch the sport when I desperately need to catch up on sleep. In retrospect, my husband was doing the navigating at this point, so I suspect the “detour” to the golf course was not quite as unplanned as I may have initially believed.

I think golfers and non-golfers can all agree that most golf courses are quite lovely places to be. As we arrived on the public foot path at the edge of the course, I could see that the Royal St. George’s was something special. Undulating hills, amazing shadowy bunkers, grassy roughs and the sun shining just so on all of it. The pubic foot path goes right through the course on its way to the Sandwich Bay. At the edge of the course we stopped in the Pro shop which was open to the public and my husband reviewed some gaudy shirts, which he appeared not to be tempted to buy. Then we followed the path over the course and across the street to the Bay.

I gave my husband a chance to review this before I published it and it was very important to him that I make sure you understand that this course was the host of 15 British Opens and that he merely hoped to be able to see it from the path. The fact that he got to walk across this hallowed ground was both a surprise and a life experience he treasures.

By the time we reached the bay we had hiked quite a long way and I was ready to find a bathroom. We had seen no bathroom options since leaving the train and there clearly were none along the path to Deal. It was also getting to be a bit late to start a big hike and we suspected it might be dark before we arrived in Deal. So we made a decision to turn back toward town and see what there was to see in Sandwich.

As we left the golf course we saw two golfers starting a round with their dogs. What a place to walk your dog.

In Sandwich we stopped at the lovely Bell Hotel near the water and had a drink and an early dinner on the porch. I had wild mushrooms on toast and a tomato pepper soup along with a gin & tonic.

While the patio was bathed in sun, it was lovely. As the sun went down, a cloud of mosquitoes emerged so we closed shop and headed to the train station. Even the train station, which was pretty far from the water, had a lot of mosquitoes. We kept moving up and down the platform until the train came to avoid them.

Upon arriving back in Canterbury we were able to check into our room. The backstory of our hotel selection in Canterbury was that after we returned from our last London trip, the one in which we traveled through East Anglia, my husband did something he had never done following a trip to London. He counted up every expenditure we had made and worried about it. Not having a paycheck coming in has been a real mental challenge for him and, in a life that did not include me, I think he’d be tempted to live on his Social Security check.

As I mentioned before, my job before I was retired was helping my employer create financial planning software for planners employed by our firm. The software could complete a monte carlo analysis to understand, based on assets and likely expenditures, what is the probability you’ll have enough money to live on for the rest of your life. I used software many times to run our own projections. To be clear, I have some guilt about using money in this way in a world that has so many needs, but I know we can afford these trips for a while. It would be ideal and better for our financial future if Arsenal could just go ahead and win the Premier League this year.

In any case, I realized that the hotel price point we originally set when we started this going-to-London-to-watch-Arsenal thing had slid upward a bit over time, maybe more than inflation would suggest, and it’s been a long time since we had anything but a great hotel experience. To give my husband greater peace of mind, I suggested that we could downgrade our preferred price point and save a bit there and take a bit more risk that maybe every place we stay is not delightful. So this trip, that’s what we tried to do. We could not do it for the first weekend in London–hotels were just too tight due to what seemed to be Diwali celebrations and a literature convention–but we did it for our hotel in Canterbury and for our hotel after our return to London.

And on this backdrop, I can tell you our hotel in Canterbury was maybe not the luxe experience that you long to reach at the end of the day but was just fine. Our room was spacious, had wooden floors which I like, and nice lighting that made it appear to have more character than maybe it actually had. The bathroom was fine and had a combined shower/tub combo. It had a very functional towel warmer that like all towel warmers, it seems, was not quite close enough for you to be able to reach from the tub. You have to either remove it first and place it closer (no longer warm) or not remove it before your shower and stand dripping on the floor to retrieve it (beautifully warm). Or, what I did at the aBode, call my husband to deliver it. This warm towel became especially important, as I’ll explain.

But first, some context. On the train ride to Canterbury we had been reading in sports news that on the day before the match we had just seen, Atletico Madrid had held a practice at the Emirates. Upon arriving they noticed that the hot water was not functional in the visitors’ locker rooms and had complained to the club. They ended up having to shower back at their hotel and made an official complaint against Arsenal. Arsenal was ultimately forced to apologize. Arsenal’s side of the story was that upon learning the hot water was not working they managed to restore it before the end of the scheduled practice, but Atletico had ended their practice early. Both an excuse and maybe a bit of shade against the team Arsenal just beat. Maybe practice a bit longer and you’ll have both hot water and a win.

In any case, when I woke up on Thursday my husband informed me I was about to get a lesson in empathy. Our room, which had very warm towels available assuming appropriate steps were taken, had no hot water.

London autumn

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Fall has always been my favorite season. Cool, crisp days. Red and yellow leaves. Apple pie. I feel melancholy in Fall–an end is near–but for some reason I like that.

This Fall hasn’t much happened in Chicago. It’s been warm, sunny and while some leaves have dropped, they’ve mostly just dropped brown. While I hoped that was an anomaly, it seems Fall is delayed in London as well. Not much going on in the Fall leaves department although I can confirm that the days are cool. Wet and rainy as well. Not that that is necessarily a Fall thing. It’s kind of a London thing.

Hotels were in short supply for this trip and we ended up getting one in the Kensington area. My husband has never loved that area. In his mind, there are more interesting neighborhoods. After staying there once many years ago, we’ve never been back. A very nice thing about Kensington is that it’s closer to Heathrow than some of the other places we’ve stayed so a very quick trip in and out. It’s on the Piccadilly tube line so you can go straight to The Emirates without the crazy switch at Kings Cross St. Pancras where hundreds of Arsenal supporters are stacked up trying to change trains. It’s also kind of quiet and relaxing. There are many restaurant options without the hustle and bustle. In short, perhaps worthy of reconsideration for hotel selection.

Anyway, we found ourselves back in London on Monday for a Tuesday match. Our flight arrived after noon on and a driving rain was visible out the windows at Heathrow.

A big advantage of the hotel we chose this time, The Bailey’s, is that it’s across the street from the Gloucester Road tube station. I really appreciated not being out in that rain for more than a street crossing, even with my knee-length rain coat. It’s also kind of a quintessential charming, old London hotel. Small, pretty rooms with character. This hilarious stuffed cat decor in the lobby.

We got settled in our room and went out to get lunch at the Hereford Arms. We’ve been to this pub before. It’s always good. And, for my husband, they have the London Pride beer he enjoys. I enjoyed one, too, this time.

After that we went to Banksy Limitless, an exhibit of Banksy art and history. I enjoy street art and Banksy is interesting given his anonymity–for a famous guy. He is also quite prolific. This exhibit, clearly put together by Banksy or with his blessing, includes a timeline of his art and themes and images of the art he’s created over the years. In most cases, reproductions of the art. In reality, a lot of his art has been covered over across time. He uses stencils that he’s created so it’s possible to do a reasonable reproduction.

It’s unusual to view art at the same time as seeing the artist’s narrative interpretation of what he wanted to communicate. In most cases we view art long after the artist has passed. My husband observed that he likes to decide for himself what the art is about and found it distracting to always be told in this exhibit the artist’s meaning. I suspect the interpretation was necessary because the art is itself commentary on some recent occurrence or social norm. Does the art have meaning if you don’t know to what it refers? In that respect, I guess Banksy’s form of art is like comedy. It’s funny in the moment but does every moment have long-term significance such that it would be funny a few years later when you’ve forgotten what inspired it? And maybe in that sense, when we don’t yet know until much later if the moments were significant, we can’t yet tell if the art is significant. On the other hand, maybe we don’t have to care. Meaning in the moment can also be art.

My favorite exhibit was the film in which they captured the moment Banksy’s picture of the girl with a ballon was sold in auction. As soon as it was announced sold, a shredder built inside the frame activated and the picture was partially destroyed. The people in the auction looked sickened. (I saw some reporting that the buyer was offered to be allowed to void the sale but did not. Later, it was even more valuable after it was destroyed.)

Although one of Banksy’s themes is the peril of commercialism, Banksy himself did not fail to capitalize on this exhibit. In addition to the entrance fee, the final step of the exhibit was a big gift shop. Although we participated in the entrance fee we did not buy the t-shirts or mugs.

We are very slow learners because after a flight in which I barely slept we decided to attend a lecture on how chemistry is used in forensic science at the Royal Institution. The speaker, Kingston Associate Professor Baljit Thatti, brought in a full auditorium and she must have been amazing, because the presentation was followed by one of the most energetic question and answer sessions I’ve ever witnessed. But I can tell you very little about her obviously excellent presentation. It was a good amuse-bouche for a great night of sleep back at The Bailey’s.

In the morning, we took an hour-long bus ride to Richmond Park. Before coming to London I had googled all the events in London and what kept coming up instead of events was ways to enjoy Autumn in London. Richmond Park is part of the Royal Parks and was highly recommended as a way to take in Fall colors.

It’s possible to rent bikes and ride the 7-mile loop around the park but unfortunately bike rental is only on weekends this time of year. Instead we made our way across a huge, golden meadow on a grass path on our way to a garden called Isabella Plantation. As we walked we could see grazing animals in the distance that almost appeared to be sheep. Upon closer inspection, they were the famous wild red deer herd that had been introduced in the park by King Charles I in the 1600s.

As we were walking toward the red deer in the field to get a closer look we happened upon a much larger deer laying in the field, one of the fallow deer. We almost didn’t spot the huge buck in vegetation very close to our path.

Leaving the meadow and heading into the forest, the birds were unbelievably loud. I use an app called Merlin to identify bird calls I don’t know. Admittedly “calls I don’t know” is almost all bird calls. The app is produced by Cornell Lab of Ornithology in NY. It can be a bit spotty about identifying birds in England, but on this day it detected Eurasian Jackdaws and Rose-ringed Parakeets.

We got lost several times but ultimately found Isabella Plantation, a lovely, lush garden.

Even without colorful fall leaves, Richmond Park was, as the internet promised us, a great way to experience the beauty of Fall in London.

We took a bus into Fulham, had a nice, late lunch at an Italian pizza chain, took the train back to Central London to work out logistics for travels the next day, pre-gamed at the Admiralty, and then headed off to The Emirates for the Champion’s League match against Atletico Madrid. Despite a lovely, calm day in nature I felt very, very nervous.

All the single ladies

Amy OLeave a comment

I’ve found that when I travel I’m drawn to certain themes and narratives. When I was working in software the themes were often around how projects came about. In software, a big project is usually completed through a series of smaller projects that can involve multiple teams and stages toward the desired end. How that comes about can be quite complicated and is part of why I found my job interesting.

So while traveling and touring I’m drawn to the project aspect of anything. Last week, I was at the Gustave Caillebotte exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and especially enjoyed looking at the methodology for completing his projects, how his trial sketches were a key part of the process of producing the final painting. I remember touring the iconic Sydney Opera house years ago and learning that the design for the Opera house was based on an artist’s rendering. After it won a competition, architects had to figure out how to build it somehow. It was a project in which there was a tremendous amount of trial and error toward producing the artist’s vision. Kind of the original Agile project. In this trip around East Anglia, one of my favorite parts of the audio tour for the Ely Cathedral was a representation of the stages of building across close to a thousand years. Every hundred years or so a big project would happen. What made me laugh when reviewing the time lapse representation of the build timeline was the times they would add something in one century that in the next century they would remove. Human nature. One man’s innovation is another man’s mistake.

In this trip, one of the themes that was present in my mind was the impact of women across East Anglia. Don’t get me wrong: history always includes the stories of men, and in our touring of cathedrals and museums there were plenty of male historical figures of note. But the history of East Anglia introduced me to several interesting and notable female figures.

The first one was Etheldredra, important in Ely. Ultimately, she became the founder and abbess for a monastery in Ely in the 7th century, the land on which The Ely Cathedral was later built. But before that she was a king’s daughter and was married off to an elderly king. The audio guide at the cathedral tells us that her husband died before they could consummate the marriage. It says she married a second time, different king, and was released from that marriage since she was still a virgin.

A lot to take in and it made me curious. For one, when I heard about the first marriage in the audio guide, I had the impression that the first husband must have died quickly after the marriage. But other sources indicated they were married for several years. Some sources claim that the deal that was made prior to both marriages–which had been political in nature–that she would be permitted to remain a virgin.

Apparently her second husband came to regret that deal many years in, which led to the marriage being dissolved.

To doubly prove that she really, really was a virgin at the end of that marriage, the audio guide tells a story of her walking stick sprouting leaves overnight.

Interesting that it was an acceptable deal in both marriages that she would remain a virgin when the marriage was presumably for political reasons. The tale of Henry VIII communicates that producing an heir–about 900 years later–is a very big expectation for a royal wife. A lot must have changed in the ensuing years.

Anyway, by today’s standards, kind of a weird origin story for a woman who ended up doing something very, very important when she was allowed to stop getting married off and fulfil her longtime dream of starting an abbey. As an abbess she was highly influential and successful, both in life and after her death, after which she was officially sainted.

The buildings Etheldreda was part of building were destroyed and rebuilt in subsequent centuries. The Ely Cathedral was built on the land starting about 300 years after Etheldreda died. Coincidentally, the monastery at Ely–by then a Benedictine monastery–was closed down by Henry VIII himself.

Another woman we became re-acquainted with in Norwich was the mystic and theologian referred to as Julian of Norwich. We had encountered some of her writings when we visited the British Library exhibit Medieval Women: In Their Own Words a few months ago. In the 14th century, Julian wrote the first English language book known to have been written by a woman. Very little is known about Julian, including whether Julian is even her name. She was an anchoress–a religious devotee who lives in a cell–in St. Julian’s church, and her understood name may have come from the church itself. She was inspired to write two versions of a book titled Revelations of Divine Love following an illness in which she was close to death and experienced visions relating to Christ’s death. The first version was written shortly after she recovered from the illness and the second one, much longer, after many years of intellectual and spiritual exploration. Her manuscripts were preserved for 200 years before being published. Although she claims in her writings to be uneducated, her work continues to inspire theologians even in our time. Famously, she posited that God is much like a mother. Our guide at the Norwich Cathedral quoted some famous words of the book that she found comfort in: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” Julian is commemorated in stained glass in the Norwich Cathedral we visited. Note in the picture the woman on the right pane carrying a book.

Photo from Norwich Cathedral web page

Moving on many years, we quasi-encountered Edith Cavell who was born at the end of the 19th century. As we were walking for the first time from the Norwich train station to The Maids Head I saw a pub named The Edith Cavell. Then once we checked in to The Maid’s Head, on the way to our room, there was a meeting room labeled The Edith Cavell Room. I asked myself “who is this Edith Cavell?” She sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember why. It turns out she was the daughter of Norwich-area clergy and had an increasingly interesting nursing career that presumably started either because experienced a failed romantic relation OR because she helped her father through a serious illness. Or both. Her nursing took her into teaching and administration and allowed extended travel in Europe. She was notable as a nurse in the first World War for treating war wounded from both sides but ended up running afoul of the Germans for aiding the escape of more than 200 soldiers from Belgium. She admitted her “guilt” and was executed at age 49 by a German firing squad. She showed virtually no fear leading up to her death, glad to die for her country and with her soul at peace. Her body is buried outside the Norwich Cathedral.

And finally, we encountered Edith Pretty, the woman responsible for sharing the Anglo-Saxon treasure of Sutton Hoo with the world in the mid 20th century. Born into a wealthy family, she became deeply interested in archeology and, with her husband, purchased the Sutton Hoo property on which the burial mounds were located. (Interesting side note: before her marriage she, too, was a nurse and served in Belgium in the first World War.) Although many people believed the mounds had already been robbed, as indeed they had been, she was convinced that they contained additional treasure. After her husband passed away, she hired a local excavator, Basil Brown, to explore the site further. He is often credited with the find, as he should be, but the excavation occurred only because she was willing to invest toward the work. She waited patiently for the coroner inquest that would rule on who had rights to the treasures, rejected rewards from the crown for gifting the property, and as soon as it was clear it was hers to dispose of as she wished, she donated all artifacts to the British Museum to add to our understanding of the Anglo-Saxon culture and be enjoyed by everyone. Like our other women, Edith Pretty was a Boss.

It occurred to me that every one of these women became known for what she did when she was single, regardless of how she came to be that way. Perhaps being single contributed to their being able to pursue a deep-seated interest given the times in which they lived. You have to admit we are looking at a very long period, more than 1000 years, in which it seems true that it has been quite difficult for a married woman to pursue the kind of work that speaks to them as a person, unless that work happens to be taking care of family. (I do note that some of these “jobs”–like being in a monastery–just require being single.)

To be clear, we know about these women because they became famous. In my mind, fame is not the object for most of us. The object is being able to do work that interests one greatly.

And as much as I note that women have made progress since Edith Pretty’s death in the 1940s, it seems there are still forces that hold us back. In fact, forces that existed in the past that were briefly weakened seem lately to be coming to greater strength.

Ominously, women leaving the workforce at high rates. Although unexplained, some factors believed to be involved include rapidly increasing cost of child care and the newly growing wage gap between men and women workers. Removal of women from government positions under a new regime, where the claim is that they are insufficiently qualified. And my social media feeds over the summer included a video in which a well-known male operative, leading seminars for young women, encouraged them not to work or attend college. Or if they attended college not too work hard at it. Ok to pursue “an MRS degree,” where you are only attending college to meet eligible bachelors. Indeed, ready yourself for a life of servitude where you take care of family and be subservient to your husband, the boss of your family. Sorry for the bad luck of the accident of your gender.

As a recent retiree from a job I loved I’m so thankful for the period in time in which it’s been possible as a woman to pursue interesting work. My fervent hope for all women is that one is not required to be single or childless to be able to freely choose and grow in an occupation. That women be judged on their objective merits instead of assumptions about people of your gender. That when partnered, their partners support their self-actualization, just as they support the same in their partners.

I bet all the single ladies of East Anglia agree.

New territories, Norwich edition: part 2

Amy O1 Comment

With the rain more or less behind us, we had breakfast at the hotel and then took the train to Melton. The Melton train station has the best butcher shop I’ve ever seen….and very little else. We walked along a narrow sidewalk very close to a busy thoroughfare for 15 minutes to arrive at Sutton Hoo. We initially learned about Sutton Hoo from the Netflix movie called The Dig. The movie tells the true story of how one of the most significant archeological finds in England–an Anglo-Saxon burial ground–came to be discovered. For perversely quick and hopefully not inaccurate history from a touring American, Anglo-Saxons migrated to England starting in the 5th century A.D., about the time the Roman occupation was coming to an end. The find provided a new picture of how Anglo-Saxons lived. They had been much more sophisticated than originally believed.

Sutton Hoo was property owned privately by a woman named Edith Pretty that, after her death, was gifted to the National Trust. You can visit the site and walk the property, including into her home and to the location of the burial mounds. There’s an observation tower near the mounds so you can climb up and look down at the mounds. A displayed map on the observation tower describes what was found in each mound. Edith Pretty’s home includes exhibits about her life and details about how the excavation project came about. There’s also a museum about Anglo-Saxon life on site. Outside of the museum, there’s a replica of one of the most interesting objects found in the mounds, the fossilized outline of a ship that was used to bury an important Anglo-Saxon leader. At Sutton Hoo, they seem convinced that the leader was King Readwald. The British Museum, which ultimately received most of the objects found in the mounds, including a famous war helmet believed to belong to the person buried, seems less certain. Pretty’s gift of the artifacts to the British Museum came after a coroner’s inquest into the ownership of the artifacts found on her land. As soon as the inquest established that she alone had rights to the artifacts, she gifted them for all to enjoy.

The property is beautiful, rolling hills, wild grasses and flowers. We explored a path through and near the property trying to find the River Deben, which is what the Anglo-Saxons are believed to have used to drag the ship to the burial place. We got to where we could see it but there are a number of beautiful and gated private properties blocking access.

After visiting Sutton Hoo and returning to the train station, we headed to Ipswich. Like Norwich, Ipswich’s football stadium is also near the train station. It’s quite nice from the outside. We walked to the city center and searched out a place for lunch, settling on the highly rated Blends Coffee House. Cute on the outside and kind of rough on the inside, with a menu far too big for the size of the shop, we were pleasantly surprised by how good everything was. I had a pot of tea (third day running, really enjoying this habit) and a BLT. English bacon is really different from bacon in the U.S. and I love it. It’s a bit more like U.S. ham. To be clear, I love all bacon, the English way or the U.S. way. I could easily be vegetarian, except bacon. I guess I would have to be a vegebacontarian. What was so so good about the BLT was the artisan bread. Not to go all crazy about a BLT, but it has long been my belief that what is important in a BLT beyond the quality of the B, the L, and the T is the right proportion of each ingredient and the balance of mayo and bread. Theirs was just about perfect.

As we were paying our bill the person who waited on us asked if we were Canadian. Honestly….there are reasons I would like to pretend to be Canadian while traveling in Europe at this time in history. At all times, America’s relationship with Britain is a bit complicated. But the week we were there, our President was also, and that brings feelings to the fore. But we were honest and that led to a general conversation about why we were in England. We asked if he was an Ipswich fan and he ran to the back of the kitchen to bring out his coffee cup bearing the logo of his favorite team. It was Port Vale. We laughed because that’s who Arsenal was to play in the Caribao Cup the week after we were there. (I am writing this more than a week after the trip; Arsenal ended up winning the match on Wednesday 0-2.) The other worker at the coffee shop was an Ipswich fan. We asked him about the rivalry with Norwich. He said “oh yeah–we hate them.” He was looking forward to the first match in a long time between Ipswich and Norwich. Both teams have been up from the Championship and into the Premier League and then back down to the Championship in recent years, but not at the same time. Both are in the Championship now.

After some good natured trash talking and some advice from the guys about what we should consider doing in Ipswich (they recommended nothing in Ipswich but had ideas about other places we should go in England), we went off to find baked goods. Ultimately, we found a chain called Cookie Barista. We walked back to the train enjoying the scenery and downing our cookies.

Back in Norwich, we made another visit to St. Andrew’s Brew House, this time to try some of their beer. It was Thursday, kind of a popular day for people to meet up with friends at the pub so a bit livelier than our last visit. We had the Anglo-Saxon amber. It was pretty yummy. We walked over near the Guildhall for an easy dinner at my husband’s go-to chain in England, Pizza Express. This one had a great view over Norwich and the market.

Our last full day in East Anglia was going to be a warm one. We took the train to Hoveton and Wroxham to enjoy the Norfolk Broads. The understood way to enjoy the Broads is to rent watercraft and tool around the Bure river. We found Norfolk Broads Direct and rented a motor boat for 3 hours. It was a September Friday so not too busy on the river, but they had a lot of boats available to rent and had plenty of competition from our boat outfits. I had zero confidence about driving the boat but my husband had full confidence. It was a bit hairy getting out of the dock area but he quickly became comfortable and we enjoyed looking at the beautiful homes along the river, the wildlife, and the scenery. You can only go a maximum of 5 miles an hour on the river so it was quite chill. When people rent for a whole day they are able to dock and go into little towns and pubs along the river. 3 hours was too short for us to do that, but we got a sense for the lifestyle.

We walked back to the train station in Hovetown/Wroxham to embark on our next adventure, a ride on the Bure Valley Railway up to Aylsham. We had to grab a quick lunch so we stopped at an establishment near the station called Fizz and Fromage. I saw they had BLT on their menu but it was not just “BLT.” It was “Famous BLT.” After waxing lyrical about the BLT in Ipswich, you know I was tempted. I really can’t explain how it is possible, but the BLT at Fizz and Fromage was the best I have ever had. By far. My husband was just as enthusiastic about his hummus and sourdough.

The Bure Valley Railway was a lot of fun. The train was pulled by a steam engine. It was not an old steam engine as we had believed when we booked but rather a new one. The whole railway was actually constructed in 1990. The train went through lovely country side, past villages and the Bure river, and sheep. We passed bikers and hikers using a path next to the tracks, and sometimes they passed us. We arrived in Aylsham and had about an hour to explore before returning by rail to Wroxham. Cute little town.

Upon our return to Norwich, we made one more stop at The Compleat Angler for a beer to celebrate our trip to Norwich. It was still so warm and nice we sat out on the porch over the lovely River Wensum. The flower boxes on the exterior of the pub were so pretty. Afterward we followed the path along the river as far as we could on our way back to the Maids Head. It occurred to me that you can see the Norwich Cathedral from many parts of town. I wondered what kind of impact that has on your living when your spiritual home is visible from most places you are.

The Norwich leg of our trip, including the ride back to London, looked something like this:

And our whole trip to East Anglia looked like the map below.

We saw and did a lot in East Anglia. Still, I’m left with the feeling that there is so much more to see and do.

Another time….

New territories, Norwich edition: part 1

Amy O2 Comments

One “downside” of the Anglia Plus Three-Day Ranger train pass was that you can’t use it before 8:45 a.m. This was a downside only for my husband. He is the early bird for whom the worm is waiting. For me, a consummate midnight oil burner, mostly because I’m too wound up at night to sleep, it meant very reasonable departure times each day. On Tuesday morning, we packed up our suitcases and rolled them to the Cambridge train station across from which we had scones at the bakery chain Gail’s. At the allowed time, we boarded the train to Norwich.

While on the train, we learned that the weather was going to be rainy on Wednesday across East Anglia so we made a quick change on the planned order of activities to take advantage of the rather better weather on Tuesday. Upon arriving in Norwich, we carted our luggage to our Norwich hotel, The Maids Head, and checked it at the desk. Then, instead of touring Norwich as planned, we went back to the train station and took a short trip to a seaside town called Cromer and walked the short distance to the city center.

Cromer was lovely. We walked though a charming district looking for where we might have lunch. At last we found a sign pointing from the main drag to a neighborhood for a restaurant called Browne’s on Bond Street. After consultation of very good online reviews we walked over. They were fully booked inside and offered a table in the garden. It was a chilly day but we were dressed for it and happy to have the table. I started with a pot of tea. Having tea was starting to become habitual away from London. My husband had the local dish of Cromer crab prepared kind of like a gratin and I had a tuna melt. Quite yummy.

After lunch, we wandered over to the seashore. The wind and waves were wild. A group of wet-suited surfers were having some great rides. We walked on the promenade along the shore and Cromer Pier. Our fellow wanderers included a lot of dogs who were enjoying the walk and the beach. We took a small detour back to town and The Craft Bakery in search of a baked good. I had a delicious Orange shortbread cookie and my husband had something called a white chocolate rocky road cookie which was kind of like a giant block of fudge. (It was so good that on a later date on the trip my husband said “maybe we should go back to Cromer for a cookie?”) We had to work that off, so back to the beach and to a very cool miniature gold course on a bluff above the ocean.

The planned activity for the evening was to watch Arsenal’s first round Champion’s League match against Athletic Bilbao. It was being played in Spain rather than home. Upon returning on the train to Norwich we had to nail down a pub option where the match would be televised. We’ve found using internet search engines to produce unreliable results, so we made an insurance stop at the pub we’d chosen to make sure. It was on the way from the Norwich train station to our hotel. Sure enough, The Compleat Angler intended to televise the match. After quickly checking into our hotel we doubled back to the pub where a kind bartender had reserved us a table.

It was a pretty interesting match. Manager Mikel Arteta selected the same forward line and the same back line as for Nottingham Forest but obviously had to make a decision about what to do in the midfield in the absence of Martin Odegaard. He’d been re-injured in the Nottingham Forest match and didn’t even take the trip to Spain. In the Nottingham Forest match Arteta had replaced Odegaard with 18-year-old Ethan Nwaneri and he did quite well, but in this match he chose Declan Rice along side an unchanged Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino. That Declan Rice did NOT start against Nottingham Forest was a bit of a surprise.

The atmosphere in Bilbao was nuts. That must be a wonderful place to attend a match if you’re a fan of the home side. Arsenal dominated possession for most of the match but struggled to produce a goal. Eberechi Eze, who was so wonderful against Nottingham Forest really struggled in this match. Noni Madueke continued to impress. Viktor Gyokeres struggled and, in the second half, also took a blow to the head that produced a big gash that was taped up. Lots of tape. He was ultimately removed, replaced by Leandro Trossard, as was Eze, replaced by Gabriel Martinelli. Good changes that sparked something in Arsenal. About 70 minutes into the match, the Athletic keeper kicked a ball into Arsenal’s defensive half which we cleared out to the halfway line. Trossard dinked it over the defender, perfect for Martinelli to run on to. Keeping two defenders at bay he slotted it under the Athletic keeper into the net. Later Martinelli returned the favor, driving toward the left corner and passing to Trossard who’d made great movement to open up space. Trossard’s shot bounced off a guy’s foot and into the goal. The match ended 0-2, not a bad outing.

Meanwhile, beer and dinner for us.

The weather forecast had been accurate. Rain had started early on Wednesday and our new plan was to see Norwich during that rain. Our hotel was very close to a historic area in Norwich called Elm Hill. Like all “Elm” hills in all the world, there are very few remaining Elms due to Dutch Elm disease, but there are cool cobbled streets and interesting old buildings.

We stopped for breakfast at a place called Olive’s. Mostly traditional British fare. I had a Benedict that had hash browns in place of the usual English muffin. My husband had the veg version of a traditional English breakfast: eggs, sausage, baked beans, bubble & squeak. We had long heard about the thing called “bubble & squeak” but never had it and did not know what it was. Our helpful server pointed it out on the plate and explained it. It’s kind of like hashbrowns but includes cabbage. It was pretty delicious.

Because it was very rainy by this point, we took our tour inside to the Norwich Cathedral. This cathedral is not quite as old as the one in Ely but it’s old, 900 years worth. We were given a wonderful 1-hour tour of the cathedral by an enthusiastic, elderly volunteer and member of the active church since childhood. Not only did we learn about the very interesting history of the cathedral, she pointed out interesting details, like ancient graffiti, the cool glow from the McClean stained glass windows that were installed in 2014, the misericord in the choir that’s intended for the assistant dean and includes a carving of the Norwich Canaries football team logo, and the amazing 12th century Despenser Reredos that was protected and preserved from destruction allegedly by hiding it as the bottom of a table. We also heard about the cat called Budge that lives in the Cathedral and unofficially serves as the Bishop. Budge did not make an appearance while we were there.

Following our tour we walked near the city center for lunch at an Italian restaurant called Yard. Freshly-made pasta with delicious sauces. I had the Pappardelle with 12-hour beef shin ragu and my husband had Bucatini cacio e pepe. I followed mine up with this crazy and amazing dessert that was a croissant filled with salted caramel ice cream. Oof. Very delicious lunch.

We walked by the beautiful medieval Guildhall and art deco City Hall City Hall and walked through the cool Norwich market. It was a bit late so many stalls were closed but enough was open that you got a flavor for the diverse products on offer. Spices, wine, prepared food, produce, clothes.

Our last big stop for the day was at the Norwich Castle. This was kind of a crazy, interesting experience. It is a museum that’s built in and around the ruins of an actual Norman castle. The castle was started by order of William the Conqueror in the late 11th century and was only briefly and very occasionally used by a monarch. It also was used as a jail. Where the museum can include the actual remnants of the castle it does; where it cannot, it includes recent building intended to help depict what the original castle looked like. When you stand within any one room you might see one original wall (it’s very clear which one that is) with three new walls that help you imagine what it must have been like. You can also go to the rooftop to see the defensive structure. From the rooftop, I could see all the sights we had seen that day.

We did a quick refresh at our hotel after visiting the castle and then went back over to the Norwich Cathedral for the Evensong service. Our guide from the morning had told us that the Cathedral had had Evensong services every day for the last 900 years. One of them included us. The music was quite beautiful, from a choir of adults and children.

After the service, we went to dinner at St. Andrew’s Brew House, so named because it’s across from a church called St. Andrew’s. A bit comical since they were out of almost everything we wanted to order for dinner. We were together able to cobble something together that worked.

Norwich surprised me. I’m not sure what I expected but it was not that. Such a great city! We thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

New territories, Cambridge edition

Amy O2 Comments

Now that I’m retired it’s less important to keep our trips to London brief. It occurred to us that when we are able to get tickets for two Arsenal matches a weekend apart it would be possible for us to travel outside of London during the week. In planning for this trip, we looked at possibly going to Sicily or Norway between the two matches. However, my husband got the idea of visiting East Anglia, the area in England northeast of London. He did some work with Chat GPT to plan out the trip, ultimately settling on a trip that would involve touring from bases in Cambridge and Norwich. We’ve done very little touring outside of London and were both excited about seeing more of the country.

So bright and early Sunday morning we headed over to Liverpool Street Station with our suitcases to confirm our plan with the train ticket agent. My husband had scouted out a train pass for train routes in East Anglia that allow 3 days of unlimited travel in a 7-day period. We also needed to buy tickets separately to get from London to Cambridge. The ticket agent helpfully uncovered that a one-way ticket was more expensive than a round trip ticket, so we bought the round trip ticket with the intention of not using the return trip.

One of the things people do when visiting Cambridge is take a punt boat tour on the River Cam. When we arrived at the Cambridge station mid-morning, we encountered an employee of a punt boat touring company who was speaking to another tourist about the fact that it was expected to rain in the afternoon and that would not be a good time to take a tour. So, upon arriving at out hotel and leaving our bags at the desk, we set out to see the city center and River Cam and scope things out. Our hotel was walking distance from the city center and we were able to look at the lovely old buildings and churches and shops as we walked along.

Once at the city center we followed a path along the River Cam where we encountered a great many punting companies soliciting business. We ended up selecting a tour from Cambridge Punt Company. The operator suggested we bide our time until the tour started by visiting Fitzbillies bakery and ordering the Chelsea buns. It was a messy but delicious suggestion.

Upon arriving back at the Cambridge Punt Company’s dock we boarded the boat. A punt boat is kind of awkward to board. The seats are near to the bottom and you sit with your legs stretched out in front of you, lounge style. Our boat could hold 8 -10 people. The guide stands at the back of the boat and uses a big pole to muscle the boat along the river. It looked like a tremendous amount of work. But that is work for someone else. For me it was delightful, floating down the river past university buildings and hearing all about the river and the town and Cambridge college.

After the punt tour we walked around the city center some more and then returned to our hotel. They were still not quite ready to check us in and suggested that we get lunch at The Old Bicycle Shop, which was a few blocks away. This pub actually is in the same spot as a historic bike shop where supposedly Charles Darwin bought a bike in the 1800s. It was a Sunday so they did have Sunday Roast, which I happily ordered. My husband had risotto. We both had dessert, Eton Mess for me and Sticky Toffee Pudding for him.

The pace of service and eating at The Old Bicycle Shop had been on the leisurely side and we found that we had about an hour before the Fitzwilliam Museum was to close. The Fitzwilliam museum has collections of objects and art and is operated by Cambridge University. It was started with a bequest of art, books, and money by the Irish-born British Parliamentarian Richard Fitzwilliam in the early 1800s. We walked the few blocks to the museum and went our separate ways inside it. My husband really enjoyed the exhibits on ancient Egypt. I spent some time in the exhibits about domestic objects before moving on to look at the art collection. The exhibit mostly included artists I’m not familiar with but it does have some paintings by Degas, Seurat, Renoir, Picasso, and Cezanne. Yes, I have heard of them. I found the paintings below to be interesting.

We were shooed out of the exhibit at 5 p.m. with our fellow museum goers into a driving rain. By the time we got back to our hotel, The Gonville Hotel we were drenched. But our room was ready and our suitcases had been ferried to it. We changed into dry clothes and tried to figure out dinner plans. Hopefully dinner plans that did not involve going out again into the rain. In the end we went to the Gonville Bar where they were serving a limited menu that was good enough for us. I had a delicious white onion soup and my husband had a chicken sandwich. The Gonville Hotel is nothing fancy but we found it charming and well located.

In the morning we headed back to the train station with our Anglia Plus passes and took the train to Ely. The main attraction in Ely is the Ely Cathedral, built in the early 11th century and still in active use. Upon walking out of the train station in Ely we could see it towering over the village. We walked though town, stopping into the Almonry Kitchen just outside of the cathedral for breakfast of scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam. Really yummy. As I’ve explained before, my husband is always alert to Italians we might meet as we travel so he can practice speaking Italian with them. The Almonry had such a person on staff so my husband started his day happy.

The Cathedral offered audio tours so we could proceed at our own pace and listen to as much or as little as we chose. The audio guide was very well done and I highly recommend using it. We learned all about the history of the cathedral which stood on the grounds of an Abbey founded in the 600s by Etheldreda, the daughter of an East Anglia King. More about her in a later post. The cathedral architecture heavily reflects influences of the Normans who conquered England not long before building occurred. But England history has been tumultuous and the cathedral has been impacted by all of it. Fascinating tour. We spent way more time there than we had planned.

To keep our day on schedule we decide not to tour the Oliver Cromwell house in Ely but we did walk by it and snap a photo. Oliver Cromwell was a controversial figure and Parliamentarian who participated in and led incidents that resulted in overthrowing the monarchy in the 1600s. He was ultimately named “Lord Protector,” kind of like a President. But he behaved pretty much like a King. He was a complete killjoy, outlawing everything fun in England. Fun fact: after he died (of natural causes) and his son, who was named the new Lord Protector was himself overthrown, Oliver Cromwell’s body was dug up and publicly hung. His head was cut off and publicly displayed on a roof for more than 20 years.

Good times.

We walked back toward the train station and, in the few spare moments we had, walked along a fen by the River Ouse.

Our next train ride was to a town called Bury St. Edmunds. We stopped to have lunch in a chain called Harriet’s Cafe and Tearooms. We had been wandering about the town trying to find someplace that looked interesting and that place appealed to me. I’d been noticing throughout the trip how much tea rooms seemed to be taking on greater prominence in the towns away from London. Maybe they just attracted more of my attention outside of London. In any case I did have delicious tea with milk along with my cheddar cheese sandwich.

Our main destination in Bury St. Edmonds was Abby Gardens, a lovely garden near the St. Edmundsbury Cathedral. We did spend some time in the Cathedral, but the real attraction is the visible ruins within the garden of an 11th century monastery.

In our final stop in Bury St. Edmunds we wandered over to the Greene King Brewery. We had hoped to tour it and sample their beer, but it was closed, at least for the day. A man passing by told us it had been recently closed permanently. With all due respect to the passerby, it looked like an active brewery. But not on the day we were there, so back to the train station and back to Cambridge for a relaxing dinner at The Pickerell Inn, a delicious and beautiful gelato at Amorino, and a good night’s sleep.

Our footprint in East Anglia by this time looked something like this:

Partey like it’s your birthday

Amy O2 Comments

It actually was my birthday on Saturday, a big one. Lately, they are all big ones. I rarely make a big deal of my birthday because, let’s face it, after a while a person has had a lot of birthdays. However, for this one I treated it like a my 8-year old self would have: I am the center of the universe and no indulgence is too much. We had a family party on the day before we left for London, for which my sister made a beautiful and delicious cake and my kids came home and spent the night.

I treated the whole week in London like carbs don’t count. At all. If I wanted a blueberry brioche for breakfast at Gail’s, which I did almost every day–except the days when I wanted a scone with clotted cream–well, I had it. Yeah, I suspect it might be frowned on to have a scone for breakfast, just like in Italy it’s frowned on to have cappuccino in the afternoon. I have been corrected in Italy for my errors, but no one in England has ever corrected me to my face. I’ve already described the cream beignet I had from Fortitude Bakehouse. Plus I had a big, ol’ Guinness whenever I felt like it. Which was just about every day.

And because it was going to be my birthday on game day and–Champions League excepted–it is easy now to get tickets to Arsenal matches if you’ve put in a ballot, I was excruciatingly picky about where I would sit. No club seats–boring! And why sit in the rafters? I decided I needed to be in the corner or behind the goal in the North Bank, within 6 rows of the field. So that if there was a celebration, I would be right there. I turned up my nose at many a ticket I had in my hand until one finally met all my criteria. My husband held out longer but worked less hard than I did. I ended up finding him a ticket that was even better than mine. His was on the side closest to the substitutes and Mikel Arteta and row 2. When the players would get up to warm up, he’d be right there. Despite how good these tickets sound, these were some of the cheapest seats in the house. They are seats for someone who wants to be in the thick of things. In the thick of things you experience a lot, but you might not see everything.

The day had an inauspicious start. I was awoken at 4 a.m. by someone who was trying to open our hotel room door. When ours would not open, they moved to the one next door and tried that. Then back to our door. This is not really a hotel with a reception area you can call, and I really couldn’t think what to do about this. Meanwhile my husband was sleeping soundly. I let him. Finally, the activities of the person caused an alarm to go off, which did wake up my husband. A bit later we heard the police out in the hallway. What we ultimately heard about what happened is that a guest in the hotel had been “overserved” that night and was having trouble figuring out where her room was. And, using drunk logic, kept trying. After all that excitement, neither my husband nor I could sleep so we started the day.

After the requisite visit to Gail’s which was open quite early in the morning, we found a self-guided walking tour we wanted to do in the neighborhood using Footways. We did the walk from Farringdon station to Angel. There were some cool things to see. London’s only public statute of Henry VIII. He was looking pretty fit at that point. St. John’s Gate. Many lovely gardens, mostly associated with churches. Regent’s Canal. It was meant to be a 26-minute walk. We got lost a lot and it took quite a bit longer.

We had scheduled a tour of the ruins of Billingsgate Roman House and Baths for later in the morning. That was pretty cool. Romans occupied parts of what became London starting in the first century AD. They built homes that ultimately were built on by others, layers and layers of people building over centuries. As people now renovate in London, they sometimes find remnants of Roman life under the surface. This particular archeological find of parts of a Roman home with a Roman bath is under a nondescript office building. We took a guided tour of the site given by City Guides. The bath is largely intact and you can easily visualize the three rooms. So clean and perfect it almost looked fake. I enjoyed the tour very much.

But we were flagging so we took the liberty of having what for me was a fish and chips break at The Hydrant, right next to the monument commemorating the Great Fire of London. We were seating facing the window where the people watching was fabulous. Everyone stopping to take selfies in front of the Monument. The fish and chips were also quite yummy.

From there we decided to take an Uber boat from Embankment to Putney. It was a glorious, sunny and warm day to be on the River. And the scenery was great, until the gentle rocking got the better of me and put me into a deep sleep. I woke up not long before we arrived at Putney Pier. Putney Pier is pretty close to Fulham’s stadium, Craven Cottage. You can see the edge of one of the stands from the Putney stop. From there we walked over to the Tube station and returned to Farringdon.

It was just about time to head over near the Emirates. We were early enough that we decided to visit an Arsenal-friendly pub called The Bank of Friendship. It’s not really a Fuller’s pub but it does have London Pride, my husband’s weakness. The pub was packed with Arsenal fans. We’ve been to this pub before but never before have seen the very nice beer garden. As I walked into the garden I was invited to sit with a group of Arsenal fans. They were a mix of ages, all guys, and I mistook them for a family. But it turned out they were connected by loose friendship and Arsenal kinship to one of the guys. Some of them had only met that day. About that time the lineup for the Arsenal match had come out and we commiserated together about that. As expected, Arteta planned to put out an unusual team, including Thomas Partey at right back, not his best spot. Martin Odegaard, Mikel Merino, and Bukayo Saka were all listed as substitutes. Ben White, only recently returned from a lengthy injury was no where. With our new friends we also had the requisite conversation about Donald Trump.

Our new acquaintances kept saying they needed to leave and then kept going to buy one more beer. I don’t know where they put it all.

At last my husband and I said our goodbyes and walked over to The Emirates. I loved my seats. Although the announcer makes an announcement at the beginning of each match asking fans not to engage in “persistent standing” these were seats for which there is only persistent standing. It’s silly to expect otherwise. People (the ones who remain in their seats and do not go to get beer) do sit down at half-time. I’m pretty short and the rise from one row to the next is not much behind the goal so I had to do a lot of craning and shifting to see stuff over people’s heads. The people around me were spirited and good-natured and it was just fun.

The atmosphere was good, but there was no doubt that everyone in the stadium knew this Premier League match was not the most important focus. And for sure the atmosphere was NOT what it had been for the Real Madrid match on Tuesday. Our position in the Premier League is what it is. We can’t catch Liverpool, not really, and there’s probably very little chance we won’t finish in position to be in the Champion’s League next year. And we do have to be careful. We’ve battled injuries all season, bad ones with long recoveries. We couldn’t afford to lose focus on the upcoming match against Real Madrid at the fearsome stadium Bernabeu. As a fanbase we were for sure hung over from the unbelievable match and unbelievable spirt of the encounter earlier this week with Real Madrid.

I heard a lot of complaining in the press after the Brentford match about how boring it was. I did not encounter it that way. I thought Arsenal played well, and I felt fine about how things were going. Arsenal created plenty of chances to score. Brentford didn’t didn’t accomplish much.

In the second half, Arsenal finally did score. A pretty unusual Arsenal goal, where David Raya created a counterattack by rolling the ball to Declan Rice following a corner kick. Rice came away like a steam engine with three Arsenal players able to spring free and Brentford struggling to get defenders back. Rice passed it to Thomas Partey who rocketed it into the goal right in front of me. And he did celebrate pretty close to me. Arteta made some changes at that point to give some of his stars time to run a bit.

Unfortunately, Brentford, who didn’t do much on the night, did enough to score a goal. I didn’t see much of it live, but after reviewing highlights online afterward, have to say it was a good, opportunistic goal.

Arsenal continued to work hard after that. Our defensive midfielder for the night, Jorginho, who was a starter tonight to give some other folks breathing room, had a serious injury and had to leave the field. Arteta had made all his subs and we have to play about 10 minutes a man down.

We still looked dangerous and it still looked like we could maybe pull off another goal.

We could not. The match ended 1-1. Considering everything, it was good enough.

After the match, my husband showed me the pictures he took from his seat. They were unbelievably good and he loved seeing the details up close, but he said the people around him were very hard to deal with. Everyone was so negative, complaining about very decision Arteta made, every decision the players made. He said Arteta didn’t seem happy all night. It was funny how our experiences were so different just because of people’s attitudes.

It’s been a weird season. We have such a good team but had so much bad luck. Still, we sit in second place, albeit FAR behind Liverpool. We’re still alive in the Champions League, heading to the semifinals against PSG as of this past Wednesday, when we did beat Madrid in their own stadium in addition to beating them at ours. We’ll make a bid for tickets, but if we don’t get them officially, we won’t return to London. I think we learned our lesson this time.

We’re a team on the verge of something awesome, I just know it. But you know me. I always “know” it. And when will the “awesome” happen? No clue.

In my lifetime, if I’m lucky enough to have many more birthdays.

A little work, a little play

Amy OLeave a comment

So we were back in London for the week and, as has been the case the last few times, I worked from London. But this time is different because I am retiring at the end of May. My replacement has already been hired and she is a good one, rapidly coming up to speed. So while I did work every day and almost put in a full week, it was also pretty chill. Every day I got up and put in an hour or two of work and then my husband and I had a planned activity. We’d enjoy that, have lunch, and then I’d go back to our room to work until dinner time.

There are a series of “Pub & rooms” in London where a small “hotel” stands above a historic pub. We’ve stayed at one before, The Bull and Hide. This time we tried The One Tun Pub & Rooms near Farringdon station, a pub supposedly patronized, in some earlier version, by Charles Dickens. From the outside, the pub didn’t seem like much and it wasn’t as thronged as other pubs nearby. When I finally saw the inside of it on–I’m ashamed to admit–the last day, it was so awesome. Cozy, fun, with delicious Asian food.

The rooms had a separate door, up some steep stairs. There were 3-4 rooms on our floor and more up a level. Cute and large room with lots of character. We were just above the pub. About 3:30 each day the noise from people gathering both downstairs and in the street outside and music playing would ramp up until about 9 p.m. By 10:30 each night it was pretty quiet.

The location was great. Farringdon station was a block away, so it was easy to get where we wanted to go, and there was a good selection of coffee shops, restaurants, and pubs nearby. This was the first time we visited London where it was more convenient to take the Elizabeth line than the Piccadilly line to and from the airport. Have to say the Elizabeth line is an easy way to travel. New, spacious cars, and there was never a time when we had to schlep our stuff up a bunch of stairs. Hotel excepting. I only packed a carry-on, but a week’s worth of crammed-in stuff is still kind of heavy for a near-retiree.

In the daily “fun hour” we managed the following attractions:

Siena: The rise of painting 1300-1350 at the National Gallery. This exhibit explores the art movement in 14th century Siena, dominated by Christian themes, drama, bright colors, and metallic finishes. That is a big oversimplification from an unsophisticated viewer of art. We sprung for the added mobile audio tour, which I highly recommend especially if you are an occasional art dabbler like me. It helped set the stage and provide details around what to look for, what was unique about the pieces it focused on. We’ve visited the National Gallery before and it has some great works with free admission. We only did a speed walk through the gallery on our way out of the exhibit this time. It felt a bit sinful to walk past Van Gogh’s sunflowers with only a sidelong glance.

War and the mind exhibit at the Imperial War Museum. The Imperial War museum is a great little attraction and it often has interesting exhibits. They are always thoughtfully done and thought-provoking, and this exhibit on “War and the Mind” was no exception. It covered how people become motivated to start and accept (even support) war, the impact war has on the psyche (and the reverse), both for soldiers and civilians, and then how we are motivated to bring war to conclusion, and think about it in the aftermath. There have been no wars on the mainland of America in the lifetime of anyone I’ve known, but things are different in England. Although the exhibit was not just about impact of war on England, the rich examples and artifacts available particularly from the second World War drew you in, made you think about things at a different level than you might normally. Than I might normally. Excellent exhibit, and I highly recommend it.

Giuseppe Penone: Thoughts in the Roots at Serpentine Gallery. The Serpentine gallery is located in the Kensington gardens. The day we went was sunny and springlike and the walk over to the Serpentine gallery was peaceful. Every dog in London seemed to be out for a happy romp among colorful flowers.

It was the perfect precursor to the Penone exhibit focused on the relationship between humans and nature. There were cool installations of fabricated trees just outside the gallery which we enjoyed until the gallery opened. The exhibit inside the gallery was also awesome. I might be guilty of overusing the word peaceful, but that is what I felt while seeing Penone’s works. My favorite exhibit was in a room in which the installation included sections of encased laurel leaves from floor to ceiling. There were also fabricated tree stumps that were probably the main point of the exhibit and they were lovely, but the smell of the Laurel leaves and their appearance, well, it was amazing.

Shopping at Harrods’ food halls. No matter how long you’ve read this blog, never have you ever heard me talking about shopping in London other than at The Emirates. I hate shopping, hate to be in stores. In this case, I took a special trip over to Harrod’s because I’d long heard about the food halls and I was hoping for some Easter candy inspiration. (My husband was on a loftier and more diverse quest elsewhere to London Wetlands, the 24-hour Pianothon at Liverpool Street station, and Traces of Belsen exhibit at Wiener Holocaust Library. Maybe I can convince him to tell us about it here.) The Tube station is right next to Harrod’s and it took some strolling through the departments before I located the Food Halls at the back of the building. If I felt out of place among expensive purses, shoes, scarves, and impeccably-dressed sales people, I clearly was not the only one. Not one person I saw in the store probably had any business shopping there. Anyway, the Food Halls were a special-occasion exception. I visited the room with chocolate, the one with cheeses and meats, and the one with teas, jams, etc. Every thing was so beautiful it was an experience just to look. I ended up buying some chocolate and tea.

Cream beignets at Fortitude Bakehouse. My niece long ago found out about Fortitude bakehouse online and every time for the past year it’s been on my list to get there. This is a bakery that has a famous cream beignet. I understand that people line up for them for hours. They are ready at 11 a.m. and are available until they sell out each day. But somehow I’ve never managed to get there. I made a mental note on my way from Harrod’s that I had to change trains at the station closest to Fortitude, Russell Square. The bakery is only about a block away from the train station. It was my lucky day because I arrived at about 11:30 to find a bunch of people sitting outside the bakery gorging on cream beignets and other yummy- looking pastries. And only a few people in line ahead of me. It appears they make one flavor each day. On the day I was there it was was pistachio and rose, something like that. What I have to say about the hype about the beignets is that it is simply not enough. Flaky, fried dough dipped in granulated sugar, split and coated with jam, then filled with thick, delicious whipped cream, and glazed on top, in this case with pistachio glaze and nuts. One cream beignet was all I could manage for lunch that day. That, and enough tea to wash it down. It occurs to me that I wrote significantly more about cream beignets than about any other activity. This is not an error.

Dear England at the National Theatre. We had intended to attend the play, Three Sisters at Shakespeare’s Globe, but on the day it was supposed to play we received a notice that they had to cancel that evening’s production. We scrambled and found a very different alternative, Dear England, written by James Graham. The play covers the foibles and fortunes (mainly misfortunes) of the real England national soccer team during England’s history and especially Gareth Southgate’s tenure as National Team manager. It’s named after an actual letter that Gareth Southgate wrote during the Covid era before England’s participation in the Euros, the tournament held for only European national teams. How to characterize the real letter? It’s a reflection on the importance of football to the English as well as sort of a plea to take it easy on the very real people who play for the team. The staging was wonderful, the play was interesting, and the characters both lovable and laughable. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The only nit was the poor football technique of the actors. But considering how much of the play focused on England’s misfortunes with penalty kicks, maybe that was intentional?

We went to the play on a beautiful warm night and were able to enjoy lovely scenes along the Thames on our walk back home to the One Tun.