To Eat and Sigh in England

For some time now I have been meaning to write about British food and the miracle that has occurred.

When we first came to England in 1971 we quickly learned to eat Chinese takeaway, Indian, anything other than English. Yeah, you could get the occasional decent steak and chips and garden peas in a pub, or decent food in Scotland, but England?? The food doesn't bear description. And it was not much better in 1980.

When Sharon came here briefly on business about five years ago, she said that there had been a food revolution in England but they were not quite all the way there yet. Now they are.

Whilst eating out, we’ve had one mediocre meal in the last five weeks, one meal that was spectacular and a lot of excellent to very good meals.

Moreover, as we have shopped we have noticed a much greater awareness and appreciation of food, not just Italian, which has become the global lingua franca, but good English food. The grocery giant Sainsbury’s has come to garner our respect. They sell both good wholesome food, much of it regionally produced, and feature organics and as wide a variety of foods as we could expect in California. Largely because of the EU we can get Italian pasta and oils, Spanish chorizo and a host of other delicacies. But moreso, good English food.

On Thursday, Rickie Bolin, one of my students told me that there is a farmers market every Saturday in the forecourt of Sainsbury’s. She had been a couple of time, had eaten and shopped. So this morning we decided to walk over and do the same.

Well, the foods! We had a quick breakfast of lardy cakes for me (they are similar to Irish cakes or Cornish heavy cakes) and a chocolate and orange cake for Sharon and a bottle of the best fresh apple cider we’ve ever had.

Then back to the market to shop, and boy did we shop. Only the fact that we were going to have to carry everything back a half mile to our flat stopped us from going truly wild. So join us in our adventure through the Green Park Farmers Market.

But, first this is for the world, I guess, but especially the folks back home. Sharon will be sending a copy to her colleagues at Stanford.
A shell of a building, just up the river from us. It may very well come to pass that the facade of the building will be modernised and rebuilt.
With winter lifting these barges on the river are becoming commonplace enough that I did not even jump up to photograph the most recent one to come past our window.
Sharon pondering our choice at the fishmonger's, we came away with crab cakes, smoked salmon and fresh wolffish.
The multitude of olives got me, so we got a medley of olives and some sun-dried tomatoes
The dark sour rye, a malt bread and a French baguette came away with us from the bakers
We ate in Green Park our table decorated with primroses
Mushrooms, some of which we had never seen before.

Cheeses, of course. Most of this stuff is produced within a very few miles.
And for another of the senses. They played swing jazz of the French persuasion.
Not just food, but flowers. To the left in the picture is the door to my classroom. Our local contact was unable, for the first time, to secure us space at University of Bath or Bath Spa. Instead we have a room in Vision Bath, a charity helping the partially sighted.
Our bounty at home, including sausages, paté, fish, cheeses, breads, cakes, cider, mushrooms, olives. All for less than £60. We'll eat well for more than a week.
Before we left, I said that I expected to lose weight since English food is both bad and expensive. I was less than half right. Eating out is pricey, groceries are not so much so, and the food is just fine. So, am I losing any weight here? Actually, yes. We are eating more moderately here, smaller portions, but I am also walking from around five to ten miles a week most weeks and I am working out occasionally.

Life is good.

Oxford, Part I

This week’s tour took us to Oxford, the fount of education in the English speaking world. Higher education here is quite different than in the United States or even throughout the rest of England where the predominant model is the German university.

With its ancient colleges, Oxford evokes medieval education as developed here, in Paris and Bologna a thousand years ago.

We began the day with a fairly unstructured walk about Oxford, but for
most of us, the highlight of the day was a “backscenes” tour of Christchurch, the largest of the Oxford colleges which took us through the college and into a few places that most tourists do not see.

Everyone agreed that a single day in Oxford did not suffice, for me, if only because I did not get to visit Pens Plus on the High Street. In April Sharon has a conference in Oxford and I shall tag along, looking to crawl the city, take more pictures and prowl for pens. For now, this is Oxford, part one.

Carfax Tower is the centre of the city and is all that remains of the 13th century St. Martin's Church

Merton college (I think) from the Christ Church green
The Meadow Building the largest residence hall at Christ Church
Magdalen tower from a distance



The back of Christ Church

Random images in Oxford

The famous Radcliffe Camera


One of our students, Kristen Carder, has this thing for tractors, she says.
Inside Christ Church gardens, the tree that supposedly inspired Lewis Carroll to envision the Jabberwock
Stuart Fleming, one of the Assistant Custodians of the College, led us in a "backstage" tour that took us into a few places like the gardens and the quadrangle, where tourists normally do not go.
The Tom quad
Inside Christ Church Cathedral, musicians rehearsing
The Becket window, from 1320, is a rare image of the martydon of Thomas a Becket.
Fans of Harry Potter will recognise the dining hall of Christ Church as that from Hogwarts
Custodian Fleming explains college life to Rickie Lee Bolin and Rob Huffman, among others
The Tom quad again

Rollin' on the River

Now that the weather is better we seem to be getting a bit of river traffic out our front window.

I'm told that some folks even rent barges and travel the rivers and canals on holiday. Pretty cool, I think.

Dublin

It’s been six years since we were first in Ireland and I had almost forgotten why we love this country and its people so much. In fact as we left for Dublin last Friday morning, both Sharon and I were concerned that maybe Dubliners would not be as warm and welcoming as people in Connemara, in the west, where we were last time. We need not have been concerned. Even with the metric system, its own language and a state religion, in many ways Ireland feels less foreign than England. Maybe it’s because there are so many freaking Americans (and everyone else) here.

It is impossible, for example, to get lost in Dublin. The moment a Dubliner sees you standing pondering at a bus stop or with a map in hand, he or she, regardless of age, will stop to offer help and always in the nicest way possible.

As soon as we decided to come, it was clear that our “must-do” was not the Guinness Storehouse, much as I used to love the stuff, but Yeats’ Abbey Theatre (founded along with Lady Gregory in 1904). And so off we went Friday evening after a brief stroll through the city, seeing most notably Trinity College and the main shopping area, Grafton Street, with its buskers, street performers and toney shops .

Well, the Abbey Theatre production was nothing traditional, but a debut of Marble by Marina Carr. It will stand as one of the most memorable, if most problematical, theatrical nights of my life (along with the recent RSC Taming). What danger lies in our dreams, especially if we try to follow them?

Saturday was to be our only full day in Dublin and we wanted to make the most of it. Things turned out a bit otherwise, as a fire alarm closed our major site to see, the infamous Kilmainham gaol, and protests disrupted the hop-on, hop-off bus routes. Still, we managed to get a real feel for the city.

Saturday night we took a chance and attended the “Irish House Party,” put on at a nearby hotel. We werereassured by the desk clerk at the Leeson Bridge House where we stayed that this was representative of the real thing and that no leprechauns would appear. He was right. It was a fine evening and I must admit regrets that I had left my camera at home. The experience was heightened by the fact that more than half the attendees were members of a Dublin bridal party. When it came time for the audience participation part of the evening two of the young women offered songs that were heartbreakingly beautiful and their song and dance and high spirits greatly enlivened the evening.

Our hotel in Dublin, The Leeson Bridge house was on a canal, just as our Bath flat is on the river. A coincidence? I think so.

Music everywhere. This group was very good, but thinking on it, we did not hear bad music in Ireland. Everything you may have heard about the musicality of the Irish has been understated.
Trinity College. Our visit here hardly did the place justice, as one of the oldest universities. We'll have to return I think


St. Stephen's Green Park, like so much of Dublin, has corners that commemorate the martyrs and and the uprising of 1916 that led to Irish Independence. The reminders struck me in the same vein as the plaques in Hamburg commemorating the Jewish families who died there.
We loved the whimsically painted doors, this one facing the Park
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Yeah another church. I'm powerless
The floor is the thing here. Sharon just loved the Foxy Friar motif, so I got busy with the camera
Strongbow led the Anglo-Norman invasion of Dublin in 1170. This tomb is a 14th century replacement for the original. Still cool

This was our greatest disappointment. We had tickets for a 2:15 tour of the gaol, scene of the trials and martyrdom of many Irish heroes of the early 20th century struggle. But it was closed by a fire alarm. Guess we'll have to go back



No trip to Dublin could be complete for me wihout a bit of pen hunting. The folks at the Pen Corner were welcoming. It was a treat to be in a traditional pen shop, here since 1927.





Sunday morning, just before our reluctant departure, we took a stroll along the Grand Canal, which our hotel overlooked.

Coming soon, Dublin

Stay tuned, but first I gotta grade some papers.

Stomping Through Bristol

Thursday's excursion with our students was closer to home than last week's London and was, in fact the programme we had planned for our second week, which was snowed out.

This entry comes to you from Dublin where Sharon and I are spending the weekend, so it will be brief.

Bristol is an ancient city, as old as Bath and just down the Avon River from it. As a seaport town, it has strong ties to America and to the New World. We began with a brief coach tour of the city, a walk across Isambord Kingdom Brunel's early suspension bridge across the Avon gorge.

From there our guide Felicity, who also led us through Bath on our first week, took us on a brief walk through the city pointing out the essential sites. At noon we broke up for three and a half hours, much of which time Sharon and I spent in the Bristol Cathedral, parts of which date back to Norman times. I took more than 160 images, but will not subject you to all of them. Here are a selection of just a few, mostly without comment, at least for now.




St John the Baptist church on the ancient city gates. This modest little church is one of the most spiritually powerful places this heathen has ever been in
Me and Edmund Burke. We agree about the American, but not the French, RevolutionThe so-called "floating harbour," artificially raised to resist the tidal influence on the Avon.The cathedral, stone by stone


I guess it is the simplicity, as well as the antiquity of Norman architecture, that is so stunning
I liked the unconscious composition here
The oconography of the pelican


Who was this chap who now stares out at us from across the ages?

A partying shot of the cathedral. Hope I've not bored you with too many images
After the cathedral, we sat outside for a moment during which Ii fiddled with the camera. This fellow approached and asked if I could shoot some images of him for his portfolio. I didn't know skaters did portfolios, but was glad to oblige.

Back to Pens, Briefly

Well, the Bonhams and Butterfields Limited Edition pen auction on which I worked for several months last fall has come and gone, and while I was not able to attend, the reports are that it was a success, surprisingly so in this economy and preceded, as it was, by another prestigious pen auction just two days before.

I've just gotten the final results of the auction. You can find them here:

http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=EUR&screen=ResultsXML&iSaleNo=17340

I want to thank Martin Gammon for giving the the chance to work on the auction, and to think him, Ivan Briggs, Patrick Sumner, who took some stunning photos, and Bekka Saks as well as the rest of the folks I worked with for welcoming me and providing lots of support. It was a great experience and I look forward to working with these folks again.

LONDON!!!!!

I’ll spare everyone all the cliches about how wonderful London is, but they are all true.

One of the components of the San José State University Study Abroad program I am leading is an Anthropology course made up of excursions (think of university level Ms Frizzle and the Magic School Bus) throughout southwest England. Last weekend (Thursday through Saturday) we were off to London.

Traveling by train from Bath Spa Station to London’s Paddington, we journeyed down in the morning and set off almost immediately for a tour of the Museum of London. This as our introduction to the city. For many it was, of course, a first visit. My colleagues Andy Fleck and Mari Brookes know the city well, for me it was the first visit in almost thrity years and I was struck by how greatly London has changed not only from 1980, but from Sharon’s and my first visit in 1971. As a result, many of the images you will see below juxtapose what I call old and new London. The postmodernist architecture of the city is stunning on its own and in context.

Friday was our only full day touring in a group. We began with a specially arranged tour of Parliament in the morning, went on to the Imperial War Museum, in my opinion one of the greatest museums in the world, in the afternoon and then saw an absolutely stunning Royal Shakespeare Company production of the Taming of the Shrew. This production, presented within a frankly postmodern, deconstructionist frame, strips the play of its comedy and Elizabethan manners and sets forth a human tragedy.

We were up bright and early Saturday to tour the Tower of London, always a delightful romp through a thousand years of often gory British history. The yeoman guard we were privileged to be guided by was not just a battle decorated veteran of recent wars, but an engaging fellow. Saturday afternoon we were on our own, relaxed and saw a newly opened play, Plague over Britain, about the 1953 arrest of Sir John Geilgud for homosexual activity.

Sunday saw us in Portobello Road searching for pens.
Our first glimpses of London from the ground, St. Paul's Cathedral across from the British Museum.
My first of many (I'm sparing you all many of them) Old and New London images
Us, ready to head into the Museum of London
Once in, two medieval women
The Museum of London exhibits
As a political historian, going through Parliament held a particular reverence
I had not recalled Cromwell outside of Parliament. Not sure how I feel about that one.Behind Parliament, Big Ben.
Can't recall what I shot here, behind St Margaret's Church, across from WestminsterMe, outside Parliament, Rosa and then our students, waiting to get in

Modernist Lion and Unicorn outside Parliament
This plaque on the steps of Westminster Hall as you go into the Parliament speaks for itself. Thrilling to stand on the spot where modern English republicanism began. We could not take pictures past Westminster Hall.
Next stop, the Imperial War Museum. Even those whose interest is not in war and militaria were blown away (so to speak) by the museumMy colleague Andy FGleck and one of our students looking at the mail floor exhibits

I've noted above how fantastic we found this museum. The exhibit on the evacuation of London children during the Blitz was particularly moving,as was experiencing the trenches
Evening took us to Covent Garden where we saw the RSC Taming.
Sharon hanging out, waiting for dinner.
Saturday saw us off to see the Tower of London. Both Sharon and I have been, more than once, but we were both enthusiastic. My first images followed the minor theme, old and new London
But this, of course, is the main deal
The infamous White Tower, dating, if I recall correctly, to the late 12th century
One of the many tours. Our guide informed us that this was a slow day
Our guide, one of thirty-five Yeoman Guards of the Tower, did not look old enough to have served 25 years in the army, in places like Iraq, but had, and for his service now gets to live in the Tower complex and lead tours, among other duties.
A chapel in the White Tower.
A Guard on his way to workj

A nice play of shadow on the main tower.
A final group shot before we headed our separate ways Saturday afternoon. Some stayed in London, as we did, some went back to Bath, a few even went off to Cardiff to watch Wales beat England in some sort of Rugby match
And now I gotta go read and grade. I don't 'spect any sympathy, but I do still have to teach (sort of) four classes plus two independent studies this semester.

I'm still gradin' papers,

but Rosa is packed and ready to head out to London in the morning.

Snow, Then Flood, The Fire Next Time? Yikes

It's been a quiet couple of weeks as both we and the students settle in. Last week's snow wiped out our excursion to Bristol and Sharon and I decided to stay "home" last weekend.

We saw a great, great film, The Reader, with Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet. Apart from a superbly presented wrenching story, it featured a lot of pens, for those who cared, and unlike many films the pens were dead on appropriate to the period. Saturday we walked over the Bath's Theatre Royal's Ustinov to see Gagarin Way, an interesting discussion of political violence.

We've yet to get any measurable snow this week, but enough rain to take the Avon out of it's channel and half way up it's banks.As seen from our flat. You'll need to refer to my earlier photos of the river from our flat to see how much the river has risen.

This weekend it's our big trip to London, there will be lots of images, I promise.

Bath Abbey at Sunset

Taken from the window of our flat as we returned after an afternoon out. Saw The Reader, which was devastatingly superb, and had high tea at The Pump Room. I could easily get very used to this existence.

Let it Snow?

Today was supposed to be our tour of Bristol, but it snowed again and in slightly greater amount than earlier this week. Not a whole lot by the standards of the American plains, but enough to throw the Brits, just as rain strikes fear into the hearts of Los Angelenos. So, enforced day off, which I am totally wasting. Bah!!!


The views from our front window.

Our First Full Weekend in England

About the middle of last week Sharon and I decided to spend our first weekend on our own, touring in our favourite manner, by picking a direction, getting in a car and heading in a direction with sites and stops to be determined. For those of you who cannot stand the suspense or don't want to scroll down for the pictures, I'm pleased to tell you that it worked out well. I did not drive the Ford Fiesta into a hedge or into a lorry, I only slammed my right hand into the right hand door 14 times while attempting to change gears and for a good 95% of the time drove on the left hand side of the road which is the right thing to do. Confused?

Let's journey on. From here there is, in reality only one destination, at least half a dozen of us ended up, at various times in the town of Cheddar. The drive there, through the Cheddar gorge was grand.
We came away with a couple of kilos of the famous cheese, and the town was (forgive me) cheesy--think of Disneyland for rodents, or something. Lots of gingerbready shops and fake "natural history" museums. Sorry, but I forgot to photograph them.

Apart from the cheese, and despite a cheesy audiotour interpreting it, Gough's cave, discovered and explored by a late 19th century adventurer, Robert Gough, was pretty spectacular.
Here the entry One of the smaller stalactite/stalagmite caverns
The caves were a real challenge to photograph, and I might have done better had I used the camera's manual faculties more, but here are a couple of images. If anyone wants more, let me know.

From Cheddar we headed northeast to the coast, in this case the Bristol Channel. On the drive I fell prey to a number of ancient churches, this one in the town of Mark
by this time it was getting late, and the little town of Watchet came up before us. There we had a near miss, enquiring into the West Somerset Hotel. Locals called it a "near miss" Instead, we found The Greens, a bed and breakfast operated out of a mid-18th century cottage by Marion and John(?) Crocker. The Crockers not only loaned us Tiddles, one of their two elderly cats, shown here with Sharon
but directed us to the Fish Plate, operated by Geoffrey Beetlestone and his partner Carol Snowley, who was a most lovely and gracious host. We started with an appetiser of mussels, and I have to say that for those of us used to Pacific ocean mussels, these were a real eye opener. Wow1 Sharon's entree was the fish cakes, and I simply could not resist Bambi. Yes, I had venison. Venison is nororiously difficult to cook properly, but Geoffrey did so without even resorting to braising. This was roasted to a rare tenderness, not at all dry, and superbly sauced. Sharon's fish cakes were exquisite. We could not resist dessert, or at least I could not, OMG is chocolate to the extreme. The meal alone justified the trip. In fact, lodgings and dinner made for a magical evening.

The next morning, the Crockers pointed us toward what would be our main activity for the next day, Saturday, the castle and village of Dunster. You can learn more about Dunster castle, which antedates the Norman conquest, here http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-dunstercastle.htm. From the Saxon Aelfric, before 1066 to the Luttrells, who gave it to the people in 1976, the castle went through only three sets of hands. One disadvantage of touring when we are, is that sites such as Dunster castle, at least the interior, are still closed. We were a week too early, but the exteriors of this Jacobean castle remodeled into a Victorian country house were enough to occupy us for more than an hour as we crawled all over the place.

Welcome to my castle (in my dreams):
This the 13th century gateway.
Or maybe this is.

Without a guidebook we were clueless, but had fun.
I'm betting this is part of the 13th century castle.
A nice view through this ornamented medieval window
This, part of the village below as seen from the castle keep.


Above, another medieval bit.
The newly restored rooves of Dunster


From the castle, we drove down to the vilage and after lunch explored there. For some reason I did not photograph the front of the vilage church, but went nuts inside using both flash and available light at high speed. Initially I was shy about shooting inside churches, but the big ones, at least, encourage not just photography, but allow readily the use of flash.

I'm not sure I don't prefer the bottom image, using natural light
Behind the church was a priory and its dovecote
Another thatched house, by the end of the weekend we grew blase

And a view of the village, relatively unspoiled
This one's for Gilly

These lambs were happy to see us, their moms were not
Everpresent, Rosa assured the sheep that we were lambs

My name is Rick, and I am powerless over old English churchesPart of it was the clear blue sky, Sunday dawned clear. Then the temperatures sank
and today we got this, the view from our apartment
uhhhh, flat

Along with the snow, this lovely LeBoeuf 6 set arrived today, sadly without a sac, so I shall not be able to use it for a few weeks at the least, depending on who shows up at the Northern Show doing repairs.

Apologies for a looooong post. As we settle in, I expect that the posts will become fewer and shorter.