Dispatch #22: The Last, In Which I Do a Great Many Wondrous Things, and Get Ready to Come Home.

(This is the last dispatch, and I apologize that it’s taken me so long to finish it, but there were so many things that I needed/wanted to do in these last couple of weeks that it seemed almost a criminal misuse of my limited time to sit at a keyboard for hours at a stretch.  Initially, I had planned to split this into two separate dispatches but I figured it would be easier to put together one long piece, instead.  Because of the length of this one, I’ve put in subheadings along the way so that you can skip over anything that doesn’t strike your fancy, if you have a fancy to strike.  I will also be posting quite a few pictures today and tomorrow on Facebook before packing everything up and heading off to Heathrow for my flight home. Thanks for reading these dispatches. I have enjoyed writing them because it allows me to relive adventures and that makes them all the richer.)

London: Portobello Road Market and a West End Play

As much as I love being in England, it’s even better when I have company, and best when that company is Beth, my favorite fellow traveler and partner in haplessness.  We had a few things on our list of things to do when she got here but mainly we just wanted to see what happened and not worry about having a schedule that we both knew would be more stressful than enjoyable.  And that’s what we did, with great success.

We spent our first night in London and went to see the play, Once, based on the film of the same name.  If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s about a Dublin busker and an Eastern European woman, who share a love of music and might end up sharing a life, if it weren’t for—that’s all I’m saying. I’m no spoiler; you’ll have to go see it yourself.  I preferred the film to the play and, because it’s easier to rent or stream a movie than hop a plane to London, I’d recommend you do that.  A song from the film, “Falling Slowly,” won the Academy Award for Best Song in 2008.  Even though I like the movie better, it was a great evening, made even more so because before the play began, the actors/musicians came onstage for a traditional Irish session, and anyone from the audience who wanted to go up to the pub set could do so and have a pint. 

The next day, we went to the site of another film, Notting Hill, where we spent the morning at the Portobello Street Market, roaming the various antique stalls and shops and having a great time, despite the fact that neither Julia Roberts nor Hugh Grant was anywhere in sight.  I won’t be giving too much away by saying that Christmas will have a decidedly antique feel to it—in case our children happen to read this—because we came across some great treasures and actually negotiated with dealers on prices, something I would probably never have done if I hadn’t spent a number of late afternoons watching British TV programs about people finding great items and haggling over the price.  I’ve also developed a sense of what might be a hidden treasure, as evidenced by the pair of brass cobra candlesticks I bought for myself (Beth is of another opinion, and she’s welcome to it, but believe me: they’re priceless).  After a couple of hours of pushing our way through crowds, and our bags filled with the spoils of our shopping efforts, we walked to the much quieter Kensington Palace neighborhood (home of William and Kate and little…what, George?  Louis?) and then caught a train to Canterbury.

A Hike to Stodmarsh

Having been in Canterbury for a couple of months, I’d already forgotten how stunning this place can be to a visitor, and even though Beth has spent a lot of time here, too, she was once again caught up in the magic of this medieval city.  Seeing the place through her eyes as we wandered around made me realize how easy it can be to take a place—even a magnificent place—for granted, and I promised myself that I would, before I leave, take a long, long look before I get on the plane and come back home.

Our big adventure in Canterbury was a 10-mile round trip walk/hike to Stodmarsh to have lunch at our favorite country pub, the Red Lion. I’d been there a couple of weeks earlier with Elise, but when Beth got here, we agreed that we had to go because it was a usual stop in 2007 and on subsequent trips to Canterbury.  So, around 11 a.m., we started off.  I had class that afternoon at 5, so we knew we had a pretty big window, but we took along the phone number of a taxi company, just in case we got lost, as we are wont to do.

The first part of the trek was simple.  All we needed to do was followed the paved path from Canterbury to Fordwich.  There, we were to pick up the trail at the end of Spring Street and follow it in the direction of Stodmarsh.  As I mentioned in an earlier dispatch, public pathways have precedence over land ownership, so even though it feels strange and invasive to be traipsing across someone’s newly planted field, it’s perfectly legal.  We found Spring Street and started up a grassy slope into a pasture.  It seemed to me that we were on the wrong side of treacherous Moat Lane, but Beth consulted the map, and it did seem we had avoided that narrow strip of certain-death-by-auto and were on course.  Very soon, however, the path took a sharp left and brought us to Moat Lane.  We were, in fact, on the wrong side and had to get onto the shoulderless roadway and hurry back into Fordwich, avoiding the inevitable traffic, where we discovered that there were two Spring Streets.  Having located the correct one, we were off again. 

Our map was a good one, pages copied from an ordnance survey map that divides the county into one-inch squares, each representing ¼ mile, so we felt confident that we could get to where we were going.  According to the map, we would meander for a mile or so and then reach Stodmarsh Road and take it the final mile-and-a-half into the village.  Even though getting back onto Stodmarsh Road conjured up memories of near-misses and startled faces seen through windshields, it was our only option, so on we went.  At first, we were on low ground, next to the Great Stour River, and it was a little spongy, so when we came to a divergence of paths, even though it was not on our wonderful map, we took to the high, dry ground.  This was not a mistake, per se, but it did bring us to Stodmarsh Road about a half-mile sooner and along a horse trail, which meant that it had been dug up by hooves and was a little slippery in places when we had to climb slopes.  Fortunately, it was heavily wooded, so we grabbed saplings and pulled ourselves along.  As it turned out, we ended up following the fence line of the stable where I had taken my lesson in October, so it’s very likely that the horses who used the trail were from there.

Once we were on Stodmarsh Road, our walk was surprisingly serene.  There were hardly any cars on the road, which was a blessing and a bit of a mystery, given my past experiences.  I finally concluded that at least part of the low traffic flow was due to the fact that we were beyond Moat Lane and beyond the road to Littlebourne.  I have not proof that that’s why, but it’s as good a hypothesis as any.  Whatever the reason, we were, for the most part, unbothered by cars and enjoyed the sunny day.  Along the way, we came upon a roadside stand—one that Beth remembered better than I did—where the farmer had left produce on a table and trusted that anyone who wanted apples or parsnips or beets or whatever else he had to sell would take what they wanted and leave the money.  On the day of our walk, he had two kinds of apples—Cox and Russets—so we took a bag of each (in retrospect, we should have picked them up on the way home; it would have meant a mile-and-a-half without lugging 15 extra pounds), put them into my backpack and walked on to Stodmarsh and the Red Lion.

As I wrote about a couple of dispatches ago, the Red Lion now has new management, and despite the fact that the current owner is not as gregarious or tipsy as Mr. Wigham, she is still a gracious host, and we had a wonderful lunch next to a toasty fire.  In hindsight, given the hike that followed, it was probably not a good idea to have ale with the meal, even the half-pint we ordered, because it makes one a bit logy and not on one’s game.  With that in mind…

The walk back to Canterbury, like the walk to Stodmarsh, was uneventful at the outset, an amble along a paved road, but once we cut into the countryside—this time at the place we wanted: Higham Farm—things got a little more interesting.  Rather than following trails traveled by horses, we now hit trails mauled by tractors, and rather than chewed up turf, we now ran into wide ruts more than a foot deep and filled with muddy water.  Nimble as gazelles, we leapt from one side of the path to the other…actually, we kind of slogged along, hoping not to lose our balance and end up covered in muck, and this time we did end up on the low trail along the river, a mistake in judgement, perhaps, but a scenic path nonetheless.  We ended up back in Fordwich, muddied but unbowed, found the path back to Canterbury and stumbled home.   

Thanksgiving, British-Style

In 2007, the International Office and American Studies Department hosted the Americans on Thanksgiving to a feast they hoped would remind us of home.  It did…and it didn’t.  The turkey, mashed potatoes and vegetables were all familiar, but the stuffing was not the moist, bready goo we were used to plopping on our plates somewhere between the cranberries and the dinner roll but was, instead, a hard, little golfball-sized nugget that tasted of sage but was not otherwise familiar in any way.  And the pumpkin pie was more like a pumpkin mousse, but given the fact that there was no canned pumpkin in the whole country at the time, the effort was a noble one. 

So, it was with some anticipation and a little trepidation that we prepared for this year’s meal.  Our niece, Emily, who is studying at Royal Holloway University just outside of London, and Stuart Morgan, our British surrogate son, were both able to join us, which made the event more memorable.  We arrived at the banquet room in St. Augustine House, which had been decorated with all things Thanksgiving—turkeys, pumpkins, horns-o-plenty—and was bustling with not only American students but a whole host of international students, all who were intrigued by our Thanksgiving.  There were students from Japan and China, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, France, and other countries I can’t recall, and all of them seemed genuinely curious and excited.  Before we got to eat, the three of us who were mentoring student groups—Julia from New York, Rich from Missouri, and me from Illinois—were all called upon to say a few words.  We had decided ahead of time to divide up the thank yous and then add a few words of our own.  Of the three of us, Rich addressed the whole notion of our unique holiday best.  He explained that this holiday was about gratitude.  It wasn’t about getting gifts, of commemorating a war or a religious event; it was simply about being grateful for the things that we have, the things that are important in our lives and, at the same time, remembering and caring for those not so fortunate.

Once the three of us had had our say, there was a rush for the buffet line.  Rather than risk being trampled, our table hung back and waited until the crowd thinned a bit.  There was still plenty of food left by the time we had our plates loaded up and sat down to see how this year’s offering compared with the last one.  This time, at the request of the students, there was a green bean casserole in addition to the usual fare—another decidedly non-British dish.  Like the 2007 meal, the turkey, mashed potatoes (which were extraordinary, but “mash” is a common side dish, so they’ve had lots of practice), and the mixed vegetables were very good, but when we got to the three elements most likely to send a British chef into a state of panic—stuffing, pumpkin pie and the casserole—it was clear that there was still room for improvement.  The stuffing, again, resembled in size and weight a Titleist Pro V1, and required an extra gulp of water to swallow.  The pumpkin pie had the right basic density this time—not puffy or fluffy—but the color was a bit greenish and the spices were not quite right; one of the students said she tasted curry, but I’m not sure.  The crust was fine.  As for the newest dish, the green bean casserole, a problem with product availability submarined the chef’s best intentions.  The product that can’t be had in Great Britain, as far as I know, is condensed soup and, as all green bean casserole fans know, you have to use condensed soup.  And rather than use the cans of crunchy fried onions, they fried their own.  The result was not something you’ll see on any cooking shows, but I’m grateful and honored that they tried.  All in all, the meal was great and the whole evening, I think, helped the students who, judging by the tears, were clearly missing their families, find a new one here.

A Bus Ride to…Canterbury

As the old saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make applesauce,” and so it was that on the following day, Friday, we had one of our all-too-familiar deviations from the plan that wind up not being what we want to do but sufficing just the same.  In St. Charles, there is a wonderful Indian/Nepalese restaurant run by a wonderful man named Jack.  When Beth went there with some friends before she came to visit me, Jack told her that he had family in England and that a good number of them ran restaurants.  He gave Beth a card with the name of a place in Hythe, which is not far from Canterbury, and told her to ask for his uncle, who was the owner.  So, that was the plan: go for lunch at the Everest Inn in Hythe.   Both Emily and Stuart were still in town, so we invited them to join us, and the four of us went to the bus station to catch the 10:15 bus to Hythe.  Sitting upstairs on a double-decker bus, especially at the very front, is an adventure.  Roads, as you know by now, are narrow and not really designed for cars, let alone buses, so we regularly scraped hedgerows, were slapped by branches hanging out over the roadway, and frequently came nose-to-nose with a motorist in a much smaller vehicle.  It was a pleasant ride, but as time went on and we had passed one, two, three roundabout turn-offs to Hythe, we began to wonder if the driver knew what he was doing.  We pulled into Folkestone, which is on the coast to the east of Hythe, and then headed back north in the direction of Canterbury.  As villages came and went—Etchinghill, Lyminge, Elham, Stelling Minnis, Bridge—we came to the conclusion,--corroborated by Stuart, the only native among us—that buses do not travel on as regular a schedule as the trains and that we had taken the wrong one.  We were disappointed that we didn’t get to meet Jack’s uncle and have a good curry, but we used the day, instead, to enjoy Canterbury, do a little Christmas shopping, have a pint at the Parrot.  See? Applesauce.

What, Exactly, Is a Panto and Why Would You Go To See One?

On Beth’s last night in Canterbury, we went to the Marlowe Theatre to see a “panto,” which is short for “pantomime,” but should not be confused with mime.  No, this is a kind of British musical comedy designed for families and traditionally staged around Christmas.  Here’s a quick Wikipedia description: “Modern pantomime includes songs, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale.  It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.”  Got that? 

What we saw was Jack and the Beanstalk, and it included everything listed above, along with the actors being pelted at one point with green rubber balls thrown by nearly everyone in the audience.  As is also the custom, the cast included two celebrity actors—Samantha Womack, from the television soap opera, EastEnders, and Phil Gallagher, who plays Mr. Maker on the children’s network, CBeebies.  They were main characters, but not the leads and certainly not the equal of the crowd-pleasing, scene-chewing, cross-dressing mother of Jack, played by Ben Roddy.  The man-in-woman’s clothing role is the choice role in a panto, and Roddy enjoyed every second of it.  Whether he was swinging on a wrecking ball ala Miley Cyrus or cajoling a man in the audience with the improbable name of Milord to kiss an injured part of his body, Roddy was the clear fan favorite.  And the fans, lest I forget, were mainly kids and mainly kids in scouting uniforms, quick studies in what to shout at the villain and when to cheer for the hero.  They were especially enthusiastic when it came to hurling the green balls at the stage, probably due in part to the ice cream, soft drinks and other treats they consumed at intermission.  I imagine there was a lot of bouncing off the walls when these sugar-charged cherubs got home.

The panto at Marlowe is in its 19^th year, and there are some jokes that are just as old.  A running gag about the “Marlowe Ghost Bench” wove its way through the show until, finally, near the end, the bench appeared, and three actors sang “Ghostbusters” several times while being whisked away one at a time by zombies.  It made no sense while we were watching it, and as I write this, it makes even less sense, but it was the hit of the evening, and people left the theatre still singing, “If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call?” Should we ever be in Canterbury around the holidays, I doubt that we would take in another panto, but it was a weirdly enjoyable night, and we were both glad we went.

Winding Up My Time in England: Walking, Baking Bread, Visiting Eel Pie Island, More Walking, Saying Goodbye

Beth’s departure meant my days here are coming to a close, and I decided even before she left that I needed to make the most of my remaining time.  With that in mind, after I saw her off at Heathrow, I took the Tube to Gloucester Road and from there walked through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, past Buckingham Palace and on into St. James’s Park, which is my favorite in London.  There’s a great long lake there with several varieties of waterfowl—including swans and pelicans—along with tourist-savvy squirrels and pigeons and crows.  I had a pocketful of cookies, and I had great fun snapping off chunks and tossing them to the crows, who, unlike there more docile, dim-witted counterparts, the pigeons, would leap up and catch them in their beaks.  It was a little like a rugby match as they tagged along beside me, trying to out-duel one another.  I figured I had become the King of the Crows and that they would swarm around me for the rest of my time in London, but as soon as the cookies were gone, so were they, and I made my solitary way to the Horse Guard Museum/Gift Shop to pick up a few final souvenirs.

When I retired, I told Beth I was going to learn how to make bread.  I don’t know why, but that activity appealed to me as a useful way to spend my time, but I never did anything about it.  But here, in Canterbury, I was convinced by Lisa Casey, who is a student from Missouri, that I should join her in a series of private bread-baking classes.  At home, Lisa and her husband own a restaurant, so her interest in these classes was focused on her picking up additional skills that she could use in conjunction with their business.  For me, fun was the focus, but after the Illinois legislature decided to “reform” the pension system and cut retirement benefits, I decided maybe I need a marketable skill so I don’t end up as a WalMart greeter or cart wrangler at the local supermarket. 

The classes are taught by Vicky Feldman, who has worked in Germany and England as a professional baker and teacher of baking and nutrition, and who will have her own television show on BBC4 next year.  Needless to say, Lisa and I were in good hands, and she put us to work right away learning the basics.  It was such an intense lesson that the four hours were up before I knew it, and I had two great loaves of bread to take home, bread that I had made.  Vicky’s focus is using hard grains, especially different kinds of wheat that have more nutritional value than most of the flour used in the bread we buy in supermarkets.  Spelt and Kammut are her favorites, and we worked almost exclusively with those two as we made bread and seeded rolls, baguettes and pizza crusts.  The last day, this past Tuesday, was spent learning how to make croissants—not the flaky, butter-rich kind that we’re used to buying, but healthy croissants—and a holiday cake, an apricot crowne.  Both took a little more dexterity than I thought I could muster, but they turned out all right, though they tasted better than they looked.  I’m now looking forward to putting some handmade breadstuffs on our Christmas Eve table and hope that I don’t forgotten everything that I learned.

Last May, Beth and I met our Arizona friends, Amy Lerman and Mike Mader, in London for a week of sightseeing and general hooliganism.  One of the things that we wanted to do but did not was make a trip to Eel Pie Island to visit artists’ studios and, perhaps, buy some original works.  A few weeks ago, I got an email from Mike letting me know that the artists were having their annual Christmas open house.  This time, accompanied by Julia and Laurie, I made it to the place and had a great time.  Eel Pie Island is in the Thames and is connected to the city of Twickenham by a footbridge, though as recently as the late 1950s, the only way to the island was by ferry.  In the 60s, the big draw was not the studios but music.  Among other acts that performed at the Eel Pie Hotel were the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Yardbirds, and Black Sabbath, among others.

On Saturday, there were 18 studios open to the public, which made for a nice afternoon of walking and looking.  The island is also home to a working boatyard, so, in between studios, we passed through and around machinery and hoists and other ship-repairing paraphernalia.  I don’t think that all of the artists actually work on the island; it seemed that several merely rented or shared studio space for this kind of event.  There was a good variety of work for sale, everything from caricatures and pottery to paintings and jewelry, and I ended up buying a print, a piece of raku pottery and a thumb-sized ceramic hedgehog.  I probably could have purchased more, but at this time of my stay, with departure just a short time away, I was thinking about packing and about making sure I don’t exceed the 50-pound limit in my suitcase. 

This final week in Canterbury, my to-do list includes Christmas shopping, visiting places in the city, going to evensong at the cathedral and heading out into the countryside for a ramble.  Sunday was a gorgeous day—high around 50—and I spent most of it walking public pathways through woods and around fields, jumping streams, avoiding muddy patches and trying not to lose my way.  On Tuesday I took a walk in a different direction, but I couldn’t stay out as long or go as far as I wanted because I had a class that afternoon.  Friday morning I’ll take a long last hike along that path. 

It’s been a great three months here, much different from my experience six years, but no less remarkable.  I’ve made great new friends, renewed old acquaintances, and fallen in love again with this city, its cathedral, its people and the surrounding landscape.  I also spent much more time in London than I did in 2007 and now count it as one of my favorite places.  As was the case during my last visit, being part of the students’ lives has been a pleasure.  There were more instances of homesickness and culture shock this time around, but they pulled through and, I hope, will cherish this trip as much as I will.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance to do this again, to come to a foreign place and settle in for a while.  I know that I’ll continue to travel and see as much of the world as I can, but I’m so very grateful that I’ve had not one, but two, chances to live in a new place and be a part of it.  In a few days, I’ll be in Illinois again, but I know that all I’ll have to do is close my eyes and I’ll be right back on high street, jostled by the crowd, tripping over cobblestones, listening to some busker singing and playing above the screeching of seagulls, looking up at the cathedral’s bell tower, and feeling perfectly content, perfectly at home.