Dispatch No. 19: In Which I Meet Up with Beth and Friends In Ireland and Am Undone by Food and Drink; Have My Travel Plans Thwarted by St. Jude, and Anticipate the Arrival of Many Guests

It’s November, and I’m now past the halfway point in my stay here in Canterbury and am about to play host to friends and family pretty much the whole month, which will be great, not only for the company but also because I get to play tour guide.  My first guest, Kate Lander, the daughter of friends Anne and Dick Lander, arrived this morning for a short trip; friend and former teaching colleague Dennis Lynch comes for an equally short stay on Monday; daughter Elise gets here on Thursday for a week’s vacation, and Beth will be here from November 22-December 2.  After that, it’s only 12 days until I get on a plane and head back home.  The time has gone quickly so far, but I know that having guests and lots to do when they’re here will speed up the pace even more.  I left Kate on the High Street to do some shopping while I came back to the flat to finish this entry.  I hadn’t planned to be writing for another few days because I thought I’d be traveling and would get back on schedule next week, but the biggest storm to hit Great Britain since 1987—or, at the very least, in the last six years, depending upon the source—brought me back to Canterbury three days early.

My trip started out just fine.  I got on the train early Thursday morning, took it into London and then on to Gatwick Airport where I boarded my flight to Dublin and arrived in Ireland 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  My bus had wi fi, so Beth and I were able to keep in touch while I made the two-hour trip to Carlow, and she was there to meet me when we pulled in.  After checking in at the Red Setter Inn and getting changed for dinner, we made the short walk to Carlow College and were welcomed by Fr. Kevin O’Neill.  Since 2007, when Beth and her colleague, Lisa March, traveled to Carlow to establish a study abroad program, Fr. Kevin has been a most gracious host and friend.  When Beth spent a semester there in 2009, he made sure that she was immersed in the Irish culture—she even got to attend a hurling championship (a game with sticks and a ball, not what you’re probably thinking) in Dublin—and has hosted us whenever we’re in the country. 

As is his custom, Fr. Kevin invited us into his sitting room and offered to open, as he is wont to do, a bottle of excellent whiskey.  This time, it was a bottle of small batch whiskey distilled in Carlow.  Beth is not a whiskey aficionado, but I am a bit, so I accepted a generous pour and then another.  By the time we were ready to go to the restaurant Fr. Kevin had picked out—one of his favorites, The Lord Baganel, in the historic village of Leighlinbridge—I was glad I wasn’t driving.  It wasn’t until we got back later that evening that I realized he, too, had had a couple of whiskeys.  If the drink affected his handling the rain-slick, narrow and winding road in the dark, I didn’t notice.  Fr. Kevin and the Lord Baganel owner, James, are friends and share a love of art, so when James came to our table, the two of them waxed rhapsodic about a favorite artist whose work was going to be on display at the VISUAL, Carlow’s beautiful arts centre, which is on the college campus. 

When it came time to order, Fr. Kevin asked James if he had anything in the kitchen that wasn’t on the menu.  James said he had some fresh black sole, and our decision was made.  However, before we even got to the sole, which may have been the best fish I’ve ever eaten once I figured how to get rid of the bones, we first had a Dungeness crab salad, bread, and wine.  We had more wine when the fish came out sharing a plate with a heap of mashed potatoes (it’s not uncommon to have a meal in Ireland that features three kinds of potatoes) and green beans.  We followed that up with dessert—a berry terrine with vanilla ice cream—and then headed back out into the rain and back to Carlow.

Earlier that day, when she was on campus meeting with the people who take care of American students when they’re studying in Carlow, Beth made plans with Eric Derr, who “shepherds” the Illinois students at Carlow while he’s finishing up his doctoral dissertation, to meet at Teach (pronounced chock; it’s a  Gaelic word) Dolman to listen to some traditional Irish music—a session—featuring local musicians.  Eric is a fellow Iowan and former resident of Burlington, where we lived for three years a long time ago.  His dissertation is a two-volume cataloguing of all the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, which means he’s spent the past three years poring over historical documents in libraries and cathedrals and parish churches all over the country.  His project for the weekend we were there was to start checking his footnotes for accuracy.  He took some time away, however, and met us for a pint of Guinness and some music.  We got to Teach at 11 p.m., a time I’m usually strolling through dreamland, and we hung around until sometime after 1 a.m. 

Feeling a bit fuzzy-headed when the alarm went off at 8 a.m. the next morning, Beth and I went down for a full Irish breakfast—two fried eggs, sausage, bacon, two kinds of “pudding” (a sort of grain-heavy sausage, the black variety made with blood), and a stewed tomato—some soda bread, juice and coffee.  We had decided to eat heavy in the morning and then skip lunch, knowing we had dinner plans at a great tapas place, Café Mimosa, with some friends that night.  Beth had more meetings, so she went off to the campus while I sat in the Red Setter’s front room and read.  I always get on a Graham Greene kick when I come over here, and I was reading The Stamboul Train, which Greene called “an entertainment” rather than a novel, and it centers on a trip on the Orient Express from France to Istanbul.  I knew the book was written in the 1930s, but I was still surprised at how racist and classist and sexist it was, much more so—or perhaps much more noticeably—than other books of his I’ve read.  As always, it was wonderfully written, but the author’s insensitivity was a bit off-putting.  I guess it’s best to think of his work as representing a particular time and place and read it with that context in mind.

So that’s what I was doing when Beth came back, and we headed to Coleman’s Bike Shop to look for a used bicycle that could be left at the college for the American faculty who come there with study abroad students—and for Eric, who fills in whenever there is not a faculty person able to come for semester.  We were told ahead of time that Mr. Coleman’s son had recently taken his own life and that Mr. Coleman, who was normally quite outgoing, was still struggling with the loss and might not be his usual self.  With this knowledge, we walked into the store, which has a garage door entrance, and met Mr. Coleman.  He was subdued but very friendly.  Beth asked him if he had any used bicycles, and he said no.  Now, to set the scene a little…imagine a garage, now imagine a garage filled with bicycles of all types and conditions and ages (one dated back to the 1950s), imagine that these bicycles are in a kind of upright jumble, hooked together like a great puzzle and surrounded by—nay, half-buried in—a heap of random handlebars, tools and cables, pedals and seats, chains, and who knows what else (I’ve posted a couple of photos of the shop on Facebook) and not a one of them was for sale.  Because Beth wanted to get a bicycle and because she wanted to support local Carlow businesses, she put a hold on a nice, relatively inexpensive new bicycle and said we would be back later in the day after she’d checked to see if there was money in her budget at school for the purchase.  (We did go back and Beth made arrangements for the bike to be picked up and taken to the college.  When we were there the second time, I asked if I could take pictures because, as I honestly told Mr. Coleman, it was nice to see someone else whose workspace—in my case, basement work bench—shared a similar kind of organization.  His daughter, who was there in the afternoon, said that they’d had another, larger shop elsewhere in Carlow, and it was even more of a disaster area.  And yet, when he needed a tape measure to check the height of the bike Beth picked out, he stuck his hand into the pile and pulled it right out. )

While she was on campus in the morning, before our bike shopping, Beth had run into Eric again and made plans to have lunch with us and with Sister Mary, every American student’s favorite Irish person, at a local restaurant.  So, rather than skip a meal, we had big bowls of excellent seafood chowder, more soda bread, and a Coke made with real sugar, not the high fructose sugar variety from home.  (There’s a reason I’m cataloguing my eating.  Wait for it.  Wait for it.)  After lunch, Beth had another meeting, I read some more and then we went out for a walk, ducking into doorways when the rain became, as Mr. Coleman had put it, “a lashing rain.”  Then we met Padraigin Caesar, who had worked with the study abroad program when Beth was there in 2009, in the arts centre café for coffee and got caught up on families.  Padraigin, who is also a harpist and singer, came to Illinois in 2011 to meet with college study abroad personnel, and she stayed with us in between campus visits.  She wasn’t feeling particularly well, so when she got home, she went to the doctor and discovered she was pregnant with her second child, Harry.  (I was thinking Patrick would have been better name choice, but I had no vote).  She and her husband, Declan, daughter Heidi and son Harry might come to visit Canterbury when Beth is here later in the month, so I may have more guests to host.

At eight that night, we went to the Mimosa, where we met up with Eric and Noel and Kate Cavanaugh.  Noel is a lecturer at Carlow College and a great, hilarious storyteller in the true Irish tradition.  Kate is equally funny, so we spent about three hours laughing and nibbling a variety of tapas dishes (everything from chocolate chili beef to calamari to a goat cheese-apple thing to a cheese plate to lots of other things I don’t remember), washing them down with a Cornish ale appropriately called Proper Job, which it did on me, along with an after-dinner liqueur and then ending the night, after a dash through the aforementioned lashing rain, to a noisy place called Carpe Diem, where whiskey was had.  That night when we fell into bed, it was only 12:30 a.m., an early evening.

On Saturday, following a subdued breakfast of toast and coffee, we took the bus to Dublin and met up with Pam and John at the Townhouse Inn, just north of the River Liffey.  Beth took a gamble on booking it—memories of the Kelly Hotel in Dublin still haunt us—but it turned out to be a great place with a great staff.  We set out for some sightseeing, south over the river to Grafton Street, which is pedestrianized (one of my new favorite words) and the home to a host of buskers, including a band called Keywest, which was really very good.  We had lunch at Bruxelles, a pub noted for its connection with the film, The Commitments, where I had salmon cakes and the obligatory pint of Guinness.  We spent part of the afternoon at the national museum, which has an exhibit of bog people—folks who ended up, usually violently, at the bottom of a peat bog, where they were preserved—parts of them, at least—and discovered centuries later.  It sounds a little grisly, but it is a fascinating exhibit, even right after lunch!  Mid-afternoon, we had a snack—hot chocolate and a scone for me—before heading back to the hotel for a bit of down time before we went out again for dinner and, perhaps, some music. 

It’s at this point that I’d like you to look back through the previous paragraphs and start to catalogue for yourselves all that I had eaten and drunk those three days.  Keep in mind that I had been living a pretty Spartan lifestyle in Canterbury—except for clotted cream, which is a sin—and eating like a first century monk—except for clotted cream, which is a sin. 

After our down time, I began to wonder if I was done for.  I lay on the bed and tried to muster my strength for another go at Dublin nightlife, but my body was telling me otherwise.  We did go out for dinner at a pub--where else—and had a roast beef sandwich and more Guinness—and then back to the hotel for another bit of down time.  This time, I was down.  My stomach, my head, even my feet, were telling me it was time to say uncle.  For three and a half days, I’d been eating and drinking myself stupid, and I had nothing left.  Surprisingly, perhaps because she’d avoided the whiskey, Beth still had enough energy to join John—Pam, like me, had thrown in the towel—for stops at a couple of nearby pubs for music, though she wanted me to report that she had only sparkling water at the second place.  I, in the meantime, had fallen into a deep, deep sleep that was not even interrupted by the bar patrons who used the alley behind our hotel as a smoking lounge.  When morning came, I felt much better and was ready for our last day in Ireland, but I must admit that I wish I’d had the wherewithal to go out for the music.  There’s nothing quite like a session in a local pub, with musicians popping in and out, playing guitars or fiddles or squeezeboxes, bagpipes, bodhrans (hand-held drums) or penny whistles.  The music is so much a part of their lives, of the country’s culture, that anyone who can play an instrument knows the tunes and can sit in, and those of us who can't, can sit and enjoy.

Sunday, our last day in Ireland, started with my getting a cell phone weather alert and a second message announcing the the cancellation of my ferry to Wales.  A massive storm was bearing down on Great Britain, and, as a result, the ship I was going to take across the Irish Sea, a smallish ferry by ocean-going standards, was not going to sail on Monday, but they were putting me on their larger boat. This news completely destroyed my plans for the week.  I needed to get that smaller, speedier ferry because it was the only one that allowed me to catch a train to St. Ives, Cornwall, and arrive the same day.  The next train south was a 17-hour ordeal that would get me there on Tuesday, essentially cutting my already short trip a day shorter.  With that in mind, I emailed Grahame Wheelband, owner of 11 Sea View Terrace, the bed and breakfast where I’d been looking forward to staying, and informed him I wouldn’t be able to make it.  I have to admit that the thing I’m saddest about when it comes to missing out on St. Ives and Cornwall is the chance to meet Grahame.  In the space of a few days and a few emails, I got the impression that Grahame is someone I’d like to get to know, someone whose warmth and personality were evident, even though we’d never met.  I plan to get to St. Ives one day, and I look forward to meeting Grahame when I do.

So, with my plans altered dramatically, Beth and I checked to make sure that her trip home on Monday was still on schedule.  Because the storm’s track started south of Ireland and moved diagonally across Great Britain, the flight that she and Pam and John were on would not be affected.  Knowing what the next day was going to bring, we set out for a day of sightseeing.  Our first stop was the Garden of Remembrance, which features a stunning sculpture dedicated to the many people who stood up to fight during the 700 years of British rule of the island (see Facebook).  You can’t look at this piece of art and not feel the pain and the pride of the Irish who finally were able to achieve freedom in the early 20^th century.  From there we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, an ancient illuminated copy of the Gospels.  Both Pam and I noted errors in the displays accompanying the exhibit (The Book of Psalms is not a gospel; John was not a witness to the crucifixion), but it is quite an experience looking at a text that was hand-written and hand-illustrated more than 1000 years ago.

As impressive as the Book of Kells and other ancient texts are, my favorite part of the trip to Trinity, as it was the last time we visited, was the Long Room, the old and wonderful library.  With stacks of leather-bound books that tower overhead and busts of everyone from Socrates to Swift, this is a bibliophile’s version of heaven.  (Again, I’ve posted some pictures on Facebook).  At one point, while I was sitting down and looking at all of the tomes arranged around me, a young boy in his school uniform stopped in front of me and asked, “Is this seat taken?”  Even though Beth had been there a minute earlier before getting up to take a photo, I invited him to sit.  He looked exhausted.  I asked him if he was on a school trip, and he said that he was and that he was in Dublin to play rugby.  Before I had a chance to ask him anything else, I had little rugby players all around me, all wiped out after having played five games in three days and all willing to talk.  I think that those few minutes might have been my favorite time in Dublin, maybe in my trip as a whole.  It was such fun to listen to them talk about their games, to have them show me the souvenirs they’d bought for their families and for themselves that I could have sat there for hours.  But along came their coach who hustled them into the gift shop for a final spending spree before they headed back to London and their boarding school.

That evening, having fully recovered from the debauchery of the three days previous, we took part in the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, an entertaining two hours of drama and lecture and pub culture directed by professional actors.  In 2011, I answered enough questions correctly that I won a t-shirt, so I stayed mum this time around, paying attention, instead, to the skill of the pair of actors who showed us around.  A favorite moment on the tour came when one of the actors was talking about Brendan Behan, a brilliant writer and notorious drunk whose drinking killed him at a young age.  Behan was in Toronto on a lecture tour when a journalist asked him why he was there.  Behan said, and I paraphrase here, “I saw a sign that said ‘Drink Canada Dry,’ so I thought I’d give it a shot.” We stopped in at four pubs that evening, ending at Davey Byrne’s, a pub labeled as a “moral pub” by James Joyce because Byrne did not drink. 

Early the next morning, I caught a cab to the ferry port and boarded the Ulysses, the largest passenger ferry in Europe.  It’s named after Joyce’s novel (I don’t know why, exactly) and is quite impressive.  It’s nearly as long as two football fields, has 11 decks, including several for cars and trucks, and speeds along at 20-21 knots (about 24 mph).  Because of the storm, which had been named St. Jude, swells on the sea were at 4.5 feet, but there was never any sense of choppiness the entire 3+ hour trip.  Still, I had taken seasickness medicine just before we left, so I may not be the best judge of the trip's roughness; I was fine, a little dopey from the pills, but fine. We arrived at Holyhead, Wales, at the appointed hour, but because of the storm, I had to wait for nearly two hours before I could get on a train to London.  During that time, I checked the timetables and realized I would have a six-hour layover in London before I could get a train to London, so I booked a ride on a National Express bus, which would get me back to Canterbury four hours before the train would get me there. 

The train ride from Holyhead to London took me through very dramatic Welsh countryside.  Rather than the rolling hills of Kent, we passed through fields of gorse studded with craggy rocks (I’m not sure if it was gorse or not; I just like the word), along coastline, beneath and through mountains.  This was my first time in Wales, and I’d like to go back.  Whether Beth and I make the trip in November depends on the weather.  It won’t be much fun trying to hike around in a rain storm and strong winds, which can happen as winter approaches. 

I learned something on the train ride, too.  I have a BritRail pass, which allows me to ride any train anywhere in Great Britain, so I got on at Holyhead, found a seat in a car away from two families with rambunctious children, turned on my iPod and settled in.  A couple of stops later, I was tapped on the shoulder by a young man who said I was in his seat.  It was at this point that I noticed lighted signs next to each pair of seats, some marked Reserved, others marked Available.  I apologized and said I didn’t have a reserved seat, so he pointed me in the direction of an open, unreserved seat, and the rest of the trip went smoothly.  Four hours later, I was back in London and on the Tube headed for Victoria Station and my bus.

Victoria Station is not difficult to navigate.  In fact, there are lines painted on the floor that take you right to where you want to be…or so I thought.  I got on the blue line marked “Bus Depot” and started walking.  I knew that the bus station was not in the train terminal, but when I got to the end of the blue line and found myself outside in the rain on the sidewalk, I had no idea what to do next.  I saw buses moving in all directions, but there was no sign indicating where the station was.  I walked around a corner: nothing.  I went back inside and asked a guy selling cell phones where the station was, and he pointed me back toward the train side of the place.  I went that way but, doubting his knowledge, asked a young woman in a perfume shop where to catch a bus.  She sent me back the way I had just come.  I went outside and started walking, figuring I would find it sooner or later—hopefully sooner because I was running out of time.  I came across a travel agency that was still open, and I asked someone in there where I needed to be, and he waved in the general direction of the train station.  I finally found a place where buses were lined up but didn’t see anything remotely like a station.  I went into another travel agency in the adjoining building and was finally given specific and correct directions.  When I got to the door at the end of the corridor I’d been told to follow, there it was: Victoria Bus Station, clearly marked with a huge lighted sign and people dragging suitcases in through the entrance.  To this day, I don’t know where this is in relation to the train station.  Maybe I can go back in the daytime, and at a time when it’s not raining, and figure it out.  All I cared about at that moment, though, was getting to my bus and getting back to Canterbury, which I did without further incident.

I’m not sure if I’ll have time to write and post next week, but I’ll try.  In addition to guests arriving, I also have my term lecturing to the students in the American Literature class—I’m talking about Edgar Allan Poe—and then we have an overnight field trip to Bath, Oxford and Stonehenge.  Because Elise is not a student in the program, she can’t go on the school coach, so I’m renting a car and driving us to the various spots.  I did most of this particular drive when we were here before, so I’m not worried about getting lost, and I’m not even that worried about driving on the left side of the road.  But, that said, I’m still a bit worried I might do something I shouldn’t.  If I do, I’ll tell you all about it next time.

I'm off to meet Kate at the cathedral for a tour inside. 

Thanks for reading. 

 

p.s. There wasn't much evidence of the power of the St. Jude storm here in Canterbury, other than the River Stour was flowing much faster and deeper than normal, and there were a few limbs down.  In other parts of the country, though, things were much worse, especially in places where the 80-100 mph winds ripped trees up and toppled them on to cars and houses. 

 

 

 

Dispatch No. 18: In Which a Masked Man Prowls the Streets of Canterbury, A Drunk Assails My Door, Visitors Arrive, and We All Go for a Long Walk in the Woods

According to The Complete University Guide, Canterbury is the second safest university town in Great Britain, behind Bath, which makes the events of this past week surprising and perhaps a little frightening, but mainly aggravating.  I’ll give you a recap of what happened, but if you want to read more, go to kentonline.co.uk for the complete story.

Although Great Britain has not yet caught up to the U.S. when it comes to Halloween excess, it’s getting close.  Now, along High Street, there are seasonal shops with plenty of scary masks and costumes (“fancy dress,” as it’s called here) and lots of sound effects, strobe lights, etc.  In one shop window, there is a Guy Fawkes mask, featured in the graphic novel and movie, V for Vendetta, and favored by anti-government, anti-establishment groups like the computer hacker group, Anonymous, and the Occupy movement.  It is an unsettling visage, white with a wide smile, a moustache with upturned ends and a thin pointed beard, a stylized version, supposedly, of the real Guy Fawkes, who was one of a group of conspirators who tried to blow up the House of Lords in 1605.  He has his own night here, November 5, and is a kind of folk hero/villain.

A little more than a week ago, at least one person wearing one of these masks and a hoodie has been spotted in Canterbury, following people and, in general, acting creepy.  In at least one case, he attempted to grab a young woman, a Christchurch student, but she got away easily, and there were no other reports of similar assaults.  Mainly, the figure has been roaming parts of the city where there are lots of people—and lots of closed circuit cameras—intent, in my opinion--more on scaring than hurting people.  One female student from Cazenovia College in New York, who is part of our larger group, said she and a large group of friends were followed by the guy after they’d left a High Street restaurant, but he left off after a block or two.

Last Monday, they took two people into custody.  One, a 15-year-old, and the one spotted in the city centre, was brought to the station by his father.  The other, a 22-year-old, was brought in for questioning and then released on bond.  As a result of these sightings, there’s a much more visible presence of uniformed officers and, according to the newspaper, more plainclothes officers as well keeping an eye on things, but following the detaining and “quizzing” of those two, nothing else has happened. 

To the credit of the university, study abroad administrators came to the group’s Wednesday informational meeting and explained the whole situation to the students and alleviated a lot of their unease, but, as is so often the case in something like this, rumors are keeping the “masked man” alive and kicking; on Friday, students on the bus back from our field trip to London were saying that there are still three or four more faux Fawkes out there somewhere.  Given all of the increased awareness, the extra police on the street, and the omnipresent closed circuit cameras, it’s unlikely anything more will occur and, as one of the administrators told our students, in Chicago, this wouldn’t even have made the paper, let alone the front page, but because Canterbury is such an untroubled place—remarkably so, given the number of tourists and students and the potential opportunity for them to fall prey to pickpockets or con men or worse—it got everyone’s attention.

My own attention was gotten last Monday night when a reveler—unmasked and unsteady—came to my door at 1:30 a.m. and woke me from a deep sleep with all of his banging and shouting.  I sort of stumbled downstairs and listened for a bit before asking him what he wanted.

“Jimmy G!” he said.  “Jimmy G, lemme in, mate”

“There’s no Jimmy G here,” I said, hoping he could hear me over the racket he was making. 

“Jimmy G!” he said, punctuating each syllable with a kick or a fist to the door.  “Open the f***in’ door!”

“You’ve got the wrong house!"

“Wha?”  He paused for a second.  “No, I ain’t!  Jimmy G!” More kicking and slamming.

“You’ve got the wrong house,” I said again, louder and more slowly.  “There’s no Jimmy G here.”

Again, he stopped.  “James?”

“No, there’s no James here, either.  This is the wrong house.”

A couple of half-hearted slaps followed, then he was gone.  I went back upstairs and opened the front windows above the door and looked out but didn’t see anyone.  I could hear voices down the street a little, drunken voices, ordering chicken curry from a take-away shop.  I couldn’t tell if my friend was there, but I was irritated enough that I called the police and told them what had happened.  Whether or not they came, I don’t know because I got back into bed and assumed the fetal attack position, suitable for both sleeping and leaping up like a jungle cat.  I faced the door, knowing that the motion sensor that turned the hall light on any time someone goes up or down the stairs would alert me to an intruder.

The next morning, I got a text from Rich, whose flat is next to mine, asking if I had met our friend.  I called him and he told me that he had been awakened by noise at his front door, followed by the door opening and the sound of someone inside.  He jumped out of bed and started downstairs—any element of surprise eliminated by the hallway light blazing on—and found a short, somewhat muscular young man standing—weaving, really—just inside the door.  When he saw Rich, he held up his hands and said, “Sorry, mate, sorry.  Wrong house.  Wrong house.”  Rich ushered him out and pointed him in the direction of the house where they would shortly be ordering a late night snack, and then went back to his bedroom, only to hear the guy attacking my door.  Rich opened  his front window and yelled at him, but to no avail.  He kept at it until, as chronicled above, he was convinced that he was, indeed, not where he wanted to be.  Now, whenever I pass Rich’s door, I slap it a few times and yell for Jimmy G.

Later that morning, I headed up to the Canterbury West train station to meet friends Pam and John Moore, who were just starting a two-week vacation to England and Ireland.  Beth had helped them plan their trip (when she retires, I’m guessing she’ll make trip planning her new vocation, and she’s good at it), and John, though retired, has maintained his engineer’s meticulous attention to detail, so they were there at the precise time they were supposed to arrive, and we started our way back down High Street to my place.

Like everyone who has visited, Pam and John were battling jet lag, hauling suitcases along uneven cobblestones and trying to look at the buildings without falling or running into someone.  They made it without serious incident and then, after dropping their stuff off, we went on a walk, both to let them see more of Canterbury and to keep them awake.  While I went to class, they went to evensong—the boys were singing—and then we met up for a traditional English dinner (steak and ale pie; chicken, mushroom and leek pie; lamb and rosemary pie).  I dragged them around a little longer before letting them go to bed. 

When the Moores met with Beth to talk about their trip, they made a list of things that they wanted to do and, with maybe one or two exceptions, I think they did it all.  They went to Dover where they saw the castle and the war tunnels, to Rye where they walked the steep hills, to Fordwich where they had a beer at George and the Dragon.  They toured the cathedral and St. Martin’s Church, and they wandered around the ruins of St. Augustine’s Abbey. We also walked along the city walls, climbed to the top of the Roman Burial Mound, visited a number of pubs, ate well, and, in general, had a great time.  John even got to ride a bike one morning.  And they did all of this before Saturday!  Saturday was my day to pick an activity, and I chose a ramble.  Pam and John were agreeable, as were Rich and one of his students, Lisa, so we set out at 9:30 a.m., in a slight drizzle, to meet up with the Canterbury Ramblers at the West Gate Gardens to take a guided tour of the countryside.

The ramble was one of the best things Beth and I did six years, and I was looking forward to the walk and to the company; the locals are great walkers and talkers, and we met a lot of great people.  When we got to the meeting point, though, we were told that we were welcome to come along but that there was a 7 pound fee.  I didn’t remember having to do that in 2007, but later, when I told her about it, Beth said that we’d paid that time, too, because it was part of the Canterbury Festival and helped cover expenses for the two weeks of activities.  At any rate, we quickly decided that we didn’t want to pay to go on a hike, so I volunteered to lead the group out into the countryside for free and with 90% certainty that we wouldn’t get lost.  So, off we went.

I can now admit that 90% struck me as a little high when I made that pronouncement, but I charged ahead in the general direction of the paths that Beth and I had walked two or three times—once with the Ramblers—hoping that I’d see a landmark that would jog my memory.  I managed to get us across a large open area where people walked dogs and played when the weather was nice and kind of meandered through a neighborhood until we came to the road up St. Stephen’s Hill, and I knew (or thought I knew) that we were going the right way.  What I was looking for was Tyler Hill, but I was pretty sure we had to go up St. Stephen’s first. 

I’m actually quite surprised that my merry band did not revolt at this point because St. Stephen’s Hill is a bit of a climb.  If you are from the St. Charles area and have ever ridden a bike on the path north toward South Elgin, then you know that there is a hill that conquers most who try to get to the top.  Make that hill longer and steeper, and you have an idea what we were trudging up.  Add to that the rain, which came and went, came and went, but was a steady enough presence that we were growing soggier by the minute.  There was an inspirational moment, however, that made the walk all worth it and buoyed spirits enough to let us continue.  Just before you get to the top of St. Stephen’s, there is a break in the trees on the opposite side of the road, and you can look down on Canterbury and, more importantly, the cathedral.  We all took pictures and talked a bit about the pilgrims who might have had this very same perspective (save the traffic, of course) hundreds of years ago after walking a lot farther than we had come and whose spirits must have been lifted more than ours. To my great delight and relief, it wasn’t more than a few hundred yards past that spot that I saw the narrow road marked Alcroft Grange, and I knew I’d led us to the right place.

Alcroft Grange was the home of Sidney Cooper, a Canterbury artist who was one of Queen Victoria’s favorites.  His landscapes often featured cows, large cows.  As we walked toward the house, we saw lots of sheep, but no cattle.  Before we got to the place, though, a post bearing a yellow medallion with an arrow aimed us to the north, and we ducked into a tree-covered tunnel (see Facebook photo) and walked along a path that is part of an elaborate web of public pathways dating back to the time when people walked everywhere they went and wanted the shortest route between two points (usually church and home), regardless of what might be in their way.  I explained these paths in 2007, so if you want to find out more about them, you can check my old dispatches for more information.  It’s enough here to say that the walk we were taking is a perfect example of how these paths work.  After coming through the trees, we had to duck under a low branch to get to a bridge that took us across a stream and dropped us at the edge of a newly planted field.  Rather than go around this field, we went straight across, following a narrow but evident trail to the far side.  Again, a yellow medallion mounted on a wooden pole—these helpful guides were not around in 2007—sent us around a stand of trees and along the edge of the field and then back into the trees again. It was during this second woodland walk that we finally found the mushrooms I had told the group we would find and which, I’m sure, they thought I was imagining. 

If you’ve seen Walt Disney’s Fantasia, then maybe you remember the red mushrooms with the white polka dots in the “China Dance” sequence.  Beth and I saw them when we did our ramble, but I wasn’t sure we’d see them again.  But we did, and plenty of them.  Again, photos were taken, and my credibility was restored.  Since the walk, I have read up on the mushroom and found that it is called amanita muscaria and is both poisonous and psychotropic.  I guess if you really want to hallucinate, you’ll risk getting sick or dying.  It was also used as an insecticide and, according to one theorist, was responsible for the “berserker” rages experienced by marauding Vikings.  Luckily, none of us did anything with them except take pictures, though a couple of nights earlier, we had sampled—after doctoring it with red wine and garlic and olive oil--a slice of puffball that Pam bought at a farmer’s market.  None of us suffered any ill effects, but none of us went back for seconds, either.

We ended the walk following a radfall, which is a kind of bermed roadway which landowners would use to move stock from their property to market.  Again, I wrote about this in 2007, and I invite you to read about it there, but I was happy to find the place again and recognize it.  Not long after we found the radfall, we arrived at Tyler Hill, emerging from the woods on the edge of a field where three or four soccer/football games were in progress.  We tried to find the pub, The Ivy that I remembered from earlier visits, but it was being remodeled and wouldn’t be open for a while.  A bit disappointed, we went back down the hill and into Canterbury, finally stopping for a short beer at The Parrot before going home and spending the afternoon napping.

Around noon on Sunday, I left Pam and John at the train station.  They were going to spend a few days in London before going to Ireland where Beth and I will meet up with them again next Saturday, so the leave-taking was not a sad one.  I got a text from John a few hours later, letting me know that they had arrived and were getting settled in their hotel on the south bank of the Thames.  It was great having them visit and getting caught up on each other’s lives.  Since they moved to Waukegan, we don’t see them very frequently, so there was a lot of catching up to do.  In addition, it was fun for me to see this place through someone else’s eyes, so I asked John if it would be OK for me to post some of his photos on Facebook.  He said it was, so take a look.

The week ended with Rich and Doug coming over last night to watch the Bears-Redskins game.  One of Doug’s friends has the NFL Game Pass license and because he’s a Giants fan (imagine that!)and this is their bye week, he allowed us to use his password to watch.  It was great to see the game, but the outcome was no less painful 4000 miles away.   We may get to see another game in November, and I’m hopeful—nay, confident—that the Bears will win, no matter who they play.

I won’t be on a regular schedule the next couple of weeks because I’ll be traveling.  I leave Thursday for Ireland to spend a few days with Beth before coming back via ferry to Wales and taking the train to St. Ives, Cornwall, where I’ll have a short stay on the seaside.  I’ll let you know when I have time to post the next dispatch and will be putting pictures up on Facebook as often as I can.

Thanks for reading!

Weekly Dispatch No. 17: In Which I Overcome Homesickness and a Cold; Ride an Odd Horse; Enjoy the Cathedral; Visit the Queen's Favorite Castle, and Avoid Gaol Time

Laid low by an annoying head cold and kept inside by a steady and cold British rain, I succumbed to a bit of homesickness yesterday, Sunday, a condition exacerbated—though unwittingly, of course—by news from the other side of the ocean where Beth was hosting a bike ride/dinner with visiting faculty from the Netherlands and Finland, along with photos sent by my trainer and friend, Donna Petry, of my horse, Major Dude, winning blue ribbons and a reserve championship, but not with me in the saddle.

Please understand that I neither begrudge people their joy nor do I wish I had not received the news and pictures.  But anyone who has been away for any length of time can understand, there are those moments when the unfamiliar becomes less charming than it had been, and all you want are familiar sights and sounds and tastes and smells--never under-estimate the power of the olfactory to prod your memory—of home.  I did not lie on the couch—there’s no lying on the couch, anyway; it’s too short, even for me—with my wrist to my forehead, crying, “Oh, woe…woe is me” (well, maybe, a little), but I did feel stupidly sorry that I was all alone, albeit in a beautiful place and of my own choosing. 

That said, the feeling passed, as I knew it would, and I woke up this morning with the sun shining, my cold on the wane, and full day of activity ahead, not the least of which is getting this completed and posted and adding more photos to Facebook.  Which brings me back to my horse…

One of the great pleasures of my life is horseback riding—or horse riding, as they call it here—and I am lucky to have spent quite a lot of time in a saddle the past 15 or so years.  Though I came late to riding, when I finally started it was the realization of a dream I’d had since I was old enough to ask for a horse for my birthday and then for Christmas. I continued to make the same request every year until it became apparent that my parents and Santa were in cahoots, and I’d have better luck asking for a BB gun or a puppy.  Even a monkey.  When I finally decided that the only person who would get me a horse for my birthday was me, I was 50.  After a summer of looking, I came into a barn and met Dude (I added the Major, after a Steely Dan song), and we began our partnership.  At first, we had to get to know each other and figure out how we were going to work together and then, about 7 years ago, we met Donna and started to learn dressage.  Variously called the “golf of equestrian sports,” because when a rider is completing a test, the spectators are silent, or “the equestrian equivalent of paint drying,” because it’s more interesting to the one riding than to those watching, dressage has its roots in cavalry maneuvers, and though we don’t move our horses sideways next to another rider to whack him with a sword, those of us who practice enough can, indeed, move our horses sideways.  The real good, experienced dressage riders make their horses dance.  (Check out the world championships on YouTube.)  Dude and I can’t dance, but we’ve come quite a ways, and I’m proud of us.  We’re a good team, and we have a very good trainer .

This lengthy introduction will, I hope, explain why one of the things I wanted to do when I came to England was to take weekly riding lessons.  While Dude is at home being trained by Donna and my share boarder, Nicole Quaisser, I need to try to stay in shape so that when I go home in December, I’ll start up close to where I left off.  Last time I was in Canterbury, I made contact with Andrew Payne, who owns Trenley Stables out on Stodmarsh Road. With his help, I got about a dozen of the students who were in the program then to go on a trail ride, and I later took a lesson before time started to fill in with school obligations, and it wasn’t possible to get back out again.  The week we arrived here this year, I got in touch with Andrew again and asked about lessons.  He’s a very affable guy and assured me that they would work with me and listen to what I wanted.  That sounded good, so I had Beth bring along my breeches and half chaps when she came to visit, and then I called again and set up a lesson for this past Tuesday.

Despite the treacherous nature of my walk out Stodmarsh Road the Sunday prior, I decided I’d go by foot to the stable and then, if I was tired after the lesson, would call for a taxi.  Unfortunately, when I got up Tuesday morning, a stereotypically soupy British fog had settled over the area, and, after imagining headlights coming at me through the thick mist, I made arrangements to be taken out to the stable by cab.  Once there, I met with my instructor, Paul, and my horse for the day, Cashel, a 17-year-old chestnut former eventing horse—which means he had competed in dressage, cross-country and stadium jumping—and went into the arena for a half-hour lesson.  Overall, I was happy with the lesson because Paul tried to help Cashel and me get a feel for one another before I asked him to do too much.  We spent a bulk of the time trotting and doing the kind of work that I’m used to doing in a lesson.  When I was finished and getting ready to start my walk back to town, I did a quick mental evaluation to see if this was what I’m looking for. 

Having only ridden Dude for the past 7 years, getting onto a strange horse was, indeed, strange.  I’m so used to my own horse’s size and the way he moves that I don’t even think about it anymore.  With Cashel, I was first struck by how much smaller he is than Dude.  He is by no means skinny, but my horse is a wide body, and I felt a little like I was sitting on a sawhorse.  Adding to the awkwardness was the saddle.  It was a dressage saddle, meaning a deep seat, but it was too small, and when I posted a trot, I suffered a wee bit of man pain any time I didn’t come down exactly right; as a result, I sat the trot a lot.  At 17, Cashel is starting to experience arthritis problems, something I noticed when I tried to get him to collect himself and to bend around my leg in the corners.  He was very stiff and had a tendency to tuck his butt and scoot when I asked him to move forward rather than to accelerate at a steady pace.  Still, I very much enjoyed Paul’s teaching and was still going back and forth about continuing as I headed down the lane from the stable and onto Stodmarsh Road.

It was on the walk home that I finally made my decision.  I walk a lot, so the 3 ½ mile trek back into Canterbury was no big deal, but, as I noted in the last dispatch, Stodmarsh Road is not the idyllic country lane I remembered from 2007.  Perhaps that’s not what it ever was, but the more I walked, the more I realized it was just a matter of time before someone exceeding the posted-but-not-observed speed limit of 30 mph was going to have me plastered like the proverbial bug on his/her windshield.  I was nimble enough to avoid even the speediest of motorist-murderers, but when I got to the place I now and will forever more refer to as Prayer Corner, I made up my mind definitively.  As I dodged car after car after car, leaping into hedgerows where sun-happy bees buzzed and sent pleas heavenward—“Oh My God…Oh, Sweet Jesus!”—l swore that if I could return to Canterbury with all limbs intact and no blood spilled I would never again walk along this stretch of British roadway.  I’m posting a photo on Facebook of the perhaps innocuous–looking Prayer Corner after I’d made my way around it.

Though I could continue to take a cab to and from Trenley, the cost for each day would almost double the cost of a lesson.  So, even though I like the people and the place and feel that Cashel and I would, eventually, work together well, I’m checking into a second facility near Canterbury, one I’m told is served by a bus route.  In this way, then, I will live to ride again. 

I spent most of the rest of Tuesday dealing with post-traumatic stress, but that evening, following class, my Missouri counterpart, Rich, and I went to the cathedral for the annual open house.  Either Beth and I missed this event in 2007, or it’s an addition to the calendar, but a friend who was here a couple of years ago told us about it, and I’m glad for the information.  Following the 5:30 evensong service, the cathedral is wide open, free of charge, to the public, and everyone who works for the place in any capacity has a chance to meet the public and let everyone know what they do in that amazing building.  There were, among others, archivists and clergy, artisans who apply gold leaf to the ornamentation and some who carve limestone by hand to replace chipped or broken pieces.  There were seamstresses and carpenters and one man whose job was to keep the pigeons from making too big a mess.  He was aided in the job by Junior, a Harris Hawk, who soared above the cathedral and chased away any bird attempting to foul the place.  (I forgot my camera that evening, but Rich had his, and he’s shared a couple of photos with me that I’ll post on Facebook.)

Down in the crypt, we ran into a docent I’d spoken to last week, a native of the Netherlands who spent 25 years in New York and now lives in Canterbury—“the best place in the world I’ve ever lived”—who showed us around a small chapel that had been walled off for hundreds of years because the space had to be filled with loose stone to anchor a wobbly tower.  The tower continued to wobble, so they took it down, but they didn’t open up the chapel until 1950, at which time they discovered amazing frescoes, still untouched by weather or man.  This led our docent-friend to explain that the cathedral had four enemies over time: the weather, Henry VIII, the Nazis, and, most importantly, the Puritans.  The Puritans wreaked the most havoc on the cathedral in their attempt to erase anything papist, including frescoes like the one we were admiring. 

Though we were too late for tickets, guests were taken up into the Bell Harry Tower, which rises 294 feet above the ground floor, and into the choristers’ practice room and the organ loft.  I, of course, would have had to take a pass on the tower tour, but either of the others might have proven interesting.  I noticed that of all the cathedral departments represented, the table least visited belonged to the human resources department.  In the past, when I worked for a living, I found that the HR department could be a little difficult to work with, what with all their forms and regulations and whatnot, but I felt sorry for the two women standing there, looking so forlorn.  I said to Rich, “Maybe if they had some candy to give away, people would stop.”  As it turned out, they did have candy, and we did stop.  Their gimmick was a “Guess How Many People Have Been Hired By The Cathedral This Year” contest, which isn’t really much of an attention-getter, in terms of general interest—certainly not like “Guess What Anthony Weiner’s Been Up To Lately”—but the possibility of winning a large tin of chocolate seemed to do the trick, and their tally sheet was nearly filled by the time we got there.  I guessed 114 people had been hired, but what do I know.  How many gilt-painters are there in the world, anyway?  Bitter?  Of course.  That looked like good chocolate.

Tuesday was clearly the most eventful day of the week, though Friday featured a field trip to Windsor Castle and Runnymede.  Having been to Windsor a couple of times already (sorry to seem jaded), nothing was any different from the last time (see Dispatch #8 from 2007 for a full accounting of the place), except that the Queen did not arrive during our visit but shortly after, giving me reason to wonder if our relationship is all I thought it was.  Tramp.

At any rate, Friday was rainy, rainy, rainy.  It was the kind of day that everyone expects when they come to Britain but no one really wants to experience.  Because of the dreary weather, our trip to Runnymede, site of the signing of the Magna Carta, perhaps the most important document in human history, was cut short.  We did have a quick run up the hill to the site of the JFK memorial and a sprint to the Greek-looking memorial to the Magna Carta, but we were denied the chance to visit the very spot, under an ancient yew tree, where it is speculated that kings first ceded control to the masses, paving the way for, among other things, the United States of America.  The rain was relentless, and the students were as well.  In England, the term for whining is whingeing, and I heard more than a little of that as we marched these ingrates across muddy fields so that they could appreciate something they had no intention of appreciating.  In twenty years, however, it’ll all make sense.

If you look on the Weather Channel UK, you might see, at the top of the screen, a rather vague warning: “Potential Disruption Caused by Rain.”  Take the “Potential” out of that, and you’ve got our bus ride back to Canterbury.  Rather than arriving a little early because the rain had foreshortened our field trip, the disruptive rain caused us to arrive more than two hours later than had been planned.  And, from my perspective, it was not a pleasant journey.  At first, exhausted and wet, the students slept, and I was happy.  Then they awoke, and I was not.  Between conversations that bordered on the insipid (sorry if I seem to have grown intolerant of 19-year-old insights into the world’s problems) and ear-splitting renditions of iPod songs only the singer could hear, I was certain I’d descended into a level of Hell far below any that Dante could have ever imagined.  In the light of day, at arm’s length, these are wonderful kids, the apples of their parents’ collective eye, but at 6:30 p.m., in a hot, stinky bus, with a cold smacking me in the forehead, and my shoes still damp, they became the spawn of Satan, beings whose sole purpose was to torment me, and so they did.  Had the trip lasted much longer, I might have had to face charges.

This week, I have guests from the U.S. coming for a few days.  Pam and John Moore are arriving tomorrow and should they survive my “you have to stay up until 9 p.m.” ordeal will no doubt find this to be as charming and memorable a place as I do.  I’ll report on their visit as well as preview my trip to Cornwall and other exciting events next week.

Thanks for reading. 

p.s.  Lest, Gentle Reader, you find my depiction of the students to be too callous and to ask yourself if I am a suitable shepherd for this flock, please understand that for that section I adopted a favorite persona, The Cranky Man, which allows me to wax hyperbolic and vitriolic for effect.  In truth, the reason I came back to Canterbury was the students and the chance to watch the transformation this kind of experience provides.  That, and the food. 

Weekly Dispatch No. 16: In Which A Former Student Visits; We Tour The Houses of Parliament and The Royal Courts; and I Avoid Certain Death!

 Even though I said at the end of the last dispatch that I expected an uneventful week, I was, as usual, wrong.  While there were no more incidents involving people under trains or unexploded bombs, the days were full and always interesting. 

On Tuesday, a former student from Christchurch, Stuart Morgan, came from his home in Clacton-on-Sea for a short visit. The last time I’d seen him, if my memory is correct, was a couple of summers ago when he and his mother came to Chicago for a vacation, and they came to St. Charles and spent some time with us.  Stuart was a classmate of Doug’s in the class I taught in 2007, and the two have remained close friends, even spending a semester together at Illinois State University.  Stuart received his degree from Christchurch and then went on to do masters’ work at the University of Kent, which is also in Canterbury.  He’s in that place where many people his age find themselves not only here but at home as well: well-educated but under-employed.  Still, he remains optimistic and has a couple of possible avenues for the future, including going back to school to continue his post-graduate work.  In addition to getting caught up on life events, we went out to dinner with Doug and Rich to Wetherspoon’s, Britain’s answer to Applebee’s, and landed in the middle of a birthday celebration for one of the American students from North Central College in Naperville.  After they all—well, after we all—sang “Happy Birthday” quite loudly, we decided to get out before the night got noisier.  The next day, Stuart and I walked up to the University of Kent, which sits on a hill overlooking the city, where he pointed out all of the construction and renovation that has taken place the past five or six years.  Like Christchurch, U of K was also built in the 60s, so there’s an institutional concrete box look to most of the buildings at both schools, but Christchurch is built right next to the ruins of St. Augustine’s Abbey, and there are even sections of stone walls on the campus, which gives it a bit of a connection to the past and counteracts the modern dreariness.

After lunch on Wednesday, Stuart left for a train ride home—he’s hoping to visit the U.S. next fall—and I got ready for the class all of our American students are required to take: Divided By A Common Language.  It used to be called Modern Britain, but this new title and new focus allows for more comparison of our two countries and seems to have engaged the students fully.  The lecturer, Dr. Martin Watts, spent 30 years traveling the globe as a sailor/ship captain, and he sprinkles his lectures with stories—so far all of them are rated PG—from his travels.  By his own admission, he was a lousy student and hated history—“all of those names and dates and places: rubbish. Couldn’t stand it”—until he was out in the world and began to wonder how things got to be where they are.  As a result, his lectures are less names and dates and places and more thematic.  Last week, for example, we talked about the constitutions of the two nations—we have one; they don’t really—and it resulted in a good discussion.  That lecture and the upcoming one, on forms of government, are connected to the field trip we took on Friday to Parliament and the Royal Courts of Justice.  Each field trip, in fact, will have a more academic grounding than they did when I was here before.

The other class I’m involved in is The Invention of America, a thematic survey of American Literature taught by Zalfa Fenghali, who is in her first year at Christchurch and very excited about the class and about being in Canterbury.  On Tuesday, she introduced the course—called a module here—to the 50+ students and then divided them into two seminar groups.  One of those groups met on Thursday with Rich and me to discuss Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s “Letters from an American Farmer,” more specifically his letter entitled “What Is An American?”  After introductions, we asked the students how they would answer that question in this day and age.  Their responses were not unexpected—Rich assured them that neither of us was carrying a gun—but it was a real delight to hear them talk about their impressions and how they had arrived at them.  One of the most interesting observations was that we are both a very publicly religious country and, at the same time, are very permissive.  A few of the students had been to the U.S., but none had been to Chicago or the Midwest.  Florida, New York, Los Angeles and Houston had been their various destinations.  When we shifted from their views of America to those of de Crevecoeur, the discussion was just as lively and the students were just as engaged as they’d been when they were voicing their own opinions.  They even went back into the text and read passage aloud to support their points.  When I taught a Great Books Honors seminar at Elgin, that kind of contribution was expected, but it wasn’t the norm in many literature classes—and it wasn’t that way here in 2007, either—so from a teaching standpoint, this is a real gift, and I’m looking forward to talking with them about The Scarlet Letter this Thursday.  I also very much enjoyed team-teaching, a method that has all but disappeared due to budget constraints but should never have (how many computer classrooms do we need?) because it provides students with two perspectives and a chance to watch how those perspectives can make for a deeper understanding.  Too, Rich is an excellent teacher, which makes the cooperative endeavor even better and a lot of fun.

I know that I’ve probably already over-done the 2007-2013 comparison, but I want to do it one more time.  Six years ago, the field trip to London to the Westminster area was simply a walking tour/photo op for the students.  We saw Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, White Hall, The River Thames, but all just in passing.  This time, the trip focused on two specific places—Parliament and The Royal Courts of Justice—each with a guided tour.  Needless to say, this was a much improved addition to the curriculum, and yet more evidence of how much the study abroad program has evolved.  One element of the field trips that has not changed, however, is getting all of the students to the departure point by the appointed time of departure.  On Friday, two arrived at the last minute—one by car, the other on foot—and their penalty was that they had to sit on the bus with faculty mentors instead of friends because all of the other seats were taken.

The Westminster area of London is the place most visited by tourists, so when we got there, the place was crawling with people.  Our bus driver realized there was no good place to drop us, so he circled around and let us off on The Embankment about a quarter-mile or so from where we wanted to be.  We were given our tickets for admission to The Houses of Parliament and then moved en masse toward Big Ben.  A quick digression: twice in the past 10 years or so, I’ve gone out to Montana with a friend and spent a week moving cattle (think City Slickers without the cute calf), and I was reminded on Friday of those experiences as I tried to herd our group in the right direction.  At times, I’d rather have been going after a stray cow than urging a camera-wielding student to keep going, though I do understand their wanting to stop and take in the whole thing.  The kids, not the cows.

Parliament is housed in what is correctly known as The Palace of Westminster, and it is, for ceremonial purposes, still a royal palace.  Its daily use, however, is housing the House of Commons and the House of Lords, Britain’s bicameral governing bodies.  Before we could get into the building, however, we had to go through a security check just like an airline check without the removal of shoes.  Since I’ve gotten here, I’ve dropped a couple of pounds, so when I took off my belt, I had some concern I would be dropping my trousers as well, but I held on and re-cinched on the other side.  The last visit I had to a House of Parliament was in Scotland, and that time I nearly got arrested for carrying a pocket knife.  This time I left the knife at home, but two of the students were carrying pepper spray (why, I don’t know), and they had to leave that at the entrance with a police officer and were told they could get it later. 

Once we were past the check point, we entered Westminster Hall, a massive building completed in 1097, though often repaired and rebuilt over the years, and huddled there waiting for our tour guide.  Because we were such a large group, we were put into three more manageable packs and assigned a guide.  My group was led by a white-haired fellow named Howard who told us first that, other than in the vast room in which we now stood, we could not take pictures.  Then we set off.  To Howard’s great credit, what he did was not simply lead us from room to room, chamber to chamber, but, instead, created a narrative that tied the whole place together.  His story took place on the day each year when the Queen comes to the Palace of Westminster—the only day she is there during the year—to open the new session of Parliament.  (I eavesdropped on some of the other nearby touring groups and none were given the same kind of story we were treated to.)  We started at the doorway where the queen would enter and then mount the steps to a room--lavishly appointed, as they say, with portraits of monarchy—where the Queen would stop just long enough to put on her crown before she made her way to the House of Lords where she would be seated on a throne, a very gold throne, and deliver the “Speech from the Throne” outlining the year’s goals.  The speech is prepared each year by the Prime Minister and, according to Howard, the Queen doesn’t even see it until it’s handed to her the day she reads it to Parliament.  Prior to her reading the speech, though, she has to invite the MPs (Members of Parliament) in the House of Commons—whom she can see from her throne at the other end of a long corridor—to join the Lords.  This invitation is delivered by a black-clad figure known as the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.  They make their way from their chamber then try to cram into an already crowded room (there are 830 Lords, though many are not attendance, and 650 MPs, most of whom are there) to hear what the Queen has to say. 

One of the two main things that I took away from this tour were that the chambers where issues are argued and laws are enacted are not large, certainly not comfortably large.  In both Houses, the parties or coalitions face each other rather than sitting in a semi-circle, as legislators do in most other countries.  I didn’t get a chance to ask Howard about the story I’d been told that, in the House of Commons, the two sides are two sword lengths apart, meaning they can’t whack each other without some effort, I guess.  Anyway, the Lords sit on red leather benches and the MPs sit on green leather; when asked why the color scheme, Howard just shrugged.  Good enough answer.

The other thing that stuck with me is the amount of pomp and ceremony that accompanies almost everything connected to the government and royalty in this country.  What I described above about the opening of Parliament is a stripped-down version.  The longer version—which you can read online—includes the delivery of a hostage from the House of Commons to Buckingham Palace before the Queen makes her carriage ride to Westminster, apparently and symbolically to ensure her safe return, along with other scripted actions and reactions—the door to the House of Commons is slammed in Black Rod’s face when he tries to enter, for example—all of which have roots sunk deep in the country’s history. 

From Westminster, we made our way along the Thames on what is known as The Embankment, a manmade promenade that reduced and now holds the north bank of the river, until we took a left and went up to The Strand to the Royal Courts.  The walk took about 30 minutes, which meant our ravenous band attacked local sandwich shops like marauding Saxons and gobbled their lunches in the 15 minutes we had before our next tour began.  Some were still chewing when we went inside, through yet another, though less strenuous, security check and then upstairs to Courtroom 13 where we met with our guides, Brian and Pat, former employees in the building who were enhancing their pension years by talking to groups like ours.  Again, we were warned not to take pictures, unless we wanted to visit the dungeon cells in the building’s nether regions.  It was, Brian told us, the only way to see that part of the place.  There were no takers. 

What we learned from Brian and Pat is that the Royal Courts building is where civil suits and criminal appeals are heard.  In the complex, which includes adjoining structures, there are 100 courtrooms, 150 judges and 1000 employees.  Perhaps because they know Americans are celebrity watchers, or perhaps they were a little star-struck themselves, both guides rattled off a list of famous people—Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, Elton John, George Michaels, Boy George—who had appeared in the building, usually connected to libel suits they were bringing against a publication or media outlet.  Pat, almost apologetically, said that when Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones were there she was appalled at Douglas’ appearance.  

“He’s very short,” she said, “very orange, and he’s had a lot of work done.”  She let Zeta-Jones off the hook, explaining that she, like herself, is from Wales and so gets a pass.

During the question-answer period that followed the presentation, one student asked, “Why the wigs?”  This followed the donning of said wigs by three other students to illustrate what happens during a typical day.  Brian’s first answer was, “Because it’s always been done.”  He then went on to offer some other ideas, the most interesting of which is that the wigs—and the flowing, ornate robes—were a kind of disguise so that when a judge left the building, an angry litigant might not recognize him and exact revenge. 

At the end of this field trip, a number of students took advantage of being in London, close to airports, and took off for the weekend.  Three of my group went to Ireland, one headed up to Yorkshire, and the others went on a bus tour of North Wales.  Students from other groups were going to visit Amsterdam, Germany, and France.  Rich was staying in London before heading to Southampton on Saturday to go to a football match (a soccer game, to those of us who believe football requires pads and quick counts), so I stuck around, too, and we went to see The Thirty-Nine Steps, which I’d seen already but still enjoyed, before I took the train back to Canterbury. 

With so many gone and nothing to worry about, I spent a lazy Saturday reading and watching television, doing laundry and otherwise occupying myself with mundane tasks.  Ashamed by my sloth, I decided that on Sunday I would get out and take a proper hike.  I’d called to set up a riding lesson next Tuesday at the stable out on Stodmarsh Road, so I struck out in that direction to see how long it would take me to walk there.  I wasn’t going to go to the stable—it’s about 3 ½ miles from where I live—but I figured I’d go most of the way and get a sense of how much time to allow.  So, at 10 a.m., off I went, up long, steep St. Martin’s Hill, then a left onto Stodmarsh Road, surprised as I went at how much traffic there was on a Sunday morning and how vulnerable I felt on these shoulderless roads; a couple of times, I had to scramble up a bank and hold on to a bush to let cars get past without running into each other.  I went as far as Moat Lane, then turned left there so that I could go through Fordwich, the smallest town in Britain, and then stop at Asda (a Wal-Mart company) to stock up on a few essentials before going home.  Stodmarsh Road was narrow and a bit frightening, but Moat Lane was outright dangerous.  When we’d been there before, Beth and I biked it, and it didn’t seem quite as risky as it did on foot, though given the twistiness of the road and the blind turns and dips, we were probably lucky we didn’t get clipped.  I kept going from one side of the road to the other so that I might be seen.  That worked until a couple of cars passed, and I started to cross to the other side.  A car I did not see coming down the hill and out of the shadows, a car traveling too fast, by my standards, just about ended my British adventure.  I went up on tiptoe and did a kind of wild windmill with my arms, and he hit his brakes before hitting me.  I waved, mouthed “Sorry,” and watched him speed away.  The rest of the walk was much less eventful, but as I came to the end of a tree-lined pathway and crossed an open field, I came upon a group of young men who had just finished a game of American football.  They were all standing around their coaches, pulling off helmets and shoulder pads.  I was told that there were a few teams in the area, so I’m going to look into catching a game.  I was able to watch a bit of the Vikings-Steelers game, and I follow the Bears via play-by-play streaming text, but I miss the game.  Oh well, I’ll be back in time for the playoffs.

That’s about it.  This coming week, I’ll be taking a riding lesson and then later Tuesday evening going to the cathedral for an open house.  We take a field trip to Windsor on Friday where, no doubt, the Queen awaits, so I should have lots to tell you.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

The Weekly Dispatch No. 15: In Which Trains Play A Central Part; An Anniversary Is Celebrated; and A Long Overdue Debt Is Paid
 

 As much as I love Britain’s train system, there are times when things go awry, and, suddenly, you are caught in a web of tracks and tunnels and time tables, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  It happened to us in 2007—especially on weekends, when engineering work is done on both the Underground and National Rail lines—and taught us to check ahead of time before we set out on an adventure.  No amount of planning, however, could have prevented what happened last week.

Monday before last, my Missouri counterpart, Rich, and I went into London so that when his wife comes to visit later this month, he’ll know how to navigate the city.  Because I know my way around passably well, and with the only alternative my tagging along with them—which could really take the romance out of a candlelight dinner—it made sense to head up for some reconnoitering.

Since I was last here, they’ve added a fast train service, which means making it to St. Pancras Station in 56 minutes rather than the hour-and-a-half or more it normally takes.  When we arrived, we went to the Underground where Rich bought an Oyster card, a reloadable pass for city subway and bus travel, and took the Tube to Leicester Square, where cheap tickets to theatrical productions are sold, then wandered through Picadilly Circus, down to the National Mall, (a wide, wide street that leads up to Buckingham Palace), up the Mall to the palace (QEII was not home.  See the 2007 Dispatches for my history with the monarch) where we watched a royal band and horse guards apparently rehearsing for something.  The crowd there was heavy, so we snapped a few over-the-head phone photos and walked through St. James Park to White Hall and across to Westminster, where you can see Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Cathedral, the River Thames and the London Eye, all just by turning your head.  From the walkway along the river, I was able to point in the direction of the things most people want to see that aren’t in Westminster: St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Globe Theatre, The Tate Modern Art Museum, The Tower of London, all of which are along the Thames, but out of sight around a big bend.

Thus endeth the lesson.  Rich felt comfortable and confident, so we went underground again and rode the Picadilly Line to South Kensington, where we had a pub lunch, meandered past luxurious homes and a half-dozen or more embassies in this posh part of the city, then got back on the Tube and made our way easily to St. Pancras to pick up the train to Canterbury.

Here’s where things went awry.  As we made our way to the platform, we noticed that the 14:25 to Canterbury was cancelled.  When we asked an attendant about it, she said that we should get on the train leaving shortly for Ashford and transfer there to a train that would take us the rest of the way.  We did what she advised, but when we got to Ashford, we, and hundreds of other passengers, were told that there were no trains running in the direction of Canterbury or beyond because a bomb had been discovered near the station in Ramsgate, and all train travel was temporarily suspended.  Worried a bit by the meaning of “temporarily,” we nevertheless settled in to wait.

As it turns out, the bomb was not a terrorist device, but a World War II relic that had been buried and lay unexploded, for 70 years.  It was removed and taken to Joss Bay—a place we had visited last week on our trip to Broadstairs—and detonated there.  The whole ordeal caused the station to be closed for five hours, an inconvenience for us, but a more traumatic ordeal for school children who normally would catch a train home.  Buses were dispatched to the various affected locations—including Ashford—to alleviate the back-up.  We made a mad dash along with the rest of the stranded to the bus stop outside the station but, alas, we did not get seats.  By the time we had been herded back to the platform, though, a train was waiting to take us to Canterbury, three hours later than we’d planned.

In addition to the bomb, we were told by a couple of rail employees that there had also been a   derailment elsewhere that had had an impact on our travel; in addition, at Sevenoaks, a person had been hit by a train, and in some other location, “staff sickness” had caused a suspension of service.  After hearing all of that, I mentioned that the only thing missing was an attack by Godzilla.

This was also the week that Beth came over to celebrate our anniversary and this, too, has a railroad connection.  When we made arrangements to meet Friday after she flew in, we decided to rendezvous in Rochester, where I would be visiting the castle and cathedral and nearby fort with students.  We figured she could come to the castle and we’d head back to Canterbury from there.  It seemed like a good idea at the time because we had been in Rochester before and remembered it to be a much smaller city than it actually is.  Once this dawned on me, it was too late to change our plan; Beth was already on a train without a British phone, heading my way, and our chances of finding each other seemed rather remote.  I imagined us as a blindfolded trapeze act: one flying through the air, the other reaching out to grab hold; neither of us aware of where the other one was.   I figured my best bet was to get to the train station and hope I’d catch her there.  I didn’t know where the station was, but I went down High Street and saw trains moving a couple of blocks away.  I asked for directions and found myself at the place.   I had just gotten to the platform, when a train from London pulled in.  To my great delight, Beth stepped off, and all my worries disappeared.  It proved to be a good start to a great visit.

Much of our weekend was spent reliving things we had done together six years ago.  First on the list was going to evensong at the cathedral, which, on Friday nights, features the boys’ choir and the most angelic voices you can imagine soaring up to the ceiling a hundred feet overhead.  We also went charity shop shopping, and I now have, thanks to Beth, a décor in my flat.  Before it was white; now it has accent colors and little pillows and a vase with flowers.  It does, I admit, look a lot better and feels homier.  Eating and having a pint at a couple of favorite pubs, retracing walks where we’d gotten lost (and did again), and just taking in the place occupied most of the weekend. 

One exception to our nostalgia tour was Saturday’s trip to the Canterbury Food and Drink Festival held in Dane John Park, a sprawling green space just inside the city wall.  This was not as large as Chicago’s famous Taste of Chicago, of course, but it drew a pretty large crowd, and everyone seemed to be having fun.  We tried a few local delicacies, including wild boar and apple sausage, sweet potato croquettes and the British equivalent of funnel cake—in terms of novelty, anyway—a French-fried, spiral potato on a skewer.  (A note to organizers: ask people to leave their dogs at home.  I saw more than one hunger-crazed pooch lunge for a carelessly dangled sandwich.)  This was clearly an event for the local citizenry rather than the horde of tourists who take over High Street every weekend, and according to our new friends at The Forge restaurant, piqued a lot of interest in places many Canterbury residents had not yet discovered.

We also saw our favorite busker, a gravel-voiced singer named Vince Herron, outside the cathedral gate on Butter Market Square.  I had come upon him last week and was elated.  In 2007, the day before we left for home, we finally worked up the courage to talk with him and told him how much we had enjoyed listening to him over the previous three months.  He thanked us and sang REM’s “Losing My Religion” for us.  Sadly, we had spent most of our British money—and we were prevented from speaking to him after the song by a well-meaning neighbor who steered us away in both conversation and location—so we weren’t able to thank or tip him appropriately.  When I saw him in his customary place, I told him the story and gave him a tip I told him was six years late.  He had only just returned to singing he told me because a homeless man he’d felt sorry for and had given a place to stay had attacked him with a sword, giving him a nasty head wound and injuring one of his hands.  Then he launched into a song of his own, “At the Gates of Heaven.”  It occurred to me later that Vince essentially spends his days at “the gates of heaven,” sitting as he does just outside the cathedral, and that the attack he had suffered was eerily like that of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was killed by four sword-wielding knights in the cathedral—his death due in large part to a vicious head wound—in 1170.  Thomas was granted sainthood, but I don’t think Vince will be honored the same way, but, given his compassion for his attacker, maybe he should be.

If you want to hear Vince’s song, go to YouTube and type in his name.  It’s worth a listen.

As much as I love this place, it’s even better when Beth is here to share the experience.  The three days went very quickly and, as I write this, Beth is almost back in Chicago where she will, I’m sure, be battling jet lag for a few days.  This weekend abroad idea is way more cosmopolitan they we are, but we agreed that this was our best anniversary to date and will be hard-pressed to top it any time soon. We’ll be enjoying an equally cosmopolitan weekend in Ireland late in October, and then she’ll be back to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Interestingly and thematically enough, as we made our way from the Tube into Heathrow yesterday, there was a hand-lettered sign alerting passengers to a delay because of “a person under a train.”  Mind the gap, people, mind the gap.

 

This week is the first real week of classes for the British students, so I will be put to work, finally.  In addition to leading seminars in conjunction with the American-student-only course on the relationship between Britain and the U.S., “Divided by a Common Language,” I will also be a seminar co-leader, along with Rich, and a one-time lecturer in “The Invention of America,” an American literature class, which will be great fun.  We will also be taking a field trip into London on Friday, so there may be enough to fill my next dispatch with activities, but I also have learned some things about the cathedral that I want to share when there’s room. 

Cheers!

p.s.  Because I'm pretty lousy at doing much on this site except uploading text, I'm posting pictures periodically on Facebook.  If you're not a Facebook friend, you can be!  Just send a request, and I'll add you.