In 1925, A.A. Milne bought Cotchfield Farm outside of the town of Hartfield in East Sussex. Although the farm is now privately owned, there is a public path and we are in need of an “Expotition”.
We arrived in Hartfield by bus from the town of Tunbridge Wells. Hartfield is a tiny village, listed in the Doomsday book of 1086. It is basically one street, with tiny converted cottages and two inns. We stopped at the Anchor Inn (built in the 15thcentury) for a pub lunch (Fisherman’s pie, locally made).
Pope's Cottage
Across from the Anchor Inn was “Pope’s Cottage”, originally built in the 13thcentury. At the end of the main street was a little sweets shop that was frequented by a young Christopher Robin.
Sweets Shop
Our pilgrimage begins at the sweets shop, where we are able to pick up a map to Pooh Bridge. Maps are available in English and in Japanese, as are instructions for how to play “Pooh Sticks”.
Tim stepping over the Stile
Our walk to the bridge takes us 2 miles out of the village, over wooden stiles, through sheep fields, along a public pathway bedecked with raspberry canes. The day is perfect, with billowy clouds against a bright blue sky and just a hint of breeze.
It takes us a leisurely 40 minutes, and as we come toward the bridge we see a beautiful tiny wooden door set in a tree.
A small door in the base of the tree
An inscription has long since worn off, but we can still see, at the top of the door, the engraving: “Mr. Sanders”. (“Winnie-the Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders”)
Mr. Sanders
Beyond is the bridge.
Pooh Bridge
It was restored in 1979, and is solid wood, strong enough for the horse traffic that comes along this path. The sunlight dapples the river, showing a proliferation of small sticks on the downstream side.
Amanda plays Pooh Sticks
We add our small offerings into the pile, racing from one side of the bridge to the other to see them come through.
Back in Hartfield we have tea in the Rose Garden of the sweets shop (called “Pooh Corner” now). A perfect day. Some go to Lourdes. Others go to Pooh Bridge.
“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.” Winnie-the-Pooh
A former student and friend of Tim’s, Trent Reedy, came into town from the States to publicize his book “Words in the Dust”, which has just been published in the UK. Trent was a soldier in Afghanistan. He went into the military to pay for his college education when 9/11 changed his life. His book for young adults came out of his experiences with the children that he met in Afghanistan.
On our way to meet Trent, we walked through the Old Vic Tunnels so that Tim could see where I had gone to see Orpheus and Eurydice.
Old Vic Tunnels
The tunnels led us into a long and wonderful stroll along the Southbank. Saturday on the Southbank is a festival of treats – there were booths selling every kind of food imaginable, living statues, dancers and musicians. A woman was playing an instrument called a “Hang Drum” that looked like a small cliché of a flying saucer and sounded like an unearthly combination of an oil drum and a harp. I couldn’t find a video of the woman we heard, but this clip from YouTube will give you a sense of the potential of the instrument. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xxnFqdBCE&feature=related
We met Trent for dinner at the Thameside Pub, near London Bridge. Other than his tour of duty in Afghanistan, Trent hasn’t been outside of the US, so his trip to the UK was quite an adventure. Trent also loves theatre, so we decided that his arrival in London gave us a perfect excuse to see the stage version of “The Railway Children”. After our pub dinner, we walked back along the Southbank to Waterloo station to see the play.
Tim and Trent Reedy on the Southbank
The Railway Children has been playing in London for a few years and one of the reasons for its success is the setting – the play takes place in the Waterloo train station (a Toronto version takes place in a train roundhouse). It is a part of Waterloo that used to house the Eurostar to Paris. The Eurostar now goes to St. Pancras Station, so a whole section of Waterloo is unused. And if there is one thing I am learning about London it is that NO space is ever left empty.
To get to the “theatre”, you must pass through the former customs and immigration areas. Snack bars are in use as such, so you can get any manner of treats before seeing the play. The bleachers for the audience seats are arranged on either side of the train platforms. The action takes place along the length of the platforms, as well as on sliding stages that come along the train tracks. At one point a full train arrives on the tracks. It is a wonderfully effective staging that easily transports you to a kinder, gentler time.
I had forgotten entirely that I had read the Railway Children, and as each new thing happened I could greet it like an old friend. It is a kind story, with a generosity of spirit. The children are aware that there are adult secrets they cannot to share, things outside of their understanding. They do their best to solve problems, but they are only barely players in their story. They have adventures while the larger adventures of life happen around them.
As an audience member, I was grateful for the respite from the intensity of the outside world. From wars, illnesses and consequences. It was a lovely little holiday of an evening.
Last Wednesday, we decided to have a Tate à Tate – an exploration of the Tate Britain in the morning and the Tate Modern in the afternoon. The Tate Britain was listing a show on “The Romantics”, which ended up as mostly a show on Turner. It was wonderful to see so many Turners, and to see the evolution of his style, but it was a bit disappointing not to see some of the others of the period. After a little pub lunch down the road we decided to go back to the gallery in hunt of Pre-Raphaelites. We were rewarded with a few of our most favourite pieces (some with a definite flair for the “Elegant Gothic Lolita” — see Camden Town!) – Millais’ Mariana and his Ophelia, Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott, Brune-Jones’ The Golden Stairs (looking for all the world like the angels out for a union break), and the magnificent Singer Sargent portrait of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, which is enormous and vigourous. It is larger than life and full of passion, as she was.
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
After we had feasted on those paintings, we hopped onto a river ferry to take us to the Tate Modern. The Tate runs a ferry between the two galleries and it really is the most wonderful way to journey down the river, past the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Globe. The city was built on the Thames, and being on the river connects you to centuries of commerce and trade.
Tim on the Thames with the Houses of Parliament
When Tim & I go to galleries, we split up and agree to meet later. We both have different things we are interested in, and this way we have things to share when we meet up — “Did you see the … ?!” is usually how it starts.
“Did you see the Sunflower Seeds?” said Tim. “Did you see the Staircase?” I countered.
“Sunflower Seeds” by Al Weiwei is a huge pile of what seem to be millions of sunflower seeds on the floor of the gallery. However, each seed is hand-made of porcelain, combining the idea of mass production (so deeply associated with China) and individual craftsmanship. Sunflower seeds are a common snack in China, but carry associations with the Cultural Revolution, when propaganda posters depicted Chairman Mao as the sun and the masses of people as sunflowers turning towards him. Weiwei also remembers sharing sunflower seeds as a gesture of compassion in a time of extreme poverty. “Your own acts and behaviour tell the world who you are and at the same time what kind of society you think it should be” Ai Weiwei
“Staircase – III”, by Do Ho Suh, is a polyester and wire installation that takes over a whole room. A perfectly made fabric staircase hangs in the centre of the room, complete with balustrade, electrical sockets and light fixtures. It hangs from a transparent fabric “floor” above, through which the balustrade can be seen. The staircase hovers tantalizingly above your head, opening out to a door in the middle of the air.
Staircase III by Do Ho Suh
Great discoveries.
We left as the gallery closed at 6:00. It was a lovely afternoon and we walked from the Southbank to Trafalgar Square, heading to the Crypt at St. Martin’s in the Fields. The Crypt has a cafeteria-style restaurant, with good wine, delicious tapas, a great vegetarian mushroom ragout, and Jazz every Wednesday night. This really is an 18th century crypt – the floor is made of gravestones and the beautiful brick arches make for fabulous acoustics for the band. Shanti Paul Jayasinha is a mellow trumpeter, playing original music in an Afro-Cuban and Brazilian style,
and his band suited this intimate venue perfectly. It was one of those nights when I could hear all of the layers in the music. Simple, clean and elegant. A perfect ending to a day of visual feasting.
The weather was very blustery on Tuesday when Maddy suggested a picnic lunch. But we are hearty Canadians, and we gamely headed out to Victoria Park, near Chisenhale Dance Studios, where Maddy was working for the day.
Maddy has one of those great picnic backpacks with a full set of glasses, plates, cutlery, napkins, picnic blanket – it is one of those things that makes you wish you went on more picnics. For our lunch she made a wonderful Thai Noodle Salad, and we brought a mixture of olives and marinated vegetables. With a flourish, she pulled a bottle of chilled Cave (sparkling wine) out from the thermal section of the backpack. This is a girl who knows how to picnic!
Given the weather, it was not surprising that the park was practically deserted. Aside from a rather nosey squirrel and a Magpie (neither of whom liked olive pits, which is all we were sharing), we had the place to ourselves. It was a wonderful lunch, topped off with delicious coffee from a silver thermos. The weather may not have been inspiring, but the mood was perfect.
Maddy needed to work for the afternoon, but she directed us to Camden Town in search of a backpack for Tim. Built around canal trade 200 years ago, Camden Town today is a warren of shops – eccentric, extreme and surprising.
Part of the area is built on an old stable, used for housing the horses that pulled the barges. Hence the wonderful large bronze sculptures of horses everywhere as a nod to the history of the area.
Amanda with a bronze work horse of Camden Town, shod by a bronze blacksmith
Tourist shops are mixed in with craft stores, “head” shops, vintage and designer clothes. Camden Town is famous for its clothing and accessories and is known for alternative fashion: Burlesque, Goth, Fetish, 50’s Rockability/Psycobilly, Punk, Cyber/Clubwear, Elegant Gothic Lolita (I am not making this up!), DYI/Cartoon, Hippy/Ethnic. It was hard to know where to start!
After much walking and exploring we found just the right kind of backpack for Tim. I may just have to go back for some of those fetish leggings…
I could easily become paralyzed by the weight of possibilities on any given day. And easily end up in the poor house by trying to see all of the shows I’d like to see.
Because I have time in London I want to get out and explore what is being done in the smaller venues. But when Tim & Jan & I decided on Thursday that we wanted to see something on Friday almost everything was sold out – which is incredibly encouraging and exciting. While the West End theatres are full of tourists, the smaller venues are filled with a lively theatre going public of Londoners. For as long as there has been a London, people have gone to theatre, and they always will.
After a fair amount of searching, we managed to get tickets to a play at the Southwark Theatre. We chose it partly because Jan wanted to visit nearby Southwark Cathedral, where Shakespeare’s brother is buried (“What? A brother? Who knew?!”).
Jan outside of Southwark Cathedral. It is very large!
The Cathedral is beside the train tracks at the London Bridge station. A sacred site since the 7th century, it is reputed to be where Shakespeare and Chaucer worshipped. In the 17th century, the Archbishop was asked to be on the committee that wrote the King James Bible. In those days the church ministered to the actors, foreign craftsmen, merchants, “ladies of the Bankside Brothels” and the disreputable sorts who lived on the south bank. So it is a church with a very diverse and impressive history.
Outside the cathedral we came upon a memorial for Mahomet Weyonomon, a Sachem (chief) of the Mohegan tribes of Connecticut. The Mohegan tribes had helped the settlers in their first winter in the New World and became allies of the English. In 1705, the Mohegans were deeded their land by an order in Parliament, but New World settlers took over the Mohegan land. Mahomet, an educated man who spoke and wrote several languages including English and Latin, sailed to London in 1735 to petition King George II to return the lands. While awaiting an audience with the King, he contracted smallpox and died.
Because foreigners could not be buried in the City, his body was carried across the river and he was buried near the present day Southwark Cathedral. The memorial in his honour was erected at the request of the Mohegan tribe in 2006, and was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II “symbolically granting Mahomet the audience he never received.”
A fascinating bit of history connecting the old world with the new world and with the even older world.
Mahomet’s memorial looks over the Borough Market beneath the railway viaducts, between the Thames and Borough High Street. We looked down from where we were standing and saw a great outdoor BBQ under the arches, where we could get heaping bowls of paella (not as good as Tim’s but with enormous King Prawns).
BBQ under the viaducts of London Bridge
There are surprises around every corner. One minute you are reading a plaque about a first nations chieftain, the next you are eating paella. Walk a few blocks, and you are at the Southwark Playhouse.
The Southwark consists of two small theatres, carved out of the space under the brick arches of the London Bridge train tracks. We entered through a narrow alleyway to find a cave-like theatre lobby, where an incredibly age-diverse range of people were getting drinks and lining up for the plays. Two plays were on: “Parade” (Jason Robert Brown’s musical) and “The Belle’s Stratagem”, a comedy of manners play by Hannah Cowley that first premiered in 1780. Apparently this is the first production since 1880, and it is fabulously fun. Not to be confused with George Farquhar’s “The Beaux’ Stratagem” (The Haymarket Theatre, 1707), “The Belle’s Stratagem” is a fantastic re-discovery.
With virtually no set other than some background curtains to decorate the vitally important entrance and exit doors, the 16 actors rely on wit and timing to charm us. Clothed in period costume, they occasionally burst out into Restoration style renditions of Spice Girls (“Tell me what you want, what you really, really want” scans perfectly if you pronounce every syllable.) The play is wildly funny and bawdy and works perfectly in this venue, where every London reference seems to touch the bricks walls and archways that form the backdrop to the action. It is one of the treats of being here that we can make discoveries like this.
After the show we bid a fond farewell to Jan, with hopes that she will join us again later in the year.
The next day I headed off to see another site-specific show, this time in the Old Vic Tunnels. The tunnels have a theatre space under the brick archways of the train tracks under Waterloo station. The play that I have come to see is “Orpheus and Eurydice”, a production of the National Youth Theatre.
I am particularly interested in the work that the NYT is doing. Young people (approximately 18 – 21 years old) come from all over the country to audition to be cast in NYT productions. The show I am seeing is the result of students spending a summer in the National Youth Theatre Company. Written especially for the company, the students work with a professional director, composer, designers, choreographers etc.
This production of “Orpheus and Eurydice” is a modern opera re-telling the Greek myth. The dark tunnel setting perfectly creates the underworld where Eurydice struggles to hang onto life and to her belief that Orpheus will come to rescue her.
We entered the theatre space through misted tunnels, past gurneys with bodies hooked up to medical equipment. We negotiated scary looking guards – large men with tattoos, masks and clubs – and walked over a “river” under the floor boards. The world was dark and dank. Watching Orpheus and Eurydice facing various demons, memories and challenges and it became clear that the starting point for this modern version is an organ transplant that is going very wrong.
This was bold and gutsy piece, in a raw, dirty space. Hearing, and feeling, the trains rumbling above our heads added to the strength of the production. This is not clean and antiseptic theatre.
So in my first week of seeing plays in London I have gone from the lavish, historic theatricality of the Haymarket Theatre, to the graffiti encrusted walls of the Old Vic tunnels. I am definitely not in Kansas any more.
Because of our idyll in France, I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the cultural scene in London, so when our friend Jan Irwin arrived I was relying on her to choose some events that we could do together. Jan has been a wonderful mentor to me, and to most of the theatre community in Ottawa. Having her here was a great excuse for seeing a lot of theatre and exploring new parts of London.
Jan and I arranged to meet at noon on Thursday, in Trafalgar Square. On Wednesday, I decided to pop into the National Gallery. Because the galleries are free, you can just go in and out whenever you want. It is incredibly liberating. I visited the van Goghs, some lovely Manets and Monets, and a wonderful show on Norwegian and Swiss painters of the 19th century called Rocks and Forests. Sort of an equivalent response to environment as the Group of Seven.
When I came out of the gallery, I sat for a moment in the sunshine on the steps of St. Martins in the Fields. Staring out into the mass of humanity coming out of Trafalgar Square who did I see but Jan, a day early. In a city of 8 million (with probably another million tourists on any given day), the chances of running into someone seems slight, but there she was, and there I was. We went down into the Crypt of St. Martin’s, where there is a very reasonably priced café. Calm amid the intensity of central London. A quick visit to catch up and solidify our plans for the next day.
When we met as scheduled on Thursday, Jan was fighting a cold, so we decided to go to an Andalusian restaurant for lunch, where an inexpensive set 3-course lunch included a yummy garlic soup, guaranteed to fight germs. Our first show of the day was at just around the corner at The Theatre Royal Haymarket.
The Hay Market Theatre was originally built in 1720 and a theatre of many firsts – the first acting school (1741); first productions of Sheridan, Fielding, Oscar Wilde, Ibsen; and it’s a theatre that has been played in by every great English actor. Gielgud actually lived there, in the dressing room, for weeks on end during the blitz.
We’ve come to see the great Ralph Fiennes as Prospero in the Tempest. And he was brilliant. You feel that he was born speaking Shakespeare. Every word made sense and was entirely natural. He was not trying to “do” anything. The closing monologue was one of the most honest moments I have witnessed on stage.
Would that I could say the same for the rest of the production. There were a dozen different fairies/spirits that were heavy and earth bound, amateurish in their dances and awkward in their flying gear. Sent off by Prospero to “Go make thyself like a nymph o’ the sea”, Ariel returns, split into 3 different, chunky nymphs all dressed in diaphanous gowns that made them look more like heavy opera singers than nymphs. That they sang like castrati verified the image. Caliban was quite wonderful – a tortured slave, who has not yet learned civility but who, through the grace of being pardoned at the end, has come a longer road than anyone else in the journey.
All in all, some great acting, some inconsistent directorial decisions (how is it that Sebastian and Trinculo don’t hear the music that accompanies their song, but suddenly hear the music of the island, the music that accompanies the spirits songs?), some great lighting effects (terrific projections) and a lot to talk about over dinner.
Our evening show took us into a whole new area of London, down on the Thames past Tower Bridge to the quiet oasis of St. Katherine’s Docks.
These docks have been in use since 1125 AD. Bombed during the war, too small to now be a commercial port, St. Katherine’s Docks are now filled with luxurious yachts moored beside the walkways. The previous day, I had found a fabulous little Italian restaurant right on the water, so Jan and I arranged to meet Tim there for dinner before the show. We had one of those fast marvelous Italian dinners (with the most exquisite bread with olives in it) overlooking the locks and the Thames beyond.
Tim & Jan at St. Katherine's Docks
Two Towers. Ten Years. Twenty plays. For Headlong Theatre’s “Legacy”, director Robert Goold commissioned a group of writers to write short plays in response to the legacy of 9/11. There has been a lot of discussion here about the artistic responses to 9/11, and as such, a lot of controversy. Some people argue that fictional or artistic responses somehow lesson the importance of the tragedy. Some argue that not enough time has passed for artistic response. Some argue that Americans own the story and that Goold is an outsider.
The show is in a former trading hall in an office building called Commodity Quay. We were led from the street through a metal detector and series of uniformed security personnel before we arrived at “Windows on the World” – an amazing re-creation of the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Centre north tower. From the menus on the tables to the view of Manhattan beyond, we were immersed in this iconic moment in time.
The plays were fused together seamlessly. They took place around us, beside us, in front of us as we sat nursing drinks in the restaurant. The actors performed in a glassed corridor above us, sat at tables, stood on tables, and moved among us. Transcripts from official speeches were interwoven with fictionalized plays – an imagined annual meeting of widows, movement pieces of flight attendants and firemen, a poor Arab shopkeeper who is suddenly the victim of hate crimes. Powerful, iconic images. Looking up. Running. Dust everywhere. Lives forever changed. The location was part of the story, and we were a part of the discussion.
9/11 will always be the subject of many viewpoints and no answers. I found “Legacy” respectful and honest and a very good way to focus on the people and on the city of New York, devoid of ideologies.
It was a great day of theatre, and wonderful moment to be in London. Tim & Jan & I enjoyed being with each other so much, we decided to spend the next night seeing a play together. Whatever we could get tickets to. Which, in this city of theatre, proved harder than expected…
On Thursday, we went to watch a Tempered Body Dance Theatre rehearsal. The company was rehearsing in a studio at the Chisenhale Dance Space, in East London, where our daughter Maddy is artist in residence. As we approached the converted warehouse we heard two people standing out on the third floor fire escape, rehearsing a Shakespearean scene. Clearly we were in the right part of town.
Tempered Body Dance Theatre is getting ready for their most ambitious show yet. “Body of Work” is a full-length piece that explores our complex relationship to our bodies, “the global epidemic of body unease”. On the day that we arrive, Maddy is putting the finishing touches onto one of the last sections of the piece. She explains that it is a technical, not a creative rehearsal. Which is why it is alright for us to watch.
There are 5 dancers in the piece, all of very different body types and energies. They are working through a complex part that involves a fluctuation between syncopated rhythms and tight unison precision. I love watching a dancer’s concentration. They use a shorthand of sounds to describe movements. A dancer listens and watches the choreographer’s direction and puts it into their body as they hear/see the movement. Weight shifts, muscle movements and small breath changes reflect their inner kinetic world, as they process the information.
Dancers are always working. Like an actor in a corner going over lines, they are always marking through passages to get the piece into their body memory. When they take a coffee break, they keep stretching and stay focused.
I find myself wishing that I could bring acting students into this room. It is all about the work. The concentration is thick. The honesty unhindered.
There was a marvelous moment after they had been working on a number of small bits. Maddy said she wanted to try the whole section, and did everyone remember it? There was a deep, concentrated silence for almost a full 2 minutes. Each dancer went through the passage in place, small gestures, spine lifts and falls, no one saying a word and then they all simultaneously looked up and were ready to go. They danced the section full out, to music. The emotions opened. We cried.
After the rehearsal, and a good post mortem over coffee, we head out for curry in Brick Lane. A lovely late afternoon meal, we stuffed ourselves with flavours and smells and watched the Brick Lane world go by. Dance is art, food is art.
One of the purposes of this trip is to allow ourselves to be surprised. While we were at Chisenhale, we found a flyer for “The Proms”. “The Proms” is the World’s largest classical music festival, with 74 nights of performances in Royal Albert Hall, as well as performances in the parks, events, lectures and activities. Tim looked at that evening’s schedule. Prom 72 was an evening of Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. Favourite pieces, played by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit. We called for tickets and got 2 that were just turned in. It was a sold-out evening.
Royal Albert Hall is huge and gorgeous. And filled with thousands of people. I felt overwhelmed by the fact that all of these people were here to see the symphony not because it was good for them, but because they love it. And they come night after night. This is a crowd of young and old, wealthy bankers and poor students. Aside from the thousands in the stalls and boxes, there are hundreds of people who pay the low rate of £5 for standing room. However, I am grateful for the great seats we have, as I am sure I wouldn’t see a thing in that press of people in front of the stage. And seeing is as important as hearing. The fabulous horn section, the 6 percussionists! But the violin soloist for the Tchaikovsky was the star of the night.
Janine Jansen is a gorgeous, tall woman who plays with a fire that focused the hearts of the thousands in Royal Albert Hall that night. Never in my life have I enjoyed orchestral music this much. The piece was originally deemed unplayable. Written by Tchaikovsky for his male lover at a time when this was definitely not acceptable, the concerto is filled with a mixture of pain, desire and joy. Janine Jansen seemed possessed by the spirit of Tchaikovsky and channeled passion through her body and into the violin. She and the music were physically one and the same. It was miraculous.
The British Library is a beautiful modern building, an oasis in the city. The minute I turned the corner into the courtyard, the decibel level dropped. I went immediately into the Sir John Ritblat Gallery to look at the permanent collection. It has been a while since I have had time to gaze lovingly at manuscripts. Another lifetime ago. I stared at pen strokes, brush strokes and tiny lines of decorations, and noticed that my hand was tracing the lines in the air. Books of Hours, with their gorgeous illuminations and flat quadrata feet. They mesmerize me, because they require so much pen manipulation. The Codex Sinaiticus, with its exquisitie and pure of Greek letters, written in the 4th century. Lettering that reflects purity of thought.
I came around a corner and was suddenly face to face with The Lindesfarne Gospels, one of the most important manuscripts ever created and one that I spent a great deal of time studying in my former life. It was like coming across an old friend in London.
The Lindesfarne Gospels. An old friend
I spent a good long time visiting. We had a lot of catching up to do.
After a reflective and solitary cup of tea, I went perusing. There were a couple of fabulous special exhibits. One was the Library’s holdings of manuscripts by the writer and artist, Mervyn Peake. Anyone who has read the Gormanghast Trilogy knows that it is filled with elaborate, eccentric characters. It is Gothic and weird and wonderful. Peake was a visual artist as well as a writer, and his manuscripts are filled with sketches of characters and settings for the books.
Peake's Gormenghast characters
Peake served in the Second World War. He was one of the first to go into the liberated concentration camp at Belsen, and he was tremendously affected by the experience. He wrote a poem called, “That Last Weak Cough”, and later, when the poem was published with his illustrations, he wrote about the importance of art to humanity.
“… (art) matters fundamentally … if man matters, then the highest flights of his mind and imagination matter. His wonder, his vitality matters. It gives the lie to the nihilists who cry “Woe” in the streets. For art is the voice of man, naked, militant and unashamed.” Mervyn Peake 1949
It never ceases to amaze me that if I open myself to ideas and experiences I find something that speaks to the questions I am asking. The combination of the Peake exhibit and the Manuscripts helped to remind me that every age, every generation, has a voice. Just because I am not “current” doesn’t mean I don’t have a perspective that is meaningful.
And then Peake spoke to me about nonsense:
“Nonsense can be gentle or riotous. It can clank like stones in the empty buckets of fatuity. It can take you by the hand and lead you nowhere. It’s magic – for to explain it, were that possible, would be to kill it. It swims, plunges, cavorts, and rises in its own element. It’s a favourable fowl. For non – sense is not the opposite of good sense. That would be “Bad Sense”. It’s something quite apart – and isn’t the opposite of anything. It’s far more rare.” Mervyn Peake.
So this is my watchword for the next little while, as I negotiate London. To plunge and cavort with a bit of nonsense, remembering that nonsense isn’t just silliness. It can be just as poignant and nostalgic and emotional as any meaningful artistic response.
On our second to last night in France, Suzanne and Christian invited us over for dinner and I asked if I could make the dessert. I wanted to make a Tarte aux Mourres. Picking blackberries brings out an almost religious feeling in me. The deep purple, sun-warmed berries, bloated with juice, line all of the road verges. Such beauty. I love picking them with the sun at my back, hearing, just on the other side of the verge, the gentle snorting and snuffling of a large Charolaise cow.
However, there is a bit of treachery there. A bit of pain is part of the process. The thorns are sharp, and the roadsides are plagued with stinging nettles. These seem to thrive right beside the best berries. Tim says the experience is an important moral lesson –in order to receive this extraordinary gift, you will have to undergo a bit of pain. But it will be worth it in the end. And it is. We are just at the end of the blackberry season now, but Tim and I were still able to pick over a quart of blackberries.
To make the tarte, I approximated a recipe from memory that leaves most of the fruit uncooked – it is a great pie if you want your fruit to still taste really fresh. The recipe I have included works for any fresh fruit.
The meal at Suzanne & Christian’s was a true French feast – an extraordinary 5-course, 5-bottle meal. We began with some true Champagne, lovely tiny bubbles that whetted our appetites as we nibbled a local pastry and tiny tomatoes from Suzanne’s garden. Next was “Vin des Fossiles” from Saone-et-Loire. It is made from a grape I have never heard of – Auxerrois – and was crisp and light and lovely with our tomato tarte appetizer. The François Pinte Aloxe-Corton was a gorgeous and rich Pinot to go with our thin Entrecot steaks. We fried these on a griddle at the table, with some shallots. Suzanne made a beautiful dish of aubergines, potatoes, tomatoes and Parmesan cheese. The whole mixture brought out the pepper taste of the Pinot. For the cheese course, Bryan chose a special wine from his part of Christian’s wine cellar – a Givry Premiere Cru 2000. The way that this wine went with the cheese course is impossible for me to describe. The cheeses themselves were correctly eaten in an order – the soft Brie, followed by the dry chèvre and completed with the creamy St. Agur blue. My Tarte aux Mourres was about 3” high, solid with the blackberries that we had picked that morning. A great success, it went perfectly with the Cremant de Bourgogne, 2008, Veuve Ambal.
Christian admits that they don’t eat in this true French fashion very often! We felt very spoiled.
The next morning I had one final class with Suzanne. I am deeply grateful for the friendship that Suzanne and Christian have shown me. After the class they offered me an aperitif, a Vin Doux Naturel. It is a Vallée du Rhône Grenache that is 16% proof, a slightly sweet, thick wine, served chilled. Not sweet and viscous like an ice wine, but very smooth and very earthy. They gave me olives and dried pork from the same region as the wine to taste as well. Just a little nibble to share before I left. I don’t think I have advanced much with my French, but there are so many wonderful things I have learned!
Christian and Suzanne and our aperitif
It was a day of lasts. I walked up the hill past the chickens, past Claudette and Robert’s to a last lunch on the patio. Bryan’s special Frissé salad. It is a simple, filling country salad of Frissé lettuce, Lardons (bits of pork), Comte cheese, and topped with a fried egg. Bryan keeps a big jar of home made salad dressing in the cupboard to pour generously over the top of anything and everything. Of course you sop up all of the salad dressing with fresh baguette, and wash it all down with local Sauvignon Blanc. How can we possibly leave this heaven?
But we do, on an early morning TGV (Tran Grand Vitesse), from Le Cruesot to Lille, Lille to London. Our gorgeous Maddy is at St. Pancras station to meet us, to guide us and help heft suitcases to Surbiton, Bryan and Peta’s wonderful London home. With loving family around, we get down to the business of making the transition to a new phase of the adventure.
Jo, Peta, Tim & Maddy in the garden at Tolworth
Starting, of course, with a large, welcoming, meal.
Suzanne has been very patient with me. Since our return from Switzerland, I have been walking down the hill to her house in the mornings, to try and grapple with passé compose, impératif, et futur.
The Road to Suzanne's. The biggest predator for the chickens is the occasional car
Because I did not have English grammar drilled into me at school, French has always been a nightmare. My great frustration is that I have no subtlety. No kindness. « Would you mind looking over my homework » becomes “Look at my homework”, which is abrasive of course. So we work on:« Est-ce que tu pourrais regarder mon devoirs ? » and I vow to try and remember (je me souviens) the verb pouvoir in its many forms. To find a kinder, gentler approach.
Suzanne has been giving me exercises from books for children. I know that her grandson Baptiste finds this hilarious. Baptiste is 7, with a lovely toothless grin. He tells me that he gets about 2 Euros for each tooth from la Petite Souris (the equivalent of the tooth fairy). On Monday he gave me a recipe for chocolate cookies. Not sure why, but perhaps he wanted me to improve upon the brownies I had made for the family (see « Une opération bilingue »). The recipe was from a children’s magazine, similar to “Highlight Magazine” in the US, with fun drawings of child chefs carrying mounds of chocolate, and smashing it with a hammer.
The gauntlet is thrown, and I decide to make a batch of cookies before heading over. This means I begin my day clattering around in the kitchen at 8:00 a.m. Measurements for recipes in the UK and Europe are all in weights. Unfortunately, there is not a set of kitchen scales here, and, being used to volume measurements, my approximations are pretty wonky. As I start to melt the butter, I can’t believe how good it smells. It is local, of course, and fills the kitchen with an irresistible, sweet, warmth. And the eggs! The yolks are orange.
I chop up the hunks of chocolate (I’ve been told that no one here uses chocolate chips, and I can see why – chocolate chunks are so much better!) The recipe is dead simple and scrumptious. I’ve included an English translation for “Baptiste’s Chocolate Chunk Cookies”, but you’ll have to figure out the weight measurements if that is the way you cook. That’s a translation I can’t do.
The lesson with Suzanne goes well, perhaps because of the cookies which are much appreciated by Baptiste and his sister. We get into a conversation about school lunches and Suzanne tells me that schools in France have cafeterias so that children can have a proper, 3-course lunch. She bemoans the fact that lunch is only an hour long for the children. Not nearly a long enough lunch for a Frenchman! When I try to explain that Canadian children have about 25 minutes, sitting at their desks, to eat whatever they have brought from home, she is justifiably appalled. She tells me that when she was at school, they regularly had 5-course lunches. And that for holiday lunches she was given Crémant! (Champagne). Have I mentioned that this is a civilized country?
On my way back from Suzanne’s Claudette stops me to give me 4 lovely courgettes. Claudette always greets me with a smile that melts my heart. I tell her that the lettuce that she gave me the day before (she calls it “salade”) became a wonderful Nicoise salad, and she and Robert are excited that I am able to rhyme off the ingredients in French. Les olives, les haricots verts, le thon, les pommes de terre, les tomates. That, at least, is easy from years of reading bilingual labels in Canada.
We manage a conversation about gardens, and I try to explain how my garden has very little earth, mostly rock, but that I live in a beautiful wood. She has barbed wire around her garden to protect it from les vaches. I try to explain the problem of deer, for which I have no word, and she teaches me “le cerf” et “la biche”. She speaks beautifully, explains how hard the garden and farm work is, how large the house is with just the two of them in it now. But as we look over the fields beyond, and breathe in the deep quiet of the countryside, we both know that we are standing in a privileged place. She asks if I will be back again and all I can say is j’espère. I hope.
Robert, Claudette and Albertino (from Portugal, he helps on the farm)
Stepping off the Treadmill 