Another week in London

I see it is more than a week since I last posted. Some computer problems, a vision problem on the day I cried so hard finishing Stoner, days out, and lots of knitting have added up to my staying away from the computer for hours on end. Lord knows what I would do if I were even moderately technologically savvy. I can barely figure out how to use my mobile phone — which I have owned for less than a year and still have not used up the £50 of calls I paid for — and nearly all of the calls were made by visiting relations who needed a phone that worked on European networks. I have never addressed the possibility of texting. I know where my i-pod is, but I'm not sure I remember how to use it. Now there are i-phones in the future when their contracts become competitive in London next year. And perhaps I will have to learn to Twitter.

This morning I learned that my son-in-law's "team" is responsible for hooking Twitter into Bing — and thereby beating Google to the finish line. Megan, Bibs, and Bobs have been missing Daddy a lot in the last few weeks. It's nice to have a spouse who is around, but then again it's nice having a spouse with a job. I learned that lesson. When Megan and Susan were very young, Bob was an academic with flexible time or an unemployed academic with oodles of time.  Except for the no money and no health insurance, motherhood was easier, especially since we had no family help to rely on. Then when the Big Life Change came, Bob's forced career in finance and our forced move to New Jersey, the biggest change was weekday single parenting since Bob left at 6:00 a.m. and only rarely was home before 10:00 p.m. There was one night he was so tired, he didn't wake up until the train was down the line in Princeton. He had to wait for another train to take him back to New Brunswick, and by then it was midnight, and he was too exhausted to walk the mile home. I left the kids sleeping to pick him up in the car. I remember balancing driving fast to get there sooner with driving slow to make sure I didn't get caught in the sin. Murphy's Law did not kick in so maybe there is a God. There weren't even any "big bucks" in that crummy job — although we did have health insurance.

Tuesday morning I woke up cozy in bed — we finally got the radiators bled and the heat working on Sunday — and knew that I simply had to finish Stoner. The book had been languishing for almost a week, and I only had 70 or so pages left. What can you say about a book that is profoundly beautiful, but so depressingly sad, that at one point, vacuuming seemed a positive alternative to discovering what additional terrible afflictions Professor Stoner would face as his life played out to its end. After copiously weeping through the final 70 pages, my eyes were so red and swollen, I decided not to even try plunking myself at the computer for an additional dose of eyestrain. Leaving out eyestrainers like knitting, sewing, reading,  TV and daily puzzles, there was no option but cleaning the TV/sewing/computer room, especially since bleeding the radiators had required moving the many, many bags filled with unfinished or not-yet-begun knitting and sewing projects from the little niches and corners they had been stashed and hidden. Oh my, how have I gotten myself so knee deep in beautiful things that all require time and organisation to begin and to finish. I didn't have the heart to even look at the quilting projects. The knitting projects were enough to dishearten. Usually abandoned projects are ones with problems or have in some way generated visceral loathing — the so-called frogs — so it almost is worse that I like nearly all my projects; I have no easy recourse in the trash bin. Then there is the collection of beautiful yarns, some very old, some very new, waiting with a specific patterns in mind. Oh the lists we could make. I nearly did add one to the sidebar here. And of course the knitting website Ravelry can be nothing but lists that will shout their presence with a mere log-in.

Most of the unfinished knitting projects of course predate the grandchildren who are facing a cold New England winter unready for the assault of snow and ice and cold wind — or so Megan has been guilting me into believing! There isn't even a legacy collection for the under threes in the matter of cold weather clothing, since Megan's first three years were spent in the warmth of San Diego where a light quilted jacket sufficed in winter. I did love knitting for the girls, but when we were back East, I sometimes did feel pressured to keep up with the warm hats, mittens, and sweaters because I never felt the store-bought versions — rarely ever made with wool — were really warm enough. Nowadays there are so many more lovely washable wools and wool blends too. I finished and sent off to Bibs a ballerina wrap sweater with matching hat and socks.
My model here is Alice Vanderbear.

I am now working on a cardigan and hat for Bobs, both of which are almost finished because I spent much of yesterday watching the first six episodes of Dexter.  US shows come here in dribs on our Sky (Murdoch, boo hiss) digital service, often on strange channels and at odd times.  Except for the hyped hits — Lost or Desperate Housewives or Mad Men — we've rarely even heard of most of the shows that turn up. When I do hear of a show that might be interesting I order it from Love Film/Netflix which is how I ended up with 6 episodes of Dexter. What a strange plot premise, yet how compelling the story line. Who needs capital punishment when an avenging sociopath is on the case. I'm afraid our postal strike may prevent the next set of DVDs from arriving so Bobs's sweater may have to await a suitable viewing opportunity.

On Saturday we enjoyed a day of recreational walking. One of the great joys of England is the national love of walking — not hiking as it is called in the States — just simply walking. The opportunities for walking are endless: long distance paths, circular routes, pub walks, walking guides, ordinance survey maps, walking festivals, magazines, newspaper features. When we moved here, I thought we would participate in this national obsession because I have always liked walking, but we soon discovered that the English see a decent walk as eight to ten miles, a bit too much for us wussy Americans to take in a day. Eventually I found the series of guides for wimps, Short Walks in......., but somehow we seemed to always find ourselves in a muddy field wondering which was the correct hedgerow to follow and whether the lack of a stile, clearly described in the directions, meant we were in the wrong muddy field to begin with. You know those spousal arguments in cars over which way to turn according to the map? They can be carried out in muddy fields too. So the walking holidays diminished although never disappeared.

Last spring, an e-mail announcement came from The Ramblers, the UK's huge walking club/lobby/ organisation, on their Get Walking Keep Walking health initiative which was sponsoring a weekend of walks in London. So Bob and I did an enjoyable short walk in East London's Hackney, London Fields, and Victoria Park, an area we are not very familiar with. When I told Susan about our walk, she suggested we celebrate Father's Day in June with another healthy walk. She suggested we walk from London Bridge to Greenwich which is six miles along the Thames Path! Bob and I gulped, but we were not going to wimp out! We had a gorgeous day and a glorious walk that included all sorts of interesting sights —and by the time we were finally back home about one step away from collapse. The next day we felt surprisingly invigorated, and decided we should exhaust ourselves more often.

I pulled out some old guides and remembered a walk I had read about years ago that had sounded intriguing. The Capital Ring is a 78 mile route that circles outer London connecting up parks and other green spaces, divided into 15 segments that each begin and end at a Tube or train station. Each segment is about 5 miles. So the next weekend we embarked on our first Capital Ring walk. I can't remember why I decided to start with Walk 4 at Crystal Palace, probably because I had never been there. The Crystal Palace of 1851, designed by Joseph Paxton for the international exposition in Hyde Park, was moved to this out of the way neighbourhood shortly after the exposition closed. A park was created to house the Palace, new exhibits were designed, and the site became a popular entertainment until the Palace burned down in 1936. The deteriorated park has been undergoing a facelift in recent years. Sadly there is nothing left of the Palace except for some footings and a sphinx sculpture. The not-to-miss attraction is the newly landscaped Dinosaur Garden with prehistoric beasts modeled in the 1850s as dinosaurs were then imagined to have existed in life that peek out as you wander the path.

Over the course of the summer we  completed six of the Capital Ring sections, measuring more than 30 miles, and we have had the best time learning about what London is like outside the central city. The flat, not very scenic boroughs south of the river, are very suburban with huge commons that are now recreation facilities. Then through the wealthy areas of Wimbledon and Richmond. Richmond is the only part of the route we have ever been to regularly. Along the Thames and then along the canals dug in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to connect London with the industrial, coal rich Midlands, the towpaths are now scenic routes the Ring follows after crossing into North London. Weekend activities and poor weather kept us away from the walk since late August, but on Saturday we completed the section that takes us closest to home in North London.
 
Here is Bob checkng our downloaded directionsand map on Gotsford Hill in Fryent Country Park. The hill behind him is Harrow which we passed through on the previous walk. We download the  map and directions for each walk, but the route is well signposted. Only a few times have we wandered off the path because the signs have been vandalised.

This is the view from Gotsford Hill. I made the photo large so that you can see the arch of the new Wembley Stadium poking up from the center of the picture. The day was rather cold, cloudy and breezy.

Farther along we came to the Welsh Harp Site of Special Scienticfic Interest on the Brent Reservoir. Display boards told us the reservoir was created in 1835 to provide water to the canals. During the 19th century, the Welsh Harp was a popular recreation spot for Londoners, and there are still watersports clubs on the reservoir. In fact there was a regatta in progress as we walked along the path. Windsurfers were also out on the water, although I don't think there are any in the photos here.

 

One of London's major highways, the North Circular, runs along the other side of the reservoir from where we are walking. North London's major shopping mall, Brent Cross is near to the reservoir, as is the beginning of the major north-south expressway the M1.  Of course these are urban walks, and often the connections between these lovely natural areas, are blocks of terraces or semis, sometimes boring, but more often than not interesting windows into the life of London: run-down terraces cheek-by-jowl with elegant villas, ethnically mixed neighbourhoods everywhere we have walked, the suburban life style of mowing lawns and washing cars with a hose in the driveway is alive and well in this world class city. We still have 8 of the 15 sections of the Capital Ring to complete, but we have walked half the miles. If the winter is dry and mild enough, perhaps we will be able to finish before next summer. And then we can begin the 150 mile London Loop!

Cultural events of the past week have included a concert of Spanish religious music to mark the opening of an exhibit of Spanish religious art at the National Gallery. Lots of bloody hands on display I imagine. Something to look forward to, I guess. And another dance event — although it would be more appropriate to say acrobatic event since the Swedish troupe Cirkus Cirkör, puts on circuses. It was fun, but not quite enough fun, as the Independent critic said. The Peacock Theatre — an off-shoot of Sadler's Wells — was packed with young adults who are obviously drawn to artistic circuses. I have never been much of a circus person. We took Megan to one of the big arena circuses when she was three. She hated it. I remember lots of very noisy, very smelly motorcycles. What did motorcycles have to do with a circus anyway? So we never went back again. We did go to the Big Apple Circus in Boston when they were older. That was fun. I'm glad I remembered that, for a minute I was thinking we had never taken Susan to a circus.

I haven't had to cook dinner in a week because we have been out every night. Time to reconnect with the kitchen I guess.

A cultural cornucopia of autumn

A generally busy week around here. Saturday evening we heard the Tallis Scholars at Cadogan Hall doing motets on death by Lassus, Gombert and Josquin, followed by Victoria's Requiem. Not a cheerful programme. We used to be fans of the Tallis Scholars, but we gave them up a few years ago when we started thinking everything they sing sounds a bit like everything else they sing. A bit boring really. And I guess we still are thinking that after Saturday night. We have tickets to their Christmas concert in December too.

Sunday was cold and gloomy so instead of doing a planned walk, we went to the Tate Britain to see the Turner and the Masters exhibit that opened a few weeks ago. Turner is not one of my favourites, and I know very little about him, except for the tons of information that permeates English culture because he is after all "England's greatest artist" who painted England's favourite painting.  A Cockney prodigy, he enjoyed besting his contemporaries and the old masters who came before. He famously added a speck of red to his seascape in the 1832 Royal Academy Show when he saw that it was hanging next to Constable's red splattered Waterloo Bridge.  This exhibit hangs the two works side-by-side for the first time since 1832. The entire show is made up of Turner paintings side-by-side with the work of artists he wished to emulate or more to the point to outshine in skill. He competed with all of the greats: Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Poussin, Claude Lorraine, Canaletto and dozens of other very good artists. The Tate holds a huge collection of Turners because of the Bequest to the nation that settled his estate's death duties — and the idea for the show comes from Turner in his will leaving a few of his works to the nation with the condition that Dido Building Carthage be displayed next to Claude's ...Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba in the National Gallery. The interesting thing about the show is that curator David Solkin chose to exhibit as many misses as hits for Turner's scorecard. There were some where Turner's version of another artist's subject was a clear winner, especially when atmosphere was a defining element. There were some perfectly dreadful pastiches of master works. Sadly, for me and for Bob who is a bit more of a Turner fan than I, there were some perfectly lovely paintings by Turner that paled when sitting next to a master, so we have another show where opinion of the artist declines as the show progresses. In our family that is known as the Bonnard effect, after a huge show at the Tate in 1998. We took time out from our moving-to-a-new-country chores to see the show, and Susan, Bob, and I agreed that the only Bonnard we really liked was the famous Dining Room Overlooking the Garden at the Met in New York.

On the plus side, some of the old masters borrowed for the show were well worth the price of admission (which we didn't pay because we are members), especially Rembrandt's The Mill from Washington D.C.'s National Gallery. That was one of Bob's favourites when he was in the army in Maryland and spent his spare time in Washington museums. He hardly recognised it because it has been cleaned in the intervening 35 years, which I read on-line was rather controversial since it completely changed interpretations of the work.

While at the Tate Britain, we stopped in to see the Turner Prize nominees work which has just gone on display. Why it is the Turner Prize I have no idea except he is Britain's best/favourite artist. He would have no problem whatsoever competing with these artists and winning hands down. This is the Prize that has featured unmade beds and light bulbs flashing on and off in past years. I couldn't possibly comment on any of these nominees so I will let a link do that.

And I found a new artist to admire in a room display on women artists who had a hard time because they were women. Stanislawa de Karlowska was married to the Camden Town painter Robert Bevan. The Tate owns three of her works and these two were on display.

Last night we did something we rarely do anymore. We went to see a dance performance. This is the centenary of Diaghilev's Paris company Les Ballet Russes, and Sadler's Wells' contribution to the celebration is this programme where they asked four choreographers to create pieces In the Spirit of Diaghilev.  We went primarily because one of four, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui,  choreographed a fabulous programme we saw last year titled Myth. His contribution was Faun, based on the music Afternoon of the Faun with additions from Nitin Sawhney,  and featured two remarkable dancers. Afterlight, danced to wonderful Satie piano music, was an homage to Nijinsky, danced by a solo male with a light show playing over his body movements. Quite fantastic. Those were the two successful parts of the evening.

The first piece featured many dancers, several large TV screens with bright red machines turning and black and white stripes rippling, plus a bright strobe light that unfortunately was directed right at Bob's retina, so he had to hold his hand over his eyes for most of the piece. The TV screens were very distracting, as any neuroscientist knows, the brain is wired to watch moving impulses of light, and as any parent buying an infant mobile knows, red, black and white are the colours that can be discriminated first and best.  I have no idea what the dancers did, I watched the TVs. When we were riding home on the Tube, and I finally had a chance to read my programme notes, I discovered this piece was made by "an ongoing collaborative enquiry into the distributed nature of choreographic thinking with the Interactive Cognition Lab, UCSanDiego" — the very place Bob did his cognitive science post-doc 30 years ago!!!!!! So it was neuroscience after all.

We had gotten an e-mail from Sadler's Wells last week noting this production included "adult content" material, and that would have been directed at the final piece which included rape, sodomy, a Pope, a garotting, blood, and an electrocution. This was very much "in the spirit of Diaghilev" measured by the people walking out! But no fist fights as far as I could see. A powerful blast of incense permeating the theatre did nothing to improve my reaction. The music was a lovely waltz — my programme says Ravel's Mother Goose — so ho hum, violence and nursery rhymes, must be a commentary on our times or something.

I also finished another book this week, Gardens of Water, a first novel by Alan Drew, written when a student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The book has one of those Readers' Guides for book groups in which we learn that Drew and his wife took teaching jobs in Turkey, arrived in Istanbul four days before the huge earthquake hit in 1999, and lived there for three years. The latter means they were there pre- and post-9/11, never mentioned in the interview, but clearly what helped shape the text. A Kurdish family of four has been uprooted from their Southern Turkey homeland because of the PKK rebellion. The Turkish forces are of course funded and supplied with weapons by the US — it's just what we do — and the father hates Americans — it's just what they do. They have settled in a city near Istanbul, but when the earthquake hits, they lose their home, shop, and extended family. The Turkish government is unable to respond to the crisis so they rely on American aid workers to feed and house the population. These aid workers are Christians who offer succour, but at the price of intense proselytising. The novel sets up clashes in world view: evangelical Christianity in a Muslim community; traditional parents trying to maintain their values — values that are mostly abhorrent to those with Western values such as the readers of this book — but whose children are swayed by the toys and treats of the modern world; the deep distrust of anything associated with the US by the millions of people whose lives have been tragically altered by one US policy or another.  I won't be giving anything away if I say this is not a happy book.

Cold weather has arrived in London this week along with quite a bit of rain. We haven't yet turned on the heat, but we will this weekend. After spending a day shivering wearing three sweaters and my bathrobe, I finally pulled out my winter clothes and sweaters. My closet and drawers are stuffed full so that means no shopping trips for me. I find myself drawn to the window displays this season because so much of it looks familiar — 1965 familiar. The last time these cute tunics and miniskirts were around, I was the target market! There are articles in the paper about Twiggy because she is turning 60. How could she have been younger than I was? And suddenly through Facebook I am in contact with high school classmates who haven't crossed my mind in 40+ years. I seem to be simultaneously moving backwards and forwards in time.

Friday, not the thirteenth

A second good joke in the same week as the green bananas quip -- by the way, what sort of bananas did Ocado deliver on Thursday? -- the greenest green bananas I have ever seen from Waitrose's new Fairtrade Home Ripening line of bananas. They are mostly yellow now, so we have nearly survived this bunch. And now another banana line to keep straight when I am placing my on-line order for groceries.

The second joke: Friday is considered an unlucky day in the maritime trade. One merchant decided to prove this superstition wrong. He ordered a new wooden sailing ship to be built, on a Friday; construction of all the important parts of the vessel were begun on Fridays; the boat was christened on a Friday; and sailed off on its first voyage on a Friday.......and it and its cargo of woodpeckers was never seen again.

All right, it sounded much better when told by the magnificent June Tabor in her dramatic deep voice at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last night. Another spellbinding evening of music from June with last night's programme all connected to the sea in one way or another including a wonderful description of the Aberdeen Fish Market from one of H.V. Morton's 1920s travel books on Britain. I was once a huge fan of Morton. Our first trip to Rome, way back when we lived in Hingham, was planned around a Morton book I found in the Hingham Library. Despite being decades old, the essence of Rome had not changed, and we explored sites that a modern day Fodor's or Frommer's or Rough Guide would not have sent us to. When I moved to London and found that Morton had produced a huge list of British travel books, I was excited -- until I started noting the anti-semitic, racist comments laced through their texts. I imagine the Rome of 1957 had few undesirables for him to comment on in that book. I'm not a big Wagner fan, so I have never had to deal with that moral question. Bob is uncomfortable with being a fan of T.S. Eliot since Anthony Julius's book was published in the mid-1990s. We were in Hingham, and much of the book dealt with Eliot's time at nearby Milton Academy (where we might have sent Susan for high school) and Harvard, so the book made a big splash in Boston. I've noticed when Bob says something complimentary about Eliot he likes to add a tag line, "but of course he was an anti-semite..." I have deliberately had nothing to do with Morton in years. I had bought only one Morton book (he's more of a library kind of guy) on Wales, which I left shrink-wrapped for several years, while I evaded dealing with my conscience, and then binned after a biography of the man was published and learned from the reviews that anti-semitism was only the start of this appalling man's sins: he supported Hitler and took South African citizenship as a fan of apartheid. But he was a brilliant travel writer. Last night, sitting in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, we were all transported to Aberdeen's fish market, where the slap of dead fish -- dead being the normal state of fish for people, if not for fish -- sounds like the slap of a million babies bottoms all at once, to paraphrase a bit. Morton's warped mind has not seemed to be an issue for others. The BBC has done a recent TV series following his travels, his books have been reissued (I don't know if the new editions have been redacted.), and through Google, I can join a Morton appreciation society to share views with other Morton fans -- I certainly hope this is referring to his views on travel. So I exude a deep sigh of sadness and wonder how someone with a gift for describing places so well, could do so with a mind steeped in malice.

Back to the subject of Friday, here, yesterday -- It was certainly not an unlucky day in this family. Susan was appointed Curator of the Hampstead Museum at Burgh House. A day we have awaited with no certainty since last March when our former curator announced her resignation and recommended Susan be considered for the job. Five years out of Bowdoin, two years out of Cambridge, Susan has achieved a goal -- a real job in a museum. That may not seem like such a difficult goal to reach, but in the three to four years since Susan decided that a career in museum work was what she wanted to pursue, we have all learned museum work is one of the hardest, most competitive, limited job areas to break into despite the huge number of museums in the UK. She has volunteered at museums -- no longer a route to being hired for jobs as it once was -- worked on grant-funded projects at Hampstead Museum, and financed her independent life by working in a shop. For much of the past two years working -- for pay or as a volunteer -- seven days a week. Of course museum work is still under-paid and under-funded. The curator job is half time with half-pay to match, but she is finally on her way upwards. And we all say hurrah!

Oh what a weekend

Another busy weekend beginning with a nifty knitting show over at the Horticultural Hall near Victoria Station sponsored by the I Knit London Shop near Waterloo Station.When the knitting renaissance began in the States ten years ago, London was a backwater for craft supplies of any sort and was progressively shutting down all the most popular sites. The go-to department store John Lewis on Oxford Street had a floor devoted to sewing fabrics and yarns in 1998 and that was pretty much gone a year later. The loss of Liberty's fabric floor at about the same time was like the violation of a World Heritage Site. On my first trip to London in 1974, I hyperventilated in Liberty's fabric department. Bob had to take me outside to calm me down before I could breathe evenly and buy a yard or two of Tana Lawn from the massive display. Even as knitting shops were opening by the day in the States in the early years of the 21st century (isn't that a great historical line!), Liberty's moved their entire yarn department into a little alcove behind the stairwell where if one customer and the shop assistant were in the alcove, there was no room for a second customer. The only yarn available at either John Lewis or Liberty was Rowan -- I'm not counting the cheap synthetics since I am never more than barely aware of their existence yarn snob that I am -- but the saving grace at the time was that Rowan had gorgeous, affordable yarns that were so desirable it didn't matter they were the only game in town. I'm not sure where Rowan went wrong, but I never even look at Rowan yarns these days. I knit a sweater for Bibs last year from a cotton-wool blend that did not feel nice to work with and looked worn out after one washing.

Slowly the world's wonderful yarns have been slipping into England. In London the shops Loop and Stash were opened by American ex-pats. Loop in Islington is not a favourite although lists usually proclaim it to be the premier London shop. I was there with Susan the opening weekend, excited to be buying some patterned sock yarn, previously unavailable in England, and the owner asked me if knitting socks was fun because she had never tried knitting a sock. Hmm I thought, not a shop for advice then. Loop is really a yarn boutique, nice yarn if a bit expensive, and if knitting is not your interest, very nice knitted gifts to buy at a premium price. I have only ever been to Stash once, and it was terrific, but involves a train ride to Putney, which isn't so difficult, but not something I think about doing. The UK is great for mail order too -- well maybe not now with the endless postal strikes that are carrying on -- but ordinarily, the on-line shops are well stocked, the country is small, the regular postage costs are not onerous, so things are often in hand within one or two days.

When I Knit London moved to Waterloo a few years ago, I began to go there for the odds and ends I need. They have a wonderful variety of stock including a lot of small British yarn producers and dyers/painters that are both beautiful and reasonably priced. Their website is
www.iknit.org.uk and offers a link to the weekly newsletter which usually has interesting tidbits even if you don't live in or around London. I went to the show early on Friday when it wasn't very crowded, so it was easy to look and touch and feel. I bought unusual fibres, silky Chinese bamboo, very fine hemp, a cashmere-silk blend, and some gorgeously dyed merino. The publishers of Sew Hip! magazine had a table because they publish a knitting magazine Yarn Forward, so I was able to pick up a few back issues of Sew Hip! too.

Friday evening, we went to a fantastic concert at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank. We have gone to many Waterson/Carthy concerts over the years in the various combinations and groups they perform with, but this was a special Waterson Family concert. Norma, Martin, and Eliza, with Mike, his wife and two daughters, and the late Lal's son and daughter. In the middle, Eliza did a set with her band. It was a wow evening. . .a reprise to a similar show they did at the Albert Hall two years ago, that we managed to miss. We never heard Lal Waterson live, but the commentary is that her daughter is the image and sound of her. Bob of course bought the career box set of CDs so we have been listening to a lot of East Yorkshire music since Friday night.

Saturday and Sunday were devoted to Susan's Big Event. Last spring she was awarded a £14,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to do an oral history for the 30th Anniversary of Burgh House's opening as a community centre. Saturday was street festival day in Hampstead, so we spent the day passing out announcements of Sunday's schedule of events at Burgh House to the people wandering through Hampstead for the Gayton Road Festival and for Gail's Bakery's Food Festival. Saturday was lovely weather, a bit cool, but sunny, so there were mobs of people to leaflet.

Sunday dawned cold and grey, and sadly remained cold and grey all day. The morning event -- speeches and birthday cake went very well -- Susan gave a rousing speech that touched everyone. One of the reasons she pursued the grant was the realisation that many of the people who saved Burgh House were getting on in years and would not always be around to share their stories. She was most upset because Ian Norrie, a writer and owner of a Hampstead bookstore for many years, who she had interviewed for the project and had quite liked, was gravely ill in hospital. And had in fact died the day before, we later learned. Christopher Wade, founder of the Hampstead Museum with his late wife Diana, started off with a great joke about how "he was of the age where you wonder whether to buy green bananas....." It took everyone a moment, before the room was convulsed in laughter. I may never buy another banana without contemplating mortality.

The afternoon of public events began very slowly -- worryingly slowly. The Buttery cafe has become very popular, and on Sunday is ordinarily standing room only, but the patio was empty. The cold weather? Festival fatigue? By mid-afternoon, everything was hopping at last. The short walking tours of the neighbourhood around Burgh House were well-subscribed, as was the informal piano concert, and the talk on Dr Gibbons who owned the house during the 1720s. My contribution, as a Friend of Burgh House, was a tour of the House itself. I had a very small audience, but it was scheduled for the lunch hour, so that was a factor. We may try to do more scheduled tours in the future. We walked with Ed Wolf on his New End excursion which was erratic, eccentric, and wonderful. He showed us places I never knew existed. Then he announced New End was boring and took us down to Gainsborough Gardens which was not boring! All in all a huge success for Susan.

Bob and I were knackered at the end of the day. Fortunately, we had some corn chowder in the fridge, and some delicious smoked fish spread I bought at Gail's Food Festival from Pinney's of Orford -- a town in Suffolk (that seems to smoke a lot of fish, and oysters too) where we have eaten more than once at Butley's with its 1950s interior and ambiguous menu. By googling, I have just discovered that Butley's and Pinney's have the same ownership (www.butleyorfordoysterage.co.uk ). Orford has a lovely church and a fun castle to explore too. The corn in the chowder was from Riverford. I accidently ordered two bags so I have to still deal with a few more ears. The flavour was not too bad, but the sweetness and tenderness is just not there even in fresh organic corn.

It was a good night to watch DVDs, so we popped in more episodes of Damages Season 2. I love Glenn Close, not so much Rose Byrne who does only seem to have one facial expression, but the twists and turns of the plot does keep the blood pumping. Our first year in London we went to Heathrow to meet Megan's plane for the Christmas holiday, and Glenn Close was standing near us in the scrum of people waiting for passengers to enter the arrivals hall. She is tiny with a large head, like most actresses, and she looked exactly like Glenn Close on screen, despite no make-up and waiting-at-the-airport casual clothes. Maureen Lipman, a famous London stage actress, once said in an interview that she never had a film career because she wasn't tiny with an outsize head which is what the camera needs for the best screen shots. It's been true of the three actresses I have seen in the flesh recently: Helena Bonham-Carter, Imelda Staunton, and Alison Steadman.