Equus

Today we are off to the theatre to see Equus with the Armstrongs & Millers. Going to the theatre is always exciting but to go with the feeling of dread? I have seen this play before and boy is it depressing. I had also avoided going to see Notes on a Scandal because of the subject matter but in the end was glad I went! Judy Dench and Cate Blanchett were on top of their acting. This is a film makers movie. It was all there. The acting, the editing and the story. We will see about Equus.......

Sulgrave Manor

Thursday a group from the SJWWC Women’s Club visited Sulgrave Manor, the home of George Washington ancestors. It was the 275th anniversary of George Washington’s birth and Gwyn Davies our wonderful guide showed us around this wonderful example of a manor house of Tudor Times. In 1539 the manor was bought by from Henry VIII. For the next 120 years Lawrence Washington’s descents were to live in the house. In 1656, his great, great grandson Colonel John Washington (a royalist!) left England to take up land in Virginia. Col. Washington was the Great Grandfather of George Washington, first President of the United States of America. The parts which remain of the original Washington house are to the south, the porch and screens passage and the Great Hall on the ground floor, the Great Chamber and two smaller rooms above. In 1914, Sulgrave Manor was presented by British and American donors to the peoples of Great Britain and the United States of America, in celebration of the hundred years peace between the two nations. In 1924, the National Society of Colonial Dames of America generously endowed the Manor House and started it on its road as a place of education and history!
The tour was very entertaining and enlightening. We got to see a handle from George Washington’s coffin, learn that the Welsh were indeed involved in the war of 1812 and the most beautiful embroided bed hangings I think I have ever seen. I can hardly sew on a button but they alone are worth the visit to the Sulgrave Manor.

Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday is before the first day of Lent (Ash Wednesday) in the Christian Calendar always falling 47 days before Easter Sunday so the date varies from year to year. Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day, because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day. In the USA and elsewhere – Shrove Tuesday day is called Mardi Gras!

“Pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs can be eaten. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, sugar and flour are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes were therefore the perfect way of using up these perishable goods, besides providing a minor celebratory feast prior to the fast itself. The word shrove is a past tense of the English verb "shrive," which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by confessing and doing penance. Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the shriving (confession)that Anglo-Saxon Christians were expected to receive immediately before Lent. - Wikipedia

The traditions of pancake racing started long ago and are held in towns across England. The tradition is said to have originated in Olney, Buckinghamshire when a housewife was so busy making pancakes, that she forgot the time until she heard the church bells ringing for the service. She raced out of the house to church while still carrying her frying pan and pancake. Held since 1445, the Olney pancake race is run traditionally by women holding frying pans containing hot, cooking pancakes. She must toss the pancake three times during the race that starts at the market square at 11.55 am. The first woman to complete the winding 375-metre course (the record is 63 seconds set in 1967) and arrive at the church, serve her pancake to the bell ringer, and be kissed by him, is the winner. She also receives a prayer book from the vicar.

Some of the races in London are - Great Spitalfields Pancake Race, the Great Pancake Race: on Tower Hill Terrace and the Poulters’ Company Pancake Race (between teams representing each of the traditional livery companies (trade associations).

Presidents Day

Presidents Day

The third Monday in February is Presidents Day in the USA. An unofficial name for what began as George Washington’s Birthday celebrations. Americans hold Washington in very high regard as a soldier and statesman. Our first president was born on February 22, 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 11, 1731 on the old style Julian Calendar.

Abraham Lincoln another revered president was born on the 12th February 1809 in Harding County, Kentucky. The first formal observance of our 16th President’s birthday took place in 1865, the year after his assassination, (while watching the play Our American Cousins at the Ford Theatre) when both the Senate and Congress gathered for a memorial service.

In 1968 several federal holidays were affected when legislation was enacted that shifted Washington and Lincoln’s birthday celebrations to the third Monday in February. The change which took effect in 1971was designed to give federal employees three-day weekends and simplify the yearly calendar of holidays.

Although a federal holiday, many states celebrate the day differently; some recognizing only Washington, some all the presidents. What remain consistent are the advertising campaigns for President’s Day Sales!

77 Million Luminous Paintings

Jeff and I went to the department store Selfridges on Oxford St. yesterday to see Brian Eno’s installation of Luminous 77 Million Paintings. Luminous is Brian Eno’s installation of paintings using multiple monitors to display a constantly changing painting. Jeff, a long time fan of the music of Roxy Music, King Crimson, Genesis and any mutation of Fripp and Eno was pleased to attend! On my part, going may have been a little pay back for all those fru fru English houses I have dragged him through over the years. This was not the only time I paid him back though, we once flew to Berlin overnight for a Crimson concert and I swear I was the only female in the hall!

On the ground floor of Selfridges we entered through black drapes into a black room to sit on wide low black couches (which are never comfortable for people with short legs!) and I was immediately struck not with sound and images but the other people in the room. I wondered how long the dads with baby carriages would last in the room. Were they just trying to escape while the wife shopped? How many of these people are familiar with Music for Airports or Another Green World? You could tell that some of them just didnt get it by how quickly they left or by the conversations they were having amongst themselves. As I settled in and focused my attention on the art I was drawn to the 30 monitors arranged into four major grouping each group a different size and layout. It was hard to concentrate on them all at once, especially the small ones at the ends of the display wall. My favorite group looked like a windmill and I was consistently thinking about how some of the images would look as mosaics! The colours and patterns were fantastic! Eno, being the master of ambient sound matched the music perfectly to the images! As I tried to get comfortable on the couch and fought like hell not to slide off as I sunk deeper and deeper into a comatose state of relaxation, I thought this could be playing in my deprivation tank and I would enjoy it very much! It must be impossible to watch all image possibilities in one day but we were happy to spend a few hours watching the pictures appear and disappear. Since we were not on drugs or drunk - it was time to go before we were tempted! I may not have always liked Eno’s music but could always appreciate his willingness and talent to explore new sights and sounds! I am glad he shared his visions with us! The catalogue was a rip-off at £7.70 and there didnt seem to be anyone around to anwer questions or pay for this limited edition catalogue. Not helpful! This free exhibition is on until 11 March at Selfridges.

Valbirthday

I am lucky enough to be blessed with a terrific family and some very special friends. I don’t often forget that but the feeling always intensifies on my birthday. As my friends know and often tease me about is that I was born on February 13th but didn’t find that fact out until I applied for a passport when I was 16. My mother always celebrated my birthday on the 14th. The 13th is the day I was born on but the 14th is the day that I celebrate my birth! This year it is 42J – no more numbers just letters! Lorrie Stanton coined the term Valbirthday! Again this year she and Mike sent a very humorous e-card! Friends and family in the States called and sent cards - how nice it is to be remembered! Thanks Dad & Glenda, Donna, Steve, Aunt Fran, Mom & Dad, Holly, Dave, and Polli!

As we celebrate Chinese New Year this week, a group of fabulous women friends met for lunch in London’s Chinatown to celebrate my birthday. The lunch at Joy King Lau was superb and the conversation excellent! It was a treat to share a table with witty intelligent women of a certain age! We despaired over the candidates this US primary season, talked about health concerns, hot flashes and our lives as ex-pats in London. I couldn’t help but bathe in the self satisfaction of how wonderful my life is at the moment! If you havent met Carlene, Peggy, Kathy, Loretta and Anne you should! They are the best of women! They even bring gifts!

As for my family, my lovely daughters made the effort to make it home for a birthday dinner. Boy was that appreciated! I realize what busy lives they lead with loves and jobs of their own. We had a great dinner at La Casalinga on SJW High Street. The food is always top notch and the staff are some of my favorite people in all of London. It was the place to be on this special night! La Casalinga is a family run business and you are always made to feel part of their family. I like that! The restaurant was beautifully decorated for Valentine’s Day with balloons! We ate well, sang, recited dialogue, laughed a lot and of course ended the evening with a piece of very yummy chocolate cake with a candle on top! The girls and I were each given a red rose as we reluctantly went home!

Woo Hoo, what a great day! Isn't that what everyone wants to say at the end of the day!

Coffee

The wonderful Anne C. is in town this week with her husband, John. They have been painfully missed by Jeff and I since they moved back to the States last year. We had a lovely dinner at the Mango Room on Sunday night followed by a hilarious search for a cab on a rainy Sunday night in Camden. Last night while, the husbands were out doing business things Anne and I ordered in Chinese food from Lee's. We spent the night eating too much and watching Paris When it Sizzles with William Holden and the fabulous Audrey Hepburn. In its time this movie didn't win any BAFTAS or Oscars but I thought it a wonderful campy 60't flick! The plot revolves around Richard Benson (Holden) who has two days to produce a movie script in a Paris apartment because he has spent the time and money he was paid to write the script living the high life. He makes several references to his drinking whiskey but you always see him drinking what appears to be vodka! He hires a temporary secretary, Gabrielle Simpson (Hepburn), to help him complete it in time and farce and romance in sue! Tony Curtis is very funny in his supporting actor method actor role.

This morning it is a reunion of friends at Peggy H's. flat. Anne and another friend visiting from NYC are the guest of honours. Tonight Anne, Kathy and I are off to see Avenue Q at the Noel Coward Theatre. Looking forward to it!

Clerkenwall Walk

Sunday in Clerkenwell – pronounced Clarkenwell. This part of the borough of Islington gets its name from a well in Farringdon Lane where clerks from the city performed plays. A few years ago I had done a walking tour with the SJWWC Neighborhood in a Nutshell group through Clerkenwell and had finally returned to show Jeff a part of London he had not visited before. We took the tube to Blackfriars and stopped in at the Blackfriars Pub to have a drink and admire the art deco décor (he had a pint, I didn’t!)! In addition to the Nutshell Guide, we were using the book American Walks in London by Richard Tames. Chapter 4 is called The Shadow of St. Paul’s: Blackfriars to Monument. We began by finding the Apothecarie’s Hall on Blackfriar’s Lane but also found down a small lane off the square a barbershop with a great sense of humour! We then walked the short distance to Ludgate Hill. Ye Olde London was once the London Coffee House, a gathering place for Americans since Ben Franklin’s time. No, we didn’t stop in for a drink! Instead we turned in Old Bailey and had a look at the Central Criminal Court (yes – the Old Bailey!). The Newgate prison use to stand on this site. William Penn was tried here in 1670 for preaching to an unlicensed assembly (he got off eventually!). Across the street from the old Bailey is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre without Newgate. To me, the interesting thing about this church is that it was the traditional starting off point for knights setting out on a crusade. The ending point of the crusade would be the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Also, in the church graveyard is the resting place of Captain John Smith. Our next plan was to head to the Ye Old Mitre on 1 Ely Court, founded in 1546 to serve the needs of the servants of the Bishop of Ely. To Jeff’s great disappointment it is closed on the weekends! We headed to Farringdon Station to meet up with our daughter Carrie and waited in a pub called the Castle across the road. Here Jeff switched to wine, I had a winter Pimm’s and when Carrie arrived we had a pub lunch (a cottage pie and some lovely sausage and mash!) Carrie should have had better walking shoes on as we went up to the Clerk’s Well on Farringdon Lane, Exmouth Market and then found our way back down St. John’s St to St. John’s Lane. Here we found St. John’s Gate (built in 1504) the home of the Priory of the Knights of St. John - the Knights Hospitallers and of the ambulance corp of the same name. We went down Britton St. looking for the Jerusalem Pub. The Jerusalem is named after the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem and the current building dates from around 1720. It is supposedly one of the finest pubs in London and also closed on Sunday! We stopped a Starbucks by the Smithfield Market for coffee and a break and then pushed onto Charterhouse Square. To my amazement a building on this site was Hercule Poirot’s Whitehaven Mansions. No one else really cared! But I was excited! In the home stretch of our walk we headed through Cloth Fair to St. Bartholomew the Great Church (used in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral) to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and a plaque commerating William Wallace. We had quite a discussion on the subject of hanged, drawn and quartered. As the sunlight was fading we entered Postman’s Park and had a look at the tiles with inscriptions of heroics deeds and escaped before we were almost locked in for the night. On Little Britain St. we had a look at the statue of Sir Rowland Hill, inventor of the pre-paid, adhesive postage stamp (why not?) and made our last stop near St. Paul’s at the Paternoster (more wine!) to catch the dying minutes of the Ireland vs. France rugby game (too bad for Ireland!). It was 5pm and there is more to the walking tour in the American Walks book but I went home to take a nap! Today was another reminder of how much there is discover in London.

The Gershwins

Jeff, Carrie and I are off to see Porgy & Bess today at the Savoy. We are all very excited about it as we are all huge Gershwin fans! I adore George's music and after all these years cannot say what my favourite song is! Our Love is Here to Stay, The Way You Look Tonight or They Can't Take That Away From Me?

Regent's Park in the Snow

Thursday was a snow day here in North London. The city was just about in crisis. The News shows could barely speak of anything else. Jeff reckons we had about 3-4 inches of snow on the balcony here on the top floor flat. Trains stopped running, schools closed down and friends in Buffalo, NY could be heard laughing across the ocean! Our cat Bella refused to go outside. She just couldn’t put her paw down on that weird white stuff! After a visit to the NHS to register (less painless than I thought!) Jeff and I went for a walk in Regent’s Park. We entered the park through the Hanover Gate and started a nice stroll along the boating pond when the digital camera battery died of course! We went home, changed the battery and I drove back to the park to take pictures! How lazy and cold can you be? By the time I found a place to park near the the inner circle gardens the snow had started to melt. All those people who couldn’t get to school or their offices decided to visit the park to take pictures or build a snowperson! What a crowd! It would be one hell of a photo collection if we all got together and shared pictures! I did actually take the time to look around at the park while taking photos and realized how much I really liked the park – even in the slush! Central Park was always my park - I spent my childhood visiting there. I loved the carousel with it's brass rings, the old men playing checkers and I know who designed it! I don't know this park as well and need to find out more about the history. Regent’s Park is truly a year around place.

I have to say that the snow people being built Thursday were terrific and I really loved them. The builders had such imagination and artistic ability. There was a jolly hatted snowman holding a flower, a cool guy with a buzz cut made of twigs and my favourite made by a teenage schoolgirl – a queen complete with crown! But the best had to be a twiggy little guy pointing to one of the rose beds signs that said Remember Me. I can't wait to see what those roses look like this summer as I remember the snow!

The Great Frost

The winter of 1739-40 was one of the most severe ever remembered. The long frost began on Christmas Day, 1739, the Thames was solidly frozen over: stalls were erected and fairs were held on the ice.

Here we are in 2007 in the midst of a snow storm! So far this year the weather has been very strange. We had the huge windstorm on the 18th of January and now London is just about shut down this morning. Schools are closed, rains are delayed and all is serenely white! Nothing to do but play on the internet and cook soup!

SJWWC Meeting Today

The St. John's Wood Women's Club meets today in St. John's Wood of course (see website for details!). We meet at 9:30 for coffee, catching up with old friends and welcoming new members. About 10 am the meeting starts with general announcements (today I need to get up and say I still have 8 spaces on the Local Travel trip to Sulgrave Manor on the 22nd of Feb. Please sign up!), we welcome new members and then introduce the speaker of the day. Craig Allen, the Creative Director for furniture maker LINLEY will be the guest speaker. He will be talking about the current state of British furniture design and hopefully giving us a good peak at his company's products.

The View

One of my favourite sights in London is standing on the portico of the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square and looking down Whitehall to Big Ben. When a beautiful red Roadmaster bus comes into view - it is my postcard view of London. Yesterday Jeff and I stood on that portico trying to take a picture of that view for the new SJWWC website. It was bright and somewhat warm (global warming?) February day. We took a few pictures with the digital camera, crossed the square and walked down Whitehall to Parliament Square stopping for coffee along the way. Of course I stopped in yet another souvenir shop looking for Donald's 7" bobby! I wanted to walk over Westminster Bridge to view Parliament from that vantage point (another favourite London view!).

On the way down Whitehall we stopped by a statute of Field Marshall Viscount Alanbrooke (1883-1963). Alanbrooke was Winston Churchill's chief military advisor during WWII. I found it quite funny that the base of the statue referred to him as a Master of Strategy. I made Jeff pose with (and without!) his mobile phone near the statue and took a picture. We then wandered down Scotland Yard to the gates of the Civil Service Club. I think these are the gates often used in old movies to represent the entrance to Scotland Yard. As we passed Downing Street we wondered if Tony and Gordon were at home?

Parliament Square was teeming with people ( I think mostly drunk kids!). It was New Zealand Day and at 4pm the Haka was going to be performed in the square. We headed over Westminster bridge to avoid that commotion. If you have never heard the Haka before, it is quite something. It is a traditional Maori dance shouted out in a ferocious way. I know it mostly from Rugby matches. Kiwi players always start matches with this ritual and it is suppose to be really intimidating! But I digress........... No view from Westminster Bridge today because it is boarded up along the sides for some reason? We walked along the river (London Calling playin in my mind!) past the London Eye to the Millenium Bridge. We crossed the bridge enjoying the view back to the Eye and the Houses of Parliament. I had never really taken note of the Hungerford railway bridge until Jeff pointed it out to me. It is sandwiched between the two Millenium bridges. We walked to the Charing Cross tube station and took the Bakerloo line home to Baker Street. It was a nice Saturday afternoon!