My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Three

Thursday, 8 December, 1988
Chartres

I know it sounds like blasphemy†, but the cathedral was rather a disappointment.

It was a very gray, heavily overcast day today, and the church was so dark you could see almost nothing. The vaults were lost in the gloom and the windows badly needed cleaning. I kept praying the sky would clear up but that wasn’t in the divine plan.

I could see the importance of light in bringing about the proper effect here. Mont-St.-Michel was a religious experience. Here I had to play art historian and approach the cathedral intellectually. Not the best way.

Shot the south and north portals using the flash. Wouldn’t dream of using it inside. I did photograph some of the windows inside. We’ll see how they come out.

There was a plan with all the windows keyed on it posted at the west end. I found the one of the life of St. Nigel‡ and headed for that apse chapel. Not a particularly popular saint: it was quite dark, partly because the window was opaque with grime. N’importe. There were people-- or a person-- who deserved to be prayed for there and so it came to pass.

Chartres is definitely an urban cathedral. It’s in use daily by the townspeople who employ its nave and transepts as thoroughfares and as places to greet and gather. They treat it, it appears, familiarly if respectfully (most of the time). But oy, it needs cleaning! That familiarity is verging on neglect.

I’m afraid I didn’t throw all that much into the restoration coffer myself. The francs go awfully fast.

I greatly enjoyed going up the stairs and along the buttresses to climb the north tower. You can see all over Chartres from there and in the tower see the great bells and the late Gothic stonework details.

I think the cathedral looked best today early in the evening. And when I came by at 6:30 to bid it farewell before heading back to the Auberge de Jeunesse the bells began to ring. That was grand.

Bought Malcolm Miller’s official guide in the cathedral bookstore, along with various cartes postales. Blew 350F (£35 +/-; $70 +/-) on a book on the stained glass at a bookstore across the street. The things I’ll do to write decent essays!

There was a little problem at lunch, my first meal of the day, when I was so tired and hungry I couldn’t decide what I wanted at the restaurant. Problem really was, the only thing I could afford was an omelet-- again. This one was cooked through. The real problem came when I found I’ve been confusing five-centime pieces with five-franc ones. I went to pay and found I was 5F short. Fortunately, they didn’t call the gendarmerie to run me in. No, I was allowed to go across to the Credit Lyonnaise, cash some traveller’s cheques, and bring back the balance.

(Something interesting I noticed in the restaurant: People had their dogs in there with them, no problem, and the sign posted on the subject only asked that patrons not allow them up on the chairs!)

As far as emotional satisfaction goes, I think I liked the town better than the cathedral. The streets of Chartres are a great deal of fun. I wouldn’t mind spending several days there just exploring. They teem with interesting shops, most of them too expensive for me (will the French really pay around $60 or $70 for a little nine-color watercolor paint set?), and a myriad of boulangeries, patisseries, and confiseries. It was very lively and colorful, especially after dark with the windows lit up with a golden glow and the Christmas decorations festooning from facade to facade overhead. There were all sorts of people out and it was pleasant just to wander around with them.

It’d be even more pleasant to do it with less to carry. That camera bag is good for the long haul but during the days, walking around, it’s a pain. The new document case bag is better as of today, though. Not that the clasp is fixed, but I was directed to a place where they put some new holes in the strap. It hangs about five inches shorter now and is much more comfortable. No longer banging against my thigh.

I have discovered that useful as that satchel is (and how much in vogue here), it’s heavy even unloaded. Not a lot to be done about it.

At about 5:45, I had a cup of chocolate at a shop across from the north flank of the cathedral. Wrote postcards. Funny, I don’t realize how damn tired I am until I sit down. Then I absolutely vibrate. Being hungry and exhausted does nothing for my French, either. I don’t speak such hot English in such states, but the people around here don’t know that.

Otherwise, my French is adequate. Or at least good enough to make people think I speak it and so go right over my head.

Second night at the Auberge de Jeunesse. It’s a nice place, in a modern way. Reminds me of something a young, bright architectural firm would do. It is rather annoying, though, for the management to be so pointed about the low-budget basis of the place. I mean, at least they could put waste bins in the rooms. Even people travelling on the cheap generate trash.

I didn’t really expect them to provide towels, and they didn’t. I would love to travel light, she said, but it’s hard when you have to carry your own linens with you.

I almost think that if I get tireder and not stronger, I may blow the money to send a few things back, sacrificing one kind of comfort for another; that is, sacrifice comfort in place to comfort in motion. Like, I’m beginning to think I could do without my jeans. They’re not really right for the kinds of places I’m visiting. And the hairdryer won’t work in the outlets here, even with the adaptor.
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†I'd studied the cathedral of Notre-Dame-de-Chartres at KU under the great Prof. Lou Michel, and had conceived the sentiment, "See Chartres and die!"
‡Yes, I know there is no "St. Nigel"; at least, I doubt any such is commemorated in any French cathedral. Never mind, you get the point!

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Twelve

Tuesday, 28 March, 1989
Helensburgh to Glasgow
Day Twelve

Didn’t leave Helensburgh till nearly noon. Had a nice breakfast in the front hall of Mrs. Grant’s house, it being the basic bacon and eggs with one or two Scottish variations. I was attended by the family border collie, who did not get anything.

Went by the Baillie-Scott White House (not far from the Mackintosh), but it’s in private hands so I didn’t see the inside.

Then got some change for a traveller’s cheque, since Mrs. Grant didn’t know what to do with one, and bought a snack at a bakery for later on. Gave in to temptation and bought a book on Mackintosh watercolors at the Tourist office. It’s a real book, don’t worry. I paid by check and discovered I have one missing . . . At least, I don’t recall writing it. As soon as I come across a National Westminster branch I’ll have to ask them to check their computer for me.

Paid Mrs. Grant at the B&B, loaded up my bags, and headed for Glasgow. And it’s odd, but as nice as some of the English people I’ve met have been, with the Scots it seems more real and relaxed.

Usual absurdity with getting lost in Glasgow, this time the problem being compounded by big city traffic and parking regulations. At length made it over to the Hunterian Art Museum on the U of Glasgow campus, to see the Mackintosh house they’ve incorporated into it.

The Museum [Art Gallery] building itself is a piece of crap. The Mackintosh rooms are a revelation.

These are from Charles’ and Margaret’s own place. I love seeing evidence of how they worked together. He may not have had the happiest of careers but at least he had that in his marriage, and seemingly had it all his life.

They won’t let you take photos in there, which is too bad since doing that tends to fuse things into my memory as well as onto the film. Still, I think I can recall the lines and proportions of the rooms and pieces. I did have to wonder about the fireplaces, though. All coal grates. I hope to God his flues didn’t smoke-- they’d’ve mucked up those pristine white interiors in no time.

Spent a lot of time examining the working drawings/cum renderings for the furniture, displayed upstairs in a separate gallery. Mackintosh must’ve trusted his craftsmen implicitly-- there’s hardly a separate detail except an occasional rough axo of a pull out tray. Funny, but I was affected in a homely way by the notes as to how many tablecloths or towels or other linens this or that cabinet was to hold . . . Design isn’t all flights of imagination . . . And the process goes on even now; I am part of a tradition.

And even Mackintosh’s cursive minuscules held a note of familiarity: "All architects write alike" (as a non-architecture-student friend once said to me) . . . And I could tell from the state of each drawing and its title block how much time he’d had to get the design out. It still happens the same way now.

After this I went back down and compared the built furnishings with my memory of their drawings. Useful exercise.

Not sure what to say about the blue guest room. If the photos are correct, the pattern wasn’t all that relentless. But still, "daring" doesn’t half cover it. I never know what to say when an artist goes off in a new direction. I’d hate anyone to tell me I couldn’t do that myself, but when you admire the artist’s former style more, you’re left with the equally unattractive alternatives of wondering if the new work is really good and you have no taste, or if someone you admire is slipping.

It’s really too bad Mackintosh did no real architectural work after that. Because if he had we really could’ve seen where all this was leading.

He was born the same year as Frank Lloyd Wright. Pity he didn’t live as long.

Saw the originals of two of his Port Vendres watercolors in the watercolor exhibit elsewhere in the gallery. The colors are still wonderfully bright and fresh.

Discovered from a pamphlet I got at the kiosk at the entry that the Queens Cross Church was open till 5:30 today but wouldn’t be open tomorrow. It was 4:30 by now and I got back to the car and set out to drive over. Got thoroughly muddled again, thanks to the Glaswegian propensity for not labelling streets. After once too many of having to back out of a dead end that wasn’t properly marked, I nearly laid on the horn and screamed in a boil over of frustration.

Finally made it to Queens Cross by 5:20 (I’m now told it’s a fifteen minute walk from the Hunterian). Fortunately the people there were very nice and didn’t hurry me out. So I got to spend at least a half hour wandering around the church. It’s primarily the headquarters for the Mackintosh Society now, but one of the local congregations is using it on Sundays while their building is being redone. I was glad to hear that.

The decoration isn’t lavish but it’s varied and original. I particularly liked the design of the trusses in the parish hall. The stylized plant life motifs on each of the column capitals of the nave are all different, too.

The light was flooding into the side balcony (the day having turned out to be fine) and down into the chancel. I had to wonder if you could ever get an effect like that during morning services, but I was grateful for its beauty now.

Over to the Youth Hostel on Woodland Terrace thereafter. Got a berth, then took off again to see the outside of Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art. I’d discovered at Queens Cross that I won’t be able to see the inside this trip-- they’d closed for the Easter holidays, too. But I don’t trust this Scottish weather, so I thought I’d at least go shoot the facade while I had the sun.

It must be a heck of a thing to go to school there, and look daily upon the inventiveness of one of your forebears . . . Did you know the decorative motifs of the ironwork at the front are all different? And it’s wonderful how he’s coped with that difficult, steeply-sloping site. Not a pis aller in the place.

It’s a shame the buildings across the street are so damn ugly.

Back at the Youth Hostel (I know my way there, at least) I unloaded, then took my bit of food down and ate it in the members’ kitchen. Then I wrote Eric* [architect and former employer] a short letter, which may get me in a lot of trouble, but who gives a damn, I was entirely complimentary. Talked a little with a girl from Australia, who’s also here to see the Mackintosh work. She knows someone who’s going to try to get into the School of Art despite the out-of-term closure.

This week there are a lot of French students here. I’m surprised how much I can understand of what they’re saying. There are two elderly Frenchwomen sharing the room here; I don’t know if they’re connected with the others.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Seven

Thursday, 23 March, 1989
Glasgow to Iona
Day Seven, Maundy Thursday

It was snowing this morning when I woke up. Lovely.

Breakfast was interesting, as the hostel seemed to have been taken over by a gang of junior high-aged boys, who made a terrible din-- and who insisted on using the women’s bathroom, despite the sign. I’m not sure the food was worth the £1.85-- it was all rather soggy from having languished too long in the bain-marie.

Only 93 miles to the Port of Oban, but I got out of town around 9:30, and good thing I did, too.

First, of course, I have to get lost trying to find the A82 out of Glasgow. But once that was located, I was fine the rest of the way. When the town was cleared you could see the snow-covered foothills of the Highlands, and it was so beautiful! It was "Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen" over and over, and thank goodness I had some decent top notes to sing it with!

The A82 goes along Loch Lomond and where I wasn’t crawling along the queue due to construction work I was hopping out to take pictures. Scotland doesn’t make it easy on you, though . . . No nice designated overlooks as in Nova Scotia.

Got the A85 at Tyndrum and thereafter the weather grew entertaining again. I’m afraid I was becoming thoroughly tense and white knuckled, especially as most of the other drivers were zooming along around the curves as if it were a dry, sunny day. The landscape is beautiful, though, all bathed in mist, and I began to wonder if maybe I should’ve taken the train.

Arrived in Oban a little after 12:00. The ferry to Mull left at 1:00 and I needed every bit of that time to find the ferry pier, buy my ticket, learn where to park the car and park it, assemble my bags, and stagger with them back to the gangway and onto the boat.

On the ferry, I bought a cup of tea and, establishing myself on the upper observation deck, I drank that and ate a bun and a bit of stottie bread. There was a slight swell, though nothing unpleasant. The sea was a beautiful green color under the overcast. You never get out of sight of land on that run . . . I went out on deck despite the flecks of rain and watched the islands with their lighthouses and castles drifting by.

The bus journey across Mull is about 37 miles and takes a long time, along a one-lane road. I couldn’t see much, as the windows were all fogged up. I should’ve brought something on to read. There were a couple of boys, ten or eleven years old, in the back singing popular songs in flat, tinny voices-- they nearly got a paper was bounced off their noggins. Fortunately they were not coming to Iona.

It was raining in earnest at the ferry pier in Fionnphort (pronounced more like "Finnafort"). The Iona ferry is a little thing and I elected not to try to cram into the diminuative cabin with everyone else, but remained out on deck. The sea was indulging in the most lively of leaps and arabesques and making its presence emphatically known over the sides. My umbrella had rather the worst against the wind, so pretty soon I took it down, moved my bags to where they wouldn’t get quite so soaked, and resigned myself to a total-immersion baptism by salt water and fresh.

It’s really a pity my camera isn’t waterproof. The swells were hilarious. And again, that jaw-dropping combination of sea-green and grays and muted blues . . .

The people from the MacLeod Center had brought a blue van down for us and we all piled in. They said the magic words-- "Tea" and "Fire"-- and after a blind journey along a narrow road between rock walls, they made good on the promise.

I suppose the first thing to say is that the Iona Community is not Roman Catholic. After a few questions put here and there, I learned that it’s fundamentally Church of Scotland, which is to say Presbyterian, and was started by the Duke of Argyll fifty years ago [I've since learned that the Duke of Argyll and the Rev. George MacLeod were two different people with different roles in the founding]. But it currently has an ecumenical thrust with emphasis on peace and reconciliation. The members and staff are a mixed group, men and women, singles and marrieds. I’m still not straight on how people join, what sort of commitment they make, or how the community is funded.

The second thing is that the MacLeod Center (named after the aforementioned Duke of Argyll [my misconstrual--see above]) is a brand new building, a replacement for some derelict huts of an old youth camp across the road and up the hill a bit from the abbey, all not far from the Sound of Iona. And unlike a lot of other retreat centers, the owners got an architect to design it. Christine MacLean, the woman who is the Center’s director, told me it was someone named Joe Green, but that sounds highly unlikely in Scotland . . . The detailing of doorframes, pulls, benches and other built-in furnishings, as well as the general proportions and disposition of the spaces, shows a good eye for line, space, and detail. The building isn’t quite finished, as is obvious by the lack of curtains on the windows and all the hooks that aren’t where they should be. But it’s all on order, from what I hear.

The dorm rooms have six berths apiece, with nice new mattresses on the unfinished pine bed frames. Oh, yes, the woodwork still needs to be stained.

After tea and biscuits in front of the fire in what they call the Combination Room (I’d tend to call it the Common Room or the Great Hall), the first order of business was a shower, to wash the highly-evocative but not entirely amenable smell of sea water off my person. After that, I found the drying room (the only warm room in the place) and hung up my wet things. Tempting just to stay in there-- the wind was coming in through every crack and the hardware was not keeping the doors closed at all and the central heating wasn’t working worth a poop. Nothing wrong with that building a little caulk and some revamped hardware wouldn’t solve . . .

Dinner, aka tea, was at 5:30. And I don’t know why, but it bugged me a little that it was vegetarian. Maybe because I associate that kind of thing with political and religious views I’m not entirely in accord with. In fact, I get the strong feeling the whole thrust of this place is a little--ahem--liberal . . . but I’ve learned since coming to Oxford and Coverdale* last October not to automatically brand people heretics just because they have this or that view on isolated topics that happen to be shared with frankly syncretistic or cultish groups. So I’m going to hang loose and see what happens around here. But I really don’t like the ambivalence and find it very hard to relax.

There was a recital down at the Abbey church at 7:15. Goodness, the things I’ll do for music! I have never been out in such wind and rain before in my life, especially not after nightfall. It was sheer labor to make any headway against the gale and the rain was driving so everyone was soaked even before we reached the MacLeod Center gates. And no one in this little group had brought a flashlight with them. You get out in a wild cold dark wet windy blow like that and you’re likely to forget everything except getting in out of it. And it didn’t help that the cloister door down at the abbey has no light over it.

All got in, though, and sat in the choir stalls trying to keep the teeth from chattering while the recital was going on. Various people played: pianists, flautists, a violinist, singers . . . The wind players were rather good but the violinist needs to work on his tone.

Lukas* was not there, but I’ve never known him to be a diehard music lover. There’s time enough to see him and to do that wasn’t the point of coming here, anyway.

The MacLeod Center group had a session in the library over the chapterhouse afterwards. The purpose was to catch us up with what the abbey group has been doing all week, following in Jesus’ footsteps as He moves towards the cross. The avenue to this seemed to be more that of imaginative projection than of direct Scripture-study. And I’m afraid I was rather a вопреки† and inwardly refused to do the ‘quieting’ pre-contemplation exercise, since although quieting is probably just what I need, I associate the prescribed technique with New Age idiocy.

By the time the Maundy Thursday service started in the Abbey refectory I was feeling really out of it. I couldn’t find any of the people I was sharing the room with and Lukas* didn’t come in till the very last and sat quite far from me. And I decided I was going to wait for him to greet me first. It was his prerogative, under the circumstances. He's established his turf here since last Monday and it wouldn't be right for me to push in.

The service proceeded, featuring a bit of drama that may be ok if you know the actual New Testament story but which needed to be taken with a large grain of salt anyway. And a lot of singing. They have a highly skilled a capella choir led by a woman who seems to have perfect pitch. And the acoustics enhance the voices very effectively.

For that matter, I wish I could have gotten my camera down to the abbey without drenching it. The chinks between the stones of the refectory walls were filled with little candles that made a myriad points of light all over the long room.

After the Communion bread (leavened, wheat) and the wine (real, but golden) had gone around and some more singing was done, a chant was begun and everyone proceeded through the cloister for the ceremonial stripping of the church. And behold, Lukas* was holding the door as everyone went out. I saw it would be terribly rude not to acknowledge his presence when face to face with him. So I silently saluted him as I passed . . . he gave me no response . . . and now I’m beginning to wonder if it was a misjudged thing to do. . .

He had his part in the stripping of the church, carrying out the great silver Celtic altar cross. As a recording of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries played, one of the women danced out with a piece of the altar plate in a way that was so effectively barbaric it was almost appalling. How should that sort of thing be done? As if we were mourners ceremonially donning our black clothes, or as impersonators of the despoiling powers of darkness? I’m not sure at all.

There was tea and biscuits back in the refectory thereafter, the cold wind still howling at the windows. Lukas* made no effort to come and greet me, at which I was beginning to be a little irritated. To counteract this feeling I wanted to do something nice for him, like see that he got a cup of tea. But I couldn’t even accomplish that. When he came round to the tea table someone else had the pot and besides, he stated baldly, he was already getting tea for someone else. And that’s all he said to me.

Got wet again coming back to the Center. Stood around with some others in the Combination Room feeding the fire with bits of odd construction wood and cardboard boxes. There’s no proper firewood around here, it seems.

But the heater in the room was beginning to come on, which was encouraging.
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†"Вопреки" (vopreki), Russian preposition meaning "contrary to"; transmogrified by the characters in my high school Russian class into a noun signifying someone who willfully does the opposite of what's expected of him. It's been part of my personal vocabulary ever since.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: Prelude, Part 3

After my conversation with Lukas* about our respective Iona visits, I realized I’d better make sure I had a place to stay. My plan for my Great Britain tour overall was to book into bed and breakfasts night by night, depending on wherever I happened to be. But I knew of only one lodging place on Iona, the St. Columba Hotel, and it’d be foolish to expect them to accommodate me on the spur of the moment.

I got the number and gave them a call.

Oh, dear, they couldn’t put me up in March. Why, I can’t recall now. Maybe they wouldn’t be open yet for the season. Or they were undergoing renovations. Or they were all booked up already. However it was, there’d be no room at the inn.

"But dinna ye worrit," said the St. Columba’s clerk [Pardon the Scots dialect. I’m going for a wee bit of atmosphere here]. "The Abbey has biggit a luvely new Guest Hoose, an tha’ll be takin ye in. Ye just tak doon this number, an ask for Christine MacLean. She’ll git ye sortit!"

This was before the Internet, of course. You go online now and Google "Iona" and "accommodation" and you’ll get a whole list of places to stay. Maybe they existed back in 1989, maybe not. But from where I sat in late February or early March nineteen years ago, it looked to be the new Abbey Guest House or nothing.

And when I called and spoke to Christine MacLean, the prospect looked very good indeed. I told her when I was tentatively planning to arrive, and she suggested, "Why don’t you come for Easter weekend? We have a lot of things going on and we have a special programme for people staying in the Guest House then." The Guest House, named the MacLeod Centre, wasn’t altogether finished, so they were offering a really good rate for the first group to stay there. I can’t recall now exactly what it was, but my memory urges me that it was around £10 a night with all meals included.

Golly, can’t beat that with a stick!

I would need to stay the entire Easter weekend to get that price, from Maundy Thursday afternoon to Easter Monday morning. But now that she had mentioned it, I liked the idea of being on Iona, the holy isle of Iona, over Easter. I’d attend a service or two, my friend Lukas* would be there to be a familiar face and to compare notes with now and again, and the rest of the time I’d roam the hills and draw and paint and rejoice in God’s creation and Christ’s passion and resurrection, all at once.

So I sent in the prepayment they required. I let Lukas* know our time in Iona would overlap after all, and I began to look forward to what that Easter weekend would bring.

Here endeth the prelude. Let the service, such as it is, begin.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Six

Wednesday, 22 March, 1989
Durham to Warkworth to Glasgow
Day Six

At breakfast this morning I met the other guests here. Three students from Trinity College, Cambridge, two of them from Australia and one from Kent. They were driving, too, and we traded motorway stories. They'd had the thrill of being stuck between two lorries going 90 mph, and once, when a passing lane was briefly provided, the car ahead pulled out and straddled the line and didn't get back into his lane until the passing lane ended. What can you say besides "miserable jerk!"?

The weather today was nothing if not capricious. As we sat at breakfast we looked out at a sunny blue sky-- before which backdrop rain was blowing horizontally nonetheless, the droplets glistening as they hurtled through the air. There was a beautiful rainbow out the back when I took my luggage out to the car, parked in the alley. No guarantee of clement skies to come, but wonderful in itself. It had every color possible, some of which might not come out in the pictures I took, as I was using a UV filter.

Drove down into town and found a place I could park all day for 40p, by the Durham Ice Rink. I put everything I wasn't taking with me into the trunk, as usual, then took off towards town. Got most of the way down the block when it hit me that it certainly was going to rain some more, so I trotted back to fish out my rubber lens hood. And rummaging around in my camera bag, you know what I found? A polarizing filter to fit the 55mm and 52mm lenses! I've had the silly thing all these years and I've never used it!

I used it today, though. Be interesting to see how the pictures turn out, since it wasn't until afternoon that a man in a photo shop alerted me to the fact that you get different effects by turning the bezel . . . So that's what it's for!

Took my time climbing up to the cathedral. First I wandered along the River Wear, to view the edifice with the mill at its feet, as in so many photographs. It's very silvan and wild, in a civilized sort of way, along the banks. I heard somewhere some idiots wanted to put a motorway through there. I hope that idea's dead for good. People were fishing from the banks, or going sculling, the birds were singing and the daffodils blooming, all under a blue and cloud-blown sky.

Crossed over the stone bridge and made my way back towards the cathedral.

The Galilee Porch entrance is blocked shut and you have to come in through the north door, across the open garth.

Inside, the mutable light and shadows play upon the textures of the Norman piers and arches. But initially I was not at leisure to contemplate this aesthetic feast, as the interior is also well-populated by cathedral vergers or guardians, all in blue or dark red academic type robes, who are all cheerfully ready to tell you all about the cathedral's history, ancient and modern.

An example of the latter is the new Marks & Spencer stained glass window towards the west end on the north side. It's a symbolic view of the Last Supper, donated by the M & S grocery employees, a deed reverberant with historical precedent. I wasn't thrilled with it artistically at first but I suppose it grows on one . . .

The more ancient discussion bore on St. Cuthbert's reputed misogyny. It is my opinion that even if that had been true of him on earth Jesus wouldn't've put up with such nonsense once Cuthbert got to Heaven. In discussing this with the verger, it came up that of course, the Saxons were very favorable towards women taking leading roles in religious institutions, not to mention towards married priests, the latter custom being one which William the Conqueror and his Norman Benedictines (inspired by Gregory VII) were particularly anxious to suppress. And what better way than by propagating the story that the patron saint looked unfavorably upon women?

A highly enlightening conversation, but I was in a sweat lest the sun disappear altogether and I lose my light.

Thankfully, it did not. The Galilee Chapel was particularly luminous, and the dogtooth mouldings on the round arches showed up in high relief. The arcades run one after another the length of the chapel. The Venerable Bede is buried there; I wonder if I should invoke him when I'm swotting my history essays!

In the main nave it is interesting to see those little windows under those ribbed vaults. The 11th Century builders hadn't quite grasped the structural implications, yet . . . .

The textures in the piers are matched in pairs. They're all incised-- no paint, despite what I used to think.

I visited the tower. I'm a sucker for towers, no matter how many steps there are. The wind up there was extraordinarily strong. Forget about using the telephoto much-- despite the general sunniness I couldn't keep the camera sufficiently still. You could see all over, though-- the loop of the Wear and the suburbs and beyond.
The south choir aisle was wonderfully illuminated by the sun when I came back down.

Visited St. Cuthbert's tomb behind the choir; they have a curb with green things growing in it around it.

Then the Chapel of the Nine Altars, with its continuation of the Norman arcading.

It was starting to rain again as I moved out into the cloister, and it was really going a few minutes later. There's no proper silent closers on the doors to the bookshop and the door to the loos and they made the most awful racket, especially with the wind.

I worry about Durham Cathedral, with a bishop like David Jenkins (who doesn't think you have to believe in the Resurrection to be a Christian), but the contents of the bookstore were encouraging. A lot of evangelistic literature in amongst the postcards and reproduction jewellery.

I got a card to send Daddy for his birthday. Nearly forgot.

Skipped seeing the monks' dormitory, since it was nearly 1:00 and I still had things to do before leaving town.

Like buy lunch. And more film. The former I found for a few pence at a bakery, in the form of an onion and cheese pastie and a big round flat loaf of bread called a stottie, which they sold me for 23p.

Started raining with a vengeance, but if you waited a few minutes the sun would come out again, even as the rain continued to fall. After awhile getting nice and soaked in this I found a place that would sell me 400 ASA Ektachrome and mulcted £27+ out of my already-diminished bank account on five rolls.

Next point on agenda, called a B&B near Carlisle to see about booking a room for this evening. But they wanted £15 for a single and adjudged it'd take at least four hours to reach Oban from there. Didn't see doing it in time, so decided I'd better make it at least to Edinburgh for the night.

Ate the pastie in the car, then got out of town around 2:15, up the A1 in the direction of Warkworth. Along about Newcastle I began to wonder if I was going to make it there or anywhere. The rain turned to heavy blowing snow. I've never seen or driven through the like. Horizontal and fierce. I stopped at a Shell station for gas and nearly was blown off my feet. But by the time I filled the tank and had visited the loo, the snow had stopped and the sun was peeking out again. Weird weather.

I was really afraid I wasn't going to get to see Warkworth castle, since the catalog said it closed at 4:00. And between getting lost once and having to stop to ask directions at Felton and then getting stuck behind a truck carrying a mobile home for several miles on a narrow, winding road, it was well past then by the time I arrived. But I decided I could at least view the exterior.

But surprise, they were staying open till 6 PM, despite the reported hours. The National Trust [English Heritage, actually] has a little glass and metal booth tucked away just inside the gatehouse, with windows to close to keep the heat in. And well they might, since the wind was fierce despite the sunshine. They said they hadn't got any snow there, though.

It was pretty lonely there. The only other visitors at the time were a couple of businessman-looking types, one of whom might have been from Germany. And they left the new tower house (new in the 1400s, that is) as I made my way into it.

Cold, roofless, its upper storey gone, lifeless except for fluttering pigeons-- behold the grand house of the Percys of Northumberland! I tried to imagine it as it must've been, with plastered walls decorated with paint and tapestry, with the cunningly-framed timber roofs over the hall and chapel, with the glass in the windows (you could still see the glazing groove), with its carpets and lights and furnishings. And all those first floor store rooms crammed with casks and barrels of wind and beer and food, and all the servants being ordered up and down the back stairs to keep the family and their guests provided . . . .

You could see straight up the chimneys of the two great kitchen hearths. It looked, oddly, as if they'd been cleaned-- not a speck of soot on them.

They've put iron bars across the openings of the latrines, to prevent anyone from falling down them. I expect they had wooden seats originally.

Even though its hall isn't as big as the kind you had in the days when all your retainers ate with you, the new keep at Warkworth still impressed me with its size and extensiveness. There seemed to be room after room.

You can see the sea from the tower, to the east; and to the west it overlooks the River Coquet. The whole castle is surrounded by a great ditch. Daffodils grow on its sides now, though today they were flattened by the wind.

It began to rain and then to snow as I came out and was exploring the remains of the other castle buildings. I made extensive use of the polarizing filter, trying to capture the changing effects of the clouds. Hope it doesn't make the non-sky portions of the photos too dark.

Made a circuit of the outer walls, looking at the castle from all its angles. The town of Warkwork rises to the north. Back around to the south entrance, I went back in to take another look at the buildings, now that the sun was out again. I came out to find three vaguely familiar people shooting the facade. It was the Trinity College people from the B&B in Durham. They'd been to Hadrian's Wall in Hexham, and had just arrived here.

I wished them well and departed. But before getting on the road I tried to find the place from which they take the classic Warkworth-across-the-river picture. I was unsuccessful and had to chuck it: the sun was going down and I had to make it well into Scotland ere I could sleep tonight.

And so I did. It was well dusk when I crossed the border. It occurred to me that I've wanted to go there since before I was 15. I recall talking with my next door neighbor about it, how I'd developed a fundamental craving to go to Scotland some day. And now here I was. Don't worry, I didn't dishonor the occasion by singing touristy versions of Scottish songs. It was les chants de Berlioz and Schubert Lieder all the way.

Not much light left to appreciate the rolling Lowland hills, and soon the Weather rolled in. Just one more range of impressions on a meteorologically interesting day. It lashed with rain from time to time on the A1 up to Edinburgh. And then when I found the M8 and was nosing towards Glasgow, the snow and the hail started to come. I have never seen anything like it. It was as if the road was covered with rolling marbles. It was another 40-odd miles to Glasgow and I began to wonder if I'd make it. But I decided I had to.

And tomorrow I'll be going to Iona and somehow, it seems, things will be all right. At least, I won't have to worry about driving about!

The weather let up by the time I reached Glasgow, around 8:30, though not for lack of trying on the way. I got miserably lost around there two or three times before I finally found the Youth Hostel on Woodland Terrace. Nice old townhouse, rather insensitively cut up and ceiling-dropped. £6.10 for bed and breakfast. Doors don't lock here, unlike at the hostel in Chartres. But they do have wastebaskets in the room!

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Five

Tuesday, 21 March, 1989
Stamford to Lincoln to Durham
Day Five

Breakfast downstairs in the Anchor Inn hotel dining room (this being the fireplace end of the very well-tailored Georgian style pub) was pretty substantial, though it followed the standard menu of eggs, bacon, cereal, toast, and tea. Toast was burnt but I wasn’t up to complaining this morning.

I’ve also noticed the British aren’t very big on napkins. Even at Coverdale* they’re just put in a bunch in a glass at each end of the table, for whosoever will to take, and I’d say most don’t. But these places lately don’t have them at all, which means wiping one’s mouth on one’s sleeve. Not too charming of me and very odd on their part, not to have them.

Thank God the person I finally parked next to last night, apparently also one of the overnight guests, pulled out before I did, thus averting any more damage.

Got out on the A1 (I’m getting a little better at getting out of towns without getting lost) around 9:30 and headed in the direction of York. Around Grantham and Newark (on Trent, not New Jersey) I started seeing signs announcing the exit for Lincoln. I hadn’t planned to see that town or its cathedral but at the third exit notice I said, oh, to hell with it, I can take a couple of hours on those. So I headed southeasterly down the A57 towards Lincoln, winding around and paying a 15p toll on a bridge over the Trent. I suppose for the scenic value of watching the barges go by on the river below.

Lincoln is a city set on a hill; unfortunately the British highway department failed to supply the rubbernecking motorist with nice, good places to pull off and enjoy the prospect.

It is a place that once you get into town you can turn on the cathedral-detecting intuition and just drive till you find it, without worrying too much about spotting signs. Just keep heading uphill.

The signage comes in when you’re looking for parking. Found the official cathedral carpark. They wanted 50p for it. Not if I could help it. So I drove around still I found a free two hour place on the street on Drury Lane.

Following that downhill (on foot) past St. Michael’s church, I saw at the corner of Wordsworth (off Drury Lane) and Bailgate an ancient stone house that looked awfully familiar. Oh, goodness, it was one of the 12th Century Jews’ houses!

It’s now occupied (ground floor) by the thrift store of the St. Barnabas Hospice. They had a curious silverplate serving spoon in the window, with a bowl like a scallop shell. 50p, and I went in and bought it, thus making up for the savings on parking.

I also asked about the building. One of the volunteer ladies said yes, it is very ancient, and the subsurface cellar arch has 1106 carved on it. She couldn’t let me go down to see, because the bottom of the stairs was piled with filled trash bags. But I was allowed to step onto the top cellar step and look up and see the original wattle ceiling there.

She had some interesting stories about interconnecting cellars and secret meetings of the Jews prior to the Expulsion, but I wasn’t sure whether to believe them. I am sure she’s right in saying the ground floor originally had arrow loops and not the big shop windows of today. [The adjoining house next door shows evidence of having been a synagogue; this may be at the bottom of the woman's stories.]

Having now remembered why I was supposed to visit Lincoln, I walked down a very steep incline (aptly named Steep Hill) to the Strait where I saw the other extant Jew’s House. The first floor windows have been sadly jimmied with, but the general fabric looks good, considering its age.

Plowed my way back up Steep Hill and Bailgate to the cathedral. It’s set behind a gate, and too bad, but the righthand half of the west face was hiding behind scaffolding. Open to view otherwise.

I’m trying to think of what impressed me the most there, if only to keep myself from writing an essay here.

Lincoln is vaulted throughout, of course. Maybe the most curious things is the odd vaults in the choir, where the ribs transfer down to unexpected colonnettes. They say that was completed in St. Hugh’s lifetime. Wonder if it was his bright idea.

The transept rose windows were duly noted . . . Bishop’s Eye [the south transept rose] undergoing renovation.

Day was grey out at this point, but still all right for photos. I suppose one advantage of having the wideangle lens on the blink is that it forces me to use the faster standard f1.7 lens.

English cathedrals are different in atmosphere from those in France. Not as mystical-feeling. At least, it’s hard to maintain a sense of awe with a cavalcade of school children being ushered through.

Took note of the wall arcading in the nave. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that in France.

Visited the cloister and the chapter house and all the other nooks and crannies that seemed interesting, in the process going over the two hours for the parking (not to mention for the side trip).

Moved the car, changed to the heavier coat, and walked back and visited Lincoln Castle, opposite the cathedral. Its walls are pretty well intact, as it was used as the county prison almost through the 19th Century. The Court buildings are still located there.

Got whipped around by the wind at the top of the Observation Tower and learned that is the vantage from which all the stock photos of the west front of the cathedral are taken.

Perhaps the strangest part was the Lucy Tower, the old shell keep on the original castle mound [2008 note: One of two, actually].

A long steep staircase leads up the green grassy motte. On either side the golden daffodils bowed to the wind and undaunted sprang up cheerfully again. The white clouds raced by in the blue sky overhead, the sun bathing mound and walls with flirtacious and recurrent light.

I climbed the steps and passed through the ancient stone arch into the keep. Instantly, it seemed a smothering hand had blotted out the sun. It wasn't merely the spreading yew trees that brooded over the scene. No, gloom and hopelessness--even evil--exuded from the cold embrace of those walls. Immediately I noticed the lichenous stone slabs sprouting like unhealthy growths from the black, infertile ground, some broken off a few inches from the surface. They seemed to be only about nine inches square at the largest. I looked and saw that the whole ones bore only two letters and a four-digit number. Absurdly, they reminded me of the plaques the gas company here mounts on walls to mark valve locations. No. Impossible here in these walls. Too many, too close together. What could those slabs be?

But I could not and would not stay to investigate. The sense of oppression and malevolence was too much. I took but a single picture, right where I stood, and took myself away.

In the castle shop on my way out I bought a guidebook and looked up the Lucy Tower. It said that is where they buried the executed criminals. I guess I should have known. If any place in that compound is haunted I’d say that’s it. I could feel it. Nasty.

Since it was trying to rain I went back to the car for my umbrella, then headed downtown (literally in Lincoln’s case). My camera meter had been acting dodgy so I found a photo store and had them test the battery. Yes, getting low (I hope not too low, or I’ve wasted a lot of film today). While I was at it I bought a replacement flash for £7 something. Not automatic, but what do you expect?

Next thing was a bit of food and a call to the car hire people to report the damage. Bought a banana for 17p to shut the stomach up, at the covered market. Lincoln’s got an extensive pedestrian shopping area down by their bit of river (covered with swans) and it’s very busy. Don’t ask me why Kansas City can’t manage that. Too much suburban sprawl, I suppose.

Located a card phone and reached Europcar. They said I needed to come get an accident report to fill in, and gave me directions on how to find their location. Fortunately, not too far off on my Blue Guide map.

After that, went round to where there was a cheap fish and chips shop and bought an order thereof. Tons of food for £1.23. The oil the fish had been fried in might’ve been familiar to Aaron the Jew, however, so I only ate of that till I wasn’t hungry anymore (I think my stomach is shrinking). Saved the rest of the chips for later.

Bought a half dozen hot cross buns from a bakery for 66p. They didn’t give me a sack but I’ve seen enough people carrying naked bread through the streets that I felt I needn’t be self-conscious about it.

The crosses on the buns here are in the bread, not in frosting. I wonder how they do it?

At the rental agency they gave me a form and said it was ok, that since I signed the collision damage waiver I’d waived responsibility over to Europcar. Sounds odd to me but if that means I shan’t be out of pocket, I’ll fill out the forms and glad to do it. Didn’t need to now, though. Later, when I return to Oxford.

They offered me another car, but I said no, this one has I hope been innoculated as it were. Unless I could get an Escort? No, none available.

4:30 or so, back up the A57 to the A1, toll bridge and all. Decided to give up York, as what I’d been intending to see there I’d pretty well covered in Lincoln, and so push on for Durham tonight.

So I did, calling a listing in the Let’s Go from a motel in Leeming to see if there was space. There was, and I was given directions.

But I got lost anyway. Kept trying to get to the City Centre so I could get my bearings and head out Crossgate as directed. But I kept losing track of the signs and ending up in all these impossible places. Finally I ended up on the riverside drive above the Wear to the west of the cathedral and thereafter I knew what I was about.

Staying in a place called Glück Auf, run by a German lady. Decent for £7.50, if you can deal with glass in the bedroom doors and little reed shades over the glass that obscure nothing whatsoever. But I suppose this has the salutary effect of making me get in bed and get the lights off early.

No central heat here, only a machine you’re supposed to feed 10ps to. But I used my last 10p on the phone at Leeming. So put another blanket on and stay under the covers . . .

The cathedral and castle here are lit up at night. Very imposing above the river.