My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-six

Saturday, 31 December, 1988
New Year’s Eve/Silvesterabend
Wien

HOTEL DREI KÖNIGE-- Didn’t get up as early as I perhaps should’ve, but the body refused.

Had the included breakfast in the hotel Speisezimmer. Kaiser rolls with butter and jam. This is odd. I never would have thought of Kaiser rolls for breakfast.

Lost a good half hour at the hotel desk waiting for the clerk to get off the phone. I needed to recover my passport and ask a question or two. For my patience he gave me a piece of the chocolate New Year’s gelt he was playing with.

Up the street and bought a bottle of sparkling wine for tonight’s party, as Rollo* had requested. Had to be done now since the stores would be closing early today. Also got a little jar of my traditional pickled herring.

Dropped that back off at the room then went to the Opernpassage to see about music tickets. Came away with one for Beethoven’s Ninth at the Konzert Haus tomorrow (not cheap. Close to $30 maybe) and one to Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Monday. Got about the last tickets.

Even so, I’m sorry these necessary errands kept me from seeing the Lippizaner rehearsal this morning. It was the last one for the season.

It was funny dealing with the girl at the counter, though. She wanted to work on her English and I on my German, so she'd speak to me in English and I'd reply in German and somehow, it worked!

I didn’t like the exchange rate at the info office nor the fee so since I was going over there anyway for Otto Wagner’s sake, I rode to Schwedensplatz and walked to the main post office, which was the only one open today. Stood in a nice long line then had it turn out that their rate wasn’t much better. Too late now. Bought some stamps, too.

Not as fine a day as yesterday but the sun was trying to come out. Made a decent effort to shine a little as I photographed the Postsparkasse exterior.

Blundered my way over to the Stephensplatz. The area around the cathedral was pretty well populated. I was starting to get hungry but the Konditorei were so crowded you could hardly squeeze in. Anyway, I’d noticed a sign pointing the way to the house where Mozart wrote Marriage of Figaro and I thought I’d better check its opening hours, before I took the time to feed my face.

Good thing I checked. It was 3:15 by now and the house was only open till 4:30, and it wouldn’t be open tomorrow or Monday.

I suppose it can’t be helped, but the place is kept as a museum, alone. There isn’t even as much furniture as there is at Berlioz’s birth house, just display cases with artifacts and things hanging on the walls. Many of the latter were silhouettes, drawings, or paintings of people who I must assume had some influence on Mozart’s life and work. But not knowing that many details thereof I wasn’t particularly edified by these exhibits. There was one room that I really think must’ve been the kitchen . . . that came closest to helping me get a feeling of Mozart actually having lived there.

All the Vienna-based composers’ residences are administered by one authority, and I saw from a poster that Beethoven’s most frequent domicile, the Pasqualati House on the Mölker Bastei, was also open only today, till 4:30. So I bade Wolfgang farewell and hurried over there.

There’s more of Beethoven himself there, more of his furniture and possessions, and more paintings and sculptures of the man done in his lifetime. And I could see the good views he had to the west, though thankfully he never had to look at the modern monstrousity now standing across the street. But still, it was merely an intellectual exercise remembering that he wrote Fidelio and the Violin Concerto there.

It wasn’t till I was heading back down the stairs from the 4th floor† apartment that it hit me with a shock that he, Ludwig von Beethoven, actually had lived here, he had walked in this narrow space, on these winding steps, had seen and probably touched these plastered walls-- Gott in Himmel!

Retraced my steps to the Stephensdom, trying to find something to eat. On der Graben I bought a cone of roasted chestnuts, the first I’ve had, to shut my stomach up. They’re really more like a vegetable than a nut in taste, but I liked them well enough. And they were good and warm.

Finding dinner tonight was a bit difficult. Seemed as if all the places that looked appetizing or inexpensive enough (and also the ones that didn’t) were getting ready for the Silvester parties and not serving walk-ins. I finally settled for a wurst on a roll off a stand in the Kärtnerstrasse and then went and sat down in the Konditorei next door and had me a piece of Sachertorte mit Schlag.

You know what? It wasn’t as marvellous as I’d expected. It was rather dry, not tremendously flavorful, and left me yearning for another piece of that wonderful chocolate torte I had in Paris.

The Kärtnerstrasse and indeed the whole area south of the Stephensplatz was teeming with people. There were even some street evangelists. And down by the Staatsoper a couple of guys had a drag race off the stoplight. Some things know no boundaries . . .

Back at the hotel I read a bit of the Beethoven booklet I’d bought and ate pickled herring til time to dress and catch the U-Bahn to Rollo’s mother’s. Heading for the Karlsplatz I wondered what it’d be like coming back after midnight. The streets between there and the Schleifmühlgasse aren’t as lively as I’d like after dark; tonight would they be too lively?

When I got to Rollo’s mother’s place, I could’ve shot her elder son! He hadn’t told me what to wear and there I was in my gray flannels, silk blouse, green Shetland sweater, and red and black suede hiking boots, while everyone else, including Rollo, was in semi-formal party clothes. It was really a sight to see him in a smoking jacket. I didn’t mind so much what I had on; it’s just that I get so few chances to dress up and had a perfectly good dress with me.‡

Besides Rollo and Connie* [Rollo's wife] and his mother, there was Rollo’s brother, Marko* (who seems to have some slight mental or other functional handicap), and several of Frau Schipfner’s* middle aged to elderly friends. All or most of them spoke at least a little English, which made me feel better about trying out my German.

We started out with aperatifs; I had Rollo pour me a Campari and soda because I was curious to taste what it was like. But it’s rather bitter and I didn’t drink much of it.

When I saw the dining room table I realized it had been silly of me to go looking for something to eat earlier. As seems customary in this part of the world, the fare was sliced meats and various sorts of pasta salad, and a great deal of it.

On each plate was a little good luck token. I was informed by the woman on my left that I must immediately take and put it in my purse and thus assure I’d have plenty of money all year. Can’t hurt, I guess . . .

On the table were little figures of chimney sweeps and pigs, and the napkins were printed with these and with four-leafed clovers, all symbols of luck and prosperity. I’d wondered what all those stalls were, downtown, but now I saw the Viennese wouldn’t consider a Silvesterabendtafel complete without these favors.

A toast was drunk before the meal, the woman on my left looking at me and pledging, "To your honeymoon." Does she know something I don’t? I thought for a moment she was really addressing Rollo, on my right, but that’s impossible: he and Connie have been married three years.

In the table talk I learned that the obnoxious newspaper vendor is probably Egyptian, since most are and the Turks aren’t advanced enough socially to take such jobs. And that Sachertorte generally is dry, which is why you need the whipped cream.

Unlike in Switzerland, I could at least tell what the German conversation was about, even if I couldn’t discern the tenor of the comments. I commented on this to the lady on my left, she laughed, and that started a general raillery against what these Hoch Deutsch speakers called "Sweetzer Dootsh," or some such teasing appellation. Still being angry at Lukas’s* uncalled-for extension of his performance in that dialect last week, I took a rather unChristian pleasure in hearing it mocked.

When it came time for dessert everyone got up from the table and adjourned back to the living room. Rollo and Connie and Marko shut themselves into the kitchen for a smoke and to get things ready, while Frau Schipfner cleared away. When dessert was put on, she started herding people back into the dining room, and I said, "Ja, wir kommen! Wir kommen augenblicklich!"

"Oh, you speak German very well!" she exclaimed.

(Thank you, Ludwig von Beethoven.††)

By the time dessert was finished, it was about fifteen till midnight. Back in the living room, the champagne (or rather, Austrian Halb-süß) was broken open and glasses filled. They turned the TV on; it was an ice show being broadcast from here in Vienna, but when the skaters did a routine to the song "One" from A Chorus Line, it was sung in English. I thought of Nigel*-- it was inevitable.

Then the time came and the great dial on the screen ticked off the seconds: "Zehn, neun, acht, sieben, sechs, fünf, vier, drei, zwei, eins-- Prosit Neue Jahr!"

At least, that’s what was being shouted by all and sundry as the wine glasses clinked and the sparkling drunk down. As for me, I was praying blessings on a certain Englishman, who despite his very taken (if not engaged) state, still can make any new year worth entering.

Meanwhile, on the screen was a little animation number of champagne corks dancing to a Strauss waltz. Cute.

Rollo and Marko got out the fireworks and went out on the balcony to shoot them off. The skies had cleared and all over this suburb of Vienna the heavens were blazing with the trails of rockets and shooting stars making merry war with their repeated noise. The neighbors downstairs came out to shoot theirs and shouted up, "Prosit Neue Jahr!"

We came back in and drank some more ersazt champagne (I’m glad I tasted the real thing on Christmas. It is better) and conversed. I asked Connie if women in the Midwest were wearing big shawls, as they do in England. She said yes, they were.

Around 2:00 AM we ate again, going back to the dining room for soup. I think I ate more tonight than I have in entire weeks on this trip.

About 3:00 everyone decided it was time to shove off home. Rollo’s mother earlier had said it was best I go home in a taxi and not risk the Viennese lager louts at the Karlsplatz U-Bahn station. But one of the ladies said they could cram me into her car, despite the fact they already had six full-grown adults booked to ride in it-- "We’ll pretend you’re a baby. It’s not legal to have more than six adults, but a baby is all right."

So everyone said their goodbyes and final New Year’s wishes to Frau Schipfner. But before I went I asked Rollo to please tell me, quickly, about the office. . . .

[Here ensued some architectural shop talk interesting to me at the time but not relevant to the occasion.]
It was jolly crowded in that car, which was only a mid-sized VW. Never mind me, I think one of the old men had regressed in age. I can see that he might be more comfortable with his arm stretched across the back of the seat, but squeezing my shoulder while he was at it really was not required. Nothing threatening, but I was glad when we dropped him and his wife (yes!) off at their flat near the Schönbrunn Palace.

It was nearly 4:00 AM when I was dropped off at the hotel. I didn’t go to sleep immediately. I’ve decided to revive my Song for the Year custom; for 1989 it’s to be "An die Müsik"; and while I was running my Schubert tape back to listen to it, I thought about the Waldstein Sonata and how I couldn’t recall the Rondo theme at the Beethoven house, getting it mixed up with that of that Opus Posthumous piano trio movement. I listened to the Waldstein Rondo, too, therefore, and see that recall is all in the opening intervals-- the OP starts in an ascending minor second, the Waldstein on a melodic unison. I tried it a few times and it works like a charm.

Anyway, that’s only more or less relevant to what I’ve chosen for 1989, and no unattainable men are in it:

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Studen,
wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb entzunden,
hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt,
in eine beßre Welt entrückt!

Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harpf entflossen,
ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir,
den Himmel beßre Zeiten mir erschlossen,
du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür,
du holde Kunst, ich danke dir!

________________________________
†By European reckoning; 5th floor by American.
‡As I'd known him in the States, Rollo did the European casual look straight down the line. I'd never seen him in anything other than a long ponytail, an open-necked shirt, and Birkenstock sandals with heavy socks. He wouldn't condescend to wear a suit and tie, not even for a client meeting at our architecture office. So I'd figured it'd be the same here in Vienna!
††"We're coming! Yes, we're coming in the blink of an eye!"-- a handy phrase I'd memorized from the spoken dialogue of Beethoven's opera Fidelio.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Twenty

Sunday, 25 December, 1988
Christmas Day
Löhenthal*

I figured out this morning why I feel so resentful about the missing clothes. If you base your life upon the idea that one of the chief aims is to cause no one else any trouble, naturally if they force you to cause them trouble by asking them for things only they can give and which are essential (like access to your clean underwear), they’ve caused you to commit a major sin. And that is intolerable.

Now, if they do things for you voluntarily, without having been asked, or if you’re paying for them to do whatever, that’s different.

Decided this must be ridiculous from a Christian standpoint so got mostly dressed and went up and asked Frau Renzberger*, rather stumblingly, I’m afraid, about the unmentionables.

I was up a little earlier, relatively-speaking, than yesterday. Lukas* was only just stirring himself.

The main feature of breakfast was a traditional bread called a Topf,† braided in a large round. Frau Renzberger makes hers without eggs, so it will keep longer, and it doesn’t have as much sugar in as my egg bread recipe. Had it with the rose hip butter (Hagenbutter) one of the neighbors brought over Friday.

Frau Renzberger (ok, Greti*) admired my dress and was amazed to find I’d made it. She pointed this out to Lukas, saying, "She can do everything!" In any other situation, you’d think she Meant something by it. But as things developed, no . . .

Lukas, his father, and I were the only ones who went to church. It was a beautiful blue sunny day and a pleasant walk to the little white Reformed church with its landmark steeple. Built in the 1500's, I think, and nicely restored.

No choir this morning, though they did have an ensemble of recorders that played in the intervals. And the organ. None of the hymns were what you’d call Christmas warhorses from American standards, though the tune of the last one was Sicilian Mariners. I was told at dinner that it just wouldn’t be Christmas without that one.

I understood the Gospel reading, the gist of the words to the hymns, and the Scripture references in the sermon. The minister preached from the first chapter of John’s gospel and brought in other Christological themes from the same book. But I couldn’t tell you what the exegesis was or if I would’ve been willing to add my Amen had I heard it in English. Still, when the minister ended by bringing in something about Hoffnung-- hope-- the very concept brought tears to my eyes. Yes, hope, that someday all this will be behind me and that my greatest cross will not be my own personality.

At Communion time, the minister consecrates the elements, then two of the church council help him distribute. The people went forward, two rows at a time. The minister gave each one of the Bread, and then the Cup is passed from hand to hand. I received it from Lukas then passed it to his father. Then the pastor pronounced the declaration from Isaiah that "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light," adding, "Alleluia, amen." And we took our seats and the next group came up. The organist played "Wachet Auf" during this; not the Bach chorale version, though.

On the way home we saw a duck in the stream and a horsedrawn carriage out for a drive (Don’t I sound like a three year old?) and discussed preaching styles and theological education. Lukas is appalled that in England (America, too) you can qualify for the ministry after only three years of divinity school. In Switzerland and Germany, they can’t be ministers till after they’ve studied theology for seven years. I refrained from pointing out that maybe that’s why so much goofy doctrine and outright heresy comes out of those two countries. The ministers become too ivory tower and too much removed from the actual practice of the gospel. "Another damned theologian comes grunting out of the Black Forest"‡ is a quotation that came to mind, though not to the lips . . .

Lukas and I had our inevitable theological argument back home before dinner. We were discussing the service and the style of giving Communion and he said that the elements in his church are just like any other bread and wine anywhere, no symbological value whatsoever . . . In fact, he said, a pint of beer and a ploughman’s lunch at the local pub is just as much Communion as what we did in church this morning.

I said, well, what do you do with the verse in I Corinthians that says whoever eats and drinks the Communion elements without recognising the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ eats and drinks condemnation on himself?

And he said, oh, his church doesn’t put as much weight on the epistles of Paul, rather on the Gospels.

(Ye gods.) OK, say I, what about Jesus saying, "This is my body, do this in remembrance of Me?"

Lukas says, it’s only a remembrance.

I wasn’t about to accept this "only" but I wanted him to see what he was overlooking even in the little that he was allowing Holy Communion to be. Yes, I said, but it is a remembrance, something that doesn’t necessarily happen at a normal meal.

He wasn’t moved. The root of his argument seemed to be the urge towards inclusiveness, that no one, not even non-Christians, should be left out of what he seems to see as a token fellowship meal (as opposed to a sign of the Christian's special relationship with God through Jesus Christ).

He’s telling me his point of view and smiling as if to say, "Surely you see I’m right!" And I’m thinking, God, I wish he were, he’s such a sweetheart, I wish I could honestly agree with him-- but I can’t. As I see it, he and his church as a whole are still reacting against that horribly erroneous trend in Roman Catholicism in which the mysteries of the faith were reserved only for the initiated few, the clergy. But the Swiss Reformed have really gone crazy with it, it seems to me, not only saying that the mysteries of the faith are available to all, but also that there are no mysteries.

I tried to compromise with him, saying I could see his point of view if he meant that Christians should have the same sacramental attitude to food outside the church as they do to that given within it . . . but still, I think we could have had a good bang up argument if his father hadn’t called us to dinner. I was trying to see his point of view without prostituting what I see as the truth on this, but he was making no effort to do likewise. Most frustrating.

Happily for the preservation of the Christmas peace, the only explosion this afternoon was from the cork of the bottle of Champagne I brought. Herr Max Renzberger* opened it just before dinner. The cork flew out the open french windows into the yard, who knows where. Bringing that seems definitely to have been a good move.

Christmas dinner was interesting. It did not focus around a major meat dish like turkey or a roast. Rather, it was raclette, a traditional Swiss dish in which each person melts a certain kind of cheese in individual dishes in a special heating unit brought to the table, and drips the cheese over boiled potatoes, mushrooms, onions, olives, artichokes, and other such items. There was wine with this, and Christmas cookies after.

At the end of dinner Lukas declared that if I wanted to go for a walk after supper, I’d have to go with his father, he was tired and was going to bed. I did not express a desire to follow either of their examples; neither of these options, a walk with Herr Renzberger* Senior nor a nap, seemed like a particularly fun way to spend an already short day.

Not that I spent it any more usefully. I looked at a cathedral book that’d been gotten out for me, then tackled my French version of Hector’s Mémoires. Have to confess it’s more fun in English, where I can just read through, but I’ll get the French eventually.

So the afternoon passed quite quietly (no football games around here), only broken up by the general farewell to Thaddeaus* when his father made ready to drive him home.

At 6:30 or so everyone left was ready for a walk, so shoes were changed and we all went for a tour of Löhenthal under the stars. First time I’ve seen the Big Dipper since I’ve been in the Eastern Hemisphere.

I’m impressed with the solicitous care Lukas took of his grandmother, supporting her on his arm. Me, I found it awkward, because if I hung back to be with them it would look deliberate. And somehow it seemed essential I not appear to have any ulterior motives towards him. So I tended to walk with his parents, holding back every so often when it seemed we were getting too far ahead. Still, I found it disconcerting that when I did rejoin him and Granny he never engaged me in conversation, only talked with his grandmother in German.

Back at the house, there were the leftovers from last night’s charcuterie and more cookies and wine.

They were kind enough to let me call Mom in Houston to wish her a Merry Christmas . . . Got her right away. Nothing much earthshaking said, only that Leila* [my 17-year-old niece] wasn’t going to be there for Christmas dinner, she actually has a job, in a movie theater. Shock. Hope it goes well.

I couldn’t tell Mom much, not having the time at international rates and also because I was feeling more than a little subdued. It had occurred to me that Lukas really hadn’t spoken to me since before dinner, though it couldn’t’ve been the theological discussion, we’ve had those at Coverdale* and it’s never bothered him before. But I’d noticed that if anyone addressed me in English, it was his parents. And my ability to find sufficient enjoyment simply in the sound of him speaking Swiss German was beginning to wear off.

Another awkwardness at bedtime this evening. Greti had taken not only my shirts to be ironed but also my nightgown. I had to go to the master bedroom to inquire in usual tongue-tied fashion after its whereabouts after she and Max had already started getting ready for bed. The thing was sitting in their bathtub . . . It was rather difficult trying to make her understand I do not need an ironed nightgown, I need something to sleep in. Especially difficult saying so in front of Max.
_________________________
†Seems I misunderstood and it's actually called a Zopf, and it's usually formed as a braid.
‡The saying is by the writer Wilfrid Sheed, and I probably got it from an article by Cullen Murphy in the December 1986 Atlantic Monthly. So far (Feb. 2009) I am unable to discover in what context Mr. Sheed first said or published it.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Nineteen

Saturday, 24 December, 1988
Christmas Eve
Löhenthal*, Switzerland

As for what transpired today, I got up around 9:00, took a shower, and appeared upstairs. Everyone else had already eaten but Mrs. Renzberger* produced breakfast for me. Instant guilt, even though she’d said for me to sleep as long as I liked.

The family put up the Christmas tree today. Lukas* and I did the decorating. He put on the red candles in their clip-on holders and showed me how they also use these hanging fireworks-like sparklers that one can light just for fun. I started in on the ornaments. They were, characteristically, heavy clear stained glass balls, each of all one color; though some had designs and textures molded or blown into them, most were smooth. I’m afraid I left a memorial to myself behind-- I shortened up most of the strings on the balls I hung, to keep them from sitting on branches below.

There were also a few handmade decorations and contributions from family friends, which Lukas told me the story of. And a contribution of a red-orange tail feather from Kapten Blood*, the West African parrot.

Didn’t do anything terribly useful after that except look at a French Gothic book Lukas pulled off the shelf for me, till time to go fetch his maternal grandmother from her apartment at an old-age complex near Zürich.

I went with him and sat there in Granny's front room, feeling very dull, as if I hadn’t a great deal to say. But silence can be a virtue, can’t it?

(On the way over I did ask about his mother and he said don’t worry, I’m not being any trouble. Well, if you say so.)

His grandmother, Frau Heimdorfer*, treated us to coffee (tea) in the complex snack bar and then we drove back to Löhenthal. I sat in the back seat, contemplated the scenery, and idly let the German conversation in the front seat wash over me.

When we returned I had just enough time to wrap my present for the family before time for supper and time to meet Lukas’s middle brother Thaddeaus*.

Dinner was all sorts of charcuterie, better than what I had in France, despite Greti’s* constant concern that I wouldn’t like it. Table conversation started out in English and a little French but gradually went predominantly into Swiss German. It occurred to me I didn’t mind, greatly. It relieved me from the necessity of having to be clever myself. And it reminded me a lot of the Coverdale College* dining hall, where due to the noise I can’t understand anything being said around me anyway. I found I enjoyed the sound of Lukas speaking German. The Swiss do it more softly and gently than the Germans do and his voice in his native language is pleasant in itself.

I wasn’t totally left out, though. Talked about England a bit, since everyone there had been there.

After dinner the tree candles were lit and the family assembled in the living room. Lukas officiated and set the mood by having the "Pastoral Symphony" played on the stereo (Handel’s, from the Messiah). Then he read the Christmas story, according to Luke, through the annunciation to the shepherds, from the NIV out of consideration to moi-même. After that, we lit the candles we had been given, passing the flame and with it a wish for peace around the circle. Then each person put his or her candle on the tree.

Then, in a move designed to destroy my peace and everyone else’s, Lukas’ mother asked me to sing a carol or something else for Christmas. Oy vay. Seems dear Lukas had given his mother a proper buildup for my vocal abilities. And, she said, none of her Kinder will sing anymore. They did to a certain age but then refused. So I was elected.

Deciding it was appropriate after the text about the angels, I gave a verse of "Angels We Have Heard on High," to everyone’s seeming satisfaction.

But I wasn’t off the hook yet. Frau Renzberger declared that after she read the company a story I was to sing again. Panic!

Fortunately the story was long. In German, of course. I caught words here and there. As explained to me afterwards, it was about a former political prisoner who had the meaning of Christmas and freedom suddenly come together for him on simultaneously hearing Handel and being given a drink of warm milk. The homely comfort and the glory of it combined . . .

I’m not sure why I did what I did then. Yes, I do, too. Instead of a traditional American or British Christmas carol, I, after some preliminary fumbling around for the proper key (I couldn’t trust myself not to crack on the high f''), sang Schubert’s "Du Bist die Ruh’." I did it because it’s in German. And I did it especially because I remembered what Lily Michaels* [a little girl I used to babysit] once said, that it reminded her of Jesus. So it seemed more in the tone of the story just read than a conventional carol would have been.

I sang with my eyes shut to keep off the nerves (I know, Dr. Smith† said never do that) and only stumbled over the words once. Still, I’m no Dame Janet Baker and maybe I shouldn’t’ve tried it. One gets that feeling when the predominant response is, "Oh, we know how difficult it is to sing before people!"

These preliminaries over, it was time for presents. They told me that if the family is going to Christmas Eve service each person usually just opens one or two, often those given by friends they’ll be seeing at church. But tonight things were running late and Thaddeaus was taking the only car back to Neigendorf*, where he lives. That meant everyone would have to walk and Grandmother wasn’t up to it. Leaving her at home alone wouldn’t’ve done, either.

So church was punted for the evening and everything was opened. Lots of socks; Lukas and his brother gave each other calendars; the former brought all sorts of things from Oxford. And there were two gifts for me. One was a dark blue-black scarf with a-- what do you call it?--oil swirl design running through it. Turns out Lukas had suggested it and his mother had picked it out. Funny, because we’d been talking about the Oxford fashion for that sort of thing at dinner and Mr. L. Renzberger had not betrayed a clue. My other present was an assortment of Swiss chocolates. Good. I can serve them for tea in my room at Coverdale.

Mine for them was hiding under the tree and thus was one of the last opened. My drawing of the Hobbit House went over rather better than my singing did, I think. And it seems to be rather appropriate, since most of the walls of the house are hung with contributions from friends and family. I immediately told them I’d need to take it back to Oxford to get it framed, but Lukas’s father said no, no, they’d get it done.

Maybe that’s better anyway. They can choose the frame style and mat color to match their décor-- or maybe choose not to hang it at all.

After presents were all opened there was more wine and more cookies and playing with the bird, who’d been let out of his cage. Me, I did not venture to pet him. Would like to keep my fingers.

The household retired to bed around 11:00, whereupon I discovered something very awkward-- Lukas’s mother had been kind enough to wash all my dirty clothes today, but she doesn’t have a clothes dryer.‡ Therefore my flannel nightgown was still very wet and I had no idea where my cotton boatneck shirt, which would’ve done to sleep in, had been hung to dry, let alone the underwear which I would need in the morning.

I finally decided to make do sleeping in my bathrobe, not being comfortable sleeping in nothing, but it was a pis aller. I’m afraid I retired in a very uncomfortable state, especially inside me: I wish I were pretty, I wish I could sing properly, I wish now I were ten years younger and could go back and do everything right, I wish I never had to cause anyone any trouble . . .
____________________________
†My voice teacher at KU
‡They had the typical European drying room, where wet or spin-dried semi-wet clothes could be hung on racks or laid flat on slatted wooden shelves and take advantage of the heat emanating from the not-highly-efficient, uninsulated furnace and water heater.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Nine

Wednesday, 14 December, 1988
Toulouse to Carcassonne and back again

Made the 9:06 train for Carcassonne this morning. It got in around 10:10. I bought a couple rolls for breakfast at a briocherie in the lower town then walked across the Pont Neuf over the Aude to the old city.

Reminded me somewhat of the village below the abbey at Mont-St.-Michel but with the cloudy weather the effect wasn’t the same. It wanted more people.

Went and saw the church of St. Nazaire first off, since I tripped over it. Romanesque nave and Gothic choir and transepts, almost all glass. Viollet-le-Duc hard at work restoring the vitrame, but at least that meant there was light coming through most of them. They had some rather nice large scale figure sculpture, too.

There were a man and three children in there hammering together the Christmas crèche. For that matter, all of Carcassonne, the Upper and Lower towns both, was decorated for Christmas.

They allow cars and trucks in the Cité. Rather anachronistic.

A great many of the of the shops were closed for the season but there were still an adequate number of tacky souvenir stands open. The forte here is hammered copper (or some facsimile thereof). I contented myself with a few post cards and a guidebook.

Took pictures of all the older-looking houses I could find, going on what I knew from Margaret Wood and that Wooden Houses book Eric* gave me. It was awfully cold and windy, though, and with no sun anyway I decided to take an earlier train than planned back to Toulouse.

But first I would make a circuit of the lists between the two walls. Went partway round before the cold north wind drove me back in to the shelter of the houses. But then the sun started trying to come out so I went back outside and walked along the outer fortifications, and looked at the countryside to the east, opposite from the city. Vineyards and hills, off into the distance.

Popped in and out as I saw a likely-looking gate. There were a few people around, mostly couples. Nearly saw an accident at the Tour St. Nazaire as two cars approached it from opposite directions at once. I could hear the car coming in through the single-lane gate and pointed it out to the driver of the exiting car and he stopped just in time. I can’t believe how closely the other one scraped by, though. Very French.

Back out into the lists, continuing clockwise around the citadel. It occurred to me how isolated it was through there and I mused that it would not be particularly romantic to "fall beneath the walls of Carcassonne," since for me at this time it certainly would not be in pursuit of some knightly deed.

Funny I should think of such a thing just then . . . funny-peculiar. Just about the time I passed this semi-circular cut in the earth (a drain of some sort?) just past the Tour de Cahuzac and the Tour du Grand Canisson I noticed a man, middle-aged, stocky and dressed like a workman in blue trousers and zipper jacket, standing looking over the battlements towards the lower town. From whatever conceit I decided to give him a wide berth. But as I passed him, he turned, came towards me, and demanded, "Donnez-moi votre main!"

Well, as far as I know this is not standard etiquette and I was having none of it. I said, "Non!" and drew away, but the creature tried to grab for my hand anyway! Over and over he babbled, "Donnez-moi votre main! Donnez-moi votre main!" Again I pulled away and began walking fast, whereupon the horrid person sped up, passed me-- and waited for me just inside the arch of the Tour Carrée de l’Evêque. The whole thing was unbelievably absurd and became even more so when, as I came opposite him within the tower, he again came at me and not only tried to grab my hand but also my rear end! I evaded contact and kept on going, while he started saying some other things that it’s just as well I couldn’t understand-- I wouldn’t want them rattling around in my mind.

I got out to the approach to the Tour de l’Inquisition, the creep still at my heels. I wasn’t scared, exactly, because the whole thing was so pointless. For what it was worth, I said sharply, "Laissez-moi tranquille!" as advised by one of the books I’d read on travelling in France. But he just grinned, kept babbling, and inside le Tour de l’Inquisition tried to grab me again.

No, I’m sorry. He did grab my hand. And began to pull it towards his crotch.

Well, that was enough. I was not being over dramatic, this was real and quite dangerous, especially considering the constriction of the lists just ahead between the Inquisition Tower and the Tour du Petit Canisson. Seeing it gave a whole new meaning to the expression "to be in a tight place" and I didn’t like it one bit. I snatched back my hand, gave out a shriek to show him I meant business and would really scream if his aggression continued, and took to my heels. I hoped my being younger would avail me if he came after; I couldn’t hear him following but I wasn’t taking any chances.

The lousy part was up the incline towards the Porte d’Aude. It’s rather demoralizing-- not to mention potentially petrifying-- to realize you can’t run like Thomas Magnum. I mean, if my accoster had really been trying I could’ve been lost right there.

Fortunately I knew exactly where I was, having entered through this gate in the first place. I doubled to the left and back into the cité to where the open shops and restaurants were. I have no idea if he meant me serious harm or if he’s just the kind of slime who likes scaring girls, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out.

My intention was to find a gendarme, or maybe report the guy at the post office. But the post office was closed for lunch and no policemen were to be seen. And my French isn’t good enough to make a random passerby understand what the problem was and help me do anything about it. So I decided to make myself scarce. I still didn’t feel safe-- what if he had followed me in? I didn’t want to hang around. So I found some other people, a couple, and began to follow in their wake. Fortunately they were going in the same direction as I’d decided to take-- towards the Porte Narbonnaise, opposite the side where the creep was hanging out. The carpark is there, and other people, and traffic. So I emerged there and circled round outside the citadel to where I found the way back over the river to the lower town. So help me, if I’d seen that jerk again you could have heard me all the way to Oxford.

Back towards la gare, bought some pizzas for lunch-- by which you may deduce that I was not terminally frightened. But I was impressed by the presence of evil in this world-- and moreover of the utter purposelessness of so much of it.

But it was "while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us" . . . And He knew about all this crap ahead of time!

Back to Toulouse by the 1:29 train. The sun actually decided to stay out so after resting at the hotel a little I took the camera and headed back to St. Sernin to see what I could see.

Much better than yesterday. I do seem to be having better luck with my Romanesque churches than with my Gothic. And today somebody went up and began practicing the organ! Maybe it was the composer chosen--Vierne or Messien or the like, but the playing didn’t seem as fluid and composed as that at Bourges. Still, it was a good thing to hear it. And it was audible out in the place at the west front, too.

Made a Decision and walked over to the rue Alsace-Lorraine and bought Marian*† a cloisonné box shaped like a quail, for Christmas. Around $13 US.

Got some orange juice and a chocolate bar at the Monoprix and came back to the hotel. Consumed much of that and the third 5" pizza from Carcassonne while playing with train schedules for the next week. Spent entirely too much time on that and didn’t get around to washing my silk blouse till after 10:00. Had it in the sink when I noticed the rules and regs notice saying that doing laundry in the room is "interdit." Oops! Well, tant pis, and if it’s not dry by morning I’ll hang it in the closet and no one’s harmed by the enterprise.

Wrote Mom and Janie*‡ postcards. I told them the gray weather is depressing but I didn’t admit I’m homesick-- for England. Kept singing the Simon & Garfunkel song "Homeward Bound" in my head today . . . Wish certain parts of it fit more than they do . . . and certain parts, less.
__________________
†My younger sister
‡The friend who was subleasing my apartment back in the States

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Eight

Tuesday, 13 December, 1988
Toulouse

HÔTEL GRANDS BOULEVARDS, 11:30 PM-- When I woke up at the Hôtel St. Antoine around 8:00 this morning and it was still almost totally dark in my room, with only a sickly glow filtering in from the dirty rippled plastic over the inner courtyard, I decided I definitely had to change hotels.

Spent a good part of the morning doing that. Looking for another hotel, I mean. And had one or two interesting experiences in the process.

At one place they were letting little rooms for 100F with little windows high in the wall, up under the roof. I was trying to decide if I could deal with that and asking questions about whether the front door is locked at night to see if that would tip my decision one way or the other, when suddenly the previously amicable patronne changed her countenance, began to go on about how it was all "trop complique" for her, and summarily showed me the door! I wondered what God thinks of such behavior. I know that if I behaved in such a fashion I wouldn’t expect His compliments . . .

Anyway, I ended up in the first place I’d inquired into, the Hôtel Grands Boulevards in the rue de Austerlitz on the other side of Place President Wilson from where I was last night.

Unfortunately, I have to change rooms again tomorrow. Where they're moving me I'll be paying 135F for a chambre avec douche. Very nice, that will be, but the room I have now, with only a sink and bidet, is quite sufficient and has a (nonoperating) fireplace besides. But it’s booked for tomorrow night, it seems . . .

This room is 90F a night, only 3F more than what I paid at the St. Antoine last night, and it has a large window, on the street. That other place was too quiet.

All that settled, I headed for la gare and got my couchette reservation for Friday night’s run to Paris taken care of.

Then I found there’s no bus to Conques so I checked into rental cars. Hertz has the best one-day deal. 490F. If I do that I go to Aurillac the same day. Depends on if I’m up to wrestling with French road signs.

Saw the basilica of St.-Sernin . . . too bad the sun didn’t stay out. But it was still a lot brighter inside than was Chartres. All a very pretty delicate pink. They laid the brick with a tinted mortar, then flattened the excess over the brick, then raked out a V-groove horizontally.

I hadn’t realized how much of the old polychromy is left. Most of that is in the transepts.

Visited the ambulatory and the crypt. They have quite a fine treasury. And it’s impressive to see the plaque commemorating the fact that Charlemagne helped the church obtain many of its apostolic relics.

The choir is pretty well Baroque. Woodwork, mainly. And it’s true-- the piers for the crossing tower do rather interrupt the flow of vision. But the tower is wonderful from the outside.

The west front is obstinately homely, especially compared with the liveliness of the east end chevet. The odd thing is why it’s so much higher than the nave itself. Were they planning on western towers?

Bought a copy of the book that Dr. Gendle† gave me to study from, and a number of postcards. I seem to have lost all but one of these, having held the bag upside down while consulting my map on the street. I noticed I was doing that, stuffed the one card back in, and figured the rest were all inside. Wrong!

At that point I was wandering around trying to find the laundromat. Finally did, and went and fetched the dirty clothes. Did the wash, so, but sitting in laundries in strange cities is, well, strange.

Blew 91F on dinner, around the corner from the hotel on the rue de Strasbourg. Oysters and other mussels on the half-shell for starters and then a compendium of salmon, carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms in a sauce. Had a carafe of Sauvignon blanc which I didn’t finish.

I dined at one of a line of two-person tables, ranged close together along one wall with a long banquette on one side and chairs on the other. The man seated at the table next to me engaged me in conversation. He looked to be in his late 40's or early 50's and reminded me of the guy who played Manolito in High Chapparal. Seems he was born in northern Italy but moved to France at an early age and has been here ever since. Lives in Rodez but comes to Toulouse on business. A certain amount of chitchat ensued, allowing for my downhill French, but I did not take him up on his offer to go somewhere else for a drink (I’d had enough, anyway) or to a discotheque. There’s probably a difference between being company and being a pickup, but until I learn the dividing line I’d better avoid any semblance of either.

Gave the patron of the hotel a good laugh when I returned. Was thinking so intently about what had just happened at the restaurant that I didn’t process the fact that I had an open door and not a sidelight there in front of me. Kept trying to operate the inoperable leaf and wondering why the man, sitting in the lobby watching the tube, didn’t come and let me in . . .
________________________
†My Medieval architecture history tutor in Oxford

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Six

Sunday, 11 December, 1988
La Côte St. André

HÔTEL FRANCE-- Hector’s birthday dawned cloudy and gray, which has become typical . . . The sun peeked out only once: oddly, when I was reading in the Mémoires about what a sunny spring day it was when he had his first Communion.

That was after church, when I was waiting for the hotel dining room to open for Sunday dinner.

The salle à manger was filled with jolly family parties this afternoon. Interestingly, at a nearby table there was a young man who had a look of la famille Berlioz about him, especially about the nose and mouth and in his abundant mop of curling light brown hair. But he lacked Hector’s poetry and gravity of countenance. I wonder if there are collateral lines extant around here . . .

I also noticed what I think was the cause of that squeaking noise I heard last night. They have a set of Western-salon swinging louvre doors between the kitchen and dining room, and they give out a creech every time a waiter or waitress passes through.

I shall say something about dinner, since I can’t afford many such, at 125F plus wine. It began with an amuse-guele in an egg cup. Layered, with aspic glaze. First bit tasted of chicken stock then as you ate lower with the tiny spoon there was a kind of vegetable puree mixed in. Carrot and tomato, I think.

Then came a nice bit of pâté chaud en croûte.

The fish course was a cold lobster pâté with a dollop of creme dressing with chives. The slice of pâté was very prettily decorated with chives and red and black caviar. On the side was a decorative lattice of haricots verts with tiny carrot balls inside the squares. A garnish more than anything, but it was cute. This was all quite delicious.

The only real disappointment was the main course. It was bits of duck that came drowned in a brown sauce, served in a copper skillet. The meat was rather overdone and the sauce reminded me too much of the omnipresent stuff the cooks at Coverdale* make from a mix. There were scalloped potatoes on the side and they did come off, however.

I’d pretty well eaten myself into a coma by then but still sampled four kinds of fromage off the cheese board.

And then there were little bonbon affairs and then the dessert I chose, a passion fruit mousse. Thought that was appropriate for celebrating Hector’s birthday . . .

Couldn’t finish any of these, and the waitress asked if I wanted to take it with me. With my bad French I gave her the impression I didn’t and as ungodly stuffed as I was I didn’t make any effort to correct that. Rather wish I had, now.

Chose a white Savoie for the wine. Fine with the lobster pâté but I think a red would have worked better with the duck.

I’m afraid I let my gourmandizing laissez-faire run away with me, however. I know the French take their eating seriously, especially Sunday dinner, and I can spend three hours over a multi-course meal with the best of them, which this afternoon I did. However, my sitting there patiently between courses letting the waiting folk assume I had nothing to do here in La Côte except pack in their cooking really reamed me for time. I barely was able to see the Musée Berlioz and then get back to the church for the concert. And I was late at that, making it for only the last two Faurés. They were the pieces I wanted to hear, but still I had no time to wander around the town and take pictures, at all. And the bus leaves at 9:13 AM tomorrow, which in this land of eternal daylight savings time means it will be just barely light.

As Mr. Chenley† said in his letter, the director of the Musée was most friendly and courteous. He even came downstairs (after I had explained that I was a member of the London Berlioz Society) to where I was looking at the chronology to give me a keyring and medal made for the 1969 centenary of Hector’s death.

What he did not give me was his name, nor I mine. For that matter, I am not even signed in here at the hotel. Madame says last night, oh, it can wait till morning. Very nice and trusting, but I don’t really care for the idea that if I croaked up here this evening they’d only know who I was by rummaging through my baggage.

Anyway, at the Musée it’s hard to tell what room is what, as there’s no way of knowing if the furniture is arranged as it was in Berlioz’s time or if it was just put in to look pretty.‡ I did ask which one was where Dr. Berlioz taught his son Latin. It’s the room opposite the kitchen.

There’s a chair in there that was Hector’s. Forgive me, mon bien-aime, but I’m afraid I was so far within myself that it was only my intellect that moved itself to realize, "He actually sat there."

It’s a charming house, however. Very nice marble fireplaces. And a stone sink in the kitchen. And plaster walls with painted designs.

The music isn’t piped anywhere but into the reception room, to the left of the entry, but you can hear it dimly upstairs. Bits of Harold, the Hamlet Funeral March, the Waverly and Le Corsair overtures . . . Nothing vocal or they might’ve gotten something live.

I had Volume I of my 1878 edition of the Mémoires with me, and showed it to the people on the desk. I didn’t understand all their comments but I gathered it was a reasonably good find.

They gave me a copy of the Bulletin of the French Society. And I bought a monograph on Hector’s childhood and adolescence (plus a few postcards). Tout en française, à bien sûr, meaning I’m in for the long haul with this language . . . but I would dearly love to have a companion with me to whom I could speak English and who could maybe supplement my French . . .

Got back to the hotel (where I dropped off my camera) then over to the church just before they were to do the Cantique de Jean Racine. The director of the Musée was there and very kindly made sure I got in on a student ticket and found me a seat closer to the front. The choir, who I think are called "À Coeur Joie," and the orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre du Dauphine, did a positively luminous job on the prayer. The Fauré Requiem was lovely, too, but the men were just a tad harsh in places and the baritone soloist was choppy in his phrasing. Still, they did lots better than we did in Hector’s Te Deum last Saturday. And the audience liked it. Set up a rhythmic clapping afterwards . . . but there were to be no encores ce soir.

The acoustics in the eglise St.-André are pretty good. Apparently the nave used to have a wooden roof but it’s rough plaster now. The aisles are ribbed groin vaulted. The nave piers are great fat round Romanesque ones but the arches are all pointed. The architecture is in general rather klutzy and uncoordinated (nothing aligns or matches), but it’s solid and substantial nonetheless.

In spite of or because of what I experienced this afternoon and evening, I’m afraid I feel a bit depressed. The weather has a lot to do with it and so does the language. I can get my physical needs met in it but none of my emotional ones. I hope I pop out of this before the 23rd or else I’m going to make a pest of myself when I see Lukas*. He’s liable to get a hug whether he wants one or not.

Perhaps I would feel differently if I’d been more inspired by what I’ve seen today. But perhaps the voice and presence of men of vision speak more loudly in their works than in the sites and artifacts that knew them in their physical presence. Meaning I wasn’t as moved as I’d expected to be seeing the house where Berlioz grew up and learned Virgil and the first elements of music.

But I just had a rather alarming thought. Over the last fourteen and a half years since I learned and sang the Requiem, Hector's music has become internalized for me. It's become part of my personality as much as of his, and to a degree that’s also happened with the places and things he described in the Mémoires. So when I see them in person and their reality doesn’t fit the concept I had of them in my head, they seem somewhat irrelevant. Worse, they seem to take this person to whom my soul feels so close and remove him from me, to make him a stranger like all the strangers here.

Fortunately, I brought the music along. Oh God, let it not abandon me!

I think I should take advantage of the bathtub again this evening. Heaven knows when I shall have another chance . . .

A silly note here. My missing glove you know about. But here’s the further tally of items lost so far: My luggage keys and their neck chain, pulled off somewhere between Caen and Chartres (nothing was locked, fortunately). My Youth Hostel pass which I left at the desk at Chartres (they’re supposed to be sending it to the PO at Toulouse, poste restante). And I appear to have left my slip at the Auberge in Chartres as well. Now this is really too bad. It was good enough for me to wear but with its shot elastic and safety pins, it’s really no good to anyone else. I shall have to buy another, too. Pestiferous.

I can't hear that squeaky door below me tonight, so I guess the restaurant isn't open Sunday evenings. That's a blessing, at least.
__________________________
†The then-secretary of the London Berlioz Society
‡The Musée was renovated in 2002-03 for the Berlioz birth bicentennial, so this state of affairs may well have changed.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: An Introduction

By popular demand (from all three of you), in a day or so I'll start posting the transcripts of my 1988 Christmas vacation tour of Europe.

A little background is in order.

This took place while I was doing a year of special studies in Medieval architectural, ecclesiastical, and social history under the auspices of the Oxford Overseas Study Course, sponsored by a trio of American private colleges. I and a handful of others on the course were lodged at one of the Oxford theological colleges, which I am calling Coverdale* College.

The Oxford academic year begins the end of September and is divided into three terms, Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity (or Summer), with month-long vacations at Christmas and Easter. As at Easter with my Great Britannic adventure, every student who hadn't paid for an all-year-round room had to clear out of college, to make room for the conference attendees who helped pay the bills. That of course included all us Americans.

This provided us a fine opportunity to get over to the Continent and embark on the closest thing to a European Grand Tour that any of us was likely to see.

Mine was planned as a kind of busman's holiday, with musical interludes. Which is to say I arranged to spend over two weeks in France looking at all the cathedrals and abbey churches I'd been writing essays on all Michaelmas term, and storing up impressions of castles and stained glass for my Hilary term work. Hey, I was studying it because I loved the subject, so why not?

At the same time I'd be making a pilgrimage to French sites significant in the life and work of my beloved Hector Berlioz, the Romantic-era composer. Later on, I planned to visit sites connected with Beethoven and Mozart.

Christmas itself my friend Lukas Renzberger* had invited me to spend with him and his parents at their home in Switzerland. Then I'd make a swing into Italy to see Florence, Ravenna, and maybe Assisi, then up to Vienna in time for New Year's, to see all the wonderful early 20th century work of the Wiener Werkstätte as well as do homage to the great composers. Then on to Germany to check out some more recent architecture in Stuttgart and Frankfurt.

I ordered a month-long EurailPass from the States, good for both first and second class travel since, being over 26, I wasn't allowed to go at the cheapest rate. (I ended up grateful for the flexibility.) Other than Berlioz' birthday on December 11, Christmas, New Year's, and my return date to England, I had no enforced schedule. I sketched out my itinerary so I could visit what I could as efficiently as I could, but otherwise I was free to go where and when I would. I made no prior arrangements for lodging; I'd see where I ended up each night and find something from the guidebooks.

I went armed with a quantity of traveller's cheques made out in pounds sterling, and one or two credit cards. But I needed to do the trip as cheaply as possible. Not always possible, when the dollar-pound exchange rate was running about two to one! I had to make some sacrifices; I don't claim always to have made the right ones.

My luggage perforce had to include linens, since I planned to use Youth Hostels when I could and they required guests to bring their own sleepsacks. And I knew the sort of hotel I'd be staying in would not run to towels. The clothes I packed and wore did not include the usual American sweatshirts and athletic shoes, since they would have been offkey for the type of places I planned to visit. I did include a pair or two of jeans, but otherwise I had a wool skirt, a corduroy skirt, a pair of dark flannel slacks, shetland sweaters over Oxford shirts, a velvet blazer, and black suede hiking boots with red trim over knee-highs or dark tights. The boots were Italian and new-- I bought them in Oxford late the month before. Over all this I wore a wool car coat with a hood. I also packed a silk blouse, a charcoal wool dress, and a pair of black flats, for the concerts I planned to attend as well as for Christmas at the Renzbergers'*.

The piece de resistance was a new tan leather Italian document bag, also purchased in Oxford, which served me as a purse and as a satchel. It was the perfect size to hold my passport case (which could double as a dressy purse), my portable radio-tape player and headphones, my traveller's cheques, and other daily documents and necessities. Its outer pocket held maps ready for use, and it was equipped with a shoulder strap and a handle for hand carrying. It also boasted a lockable clasp (which, somehow, I managed to break the first day out). The key to this and those to my soft suitcase I hung on a chain around my neck.

I don't claim to have been the fashion plate for winter European travel in the late 1980s, but my kit worked-- sometimes in odd ways.

Besides the small yet bulgy nylon suitcase and the long leather satchel, you must visualize me thumping along with a ripstop nylon camera case crammed with two SLR cameras and their lenses and equipment (including roll upon roll of slide film) and an ancient khaki canvas Boy Scout backpack, decorated with my high school Best Thespian award patch and embroidered trail tags from Rocky Mountain National Park. That was for the souvenirs I'd be picking up along the way. How lovely it would be to be rich enough to travel in style with bellboys and porters to carry all one's luggage, but that wasn't me in 1988, and it isn't me now!

A note on the trip diary itself: It isn't as comprehensive or as well-organized as the one I kept for my British tour the following Easter. I'm inclined to post it pretty much as-is, and supply fill-in material in brackets only when necessary.

But as I say, we must wait a day or two to begin. I've got a deadline to meet by tomorrow and it takes priority.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Eighteen

Monday, 3 April, 1989
Holford to Minehead to Selworthy to Holford
Day Eighteen

The skies were clouded up again this morning-- yesterday was a special reprieve.

The important thing today was to do the laundry. Mrs. Ayshford directed me to the nearest launderette, seven or eight miles up the road in Williton.

Facility turned out to be on a side street with no parking. No parking anywhere around there. I dumped the car with the hazard lights flashing in a double-yellow-line zone near a driveway outlet across from a store, so I could run in and ask if they knew where I could park the silly thing. Before I got two steps away an old lady of the hard, trousered variety came up and told me I just couldn't leave the car there, that was a no-parking zone.

I told her I knew that but I just needed to know where I could put it.

Well, she didn't care about that, I couldn't leave it there. (It wasn't her driveway, incidentally.)

I'm not sure why but all at once I totally lost it. All the frustration came welling up and I exploded in tears and told her I didn't give a damn and I'd move it in a minute, thank you please, go away and leave me alone.

The clerk in the store suggested a place on the street a couple blocks away and I drove over there. In the end this was all in vain, since the detergent dispenser in the launderette wouldn't accept the coins. This, after I'd walked up to the bank for change (shop wouldn't give me change; no change machine in the laundry).

So I said to hell with this place and drove on to Minehead.

Asked at a Shell station where the launderette was. Ended up driving past both of the ones they recommended and having to ask directions again at an ironmonger's. They were very nice and told me which one was the cheapest, to boot. Left the car where it was and took my backpack full of dirty clothes back down the street with me.

Well. This laundry was definitely cheaper, at 80p a wash, than Williton's. But it had no soap, either. Nothing for it but to shoulder my pack, dirty socks playing peekaboo below the flap, and go down the high street and find a shop to sell me some. Located a discount store and bought the smallest size Persil they had. They didn't give me a sack to put it in, which is typical around here.

So I just brazenly carried it back exposed. It's not like anyone knows me here, after all.

And the machines worked all right, so the clothes were washed and thank God for that.

As long as I was this far west, I decided to continue over to Selworthy, which is a National Trust town. Some people might think it was terminally quaint, but I rather liked it. If Real Life means plastic signs and McDonald's wrappers in the streets, I'm for necrophilia.

I left the car at the carpark up the hill below the church and walked back down, and in and among the houses on Selworthy Green. White walls (cob?), good recent thatch jobs, spring flowers everywhere. Very peaceful. Down along the road there were some bits that looked to be very ancient, like an old stone barn that had been incorporated into a dwelling, but these structures were behind walls and very private.

I especially liked the wooden signs at the crossings of the footpaths, telling how far it was-- by foot-- to the next village. I followed one such path a little way. After a short time I came abreast of a house on whose broad front lawn a small flock of sheep, including several new lambs, were grazing. If these sheep had been told anything about being timid, they weren't heeding it. The ewes especially came up to the fence and bleated and bleated, telling me explicitly that there was going to be no fooling around with their lambs if they could help it. Yes, ma'am!

At the top of the little paved road, where it turns to go past the church and the carpark, was a gate leading to a dirt track and a hiking trail. This led up to Selworthy Beacon. It wasn't far, only a mile or so, so I unhesitatingly passed the gate and headed uphill.

The path goes through a wood and along a little stream for most of its way. But then you come out onto moorland, all clothed with an unfamiliar yellow flowering shrub that looked none too pleasant to wade into.

The path, or more so, the road, continues up to the north until you get to the windy cairn-marked top, the Beacon. On clear days, they say, you can see all the way into Wales. Today with its foggy overcast one could only view Bridgwater Bay, with the great oceangoing ships blending their gray with that of the water.

I couldn't help but think how good it would be to have someone with me now to admire the view, obscured as it was. But would anyone else ever be so impulsively passionate about indiscriminate hill-climbing? I almost wished I could have someone magically transported to the top for me, so I wouldn't feel guilty about making them do the walk, in case they didn't like the view. I tried to picture Nigel* there with me, but it wouldn't fit. Nigel*-and-Emily* would have been a painful redundancy. But Nigel* without Emily* in such a circumstance would be abnormal and anomalous.

There's a National Trust shop down in the village. I bought some Somerset postcards and a jar of elderberry wine jelly. There was also a place that served cream teas but it, alas, was closed Mondays.

I continued in my quest to partake in this most civilised of ceremonies when I returned to Holford. But there, too, the shop across from the cottage only kept their tea shop counter open till 5:00, and it was just past that now.

Braving the rather brisk wind in my tweed blazer, I walked up the road into the depths of the village, as far as the lychgate of the church. Very pretty and worth more exploration when the wind and I can meet on more equal terms.

Took the evening off, spending most of it in the downstairs parlour (marginally warmer than the room). Watched the 6:00 o'clock news but most wrote postcards and journal and read Walter Scott.

I asked Mrs. Ayshford about the heat. She said, well, she supposed they're country people and just don't mind the cold. So, she said, having a heater in the guest room just never occurred to them. It seemed unlikely to do so now and I decided, at £8 a night, what do you expect? I can perfectly well survive by wearing my longies under my flannel nightgown and keeping as much of me as possible under the two duvets . . .

Trying to Do What Matters

I picked up my repaired sewing machine late yesterday afternoon. But with all the errands I had to run, I didn't get home till nearly ten o'clock at night. No time to sew more than a couple seams in the lining of my new Easter skirt.

Tried to get it done today. But around 8:30 PM, when the zipper was in, all the side seams done, but the waistband and all the hemming and handwork yet to do, I decided the project had crossed the line.

It's a lovely and Christ-honoring thing to wish to wear a new white outfit to preach the good news of the resurrection in on Easter morning. But not when that means appearing in a crookedy hem because I didn't have any of my friends handy this evening to pin it up for me. And especially not when a new suit of preaching clothes means staying up all night finishing it and showing up at the church late and rushed and out-of-sorts. Then it's no longer something I'm doing to honor God, I'm doing it for my own ego.

So while I've gone ahead and basted on the waistband, I've decided finishing this skirt can wait. I'll wear a white blouse with my dark turquoise lightweight wool skirt. Hey, it's a festive, Easter-eggy color, right?

Besides, I've got something else to deal with tomorrow that I believe really does matter:

I just checked the email the church secretary sent me the other day with the order of worship for tomorrow. I wanted to see whether I needed to be prepared with a Collect (no, I don't). But for the first time, I noticed that they've got the Children's Sermon before the Call to Worship! Like the kids and the word I'm offering them aren't part of "worship" at all! I didn't expect to see it in such a place, and therefore, I didn't.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. If it's at all possible, this will have to be tactfully but firmly changed. Because the children matter. They matter a lot.

Sidetracked?

Last July, when I was back in Kansas City, I bought a few yards of some beautiful off-white wool fabric from Kaplan's Fabrics on the Country Club Plaza.

My intention was to make myself a new preaching outfit from it, for those weeks from Easter on when it's too cold and early to wear white linen, but just wrong--liturgically, in particular--to wear black.

Not that I don't already own a winter white suit; it's just that I bought it back in 1997 and I've, well, kind of outgrown the skirt since then.

Yes.

Anyway, this weekend it hit me how close it's getting to Easter. So Sunday I found the fabric and the pattern, and preshrunk the material in the washer because there's no way I'm paying for dry cleaning every time a speck of dirt falls on it. Monday, I cleared and extended my dining room table, and started cutting the skirt pieces out.

This morning I attached the three front and the three back sections (it's a six-gore skirt), using French seams.

I'm debating whether I'll put a pocket in it; the pattern doesn't have one, but it's handy in case a church wants me to use a radio mike. Trouble is, when I made this skirt before, the seam over the pocket didn't sit straight. That skirt is black, so there I can kind of get away with it.

In white, not so much. But a pocket is so useful. I'm still trying to decide.

One thing that's not up for debate: The skirt needs to be lined. The wool fabric is too fine and lightweight not to. Last evening, I drove over to JoAnn Fabrics and got some matching lining material. Preshrunk it last night, and this afternoon I cut it out and started attaching the pieces.

But what on earth--? My sewing machine will not let me sew a straight seam on that lining! The feeddog catches it (or maybe, doesn't catch it) and the needle inexorably veers in a mindless diagonal off to the edge. I tried completing one seam, then another. Hopeless. They both look like a work of a crazy drunken fool: meandering all over the place, starting and stopping and restarting again, the stitch length long to tiny to back again, the tension too loose or too puckering tight.

I just can't make that machine sew my lining evenly and straight!

Why now, Lord, why now?

And why, at all?

. . . Well, yes, I did notice this morning that the sewing machine presser foot isn't dropping smartly into place. Rather, it sort of moseys its way down onto the fabric, like it hasn't quite made up its mind whether it wants to get to work or not . . . And this afternoon it was so slow and lacksidaisical about it, I thought it would never descend at all.

My theory is that it's just not holding the fabric down to the feeddog the way it should. The wool was just thick enough to make do with the pressure it gave, but the lining acrylic, no.

All very nice to have an idea of what's wrong. But I could have gotten so much more done on this skirt tonight! And now I've been sidetracked. There's no point in doing anything more until I can borrow or rent another sewing machine until mine can be fixed. Or until I can figure out how to clean up my old machine, a 1951 Singer, so it won't get oil and crud all over my nice cream-colored fabric.

How am I ever going to get my new suit done for Easter Sunday!? I'm as sidetracked as my crookedy lining seams!

Unless-- Unless this is God's way of telling me to work on my sermon for Easter Sunday before I work on my clothes? Like, maybe, this is His way of getting me-- maintracked?