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.
_______________________
†"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.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: Prelude, Part 2

"In fact I’m planning on visiting Iona, too," I told my Swiss friend Lukas Renzberger* shortly before Oxford Easter vacation in 1989. "When you’re Presbyterian and you belong to my church, it’s the expected thing."

And that was the simple truth. You were Presbyterian, you went to Scotland, you went to Iona. It’s how I was raised. I’d always assumed I’d get there before I departed Great Britain, and Easter vacation was the ideal time.

But unlike Lukas*, I had no intention of hanging out at the Abbey or doing anything with the Iona Community. In fact, I hadn’t even been aware there was a present-day Iona Community and I wasn’t particularly interested in finding out more about them now.

Yes, I planned to visit the holy sites, ruined and restored. Yes, I planned to reflect on St. Columba and how he brought Christianity from Ireland and planted it on that tiny island back in the early Middle Ages. I planned to appreciate how that seed had taken root and blossomed and spread to the Scottish mainland and back to northern Ireland and, enriched by influences from Geneva, had come over to America and resulted in the tradition I stood in myself.

But primarily I foresaw Iona as a natural retreat, not a religious pilgrimage. On Iona I would have the chance to rejoice in the Scotland I’d yearned for since I was a teenager. It would be a rest from all the driving and sight-seeing I’d be doing up to then. I would wander the peaty hills and breathe the fresh sea air. My ears would drink in the calls of the birds and the crash of the surf; my eyes would be soothed by the spare lines of the landscape.

And maybe, for the first time in ages, I could actually do some art that wasn’t photography.

I’d bought a watercolor kit and paper at the Harrod’s after-Christmas sale. I would pack those. Also my sketchbook and pencils. I’d sit out on the hills and paint and draw en plein air, and feel that my old identity as Artist was not entirely gone.

Sometime during that Easter vacation, I was going to Iona, and on that poetic isle, whether I came across Lukas* there or not, everything would be all right.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: Prelude, Part 1

When I spent the 1988-89 academic year doing a time-warped Junior Year Abroad in Oxford, England, I and several other Americans in my program were lodgers at Coverdale* Theological College. We weren’t the only internationals there: Coverdale* played host to students from Africa, Asia, Canada, and Europe as well.

One of the Europeans was a man from Switzerland whom I’ll call Lukas Renzberger*. Lukas* was ordinarily a student at a Swiss Reformed seminary in Berne, and the fact that we were both from the Reformed tradition and outsiders compared to the Brits made it easy for us to hit it off. Lukas was about 27 at the time, a big, good-looking, well-set-up young man, and single. He would have been very easy for me to fancy, except that my affections were hopelessly, uselessly, but deservedly and thoroughly tied up with the Englishman I’m calling Nigel.*

Not being infatuated with Lukas* made college life with him all the more pleasant. We were friendly enough that it was a comfortable and relaxed thing for him to invite me to spend Christmas with his family in northern Switzerland, but not so close that the invitation and my acceptance carried any awkward implications.

I had a good time there with him and his family, up to mid-day on the 25th. Then, just before Christmas dinner, Lukas* and I got into a debate about the significance and meaning of Holy Communion. Only his father calling us to the table ended it, and after that, Lukas* seemed very distant, only speaking in Swiss German when we were all together, and turning off my attempts to start conversation when we were alone.

This bothered me. Did he think I was a heretic because I didn’t share his Zwinglian views? Maybe he thought I shouldn’t be holding forth on such topics at all! After all, he was the theological scholar and I was only an architect.

But when we both got back to Coverdale* in January, he seemed to be his old amiable self. Our friendship fell back into its usual easy course and I let what had happened in Switzerland go unmentioned.

Fast forward to late February that year, towards the end of Hilary Term. I was in Lukas’* room at college one Saturday afternoon and we were discussing our plans for the upcoming month-long Easter vacation.

"I’m joining some of the Coverdale* ordinands on the inner-city mission to Liverpool," he told me. "We’ll be serving there for a week. After that, for Holy Week I’ll be up at Iona. I’m on a programme at the Abbey with the Iona Community. Have you heard of Iona? It’s up on the west coast of Scotland."

"'Have I heard of Iona?'" I repeated. "Of course I have! I’m Presbyterian, aren’t I? At my church back home in the States, it’s practically a rule that if you get over to Scotland, you have to visit Iona. It's part of our heritage!

"In fact," I went on, "I’m planning on visiting Iona, too. Only, I don’t know exactly when I’ll be there; it depends on where else I want to go first. But maybe I’ll see you there!"

Lukas* agreed that that would be nice. And even if we couldn’t make contact during the vac, we made a date to go out to dinner when we both got back to Coverdale* the second week in April. My treat this time, I told him. I’d never yet had the chance to reciprocate his hospitality in Switzerland.

All very frank, friendly, and free. You will see anon how things actually fell out between us on St. Columba's holy isle.

The Easter Weekend from Hell: A Tentative Introduction

more cat pictures

I haven't posted anything from my 1989 Great Britannic Adventure journal for awhile.

A lot of that is because I've been screamingly busy--with my garden, with activities of organizations I'm involved in, with trying actually to land a full-time job.

But a lot of it is prudence? discretion? cowardice?

All of the above?

I spent Easter weekend of 1989 on the Scottish isle of Iona. In my journal I record the sights and sounds of my geographical experience there. But those four days are also--predominently--the record of an emotional and spiritual journey into my own soul.

And it wasn't pretty. That inward trip was dark, cold, and dreary as the weather that swept down over that little North Atlantic speck of stone and peat that late March weekend.

Ought it be disclosed? True, I'm not who I was nineteen years ago, though I can sympathize with that young woman.

But will my readers understand that? What if I'm interviewing with a church, and a member of the pulpit committee happens on my blog and knows it's mine? Will he judge who I am now by who I was then? What if a pastor member of my presbytery sees it, and thinks, "What a wet noodle! I'm not clueing her in to any vacancies I've heard of!"

But then, if a church is that judgemental, do I really want to serve them? Would I be able to serve them? And any pastor colleague who might be passing me references knows who I am now and wouldn't care!

Besides [she says snarkily] I read all sorts of people who go to Iona and hang out with the Iona Community, and find it the most spiritually uplifting, life-changing experience they've been through.

Oh, really?

So . . . in the interest of full disclosure and for the sake of some cynical entertainment, maybe it's time for me to present the other side.

But first, in a subsequent post [or three], I'll give some background on certain people and on why I went to Iona in the first place.

Right now, however, I need to go out and get my fingernails dirty again. Assuming my own weather isn't acting Scottish and bucketing rain.

Domestic Comedy

This evening I was at the local WalMart to pick up a few things. Even at 9:30 PM, the place was a madhouse, with not enough cashiers to check out the long lines of customers.

But oh, look! The "10 Items or Less" line was pretty short! Only one customer between me and the person being served! And I had . . . let me count . . . five, six, only seven items! Bingo! Should be rung up and out of here in no time!

Uh, maybe not. Just as I approached, two young women pushing a cart filled to the gills with food, household supplies, flowers, and clothes pulled in right ahead of me.

Oh, good grief, I thought. Two precious products of the modern-day American educational system. For obviously, they could neither read nor count.

I was wrong. Let us say, rather, two shining examples of modern-day American ethical education.

Young Woman 1: Here we go!

Young Woman 2: It's "10 Items or Less" . . . but hey, there's three of us, right? That's like if we had three carts, ya know?

YW1: Yeah! We can each do ten items at a time! You do ten, I'll do ten, and when Charlene* [the third member of their party, presumably; off somewhere in the store still shopping] gets here, she can do ten!

YW2: Great!

While the customers ahead of them were checked out, these enterprising young persons passed the time changing the prices on a display of DVDs. This diverted them so well that a great gulf opened up between their cart and the cash register, while behind me the line was extending back and back and around into the walkway. Spoil-sport that I am, I stage-whispered "Excuse me!" and YW2 quickly put down the price card she was fooling with and pushed their overloaded basket up and started putting things on the belt.

Cashier didn't say a thing, didn't bat an eye. (She might've been the one who got through twelve grades unable to count or read). Just stood there stolidly scanning the items as they rolled down the belt.

While I had a front-row view of the unfolding comedy. It was amazing. YW2 counted off ten items; cashier rang them up; YW1 paid for them. She counted off another ten items and paid for them herself. Then another ten, rung up separately again, which her friend paid for.

And not just any ten items. They had to be chosen carefully. Wouldn't want our orders getting mixed up, now would we?

Meanwhile, the line is getting longer and the atmosphere is getting tense and restless. I'm thinking, "For goodness sake, could you please hurry up, I'm about to be sick standing here! Come on!"

YW2 was deliberately and selectively pulling another ten items from the communal cart when I noticed something odd about her clothing. She was wearing a white and black sundress over a tee-shirt and slacks, and the top of the sundress was hanging down around her midriff. Is this a new style?

No . . . the tags were still on it. She must've tried the sundress on over her clothes to see if it fit, then couldn't be bothered to take it off. I wondered if she would be bothered to remember to pay for it, or if the cashier would have the wit and perspicacity to notice and get it scanned.

But I didn't get to see this part of the comedy played. YW2 was pulling out the cash for the fourth group of ten purchases, there were maybe fifteen or twenty articles of clothing still lying in the cart, the mysterious Charlene* had not yet appeared, and the natives in the queue were getting not only restless, but downright irritated, when YW1 exclaims, "Oh! I have to get a card!" To the cashier: "Where are the cards?" Cashier gives her directions, while I'm thinking, "Ye gods, they're going to go pick out a card and leave their basket here blocking the line. I know it ! I know it! Now I am going to be sick!" But YW1 says to her friend, "This stuff is mostly Charlene's*. Let's go get a card and find her." With that, they pulled away from the checkout and disappeared back into the maelstrom of the store.

Hilarious [she says grimly], just hilarious. Talk about adhering to the letter of the law and stomping all over the spirit! When is it okay to take fifty or sixty items through the "10 Items or Less" line? When you hold up the queue for ten or fifteen minutes paying for your haul in ten- item groups!

Not ethical, but oh my, how clever!

What was it that Jesus said about the children of the world being shrewder in their generation than the children of light . . . ?

Not Too Pastoral

When I was studying at the theological college in Oxford, some of us would get together a lot to watch television or videos. When a character would do or say something inept or insensitive or really, truly obnoxious, we'd chorus, "That Wasn't Very Pastoral!!"

Well, here's something that surely fits the description. This week Mathilda*, the elderly, stroke-paralyzed mother of my friends Hannah* and Frieda* and their sister Gretchen*, is in respite care at an area nursing home. Mum usually lives with Gretchen* and her husband, but this week they have to go out of town. And Gretchen* has asked me to come in evenings to be with her.

So Tuesday night I arrived, and what did they have running around the extreme care floor? A woman with pretentions of being a ventriloquist, and her dummy was--an outsized and extremely ugly vulture! She was assaulting the residents lined up in front of the nurses' station with it, then parading it around to the patients' rooms.

Lord have mercy! A humongous carrion bird puppet as entertainment in an extreme care facility? Poking it into sick old folks' faces and having it ask, "Do you want to marry me??"

No. No-no-no-no-no!

Not too pastoral. Not pastoral At All.

Where It All Started

When I started posting entries from my journal of my 1989 Great Britannic Adventure, I'd forgotten what it was that made me pull the book off my shelf and read it, three or four months ago.

Now I've remembered.

It was reading in some other woman's blog about her and her husband's trip to England. She described going to Durham Cathedral and wondered what that odd kind of porch or narthex was that's tacked onto the west end.

It's the Galilee Chapel, and instead of getting out one of my architecture history books to refresh my memory about it, I chose to read my own experience of it instead.

And then skipped back to the beginning of my travel journal, and read the whole thing.

I wish I could remember whose blog that was. And how I ended up on it. If I ever locate it again, I'll link the relevant entry here.

Huh?

I tend to avoid discussing politics on this blog, but this was too good to pass up.

Look what can be seen in the front yard of a house a few blocks from me:

Let's see . . .

Melissa Hart, candidate for Congress, Republican.

Hillary Clinton, candidate for the Presidency, Democrat.

And here they are (or at least, here their signs are), standing proud, shoulder to shoulder!

What can it meeeeeeaaannnn?

It's an election year. You decide. Me, I'm doing the rotflcopter!

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!

Music

Now that my dog is fully recovered from his misguided gourmandizing, I can say something about the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra concert I attended the night of the 12th.

I had the ticket as part of a seven-concert season series, the night's theme was "Sublime Melodies," and I couldn't remember who was to be featured or what was to be played. Would there be a vocal soloist performing some Lieder? That'd be nice, but who knew?

I decided not to go online to refresh my memory. I'd just drive downtown and see what the evening would bring.

I was late getting out the door (my poor doggie!), and with traffic and parking, I barely had time to get into my seat before the concert hall lights dimmed, guest conductor Juraj Valcuha took the podium, and the music began.

I thought I heard my neighbor in the row above say something to his wife about "Mendelssohn" and "Oberon," but the first piece definitely wasn't the Incidental Music to a Midsummer Night's Dream. Though it was light, glancing, mischievous, flying and flighty-- Oh! It must be Carl Maria von Weber's overture to Oberon!

And so it was.

I steadfastly refused to look at my program even for the next piece. I was just going to let the music come at me, untrammelled by the annotator's comments.

Then out onto the stage strode a solo violinist. I had to look at the program to see who he was.

Oh! It was Gil Shaham! I've heard of his fame, but I'd never seen him play before. If I had, I assuredly would have remembered.

Most solo violinists stand forward, towards the front of the stage, with the conductor and concertmaster actually at their backs. It's like they're saying, "I'm playing this piece the way I play it, and the rest of you can just follow me."

A lot of times it works. But Mr. Shaham wasn't having any part of that. He took up his position well upstage, even with the PSO violinist in the third chair back. Sometimes he seemed to wade into the orchestra farther still. He kept eye contact with conductor Valcuha, and when he didn't, he was interacting with and acknowledging the playing of the Pittsburgh orchestra rank and file.

His stance was striking. He plays with his whole body, flexing deeply at the knees, cradling the violin (a 1699 Stradivarius, by the way), stretching upwards, bending over, bowing his head-- he seemed totally possessed by the music and by the communal experience of playing it with his fellow musicians. He made love to the conductor, to his fiddle, to the music, and to the ladies of the PSO violins. It seemed totally in keeping with the spirit of the piece.

What was the piece? It was Mendelssohn's E minor Violin Concerto. Played very, very well. Jump to the feet in applause very well. Mr. Shaham and Maestro Valcuha were recalled time after time. And we were favored with a substantial solo encore. I wasn't familiar with it, but I'm pretty sure it was Bach. Some sort of variations? I didn't ask, but wish I had.

After the intermission, Dvorak's The Water Goblin and Richard Strauss' suite from Der Rosenkavalier. My mind was wandering a bit by now; I thought of my childhood when I'd hear snippets from the Baron Ochs Waltz on radio advertisements for the Longines Symphonette, whatever that was. At the time I thought it was the loveliest, most graceful piece of music imaginable. How surprised I was as an adult to learn that it was the leitmotif for a superannuated, blumbling clod leching after a girl young enough to be his daughter!

The things you learn.

And I guess I shouldn't throw rocks at Ochs. Maestro Valcuha is young, trim, and (I couldn't help noticing), very, very cute. And me, I'm old enough to be his--

Aunt. A very youthful aunt!

Done!

The federal return is filed via the Internet; the local return is walked in to the borough tax office; and the state forms have been put in at the post office.

Done!

So in observation, I'm reprising a lolcat I made and originally posted on my pets' blog.

Yes, Wennie, anything you say!