shewhomust: (mamoulian)
I enjoy the cooking with leftovers which follows Christmas: I don't know why people talk as if it was a bad thing. I like the illusion that half the work has been done already; and I like the limitation it imposes (this is what there is - now turn it into a meal). I made the surplus pigs in blankets (actually, I regard that as tautology, but [personal profile] durham_rambler requested them, and this is the season of surplus) into toad-in-the-hole (toads in blankets?) and tonight the last of the ham will go into a mushroom risotto. I have not curried anything (yet).

I can't see any end to the leftover washing up, though. Where did it all come from? (Guests arrive tomorrow, so it must be done).

I have tidied away the last days of the leftover calendar, and replaced it with the Angela Harding one which was my Christmas present from K. This feels premature, but we have enough plans for next week to justify it.

We continue to chew our way slowly through the crossword from the Saturday before Christmas: a minimalist grid into which only the consonants of the solution are to be entered. All of the across clues are the names of the composers, and not further defined. There are no black squares, so you could complete the puzzle by solving only the across or only the down clues; we have done some of each, but even this means that there are places where we have filled in an entire answer without actually knowing what it is. Clever, but not really satisfying.

Finally, a post left over from our visit to London: I threatened a post about the British Museum, and here it is. I knew that there had been many changes since I last visited the British Museum (when was that? probably before the British Library moved out in 1998) and was prepared for the unfamiliar; what I wasn't prepared for was how very familiar other things felt. But to start with the new, here's how the entrance hall looks now:

The lion in the Great Court


More under the cut: )

And that really was all we had time - and energy - for. We didn't even investigate what looked like another, better, gift shop. Was that where they used to keep Magna Carta? No, looking now at the map, perhaps not. Anyway, it's in the British Library now...
shewhomust: (Default)
Once again, and despite two significant absences, the carol evening worked its magic. Both of the missing were long-term - maybe even founding - participants. One we knew in advance would not be there: he committed himself to a band a while ago, and has since then been even harder to pin down. But he was so appalled to discover that they had a booking for the night of the carol evening that although we muttered serves him right!, it was hard to men it. Anyway, he was much missed... The other had e-mailed to say that he would definitely be with us, but has for some time been finding socialising difficult, and we weren't entirely surprised that he didn't turn up (worried, yes, but not surprised). But there were new people, who fitted in admirably; there was another regular returned after missing a year for medical reasons; and there was someone so physically transformed since last we met that I didn't recognise him (until the singing started, and then he was unmistakeable).

The mulled wine mysteriously required much less honey than last year, but was still very good. Each year we consume less of it: we are getting older, more of us don't drink at all - and then, as [personal profile] boybear pointed out, those absentees are among the most enthusiastic consumers. Memo to self: the original four-bottle batch would probably have been enough. I refreshed it with another bottle at half time, and then worried that I am turning into my mother - but no, she would have insisted on adding the last bottle in the case. There were fewer mince pies than usual: as the person responsible for warming up the mince pies for the half-time break, I was happy not to have to find baking trays for additional contributions. M. had baked the usual supply, and I think they were ample, but certainly there were none left over.

This is all good, but it's all about the carols. We sang our way through our songbooks (compiled long ago, duplicated and illustrated by our absent friend). We seem to have given up arguing about the order of the carols (mostly as in the book, but starting with O Come Emmanuel because it's an Advent carol, and ending with We Wish You A Merry Christmas because we do), and entertained ourselves instead with the confusion of the musicians, whose books are in alphabetical order. We couldn't find the supplementary sheets (which turned up at the end of the evening under one of the music books) but we sang the Sans Day Carol and Shepherds Arise regardless. I would have said that I left Shepherds Arise to the musicians, who have a fine harmony arrangement, because I don't really feel I know it. But I woke up a couple of days later earwormed by it, so I must know it better than I thought. A. and I disagreed about the pace of In Praise of Christmas (I'd like to try it a little faster, she feels that people take it too fast), but agreed that we would like to sing O Come All Ye Faithful in Latin...

Bonus carols: we did not listen to Radio 4's Sunday Service that morning, even though it was about the Sheffield carolling tradition. But I listened to it today, and enjoyed it.

After this, we were ready for a very quiet Monday. It was cold and bright, and we took the bus to East Finchley, to lunch at Egg and Bake. It's a slow bus ride but a scenic one, through Highgate Village, and it was an excellent lunch, with a choice of vegetarian breakfasts (East Finchley has become trendy since [personal profile] durham_rambler and I lived there.

On Tuesday we visited [personal profile] durham_rambler's family in Essex. In complete contrast, the day was grey and dark, and I decided against taking my camera with me: I very rarely photograph people, so it's just a dead weight on family visits. This was a mistake, as [personal profile] durham_rambler's brother suggested a quick visit to a local nature reserve (the Essex Wildlife Trust Thurrock Visitor Centre), on a former landfill site by the Thames, in aptly named Mucking. The café - because we didn't explore beyond the café - is an impressive circular building, with a ramp around the outside so you can walk up to the roof and admire the view: the silver grey wood of the building, the hazy grey of the river, the darker smudge of Kent on the far side, the leaden grey of the sky. At the top was a poster, one of a series of 'Watermarks' artworks. Inside the building, another ramp leads up to the café itself, circling a shop and providing display space for some fun textile hangings by the Kite Spirit textile group (and I wish I could find some better pictures).

And on Wednesday we came home. That drive doesn't get any shorter, but it went smoothly enough, and we had time to eat and to read the last chapter of Swallows and Amazons for the pub quiz - which we won. So it's good to be home, too.
shewhomust: (bibendum)
We are paying our traditional pre-Christmas visit to London. As I have already remarked, it falls early this year, but we are doing our best to get into the spirit, with the help of the neighbours:

Christmas in Tufnell Park


There's one house near the tube station which always makes an effort, and they have outdone themselves this year!

The flat which we rented last year was not available, and I did not expect to find anywhere else as convenient: but this year we are even closer ("Ah," said [personal profile] boybear, "that's what happened to the back rooms of the Tufnell Park Tavern!") so all is well. This year's accommodation doesn't quite have rhe charm of last year's, but nor is it up two flights of stairs, so what you lose on the roundabouts...

We arrived on Thursday, later than I would have wished, but not horribly so. On Friday, while [personal profile] boybear was teaching, GirlBear took us to Eltham Palace, which they had discovered on one of their London walks, and talked about with enthusiasm ever since. Originally a medieval palace, it was derelict and only the fifteenth century Great Hall remained when the lease was bought in the 1930s by Stephen and Virginia Coutauld, who spared no expense in constructing a luxurious country house around it. The juxtaposition is striking, and was, of course, criticised. Historian GM Young wrote to The Times complaining "the other day I found myself confronted with what at first I took to be an admirably designed but unfortunately sited cigarette factory." This is harsh, but consider buildings like the Wills' Tobacco Factory, which is one of the architectural stars of Newcastle upon Tyne... The interior décor of Eltham Palace is luxurious, in a slightly impersonal style, rather as I imagine the great ocean liners to have been - but with the fashionable addition of an exotic pet, a ring-tailed lemur (purchased from Harrods pet department) who had a habit of biting people. In the middle of all this, the Great Hall constructed by Edward IV, where Henry VIII and his sisters played as children, and the attendant member of staff and I indulged ourselves in working out whe genealogy of all those involved.

Yesterday [personal profile] durham_rambler and I went to the British Museum: it seemed appropriate to follow up our visit to Sutton Hoo by looking at the treasures excavated there, which [personal profile] durham_rambler claims never previously to have seen (I find this hard to believe, but there you are). The museum is so designed that you can't head straight for the thing you want to see, but have to approach through other galleries, and are liable to be distracted by many other wonderful things, some familiar and some not, and perhaps that will be a post of its own, one day. For now I'll say only that I wore myself out looking at a fraction of what is in the museum. Then we went to Borough Market to eat tapas with [personal profile] helenraven: tapas excellent, shouted conversation (over the vibrant nightlife of Borough Market) limited.

And now we are due across the road for an evening of carols.
shewhomust: (Default)
We are on the train to London, to help [personal profile] helenraven celebrate her significant birthday (observed). Strictly speaking, we are on the train to Sheffield, where we will take a train to London, and so arrive at a railway terminus which is not closed - because they saw us coming and closed King's Cross.

Setting aside that complication, things have gone smoothly so far: we woke up early enough to breakfast, pack up the last few oddments and get out of the house without having to rush too much. The climb up to the station is always a slog, but we survived, the train was on time, our reserved seats were not exactly as expected but we are sitting facing each other across a table and have not been challenged ...

If this sounds like an exceptional effort for a party, well, it promises to be an exceptional party! It has been long in the planning (over a year ago, we dined with [personal profile] helenraven at the venue she had chosen for the celebration) and everything she has let slip in the interim suggests that the duration of the plans is matched by their creativity. Meanwhile, we travel hopefully...
shewhomust: (Default)
The Carol Evening last Sunday went well. The mulled wine that I had left to mature after breakfast was pronounced the best yet by several different people: so, for the record, Banrock Station shiraz mataro and heavy of the (fresh root) ginger. A slightly altered seating arrangement meant that GirlBear was in the middle of the musicians and had a slightly different view to her usual, and when I grabbed the seat by the door (so I could slip out after Down in Yon Forest to put mince pies in the oven and refresh the mulled wine) I was just at her shoulder and could enjoy this. Some of the usual singers had carelessly absented themselves, and one had to withdraw at the last minute with which covid: we have been doing this for 40 years, so we are always conscious of absent friends. But A is still finding copies of the songbook in which she has not yet corrected the spelling and punctuation. At the Winter Songs concert [personal profile] boybear had asked me how old was Il est né, and I had looked it up. The initial response, of course, is "We learned it at school," but now we were able to add a proper provenance, that it was first published in a nineteenth century collection of Christmas songs from Lorraine (which doesn't actually go much further than "Nobody knows!") As we say each year: always different, always the same!

On Monday we celebrated [personal profile] durham_rambler's mother's centenary: for many years, trying to allocated our Christmas visits among three sets of parents, we would spend her birthay with her, a week ahead of Christmas Day (I'm not sure she ever found this an entirely adequate substitute for spending Christmas with them, but better than nothing): this year we met with those members of the family not detained by work (his brother, sister-in-law and nieces at the cemetery where [personal profile] durham_rambler's parents' ashes are interred on the margins of the memorial to his illustrious relative; after which we adjourned again to the home of Younger Niece, who had prepared a lunch which would remind us of her grandmother (she had not recognised [personal profile] durham_rambler's suggestion og banana custard, and prouced a very elegant cream, in the manner of a fancy restaurant deconstructing a familiar dish).

In the evening we went with the Bears to Unity Folk Club, which is where we learned to sing Deck us all with Boston Charlie. C. startled me by singing A Sailor Courted a Farmer’s Daughter (what Mainly Norfolk describes as Dominic Behan's version): why was this song which no-one else seemed to recognise so very familiar to me? (Mainly Norfolk blames Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor, which means I knew it very well more than 50 years ago). It's a very supportive club, and wedid actually take up our turns on the singaround: since we had had some (political) parodies of Christmas carols, I, with the help of [personal profile] boybear sang Hark the jelly babies sing..., and [personal profile] durham_rambler with the help of the assembled company, sang The Man who Waters the Workers' Beer and Alex Glasgow's Socialist ABC.

What did we do on Tuesday and Wednesday? A little light shopping: guided by GirlBear, we went to Kentish Town, to the Phoenicia Food Hall and the Owl Bookshop, and then to the Wellcome Collection, whose gift shop filled the last few gaps in my Christmas present list. We had planned to meet [personal profile] boybear at the East West restaurant which serves various Indian inflected pizzas; I wasn't sure about this, but the Bears recommended it. Anyway, it was closed, so we crossed the road and ate Thai instead, which was fine. Back at our flat, [personal profile] durham_rambler and I caught up with an episode of Only Connect which delighted me by including a reference to Peter Dickinson in a sequence of fictional detectives (his was the difficult first one, which you aren't supposed to recognise, and I didn't, until we reached 'the second son of the fifteenth Duke of Denver' whom none of the contestants identified).

Wednesday was mainly packing. Lunch with Bears, an evening of tapas with [personal profile] helenraven in Southwark. High points, catching up with [personal profile] helenraven, fishy rice, excellent wine (Montsant,adjacent to Priorat); low point, spilling a glass of said wine over myself (and the table, but luckily no-one else).

And yesterday we left London via Waltham Cross, where we had coffee with A. Now we are in Ely, with D. and [personal profile] valydiarosada. Not going anywhere right now, just lazing with crosswords and internet, watching the wild muntjac deer browsing in the garden, being looked after by our hosts.
shewhomust: (guitars)
Yesterday afternoon was a big family gathering hosted by the Younger Niece: this overlaps substantially with tomorrow's event, but also included some people who won't be at that one, including the whole of the youngest generation (great-nephew level). We also met for the first time the Elder Niece's new partner, and his son (bonus great-nephew-person).

Quite late in the day, Younger Niece informed us that there was a challenge, to come wearing or carrying a clue to a seasonal song, but that it was purely optional. With no time to think and very limited resources, I decided to pass, but [personal profile] durham_rambler cut up the packaging from our lunchtime mini-panettone and made himself a festive badge. "Life is a panettone," seemed the obvious comment, but caused confusion when our host tried to add it to the party playlist, and couldn't find it. Our hostess with her mistletoe wristband collaborated with her husband who didn't have to work too hard to represent Mistletoe and Wine; an Elvis fan in a blue Santa bonnet (never seen one of those before) indicated Blue Christmas; and thoughtful Elder Niece had a bag of seasonal odds and ends for anyone who hadn't brought their own reindeer antlers and very shiny nose, or even a stick of jingle bells.

We left the party early, to go to Leytonstone Folk Club's concert of Winter Songs: a completely different set of winter songs, I don't think there was any overlap at all, though there will certainly be overlap between the concert and tonight's carol evening - and some overlap of performers, too! We had Cranbrook, for example, with almost no audience participation, which was odd. Sweet Bells got slightly more response, but the fun aspect of that one was that singers were sent out from the stage to the back of the church, to sing "Sweet Bells" back at the performeers. Il est né le divin enfant turned up in a sequence of French songs, between a splendid Noël nouvelet (I should hunt down more of this song) and something I didn't know and couldn't grasp, but suspect may have been humourous. Two Joni Mitchell songs: River, which has become a Christmas regular, and, unexpected but welcome, The Circle Game; Sidney Carter's When I needed a neighbour; the Rolling Stones Winter (how did I not know this? I mean, it wasn't that special, but surely I should have heard it before...?); and assorted Muppets and Greg Lake. No Fairytale of New York, and I'm happy about that, since I think it is very overexposed, but I'm quite surprised, too.

This morning we breakfasted with the Bears, did a little light tidying, and I combined the ingredients for the mulled wine and left them to get acquainted. [personal profile] durham_rambler and I lunched at the Tufnell Park Tavern: the soup this year is chestnut, and the wine list is full of things I want to try (I had a glass of txakoli, dry and almost saline, which cut beautifully through the richness of the soup). We had hoped that J & J would call on us before the Carol Evening, but they have worn themselves out doing other things, and have spent the afternoon recuperating, ready for this evening - and we have done likewise.

Phew!

Dec. 16th, 2023 01:04 pm
shewhomust: (Default)
We are in London. Yesterday's drive down was long, but much smoother than last year's [mis]adventures: we left home just before 11 - as ever, not as early as I would have liked - and reached our accommodation just on six o' clock. By the time we had unloaded the car it was 6.30, which meant parking was free. We don't seem to have forgotten anything that we can't replace (we went to the supermarket this morning, for coffee and cereal).

Usually, of course, we stay with the Bears. There have been changes there - home improvements, all good news - and my mobility got bad enough that I was worrying about the many stairs between the new spare bedroom on the attic and the bathroom on the half-landing, so we booked an AirBnB just round the corner - really very close indeed. It turns out that my mobility is better than it was, and that our flat here is up several flights of stairs, but even so, I am glad that night-time bathroom visits are on the level...

We dined with the Bears last night, on curry from the Bengal Lancer. They make a pie, served in the same rectangular foil tray as their other dishes: I didn't think the pastry was very successful, but the filling was excellent (mostly chickpeas and paneer; [personal profile] boybear says it usually has more aubergine, which would also be good). And we breakfasted with the Bears this morning. Now we have some quiet time, while the Bears prepare for tonight's concert, and we lunch, visit other family and then join them at the concert.

Onward!
shewhomust: (Default)
Whether because of the rigours of the journey, or because of the Big Freeze, or just because we are getting old and lazy, we did not do any touristing in London on this trip. We lazed at home, and talked, and read the paper, and we went out to see friends. And of course there was the carol evening.

Friday )

A country mouse on Marsh Wall )

Sunday breakfast with the family )

Here we come a-carolling... )

And if the carol evening has happened, it must really be Christmas.

Monday was another quiet day of recovery: we lunched at Down the Rabbit Hole, I started to write this post, there was music from [personal profile] boybear's practice... On Tuesday, [personal profile] durham_rambler and I visited his family in Essex, and overnighted with them, which shortened our homeward journey yesterday.

So we were home in time for the last pub quiz of the year - which our team won with an impressive final round, after a very wobbly progression through the rest of the quiz. Now it's just a matter of catching up with ourselves.
shewhomust: (mamoulian)
  1. Until I read her obituary in the Guardian, I had not heard of Susan Shaw, or of the Type Archive. In these circumstances, I gain as much as I lose by her death. No, I know it's not all about me...


  2. The death of Julian Bream is definitely a loss, but again, the Guardian obituary is worth reading: at the age of 11, he was given a junior exhibition award to study the piano at the Royal College of Music, with the cello as his second instrument. "Although he gave a groundbreaking demonstration recital there, he was asked not to bring his guitar in by the front door."


  3. We were talking in the comments to [personal profile] sovay's post about the Guardian's quiz about languages, Know your Hrvatski from your Old Norse? For the record, warning: showing off and discussion of answers under the cut )

  4. [personal profile] boybear pointed out a clue in last Friday's cryptic crossword: "Where Durham divers go, making bloomers perhaps (9)". His point, I think, is that this requires you to know that Durham is on the river Wear. With even more local knowledge, I told him the name of the diver: that'd be underwater archaeologist Gary Bankhead.


  5. And one ftom Countdown to complete the set (hooray! it's back!): a 'teatime teeaser' asks you to produce an anagram of CIDERFOLK, with the clue 'with cider and folk music they played in the sunshine'. Oh, they would if they could!
shewhomust: (bibendum)
And in the spirit of my previous post, a virtual walk through a wintry London, which has been sitting here unfinished for - ooh, for too long: when I wrote a catch-up post about our pre-Christmas visit to London, I said that our Tuesday lunch date with [personal profile] durham_rambler's niece and her husband had been a day out in London which deserved its own post, and illustrations. That was before Christmas (just) and here we are nearly Easter - time to get on with it!

Niece was working from home that day, and quite flexible about place and time, so we made a date for a trendy bike-themed café on Old Street, near enough to Husband's place of work that he could join us. Ignoring Niece's advice that since it was on Old Street, what we needed was Old Street tube, we found a bus that made its leisurely way very nearly door to door, and this is where we alighted:

Street art to order


I'd never thought about all that mural work being a specialist trade, though it's obvious when you think about it that there must be a business that paints all the commercial hoardings, and here it is.

More under the cut! )
shewhomust: (Default)
Christmas eve already: how did that happen? The solstice has passed, the sun is returning: yesterday there was actual sunshine (which we wasted in a supermarket) and today, right now, it is not yet dark at four o'clock. All that carol singong last week seems to have worked. So, picking up with the notes I made on that internetless train:

Sunday was all about the carol concert. Some of that, of course, was more directly 'about', some less. I accompanied [personal profile] boybear to the supermarket / hall of wonders, where he was probably very focussed on preparations, but I just swanned about saying "Oh, look! Camel milk!" (no, I didn't buy any). The Christmas cards had to be admired, arranged, displayed, discussed: why are there so many hares this year? The party in residence had to be sustained with soup and the progress of any early arrivals determined, in case they too needed soup.

In the absence of F., I had a free hand with preparing the mulled wine, and assembled the wine, fruit and spices well ahead of time, to allow the flavours to blend. I don't know how much difference this made, but the end result was pleasing. Other variables are that in the absence of F. I went easy on the honey, and was nervous about this until an Ent arrived and pronounced it good; also the choice of wine, so, for the record, this was the Wine Society's Lascar Chilean carmenere, probably the cheapest wine on their list but very rich, good in the mulled wine and good in itself later. Also for the record, four bottles, and add another before the break.

The Carol Evening is always the same and always different (that's what I always say) and this time the difference was the absence of F. No doubt he has missed years before (and no doubt so have I) but he has been a regular since the very early days. He contributes an expertise with the mulled wine, which by now is more traditional than actual, and a powerful bass (for which we substituted S's rather more musical version). But you couldn't look at the carol books (which F. compiled and illustrated, long ago) without thinking of him. He had told us that he was spending the evening with an old friend (in both senses of that expression) who was visiting from Scotland, and this, though disappointing, was hard to resent. i would have been more upset had F. not been part of our lunch date the following day (when we learned that actually, his absence from the carol evening was based on his misremembering the date as the Saturday, the previous day. Oh, well...). Other than that, it was a splendid evening, with much fine singing and many fine songs. Only two Shepherds this year, Cranbrook and Sweet Bells, and some interesting information from people who had been watching programmes about carols on television (that Oh come all ye faithful is 'the Portuguese hymn', and a Catholic rallying cry, for example).

Monday felt like a continuation of the Carol Evening, in various ways. Lunch was a chance to talk to A., with whom I had conversed only briefly between carols, and F., whom I had missed. The 'absent friend' from lunch was A.'s husband (another A.) who died shortly before our corresponding lunch last year. That's not the reason for the change of venue, simply that A. had identified a better option: and although I knew this was in Waltham Abbey, it was only as we walked from the bus stop that I realised it was directly opposite the house where I used to visit her when we were schoolgirls (now the town museum). Old friends in old haunts, the conversation dwellt on old times - and also on the awfulness of Christmas cracker jokes!. That evening, a different selection of the carol singers reconfigured themselves as Dorten Yonder, and [personal profile] durham_rambler and I accompanied them as guests of the Cruising Club for a very select musical evening at the Waterpoint. Not all of the songs were the same - I hadn't heard Dorten Yonder's King Harry's Men before, and [personal profile] durham_rambler led the singing of The Man who Waters the Workers' Beer.

We managed to make a Tuesday lunch date with his niece and, on condition we met near his office, her husband: but that's a day out in London which deserves its own post, and illustrations. Wednesday was more family visiting, in Essex this time, but home early enough to catch Dorten Yonder's weekly band practice (more carols).

Then we came home. And now it's Christmas ...
shewhomust: (Default)
We didn't manage to snag cheap first class tickets on the train home this afternoon: I don't know if that would have helped. It was crowded, and overwhelmed by the surprise that all these travellers had luggage. Worse still, there was no internet. So I couldn't post, but I wrote anyway, and now let's see how far I can get with stitching that into something coherent.

It may be apparent from my previous post that I have been looking at the paintings of Hogarth - specifically, those in Sir John Soane's museum. The plan for the day was to visit the current exhibition, which brings together all of Hogarth's 'series' paintings and engravings, with the added advantage of a visit to the museum itself, which I had never seen, the possibility, if fine, of exploring the surrounding Inns of Court, and the pleasure of the company of [personal profile] helenraven.

Tree in Lincoln's Inn Fields


The Sir John Soane museum is Sir John's house on Lincoln's Inn Fields, which he extended into the house next door to accommodate his collection of antiquities, mostly statues and carved stones, including, right at the bottom, an Egyptian sarcophagus. This defines the size of the space, and the collection is arranged in rising tiers around it. I like the idea that this is the museum within the museum, but [profile] helen_raven says no, it is Sir John's shed.

He also seems to have owned a number of paitings by Hogarth, (some of which he bought from the estate of David Garrick, who bought them from the artist - that's what I call provenance). The current exhibition uses this as the basis on which to bring together as many as possible of Hogarth's 'series' works, either as paintings or as prints. Some of them are genuinely sequential, telling a story (Marriage à la Mode. The Good and Idle Apprentices) some related in other ways (Beer Street and Gin Lane is the obvious example). The narratives can in part be read from the images, especially if you know what clues to look for, but they are clearly also provided with explanatory text (the names of the characters, for example) which in our case we had not got. I would have liked to know more about this, and it would be perverse to try to claim the whole experience as comics-related (though I may, regardless) but I enjoyed seeing these images in this setting.

When we were museumed out, [personal profile] helenraven led us through Great Turnstile (it's a street) to a Korean restaurant where we ate a variety of tasty fried starters, [personal profile] durham_rambler found a dish of rice and kimchi topped with bacon, chorizo and a fried egg (which makes it a Korean all day breakfast, doesn't it?), I attacked a big bowl of noodles in black bean sauce with spoon and chopsticks (I won, but at the cost of any table manners I might pretend to) and the ice cream menu ofered impossible choices: should I have black sesame or golden walnut? red bean or green tea? We caught up on recent funerals and current reading (both of us have been reading and much enjoying Kate Charlesworth's Sensible Footwear: A Girl's Guide).

After lunch, [personal profile] durham_rambler and I resumed our exploration of the Inns of Court, hampered by the area currently being in use as a film set (Last Letter from Your Lover, apparently). Gates which might otherwise have been open were closed to us, and architecture which might have been impressive was obscured by parked vans. But I saw enough to feel I'd been right that it would be worth a look, and maybe another time we'll be luckier. We came out behind St Clement Danes, which was also, coincidentally, closed, so we headed down to and along the Embankment. This was harder work than we had expected, because we were working our way against a tide - a tsunami, says [personal profile] durham_rambler - of Santas, row upon row, four or five abreast, all in high spirits and taking no prisoners. If this is the same phenomenon we encountered in Greenwhich with [profile] helen_raven years ago, it has grown mightily in the interval. We were still meeting stragglers at Blackfriars, where we caught the bus home.

Brandies for Santas
shewhomust: (mamoulian)
The fourth and final picture in William Hogarth's Humours of an Election (click for a larger view) shows the successful Tory candidate being carried through the town in a chair, from which he is about to fall, because his bearers have run into a fight in the street. Meanwhile, a family of pigs seem to have emerged from under the chair and are rushing across the scene.

Thank you, Mr Hogarth.
shewhomust: (Default)
Time to catch up with the pictures from our visit to the Waterpoint last Monday; which works quite well thematically as a winter solstice post, only one day late.

For a variety of reasons, our pre-Christmas trip to London this year was all quiet days and musical evenings, so there are fewer photos than usual. But GirlBear suggested that we give ourselves time, on our way to the Waterpoint, to see what had changed at King's Cross since our last visit, not to mention crossing the new bridge, and all lit up for Christmas. So here's the new shopping street, with the alluring name of Coal Drops Yard (because, err, that's what it was):

Coal Drops Yard


More of the same under the cut )

And here we are at our destination, with our host about to open the door:

Welcome to the Waterpoint
shewhomust: (guitars)
Northbound on a busy evening train. But first there were two musical evenings (and two quiet days).

The Carol Evening )

Yesterday a friend of the Bears was in town for the day (she lives in Brighton) and we went out to lunch at the Rabbit Hole Café, which is only a short walk away. They offer a whole range of all-day breakfasts, some vegetarian, some not, but to my surprise [personal profile] durham_rambler followed me in choosing chakchouka (that's not how they spelled it, but it's the spelling I know) with a side order of chips. Neither of us has any regrets.

Carols with the boat people )

And today was quiet, sleeping late and wrapping presents and packing the suitcase. Since Dorten Yonder had a gig this evening near King's Cross, the Bears came with us to the station, and we had something to eat at the Parcel Yard before they went to their gig and we caught our train.
shewhomust: (Default)
I'd rather assumed that our Friday lunch date would be cancelled, but A. wanted to go ahead, despite her husband's recent death, and it was excellent to have a chance to spend time with her. [personal profile] durham_rambler and I got there as soon as we could - not as early as we'd have liked, but as early as we could, after we'd arranged a wine delivery to our satisfaction - and the Bears joined us maybe an hour later, after their morning class. It wasn't a happy occasion, exactly: we were very conscious that a member of our party was missing. But I think we were all pleased to be there, together, despite everything. We lunched at the pub ten minutes walk from the house, where pleasant pub food was brought to us with more charm than efficiency by a succession of young people. We pulled our crackers, told our jokes, played our charades, and some of us even wore our hats. Then A. went back to her house, and the rest of us came home by train and by the bus which stops at the door (always a pleasant option, and one we were well ready for).

We might then have gone out again, to what might or might not have been Islington Folk Club's Christmas party - but we had a number of busy evenings scheduled, and decided we could do without this one. So we sat around, and talked - and since A. always saves the crossword from the Oldie magazine for the [personal profile] boybear, we attacked that.

Yesterday morning, GirlBear, [personal profile] durham_rambler and I walked up to Kentish Town and did some errands. The weather could have been a whole lot pleasanter: there was a cold wind carrying something from the sky, which might have been rain or might have been snow, but was too fine-grained to identify. So we didn't hang about, but I bought some presents from the Greek bookshop (which was fun) and from the French café / deli (expensive, but good, and real French people!) and bread and viennoiseries for lunch from the fancy bakery. [personal profile] durham_rambler was less successful, and managed to break a bottle of beer (which also wrote off a cloth bag, which was not only sopping wet but full of glass splinters - but these things happen, and two bottles survived).

Dorten Yonder had a gig last night, at a fundraiser for an Irish support group for Palestine. They had been hesitant about this, but trusted the friend who had recommended them that there would not be political problems; organisationally was another matter. [personal profile] boybear was not reassured to discover that the promise "There will be PA," actually meant "Please supply amplification for the entire evening." [personal profile] durham_rambler and I stopped on the way for something to eat (the pub on Euston Station, which is called The Signal Box) so we couldn't get seats with the band, and found ourselves next to the bar, which was very boisterous. I'd have liked to stay on to hear Dorten Yonder, and I was ready to buy tickets to do this, as advertised, but this turned out not to be the style. Instead, the Master of Ceremonies, Pete the Poet this one, shook his collecting tin through the first band's set, which was annoying. Next up was a young woman called Cat Black (spelling by guesswork) who got me on her side by starting her set with Last Night I had the strangest dream - it's a while since I heard that! I found the rest of the set a bit samey, but the goodwill remained, and I wish I could have heard her more easily. Next up was Pete the Poet, and I'm afraid [personal profile] durham_rambler and I did a runner.

This morning we learned that there had just been time for Dorten Yonder to do a half hour set at 10.30 - and that they felt it had gone well. So I'm sorry we missed it, but not sorry we didn't wait!

And tonight is the carol evening - time to get ready...
shewhomust: (guitars)
We saw this Chrismas show at Cecil Sharp House last night; the band don't seem to have their own website, perhaps because they are an alliance of two bands, Lady Maisery (Hannah James, Rowan Rheingans and Hazel Askew) and Jimmy and Sid (Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith). [personal profile] boybear suggested we go, with some hesitation but arguing that it's harder to go wrong with this kind of material.

Which is pretty much how it turned out. I liked the (Yorkshire, a capella) carols, and a nice sequence from Shetland fiddle tune Da Day Dawn (played by Rowan Rheingans) to Hazel Askew singing The snow it melts the soonest. I wish Jimmy Aldridge hadn't interposed a poem between them - 'The Thrush'? I felt I ought to recognise it, but didn't. In general, I wish they had given sources for all the spoken pieces. Oh, and we were invited to get very excited about the banjo duet (Rowan and Jimmy) on Please to see the King with much explaining of why the wren is the king of birds, and how there are many versions of this song, and this one came from Pembrokeshire - it seems to have passed very close to Steeleye Span in transit (the words were not identical, but close, and the tune was closer).

I wouldn't rush to see either band again, but I'm glad to have seen the show, and found much to enjoy in it. and C# house had a little exhibition of prints by David Owen, which was a bonus.
shewhomust: (mamoulian)
From Wood Lane's ridge, through Queen's and Highgate woods: the ups and downs
of glacier trails that melted here and left their clay and pock-marked stones,
we three - three generations - walk ...


Celia McCulloch is Diamond Twig's Poem of the Month
shewhomust: (Default)
I posted only the briefest note of the day we spent in London before Christmas, walking by the canal from Paddington to Little Venice. It was cold, and bright, and I was pleased with this picture:

Little Venice


Looking for information about the area, I found this listing on the 'Hidden London' website, which claims the name 'Little Venice' originates with Margery Allingham's novel Death of a Ghost: "The name caught on with estate agents after the Second World War and is still much used for the pricey properties in the locality." I hadn't heard this before, and I'm hesitant about it. It's certainly true that the murders in Death of a Ghost (which was published in 1934) take place in a house called 'Little Venice', by the Regent's Canal. Is it more likely that post-war estate agents would adopt the name from an old detective story, or that the canalside location should inspire the same idea independently? I'd love to give credit to Allingham, who I think is the most underrated of the Queens of crime's Golden Age, but I think I'd need to see the missing link before I was convinced.

Once I'd taken Death of a Ghost down from the shelf, though, and flicked through it to find the recurring references to the house called Little Venice by its artistic owner, I couldn't put it back without re-reading it. It starts out as a classic Mr Campion mystery, with a cast of eccentric characters, the household of the late John Lafcadio R.A. - his widow, his 'muse', his model-turned-cook and his granddaughter, plus assorted hangers on. There is a murder with no apparent motive, which takes place at a curious social occasion, the unveiling of one of a series of paintings which the late artist has specified should be revealed at yearly intervals after his death. So far, so whimsical.

But as the narrative progresses, it takes a turn, and I think this is what the author has in mind in her prefatory 'Note on Mr Campion'. Every now and then, she says, he encounters cases which are "less highly coloured but even more grave" and this is one of them. What distinguishes it from his usual mysteries is that by halfway through the book, not only has Mr Campion identified the culprit, he has shared his suspicions with the police (and with the reader) who agree that he is right, but that he has no evidence which justifies an arrest. The remainder of the book is a game of cat and mouse, a thriller in which Mr Campion tries to protect his friends by making himself the target of this very clever and unscrupulous opponent, to provoke actions which will enable to police to intervene, without actually getting himself killed. People - and I'm one of them - talk about The Tiger in the Smoke as if it were unique among Allingham's books in being a thriller, a novel of suspense rather than of deduction; but that is what Death of a Ghost turns into.

But. There will be spoilers, about the character and fate of the murderer. )

This sounds as if it is a large enough matter to spoil my enjoyment of the book. It isn't, but it may go some way to explain why I had remembered so little of the plot.

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