An Outing to Windsor
Our time here begins to seem very short, with only six weeks left until we
return to the States. We are trying very hard to stay focused on being
here, not looking forward to the future too intently, and getting to as many
of the sights we've missed as we can in the time remaining.
We were very sorry to say goodbye to Andrew Rose on Saturday morning. He
was a truly excellent guest--he made us dinner (rainbow trout fillets in a
lemon-ginger sauce with wild rice and spinach), he did dishes, and he was a
very interesting conversationalist. Best of all, perhaps, he took us to see
the Lucian Freud retrospective at the Tate Britain and helped us to
appreciate Freud's work and understand why Freud is such a controversial
figure in the art world.
On Friday evening we met him downtown for dinner at Orso, an Italian place
near Covent Garden that I like very much. I had courgette flowers stuffed
wtih parma ham, cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes and then deep-fried, followed
by the pot-roasted rabbit in a tarragon wine sauce with asparagus and the
poached peach with mascarpone. Jason's salad and grilled lamb were good and
Andrew seemed to enjoy his broad bean soup with artichoke hearts and very
tender venison steaks, followed by a pear and almond tarte. It was nice to
have a chance to just sit and chat together.
He went off to join his family on Saturday and we spent the day at the
National Theatre, seeing Tom Stoppard's new trilogy of plays, _The Coast of
Utopia_. It's about a group of influential Russian intellectuals (Mikhail
Bakunin, Vissarion Berlinsky, Aleksandr Herzen, Nikolai Ogarev, Ivan
Turgenev, etc.) in the mid-19th century and the development of Russian
political philosophy during that time. The same actors played the same
characters throughout the three plays and it was a very talented group. The
trilogy was very interesting and quite clever, but not terribly coherent.
The first play could possibly be staged on its own, but it is hard to
imagine the other two being successful without the context provided by the
others. As usual with Stoppard, it's more about the ideas and the words
than the characters or the story. Twelve hours at the theatre (with two
ninety minute breaks) makes for a long day, but the seats were reasonably
comfortable and it was definitely the way to make sense of the project.
While we were off learning philosophy, Wes & Michelle (an old MIT friend and
his girlfriend) had arrived from San Francisco and found the keys we'd left
from them. By the time we got home, they had succumbed to jet lag and gone
to bed. We did see them briefly on Sunday morning before they went off to
Oxford to visit other friends and we took the train out to Windsor for the
day.
After picking up our tickets to the castle at the gate, we actually headed
out into the Home Park surrounding it to visit Frogmore House. This is a
mansion, built in the late 17th century, adjacent to the royal lands and
about a mile from the castle. It was purchased in the late 18th century by
George III, who started the tradition of keeping a dairy herd on its lands.
We passed some of the cows out standing in their field on our way onto the
estate.
George III gave the estate to his Queen and it passed to her daughter, from
whose estate it was purchased by the Crown in the mid 19th century and
formally annexed to the royal domain. Victoria's mother, the Duchess of
Kent, lived there for the last twenty years of her life, and various other
royals followed her. It is no longer a royal residence, but the house and
gardens are frequently used by the Royal Family and are only open to the
public on a few days of the year, so we were very lucky to see it.
Our first stop, as we walked through the lovely gardens, was the Royal
Mausolem, where Price Albert and Queen Victoria are buried. It is decorated
in an Italian Renaissance style, with the paintings in the style of Raphael,
whom Albert considered to be the greatest artist of all time. It is filled
with gorgeous marble, sculptures of various relatives of the royal couple,
and memorials all set in chapels around the central tomb, with its marble
effigies of Victoria & Albert. One of the most touching pieces was the
plaque in memory of John Brown, engraved with the verse from Matthew 25,
`Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little,
I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.'
Leaving there, we wound our way through the gardens, past the mausoleum for
the Duchess of Kent and the Swiss Seat alongside the lake, and up to the
main house. We went through the public rooms of the house, each of which
have been restored to their appearance after one of the major renovations to
the house by Queen Charlotte, the Duchess of Kent, or Queen Mary. After
seeing the rooms we walked out to see the other structures in the gardens--
Queen Victoria's Tea House, John Brown's Water Fountain, the Gothic Ruin and
the Indian Kiosk--and then made our way back to Windsor Castle, grabbing a
quick lunch along the way.
We went through the exhibition on the castle's history from William the
Conqueror to the present, which had an extensive section about the
restoration and renovation of the section of the castle destroyed by fire in
1992. Then we strolled through the Outer Ward and along the Northern
Terrace where we found the long line to visit Queen Mary's dollhouse and the
State Apartments. The dollhouse is impressive--it's enormous and everything
in it works (the electricity, the plumbing, etc.) and the paintings are all
originals and the books in the library are genuine. But far more impressive
are the State Apartments, where the ceremonial functions take place. The
new rooms are indistinguishable from the older ones and filled with
beautiful artworks from the Royal Collection, including many famous
portraits of the royal family and paintings by Van Dyck, Durer and
Rembrandt, among others.
Leaving the apartments, we considered strolling through the moat garden, but
decided that our feet were close to done for the day. We wandered out onto
the East Terrace to see that face of the castle--it is such an enormous
place! One of the oddest things about visiting Windsor is that it is hard
by Heathrow and there are planes descending right over the castle every
minute or two. It is strange to be gazing at a medieval castle and suddnely
have a Virgin Atlantic flight come roaring over the walls with landing gear
deployed, like some monstrous mechanical hunting falcon.
Sadly, St. George's Chapel was closed for the day, but I made Jason look at
a book of pictures of the interior in the gift shop before we walked back
down around the outer walls to the train station. We were pretty pooped by
the time we got back to the flat. There was a message from Jo Guthrie and
when I returned her call she said she desperately needed to get out of the
house and would we like to meet her for dinner. I suggested that she come
over for tuna casserole, if that didn't sound too boring. She did and we
had a fun, casual supper before taking the bus up to Wood Green to see
_Reign of Fire_ starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey. It had
gotten pretty bad reviews, but we enjoyed its tale of survivors fighting
back--with helicopters and explosives-- against the dragons who had risen
from their subterranean sleep to devastate the world, starting with London.
Monday was a bank holiday and our net connection was down, hampering Jason's
ability to work, so we went down to see the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Getting there was a bit complicated and took us to Brixton for the first
time, but we made it eventually and had a nice lunch in their cafe before
entering the gallery proper. It is England's oldest picture gallery, built
to house the collection of Dulwich College, just over the road. The
extensive use of sky-lights by architect Sir John Soane made this a model for
most later art galleries. The collection includes wonderful works by
Canaletto, Poussin, Watteau, Claude, Murillo and Raphael, as well as three
pieces by Rembrandt. One of those, "Jacob II de Gheyn," has been stolen
from the gallery four times. There was a special exhibit on about the Dutch
Italianates, which was interesting, and we were glad to have made it there.
Wes & Michelle came back from Oxford late on Monday night and we stayed up
too late chatting on Monday night. Jason ran off to work on Tuesday
morning, but the rest of us were slow starting. Our guests eventually went
off to explore London and I went to the Islington Chiropractic Clinic to see
if someone there could do something for my right heel, which has been
hurting for a couple of months. The four of us joined back up in the
evening at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park to see _As You Like It_.
It was a good production, with the best Rosalind I've seen and a very
interesting take on the character of Jaques. The stage business added some
very interesting undertones to the play that enriched it without distracting
from the script. I had been afraid it would be as cold as it was the last
time we were there, but it was a very pleasant and enjoyable evening.
Jason is leaving tomorrow for a wedding in California, while I stay here and
look after our guests and get ready for the next ones--Jason's parents--who
will join us next week. So I'm making dinner tonight. Tomorrow We,
Michelle and I will go to see Michael Frayn's play, _Benefactors_, together
with Jo, who knows Wes, but doesn't know that he is in town. That should
make for a fun surprise!
Hope you are all well and have fun plans for Labor Day Weekend. If all goes
according to plan, we will own a house by 5pm tomorrow, so keep your fingers
crossed that nothing goes wrong.
return to the States. We are trying very hard to stay focused on being
here, not looking forward to the future too intently, and getting to as many
of the sights we've missed as we can in the time remaining.
We were very sorry to say goodbye to Andrew Rose on Saturday morning. He
was a truly excellent guest--he made us dinner (rainbow trout fillets in a
lemon-ginger sauce with wild rice and spinach), he did dishes, and he was a
very interesting conversationalist. Best of all, perhaps, he took us to see
the Lucian Freud retrospective at the Tate Britain and helped us to
appreciate Freud's work and understand why Freud is such a controversial
figure in the art world.
On Friday evening we met him downtown for dinner at Orso, an Italian place
near Covent Garden that I like very much. I had courgette flowers stuffed
wtih parma ham, cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes and then deep-fried, followed
by the pot-roasted rabbit in a tarragon wine sauce with asparagus and the
poached peach with mascarpone. Jason's salad and grilled lamb were good and
Andrew seemed to enjoy his broad bean soup with artichoke hearts and very
tender venison steaks, followed by a pear and almond tarte. It was nice to
have a chance to just sit and chat together.
He went off to join his family on Saturday and we spent the day at the
National Theatre, seeing Tom Stoppard's new trilogy of plays, _The Coast of
Utopia_. It's about a group of influential Russian intellectuals (Mikhail
Bakunin, Vissarion Berlinsky, Aleksandr Herzen, Nikolai Ogarev, Ivan
Turgenev, etc.) in the mid-19th century and the development of Russian
political philosophy during that time. The same actors played the same
characters throughout the three plays and it was a very talented group. The
trilogy was very interesting and quite clever, but not terribly coherent.
The first play could possibly be staged on its own, but it is hard to
imagine the other two being successful without the context provided by the
others. As usual with Stoppard, it's more about the ideas and the words
than the characters or the story. Twelve hours at the theatre (with two
ninety minute breaks) makes for a long day, but the seats were reasonably
comfortable and it was definitely the way to make sense of the project.
While we were off learning philosophy, Wes & Michelle (an old MIT friend and
his girlfriend) had arrived from San Francisco and found the keys we'd left
from them. By the time we got home, they had succumbed to jet lag and gone
to bed. We did see them briefly on Sunday morning before they went off to
Oxford to visit other friends and we took the train out to Windsor for the
day.
After picking up our tickets to the castle at the gate, we actually headed
out into the Home Park surrounding it to visit Frogmore House. This is a
mansion, built in the late 17th century, adjacent to the royal lands and
about a mile from the castle. It was purchased in the late 18th century by
George III, who started the tradition of keeping a dairy herd on its lands.
We passed some of the cows out standing in their field on our way onto the
estate.
George III gave the estate to his Queen and it passed to her daughter, from
whose estate it was purchased by the Crown in the mid 19th century and
formally annexed to the royal domain. Victoria's mother, the Duchess of
Kent, lived there for the last twenty years of her life, and various other
royals followed her. It is no longer a royal residence, but the house and
gardens are frequently used by the Royal Family and are only open to the
public on a few days of the year, so we were very lucky to see it.
Our first stop, as we walked through the lovely gardens, was the Royal
Mausolem, where Price Albert and Queen Victoria are buried. It is decorated
in an Italian Renaissance style, with the paintings in the style of Raphael,
whom Albert considered to be the greatest artist of all time. It is filled
with gorgeous marble, sculptures of various relatives of the royal couple,
and memorials all set in chapels around the central tomb, with its marble
effigies of Victoria & Albert. One of the most touching pieces was the
plaque in memory of John Brown, engraved with the verse from Matthew 25,
`Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little,
I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.'
Leaving there, we wound our way through the gardens, past the mausoleum for
the Duchess of Kent and the Swiss Seat alongside the lake, and up to the
main house. We went through the public rooms of the house, each of which
have been restored to their appearance after one of the major renovations to
the house by Queen Charlotte, the Duchess of Kent, or Queen Mary. After
seeing the rooms we walked out to see the other structures in the gardens--
Queen Victoria's Tea House, John Brown's Water Fountain, the Gothic Ruin and
the Indian Kiosk--and then made our way back to Windsor Castle, grabbing a
quick lunch along the way.
We went through the exhibition on the castle's history from William the
Conqueror to the present, which had an extensive section about the
restoration and renovation of the section of the castle destroyed by fire in
1992. Then we strolled through the Outer Ward and along the Northern
Terrace where we found the long line to visit Queen Mary's dollhouse and the
State Apartments. The dollhouse is impressive--it's enormous and everything
in it works (the electricity, the plumbing, etc.) and the paintings are all
originals and the books in the library are genuine. But far more impressive
are the State Apartments, where the ceremonial functions take place. The
new rooms are indistinguishable from the older ones and filled with
beautiful artworks from the Royal Collection, including many famous
portraits of the royal family and paintings by Van Dyck, Durer and
Rembrandt, among others.
Leaving the apartments, we considered strolling through the moat garden, but
decided that our feet were close to done for the day. We wandered out onto
the East Terrace to see that face of the castle--it is such an enormous
place! One of the oddest things about visiting Windsor is that it is hard
by Heathrow and there are planes descending right over the castle every
minute or two. It is strange to be gazing at a medieval castle and suddnely
have a Virgin Atlantic flight come roaring over the walls with landing gear
deployed, like some monstrous mechanical hunting falcon.
Sadly, St. George's Chapel was closed for the day, but I made Jason look at
a book of pictures of the interior in the gift shop before we walked back
down around the outer walls to the train station. We were pretty pooped by
the time we got back to the flat. There was a message from Jo Guthrie and
when I returned her call she said she desperately needed to get out of the
house and would we like to meet her for dinner. I suggested that she come
over for tuna casserole, if that didn't sound too boring. She did and we
had a fun, casual supper before taking the bus up to Wood Green to see
_Reign of Fire_ starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey. It had
gotten pretty bad reviews, but we enjoyed its tale of survivors fighting
back--with helicopters and explosives-- against the dragons who had risen
from their subterranean sleep to devastate the world, starting with London.
Monday was a bank holiday and our net connection was down, hampering Jason's
ability to work, so we went down to see the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Getting there was a bit complicated and took us to Brixton for the first
time, but we made it eventually and had a nice lunch in their cafe before
entering the gallery proper. It is England's oldest picture gallery, built
to house the collection of Dulwich College, just over the road. The
extensive use of sky-lights by architect Sir John Soane made this a model for
most later art galleries. The collection includes wonderful works by
Canaletto, Poussin, Watteau, Claude, Murillo and Raphael, as well as three
pieces by Rembrandt. One of those, "Jacob II de Gheyn," has been stolen
from the gallery four times. There was a special exhibit on about the Dutch
Italianates, which was interesting, and we were glad to have made it there.
Wes & Michelle came back from Oxford late on Monday night and we stayed up
too late chatting on Monday night. Jason ran off to work on Tuesday
morning, but the rest of us were slow starting. Our guests eventually went
off to explore London and I went to the Islington Chiropractic Clinic to see
if someone there could do something for my right heel, which has been
hurting for a couple of months. The four of us joined back up in the
evening at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park to see _As You Like It_.
It was a good production, with the best Rosalind I've seen and a very
interesting take on the character of Jaques. The stage business added some
very interesting undertones to the play that enriched it without distracting
from the script. I had been afraid it would be as cold as it was the last
time we were there, but it was a very pleasant and enjoyable evening.
Jason is leaving tomorrow for a wedding in California, while I stay here and
look after our guests and get ready for the next ones--Jason's parents--who
will join us next week. So I'm making dinner tonight. Tomorrow We,
Michelle and I will go to see Michael Frayn's play, _Benefactors_, together
with Jo, who knows Wes, but doesn't know that he is in town. That should
make for a fun surprise!
Hope you are all well and have fun plans for Labor Day Weekend. If all goes
according to plan, we will own a house by 5pm tomorrow, so keep your fingers
crossed that nothing goes wrong.