A Trip to England

The concept of a vacation seems bizarre when one is living full-time in Paris.  Nevertheless, I just took one -- a wonderful three weeks in England.

It began with a weekend in London with my cousins Tom and Susanne.  Susanne offered to get tickets for a tour of the state rooms in Buckingham Palace (no photos allowed) and I jumped at the chance, especially since there was an exhibit of the Queen's wardrobe on.  Both her wedding and coronation gowns were there -- incredibly beautiful -- along with some amazing hats and a stunning black evening gown from her younger years.  Lots of photos of her in the clothes as well.  The state rooms are utterly gorgeous and we exited through the lovely garden behind the palace where the early summer garden parties are held.   Incredible to imagine growing up there.

We also visited a museum I had never heard of -- Sir John Soane's Museum at Lincoln's Inn Fields.  Soane was a prominent neo-classical architect (late 1700s-early 1800s) and collector -- of nearly everything -- and, with an architect's genius, managed to put models of his projects and everything else he collected in various specially built nooks and crannies in his town house.  It was left to the nation in exactly the state it was in when he died and is delightfully off-beat.

Then I was off to Cambridge for the International Summer School.  I left from King's Cross Station where, to my surprise, I found my train right next to Platform 9 3/4.  If there are any Harry Potter fans in your life, do take them there if you're ever in London.

At Cambridge, I took a two-week course on international relations, interspersed with lectures on all sorts of subjects.  Two of our four instructors were particularly noteworthy.  John Jackson, an army officer in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and now an instructor at Sandhurst, gave us three days on terrorism and retired UK diplomat Sir Tony Brenton came for two days with a tour-de-force review of the world's current conflicts (hot and cold).  His talk on Political Islam was especially fascinating, with its broad historical review of Islam as both a religion and a recipe for governing: God and Caesar united in the person of the Caliph and his government.  Islam's early successes created a vast empire, which put the emphasis on governing, not always with glowing results.  One dynasty succeeded another.   Eventually, a philosopher and historian named Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) came up with a theory of social cohesion and decay (a kind of medieval Islamic world view) according to which each governing dynasty would eventually weaken and then a new leader would emerge out of the desert to revitalize both the religion and the society.  Known as the Doctrine of the Mahdi, Brenton argues it is baked into the DNA of the Middle East (hence ISIS).  Those of you who read about current affairs more assiduously than I may already have heard of him, but I had not and found this insight particularly interesting.

Not all the lectures were so serious.  One, on British pronunciation of English, was particularly hilarious and ended with this Youtube video that I encourage you to enjoy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8mzWkuOxz8.  Copy and paste it into your browser.

Tea at The Orchard
 Left to right, Karen, Mardy, Meg, Nancy and Judy

Clare College Garden

In our hours out of the classroom, I found it always a pleasure to pause for a moment in the college gardens -- I particularly like Clare.  Then there was our usual trip to Grantchester to visit The Orchard, where Rupert Brooke lived and where the undergraduates who would eventually form the Bloomsbury Group came out to take tea in the afternoon.  This year we lingered to see the church, which featured at the back a huge poster of James Norton, who plays the vicar in the PBS series.  We also traveled to Ely and heard evensong in the beautiful, inspiring cathedral there.

Ely Cathedral

After two weeks of stuffing my brain with lectures and my belly with the bounteous quantities of food on offer in the Dining Hall, I took off for Stratford to visit Miriam.  I was lucky to catch the last performance of Hamlet at the RSC the day I arrived.  Done with an all-black cast (with the exception of Rosencrantz & Gildenstern and the English ambassador), the play was electric.  Paapa Essiedu, a 25-year-old actor, played Hamlet with exceptional dynamism as the angst-ridden teenager he is and Cyril Nri was a thoughtful, loving father as Polonius.  As usual, the RSC wrung all the humor out of the play, having, for example, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern show up like first-time travelers clicking away with a camera and toting around tins of biscuits shaped like red phone booths that are on sale in every tourist spot.  The grave digger was a hoot -- with definite Caribbean overtones.  During the week, we found time to visit Croome Court, a relatively new addition to the National Trust.  It is a beautiful Paladian building with grounds designed by Capability Brown -- very much a work in progress, but definitely worth a visit.

Norman Tower
Tewkesbury Abbey

Tewkesbury Abbey Choir

Our other big adventure was a cruise on the Severn River from Upton to Tewkesbury, a charming town.  The Battle of Tewkesbury (1471) was one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses in which the forces of York defeated those of Lancaster, but we were there for the Abbey, which somehow survived the closure of the monasteries under Henry VIII.  It is thought to have the tallest Norman tower still existing in
England and it is certainly
beautiful inside.


I can't end this entry without mentioning the abundant flowers that grace every pub and many other places in England.  It makes a summer visit a particular delight.