Advent 2013

Advent 1955 
John Betjeman


The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It’s dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver pale
The world seems travelling into space,
And travelling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound -
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out ‘Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.’

And how, in fact, do we prepare
The great day that waits us there -
For the twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards, And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end, of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know -
They’d sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising?

The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.

We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell’d go extremely well
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defence is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
‘The time draws near the birth of Christ’.
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.

Adventures in England 4: Lucca in London

Wake up to a beautiful morning.
Go around the corner for breakfast; full English.
Walk to the Natural History Museum.
Take the bus to the Imperial War Museum.
See the awesome Horrible Histories Spies exhibit.
Take the Tube to the British Museum.
Have a wonderful time with Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks.
Walk to Foyles.
Get blown away by so many books.
Buy books.
Walk to the National Portrait Gallery.
Talk of kings, queens, explorers, scientists, authors and musicians.
Walk into Trafalgar Square.
Walk up to Piccadilly.
Go to Fortnum and Mason.
Buy cheese (Cheshire and Stinking Bishop), Fig Almond Tort, Turkish Delight and a
blissfully good Victoria Sponge.
Take Tube back to flat.
Go out for Indian.
Stop and buy breakfast items.
Come home.
Lucca shares said Victoria Sponge.
22, 303 steps; 9.60 miles.

Adventures in England 3: Family Journey

My ancestry is English on my father’s side. We know the first Winder, Thomas,  came to New Jersey with his wife, Sarah, in the early 18th century, so we’ve been North American for quite some time. One my uncles had traced it all back to England, but we’ve never gotten much farther than Thomas and Sarah and their marriage around 1700. The incomplete genealogy has that listed in London at St. Margaret’s Cathedral. I often wondered what that is, as St. Paul’s is the cathedral for the city, and Westminster Abbey the other big deal church. Where is St. Margaret’s Cathedral?

Doing a little of that family research was one thing on my list for this trip. It turns out that St. Margaret’s is that smaller sister church next to Westminster Abbey. Back in the 11th century when Benedictines built the Abbey, they got annoyed when lots of the regular folk started coming to their services and disrupting the pattern of their day. (Go figure.) So they built another church next door, St. Margaret’s, so they could be left to their own devices in the Abbey. Because it was so much a “peoples” church, there were many weddings, baptisms, and funerals, and the St. Margaret’s register, faithfully kept all these centuries, is one of the best collections of those records in England. I’m going to have to pay someone some money (ancestry.com, or The Society of Genealogy here) to see if the record of the marriage of Thomas Winder and Sarah Bull  is there. The dates of the record go back that far. So today I braved the crowds at Westminster to go to St. Margaret’s. It is very lovely, although certainly the plain sister to its glorious older sibling. The thought of my ancestors’ wedding in that place gave it an interesting grounding for me.

From there I walked up Whitehall, passing all the parliamentary offices and Downing Street where the TV cameras were lined up waiting to hear how David Cameron is going to take action in Syria. I went to Trafalgar Square and to St. Martin-in-the-Fields to pick up tickets to a concert on Friday, and had lunch in the café in the crypt. The concert tickets are for me and Sarah and Lucca, who were already on their way to London from Rome. I went to the flat to await their arrival. Around three Sarah sent a text that the plane was stuck in Germany for an undetermined time.

They finally arrived around 8:30 and I walked down the street to meet them. Lots of fun. We came to the flat and got organized and then went “‘round the pub,” as they say, for dinner - fish and chips for Sarah, a meat pie for Lucca, and a fish pie for me. Very good.

Now we are all about ready for bed at the end of another London day. A family journey from over the centuries to our own family right now. This is Nana signing off on Wednesday. 15, 521 steps.

Adventures in England 2: The Sounds of London

I’ve been reading (for about a decade -it’s a long book!) Peter Ackroyd’s London: A Biography. In a chapter titled “Loud and Everlasting” he writes this about the sound of London:
   
        London has always been characterised by the noise that is an aspect of its noisomeness. It is part of its unnaturalness, too, like the roaring of some monstrous creature. But it is also a token of its energy and of its power.
        From its earliest foundation London rang with the hammer of artisans and the     cries of tradesmen; it produced more noise than any other part of the country, and in certain quarters, like those of the smiths and barrel-makers, the clamour was almost insupportable. But there were other noises. In the early medieval city, the clatter of manufacturing trades and crafts would have been accompanied by the sound of bells, among them secular bells, church bells, convent bells, the bell of the curfew and the bell of the watchman.   

These days the sounds in London are those of multitudinous languages being spoken. I don’t think I hear the same language twice in a row walking down a street. Each passing conversation is in a different tongue than the one before. Carol Hinderlie is in New York City right now, and she asked me if London had more languages than New York. They are both amazing in the rich diversity of culture and sound that come at you from every direction. But I’d put my money on London.

On Tuesday my day began by going to a shop called Selvedge. I had seen their beautiful magazine about textile craft a few years ago, and am on their email list. I enjoy this list because of the wonderful way they show the artisan textile workers of England and beyond. It is beautiful stuff. They have a little shop in front of their office, so I set off to see it. The journey took me to a new part of London for me called Archway. It’s in the northeast corner of the Borough of Islington in northeast London. From the Archway Underground Station I walked up the Archway Road;  a nice, hilly route! The Archway Road is part of the A1, the major non-motorway road to The North. I love how the English designate general direction. You’re either going to The North, The South, The East, or The West - always with the article capitalized. I expect it comes from being an island - not much left after you go any direction!

I arrived at the shop and it is delightfully funky, looking like an old-fashioned place to buy sewing notions and cotton. And that’s a lot of what they sell in the shop, much of it restored antique fabric. I found a lovely, very plain, table runner to buy. When I left there I decided to take the bus. The store had been at the crest of the long hill, and as I turned to down the road I was amazed at the view before me. It must be the best view of central London anywhere, maybe even better than Hampstead Heath: St. Paul’s, the Pickled Gherkin, the new, spiky building they’ve nicknamed The Shard, and everything else in their shadows. Wowie.

The bus took me to Soho, my next stop for the day. I decided on this trip to check out the Dorothy L. Sayers London sites. At the end of her life, she was a churchwarden at St. Anne’s in Soho. It was at St. Anne’s that she delivered some of the speeches that became her classic essays, and she invited T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams and others to speak at St. Anne’s. This was all during the war, and the gatherings became important focal points for the larger community, words of thought and hope and intelligence in an unbelievably difficult war. The sanctuary and whole back half of St. Anne’s was bombed, and the building (what was left of it) was used as a community social service place for many years after. In 1991 it was refurbished and consecrated as a worshiping place once again. Sayers remains are under the tower, in the front of the building that wasn’t bombed. The new church is a little hard to see from its Dean Street address, tucked in between the restaurants, theatres, and sex shops that make up Soho. When I finally found it, I walked into a small enclosed corridor and then into a beautiful small chapel. The priest appeared, and I said, “I understand Dorothy L. Sayers is around here somewhere.” He laughed, and said he’d be happy to show it to me, but it would be in half an hour as there was to be Eucharist at 1:05. I said I’d be happy to stay. It was a lovely congregation, about 10 of us. Two were classic: Betty and Jean. Betty was losing it a bit and kept talking out loud, and Jean kept telling her to be quiet, also rather loudly. But once the liturgy began, all was serene. He had a good, brief sermon on last Sunday’s gospel, and we stood round in a circle to receive. After the service, he attended to Betty and Jean and the others, cleaned up the space, and then took me to the tower and DLS. The Sayers Society had put up a new plaque on the 50th anniversary of her death in 2007. It’s in a room used for lots of other things - sleeping bags all around, and a work project. Perfect.

Although he had another appointment to keep, we talked for some time. He is a second career person, after a first career as a puppeteer! The parish of St. Anne’s has a widely various ministry, as you might expect from its location. But he was having fun and getting oriented in his first full-time position. He told me about one of his predecessors who almost ran the place into the ground - certainly ran out most of the parishioners. He said one current member, an American, described it this way (all done in a spot-on American accent by the priest): “We were on the train to Aberystwyth and he was taking us to Penzance. We would have been fine going to Penzance if he’d told us where we were going and why, but he was off to Penzance and we were still on the train to Aberystwyth.”

The liturgy at the Eucharist was Common Worship: Rite One, and one of the options for the prayer after communion was this: Father of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home. Dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory. May we who share Christ's body live his risen life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world. Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us, so we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.  It wasn’t used, but its beginning reference to the Prodigal Son reminded me of the quote from Sayers I have probably used most often through the years: God, like the father in the Prodigal Son, can see repentance coming a long way off, and is there to meet it. It was wonderful to meet sisters and brothers who still gather around such grace at St. Anne’s Soho.

I went from there to see the house where Sayers lived in the 1920's. It was up towards Russell Square, not far from the Inns of Court. So after I took pictures of the blue plaque at 23-24 Great James Street, I had a quiet walk through Gray’s Inn, and then back to the Tube and to the flat. I went out later to buy drain cleaner for the kitchen (downside of renting a flat), and for Indian and a G and T (very good!). A day full of London sounds, from buses and church bells and Betty and Jean, to the sweet voices of all the children who play in many languages in the neighborhood. 15, 596 steps.

Adventures in England 1: Walking in London

I'm in London for a week. Our Italy tour-guide daughter-in-law Sarah took 9 year-old Lucca to Italy with her for a week to see volcanoes. They are meeting me here on Wednesday and I'll be escorting Lucca home on Monday after Sarah goes back to Italy to do her tour work starting 1 September. So I thought I'd add a few posts to the blog as I reflect on this time in London and times before.

Whenever I’m walking in London I always have the same marching chant going through my head. I first walked here in 1972. It began with Karen Martonik and Wendy Peterson. Wendy was coming here after being with her family in India, and Karen and I had arrived at Victoria from Luxembourg (the cheap Icelandic Air flight from New York). It was April and raining and we were huddled in one of those red phone booths calling cheap B and B’s. We finally found a student hostel in Finsbury Park, and by the London miracle of good directions, the Tube, and lots of walking finally arrived at the place. It was OK for a couple nights, and we could have worked there for our lodging. But instead we had walked to the National Gallery and there on the steps met a family from Tacoma who had been on Teaching Staff at Holden the summer before. They had a big flat (location unremembered, but closer in than Finsbury Park) and we were welcome to roll out our sleep bags there. After a few days, Karen and Wendy headed elsewhere, and I joined up with Paul Hinderlie and Tom Ahlstrom who were with Mary Alette Hinderlie. Mary Alette had been studying drama in London that year. Tom had come from his studies in Berlin. They were in Stanhope Gardens (not far from where I am right now) with Mary A, and I think I was still with the Klopsch family. Anyway, we all walked and walked. And as we walked along four abreast we chanted (often quite loudly) this marching piece from something Paul knew or he made it up: You cats who all dig the new left right on!, you cats who all dig the new left right on! Tune in tune in, turn off turn off, tune in, turn off, drop out right on! It’s never far from the brain’s front even as I walk along 41 years later. And it lets me smile at the twenty-something’s from all over the world walking in London with their own chants and loud laughter.

Yesterday after arriving in London I had quite a walking adventure. In order to get into the flat we’ve rented for the week, I had to retrieve the keys from a lock box on an ivied wall on a street some blocks away. The agency said it was a 10 minute walk. 10 minutes my foot! (In this case, my poor plane-trip tired feet!) I had already looked at the map and had planned a Tube stop two down the line from the stop nearest the flat. It was easily 10 minutes from that Tube stop to the key box location. (I wish someone could have taken a movie of me looking for the key box. It was supposed to be at the place on the wall where the ivy was shorter, but they must have made that determination before summer happened! It was all quite long, and I had to kind of comb my way through it to finally find the box, with lots of ivy left on my clothing!) I made it back to the flat and climbed the stairs (more London walking) to the flat. Nice enough, and adequate for this brief stay. One more walk out for a few groceries, and then much-needed sleep.

This morning I walked for coffee to the Starbucks around the corner, then back to plan the day. Took the Tube the wrong direction from Earl’s Court and ended up going up the Circle Line towards Paddington. The train was packed - serious sardines. Oh, well, I thought. The station at Notting Hill Gate was closed because of a big, annual August Bank Holiday festival there. I said, "I’ll get off at Bayswater and go back the other way." Well, that’s where the festival-goers (those packed in the sardine train) were all getting off. What a loud crowd! And they could have used an organizational marching chant, that’s for sure. A poor London Transport worker was going hoarse trying to herd them away from the tracks. It was a great relief to walk down to the quiet of the other side of the tracks!

I rode to Sloane Square and walked around there a bit before walking down towards river and went to the Chelsea Physic Garden. Very lovely. I came just in time for a docent tour, which was very good. A pleasant place to spend a London summer afternoon. I learned that Linneaus thought the tree in the Garden of Eden from which Adam and Eve ate was a banana! Then I walked along the Chelsea Embankment, looked at the Albert Bridge in all its Victorian pink, green, and white glory, and paid homage to Thomas More at his Cheyne Walk property. I used to revere Thomas More from the movie A Man for All Seasons, but Hilary Mantel has changed all that. Her great and memorable descriptions of the visits of Thomas Cromwell to Thomas More at Cheyne Walk made the area more vibrant and alive. What a writer. From there I walked up towards the Fulham Road, and these days had a chat with Larry as I walked along. My walks over the years have been guided by London A-to-Z in various editions. Now it’s an app on my iPhone and works very well indeed. I found the Chelsea version of my favorite London bookshop chain, Daunts, and stopped in for a quick look around.

When I got back to the flat I checked out local pubs online and went to The Devonshire Arms on the other side of the Cromwell Road and up a couple blocks. Very good fish and chips, the real thing with the whole filet fried with lovely chips and REAL mushy peas, i.e., fresh peas cooked and crushed. The fish was done in a batter made with cider and tarragon, and was a bit sweet, but quite good. And it was all washed down with a pint of bitter.

Tomorrow will be more walking, and each street and turn will be different. Part is looking for those blue plaques that tell what historical figure lived there. Today I saw the London homes of Jenny Lind and Benjamin Britten. (I’m debating if I should go see Billy Budd at the Albert Hall tomorrow night - any opinions?) I’ll go looking for more blue plaques, notably the London Home of Dorothy L. Sayers at Great James Street.

The flat I am in is in Bolton Gardens, right across the street from Bramham Gardens where I stayed with the Hinderlie’s friend Bjorn Andreasson in 1984. So the streets here feel familiar, and I am noting familiar patterns and memories. For example, when I took the Tube the wrong way I remembered that it is actually more convenient to walk to Gloucester Road instead of Earl's Court to go east. I’ll do that tomorrow.

Something about the feel of the pavement here does good things for me. I am always ready to walk to in London, no matter how tired I am. Yesterday when I was on my key journey, I was reminded of the long walk on which I dragged Larry in 2011 from the flat we rented in Holland Park to do grocery shopping in the Kensington High Street. It looked short in A-to-Z! Probably they all seem that way. For all you fitbit users out there, I walked 16,714 steps today!

Summer Reading

It's the sentence you're seeing everywhere: What will you read this summer?

This Sunday's New York Times Book Review has a wonderful article. They invited twelve authors to write briefly about their most memorable summer read. Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/books/review/what-i-read-that-summer.html?src=me 

It was interesting to me how much of the readers' reminiscence went back to being children or young adults. I was reminded of the summer of 1960, between sixth and seventh grade, when I read Gone with the Wind, and Leon Uris' Exodus. Exodus had just been published in 1958, and the version we had at home was the newly printed paperback. They were both so engrossing, I barely came up for air. Reading all the time and being totally engrossed wasn't new for me even as a child, but it was astonishing to get caught up in two such intense stories, with love and family drama all wrapped up in war and politics. I haven't forgotten what it felt like to read those books that summer.

Our Weekend in Iceland

It’s already been two weeks since we went to Iceland for the weekend with our friends Eileen and Wally Powelson. It was a great trip - fast, but great - and gave us a quick look at this fascinating country. Icelandair has these inexpensive packages that include round trip airfare Seattle-Reykjavik, hotel (essentially four nights - you arrive in the early morning and can go right to your room), and a one-day tour of your choice. All this for just $800 per person! And there were a lot of people taking advantage of these deals.

We left Seattle on Thursday afternoon and arrived 7.5 hours later in the early morning at Keflavik airport. The airport is 30 miles or so from Reykjavik. There is good transportation into town, but we had rented a car to give us a bit more flexibility. Since Icelandair only provides food for purchase we got coffee and rolls in the airport.

We didn’t realize that the car rental people were actually waiting for us at the exit! We got our car (after a little fussing to get the correct GPS) and headed into town. We couldn’t see much, as it was still dark. Sunrise in January in Iceland is about 10:30 a.m. - sunset at 5:30! A short day. We arrived at our hotel - the Icelandair Hotel Reykjavik Natura - and were able to go right to our rooms.
 
The rooms were small but usable, and everything was in good condition. We had breakfast (not included in the room price, but a good breakfast buffet), and then set out to explore Reykjavik. Our hotel was a ways from the town center, and we were glad we had our car. The temperature was in the 30's and there was always a lot of wind and some rain and snow, so it was pretty cold.


One of the first places we went was the architecturally amazing Hallgrimskirkja.

Built in the 20th century to honor one of Iceland’s most famous pastors, it is a beautiful structure inside and out. There’s a Leif Ericksson statue outside. Ericksson was an Icelander - from the family of the first Viking settlers in 860 AD. I thought the statue looked like he was pointing toward the Leif Ericksson statue at Shilshole Bay! We went inside the church. The place is famous for its organ, and we were looking forward to going to Sunday worship there. But the organ is being cleaned and was all over the floor! It’s looks pretty amazing, though, and we were sorry not to be able to hear it. It was a beautiful day - clear blue sky. We went up into the tower and got terrific views all around.

We walked further into the town, beginning the hunt for a new Icelandic sweater for Monte Krog! (The subtext of the trip.) We all decided after a few turns along the streets that it was time for a nap! (These weekend excursions may be for younger people!) So we went back to the hotel and had good long naps and gather again to go for dinner. We had three dinner meals and they were all excellent. We were the only people in this restaurant - Fjalakotturinn: french cooking with local food - and we all had superb meals. We had a great visit with our server, Matthias, who was a Ph.D student at the University of Iceland in Human Geography. He gave us some tips on what to see and where, and we enjoyed our conversation.

The next day was a our tour day. We left the hotel at 11:30 a.m. There were 8 on the tour in a small van - just right. Besides us there was a couple from Boston and a couple from Vancouver, B.C. Our driver and guide was a young woman named Dana, and she was very good.

We were surprised to learn later in the day that she is actually from the Czech Republic! She clearly loves her new Icelandic home. The tour company is Icelandic Mountain Guides, and we would recommend them.

The name of our tour was Golden Circle, and included a visit to the main Icelandic historic site, a big waterfall, some geysers, time at a geothermal spa, and, if possible, seeing the Aurora Borealis. It’s a quite common tour (one book noted that there’s nothing “Golden” or “Circle” about it - should be called the “Mossy Green Triangle”) but we thought it a good one to get a sense of the place, and it provided us with that experience.

We started out at Thingvillar, the place where the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, was established in 930. It was interesting for me to learn that there were no humans on Iceland prior to the arrival of the Vikings in 860. The parliament formed proclaimed freedom from royal rule and established a partnership between the first families to settle Iceland. Iceland is still not very big. Only 320,000 people live there. But they are very proud of their heritage, and this place is a sacred site for them.

Wally and Eileen braved the stormy weather and walked down the hill to the small church and met the rest of us in the parking lot. There we were at the rift valley where the American tectonic plate meets the European one - virtually at the meeting of Europe and America!

From there we went to one of Icelands many huge waterfalls. This one is Gullfoss, or Golden Falls. It is huge, and was beautiful to see in the winter as much of it is frozen. The frozen spray on the edges adds such a gorgeous pattern to the whole area.

We had lunch here, and then headed off to a geothermal site to see geysers. The word “geyser” is Icelandic in origin. It is actually the name of one geyser, and from there has become the word for geysers everywhere. The actual word for the phenomena in Icelandic is different! The area was very interesting, and we stood and watched their own “Old Faithful” which erupts every seven minutes.

From there we went to a geothermal spa called Fontana on a large lake. On the way we stopped to see some Icelandic horses. They are their own breed. No other horses can be imported into Iceland to protect these lovely animals, and if one is taken off Iceland it cannot return. They have an interesting genetic possibility: some have a special gait where they can lift the hooves on the same side of their bodies!

We changed to bathing suits and joined in the fun in the pools and the steam huts. Fairly amazing how warm it all is! After the bathing, we had dinner at another very good restaurant nearby. This dinner was included in the tour.

After dinner we tried looking for Aurora Borealis, but it was cloudy and rainy and there were none to be seen. We did go walk on a black sand beach on the Atlantic late at night - an interesting experience! We got back to our hotel around midnight.

The next day, after another walk in the city including the Sunday flea market,

 we set off to see something of the west coast. It is an amazing landscape.

We drove through a tunnel that went under a fjord! We had lunch in the historic village of Borgarnes,

and then headed back to Reykjavik as the weather was changing rapidly with lots of snow coming down! We did see many of these greenhouses which are all heated with geothermal energy. Iceland grows all its own fruits and vegetables, including bananas, in these greenhouses.

We got back safely. After a little break, we went to our dinner reservation at The Fish Market, a very popular Asian fusion restaurant. We again had a superb meal.

Monday was departure day. After checking out of our hotel we went back into town to finish the Monte Krog sweater purchase. We had a nice time doing it at the Icelandic Handknitters Association, a cooperative of 200 handknitters from all over Iceland. We looked around a little more in Reykjavik and then headed towards the airport. On the way we went to the Blue Lagoon, a very famous geothermal spa right near Keflavik.

Larry took a lot of pictures while Eileen, Wally, and I went into the pools. The water is a gorgeous blue color, set off even more in winter by the snow-covered stark mountains around. We had lunch there and then went to the airport, left our car, got checked in and got ready to leave. Our flight departed on time, and we arrive a few minutes early into SeaTac. It was a great experience all around. We’d be happy to explore more of Iceland another time. If you fly Icelandair to Europe, you can stay up to one week in Iceland for no additional flight charges. A good deal all around!

One other note: my seminary professor and friend Daniel Simundson had died the week before. His service at Luther Seminary was on February 4, our last day in Iceland. Dan was a proud Icelander. His parents had come to Pt. Roberts, Washington, where there was a thriving Icelandic community. Dan traveled to Iceland often over the years. In 2000 the University of Iceland gave him an honorary degree, which pleased him very much. And I was pleased very much to be in Iceland on the day of his service. Perfect.