inspecting a table

Today, our now-departed-for-Brooklyn neighbors held an Estate Sale (a term I thought for a long while only applied to the dispersal of items belonging to deceased people, but apparently not - at least, not in this form, run by a professional firm who do all the sorting and labeling and arranging).  How could we resist?  I mean, there was a lot we could resist, like the unfathomable number of plastic spatulas (spatulae?), and so on, but we came away with a few trophies - a flower jug, a Mexican metal waste bin, a garden pot, and this small blue outside table, which now I've hosed it down is outside the front door.  But while it was drying, it was visited by a Towhee, which perched, and then flew off ...

 

posing

It's only mid-August, but these two seem to have decided that today was the day in which they'd model for their Christmas card portrait (to be found, as always, on the front verso).  Of course, it's really a concerted presence just before their teatime, in case somehow or the other we forget to feed them, and they starve.

 

morning (glory), evening

A strangely illuminated morning glory this morning (when I was fiddling around with the camera); and then a glorious storm sky this evening - a very small storm, all things considered, but at the moment we, and everyone in these parts, will take all the rain we can get, as the Frijoles fire churns on, and on, and we read briefings and maps, and hope that firefighters continue all of their wonderful work to bulldoze lines between it and homes ... (it's about sixteen miles away from us, as the crow - and indeed the smoke - flies - so I'd hate anyone reading this to think that we're in any immediate danger.  But some properties and little villages, let alone lots of animals, are ...)

 

dinner decor

The decor for dinner this evening was almost as good as the food itself: Alkemē, in Santa Fe, bills itself as Vietnamese Heritage Cuisine Reimagined, and was ... wonderful.  I wish we had the stomach capacity to manage the tasting menus, but as it was, I had an extraordinary soup of shrimp and Mapo-style (call it Sichuan, more or less) sauce and dashi custard; followed by a most complex mushroom and tofu filled cabbage roll or 4 in another equally complex sauce, and with some woven rice noodles, lots of pickles, and so on.  We will be back (if we can ever get a table, again - it's not exactly a walk-in spot) ...

 

today's burrito

I assume that Gramsci is entirely unconscious of how ridiculous he looks.  It's a good job that I didn't particularly want to sit in my favorite chair, this morning ...

 

camouflage

... from my study window: this is, I believe, a female Western Tanager.  There's been a male WT flying around the last few days: one can hardly miss him, since much of his body is bright yellow, with a reddish-orange head.  Very striking.  But she blends in, very carefully and cleverly.

 

farmers market - changing seasons

It may still be 90 degrees outside, and the air is full of smoke from the expanding Frijoles fire to the north of us, and everything is still bone dry - but in the Farmers Market, the changing seasons are making themselves visible: gladioli alongside the marigolds; extremely tasty tomatoes;

new season's garlic appearing in strings;

and chile, chile, chile.

 

and tonight

... and tonight: a sky straight out of the excesses of Romantic art, or the apocalypse.  Let's hope not the latter.  

 

back!

Back, to a very fiery sun this evening.  No actual fire here, but plenty of smoke particles thickening the air, so a sunset that, in the spirit of Krakatoa, is both vibrantly beautiful and not a good thing.

 

random variegated patterns

That was a long day!  England from above - you can see how dry it is - and the room carpet in the Albuquerque Airport Sheraton.  Delighted though I am to see a bed, this is possibly the nastiest hotel carpet in existence...

 

(and that's a wrap)

This is very often my last-night in England view: St Pancras, from the Standard hotel, which is remarkably well positioned for making an exit the next morning. It looks remarkably like the Palacio de las Aguas Corrientes in Buenos Aires ...

It was a real treat to go round the amazing Whistler exhibition with Carol Jacobi, its curator - as she reminded me, it's 28 years since I examined her PhD ... so good, always, to hear what principles went into the show's making; what had been cleaned especially for it and what the x-rays showed, and so on.  And then we talked for an age, and I only had time to go back to it fairly briefly (but I'll see it again, I hope, when it comes to DC).  There was a lot that was new to me, especially the very early works - I especially liked Chelsea in Ice (1864).  Given how hot this trip has been (a record dry July), this is truly a record of another era.

 

a visit to the Ancestral, and other bits of north Norfolk

 

First, exploration of Kings Lynn - the old parts are truly beautiful: the Guild Hall; an old market place with some very wonky houses;

and a lovely Minster.

Then a bus to East Rudham.  East Rudham is such a small, and largely unspoilt village that one can easily imagine what it was like in the 1860s and 70s.  My great-grandmother - my father's grandmother, who was very involved in bringing up him and his brother Don, was born there in 1865.  She and her siblings were certainly still there at the time of the 1871 census: family lore (or my grandmother's wobbly memory) recounts that my great great grandfather was given a ride to the elections (in Fakenham, 5 miles away?) by the landowner for whom he worked, and he was overheard saying that he wouldn't vote for any Tory - and by the time they returned, his sentiments had been reported; and the family were no longer allowed to graze their donkey on the village green (below), and they were turned out of their tied cottage, and went to work in the mills in Sheffield.  But ... even after the 1884 Reform Act, my ggg still, as an agricultural laborer, wouldn't have been able to vote, and in any case, by 1881 they were all up north.  I think they must have been given the day off for the 1874 election, because I do have a sense that my gg was about 9 or ten when they moved.  But I also think that the agricultural depression was just starting to bite then, too.

In any case, the shock of living on this street must have been enormous, after bucolic Norfolk.

Even the old looking village church might have looked weird when they were leaving, since the medieval tower collapsed into the nave in 1873, and was rebuilt ...

Were they around when this, and some other medieval alabaster fragments, were found in the collapse?

And where did they live?  "Lower Anchorage," says the 1871 census.  But is this Lower Anchorage?  Yes, according to some accounts.  But it's also known as Anchorage Cottage, and Anchorage House - I can't find a separate "Lower Anchorage" on C19th (or more recent) maps, and it's been very refurbished.  (Nothing to do with mooring a boat: there was a medieval anchoress who lived there, or in an earlier structure).

I hope I can be more confident that the relative who was a blacksmith lived in Forge Cottage.

After that, another bus back to Kings Lynn, and a bas to Hunstanton - archetypal English resort if you walk in one direction;

muddy beach in another (why a pink Messi #10 short??);

rock pools looking like a nineteenth-century painting from my book;

extraordinary cliffs;

more seaweed:

a cute lighthouse;

and back for dinner at my hotel, overlooking the Ouse.

Did my great grandmother ever get to see the sea - or even Kings Lynn? - when she lived in East Rudham?

to King's Lynn

Don't ever try Godalming to Kings Lynn on a hot August Saturday.  First train was held up by signal failture at, of all places, Wimbledon.  Tube held up at Aldgate.  All through trains from Kings Cross to KL canceled (failure with overhead wires).  Took train to Cambridge (dry countryside, above); spent some good hours in Cambridge with friend; very slow substitute train to Kings Lynn and eventually walked to the hotel (in a terrific old bank) arriving two minutes after they stopped serving dinner.  I talked my way in.

Wonderful small non-touristy river front and buildings; lovely hotel (view from my room in bottom picture).

Why Kings Lynn???  More tomorrow!

 

family wedding

A very happy wedding - first in a field, then in a barn - for my second cousin Megan, marrying Richard: she's the daughter of my middle cousin Peter, and it was a genuine family reunion.  Is waving table napkins in the air now a custom in English weddings?  It was like people dancing the Zamba in northern Argentina...

With apologies for the fact that better photos are on my camera, not my iphone, but it's late, by now..  I was so glad to be able to come and celebrate.

 

real English countryside

This is so beautiful!  And not visibly drought-stricken, either.  It's at the end of the garden of the large pub in which I'm staying (before my cousin's daughter's wedding tomorrow), and only half an hour's walk into Godalming, and indeed on a bus route (no Tube for me, today - I really couldn't stand it - bus to Kingston, to Guildford, and then literally to the door) - it was like mainlining Englishness.  I would be lying if I said I didn't miss this.

Oh, the book?  Just the alt-text to 100 images, and the permissions spreadsheet to go - I deposited in my allocated dropbox everything else.  So no, not exactly there, but very very nearly ...

 

miscellany from a nose to the grindstone day

The view from my window when I woke up;

the passage way into Richmond Station;

the British Library locker that wouldn't open - in solidarity with its friends, which also had "Out of Order" stickers on them - once my bag was firmly inside it;

and the reward for a hard day's work: dinner at Ottolenghi - green beans in a charred pineapple and jalapeño dressing, and some smoked labneh.

Book?  Onwards ... progress was made.