Why does our trip to England have to coincide with freezing cold, grey skies, and - not rain today, to be sure, but occasional drizzle? It's a disappointment... But we made it to the American Museum, near Bath, which I visited last in 1973, to be struck, above all, by the quilts. Today, it was more striking for the gardens, which they are trying very hard to make, yes, American. We went on garden tour, until we could stand it no longer (not just Great Reverence towards Her Majesty, and Winston Churchill's speech in favor of Conservative Values, but a complete mangling of US history - the rose buds worn in the labels of the Confederate Soldiers in the War of Independence). But the gardens themselves were wonderful, even if the tour guide was over-ambitious in her envisioning of the landscape, at some point in the near future, swaying with prairie grass.
Here's Mr Lincoln, behind some allium;
and here - unexpectedly! - some research materials: there was a small installation of work by the Anishinabeg artist Celeste Pedri-Spade: this is celebrating birch bark.
Many roses outside;
and then foxgloves,
and Silver Spring - another (and very different) allium.
Then we left off the car - alas, I'll miss her - at Bristol Airport, and Uber'd it into Bristol, where we're staying very near my old flat. The middle flat - the one with the balcony - at 2 Clifton Park Road was the very first place that I bought: I think it was £19,000 in 1980, and I lived there for 5 years. It seems a very long time ago ... and I expected more shivers of recognition than actually happened. Maybe tomorrow? And maybe the sun will come out?
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