Hunger Games !

After a pleasantly restful nine weeks at Newport, a period of turbulence is fast approaching, so I am packing things in before the next upheaval. It would have been Cherry's birthday at the weekend, on 24th November and she wouldn't have wanted any of us to mope, so we didn't. By the wonders of modern technology, thanks to Beth and Chiff, I was able to participate in a spectacular family food and firework party at Chateau Powell in Burgess Hill, even watching the triumphant launch of a culminating mega rocket - apparently to the great danger of passing aeroplanes.

My own commemorative acts were of a quieter more reflective nature, doing two things that Cherry loved - first some 'birding' as the Americans call it at Sachuset Point nature reserve on a glorious brisk sunny day. To be honest, not with much success though I was aware of being under the unyielding gaze of a red-tailed hawk

 

perched on the top of the visitor centre, getting only a departing shot of a Mocking Bird and some distant ones of immature Eider duck across a sparkling sea.

The other act was a guided tour of Belcourt Mansion which is directly opposite my place. Both house share one characteristic, being built to house horses and carriages on the ground floor, hence the little square windows in my sitting room - where the horse stalls were.  The Mansion obviously was on a much grander scale. I enjoyed my tour - as it was a personal one just me and the guide. We had mutual acquaintances too.  The mansion was in the process of restoration (being over 100 years old- gosh !) and it was interesting learning about that. But it was also great learning about the famous wedding held here a few weeks ago, some of which I watched in a bemused kind of way from one of the spare bedrooms looking down on the gates to the drive and the crowd of fans outside. The bride was the famous Jennifer Lawrence who played in 'Hunger Games' and also as the ferocious young lady in 'Red Sparrow' which I've watched a couple of times on plane journeys. She was the highest female earner in 2105 and 2106. At the time I knew none of this. $250,000 on the flowers alone I was told. Only 150 guests though, with everyone behaving very well apparently. By the agreement, the house is not allowed to capitalise on this - no mention in the literature, no pictures, just a little bit of informal gossip, now and then. I was reassured that my guide hadn't heard of Jennifer Lawrence before either !

The only upheaval at work was Trump's sacking of the Navy Secretary, Richard Spencer. So both the Admiral who supervised my arrival at Newport and the Navy Secretary who gave me my prize in the Summer have been dismissed. Is Trump trying to tell me something ?

I managed another hike to the Reject's beach wanting to get a shot of that weird crab like shell- a foot across- that I came across last time. Showing it around I was told it was just a Horseshoe Crab shell. Inedible they said.  There was a really cold wind and the place was completely deserted as it was Thanksgiving Day and everyone was tucked up inside their houses. Later in the day I joined some colleagues for the Thanksgiving dinner. It is supposed to celebrate the  feast of the first pilgrims in 1621 with a bunch of local Indians who plainly didn't know what they were letting themselves in for. President Washington started the custom in 1789 but it didn't catch on until President Lincoln revived it after the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War. Just a little bit of trivia.  There's also the legend that times were so hard for the settlers that hunger stalked the land and so there was celebration when someone spotted and caught their first wild turkey. I'm guessing that it was a tough old thing but better than nothing. Accordingly turkey has to be the centrepiece - and was, with all the trimmings.   

Hunger if of a different sort was also the name of the game for the following several days (which a lot of people take off), as Christmas, seems to start immediately afterwards: the decorations go up and everyone surges into the shops on 'Black Friday.' I went to the charming little fishing village of Wickford to see their Dickensian village decorations. In fact they hardly showed up in the bright sunlight but it was nice looking at the old wooden houses again. One local device is to close inside shutters and place little houses with lights in the gaps between them and the window.

It probably looks spectacular after dark. My visit ended with my satisfying my own hunger by having a lunch out and sitting at the counter of the local very crowded restaurant. I indulged in some fish and chips, and it was the best I've had for ages. I was sitting in front of the wall-mounted television and so could hardly avoid watching a football match between Southampton and Watford ! Getting me ready for a return to the UK, perhaps.   

Two Years and Counting

The weather in New Haven when I was with Christopher was pretty cold but it warmed up soon after. The following Monday was Veteran's Day holiday (remembering ex-military types not just old people) and warm sunshine lured me out for a walk by the sea a few minutes from the house. It was perfect and I had the whole of the private Bailey's beach and the Rejects beach (for those not admitted to Bailey's Beach club) to myself and the occasional sea gull, standing on one leg and giving me a 'a good ignoring.' There were great banks of sea weed thrown up by recent storms and hundreds of stranded jelly fish, some completely transparent and some with a pinkish tinge.  I gather that the Mansions up this end of Bellevue avenue not only have automatic access to Bailey's beach but are also allowed to gather seaweed - a real boon I should imagine. I had the beach to myself the following weekend too, but that time the solitude was easier to understand as it was a grey cold day, with a chilling wind. There were just a couple of miserable looking fishermen down on the rocks of the point I scrambled past on the way back to the house. Some interesting shells 10 inches across  - some kind of large crab ? 

The contrast in weather from day to day is very striking. On Saturday the day before my walk on the Beach I did the usual hike down Bellevue Avenue, stopping off at the China Tea House at Marble House for coffee on the way back. It seemed almost summery and people were sitting outside. Whatever the weather, it's a nice place to read one's Wall Street Journal - and the coffee's not bad. Cherry's is the nearest Liondog, and he likes a good pat 

Liondogs apart, there's a surprising amount of nature around here. The weekend before I visited the Norman Bird Sanctuary and walked some of its extensive trails. Not that many birds emerged into sight - there were still a lot of leaves on the trees, but lots of rocks to scramble over  on the trees and other things to see. Including another of those charming little family burial grounds, with delightful if sad 18th Century tombstones. Incidentally, I was pleased to track down some information on little Phoebe Marsh who died in 1729 and who I came across last time;  - I was right she was a baby, born 16th June but didn't survive. Her father was a shoe-maker. What you can find out on the web is amazing although it has to be said that the Americans are really good  at preserving their history, and make looking up such things very easy.   

Of course, today it's now Cherry's second anniversary. It's hard to believe that two whole years have passed since we last spoke - but the fact that I still talk to her pictures makes it seem much less than that. To some extent she's still present and I am sure that she always will be. In the course of the mammoth family history project on which I am engaged alongside everything else I came across this in one of the weekly letters which Grandma Till sent us: 'If Dad was alive we would have been married 56 years today - a sad day for me, one never gets used to it.' Paradoxically, I hope Grandma was right.

So on my way home from College today I popped into the Zabriskie Memorial Church of St John the Evangelist right by the water to light some candles for Cherry and write it up in their book, then sat down and looked at pictures of her on my phone. This is one of the nicest ones of her taken in her last few, very brave months.  Got a bit dewy-eyed inevitably.
 

It's an attractive church inside - 1893 full of US naval associations but very English Anglo-Catholic, the 4 patron saints of the UK in the windows, a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, a capital carved from a stone taken from Whitby Abbey and so on and so forth. Cherry would have enjoyed visiting it, but now in a way she has.

Christopher at Yale

Obviously as the two year anniversary of Cherry's death draws closer I have been thinking even more than usual about this and the differences that this has made to my life. Curiously, this was underlined by a recent adventure suggested by Christopher. He was over here for a meeting in Washington and flew to New York to see some friends; he suggested we meet at New Haven halfway between New York and Newport, two travel hours for both of us - train for him, car for me. Everything on the way worked perfectly; I even found a parking space directly in front of the station entrance. So it was no more difficult than picking someone up from Pewsey, though it took a bit longer.

Everybody raves about the pizzas of New Haven so of course we went to one of the most famous such venues, 'Modern Apizza', fortunately arriving just before all the big crowds. Neither of us indulged in the ultra speciality - white clam pizza. Mine (anchovies) was fine - though I wouldn't rave about it, Christopher could only eat half of his - though he took the rest away in a box. They were both 'small' ones, 12 inches across. Quite often, in fact, I have found that food in the US isn't really up to the hype - though I haven't been to the 4th Street Diner for a while, admittedly. I had a similar reaction to a recent staff lunch visit to the famous 'Pasta Beach' in Newport, where the 'server' spends ten minutes telling you what's in everything in exhaustive detail. It was perfectly OK, but nothing out of the ordinary I thought. Maybe this reaction is due to the huge improvement in British restaurants over the past couple of decades ? 

Anyhow, the other thing they rave about in New Haven is the Yale Museum of British Art, and that really is worth raving about and also gets me to the point of this transmission, which is one small example of the difference between then and now. When Cherry and I went round art galleries, our interests and tastes were very different. I like romantic stuff and paintings that help illustrate something I am studying in some way; Cherry who after her course at Oxford knew far more about art than I did (though I think I was the one who introduced her to it) would often go round the galleries largely separately, liaising every now and again. We'd then gather for coffee, compare notes, identify the painting we would take away with us if we could, explain why and then go back and inspect the paintings in question before departing.

These pictures  illustrate my interests, Lawrence of Arabia (for the family history when it comes - my father knew him when he was in the RAF- and the painter Augustus John lived in nearby Fordingbridge) ,  an Admiral or two  (obviously),

an idealised picture of corn-reapers also for the family history though I suspect that conditions were not quite as harmonious for our ancestors in Sussex as they are portrayed here !) 

and a picture of Hayes (where we Tills used to live when I was a small blob of squalling humanity long, long afterwards).

I also liked the portrayal of Sir Jonathan Steele's cottage on the rise in Hampstead as you come down and see London laid out before you. No family connection - but just generally good for the historical inspiration and will get me writing the historical novel I have always meant to write.
 

 

I noticed though that Christopher took a picture of a deliberately garish modern painting which was a play on the classical 18th Century rural portrait, with a black woman with a gun substituted for the white self-satisfied male aristocrat leaning against a tree his wife in billowing skirts seated demurely beside him that you normally see. This was an exploration of social and gender stereotypes in art and society - an appeal to reason, not sentiment.

He also spotted a mirror image of the Queen and cleverly took a picture of us inside it. His tastes and interests in art are more like his Mother's than mine. Typically I had passed by the Queen image with hardly a second glance; he was the one who saw its possibilities... 

 

So the fact of indirectly identifying the differences  was the same, but we didn't sit down and discuss our responses and tow the other back for a second look, partly of course because there was no coffee place (there never is in US museums and houses - another crazy inefficiency in the US way of doing things !) and partly because we were running out of time and wanted also to do a little tour of Yale University. Would we have done it if we had had time ? I don't know. Maybe, and maybe we should next time.

 

Of course we enjoyed the canter around the famous Yale University, chilly though it was getting. Grand Victorian buildings, gracious and stately,with large leaf covered areas for walking and reflecting on matters of moment. So all-in-all a very successful visit well worth the effort - perhaps especially for the Museum both for the building itself and for the collection which was splendid, and its extent overwhelming - they seem to have more British art than the National Gallery !

 

Christopher and I then parted company outside the Union Station with expressions of mutual esteem, he to his two hour train journey  back to New York me for the long drive home.  By then it was getting dark of course so getting back wasn't   quite so easy, especially the country roads section I was taken on at the end of the run. Vera (the voice of truth - my sat-nav) had also warned me of a crash up ahead on the I 95  which delayed me for about 5 minutes with police cars rushing past. When I got to the blockage I was surprised to find myself having to ease round a light aircraft, which had come down a few minutes before. No-one was hurt I heard later, but they had to close the I 95 down shortly afterwards, so it was perhaps a good thing that Christopher and I didn't take time out to discuss our responses to art a bit more !      

Back in Newport

Getting away from home was stressful as I discovered that water was coming in through the roof of the annex kitchen, seeping in via the decayed thatch on the garage next door. It had also knocked out the all the electrics. Obviously I couldn't leave things the way they were for two months before I got back.   So in the three hours or so before the taxi came to take me to Heathrow I had to locate a thatcher to remedy the leak and once that was done an electrician to restore the power. It was after that awful weekend weather and, to judge by the number of unanswered phone calls , all such people  were out dealing with other disasters . I managed it in the end, sort of, but left for Heathrow feeling a bit limp. It was a good job I was packed up and ready to go well beforehand: even so I had to get Mick the taxi-driver to stop just to check I really had packed my passport in all the excitement.  I was really glad to immerse myself once more in the comforts of air travel.

Once back in Newport the repair process set in motion before I left actually worked amazingly well - with the help of Nathan and his Dad. The leak was stopped with a tarpaulin the following day and unbelievably the thatcher got to work in a couple of weeks. My normal thatcher couldn't have fitted it in before the Summer but coincidentally the chap who did the garage back in the 1990s had already contacted me and since it was a simple job said he could squeeze it in before his next big project. The only problem is that he's a foreigner - from Somerset- and won't do it quite in the Wiltshire way. Sharp rather than rounded edges. I was able to keep in touch and, with the aid of photos, sent by e-mail helped sort out, from the other side of the Atlantic, the original leak problem caused by badly fitted lead flashing under the thatch. Amazing what modern technology can enable you to do !

Newport seemed much the same as far as I could see. Autumn, as they call it here - not 'Fall' - is quite advanced with leaves all over the place and some great colours to be seen. The town is famous for its mansions but it deserves some recognition for its many magnificent trees, really big ones. As this photo shows, if you stand still long enough they will physically engulf you.

 

 

I visited one of the mansions left over from the Summer tours - Chateau sur Mer again marvelling at the trees which looked far older than the 150 years which is all they can be. Over the road at Bellecourt there was a lot of excitement with the wedding of a 'famous film star' Jennifer Lawrence (who I've not heard of, but never mind). The place was full of the police, press, fire engines and of groupies and gawpers watching all the comings  and goings until late at night. I should have hired out the front bedroom with its perfect  view....

Just over a week later I left Newport again for a conference in Australia, one of a regular series that Cherry and I have been too on many occasions over the years. It was based at a big conference centre at Darling Harbour  in Sydney, an attractive place we knew well, stacked with nice restaurants and a big Maritime Museum at one end. My hotel is the tall dominating block with a hard rock cafe in the basement - not that I heard a thing.

I quite enjoyed re-visiting old sites. The conference was fine, the attached naval defence exhibition bigger than ever. We always enjoyed these - Cherry to pick up all the freebies, me all the industrial gossip about who was selling what to whom and why.  Most of the people who staff these stands must be bored out of their minds unless occasionally dealing with people who seriously want to buy a Destroyer or two and are quite candid and expansive when talking to harmless academics like me with no axe to grind.  I did get a few freebies, but nothing like the amount that Cherry would have cajoled out of them for the grandkids - pens, notebooks, bags, glasses cleaners, adaptors, koala bears and so forth.

Newport also has a lot of tiny intimate burial grounds, as they call them, attractive places in which to meditate on mortality in the best historic tradition. I had gone to a lecture on gravestones in the area and so resolved to explore one of them - Clifton Burial Ground near the Library.

Obviously with Cherry's second anniversary coming up I've been thinking even more than usual about such things and was particularly struck by one tiny gravestone to a Phoebe Marsh who died in 1729. I wonder who she was - a child ?- and thought now she would have been forgotten as though she had never existed if it wasn't for this small piece of engraved and fragile stone and maybe some documentary evidence.

But because of it she lives on - in a way.  Cherry does too, of course, mainly in the memory of those who knew and loved her but with much more tangible evidence all around. I talk to her photos all the time and, glory be, have found a local Episcopalian Church on my way to work where they still have real candles you can light.

It's turned much colder now in Newport, but in the main the weather is still generally bright and sunny, and there's a certain amount of tooth-sucking going on that it's going to be a bad winter. But there was a brief spell when some really savage winds and heavy rain tore across the island. Regardless, as they would say over here,  I had a Sunday lunch pic-nic in the Snowbird, as I have named my Jeep, at Brenton Point watching the waves crashing against the rocks.

Such a contrast with the week before in which the same place was warm and sunny, the sea flat as a millpond providing plenty of opportunities for artistic shots of rock and waves and of a cooperative cormorant or two. One of things I've done recently is attend a presentation in the Redwood about a famous photographer of the interwar period called Russel Lee - quite inspiring.  

We've had Halloween as well, which they make much more of than we do though my colleagues say there's been a noticeable decline in the number of trick-or-treaters calling at peoples' houses. Maybe that's just as well since some of the tricks are on the unfunny side involving toilet paper, spray painting with shaving foam and even egging cars ( which I am told damages the paintwork). Sounds a bit more like a protection racket. 'Nice place you have here, Sir. Shame if it got damaged.' To avoid that kind of thing localities are now doing these things more collectively. Nothing like that happened here but I was amazed at how seriously they took it in the staid War College - with departments competing for the prize in who displayed the most pumpkins, skeletons and pumpkins. We didn't enter it of course ! But anyway, next stop Christmas, and I'm already beginning to think about the next trip home to see family - and the new thatch.          

The Rest of the Summer of 2019

Back in the 1950s, people used to attach a small clump of heather to the bonnets of their car to signify they were on holiday, typically to the West Country – something to look out for when stuck on the gruelling, hot and choked A36 and the A303 before they were widened, went round bottlenecks like Honiton and were supplemented by new motorways. This Giles cartoon nicely captures the spirit of the ‘escape to the West’ that we used to endure back then in order to celebrate the summer.

 

We Tills certainly used to do indulge in the heather option and being a true historian I have maintained the tradition. I even remember seeing another car similarly adorned, just the once in the last decade, so I am not entirely alone in this. Accordingly when coming back through the New Forest after the July Portsmouth conference (and a glance at the map will show that this was an indulgence for a start)  I brought back a sprig of heather, properly installed it and decided that I would treat the next few weeks as a holiday and really make the most of them. A succession of family visits, culminating in a grand reunion when for once we manage to assemble the whole dynasty in one place at one time helped sustain that ambition. It was a great few days, which included a trip up to the top of the tower of Salisbury Cathedral with all the Powells bar Chiff who was away earning a crust for the family. The view from there up inside the spire and also out from there down over the city far, far below was extraordinary. I have to record that Barney and Martha were much braver about the dizzying and sometimes frankly terrifying stairs one had to climb up than either their mother or even more their Grandpa. The only way I got up one open wooden circular stair was by resolutely focussing on the sneakers of the person in front and carefully not looking at anything else ! Coming down was fine; it was going up that unnerved me. The subsequent sense of achievement though was tremendous, celebrated of course in the refectory.  A walk to the canal and barbeque between spitting rain showers and a trip to Bristol for lunch with Shelagh and a visit to the University’s impressive Botanic Garden completed a long and jolly weekend. The day after, Philippa insisted on taking me to the RUH in Bath (unecessary but nice) for another scan and the kids to the Roman Baths and the Abbey. On my own again I managed another day in the Forest at ‘Studeley Castle’ now downgraded to just an ‘enclosure’ I noted on the latest map –with speculations about Vespasian’s Second Augusta legion passing through 2000+ years ago beginning to evaporate.

A trip to the Orkneys with Christopher, though was a definite plus for the holiday spirit. On the first day the wind whipped off my hat when we were at the top of the tower of the Bishop’s palace in Kirkwall depositing it incongruously in the middle of the road far below.  Christopher raced down to get it for me, emblematic of the extent he looked after doddery old me for the rest of the week, which was nice- even to the perilous extent of backing our car onto a tiny island ferry because I couldn’t turn my head around far enough !

Apart from eating and drinking and the obligatory whisky distillery tour ( conducted of course these days by an Italian), walking, wildlife and inspecting historical sites  (ranging from the Neolithic to the Second World War) were the main staples of our week, plus just for Christopher diving on some of the wrecks of the German High Sea Fleet, self-scuttled in 1919. Its pre-nuclear radiation steel has mostly been translated into razor blades and medical instruments, but enough remains to form one of the UK’s premier diving sites.

As for me, I was bowled over by the romantic remoteness of the place and can well understand why disillusioned city folk seem often to end up here. Cherry was always alarmed at this aspect of my imagination and would have been the first to point out that even now in the height of summer so many people went around in anoraks and scarves. ‘So what’s it like in Winter ?’ I could almost hear her ask. Seriously, I was totally hooked by the Neolithic and Viking sites, realising how relatively advanced they were. Profiting from the then warmed climate Neolithic folk probably only needed to work two days a week for the necessities of life in this extraordinarily fertile area, which explains the numbers of dice that haven found, the elaborate housing of Skara Brae and so forth. As for the Vikings, who wouldn’t be enthralled by the exploits of Thorfinn the Skull-splitter in the Orkney sagas. Wonderful stuff which has already found its way into recent lectures.

I also hadn’t realised how much Christopher had been infected by his Mother’s interest in birds and in the Orkneys you can hardly turn round without being watched by wary fulmars or passing sea skuas. The highlight for both of us though had to be watching through a RSPB telescope a young white-tailed eagle flapping around while its anxious parents anxiously wheeled around overhead. He has also inherited his Mother’s fearlessness in standing awfully close to the edge of precipitous cliffs, as he did when we were looking at the Old Man of Hoy: I couldn’t bear to look at him and also at the insensate people cavorting around on the top of it.

At both ends of the Orkneys week Christopher and Beth reintroduced me to the genuine delights of trendy Walthamstow. It’s shoulders deep in vegans and vegetarians (including them of course) and I came to the conclusion that no-one over 40 actually lives there. It was great. In return I investigated boxfuls of Beth’s Gran’s crockery prior to their disposal; a lot of I think nice stuff but they wouldn’t be able to retire on the proceeds.

Other than that the rest of the ‘holiday’ period was spent back in Wansdyke, where there was a lot going on. Two barbeques on successive nights, one with Mhairi, Andy, John and Belinda in Devizes, one at the Village shop, a garden party at Rosie’s which provided an opportunity to wander around their impressive grounds which make Wansdyke Cottage look like a window-box, two acres notwithstanding. I finally managed to link up with Debbie Peach to do some field-walking looking out for bits of iron-age pottery (All Cannings Cross just up the road is an iron-age site of national importance even with its own recognised pottery-ware). I had coffee with Peter and a wonderful reunion in Salisbury with John, Melanie, Tony and Maya. This though ended late because we were all having such a good time but ended in disaster.

When I got home I quickly became aware of a strange noise emanating from the pond and found that when I cleaned it out (a disgusting job after several months of absence) I had inadvertently left on a switch that shouldn’t have been, and it had sucked all the water out except for a tiny bit in the very bottom. All our big Grey Ghost Koi (15 years old and 18” inches long) were dead or terminally distressed. I felt terrible and also had to bury them all in successive days as they came back up to the surface of the refilled pond. A few days later I saw that something had dub them all up again and eaten them. Fox ? Badger ? Passing Brontosauruas ?

This sad event is an indication of the strains of trying to run two households simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic. I had seriously underestimated this aspect of my new life, post Cherry. But I still think keeping hyper-busy helps. The passing of our second wedding anniversary was undoubtedly eased by the distraction of the return trip from the Orkneys. Keeping Wansdyke up to scratch does the same and keeps the associations with Cherry alive. She thought those associations would be so painful I would have to move on; in fact the reverse is true, it’s the associations that make me want to stay as long as possible, although the fish event does suggest this intent might be more vulnerable to adverse circumstances than I would wish.

A resumption of foreign travel at the beginning of September with a trip to Brazil helped too. I was disappointed not to be able to add more to the lighted-candle-for-Cherry list as the two churches I tried in Rio (wonderful in themselves of course) the Igleja Sto Jose and Nossa Senora de Carmo (unlike Salisbury cathedral and St Magnus in Kirkwall) have invested in that abomination – electric candles which simply don’t count. On the other hand, I was delighted to have been awarded my first wearable medal as a formal ‘Friend of the Brazilian Navy’.

 

 

Cherry knew the Admiral to my right from a previous visit and would have giggled herself silly at the whole event, totally fun occasion as it was even though performed with admirable solemnity. Brazil ended with a trip up the Amazon. Although it was at the height of the dreadful  fires there I didn't see any sign of them. I was told that they were 800 miles away to the south (which gives you the sense of scale) and their extent in any case had been exaggerated. Well, maybe. I hadn't realised that 4 million (mainly poor) Brazilians and about 300,000 'indigenous' peoples live there. The Navy certainly said all the right things about their responsibility to protect the forest and its 'real owners.'  They have gave me a time, helicopter trips, patrol boat and hospital ship voyages. I saw the extraordinary sight of the mixture of the two rivers which go to make the Amazon proper, one old and dark,  one relatively new and mud coloured.

A bunch of Marines introduced me to boa constrictor snake thing that writhed up my arm. A baby one fortunately; grown up it would have tried to kill and eat me.

                The final event was the family get to get together to turn the Wansdyke apples into juice - and this year for some of us to make an excursion to our 96 year old 'fishman' to restock the pond. Accommodating them required poor Christopher to wriggle into the pond under the net in his flimsies to reposition the special pump we needed for the exotic bottom-feeders that looked like sharks.  Another new one had a tasteful toothbrush moustache whom we naturally christened Adolf. The serious business of the day produced 27 litres and ended with a grand barbeque. A great way to end my summer holiday before going back to Newport, though I did spend some of the final few days in a jail in Oxford (now a rather idiosyncratic modern hotel) for a Russian Navy conference at Pembroke College.  And so back to the Carriage House....................          

  

 

Early Summer Back in England

Plans of mice and men ! Instead of having the leisurely few weeks I had planned for family and house-maintenance, I found myself run off my feet. Partly, of course, this was because I hadn't been able to get rid of the academic impedimenta that my reluctance to say 'no' (much commented on by   Cherry - but they might not ask again !); indeed I even accumulated another commitment at Oxford, on the Russians.

                But the main issue was an unexpected, shocking and very sad funeral for a long time friend and colleague from Greenwich days, John who was married to another friend and colleague, Victoria. I had a lot to do with both of them, and as Victoria said, I was responsible for their getting together since I appointed them both. The funeral was up in North Yorkshire. It was nice to see Peter, Charles other colleagues of that happy time,even in such circumstances. But it was a long way to drive so I stayed at a nearby farm house in the Dales,  and also took the opportunity to visit the absolutely delightful Mosely Old Hall on the way up.

                This was where Charles II sought refuge after losing the battle of Worcester - a large Tudor Farmhouse that I can honestly say was one of the very best and inspiring historic houses I have ever visited. Highly recommended. First a guided tour, being shown the priests hole that  Charles hid in while Roundhead soldiers searched the place, and then we were free to wander round the place to get the atmospherics, something that's becoming more and more difficult with the National Trust.

Skipton castle near my destination was also interesting but that Friday morning  (before the funeral) it was crammed with excited small schoolchildren on end-of-term trips ; historical reflections were submerged by their shrill excitements, so I was glad to get a text inviting me to join Peter and Katie at a nearby hostelry for lunch, even after the gargantuan farmhouse breakfast I had already enjoyed. I hadn't visited this area before very much and was very impressed by it. The view from my bedroom was pleasant. It's quite a few years since I have been so close to sheep.

                The other event was the regretful but inevitable decision to have poor Minnie put to sleep Her condition had very noticeably deteriorated even in the few days since my return. As one of the girls at the vet said, it was as though she had been waiting to see me for the last time. I was more upset by this than I had anticipated, not least because it was the severing of another link with Cherry. Minnie was definitely her cat and I couldn't help but recall the way the cat cuddled unknowingly up to Cherry's body after she had died. Very sad. This and arranging the obsequies also took time and emotional capital. Minnie was 20 , a grand old age for a pedigree Burmese. Poor old thing. The bread oven looks very cold and dark without her !

 

                The car needed attention too. When talking to Nathan (my gardener, cat and house-sitter), I had noticed that it looked a bit odd parked in the garage but wondered if it only because I was now used to my much higher looking Jeep in Newport. But when I reversed it out I found something mysterious lying on the floor. I had no idea what it was picked it up and looked at it dubiously.  Something seemed wrong. I guessed it might be the suspension so gingerly drove to Kwikfit in Devizes gentling the car round corners. They found that somehow or other a rear spring had fallen out all on its own. They were able to fix it and the two days later the car also passed an inspection at Heritage in Salisbury with flying colours - for a 13 year old car it was in excellent condition,. Good cars these Passats they said - which was quite nice given that their main money came from selling new ones !

                There were some nice social events too. A churches visit - the first I have been able to manage this year, a very pleasant college re-union at Wansdyke  with Tony and Maya doing the honours for John, Melanie and me. Tony and Maya stayed in the house (or the Granny annexe)  for three months while their new house in Shaftesbury was being worked on, a process that to them seemed to be taking forever, with constant delays. In the end they decided to go back to Shaftesbury even though the house was barely liveable in - just to be in a position to crack the whip over the builders. I hope they will think it worthwhile in the end !  For me of course, their presence was ideal. Keeping an eye on cat and house when I wasn't there, and company and live-in cooks when I was ! I was sad to see them go. 

                 Ruth, Simon and Violet came for one weekend - Violet of course being the star of the show, just on the edge of walking and thoroughly delightful. We all decamped to Bristol for a day in order to see (Great) Auntie Shelagh  and her now three cats, the wandering Harry having been returned after disappearing for a year. A very trendy place, Bristol with a Gay Pride march making the bad traffic rather worse than usual. A fun day nonetheless 

                Finally,  a week long conference in Portsmouth to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. On the way I called in on the Powell tribe in Burgess Hill for a couple of night. The original aim was to have seen Martha in her end-of year and end-of-primary-school play. Sadly I had to miss that because of a rescheduled medical appointment, but I did get to see her perform in a quite bizarre charity dancing event in the local Tesco, where her dance school performed very professionally I thought I front of the shop's magazine racks for an hour or so.

 

At the conference,  I   had a keynote to give, which was a bit daunting to a hundred or so real historians ( since I'm not really one) but it seemed to go OK. The Newport party were accommodated at a hotel in the relatively new Gunwharf shopping and leisure centre in the waterside territory of the old HMS Vernon, near the famous Spinnaker Tower. I've been before. Cherry and I once light-heartedly speculated about selling up and getting a flat just opposite so that I could sit on the balcony and watch the ships and ferries coming in and out. This time we would have had a good view of the enormous Queen Elizabeth, the first of our new carriers which was alongside in the dockyard. In the afternoon I walked around Portsmouth looking at all its many family sites. The house where we Tills came to after our time in Egypt, Granny Beech's house, my primary school, Aunts Ethel and Alice's house, 4 Merton Road the much, much  grander establishment where Aunt Ethel worked as housekeeper/companion to 'Miss Feenie,' (and where I think my antique proclivities came from - how many other ten year olds would choose a Regency bureau as a keepsake !!)  the King's Theatres where I was taken for the Christmas pantomime etc etc. It really was a 'trip down memory lane.'  I also came across many of its historic sites as well, the house where the Duke of Buckingham was assassinated in 1628, the Nelson trail (of course), the Round Tower and the Hot Walls, the Still and West where Cherry, Grandma the kids and I
had fish and chips when waiting for our ferry to Brittany, and so on and so forth. Portsmouth has a lot going for it, but I don't think I'll be retiring there !
 

Leaving for the Summer

 

The time, as they say, has whizzed by. After the departure of the last Family group I had just over three weeks to get everything sorted out and completed by the time I followed them over the Atlantic. There were tight margins;  my landlady in the big house has just a day and a half to swill the house out before the first bunch of out-of-state trippers arrive. Over the summer the house will go to two groups of them, both paying far, far more rent than I did simply because it's the Summer season in Newport. Since I had always planned to return to the UK for the summer anyway, this arrangement worked well for all parties.

            Although in just a couple of weeks Summer had really arrived with temperatures already in the 80s, it was a lot cooler than down south. Newport apparently started to be seen as a cool summer sea-side retreat back before the Civil War when Southern plantation owners came up here for the season. I learned this in one of the three houses I managed to see over this period (making the most of my season ticket !) Chepstow, Hunter House and Kingscote. 

 Belcourt directly opposite the house will have to wait until I come back. The mansions are all very different But Chepstow and Hunter House are both crammed with stuff and look as though they've been lived rather than danced in. Kingscote, (pictured above) was different -prized as an early, mid 19th Century example of 'shingle architecture' and full of wonderful wood work.  Great collections of furniture and art. Once when 'my' coffee shop at the Gateway was full (damn tourists ! ) on the way back I thought to take advantage of my season ticket and have coffee in the Marble House Chinese tea pavilion and read my Wall Street Journal. (Much better for foreign news and arts than either the New York Times or the Washington Post, if slightly less hostile to Trump)  That was a good move. I could also pat Cherry's Liondog at the entrance on the way out.

             

            The other big event of the period was the Graduation ceremony to mark the end of their courses for around about 300 students at the Naval War College. Having endured all too many of these at other places in the past,  I was mainly interested in this one to see how the American navy does it. It was held in a big marquee on the waterside lawn in front of the College. Fortunately, the marquee didn't have any 'sidewalls'  and there was a nice breeze blowing, otherwise we academics all in our suits and fancy regalia would have been roasted. Here the custom is for all the students to walk from the College to the Marquee in two lines in their dress uniforms between two lines of clapping faculty. I was struck by how happy and excited most of them looked - proud of their achievement rather than just glad to be out of the place we all hoped. All the families were there in the marquee too also very excited - lots of photos.

            Then the band, the national anthem, and the beginning of the presentations, which went on for an hour or so. I was amongst the first, getting my honorific certificate and the great heavy metal medal specially designed for winners of the Hattendorf  prize, thrust into my hands by the very affable Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer. A happy event.

 

No hint here of the unprecedented convulsions the College has been going through with our Admiral being 'relieved of his duty' pending an investigation - unfairly most of us think, but what do we know. He certainly had an informal style, one of his 'crimes' being to have a margarita machine in his office. Because of that he's not in the picture and his civilian deputy (the guy in the fancy yellow) presided instead  

            After that a brief 'run-down period' as they say in the Navy.  I had one unexpected visitor - a little vole like thing running about in the downstairs living room. The Lord knows how he got in. I managed to scoop him up and return him to the wild outside. The weather was good for sessions outside on the patio beside the headless statue of a classical lady. I also managed a couple of swims at the Reject's Beach (is the public beach used by those who can't get into the very exclusive Bailey's Beach Club). The latter can be seen on the extreme left of the picture. The water was cold - almost of Cornish standards, flat, smooth and shallow - not really very exciting.  The beach quite populated but not crowded.

One reason for this as that car-parking in the whole area is forbidden, so it's largely limited to those who can cycle or walk there with all their stuff, or I suppose catch the bus. Until living on Bellevue Avenue and seeing such things as this, I really hadn't realised how pervasive are the social divides even in the land of the free. I suppose that it depends on what you mean by 'free.' Here as elsewhere, its analogous to all of us being free to stay at the Ritz, I suppose.

            I also finished stuff off as much as I could before leaving (wanting to keep as much of the Summer break free for family visits and house and garden maintenance as possible). There was a conference on the Indian Ocean in Washington when for the first time I flew from Providence rather than Logan - and it was all very easy. Being out in Arlington, I didn't see much of the nation's capital this time and for once went with minimal kit to keep things simple.  Another small on-site conference was squeezed in as well and the final pack-up and sort out of what in the house was going to be left in suitcases in the car in the garage until I get back, and what I was taking back home over the pond. It all seemed strangely well-organised and hassle free. The only thing I hadn't been able to organise was the road test part of my driving licence application. That will have to wait until I come back. Otherwise all was easy and effortless as I found myself back at Logan waiting for the flight home. 

 

           

Spring and new arrivals

 

Philippa called the day I got back from Singapore and we had a nice day together with a visit to Avebury Manor and supper at Massimo's. Every time I come back I realise how much I like Devizes and the Wiltshire countryside generally !

 
It takes a lot of beating. I left the Cottage in Tony and Maya's more than capable hands as they await the completion of their house re-building. Minnie the cat is hanging in there, slightly demented, prowling in blind circles in a disconcerting way and now less prone to leave little testimonials to her presence all over the place. At 20+ she's amazing, fur in good condition. I hope I am in as good a state when I am the equivalent 140 years old.  

Simon, Ruth and Violet and Spring arrived all at the same time in Newport. The contrast in weather between now - with temperatures in the 70s- even the 80s - Fahrenheit and what it was just a few weeks earlier is nothing short of extraordinary. Bellevue Avenue looks quite different with everything in luxuriant leaf and legions of little singing birds appearing from wherever mysterious place they choose to hide during the winter. The House now surrounded with fresh green foliage from the magnificent trees that are such a feature of the Avenue. They are mostly said to be

'European Beeches' , but many of the seem most unlike beech trees I've ever seen. Planting them was conferred social status of course. The view from the side window of my bedroom of our neighbour 'Miramar' contrasts strongly with the first view I had of it back in November, with banks of brilliant rhododendrons.

Of course the warmer weather also brings the tourists and by contrast with the winter Newport seems crammed with them. The queue of cars getting out of the town end of the Avenue was well over half a mile long at Memorial weekend, a public holiday. I live up the far end of the Avenue fortunately, and have learned a few of the rat runs that the locals use. The locals are full of dire warnings about what it's like from mid June when the real season starts, but I won't be here then, of course.

Simon Ruth and Violet got here in good shape on Tuesday 21st and immediately plunged into a hectic programme skilfully contrived around the young lady's sleep and feeding patterns. Of course we managed a trip to Bowling alley on the naval base and, it being a Monday afternoon had the place almost entirely to ourselves. The usual brilliant display of 'strikes' and 'spares' and other such arcane outcomes, rewarded with burgers and fries 

Violet wows them wherever she goes, not least the Fourth Street Diner where she behaved perfectly while her father, like Chiff before him, disposed of a 'Boxcar' - an enormous breakfast of eggs, homefries, links (sausages to you and me) etc followed up by pancakes with all the trimmings and coffee constantly refilled. My visitors are now getting used to dealing with the machine-gun series of questions you get in this country whenever you order something -  what meat do you want, how do you want your eggs, what sort of biscuits etc etc. Until one gets to know the form diner-eating is all an adventure until the result appears before you.

The Diner is also an instructive place to explore 'the American way' - not just in what they eat but how they organise themselves. They may be over-regulated as a country, and tiresomely beset with lawyers -  but when it comes to running a diner,  the American approach leads to a level of apparently effortless efficiency that is nothing short of amazing. I find watching the servers and the two young male cooks dealing so fast with every group of diverse orders and managing to produce them piping hot all at the same time, within five minutes of ordering totally absorbing; I think it explains a great deal about American success. There are downsides to living in the US of course, but the Diner experience is definitely not one of them.

 

Of course we also managed some of the famous Mansions, focussing on the ones with audio guides because that allows for much more procedural freedom.  Violet did her homework closely perusing a book on Newport's architectural history. I took a picture of the three of them looking down from the balcony over the magnificent stairway of Marble House where they looked as though they owned the place.  And of course they were dutifully lined up for the now traditional photo beside Cherry's urn at the Breakers.

Earlier Simon and an unconscious Violet had done their duty by her 'Liondog with pearl' outside the Chinese teahouse at Marble House, where taking advantage of my membership I have taken to having coffee on a Saturday morning while reading my Wall Street Journal (good for foreign news and books reviews)

We made the most of the weather ('leveraging it' of course) by doing the Coastal walk which is very pleasant, but for all the hype, not a patch on Cornwall's version. Rocks and sea on one side and the chance for an illicit peek into the grounds of the public and private Mansions behind. I can understand why the wealthy land-owners resisted the path, but like all visitors am glad they lost. We also did Sachuet point, this time in glorious weather for more sea views (rather wilder this time as it's a nature reserve) and lots of opportunities to just miss snapping the local birds. Perhaps a touch unimaginatively (from my end) we did a repeat of the South County tour over the water pioneered by the Powells, a wander up the high street of the charming little town of

Wickford where all the houses are 18th or 19th century and have little house plaques of their names and dates. We were amused by one that said just  We also dined on fish and chips at Galilee looking over the estuary at  Jerusalem.  While I was at work, they had a few days in Cape Cod, saw some whales and had a good time despite uncooperative weather. Since coming back to Newport they managed some mornings on the various beaches around here, including my local one 10 minutes walk away.  This is the public end of a long private Beach with a clubhouse so exclusive that Bobby Kennedy (Pres Kennedy's brother) was refused entry; our end is known as the Rejects' beach. In its way it's also quite exclusive since there is nowhere for normal people to park their cars.

They all left a few days ago about to embark on a house-hunting expedition in Sussex and I am buckling down for my last few weeks in Newport for the time being.  The weather is really warm right now and I am resolved to make the most of it, working outside in 'my' lovely little patio area, where I was rather bizarrely joined by a young American Robin I think it is, squatting on the gravel and gently panting