Both at home and about

     Snippets from lovely short outings from my house...

     One of the many joys of "taking up residence" in England, if only for a month, is the huge array of amazing sights to see, all within a small radius. That seems to go double since I'm in such a beautiful part of the country, wedged here between Lancashire, the Lake District and Yorkshire.

     Case in point: Private gardens, open only a couple of days a year or by appointment. One finds these hidden gems through The National Garden Scheme's annual directory. It was a good bet that I'd find a couple of such gardens nearby, and so I did. A quick call to the owners, and off I went.

      One was only about ten minutes away, along a steep, one-lane road in the midst of absolutely gorgeous pastureland. The estate at the top had a house and view straight out of a movie set, with a garden to match. I don't know how the owner earns his crust, but he has obviously done well for himself. He and his wife, despite their obviously posh upbringings, were both as gracious as Southerners, and made me feel like an honored, invited guest.

    One of the TWO full-time gardeners was dispatched to give me a tour of the lushly green and blooming spread, and afterward I joined Mrs. Posh for a natter and a glass of ginger beer on the patio . What was expected to be a 10-minute wander around the herbacious border turned into a leisurely, hour-and-a-half visit. It couldn't have been more pleasant! I left with a new friend and a big ol' smile on my face.

     Then there was the visit to Leighton Hall, an ancient stately home about 15 miles away. It was another chilly, drippy day -- has there been any other kind? -- but I didn't want to sit home all afternoon. So I donned rain gear and soldiered on, like a real Brit, figuring I'd find something colorful amidst the gloom. And so I did.

     Unbeknownst to me, the estate is the home of a number of falcons and other birds of prey. Several times a day, the falcon keeper brings out his pets for demonstrations on the lawn. Leighton Hall's falcon keeper has missed his calling: He should be onstage.

     Who knew that big, vicious, killer birds could be such clever sidekicks in a stand-up comedy act?! The falconer had his audience, me included, in stitches. And for their parts, the birds played right along with the schtick, swooping down and performing right on cue. The North African owl, in particular, if you'll pardon the pun, was a hoot.

     Afterward, over a cuppa in the tea shop, I fell into a conversation with a lady who turned out to be the daughter of the Hall's owners. She was ever so chatty and charming, and seemed genuinely glad that I had enjoyed the bird show. I told her they should take it on the road. Maybe Vegas,

     One final note before I head off to Hawkshead Parish Church in the Lake District and a vocal recital tonight: Does the United States have any athletes in the Olympic Games? I swear I thought we had entered a couple of the events...To watch the BBC, however -- two channels, carrying Olympic coverage 20 hours a day, commercial free -- one would never know there was a single American athlete in London!!

     I saw the U.S. team march in the opening ceremony with their silly little beret hats, but after then, from the standpoint of the TV coverage I'm getting, it's been "Team GB" all the way. I'm glad the Queen's granddaughter won a medal in one of the equestrian events, and that Team GB's male gymnasts won a bronze (apparently a large deal), but I'd love to know how Team USA is getting on...

     NBC blocks its online reception to those outside the country, incidentally, so I can't even access pro-American coverage via computer. Nuts! My prediction is coming true: No matter how many gold medals we win, I'll never hear "The Star-Spangled Banner" a single time during these games!

A cultural banquet

     More culture to report. It's hard to get away from it, isn't it, when you're in the cultural center of the known universe?

     Wednesday's adventure involved a foray into industrial Manchester, England's third largest city. The occasion was Manchester's Dig the City Festival, part environmental movement and part flower show, "returning the heart of the Medieval quarter to nature." It was also part of the city's celebration of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee. At the center of the activities were a flower exhibition and choral concert at Manchester Cathedral.

    The cathedral and adjoining music school were established in 1421 by King Henry V. These institutions have always centered on music. For this current festival, 50 floral venders, local churches and garden societies had created designs carrying out musical themes to be placed throughout the cathedral. The organizers claim 30,000 blossoms were used, and I'd believe it.

     Let me just say it was a banquet for the senses!

    Upon entering, one was hit by the scent immediately. It smelled like a politician's funeral -- but in a good way. Flowers filled every nook and cranny, and were even hanging from the ceiling. Above the nave was an explosion of orb-shaped arrangements of roses, carnations and mums with spikes -- puzzling at first, until you found that the installation depicted Handels's "Royal Fireworks Music"! Of course!

     I've been to competitive flower shows all over England, so I knew I'd be in for a visual treat. The Brits are evermore creative with their flowers; there's just nothing quite like these events in the U.S. Give 'em a theme, some fresh flowers and they run with it. And how better to exercise their imaginations than to interpret music in flowers?

    One of the side chapels was devoted to the Beatles. In another chapel was Eliza Doolittle with her flower stand in "My Fair Lady." The area in the church known as the Fire Chapel, which was destroyed by German bombs in the Second World War, was filled with red, orange and gold arrangements complementing the new stained-glass window in that same color scheme. The exhibit was called "Walk Through the Fire."

     Over here, arrangements of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." Other classical nods to "Rigoletto" and "Swan Lake." Installations saluting "Saturday Night Fever" and "Dancing Queen." Gaily colored umbrellas mingled with masses of flowers for "Singin' in the Rain," and a masked phantom guarding the Paris Opera House. Floral interpretations of sacred pieces like "Hallelujah Chorus." A riot of delphiniums that practically vibrated "Rhapsody in Blue."

    After the audience were saturated with the floral displays, the 15-voice Manchester Baroque ensemble added the final dimension of sound. Acoustically, the cathedral is first-rate, and the excellent singers -- all paid professional musicians -- rose to the occasion to match the brilliant visual show above and around us. For my money, the only thing that can rival the Brits' way with flowers is their choral music.

     There were simply too many "WOW!" moments to mention them all, but for me, the highlights were easily Hubert Parry's magnificent, stately anthem, "I Was Glad," and the final piece of the evening, Ralph Vaughn Williams' "Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King!" Even though most of the choir's program had been a cappella, on these songs the organ majestically held forth in accompaniment. I know these pieces well, and it was all I could do to sit mum and not put in my own two feeble cents' worth!

     I'm not sure why we Americans can't get our collective artistic acts together to organize something similar to this festival. I mean, we have the talent and the resources in spades, surely. But it's the Brits who actually do it, and I thank all the cultural gods above for the privilege of being able to experience the result of their efforts!

Dealing with the latest in peasant technology

     Despite the fact that the Brits are quick to admonish, "Mustn't grumble," I'm afraid I'm too much my mother's child to follow that sage advice too strictly.

     The thing is, I feel like I'm in a bit of a time warp.

     We've already covered the matter of the weather. The calendar says July, but the temps still say early March -- but without the daffodils. Lots of beautiful summer flowers are in bloom, but without blue skies they appear rather disspirited and drab. Today London, on the brink of the Olympics, got a massive dose of sunshine and soaring temperatures. It's headline news throughout the U.K., especially given the fact that the new, spiffed-up sites for the Games have been drenched for weeks now.

    Here in the north, however, it was the same old story: Chilly and wet. Cumbria, apparently, couldn't buy a sunbeam if Her Majesty herself commanded it.

    Then there's the matter of the appliances. Let's address the laundry issue first. The calendar may say 2012, but for most Brits it might as well be 1512, the Tudors are on the throne, and the peasants steadfastly cling to the Medieval practice of hanging their newly-washed clothes on a line outdoors. However, any moron would realize that if it rains every day, one's clothes will never get dry outdoors -- or indoors, either, for that matter. But nary a drying machine will one find. Sears would make a killin' over here if driers were ever to catch on.

     This simple fact requires planning and complex strategery -- to quote George W. Bush -- to make sure one has clean underwear at all times. The laundry cycle becomes, at minimum, a three-day process, involving ancient, rickety wooden racks placed in front of the fire. Woe be unto she who hasn't correctly counted the number of clean drawers she's got left...

     Then there's the matter of keeping the fire stoked, and, if one is lucky indeed, figuring out how to supplement this primitive source of warmth with the operation of the furnace. Now, I'm not suggesting the furnace in this house is odd or old, but I do suspect it was installed by Hadrian and his army of Romans at the same time they built their wall just up the road circa 30 A.D. The instruction manual is written in Latin, so far as I can tell. It involves a tank of water, several resolutely cold radiators, a timer and several knobs and buttons, none of which I can see because they're located in a closet without a light.

     Even with my well-honed American can-do spirit, fueled by my freezing bones, I'm well and truly flummoxed when it comes to that furnace.

     I've run across these technological "advancements" in many of the European homes in which I've stayed, and have come to the conclusion that I wouldn't have made a very successful peasant in either Roman or Tudor times, especially in the winter. Too much grumbling, you know.

Getting my cathedral choral fix

     Some people are addicted to caffeine, or endorphines, or nicotine. Me, it's choral music. Especially English cathedral choral music. There's just nothing more soul-stirring than the sound of those little choristers' pure soprano voices reverberating through the rafters. The angels themselves must be jealous!

      Last Sunday I drove up to Carlisle Cathedral about an hour north of my house specifically to hear the choir tackle a piece we did in Festival Singers this semester by the contemporary British composer Bob Chilcott, entitled "A Little Jazz Mass." I was so psyched about hearing this glorious composition performed in a setting like that. A church has stood on that very spot since 1133, so for the historical value alone I figured it could be awesome.

     Let's just say the choir did their best, but pretty much sucked, bless their hearts. The saints were not stirred. I think it was a matter of being under-rehearsed and, as the cnductor said afterward, the piece was "out of the singers' comfort zone." From the quality of the music throughout the service, I surmise that "Three Blind Mice" is out of those guys' comfort zone, but I was far too kind to tell him that.

     Today in York, however, made up for the musical calamity in Carlisle. I got a big ol' choral fix at York Minster, whose choral tradition goes back over 500 years. Boys enter its exclusive choir school as young as 7 or 8 and remain until age 13 (when their voices break).

     Besides having a first-rate choir, York holds the distinction of being the first major cathedral in the U.K. to admit girls into its choir school. Only a few times a year do the boys and girls -- and of course the choral scholars, consisting of adult males -- sing together. And today's Evensong service, marking the end of the school term for the students, was one of those joint occasions.

     Their rafter-rattling rendition of Handel's majestic anthem "Zadok the Priest" alone was worth the two-hour drive. WOW!! Can I hear an AMEN?! The kids were pumped, it being their last performance before their summer holiday. Moreover, most of their families were there, too, so they were primed to sing their best. And the treble voices had double the strength with both the boys and girls holding forth on the top vocal line.

     Everything they sang was simply beautiful and resonant, especially the benediction, a setting of a prayer by John Donne by William Harris. I was blubbering by the end of that one, as were some of the graduating choristers. I got a coveted seat in my favorite spot, in the Quire surrounding the singers, so the acoustics couldn't have been better. Because it was graduation day, the choir's role was dominant in the service.

     I happened to be seated next to the mom of one of the little choristers. He auditioned for the choir when he was only six years old -- his own idea, according to Mama -- and admitted when he was 7. Seven! He's now 10. In exchange for performing regularly in the Minster's daily services, he lives at the choir school and receives music instruction as well as all of the basics one would expect in any other top English boarding school. His parents pay a mere 20% of the tuition charged to other students who aren't in the choral program.

     Do you know of any seven-year-olds -- or ten-year-olds, for that matter -- who'd initiate the process of contracting themselves to a church to sing in exchange for an education? Or committing to do anything except playing football or computer games or sitting in front of the TV until they're cross-eyed?!

Of Heathcliff and Peter Rabbit

      The literary theme continues. It's a shame all my old English teachers have already joined the Classics Seminar in the Sky, because I just know they'd be proud of me and my recent wanderings.

      Tuesday I headed into Yorkshire to the Harlow Carr garden, one of the properties maintained by the Royal Horticulture Society. The drive over there was beautiful but I decided it would be a hoot if I took the long way home, a route that would take me literally through hill, dale and moor on the back roads through Yorkshire Dales National Park. This is serious Bronte sisters territory. Unfortunately -- surprise, surprise -- it started raining only a few miles into the journey, turning the "hoot" into an "oh, hell." Moors are not places upon which one wants to be stranded, especially in the rain in twilight!

      For miles and miles and miles there were nothing but sheep, sheep and more sheep. No houses, no signs of civilization whatsoever except for some ancient stone walls that were probably built by the Celts. Scarce traffic in either direction. OK, it was easy to imagine Cathy and Heathcliff meeting on one of those desolate, high, treeless moors for a romantic, illicit rendezvous (think "Wuthering Heights") but I kept thinking practical stuff like, what if I hit one of these stray sheep, many of which had left the safe confines of their pastures to take a leisurely stroll down the center of the narrow road. I didn't favor the odds of it being a pretty encounter.

      Once I finally intersected with a main road -- only six miles from my village -- I admit I was rather relieved. I mean, moors are spectacular and romantic and all, but by then I had had quite enough natural beauty for one day. To think that all those wild, other-worldly open vistas are so close by...

        For my fellow "Downton Abbey" addicts, I'll add this note: My return journey deliberately took me through the town of Ripon. Now, as we all know, the TV series is actually filmed at High Clere near Newbury in Berkshire, in the southern part of England. However, the fictitious Downton estate is located in Yorkshire near Ripon up here in the north. You'll recall numerous references to Ripon in the script -- it's where Matthew Crawley practices law, where visitors to Downton arrive on the train, and where Anna and Mr. Bates got married. And now I've been there. How cool is that?!

      Yesterday I had another little literary foray, this time back in the Lake District, where I visited Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's home. Besides being the godmother of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix was a committed conservationist -- way ahead of her time, in fact. She bought up hundreds of acres of land in Cumbria to prevent their development and protect the environment of the area she settled in after she became a famous (and wealthy) author. Upon her death she donated all her property to the National Trust, who maintain it to this day.

      I can happily report that Peter Rabbit and friends still live on. A family of 11 real by-gosh rabbits occupy the garden at Hill Top, which is maintained just as Beatrix did before her death in 1943. In addition to gorgeous summer flowers, there is a kitchen garden with rows of cabbages, of course. I'm not sure how the staff control the bunny population, but it was a delight to sit on a bench beside Beatrix's clematis-framed front door, sip a cup of tea and contemplate the adventures of Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail as they hopped around before my very eyes! I expected Jemima Puddle-Duck to come waddling by at any moment...

Bundling up and settling in

      At the risk of sounding trite -- English majors like me know better, but the situation warrants it, I believe -- I shall begin with a weather report. After all, in the U.S. the beastly heat has been the hot topic (pun intended) for the last month. So it stands to reason that your intrepid traveler should leave sizzling North Carolina for...you guessed it, the wettest, coolest summer on record in the U.K.! We're talking Noah-worthy floods and temps that barely manage to get into the 60s during the day. At night the mercury continues to dip into the mid-40s. You read it correctly: Mid-40s F, or as the Brits would express it, around 7 or 8 degrees C. That's darned nippy even for November!

      The calendar may say July but, boys and girls, I've got a fire going in the little stove in my sitting room. I had been fortunate for the week since my arrival with a mix of sun and clouds each day but no rain. But the rain was bound to return, and today was the day. It hasn't been bucketing down exactly -- rather what the Brits call "mizzling," a cross between a drizzle and a mist -- but with the damp and overcast skies, a fire was exactly what was called for. And a turtleneck and sweatshirt for good measure. And a cuppa tea at my elbow. Coziness personified.

      Let me set the rest of the stage for my house exchange here on the edge of England's Lake District. It's a small stone cottage in the village of Kirkby Lonsdale. Nothing fancy, but it has most of the mod-cons, including lots of hot water and woolen blankets to ward off the icky weather. If you looked for Kirkby Lonsdale on the map, it's in the northern part of the country on the border between Lancashire and Cumbria, just west of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

      My garden, featuring a riot of summer flowers, is surrounded on two sides by a pasture of nice cows, behind which is another hilly pasture of peacefully grazing sheep -- a delightful view to wake up to. If I had any technical ability whatsoever I'd be posting photos, but don't hold your breath; you'll just have to use my word pictures to envision the amazing green, pastoral beauty surrounding me here. Kirkby (pron. Kirby) is a charming market town with most amenities including a supermarket, cheese shop, butcher shop, several pubs and a bakery snack-dab on the village square called Emily's Tea Room. I had lunch there today and met Emily. She's six years old and loves pink. Her mum, Cath, runs the place and let Emily pick the decor.

     On Friday, true to my English major's roots, I made a pilgrimage nearby to the heart of the Lake District, the land of William Wordsworth, the great Romantic poet and my favorite of all time. If I shift into Ode Mode here, you'll forgive me, because the countryside was even more magnificent than I expected it to be! Around every bend was another dramatic "AHHHH!" vista. To say the lakes and hills and sheep meadows and waterfalls are stunningly beautiful is doing it scarce credit. I wish I had Wordsworth's own utility with words, but anything I'd write would sound flat-footed. Surrounded by nature that lovely, no wonder Wordsworth and his compadres like Coleridge were so inspired 200 years ago.

      I visited Wordsworth's birthplace in Cockermouth (don't you love that name?!) and Dove Cottage in Grasmere, where he lived while writing his most well-known poems, including the epic "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality." The weather cooperated with some sun, white puffy clouds and temps in the high 60s; the only thing missing were some Wordsworthian daffodils! Yes, I know 'tis not the season for daffodils, but my imagination was in high gear anyway. The absence of bulb-blooming flowers notwithstanding, it was a great outing and one I'll not likely forget.

      That's all for the moment. Don't want to bore you guys, assuming there's anybody out there who actually read this far. If you were expecting thrills and spills, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. This trip is about relaxation and treating myself much more like a "native" than a tourist. But I do enjoy having virtual companions -- like YOU! So stay tuned...

     Gotta go stoke the fire now.