Church at Newport, IOW

For each of the wards or branches we visit, we present a fireside of music and talks.

Osborne House

We saw Victoria's retreat at the Osborne House. I've become interested in Victoria and just today finished a biography of her by Lytton Strachey (one of Virginia Woolf's circle.) I think I will make a little shrine to her with some postcards I bought of Her Royal Highness and the Prince Consort. They had nine surviving children, and Albert died at 42--by then he looked about 25 years older than he was--but Victoria Regina (VR) lived to 82 and a new century. I am beginning to see why John is fascinated by the Victorians. So much of both our Mormon and our American culture is influenced by them. I also bought a book with beautiful pictures by the pre-Raphaelites and other Victorians about the Victorian reinvention of the Arthurian legends. As a feminist it's fascinating too--the reinvented cult of chivalry and woman-worship, which was so convenient for keeping women in their place on a pedestal. The Angel in the House--Virginia Woolf said that in order to write, to breathe, the live, she had to kill the Angel dead, but she's still very much alive in Mormon Relief Societies. (1997)

Babies everywhere! A blossoming of babies, particularly marble babies. I counted nine on one candle sconce. And baby parts—baby marble arms and legs. Babies sleeping, babies kissing, dead babies (one suspects). Along with the Albert worship, the domestic happiness/grief turned sentimental is particularly odd. “Sickening, ain’t it,” I said to Bren. It is, a little, but I also must respect her emotions and fixations—I think they are real, or at least started out that way.The grounds are a huge playground for children, a delightful toy/school/land-and-seascape. How fun it would have been to be a cousin or grandchild at that place. Maybe not so fun to be a prince or princess. I don’t know though. Albert and Victoria between them may have been the wonderful parents they were purported to be. (2003)

Carisbrooke Castle

...where Charles I was held prisoner (and from which he escaped) before his beheading:

Accents (2003)

I’m tired and find myself tuning out or sometimes even being irritated with the English cadences. The music of the voices is different here, more obvious when one is too distant to catch individual words and hears only the music, melody and tempo. I remember in Italy listening to how the music changed as we moved south. But today I just wanted to hear the same old flat American accent, and not have to listen so hard to understand. I notice others have trouble understanding us as well, and I speak slower, more distinctly, to be understood.

Class and Journals on the Chalk Cliffs

It seems like the clouds are closer to the land here in England, and it makes for very dramatic skyscapes. We walked up, up, and up over the green turf to the stone cross on the hilltop, and the sun streamed through the brilliantly edged clouds behind. Huge cloud shadows moved over the wrinkled sea half a thousand feet below; seabirds shrieked as they wheeled out from the cliffs hundreds of feet beneath us. (1997)

Sunrise

Tennyson Down 2003

We went up to Tennyson Down after dinner. It rained steadily the entire time, soaking through my shawl and backpack (here called a rucksack). I took flash photos, which was a little silly, except that it showed the sky ruinous with the fall of night. Raindrops shine in the flash like little comets. John and the students played Frisbee against the wind, the red sun setting in clouds behind them.

I wish I knew more of the poets. I probably wouldn’t recognize a Tennyson poem. He too had the limitations of his time, but his simple, evocative poetry—at least what I’ve heard from the students—is a pleasure. I think of him as the “Dirty Monk” who made Guinevere bow abjectly before a priggish Arthur, but I may be influenced by the illustration. He was a Victorian, good and bad.

Tennyson Down in the evening...

First sight from Freshwater Cove: The monument:

Rainy evening:

Ultimate!

Water and Weather

Pier at Totland Bay, 2001:

Totland, IOW

Hiking from the ferry (I think we take the coach this time):

Totland Youth Hostel, with some of the best cooking facilities on the trip:

Picnic:

Ferry Across the Soylent...

...to the Isle of Wight:

Snacks for the crossing:

Sailboat:

Winchester

King Alfred, who held Wessex against the Danes:The Old Mill, our (former) youth hostel, now a National Trust museum:

The Great Hall, site of another medieval tourist-seeking bamboozle, Arthur's Round Table:

West Gate of the city:

Winchester Cathedral

We stopped at Winchester to visit the cathedral. It was the day before Easter, and the parish ladies were busy arranging the flowers. John talked with two deaf and gravel-voiced old English gentlewomen who bring a new arrangement to the tomb of Jane Austen every fortnight. They decried the current batch of Austen movies. "They kissed like this--'mmmmumph!'" said one. "Nobody kissed like that in Jane Austen's time! 'Mmmmmumph! Mmmmmumph!' Ridiculous! Why my mother didn't know until her wedding night that babies didn't spring from the navel!" "It's a wonder you were born at all!" cried the other. (1997)

The Austen monument: On the roof:The Gormley statue in the crypt:

The most dramatic moment in the cathedral tour was the turn into the north transept from the gothic style to the Romanesque. Heavy round pillars and arches mount higher and higher, up as far as the perpendicular walls (but of course they didn’t hold up, but tumbled down and were redone in the Gothic mode). God is there, in those arches. God was intended to be there, if he is not now. (2003)

11th C St. Nicholas baptismal font:

Cathedral nave:

There was a fair and Morris dancing competition after our tour of the cathedral (2007):