Stanley Spencer and Cookham

Yesterday in the rain and chill (yes!  the weather has cured me of any idea of staying in London in the winter--EVER), we made a trip to Cookham-on-Thames, a small, charming village where the painter Stanley Spencer lived most of his life (1891-1959).

I've been taken by this funny little man (short and with a pixie cut and big glasses) ever since I saw a huge retrospective of his work at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in the late '90's.  Highly detailed, wry landscapes of Cookham scenes, plus portrayals of Bible stories set in Cookham, at regattas, at baptisms, etc.  His version of religion was very much at hand, woven into the daily life of the village.

And then there's his personal story:  he married a fellow-art student at the Slade, had two daughters, and then became infatuated with a woman named Patricia Preece, who was a lesbian.  No matter--he divorced his long-suffering and none-too-stable wife, and married Preece, whose sole attendant at the wedding was her partner, Dorothy.  Ultimately, Spencer's ex-wife joined them on their honeymoon and shared his bed, and  Patricia and Dorothy shared another.


But it's not the gossip but the paintings that send me. I have a big book about Spencer at home, but that didn't stop me from buying numerous postcards of my favorites. (Photos to follow.)

After visiting the gallery, we went across the street to the Bel & the Dragon, a pub with good food and a sensational garden (abandoned to the rain).  We debated taking the walk around town that the gallery recommended, a guide to sites that Spencer painted, but it was so cold (in the '40's) and wet, that we bagged it, called a taxi, and rode back to Maidenhead and the train station where we could catch a train back to London.

This trek has been on my list since 2008, and we finally made it!  Some sun would have been good, but there you are.

Today it's sunny and we're off to Kew.  Last night we watched a TV special on the Chelsea Flower Show, just finished, and it whetted my appetite for all things English and floral.

How Not to Lose Your Mind When Traveling by Plane

I wish I knew.   

I hate it.  I hate the lines, security, taking off my shoes, remembering to get out my computer to be scanned.  I don't like being patted down.  I hate the lack of legroom.  Children kicking the back of my seat drive me crazy.  I hate that the entire experience makes me a nervous curmudgeon.

I have this idea that if I just plan carefully enough, I can make it more bearable:

1.  We always fly Premium Economy, if  it's available.  It's worth the money for the extra 3-5" of legroom.

2.  I never reserve an aisle and a window seat for us, leaving an empty one between that we hope will give us more space.  All flights are full now; the  middle seat's rarely empty. I learned this the hard way when  I found myself parked in the middle seat of the back row because United thought I was traveling alone, not with Jerry a seat away,  and moved me.  Awful.  Later, a travel agent tipped me off about this.

3.  Before I choose a seat, I always check the model plane and then go to Seatguru.com so I can avoid seats deemed inferior (noisy, near lavatory, don't recline, no window).

Definitely a mixed bag

4.  If we had lots of money, we'd fly Business Class, but we don't.  Years ago, we got  Chase/United credit cards that award us a frequent flyer miles for every dollar we spend.  Now we charge everything, and this year we had enough miles to get  free round-trip tickets to London.

A view of the sumptuous space in Business Class.

4.  We check bags (knock wood) because it's less cumbersome, we don't have to decant toiletries into 3 oz bottles, and we don't have to pull a muscle in our backs trying to heave the damned thing into the overhead bin. 

5.  I try to remember to bring an empty bottle through security, or the TSA will confiscate it.  Sometimes they won't even let me drink the water in front of them.  I re-fill the bottle free at a drinking fountain near the gate.  (It can take a while into the flight to get water from a flight attendant.)

6.  Checking our reservations online now and then weeks/months ahead of our flight has helped us head-off seat changes when the airline switches plane models.  This has happened to us twice.

7.  I've learned to check my e-mail the night before and morning of a flight to see if we've been notified of any delays or cancellations.  We missed an e-mail in Venice that resulted in a 12-hour delay due to a traffic controllers' strike; if we'd gotten it, we could have re-scheduled the night before.

I do all this, and sometimes I still have a bad experience, but, hell,  I tried.

Tomorrow we're off on a trip that involves five airports and six flights.  You can follow my journey on my travel blog here .

What Do You Mean, It Isn't All About the Food?

I've got on ongoing list of places to see in England that I've been chipping away since 2008. 

This year,  there's a definite emphasis on getting-outside-and-walking because that's what we seem to enjoy most on trips. 

That, and eating English desserts. 

And pub food.

We're going to stay in a flat in London for eight nights and take trains out from there for side trips,  which is what we usually do because it's easiest logistically.  Then we move on to Oxford for a couple of nights.

Bluebells in the woods at Sissinghurst Castle, 2011

Here's the plan:

Leeds Castle (plenty of walks on the grounds)
Kew Gardens (Jerry's pick, and he has a Significant Birthday during this trip)
Cookham (the village where the painter Stanley Spencer lived and where there's a gallery of his work, plus a walk around town to see where he painted)
Cambridge (to see the university)
Hampstead Heath (more walks)
Courtauld Gallery (gotta have some art)
Oxford (to see the university and to figure out why Inspector Morse had so many murders to solve)
Blenheim Palace (trails on the grounds here, too)
Highgrove (Prince Charles's country home; we're having a tour of the garden)
Isle of Wight (primarily to see Osborne House, built by Queen Victoria)

Lunch with cousins in 2011; we'll do that again

For the first time, I'll be in England for the annual family reunion in my mother's ancestral Cotswold village of Brailes in June.  Where there's a pub.

Pub food:  Conveniently everywhere

The desserts are killer

Dessert car at a restaurant in York.  No wonder I gained six pounds last time.

If I can just get over logistics-worry, I can't wait to go and do all this.

Travel and TMI

We're leaving for Boston on Friday morning, the first leg of a month-long trip to England and Switzerland.

The more I work the guidebooks and Trip Advisor, the more I find to worry about.    There are so many variables.

Will the hotel room in Cambridge, MA, be near the elevator and therefore be noisy?  Will the hotel in Oxford (UK) make us stay in a room in the attic?  Back to the hotel in Cambridge--is there a chance we'll be in the vivid-blue room they show on their website?  Because it's too dark.

Anyone else think it's too dark?

Too attic-y?

And the flat in London--will there still be construction going on in the buildings either side because on Google Earth street photos I can see scaffolding ?  That could definitely be noisy.

A kind friend says this level of organizing (and worry) "is part of your process."

Jerry, on the other hand, he thinks trip prep takes about five minutes the night before you leave.  He researches nothing ahead of time.  He goes with the flow, although he's been known to grouse when things go wrong.

I'm taking a deep breath.  First of all, of course these are gold-plated problems.  Second, there's no such thing as a perfect trip, not even one without uncomfortable moments--or longer than moments.  I'm telling myself to forget the details, each of which seems to introduce a new and potentially troublesome variable.   Go with serendipity!

In the meantime:  What about busses from Oxford to Blenheim Palace (vs. taxi's, which cost more but are much quicker)?  Is it worth going to three historic houses in Hampstead Heath?  Is the rental agency serious when they say no washcloths will be provided at the flat?

Below: the staging area in my studio. Quilting is not happening right now.

Shoe Shopping: The Reality

  
Next week we're going to England, where it can rain any day of the year, and then on to the Swiss Alps, where there could be snow on the ground.

In England in May 2011

After that,  we're going to Alaska, where it  also rains a lot, and we hope to do some hiking when we get off the cruise ship ONLY THREE TIMES, as Jerry keeps reminding me.  He's known the itinerary as long as I have, but he only recently put it together that there was going to be limited time on the ground to hunt for moths.

I needed some comfortable, waterproof hiking shoes.  Here's the catch--and it's embarrassing--I wear a size 11 shoe (why is this shameful for women?  As opposed to men--nobody cares if they have big feet.).

First to The Walk Shop in Berkeley, where a hollow-eyed but super-caffeinated woman badgered me into buying a men's size that was too wide and too short.  Took them back today.

Then to REI,  where an intense young man swore he'd find a pair of shoes that fit me. As he brought out box after box, he told me all about  how he's going to use coffee grounds to grow oyster mushrooms, which was interesting, but the size 11's were all too short.  After the eighth pair,  he gave up and went on a break.   

I came home and  called Nordstrom. Oh, yes, they assured me on the phone.  Of course they carry athletic shoes larger than size 11.  Come on down!

So I drove to Walnut Creek only to find out  they had a mere three pairs over size 11 and only two styles. Mercifully, one pair fit.   I was all set to buy them when I mentioned I'd be wearing them in the rain.

The salesman, a small-statured Asian-American man--what did he think of this Big-Footed woman?--looked pained and told me that these shoes would be ruined in the rain.  The fabric gets distorted.  Customers had complained.

I bought them anyway, because they fit.  That's what you do when you wear my size.

Nike Free 5.0+:  A bestseller but no good in the rain

In the meantime, this conscientious, empathic man trolled around on an iPad and found a pair of waterproof walking shoes available at the warehouse.  They should fit, but I'm leaving in 9 days.  Could this be expedited?

Apparently waterproof

 Yes.  For $5, the warehouse will get them to me by Monday.  They are just this side of gigantic. Don't know what I'll do with the first pair.  Return them, probably.

In the meantime, I found this pair of shoes sitting near me on a table in the shoe department.

And the style name?  "Reality."

The Queen's Pissed

 An eventful weekend:  Jerry and I bought twin pairs of hiking shoes, and my sister put me in the picture on Kim Kardashian's armpit. (It's flabby from pregnancy weight gain and she's hysterical.)

But this is better.  Today I found out that Helen Mirren, starring in a play called "The Audience" in London, was so mad at street drummers disrupting her performance as Queen (yes!), that she ran out at intermission and berated them.

 According to USA Today, the drummers said,"This little old lady came running out in a green dress, pearls, and a tiara and headed for the conductor [of the drummers]."

 "She was saying 'shut the (expletive) up, people have paid (effing) a hundred pounds for their theater tickets'...You couldn't get a word in edgeways; she was on a proper rant."

Helen Mirren in "The Audience," now playing in London

Later Mirren said, "I'm afraid there were a few 'thespian words used.  They got a very stern royal ticking off, but I have to say they were very sweet and they stopped immediately."

Is a tiara all it takes?