Adventure with Lynn I

Our Cambridge time is running out and we are busy. I am rushed and behind in my posts (I have about six I am still working on and here is part one of our fabulous time with our friend Lynn).

She arrived Tuesday 22 May.  She was two days late, thanks to USAir problem, and missed the Wolfson Garden Party and the last Hulsean Lecture. But we (Kevin, Becky, and Lynn) enjoyed a whirlwind of activity for the next 10 days. Here are some of the things we did:

We attended a Press Fellows Symposium on Phone Hacking and Media Ethics. Afterwards we enjoyed  
        Formal Dinner and Music and Madeira in Wolfson

We visited the Fitzwilliam Museum.
We attended Evensong at Johns.
We had dinner in Jamie Oliver's restaurant.

Becky and Lynn rented a fancy little Audi. Lynn drove wonderfully with thanks to Tim, the Brit who sat in a box on our dashboard and guided us. We traveled:

To Down House
To Brede where we stayed four nights in The Old Pottery Cottage
To Charleston
To Monks House
To Sissinghurst
To Great Dixter
To Hastings and Rye
To Henry James' House

And, then back again to Cambridge where Kevin took us to Grantchester for dinner at the Rupert Brook Pub.

Lynn and I shopped at John Lewis, the lovely galleries in Cambridge, and Heffers, the big Bookstore.
       (We had to ship a box back with all of Lynn's books and tea towels!)

We attended a lecture on austerity economy in the 1690s, followed by Formal Dinner

Becky and Lynn traveled to London where we enjoyed lunch with Helen and Lucy, visited the John
        Soames House, shopped at Libertys, and enjoyed dinner at Andrew Edmunds.

Back in Cambridge, we attended our colleague Monica's talk about cold war novels by Eastern European writers, then a good performance of Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" home, followed by pub curry in the Granta Pub.

And, on her  last day, Lynn and I traveled back in London, to Tate Britain and the excellent British Design show at the V and A followed by a delightful evening meal.

It was so much fun and here are some highlights!

We had time for a punt. Alas, our handsome punter Kevin says this is his swansong at punting!

 We also had a nice walk around Kings Chapel and the Wren library.

We managed one meal in Morrison House where we sat around the lovely vase
 Wyatt and family sent me. It was filled with sweet smelling Freesia.

During our trip to Fitzwilliam Museum a premiere gallery in UK,
I watched a group of young Muslims touring, learning about
 Christian art and giggling over nude portraits by Spencer Stephens!

 

We enjoyed pasta at Jamie Oliver's restaurant in an old library. 

Kevin and I enjoyed showing Lynn around beautiful Cambridge.
The cow parsley looked like snow in the gloaming.

Our field trip! First stop: Down House, home of Charles Darwin where he lived for 40 years with his wife Emma who bore 10 children! One treat was seeing the slide that Darwin made for the children to go down the stairs. It showed what a child friendly house it was.

We saw the study where Darwin wrote and the boxes he used for his insects and specimens. We saw his billiard table, his notebooks, family photographs. We walked his Sandwalk where he did much of his thinking.

We saw his greenhouse where he kept specimans.

Looking back to the house over a field of buttercups.

We left Down House and headed over the Downs toward Brede admiring the velvety hills and crossing tiny lanes bordered by huge hedges. Lynn drove beautifully!

 

We arrived at The Old Pottery Cottage actually a lovely mint green but reflecting gold from the setting sun.

 Hungry, we walked  to the end of  Narrow Road, turned right, and ended up at the local The Red Bull. Oats decorated the arches in the Pub. We had a good supper that included whelks!

 

Whelk Packaging!

Later Lynn planned our next day in the cozy cottage.

Next day, our first stop is St Michael & All Angels Church in Berwick, East Sussex.  In 1941, the Bishop of Chichester desired to revive an pre-reformation tradition of artists painting murals in churches and in doing so promoting the relationship between the Arts and the Church. Duncan Grant was the lead artist for this project and the walls are covered with beautiful paintings by Grant, Vanessa Bell, and Quentin Bell. 

                                                                                                                                                             Lynn takes a photo of a beautiful old wall.

War Memorial

Back view of Church 

Inside my favorite, of course,  is "The Annunciation" by Vanessa Bell. Helen and I learned to love
 Annunciation Scenes, thanks to Matthew who painted his own.
 Bell lost both her son Julien in the Spanish Civil War
 and her sister Virginia in the three years prior to painting this mural.

Duncan Grant's Pulpit Painting

Charleston is right down the road from the church and on the way we stopped at this Pub for a delicious lunch. It was a fine day and the most picturesesque pub! I think I saw Morse and Lewis drinking a pint.

Below is Charleston, one of my favorite houses (Helen Bredin brought me here in 2008). Vanessa and Clive Bell and their two sons (Julien and Quentin) lived here  as well as Duncan Grant, Angelica (Vanessa and Duncan's daughter) and other visiting Bloomsbury writers, artists, and intellectuals. The house is superbly decorated with paintings by Vanessa and Duncan. Quentin Bell added much ceramic work including ceramic colanders that hang as ceilinglight fixtures.

Photograph from the internet

The back of the house showing the huge garden.

Self Portrait of Vanessa Bell

These artists were not wealthy and made do. When something broke, they turned it into something: this broken statue becomes a planter

And broken dishes make a ceramic garden stone.

They used the chalk from the nearby downs to mix their paints.

 A few miles away from Charleston in Rodnel is Virginia and Leonard Woolf's home, Monk's House. Below are Leonard's bust by Stephen Tomlin and Virginia's portrait by Vanessa.

 

This big room was for sitting, eating, listening to the gramophone, and reading and painted Virginia's favorite green.

The back of the house "an unpretending house, long & low, a house of many doors" looking out over a huge garden.

And a lovely Writing Room, called The Lodge,  for Virginia.