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Variable Weather
Our only outing of the week was on Wednesday, when we went to see the
musical production of _The Secret Garden_, with books and lyrics by Marsha
Norman of _'Night, Mother_ fame. Unfortunately, she'd decided to move the
focus away from Mary and the garden and onto the relationship between Mary's
Uncle Archibald Craven and his dead wife (her mother's sister), Lily, whose
ghost became a major character. The doctor treating Mary's cousin, Colin,
was also changed from a well-meaning but misguided, fairly remote grown-up,
to the boy's uncle who was actively trying to kill him in order to inherit
the house. It actually reaches the point where Uncle Archie takes out a gun
onstage and threatens to shoot himself before his dead wife stops him to
sing another lovesong together. I felt all this really took away from the
simple beauty of the book's story and was inappropriate for the large
percentage of the audience under twelve. They showed their agreement by
getting bored, squirming and talking whenever the adults onstage launched
into another maundering lovesong. The other negative was that they'd cast
Dickon (a boy of 12 or 14 in the book) as a grown man of perhaps 30,
changing the effect of the character from an enchanting wild child to a
strange, fey adult who really should be off working, not dancing around the
garden with a little girl. Balancing these negatives were the very high
production values. The sets were lovely and inventive and the performances
were all of high quality. The head gardener, Ben Weatherstaff, was
particularly entertaining.
On Friday we went to dinner at Belgo Noord in Chalk Farm with Matt & Jennie,
friends of Adam Hirsch (a friend from Boston) who are also spending a couple
of years here while Matt gets a degree from London Business School and
Jennie researches her doctorate thesis on medieval church wall painting.
They were very friendly and interesting and we're looking forward to seeing
more of them. The restaurant was of the same chain as Belgo Centraal, where
we dined the previous weekend. We skipped the mussels this time, shared a
plate of cheese croquettes, and the Jason and I had the chicken cassoulet
(delicious, but more chicken-with-lentils than cassoulet) and the fillet
steak, respectively, with some of their excellent fries. Jennie keeps
kosher, which means eating vegetarian much of the time, so she had the
mushroom pie and Matt went for the same kilo of mussels Provencal that I
tried last week. For dessert, after waiting a very long time, Jason and I
shared an acceptable, but not especially exciting, Belgian waffle with ice
cream and berries, while Matt had a bowl of ice cream. It took so long for
our desserts to come up that the waiter brought us free schnapps.
Our weather took a sudden cold turn. On Wednesday evening, after the show,
we decided to stretch our legs by walking to the next tube stop before
getting on. It was so pleasant out that we walked on to the next stop after
that, along the way noticing a couple of places we'd passed on the
Bloomsbury Literary Pub Walk. The city begins to come together in our
heads, the different sections we know snapping together. It was a different
story on Friday as we walked through Camden to the restaurant facing a
bitter wind. We were very happy to get inside that night and it has stayed
cold ever since.
On Saturday I spent the entire day at the Business Design Center in
Islington, attending a seminar on travel writing sponsored by Lonely Planet,
the guidebook publishers, in connection with the Independent Travellers'
World show. The show itself was small and interesting, but aimed much more
at students desperate to travel on the cheap, or interested in travelling
for a year. The destination focus was mainly on Africa, India and
Australia, with almost nothing about Europe. I did pick up some information
on backpacking tours in Ireland, but I think we'd rather strike out on our
own there.
The seminar was very interesting. There were five speakers (a writer of
guidebooks on Africa, a travel photographer, the editor of The Times' travel
section, the content editor of the Channel4 website, and an author of travel
literature) and the facilitator, the PR person for Lonely Planet, who
introduced each speaker and worked to highlight their main points and pull
the day together for us, thematically. The speakers ranged in ability, but
all of them had good points to make and expertise to share. I was
especially interested in what the web-editor had to say and feel that her
comments are most likely to actually influence me. It was a shame to feel
much of the audience tuning her out and getting bored during her talk,
because while very few if any of the 150 people in that room will ever
contribute to a guidebook or publish the story of their travels in a book or
have an article printed in The Times, every one of us could have a webpage
up. That's really what I brought away from the day: that I need to get
serious and design a site for myself.
We had talked about going to a party of Caltech alumni in the evening, but
didn't track down the correct address in time, so we bailed and decided to
rent a movie instead. Jason went out to get one and I stayed here to collect
the pizza when it arrived. Unfortunately, when it did, I let the
inside door shut behind me, locking myself out. I waited around for a few
minutes, then decided to walk down to the corner for a magazine to entertain
myself until Jason arrived. He got past me while I was in the shop, and was
on the doorstep, quite confused, when I walked back up in my slippers. He
did the same thing once, early on, so now we will both remember to block the
door open with the conveniently placed brick whenever we take deliveries.
It snowed lightly on Saturday night, just enough to turn the world white by
morning. The sun was out bright and early, so that by the time we left the
house, just before noon, all the roads and sidewalks were melted clear. We
met Leah for a lovely lunch at Brown's. They have a two-course, fixed price
lunch, so I started with duck liver parfait--scrumptious--and followed up with
the chicken, leek & herb pie with a wonderfully puffed pastry top and creamy
sauce inside. Leah had cakes for lunch: salmon as her main and chocolate
mousse for her dessert. Jason was feeling pretty basic, so he just had a
bacon cheeseburger. We had hoped to make it to the Theater Museum in time
to tour the place before our walking tour, but that didn't happen, so we
strolled slowly through Covent Garden Market instead and got to the museum
to meet our guide for the Theaterland Walking Tour.
This was with a different walking tour company than the one we usually use,
but was very good and we will probably check out their other tours, as
well. Most of the places we went, Jason and I had already been, but it was
nice to see it in daylight and to wander over a large chunk of it, rather
than just following the path from the tube to whichever theater we're
seeking on a given evening. Our guide, Diane, had some good stories about
the history of various theaters and of the development of the West End as
London's main theater district. The tour ended two hours later up at the
Seven Dials (an intersection of seven streets, marked by a monument bearing
seven sundials) in the tearoom of the Radisson Edwardian hotel. They gave us
a pot of tea and a slice of cake (chocolate, so I declined) as part of the
tour. We sat and gossipped for about an hour, then headed back to Leicester
Square, where Leah got on the tube and Jason and I were thwarted in our
attempt to check out the half-price tickets booth, since the British Film
Awards were happening and the square was mobbed where it wasn't closed off
and the booth was deserted.
So instead of seeing another live show, we came home and watched the second
half of Erin Brockovich. I was really quite impressed with Julia Roberts'
performance, though the story had a few elements that really made me
cringe. We decided to give a second chance to the Chinese delivery place
we'd tried back in December and found "okay." We had much better luck this
time and very much enjoyed their cashew chicken and Szechuan chili prawns.
Just a quick logistical note before I leave you...we really do hope that
each and every one of you will visit us before we return to the States in
November 2002. Please do let us know as soon as you have a vague idea of
when you would like to come. We've set up a calendar to keep track of who's
in our guest room when and suddenly discovered that we've got guests for
most of the next two months. This is great for us--we love seeing you and
having guests--but we don't want to overbook and wind up making you flip
coins for the right to the bed. So please, do let me know potential dates
as soon as you can.
musical production of _The Secret Garden_, with books and lyrics by Marsha
Norman of _'Night, Mother_ fame. Unfortunately, she'd decided to move the
focus away from Mary and the garden and onto the relationship between Mary's
Uncle Archibald Craven and his dead wife (her mother's sister), Lily, whose
ghost became a major character. The doctor treating Mary's cousin, Colin,
was also changed from a well-meaning but misguided, fairly remote grown-up,
to the boy's uncle who was actively trying to kill him in order to inherit
the house. It actually reaches the point where Uncle Archie takes out a gun
onstage and threatens to shoot himself before his dead wife stops him to
sing another lovesong together. I felt all this really took away from the
simple beauty of the book's story and was inappropriate for the large
percentage of the audience under twelve. They showed their agreement by
getting bored, squirming and talking whenever the adults onstage launched
into another maundering lovesong. The other negative was that they'd cast
Dickon (a boy of 12 or 14 in the book) as a grown man of perhaps 30,
changing the effect of the character from an enchanting wild child to a
strange, fey adult who really should be off working, not dancing around the
garden with a little girl. Balancing these negatives were the very high
production values. The sets were lovely and inventive and the performances
were all of high quality. The head gardener, Ben Weatherstaff, was
particularly entertaining.
On Friday we went to dinner at Belgo Noord in Chalk Farm with Matt & Jennie,
friends of Adam Hirsch (a friend from Boston) who are also spending a couple
of years here while Matt gets a degree from London Business School and
Jennie researches her doctorate thesis on medieval church wall painting.
They were very friendly and interesting and we're looking forward to seeing
more of them. The restaurant was of the same chain as Belgo Centraal, where
we dined the previous weekend. We skipped the mussels this time, shared a
plate of cheese croquettes, and the Jason and I had the chicken cassoulet
(delicious, but more chicken-with-lentils than cassoulet) and the fillet
steak, respectively, with some of their excellent fries. Jennie keeps
kosher, which means eating vegetarian much of the time, so she had the
mushroom pie and Matt went for the same kilo of mussels Provencal that I
tried last week. For dessert, after waiting a very long time, Jason and I
shared an acceptable, but not especially exciting, Belgian waffle with ice
cream and berries, while Matt had a bowl of ice cream. It took so long for
our desserts to come up that the waiter brought us free schnapps.
Our weather took a sudden cold turn. On Wednesday evening, after the show,
we decided to stretch our legs by walking to the next tube stop before
getting on. It was so pleasant out that we walked on to the next stop after
that, along the way noticing a couple of places we'd passed on the
Bloomsbury Literary Pub Walk. The city begins to come together in our
heads, the different sections we know snapping together. It was a different
story on Friday as we walked through Camden to the restaurant facing a
bitter wind. We were very happy to get inside that night and it has stayed
cold ever since.
On Saturday I spent the entire day at the Business Design Center in
Islington, attending a seminar on travel writing sponsored by Lonely Planet,
the guidebook publishers, in connection with the Independent Travellers'
World show. The show itself was small and interesting, but aimed much more
at students desperate to travel on the cheap, or interested in travelling
for a year. The destination focus was mainly on Africa, India and
Australia, with almost nothing about Europe. I did pick up some information
on backpacking tours in Ireland, but I think we'd rather strike out on our
own there.
The seminar was very interesting. There were five speakers (a writer of
guidebooks on Africa, a travel photographer, the editor of The Times' travel
section, the content editor of the Channel4 website, and an author of travel
literature) and the facilitator, the PR person for Lonely Planet, who
introduced each speaker and worked to highlight their main points and pull
the day together for us, thematically. The speakers ranged in ability, but
all of them had good points to make and expertise to share. I was
especially interested in what the web-editor had to say and feel that her
comments are most likely to actually influence me. It was a shame to feel
much of the audience tuning her out and getting bored during her talk,
because while very few if any of the 150 people in that room will ever
contribute to a guidebook or publish the story of their travels in a book or
have an article printed in The Times, every one of us could have a webpage
up. That's really what I brought away from the day: that I need to get
serious and design a site for myself.
We had talked about going to a party of Caltech alumni in the evening, but
didn't track down the correct address in time, so we bailed and decided to
rent a movie instead. Jason went out to get one and I stayed here to collect
the pizza when it arrived. Unfortunately, when it did, I let the
inside door shut behind me, locking myself out. I waited around for a few
minutes, then decided to walk down to the corner for a magazine to entertain
myself until Jason arrived. He got past me while I was in the shop, and was
on the doorstep, quite confused, when I walked back up in my slippers. He
did the same thing once, early on, so now we will both remember to block the
door open with the conveniently placed brick whenever we take deliveries.
It snowed lightly on Saturday night, just enough to turn the world white by
morning. The sun was out bright and early, so that by the time we left the
house, just before noon, all the roads and sidewalks were melted clear. We
met Leah for a lovely lunch at Brown's. They have a two-course, fixed price
lunch, so I started with duck liver parfait--scrumptious--and followed up with
the chicken, leek & herb pie with a wonderfully puffed pastry top and creamy
sauce inside. Leah had cakes for lunch: salmon as her main and chocolate
mousse for her dessert. Jason was feeling pretty basic, so he just had a
bacon cheeseburger. We had hoped to make it to the Theater Museum in time
to tour the place before our walking tour, but that didn't happen, so we
strolled slowly through Covent Garden Market instead and got to the museum
to meet our guide for the Theaterland Walking Tour.
This was with a different walking tour company than the one we usually use,
but was very good and we will probably check out their other tours, as
well. Most of the places we went, Jason and I had already been, but it was
nice to see it in daylight and to wander over a large chunk of it, rather
than just following the path from the tube to whichever theater we're
seeking on a given evening. Our guide, Diane, had some good stories about
the history of various theaters and of the development of the West End as
London's main theater district. The tour ended two hours later up at the
Seven Dials (an intersection of seven streets, marked by a monument bearing
seven sundials) in the tearoom of the Radisson Edwardian hotel. They gave us
a pot of tea and a slice of cake (chocolate, so I declined) as part of the
tour. We sat and gossipped for about an hour, then headed back to Leicester
Square, where Leah got on the tube and Jason and I were thwarted in our
attempt to check out the half-price tickets booth, since the British Film
Awards were happening and the square was mobbed where it wasn't closed off
and the booth was deserted.
So instead of seeing another live show, we came home and watched the second
half of Erin Brockovich. I was really quite impressed with Julia Roberts'
performance, though the story had a few elements that really made me
cringe. We decided to give a second chance to the Chinese delivery place
we'd tried back in December and found "okay." We had much better luck this
time and very much enjoyed their cashew chicken and Szechuan chili prawns.
Just a quick logistical note before I leave you...we really do hope that
each and every one of you will visit us before we return to the States in
November 2002. Please do let us know as soon as you have a vague idea of
when you would like to come. We've set up a calendar to keep track of who's
in our guest room when and suddenly discovered that we've got guests for
most of the next two months. This is great for us--we love seeing you and
having guests--but we don't want to overbook and wind up making you flip
coins for the right to the bed. So please, do let me know potential dates
as soon as you can.