Street Scenes, British Museum, Frog

We had a full day planned and started with coffee, as one does. I introduced her to the place I’d gone to nearly every morning. Located at the top of the street on a corner, this branch of Caffè Nero was on the way to everywhere I went. If I needed an Uber they didn’t have to navigate the Strand, a major plus with the massive street overhaul underway. Nero had fresh pastry, all the coffees, and porridge. I could level up in quality and go to Paul’s, but this was the spacious, mismatched chairs and sofas, bring your laptop, draw postcards, bask in the sunlight, plenty of elbowroom kind of joint that suited me. I am not that hip. Comfort is Queen.

We walked to the British Museum for the pleasure of strolling through the London streets. She noticed everything. A vertical garden covered the walls of this building.

Egyptian head detail overhead

One more – this doorway, next to our lunch venue.

On to the British Museum where I have spent so many happy hours. I asked for a photo of me on the steps. I wanted the big picture. Fourth column from the left.

Inside the throngs were just beginning, and I took this photo of Robin on the iconic circular steps.

I steered her to the Enlightenment rooms. To me, they best exemplify the twin impulses of curiosity and acquisition that motivated the British museum’s founders. I love the fine woodwork of the bookshelves and display cabinetry. Afterward, we wandered through the Greek and Roman worlds.

Funerary customs.

Mosaic floors.

Sassy ladies.

Every man with a beard reminds me of Robert.

I made sure Robin saw the Sutton Hoo Helmet, the Warren Cup, and the Lewis Chess pieces. I got to say goodbye to them.

The Lewis Chess Queen looks as homesick as I’ve been.

We headed out for an upscale lunch at Frog.

Ever since our trip to Prague where we stumbled across Field and had one of the most delicious and entertaining meals ever, we book a meal at a place with Michelin stars and good reviews, hoping lightning will strike twice. We’re looking for that rare combination of legerdemain and gustatory pleasure, to be surprised by our meal, in a good way.

The opening salvo was awesome. Fun theatrical presentation, and very, very tasty, as befits a tasting menu. We wanted fancy, they nailed it.

The rest of the meal was 90% delightful, delicious and beautiful

Only one misstep for me, the desert. It involved an ice cream that tasted like cough syrup and a cake with a hard disk center. I mean hard like a disk of cardboard hard. Why? We had no knife and the only way to cut into it was to stab repeatedly with a fork to make a line of perforations to pry it apart. It didn’t taste any better (bottom right photo. Looks innocent, doesn’t it?) I was sorry the meal ended on this note. It was a head-scratcher. We didn’t say anything and now I wish I had. Maybe there was a trick to it. The fact that both plates went back to the kitchen all but uneaten might have given them a clue that the last impression was not a good one.

Happily, that sense of disappointment has faded and the delight of the first playful and delectable round has prevailed. As Robin said after the first round of plates, “My bouche was amused.” Mine was too.

I went back to the hotel and started packing because we only have one more day and I wanted to get as much stowed away in advance as possible. She changed and met her London friends for a full evening out that included bowling in Mayfair.

Tomorrow is the Courtauld Gallery, a fancy afternoon tea, and farewell to London.

Robin Arrives

An unforeseen Delta flight delay meant we had to ditch our 10 am tickets for the Soanes and head straight to Balthazar in Covent Garden for our lunch reservation.

Here we are in my regular morning coffee shop.

Walking with her through the familiar streets we enjoyed people watching, window shopping, and the way a flower-covered cart made a street safe for pedestrians. So much nicer than neon-orange rubber cones.

After lunch, we strolled over to the National and spent a few hours with the geniuses of medieval and renaissance art. During this visit, I was struck by the individuality of the faces. Whether Venetian Doge, self-portrait of a painter, a painter’s father, or someone chosen to represent the son of God, these were specific individuals whose faces the painter came to know intimately.

The same can be said for the faces of the women. These are individual people, not generic types, not wife of/daughter of, but a particular person. They look back at us across the centuries. Like the epitaphs at Westminster Abbey, their faces say ‘remember me.’

Afterward, we both enjoyed a restorative nap.
Tomorrow we visit the British Museum and have lunch at Micheline-starred Frog.

St. Paul's Cathedral, Remember the Ladies.

St. Paul’s Cathedral felt profoundly different from the Gothic Westminster Abbey. St Paul’s, rebuilt after the Great Fire by Sir Christopher Wren and officially completed in 1711, is English Baroque style. It gives the impression of being clean and bright as a new penny, with light pouring in clear glass windows, spacious and serene.

It’s predominantly black and white, not even colored marble.

Apparently, this irritated Queen Victoria, who called it ‘dull, dingy and undevotional,’ donated money from her private purse and told them to brighten it up. Most of the Victorian attempts to add colored marble, stained glass, and mosaics have since been swept away. I don’t know about dull, but I do know there’s a sameness to it. Statue after statue of men noted for their military prowess; generals and campaigners of assorted ranks and more generals, a veritable testosterone-fest.

But where oh where are the ladies? There’s a basrelief of Florence Nightingale down in the crypt, aiding a soldier,

and I saw a few women on the floor tombstones, identified as the wife of so-and-so, daughter of so-and-so. I would pay cash money for a tour of the women who are honored in Saint Paul’s. Just saying.

Oh, and there is one statue of a woman. Queen Anne. She’s outside.

I sought out other memorials in the crypt. To my relief, here were the scientists,

painters and sculptors,

along with musicians, typographers, and a policeman.

One of my favorite artworks was a painting titled St Martin Divides His Cloak by Hughie O’Donoghue, tucked away in a corner in the Chapel of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor.

I hustled back upstairs for the Triforium tour and on the way, lit a candle for Maddy.

The docent who led the tour explained it’s like an attic, where you keep things you don’t know quite what to do with, but don’t want to discard. Like this fragile altarpiece made by World War I soldiers who were mentally and physically shattered by warfare. They were given needlework to do as occupational therapy.

As someone who knits and embroiders, I can confirm the act of plying a needle is very therapeutic.

There’s a contemporary crew of Broiderers (nicknamed the Valkyries) who create the clerical vestments and altar panels. They have a room of their own, located near the graveyard of abandoned pulpits.  

One perplexing note: they stuck the bust of George Cruikshank, an illustrator of Dickens, up here.

Why? Because they found out he’d had a mistress, a wine cellar, and illegitimate children. Well, bah humbug. Really, compared to, say, the Royals of any era, the man was a bog-standard sinner who created some very fine illustrations.

Everyone wanted to lean over the railing of the magical cantilevered staircase, made infamous by Harry Potter films.

I hiked up to the Stone Gallery. Whirling up in those spiral steps made me a wee bit dizzy and breathless, but there were niches I could step into and catch my breath.

This is how I look after 376 steps.

I saw London laid out below, a royal helicopter flew overhead, and the sun dipped in and out of clouds. Worth it.

Raphael and Nancy

When the National put this exhibition together, they were aiming for blockbuster. For my money, and they are welcome to it, they succeeded.

I don’t know what I expected. Two, maybe three rooms? Oh no. That’s not how they roll. Seven large rooms, brimming with Raphael’s work. They even reproduced The School of Athens and papered the side of an exhibition room with it, lest we forget how much of his work lives on the walls and ceilings of the Vatican.

There are preparatory sketches, cartoons for tapestries, the tapestries themselves, architectural drawings, and the glorious paintings. They even wrangled my all-time favorite, La Fornarina herself, rich with color, sparkling with life. It glows as if he has just put down his brush.

The audioguide commentary by the curator was quite skeptical, insisting no one really knows who the model was or, more importantly, who she was to Raphael. The curator must never have been in love.

I entered and was stymied by the crowd glutting the first room. I employed one of my favorite strategies – go to the farthest room away and work my way back – and It paid off. I was alone with La Fornarina, a Raphaels’ self-portrait with his colleague and heir Giulio Romano, and the most alluring banker of all time, Bindo Altoviti.

Raphael’s drawing skills were superb.

He continued to develop as an artist throughout his career. He paid close attention to the other masters and, consummate professional that he was, he stole from the best. You can see he’s absorbed some of the strength and physicality of Michelangelo’s work in this preparatory sketch of the Muse of Poetry for the Pope’s Library ceiling.

There are three self portraits on view, from his early youth to just before the fever that killed him, age 37. My favorite self portrait is this barely-there suggestion of a face. It’s only allegedly Raphael, but I’m a believer.

The audio commentary is erudite and brisk, an interesting counterpoint to the gentleness everywhere in evidence on the walls.

I learned Raphael’s mother died when he was eight and he was orphaned by the age of 11. For me, that casts a new light on all the madonnas tenderly embracing their babies. Sure, they were a guaranteed money maker, and yes, he was very good at ethereal virgins as opposed to, say, guts and glory battle scenes. Still. The yearning is palpable even when the faces are idealized.

I’m coming back Wednesday and staying until they turn the lights out.

Why did I leave after only two hours, you might well ask? I had an offer too good to refuse. My dear friend Nancy invited me to lunch. She could have asked me to join her for sandwiches and a bottle of water on a  park bench, but as it happens she and her spouse Graham are members of the illustrious Chelsea Art Club. It’s an intimate venue, with art from every era on every vertical surface, steeped in the history of notorious and naughty artists. It was a real treat for me, a perfect place to get caught up on the details of our quotidian lives – their new home in the country, the ongoing saga of our children, and our shared passion for gardening. Honestly, once someone brings up mucking about with seedlings, the joy of tubers, and the perils of weeding in a pond from a tiny rowboat, I’m all in. They are both excellent storytellers, born raconteurs. I could have listened to them all day and nearly did – it was four o clock before an Uber was called, we made out farewells and I wended my way back to the hotel. I count myself very fortunate to know this witty and warmhearted couple.

There are no photos because cellphones are strictly banned at the club, absolutely forbidden, which made a very nice change.

Lost and Foundling, Dickens House Museum

I’m not gonna lie, the foundling museum hits different when you were adopted at nine months old. The Foundling Museum affected me more than I thought it was going to.

The exhibits were through a door surrounded by a roster of famous orphans and foundlings, historical and fictional. My people.

Tokens were mandatory. Those surrendering children had to leave something if only a hazelnut shell or a scrap of paper from a Vauxhall playbill, but some are wrenchingly personal.

Ledgers documented each baby received. This one, for Boy #8338 admitted May 1758, included his name embroidered on a ribbon and a poem on a scrap of paper. This one left me feeling hollowed out.

‘Go gentle babe! Thy future hours be spent
In virtuous purity and calm content
Life’s sunshine bless thee: and no anxious care
Sit on thy brow and drain the falling tear
Thy countrys grateful servant may’st thou prove
And all thy life be happiness and love’

His name was Philip Holland, and he was later reclaimed by his father.

Along with the objects and mementos, an oral history (by former clients? Inmates? Survivors?) ran continuously in an alcove that also displayed one of these iron cots.

Institutional life may be better than death by starvation and exposure, but it still sounded pretty grim.  

The abandoned and surrendered infants were placed in foster homes until they were five and then brought into the highly regimented school setting. “It prepares you for life in the military,” was the most positive thing I heard, and the rest sounded bleak as hell. Canings and mandatory silence.

TIL: I did not know the composer Handel and artist Hogarth were ardent supporters. Hogarth designed the institution’s logo.

Handel wrote music for them and held fundraising concerts, including one of his Messiah.

Upstairs musicians were practicing for an evening performance. The rich and full sound filled the room and spilled down the staircase. It was glorious.

Afterward, I walked to nearby Ciao Bella, and it was another excellent Italian meal of prosciutto and melon and pasta with shellfish. Careful to leave on time for my next stop, I plugged in Dickens House on Google maps. Mistake. PSA: the Dickens House is not the Dickens House Museum and I ended up walking 30 minutes instead of 10.

Dickens House Musem is a small townhome where an unknown Charles Dickens, writing as Boz, brought his bride. He left with two children and a famous man. It’s a compact but comfortable, and seems just the right size for a newlywed couple.

During my visit, two small children rampaged through the rooms, culminating in screaming, kicking the floor fits. No matter what floor they were on, or room you were in, you could hear these kids wailing and shrieking. As distracting as it was, I imagine it was much like Dicken’s home life actually was, working with two babies in the small house. I’ve read he walked around London all day long, and you can imagine why after 30 minutes of toddlers throwing tantrums.

I thought about a coffee but at this point and needed calm more than caffeine. Back to the hotel I went. God bless Uber and all who ride in her.

I was in my quiet room when I found out our old dog Maddie had died peacefully in her sleep that morning, Palm Sunday. It helps me to know her life was a very good life, that she was loved and well cared for, and that she spun for joy at every mealtime up to her last day. I am sad that I am an ocean away from my beloved spouse. I am going to get what consolation I can from the Raphael exhibit tomorrow and light a candle for her at St Paul’s on Wednesday. She was a very good dog.

British Museum, British Library

Early hours tour of the ancient Greek world, BM style. A few details that caught my eye…

A man tying his sandal.

A hedgehog perfume jar.

Sea nymph in a wet toga, so technically not naked.

Spartan girl dancing or running away from an amorous god, or competing in gymnastics. You decide.

The docent told us brief, memorable versions of Paris abducting Helen of Sparta, how Paris was awarded Helen by Aphrodite, the bizarre circumstances of Athena’s birth, and how Athena persuaded the Greeks to name the city after her, make her their patron, and build her the Parthenon.

I followed the tour with coffee and a little sketching and then hightailed it to British Library.

Eduardo Paolozzi’s bronze statue of Sir Isaac Newton based on an image inspired by William Blake,

I’d nearly given up on fitting this into the trip, but so glad I didn’t miss out. Walking inside was an olfactory hit as evocative as Proust’s taste of a madeleine. The air was laced with the odor of ink and paper. It’s something I’ve missed now that my reading is done on a screen with kindle pixels. The smell went straight to the emotional memory of falling in love with stories and the people who wrote them down.

Here’s just a taste of the Treasures of the British Library. The Magna Carta, the document that established equality before the law,

An Illustrated manuscript page of people making bread.

Christine de Pizan and friends. “Just as women’s bodies are softer than men’s, so their understanding is sharper.”

Here were John Lennon’s lyrics to A Hard Day’s Night, scribbled on the back of his son’s first birthday card, the splash and dash of Dickens’ scrawl penning a page of The Pickwick Papers, the precise copperplate script of Jane Austen on a letter placed on the writing desk her father gave her.

It’s something about knowing their fingers held the quill or pen or pencil. That their wrists pressed against the paper, that they positioned the foolscap just so. If you are not a constant reader like myself, I doubt I can adequately convey the intoxicating sense of connection. Maybe this is how true believers feel about proximity to a saint’s holy relics. I can’t even begin to describe seeing the open folio of Shakespeare. If you know, you know.

On the way out I saw this witty bench. Put me in mind of the restless grimoires in the Unseen University’s library. Ook.

The quality of their postcards was very satisfying. I was a little surprised they had no teeshirt. I would have snapped one up.

A sharp wind waited outside. I Googled nearby restaurants and by pure luck had a marvelous meal of moules frite and panna cotta in a small family-run Italian place.

All the other diners were speaking Italian, a man with a baker’s forearms kneaded his dough and the female waitstaff were so eyewateringly luscious Raphael would have swooned.

It was a long hike back, but Uber did not let me down.