Ye of Little Faith

Some readers have questioned the authenticity of St. Pancras, and I have felt impelled to defend him. Source of information: the internet (so it must be true).


biography name: Pancras, St

sex: male

lived: (?–304)


biography: Christian martyr, the son of a heathen noble of Phrygia, one of the patron saints of children. He was baptized in Rome, but immediately afterwards was slain in the Diocletian persecutions while only a young boy. Feast day 12 May.

You'll note he is not the patron saint of internal organs or of poor spellers. If he was, I'd be first in the devotional line.

More pictures taken at Charleston House

More Charleston and the Gardens

We were not allowed to take photos inside the house which is a pity because it is kept basically just as it was left, with all the books and furniture and kitchen equipment. The artists who lived here, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry, etc. were devoted to the Arts and Crafts movement at the time. Influenced by modern painters, they designed fabric designes out of which were made curtains and upolstery for furniture. They also painted these motifs on the tables and walls. It is all very charming and homey, though I guess, at the time, it suggested more the avant garde rather than the old homey and familiar. Vanessa's husband, Quentin Bell, had a lot to do with the garden, I believe. It is maintained much like it was when the Bloomsbury folks lived here.

More pictures taken at Charleston House

Update

Since we have at least one interested blog follower (Yes, you, C.P.!) I am happy to attempt to keep this updated. We have been especially busy of late, touring with our friend, Herman Mhire who paid us a visit and shared with us his rich knowledge of art. We've been to the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, The Victoria and Albert, Kew Gardens, Oxford's Ashmolean, two more plays, Worczek (or some spelling in that general area) and Tom Stoppard's Rock and Roll, and I've even been on the London Eye, something quite out of my comfort zone. I have never used my eyes so much before, looking, looking, looking. Now, Herman has gone on to Paris and we will join him at the end of the week for another round of looking. The Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, Le Pompidou (again, spelling is hopefully somewhere approximate to correct), but, since we have only a few days to do Paris, as Stanley says, we might best benefit from simply hanging around the streets, drinking coffee in the morning, wine in the evening, and soaking up the ambience.
We will attempt to entertain here in our small flat tomorrow night, three young people, James O'Shea, a friend of Rachel Parish, and Dominique and Yvette Frank, daughters of Stanley's colleague, Maurice, who now live here in London. It will be a bit of a challenge fitting all around our small table, not to mention the fact that our pots and pans are sized to cook small quantities, but I look very forward to the visit. Tonight there is a reception at the law school and tomorrow, a tour of the Inns of Court, to which wives are invited.
Soon, I will post more photos! And though we are having a wonderful time, we still miss our family and friends!

I went to Oxford

The fact that I wasn't awarded an honorary degree was just an oversight on the university's part, understandable, really, because the place is so overwhelmed with crazy tourists. At any rate, Herman and I braved the tube and train (just one or two easily correctable wrong trains hopped on) and we visited the Ashmolian Museum and Christ Church College, the Botanical Garden and the Covered Market before heading back. Stanley stayed home to rest.

Charleston House

Charleston House

I will try to post some photos of our trip to Charleston House, several weekends back. This is the home of Virginia Woolf's sister, the artist, Vanessa Bell, and other artist friends and lovers and occasionally, her husband. We weren't allowed to take photos inside. Outside was just lovely.

The Flat

These are comments I made and put in the wrong place when we arrived. I've tried to cut and paste many times and failed, but here goes again!

Our flat. It is on the second level of a building which looks newer than the surrounding ones. The flat itself is cozy, lots of blue and yellow patterns on cushy furniture. Lots of books, good ones, and chotzkies on shelves, lots of prints, maybe etchings, on the walls, and a drawing of a dog who looks a lot like Stella. The bathroom has a number of cat pictures, many of whom bear resemblance to Artie. And the owner, who, we are told, is an elderly Italian contessa, has family pictures out, too. In one, she is a bride and bears quite a resemblance to Mom in her bride pictures. So I am surrounded by the almost familiar here in faraway London.
The weather has run a gamut from kinda warm (Sunday evening) to very cool. There has been a bit of rain. Mostly, it is delightful. We sleep with windows open, no screens, inviting in tiny flying insects I worried were mosquitoes, but they didn't bother me and upon close inspection this morning (they died by the window after I'd closed it) they are transparent green and don't have a proboscis. The sounds from the street, city sounds, last into the night so it is noisy, but in a good kind of way, somehow.

Danna Tries Fancy Blogging

I was sure all along that mom meant to say "crappola".
Sorry about the rained-out fire works on the fourth, Caroline and Vivi. Can you believe over here, they don't even give July 4th a mention! Sore losers, these Brits. First the American Revolution and now the World Cup. Stanley and I try to be sensitive and pretend we don't see the embarrassment in their eyes. We're feeling pretty settled in over here now. We can get around really well. Went to the British Museum, did the Enlightenment Tour. We can hop on and off buses and the tube all we want without worrying about costs because we are proud holders of the oyster card, a month-long pass we bought on arrival. The large national museums are free, so we don't feel as if we have to push ourselves through a marathon to see as much as we can all at once.
I was looking so forward to going into the British Museum's reading room,something you need a special ticket to do, which I believed I could obtain thanks to a letter written on UL letterhead by my dear English prof. friend, Mary Ann Wilson, however, it seems that the Brit. Museum's reading room now only contains electronic catalogs of materials. The good stuff, original manuscripts, etc. has been moved across town to the St. Pancras library. So, I'll have to try my scheme over there.
Went to my final writers' workshop yesterday. What a delight. I need to work on the writing assignment right now, as we've been asked to email it in. The people sponsoring the workshop want to print up our work and display it at the libraries. They usually do this for the children's workshops and decided to do it for the adults as well. This feels kinda funny. Like the teacher is hanging my crayon drawing on the classroom wall.

The Flat

This is a photo of the living room of our flat. I told you it was cute!

Here's the Hunk!!

Stanley's comments on world cup

The English are nuts about footbal or "soccer" to you yankees accross the pond. Danna has got into the spirit and brought home one of the stars of the English world cup team. A picture of him in full uniform follows.

Thank you, Caroline!

First of all, many thanks to Caroline for the blogging tutorial, taking me one step at a time as we both looked at the screen and talked on the phone, from Houston to London, as if we were across the street from each other. All that experience with a three year old has given Caroline excellent skills for teaching technology to people on my level.
The Halpins' initial reports on the London experience can be found under comments, but beginning now (!) will be actually in the blog-proper.
Soon, we may even post pictures.
After our trip to Charleston House, we came home to find a free DVD in the newspaper, a copy of a film version of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. So we are feeling quite enough immersed in the Bloomsbury culture.

I think we have figured out how to post. WATCH THIS SPACE