Adventures in Oxford and London; Meeting Friends

This is a photo of the Somerville College Library, Oxford, from a southeast angle

Dear friends and readers,

Apart from the wonders of the Women in Trollope conference at Somerville College, Oxford, what did Izzy and I get up to in Oxford and London? It sounds like a lot. And we did tire ourselves, but towards the end while in London when it had become hot, we did stay in more, did less.

Here is a whirlwind tour as I am assuming at least some of my readers may have visited the places or the kinds of places I’ll be mentioning. We left Alexandria around 3:40 EDT in the afternoon and got into our plane around 6:40 EDT; a long flight but not as uncomfortable as it sometimes has been. We did not have a row of seats in front of us: this is called Premium Economy by the way. Arrival at Heathrow on Thursday, August 30th, around 7 am British Summer Time. My friend, Rory had given me a map and instructions on how to get to the National Express bus coach to go to Oxford, but we soon (around 8 am) found ourselves standing in front of a kiosk which included just that bus route, with the next bus due to arrive in half an hour.

As we boarded we were asked what stop we wanted. I had not thought of that. I asked the driver, which was the stop nearest the Old Parsonage Hotel; he had never heard of it; when I asked about a specific college, he said he knew nothing about Oxford. Maybe. Not for the last time Izzy took out her phone and began to navigate using apple and/or google maps and when we get close and then into Oxford we followed the route until near a deep blue spot said to be the Old Parsonage Hotel. It was the penultimate stop in Oxford, and not all that close. So we had an arduous walk following our dark blue line by foot to our dark blue spot. And there was the Old Parsonage Hotel behind a wall. A very pretty older building with restaurant.

Old Parsonage Hotel, at night, from the outside

They did take us in even if we were 5 hours early: it was 10 am and the room would be ready at 3 pm. They said they would do what they could to make it ready a little earlier. We put our bags in their back storing area and went to the dining room where breakfast was still being served. This was the first of two well-made meals — Izzy ate my scrambled eggs; the next day I had porridge! Around 11 or so we felt up to walking about and walk about we did.

Our day included the insides of several colleges, an exhibit at the Weston Library (where they offer tour guides, these guided tours are ubiquitous) and we saw a very interesting exhibit called Alphabits. The town squares were often traffic free so we wandered from square to square, and stumbled into Blackwell’s — still a huge and worthy story with older rare books and the best books in many areas; the Old Bodleian Library (the next day Izzy took a guided tour of that), an ancient church which was a moving experience because a man was sermonizing, and underneath the church was a cafe with very modern very British kinds of lunches (heavy hot savoury food is still being eaten for lunch). We did grow tired and wandered back by 2:20 or so and our room was ready.

One of the three old friends I had hoped to meet, Martin N. then called. He said he would come at 5, we could have drinks and then go to a restaurant called Bella Italia. I had not seen Martin in person for years. I met him three times in Oxford, twice with Jim and once with our daughters when they were teenagers. He has aged, well so have I. What a gentle sweet man. We began to talk — I was the only one drinking but that was okay. Then we found the restaurant and ordered a meal. Unluckily it was a noisy place and the truth is I was not up to it physically (I will spare details) so I fear I didn’t do justice to the occasion and we went back early. But I was so glad to see him and felt that we had established an old congeniality once more. We said we’d keep in touch. We did communicate once by zoom early in the pandemic. He talked of the Ashmolean and the next morning that is just where Izzy and I went.

The Ashmolean is a marvelous museum. Much Pre-Raphaelite art. Impressionism. Other schools. It is just so rich in important and beautiful European pictures. Martin’s advice was to do one room at a time and then go home, but there was no way we could do that and we were not to know if we could come back. So we stayed for 3 hours. I might as well say we had a similar experience in two other museums in London. On Tuesday morning, the Courtlauld Institute in Somerset House in London had a selection reminiscent of the Ashmolean. We visited there on Tuesday in London, and although it was small, its curators and donors had left a group of exquisitely good choices. A museum need not be large to be transformative for the time you are there. On Monday our experience was grim but educational. Since watching Foyle’s War and being told by someone that the Imperial War museum is not only richly about wars, but has a large impressionist collection. If it has the latter, it was hidden Monday morning. It was a long hot walk, and five floors of grim truthful accounts of WW1 and 2, of the holocaust (the most graphic effective I’ve ever seen), the Irish troubles and military heroes too. I did buy a catalogue. I learned newly about these conflicts but we came away in need of refreshment and stressed. More on this just below.

I can refresh us here, change our mood here by saying what we did after we left the Ashmolean. We went back to the Old Parsonage Hotel and directly onto Somerville College, and were met by several very friendly participants who sat down with us and introduced themselves, as we did ourselves. I think all six of us (except Izzy) were people who had participated in the Every-Other-Week online Trollope reading group. I was so glad to meet them and so glad to be there. Some looked like I imagined, and others not so much. I was told (as I often am) that I am smaller than people imagine me. This was the mark of the conference: it turned out to be a celebration of this 3 year silver lining which is on-going still. Now here it is appropriate for me to say something I did not say there. For my talk, I wore a very pretty feminine blouse I had bought the week before, a new lovely purple suit (a woman’s suit, with a skirt), and flat black pumps. I felt I looked right.

Back to the rooms and then out again to a dining room for a brief reception and then supper with all the participants who had arrived. I knew Isobel would not want to go to a pub so felt I should not try to join another group and let her go back alone. Instead we walked about Somerville, went back to our rooms and set up our connectivity. It was a very pretty evening in the college. Calm and quieter than term time I’m sure. I was reading alternatively Barbara Reynold’s life of Dorothy Sayers, and her Nine Tailors, appropriate books for the occasion and place. It had been cool that day, light sweater-weather and the rooms were comfortable.

Saturday Izzy spent in Oxford and she told me when she and I met at Somerville around 5:30 that she had had a good day. She went on guided tours, she took buses around Oxford. Later on she said she thought she liked Oxford better than London. Well Saturday was the big long day of the conference, and I’ve described in papers in that previously-referred to blog. A very satisfying day for me. I got to talk to a lot of people, inbetween times, over lunch, during the sessions. I enjoyed the sessions — they are my favorite parts of a conference. There were people from English-speaking countries almost around the globe — 2 or 3 from Australia, a couple originally from New Zealand, now living in the UK, people from all over the US, California, to NYC and New England, from the south, all over England, 2 people from Ireland, people from Northern England (Leeds), and Scotland. The Trollope community readership — as represented also on the Every-other-Week Zoom reading group.

But it was the dinner that was spectacular. We were so afraid we might be dressed up too much. Foolish us. Though it was just “smart casual” it was a regular several course sit-down dinner with wines, elegant food, candles even. Dominic, the chair, wore a beautiful suit and tie. I noticed several men went back to put on their ties. Susan Cooper, who was responsible for much of the conference (worked so very hard) was in an elegant gown, with her hair beautifully coiffeured. So Izzy’s beautiful cocktail dress (not over fancy) was perfect, with her gold necklace. I could have worn my fancy dress but I was just as comfortable in a lovely new dress that would be considered “smart casual” for an office, something one might war to a conference! I wore the pink jeweled necklace Jim bought me so long ago.

Here is the dining hall during the day — you can see all around are paintings of “famous old girls”

Towards the end we did a really fun thing, It was. People read passages from Trollope. I was one; mine was perhaps a somber moment from Orley Farm just after Mary Lady Mason has been driven to tell Sir Peregrine Orme that she did the crime to stop him from insisting she marry him, and three sentences from a nearby scene. These are deeply moving instances of inner soliloquy and (my theme for the conference) women’s friendship, for they are with Mrs Penelope Orme. Happily the choices were various, some very comic, some prosaic, all showing Trollope at some moment that the reader found especially delightful. Dominic ended the evening by reciting by heart some passages from songs (I believe) from Gilbert and Sullivan (not sure of that) he has recited at the end of dinners at the Literary Alliance Society.

Sunday was much more relaxed in dress. We came down to breakfast a bit later and people were getting to know one another and sitting in different configurations. I’ve described the papers of that morning, and the panel. Lunch. Then it was time to say goodbye. Maybe it ended all too soon, but I usually remember how when an event feels it has ended too soon, that means it has been and will be good in memory. We had a little trouble getting a cab to the train station but it was wiser than dragging those 3 cases. The weather by that time was turning very warm.

London. Then we did begin to have a hard time. I wrote a response to the Travelodge query about what I thought of their Kings Cross Royal Scot Hotel: it was awful. The worst thing was the people at the front desk seem to have been trained to refuse to help you. Seriously. You had to go upstairs and do “it” on the internet online yourself, except the internet was only available for 30 minutes, only for 2 devices and then connectivity was poor. I had made another of my bad mistakes, the result of not being able to be poised and clear in my mind and accept that I am really traveling someplace so I had us staying only until Thursday morning. Although it seemed the last place I wanted to stay, I knew no where else. Luckily one of the helpful managers (there was only one) himself actually phoned and arranged for us to have the room another night. He also directed the people at the desk to help us set up our connectivity in our room, which suddenly they were fully capable of doing.

I admit what seemed intolerable, unendurable at first, after a night’s rest, became a place where I could see the hotel chain was offering the minimum that you need to be comfortable, just, but they did offer it. You must go to manager to get service but then you do. Neighborhood was nice. Kings Cross is well-located and we later discovered we could take a train all the way to Heathrow: since it was not clear until the afternoon before we could get a cab to come to the hotel for us, that was our “insurance” on getting home. Exquisitely good Italian food in nearby restaurant. Then sleep.

Monday was the day we did too much. I made Izzy nervous because I was nervous when I had an episode of immediate memory loss: I blanked out at what was our next step on the Tube. At first it bewildered and overwhelmed me, and I never truly got used to it literally. Theoretically yes. This was the day of Imperial War Museum, and then we had a stressful time getting back to Westminster, and difficulties finding out how to get on a tour boat.

I knew I was pushing her to buy the ticket but I thought it was the right one and if we didn’t, we would not have time to do it. The result was a 2 and 1/2 hour ride to and from Greenwich, with an amusing guide. Unfortunately it had become hot and we had no hats. Alas, we barely had time to get back to our room and out again for the marvel of Dr Semelweiss with Mark Rylance. (This play will form my third blog about this trip.) Izzy was very upset at no supper before, but after it was over, she was reconciled because of the moving brilliance of the piece, the beauty of the theater and having found a Shake Shack, where she bought a hot dog, fries and I got a cup of vanilla cream. Let me admit I don’t care whether I eat or not most of the time. The room when we got back was too hot — there was a strong fan and I used it throughout the 4 days and 5 nights.

From my POV luckily on Sunday night I had persuaded Izzy to buy two tickets to the Victoria and Albert hall to listen to a concert by Rufus Wainright, starting at 10:15 pm. She wasn’t keen on Sunday night. Tuesday morning she would have been adamantinely against this. Further now she would not agree to a play on Wednesday night, which I longed to do: I read rave reviews of Noel Coward’s Private Lives with Patricia Hodges and Nigel Havers; it was said having the older couple gave renewed life to the lines, made a new old play. You might say luckily it was sold out on Wednesday night! I was not that keen on the others I suggested, but I admit were I not worried about my problems with memory and finding places, I might have gone by myself to the Old Vic Wednesday night to see Pygmalion (with a good cast). It was the theaters I wanted to see too.

Tuesday was the day we toured the Courthauld Museum (again very good: unexpected Reynolds, some beautiful and famous impressionists). In Somerset House, and again at mid-day found ourselves stressed in an attempt to figure out how to get on the bus tours. We hopped on and off two until we found the right one stopping at the right place. I did enjoy the two tours because they went all around central places in London and for the first time in my life I saw what was connected to what and how. Who knew 10 Downing Street was not far from Trafalgar Square? I didn’t. We also took a tour ride back to Kings Cross so we covered tourist and not-so-tourist areas. We found an older area of London is now Middle Eastern. Izzy was not that out of it because she listened alertly to the audiotape. I didn’t. Then home again, a meal out — not so good as the first.

Then we had to wait until 9:30 to leave. I almost chickened out. It was so hot and dark. I’m glad I didn’t. Arduous walking from Tube, but when the building itself nove into view, all roundness, all so wonderfully special with its endless columns and overdecorations, and it was crowded, we were both glad we were there. Very hot in the place. But they had a good snack bar, we found out our seats at the back of the orchestrra, and Izzy said Wainright’s first song was spectacular. I didn’t care for him — he is not like his father-in-law, Leonard Cohen after all. But the orchestra played sublimely. People danced in the center.

Jim loved this place and we went once during the proms when it was also very hot

Back to room, hurrying hurrying as we saw not all Tube entrances were opened. We made it! Tumbled into bed.

Wednesday was the special day after the conference. I met face-to-face a long-time LISTSERV and internet friend, Rory O’Farrell. I regret to have to say I forgot to take photos. It is so out of my usual ways, it never entered my mind until after he was gone, and I thought of telling the other people on our listserv and here and maybe the Trollope FB page. He loves, reads Trollope and knows many of the novels well (the listserv in question is my Trollope and his Contemporaries @ groups.io list.) It was he who encouraged me to put in a proposal for this Trollope conference I just attended. We talked for 2 and 1/2 hours in the cafe of the Victoria and Albert museum. Izzy was with us. We rested until 11:30 and then made our way to South Kensington station and the Victoria and Albert cafe where we said we would meet at 12:30 noon.

He recognized me first — though he said he thought I had brown hair. It’s a mix of light blonde, white, grey (does not look dyed). Like many , he said I’m smaller and thinner than he imagined. He’s 78; I really had no picture of him in my mind, never having seen a close clear photo. But when I saw a thinnish white-haired older man sitting there alone in a 4 people table looking expectant I knew it was him. We shook hands. This will help push me to go to Ireland next summer at long last with Road Scholar (put off for 4 years). It’s the 9-10 days called Enchanted Ireland. I shall make a real effort to remember to take photos. He and I have been writing each other daily (me first thing in the morning ET) for more than 10 years. We started when Jim became sick, carried on through the pandemic, and are still doing it. Many days just a short note, many our plans for today or what happened yesterday, what we are writing, or reading, all sorts of topics. I look forward to going home so Saturday we can start again.

The Victoria and Albert Museum pool

Again the time was all too short. I kissed him goodbye and he hugged me. Izzy demurred. As with the Somerset House, we discovered the central area was turned into a perpetual fountain for children. There were families there cavorting and having picnics. I was just not in the mood to find anything in the museum but did bring home a lovely engagement calendar — tasteful art work. Wednesday night we did not go out. I concede the BBC is not bad for programming (what passes for news is ludicrous) and over the 4 nights I saw Mary Beard, David Attenborough for an hour each, a program on St Paul’s, and one good one on early Ireland. We did that night experience fine dining at an expensive restaurant in St Pancras station and saw very expensive rooms, bars, and upper class men in suits.

I was sorry not to go out to a play again I admit. I am like a child. I am having trouble with immediate memory, cannot navigate around, so literally could not do what we’ve been doing w/o Izzy and her google and Apple Maps on her cellphone. The blog where I write of Rylance and the Harold Pinter Theater I will tell of my memories of going to the Old Vic with Jim (once to see The Wind in the Willows as a play by Alan Bennet).

Last day, Thursday. One more longed-for thing to do. The hottest day in the UK thus far this year, 32.6C at its height. Carrying on with our idea to see things we can’t replicate anywhere in the US, we went to Westminster Abbey. We were way too late for the central tour, but this did not matter. We walked with audio mobiles where Jeremy Irons among others explained what we were seeing. I found the early Modern dead royals especially hypocritical, much too much gilt &c but of course it’s the building itself, the windows, ornate iron, sculptures on the church one comes for. In Poet’s Corner we found Trollope’s memorial slab, a carving from his beautiful peroration in Autobiography. And took our only photo of it. The queen in 2012 added a huge chapel way high, and there were sculptures of moral men cut off (MLK, Ghandi, Bonhoeffer). You see London from a great height through carved windows.

Now I stretch out my hand, and from the further shore I did adieu to all who have cared to read any among the many words I have written … From the last paragraph of Trollope’s posthumously published Autobiography

Nice cafe, beautiful gardens, and back to hotel for trying time. We cannot get past an absurd glitch in our information in the British Air website (they won’t accept our home address as our destination; Izzy herself on the phone could not get past “they’ll do it at the airport). So we’ll go off early to be able to check in the earliest we can this way. I ordered a cab, no thanks to hotel staff reluctant even to do that.

This might be the room we had tea in — there was a bar at one end: this photograph is made to look glamorous or grand by the coloration; it’s much plainer in experience

Do another building: the Reform Club at 104 Pall Mall. We worked to find the block with its palaces. And there we found Dominic waiting for us in what looked like a morning room (it might have been at the Oxford-Cambridge). We had been able to make this appt during breakfast on Sunday! We had high afternoon tea with Dominic–a chance to talk to one another, Izzy there and animated. Alas, neither Izzy or I are cake eaters, but we did our best.

Dominic took us around the magnificent building. The elegant front rooms for AGMs to meet, library, dining place, computer room tucked away, more comfortable, less pretentious rooms upstairs (behind a sort of curtain). Good conversation. Izzy remembered being there for my speech on Trollope’s storytelling art, partly told in letters. I told Dominic of how I’d been there for lunch with Letts, with the publisher at Hambledon Press and Jim so the dining room I knew. I saw the AGM room and surmise it was there I gave that talk. A copy of my book is now in its library. There are 5000 members supporting it. We bid adieu outside on the steps.

And so our journey and the adventures that mattered ended. We went back to hotel, packed as far as we can, ready to leave for airport early tomorrow. I’m with Fanny Price who in Cowper’s poetic lines yearned for home.

Having packed, eaten what we could of the breakfast downstairs we waited 15 tense minutes more in this hottish (already) room. I was shaking slightly: these kinds of moments in travel are the worse. So I’m writing away. Izzy writes in diaries frequently when we are away. Small notebooks bought for the purpose. Then the cab did come — Euston Station service, and took us to the airport for a reasonable price. At long last I got to spend some cash, English pounds. At the airport after staring suspiciously at our home address, she found it elsewhere (passport papers) and we were given a boarding pass and seats. There was a stressful search (full scale at Heathrow, because they made me nervous and I couldn’t answer their question, in which bag were my toiletries?). Izzy losing patience waiting for the gate announcement. But finally boarded in a familiar corner and the plane took off.

Home again home again, jiggedy-jig And now we are sick: we appear to both have the same horrendous respiratory infection: from crowds, from stress. She is perpetually coughing but her fever has gone down; we have been to the doctor; it’s not Covid. He says no sign of pneumonia for me but if I’m not better by next week (!) go in for an X-ray.

Re-transplanting back to our routines, activities, reorganizing for the coming fall for the last couple of days nbetween intermittent bouts of sick misery. Our cats did miss us: Ian pissed all over one floor, over another book; Clarycat just looked lonely and stayed in my bed where I sleep a good deal of the time.

So here we are — wish for us we get well soon. It was really our first time since the pandemic to be with a lot of people in crowds.  I hope it is not my fault we have gotten so sick from doing too much.

Ellen