Jane B

or, at least, the ducklings.

Yep, today was the first day of spring to my mind. Weather warm enough not to wear a coat, and the first sight of ducklings on the river.

As I mentioned in my last update I've been staying in a Landmark Trust property over the weekend, Peters Tower in Lympstone, on the Exe estuary in Devon.



This is a clock tower, consisting of four rooms, one on each floor, connected by a metal spiral staircase, with about 7ft being the longest stretch of floor anywhere. That sounds very cramped and there's certainly not much room, but it's been fitted out like the inside of a boat so there's a place for everything, and once you've stowed your stuff away it only takes an hour or two to feel at home.

( More about the weekend )

I have more photos of Lympstone in this Photobucket album

I shall be staying at Lympstone this weekend in the clock tower. Is it just me, or is it leaning slightly?

So even though the weather forecast said it would happen, it was still strange to see this when I looked out the window this morning.

I'm thinking I won't be down the allotment much today, but I guess I can plot up some seeds in the house since I bought some seed compost yesterday and have pots to hand. But first I will head off to what I guess will be quite a small meeting :-)

( Another picture behind the cut )

I'm staying at Woodbrooke this weekend.
They have a meeting for worship every day between 8:30 and 9:00, to which I
went this morning.

I was struck by how traditional it is. I didn't know any of the other
people attending, we didn't greet each other in any way (apart from a
handshake from the door keeper) but it seemed completely familiar. And
apart from changes in furniture or dress, it would have been the same for
many Quakers over the years.

Something I didn't manage to get to post about at the time, since life was busy, was that we had a 'works outing' to London on the 13th March. We had actually managed to meet the end of year target, which looked way impossible at one stage, so as an award we went up to London. The point of the visit was to go on a London Duck Tour where after trundling round the streets for a while you launch off into the Thames next to MI5 and go up and down the river past the Houses of Parliament. The tour guide was the highlight of the trip giving one of the funniest running commentaries I've heard for a long time. Afterwards we went off to Doggetts Coat and Badge, which used to one of my locals when I worked on the South Bank, where he had a good meal and a couple of beverages each.

I then split off from the group, most of whom went home, and walked down to the Tate Modern to see Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern which is the point of this post really. I took several snaps of the Crack - as it's become known - and thought one came out quite well so posted it on day_on_earth which is a community I follow for its interesting pictures. Today the moderator commented that she'd picked my picture as the top post for Thursday March 13th which was a delightful surprise.

I went to the British Museum in the evening, and did one of their audio tours on the Enlightment, which was very ... englightening. As I was wandering back to the desk to return the headset I thought, 'That looks just like B____ from work'. And yes you've guessed it, when I got a bit closer it was B____ from work - it's a small city, London :-)

Yesterday evening in Winchester they had a street performance of the Passion. I wasn't particularly interested in going since it was cold, and I thought it would be quite crowded. Still I hoped that it would be successful for the people who spent so much time on it, and the local Hampshire Chronicle reports that they had crowds of about 10,000 so very good for the size of the city.

One thing that I did enjoy were the notices that were placed in shop windows in the week leading up to it.

For more pictures of the actual Passion, David Spender has a good selection of photos in this Flickr set

(P.S. I was pleased to see that Jesus and the thieves were allowed to be fully clothed on the crosses. I saw an excellent outdoor production of Origo Mundi (the Cornish Mystery plays) where Jesus was just wearing the traditional loincloth and everyone in the audience was wrapped up in coats, scarves and hats!)

I feel George Fox would find it difficult to be cheerful about this particular borrowing!

Just been down to check my allotment before work, and my plastic greenhouse is still there and still upright! I wedged it in fairly firmly last night, but as I was listening to the wind early this morning, I didn't think there was any way that the wedging would hold it in place. So if it survives tonight as well, then I think it's firmly settled.

In a moment of nostalgia, I rented a DVD of Mrs Bradley's Mysteries with Diana Rigg, and I remember why I so enjoyed them now. It's the wonderfully witty script. The stories are the usual thirties mysteries, not very credible, and not too mysterious (even I can usually work out who done it!), but some of the dialogue is classic.

Inspector Christmas rings to ask Mrs Bradley, who writes books about crime and psychology, to help with a case:

Inspector Christmas: I've been re-acquainting myself with one of your books, an intriguing read.
Mrs B: Wait till my memoirs are published.

Her chauffeur, George Moody, helps with the crime solving and has a very casual relationship with his employer:

Chauffeur: Clowns give me the creeps, and the less said about magicians the better.
Mrs B: What have you got against magicians?
Chauffeur: I was once badly scarred by audience participation

Sometimes she gives asides to the camera, like the following after a male character has complained about the suffragettes and stated that women should stay at home:

Mrs B: Given a choice between staying at home with a man like that, or throwing oneself under a horse, I know which I would choose.

Sometimes she's just very wise:

Mrs B: There are three golden rules for bringing up children.
... pause ...
Alas, nobody knows what they are.


And, my favourite quote, about "Lady Chatterley's Lover":

Mrs B: Have a read of this, George. I think it might amuse you.
Chauffeur: Oh, yes. I heard the gamekeeper did it.

Went to see Juno with a couple of friends yesterday evening, and we all enjoyed it. It has some hilarious dialogue (off the top of my head, I remember The Cautionary Whale as the heavily-pregant teenager's description of herself) but also some surprisingly moving scenes.

It was an involving film to watch since the characters didn't act according to movie conventions, so it was always interesting to see what would happen. I liked Juno's parents (father and step-mother), and loved their response to her telling them she was pregnant.Did you see that coming? / Yeah, but I was hoping she was expelled or into hard drugs.

Ellen Page who plays Juno is excellent, but I also thought that Jennifer Garner, as the potential adopter mother, gave a wonderful performance.

I went up to London on Thursday evening and attended a lecture at the British Museum comparing the archaeological discoveries of Tutankhamun and the First Emperor. (Lecturers were Jessica Rawson and John Taylor.) It was interesting if a bit amateur in its presentation; not really worth travelling up from Winchester for, but fine if I had been in London. Each lecturer gave a short talk describing their particular area of expertise, and then there was a discussion and question which produced most of the intriguing facts.

- By performing the funeral rites for Tutankhamun, his successor Ay legitimised his claim to the throne since it took a Pharoah to bury a Pharoah.

- The terracotta warriors were some of the earliest forms of human statuary in China, and the idea of human statues may have come on the trade routes from Persia.

- Pharoah's tombs were opened and their mummies and funeral goods moved by the priests to Deir-el-Bahri. There's a theory that Tutankhamun and Akhnaten weren't moved since they still represented the 'tainted' monotheistic religion.

- The dead in China were thought to still exist in the world of the living, so emperors of new dynasties would open previous tombs to diminish the power of the former emperors.

I actually managed to achieve something today at work, which makes a change from the last couple of weeks where I seem to have been doing my impression of a hamster on a wheel and getting about as far!

Finally managed to get the piece of information I needed to close my longest running problem (190 days), and was able to get all my other outstanding problems back with the customers - either with solutions or asking for more details. The latter may not sound much of an achievement, but getting to the point where I understand them enough to ask more about them is actually a step forward.

Also this evening I went swimming which I've been meaning to start doing again since I swam in a lake on my last Italian holiday. I bought a new swimsuit with my birthday money from my brother, so I'd feel guilty if I didn't use it. I thought I might start March 25th (the old New Years Day) and try to go twice a week, and then I thought I could work up to that by starting in March and going once a week. And so far I've managed it :-)

I planned to do 8 lengths, but managed 10. I should point out these are not continuous lengths, but include numerous rests at each end. Still it was a start, so I feel the rosy glow of achievement, or possibly just a faster pulse!

( My Interests Collage! )

I watched The Painted Veil recently with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, and found it quietly beautiful - even with some rather too realistic portrayals of cholera. (Although cholera acted as a MacGuffin, I found the research and actions that were taken to stop its progression were interesting and believable, after reading about it recently in The Great Stink.)

The film is based on a Somerset Maughan book, and the language appears almost cliched now as the typical stilted phrases of the thirties. But I say almost, since the performances of the two main actors provided the depth that the words struggle to convey on their own. I've always admired Edward Norton as an actor, since seeing him in Primal Fear. He usually plays unsettling roles, and although his character in this was more commendable than usual, there was a streak of almost insane cruelty brought on by jealousy that came to the fore in the performance without making the doctor a monster.
I don't know Naomi Watt's work so well, but she was able to believably take the doctor's wife from shallowness to a more complex view of life. The interaction between the two really worked for me, with moments of awkwardness, pain and tenderness that seemed to flow very naturally from the relationship. The actors around them provided good support, and I enjoyed a rather unexpected cameo by Diana Rigg, as a Mother Superior, who gave in a short scene a wonderful description of duty and love.

The film was shot on location in China and the scenery was beautiful and looked very much like Chinese landscape art. Which indicates that Chinese artists were very skilled at capturing their land in images. I remember the same impresssion when visiting Suffolk, where I thought the land and skies looked just like a Constable painting, and realised it was Constable's talent which made them look familiar.

One of the clever bits of planting in the grounds where I work, is this underplanting of the trees on the lawn with daffodils. As you can see it gives a lovely frame for the main house. Clicking on any picture will bring up a larger version, and clicking again, an even larger one.




Behind the cut are some more pictures of individual plants from round the grounds:

( More Pictures )

On Wednesday I went with a friend to see the South African adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Duke of York, a small, bijou theatre so no need to sit near the front, although we were in the fifth row of the stalls. This is the same company (Isango Portobello) that did The Christmas Carol that we saw in December, and it was another wonderful production.

The first point of interest was they had the same sloping stage that was used in the Young Vic, so now I wonder if it's a feature of all their performances. The cast milled about the stage as the audience entered, and then withdrew to the side while the conductor took centre stage. The overture was then played on African instruments like xylophones with great liveliness and movement. A bit of research shows this is a marimba, and there's an interesting article about the preparation they had to do for this. The singing, when it started, was glorious, combining the operatic original with African choruses.. My friend and I think that the cast weren't using microphones at all, but there was no problem hearing anything. They occasionally used African languages, but most of the words were English and the translation was very funny.

They followed the story without much deviation as far as I can remember, but using the idea of Tamino's journey as a coming-of-age initiation rite. There were some witty touches with costume and characters. The three spirits that protect Tamino were anounced with a neon sign and wore sixties style outfits, so looked like one of the girl groups of that era. Papageno was in grey camouflage and his "birds" were women in pink boiler suits, Papagena was in pink when she arrived. The Magic Flute was actually voiced by a trumpet, and Papageno's bells produce a disco ball effect when played. The Queen of the Night's costume was a black chaotic explosion of different materials, while the Priest of the Day wore simple white robes.

Very luckily they have a website, and if you go to the The Show there is a small flash trailer for the show, so you don't have to rely on my muted descriptions.

Once a month I check the Kiva website, and add to my selection of loans. Originally when I started I added 100 dollars to my account each month, but I no longer need to do that since my first loans are all repaid so I have enough capital in my account to fund each new month. One of the reasons this is such a great use of money - it gets recycled!

I usually try to spread my loans among different countries, but this month I've concentrated on Tajikistan. It's a country I knew hardly anything about, but just this week, I read this From Our Own Correspondent account of the terrible winter they're having. I know the loans I'm contributing to will be of little help in the current situation, but perhaps they may be a small step towards a better future for the people involved.

When I first looked at the list of loans to be funded, this mobile phone salesman from Lebanon came up and I was amazed at the range of countries the lenders came from. The Internet really gives Kiva a worldwide presence.

Also, on a lighter note, who cannot love a frog the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball.

Usually I'm investigating ancestors, but yesterday a new descendant arrived. My eldest nephew and his wife had a son, premature at 34 weeks but doing well. So I'm now Great Aunt Jane :-)

I forgot to mention that weathergirllj and family were so intrigued by where I was staying that they booked another Landmark, Methwold Old Vicarage, for their own spring break.

Here's a link to a lovely picture that Phi took while they were visiting. I'm glad I arranged my provisions so attractively :-)