13 December 2009
Across the Bourne is now being published on the website of my local newspaper, The Salisbury Journal. The website is http://salisburyjournal.co.uk. After reaching the homepage, please click on the link for Blogs, and then follow the link for Across the Bourne.
Thank you for reading and following the blog, and please keep sending me your comments and suggestions.
5 December 2009
Jet lag is the dirty secret of travel. You can finds loads of beautiful travel magazines and brochures from travel companies all promoting various trips to fabulous places all over the globe - sparkling white tropical beaches untouched by others’ footprints, alpine lakes surrounded by majestic pines, exotic cities pulsing to different rhythms of life, and remote mountain paths running towards ancient ruins. What the articles usually fail to mention, however, is that if the travel required to reach the featured destination crosses more than 2 or 3 time zones, the traveller is likely to experience symptoms of jet lag.
Jet lag is far from the most serious medical condition one may suffer, but it is a well-known and well-documented condition that merits attention on a number of medical websites, including those of the NHS and BUPA. The list of symptoms from jet lag can be quite lengthy, but for many people, including myself, the most common is difficulty with sleeping. One may feel really tired in the middle of the day, and then be wide awake at one’s usual bed-time.
Jet lag results from disruption of our “body clock,” our body’s natural rhythm attuned to the rising and setting of the sun. Crossing times zones changes the length of time we experience daylight and darkness, and a lot of our daily functions, including appetite, digestion, mood, and sleep, can all be affected by jet lag.
Most experts agree that going from west to east increases the likelihood and severity of jet lag. Experts believe that one may experience symptoms of jet lag for up to one day for every time zone passed on a trip going eastward, and up to two-thirds of a day for every time zone crossed going westward. This means, for instance, that an American travelling from California, in the Pacific Time Zone which is eight hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, may experience jet lag for up to eight days after arriving in Britain. If their trip in Britain lasts only one week, they may be jet lagged the entire time they are here (this might explain some of the strange behaviour one might see from Americans on the Tube in London).
I think tourists should consider the effects of jet lag when planning a trip. Obviously, a short trip across a number of time zones may not make for the most enjoyable experience.
I have been back in Salisbury for 7 days now after flying back from San Francisco, and I have not yet had a normal night’s sleep. It seems like my jet lag has lasted longer on this trip than most. I am slightly reassured by the formula I noted above that my experience is in the “normal” range, but I am really looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep. It should come any time now.
27 November 2009
For the past two weeks I have been in America visiting friends and family. Travel always gives one a new perspective, and it is always interesting to reflect on differences between the UK and the US on such trips.
First, I have still been thinking a lot about the Remembrance Day activities in the UK. I think that this year all of the events meant even more to me than usual after having just visited the D-Day beaches and the British, American, and German war cemeteries in Normandy. It was especially moving to watch the video clip during the concert at the Royal Albert Hall the night before Remembrance Sunday of the veteran of a Welsh regiment singing the Welsh national anthem at the grave of one of his mates who is buried in the British cemetery we visited outside Caen. That concert, the Remembrance Sunday service at Salisbury Cathedral, and the events on Remembrance Day itself were all very moving and emotional. No country does a better job of remembering the sacrifices of its fallen soldiers than Britain, I believe.
At the Remembrance Sunday service at Salisbury Cathedral I especially appreciated hearing the song of a poem that we saw on many graves in Normandy. The words are by Laurence Binyon, and the music was by Douglas Guest. It says:
“They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.”
In America today it is Thanksgiving Day. It is a uniquely American holiday, and one that I have always enjoyed as it is a time for being with family and friends and reflecting on all the blessings that we have enjoyed. I am in San Francisco, and this morning attended an Inter-faith service that reflects the best that is San Francisco and the US. It was held in a Presbyterian Church, and included clergy and members of the congregations from the following faiths: Islam, Jewish, Buddhist, Episcopal, and Roman Catholic.
In the newspaper yesterday, the daughter of a famous American columnist reprinted a poem written by her late mother, Pauline Phillips, otherwise known as “Dear Abby”, the advice columnist. I’ll close this post with her poem:
“Oh Heavenly Father, We thank thee for food and remember the hungry. We thank thee for health and remember the sick. We thank thee for freedom and remember the enslaved. May these remembrances stir us to service, That thy gifts to us may be used for others. Amen.”
6 November 2009
Sometimes, when travelling, I have been a little disappointed after finally visiting a place I had really looked forward to visiting after reading about it and seeing pictures of it for many years. Normandy was not such a place.
For almost my entire life I have seen pictures of the D-Day landings, seen movies about the battle, and read many history books on the subject. Similarly, Mont St Micheal is so well-known that it seems as much an icon of France as the Eiffel Tower. And finally, over the years I have read a great deal about the Bayeux Tapestry, seen pictures of it, and looked forward to visiting it. In all three cases, however, visiting these sites in Normandy was thrilling, moving, and beautiful, in turns.
On our first day, after a very early morning drive off of the ferry in Ouistreham, outside Caen, we drove to Bayeux, less than an hour away (even allowing for one missed turn on the ring road around Caen). After petite dejuener in the city centre, we were first in line at the museum which houses the Bayeux Tapestry. An early start, coupled with the time of year, let us enjoy the tapestry at out own pace, with no crowds. The tapestry is magnificent, stretching over 70 meters long, and still amazingly colorful after its creation over 900 years ago. We were given an audio guide in English, which explains the story being told in each of the over 30 panels. Although some describe the tapestry as “cartoon-like” because of its one-dimensional representation in embroidered wool, I was impressed by the level of detail in the pictures, and thought the artists were able to portray both movement and emotion quite well in the sewing. Historians still debate the sponsor of the work, the location of its creation, and the identity of the artists, but there is no doubt that it gives a compelling and understandable telling of the events which led up to the Norman Conquest and a depiction of the climactic battle between the army of William from Normandy and the Anglo- Saxon army lead by King Harold. The museum also contains interesting exhibits which describe the Norman influence in England. in my history lessons at school we frequently had to address the question in history about how much one individual might affect history versus that person being merely representative of a particular time or mood. In the case of William the Conqueror, I think his influence in assembling and leading the invasion force, and then in governing after the Conquest, is tremendous cannot be overstated, his impact lasting up to the present time.
From the tapestry, we headed to the magnificent Bayeux Cathedral, which towers over the city in much the same way that the spire of Salisbury Cathedral towers over our city. The cathedral is both Romanesque and Gothic, and the Gothic portion of the cathedral contains huge windows, making it one of the brightest cathedrals I have seen.
The city centre contains many historic buildings, including many timbered buildings that in England we would call “Tudor”. Thankfully, although the city is only 6 miles from the D-Day beaches, it was spared from destruction during the fighting, and is very beautiful. Several of the streets had banners with French, British, and American flags flying on them. On the way out to the edge of the city we walked into a pretty and historic little abbey. Since we had recently seen the Sound of Music, we kept expecting to see Maria, but alas, we were the only ones about.
On the ring road around Bayeux we found the city museum to on the Battle of Normandy, and we enjoyed the movie and exhibits there. Just across the street from the museum is the largest British cemetery from the Normandy campaign, and it was very moving to walk among the gravestones there. The stones contain not only name, age and regiment of the deceased, but also a personal message from each soldier’s family. These personal messages, such as “Our only child, now gone to a better place”, were especially touching, as was being reminded by the youth of so many of the soldiers who died fighting for liberty and the destruction of the most terrible tyranny. The cemetery contains over 4,000 graves, and across the street is a Memorial to over 1,800 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Battle of Normandy and have no known grave. The Memorial has a frieze with the following inscription (in Latin), “We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land.” A moving end to a memorable day.
We set off early the next morning from our hotel in Caen for a full day of visiting the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches. We began at St.-Aubin, part of Juno Beach where Canadian forces landed, and worked our way westward, through the rest of Juno Beach, then Gold Beach (British), and on to Omaha Beach, with the large American cemetery, and out to the end of Omaha Beach at Pointe du Hoc. We saw the remains of the huge artificial ”Mulberry” harbor, nicknamed Port Winston, at Arromanches. We visited the huge German gun batteries at Longues-sur-Mer. We came through the sand dunes at St.-Laurent, where the Americans made their first exit from the deadly fire on Omaha Beach. We walked among the still pock-marked landscape of the forbidding Pointe du Hoc, taken by the American Rangers at a large loss of life. And we finished the day at the very sad German Military Cemetery in La Cambe.
It’s difficult to describe my feelings about the day. All day long I could feel the presence of all those soldiers, so far from home, and the tremendous sacrifices all of them made. Walking among the beautiful marble crosses and Stars of David in the American cemetery above Omaha Beach, I could barely speak, or even swallow. It’s simply a very remarkable place, with a very tangible sense of recent history. One author in America has labelled the generation that fought here as “The Greatest Generation.” Seeing this landscape really proved the truth in that description.
On our last full day we headed to the southwest corner of Normandy to visit the fantastic Abbey at Le Mont St-Michel. As I have already written, the setting of the abbey at the top of the rocky island, the surrounding bay, the small street leading up all the steps to the abbey, and the abbey itself, are all really amazing and beautiful, and to me even more impressive in person than it looked in pictures. It was a really nice day and different in tone from the day before.
We did have a partial day before returning to England, and we spent that time enjoyably first visiting the Abbaye aux Hommes in Caen, and then touring the apple, cheese and Calvados-producing areas south and east of Caen. We had a lovely picnic of locally produced apple juice, locally produced Camembert cheese, and a baguette.
We have wonderful memories of Normandy, and we hope to be able to visit again.
20 October 2009
Three dates – three very different years – are currently on my find.
The first is 1999. This time ten years ago I accepted a promotion in my company, going from a senior attorney specializing in government relations to a position as regional counsel in the largest region of my company, a generalist position that was part of the senior management team. One of the challenges most worrying the company at that time, as well as panicking a good percentage of the American population, was what was dubbed Y2K – Year 2000. While it likely has been forgotten by many now, ten years ago large parts of the developed world were extremely worried that most of the world’s computing systems would stop functioning, or would malfunction, when we started the new millenium and went from ’99 to ’00 or 2000. Fears were that power grids, flight control systems, defense weapons, finance systems – everything that depended on a computer, might come crashing down and send the planet into chaos, or worse. My company had a large team devoted to fixing the problems with the company’s computer systems, and also drafted a team to work over the New Year’s Holiday to be available to deal with any possible emergency. This was repeated all over the US, and I believe led to much lower than normal new year’s celebrations for the millenium in the US Most other countries did not seem quite as worried, however, but this only seemed to increase the anxiety levels in the US at the time.
At the time, I remember thinking that it was all very over-blown, and my partner and I vacationed in Key West, Florida over that New Year’s holiday, laughing that if everything did come crashing down, Key West was one of the best possible places to be stranded. In the end, of course, no catastrophe struck anywhere in the world and those worries now seem both laughable and forgettable.
The two other dates in my mind, however, are two that most people in the US and the UK do know about – 1066 and 1944. As you may guess, these two dates are in my mind because next week we are going to take the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen in Normandy for a holiday.
1066 is, of course, the date William 0f Normandy launched his invasion of England from Normandy and, with his success, became William the Conqueror. The ancient tapestry that tells the story of the events leading up to the invasion and battle is exhibited in a fine museum in Bayeux that we hope to visit.
Bayeux also has the distinction of being the first French village liberated by the Allies during the D-Day invasion launched on June 6, 1944. Few events of modern time stir imaginations and memories in Britain and America as much as the D-Day landings, and we are really looking forward to visiting the beaches, the battle sites, the museums and the cemeteries that mark that incredible and courageous operation over 65 years ago.
History is like that. Some moments turn out to be much less signficant than anticipated at the time. And some moments and events seemed destined to live on in human memory forever.
13 October 2009
Nothing beats good live theatre for immediacy and emotional impact. And Friday night at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton we saw not just some good live theatre, but some really good live theatre – The Sound of Music.
The production currently at the Mayflower is the production originally from the London Palladium, now on national tour in the UK, with Connie Fisher as Maria. I, like almost everyone in the English-speaking world, have seen the cinema version of The Sound of Music many times, and for the first five minutes on Friday night I kept comparing Connie to Julie Andrews. After five minutes, however, I completely forgot about Julie and just enjoyed the production on its own very good merits.
I did think this stage version exceeded the cinema version in emotional impact in at least two ways. First, I thought the actors playing the Von Trapp children were more believable as children than their cinema counterparts. These children just seemed more real, and not as super sweet, as those in the movie.
Secondly, in the run-up to the final climax, when the Von Trapps appear on-stage at the Salzburg music hall, the play really made an emotional impact by turning the Mayflower Theatre into the hall in Salzburg. Nazi banners and insignia were unveiled on the stage, and Nazi storm troopers, complete with very realistic uniforms and automatic weapons, entered the audience areas of the theatre and stood guard. The Mayflower audience truly became the audience in Salzburg, with Nazis glaring in a menacing manner just feet away. This really brought home one of the central messages of the play – how to deal with repressive governments – either by “going along” or active opposition and defiance. This message was thus much more forcefully made in the play than it was in the cinema version.
Even so, the night was primarily about the music, of course, and the music was glorious. All the performers sang really well, and the play was thoroughly enjoyable and uplifting.
It was a wonderful evening and really demonstrated the British skill in producing and staging really great theatre.
6 October 2009
September gave us the nicest month of weather I have had since my move to the UK nearly two years ago. Almost the entire month was Indian Summer weather, with beautiful blue skies, warm temperatures, and very little wind or rain. Now, having turned the calendar page to October, and the official start to the Autumn two weeks ago, we are getting autumnal weather, with the last two days overcast, cloudy and rainy. In fact, it was so dark most of yesterday morning that little night lights we have in the hallways that are light sensitive did not turn off by themselves; I had to switch them off.
With the change in the weather, we have been changing our activities. On Sunday we harvested the large heads from some of the sunflower plants in the back garden; the heads were over one foot in diameter, and they were on huge stalks over ten feet tall. I cut several of the stalks down to make room for some of our fall and winter plants – wall flowers. I had not known about wall flowers until we planted some last fall, and was pleasantly surprised how they grew and flowered during the winter, and also by their beautiful early spring display of multi-colored flowers. So last Saturday we bought several packages of plants from a stall in the Salisbury market, and were lucky to get them planted on Sunday. The plants were looking rather wilted when we put them in the ground on Sunday afternoon, but the drizzle yesterday and the rain today has been good for them. Meanwhile, we left the sunflower heads out to dry, and hope that the birds will enjoy eating some of their seeds this winter.
On Saturday we also bought four or five packages of bulbs in the market. We got two more packages of the huge bulbs that produce the large daffodils that did so well in the front garden last spring, as well as a bag of mixed smaller daffodils. We also bought two bags of red tulips, and one bag of blue parrot tulips; I hope the tulips next spring will do better than ours did last spring – or you may not see any more tulips in this corner of Laverstock. All of the bulbs need to be planted by the end of the month, so our next task is to decide where to plant them, and then to get them in the ground. Finally, on Sunday we also set up a small plastic covered greenhouse that we have put on one end of our patio, next to the house. I have filled 8 or 9 pots with hollyhock seeds, and put the pots in the new little greenhouse in the hope that we might get some little seedlings to plants out next spring.
The trees are beginning to display some beautiful fall foliage, with the beginnings of yellows and oranges. The fall foliage is one of my favorite things about living in this part of the world. In San Francisco the fall was often the warmest time of the year, with the summer fog gone, and there were very few trees there that would turn color. One can see some fall color in California, but you must travel more inland to see it, and nowhere in California is the foliage as spectacular as it is on the east coast of America or here in England. Stourhead, the National Trust home and gardens here in Wiltshire, is nationally famous for its gardens, which are particularly spectacular when the trees turn color, and we look forward to visiting them again in the next few weeks.
Grocery shopping yesterday also reflected the change of the seasons. The grocery store was brimming with bags of British apples, along with 2-for-1 priced displays of broccoli, cauliflower and other fall crops.
I do think that Autumn is one of our most beautiful seasons, and even with the rain today, I am enjoying this time of the year.
29 September 2009
Last night we had an absolutely gorgeous sunset here in Salisbury – full of orange and gold and blue and purple streaks. A really thrilling sight, followed immediately by a beautiful moonrise. Although there was some cloud in the west to color the sunset magnificently, the moon rose in a cloudless sky to the southeast, and it was a beautiful three-quarters moon, as bright as a searchlight, and very near a bright star, heading to the annual full harvest moon on Sunday, October 4. With such wonderful views, it is no surprise that our ancestors down the road at Stonehenge and elsewhere paid so much attention to the skies.
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My sister returned to America on Saturday after we had a wonderful 12 day visit together here. Yesterday I went shopping at Tesco, descaled the coffee pot, made Irish soda bread, baked an apple-blackberry crumble, and made a bacon-leek pasta dish for supper. We will miss being together until I travel to America in November, and I think all my creative activity yesterday was a reflection of that.
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This afternoon I have the second of my beginning French classes at Wiltshire College here. Our instructor is very good, animated and friendly. I am really glad to have the time to take this, my first ever class in French (I studied Spanish for many years in America). The class and our accompanying book and CD take the approach that it is best to hear and imitate the French words and sounds first, before looking at the words in French, because when we read the French our brain will first try to make the sounds in English. This is a very different way of learning for me, and after the end of our first two-hour class my head was reeling a little bit. I also think it is true that the younger one is, the easier it is to learn a new language. Still, I am really enjoying learning a new skill, one that will hopefully prove to be fun and useful on anticipated trips to France, and a “brain test” that is much better, for my money’s worth, than these computer “brain test” puzzles currently advertised on television.
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I had another enjoyable day serving as a room steward at Mompesson House in the Close here in Salisbury on Saturday. It is fun to speak with the visitors, some of whom will tell me where they are from and ask where I am from. To several I said that my coming to live in England has been something of coming full circle, since one of my maternal ancestors, William Rockwell, emigrated from Fitzhead, in Somerset County, to become one of the founding settlers of the original colony of Maryland in America. Somerset is the next county north and west from Wiltshire, so it very nearly is a complete full circle.
28 September 2009
Nick Hornby’s autobiographical book, Fever Pitch, describes his lifelong self-admitted obsession with the Arsenal Football (soccer in the US) Club in London. The book serves as useful reminder that the word “fan” is simply a shortened version of the word “fanatic”.
As I have written earlier, I was a big baseball fan in America, and I believe I am becoming a big fan of the Southampton Saints Football team here in the UK. In fact, I belive I am becoming something of a football fanatic myself. I compiled the following checklist to see how many items I could tick:
Saints’ season tickets -yes
Saints jacket – yes
Saints polo shirt – yes
Saints cap – yes
Saints scarf – yes
Saints mug – yes
Saints beer mat – yes
Saints’ website an internet “favorite” – yes
Subscribe to Southampton Daily Echo Sunday Pink section for Saints news – yes
Listen to Saints games on the radio – yes
Can’t wait for the next home match – yes (Tuesday night against Bristol Rovers)
Know the words to Saints’ songs – yes
Sing Saints’ songs at matches – not yet
Submitted comments on Saints website or BBC news fan pages – not yet
Looking at the above list, I realize that I may be a little more “far gone” than I had realized. Still, it’s a fun hobby or interest, so all I can say is, “Let’s go you Reds!”
22 September 2009
Sunday we (me, my partner, and my sister visiting from America) drove down to Southampton early in the morning and took the Red Funnel carry ferry to East Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. It was our first trip with a car on a ferry, and my first trip to the Isle of Wight. We had beautiful weather all day, the one-hour trip each way was smooth, interesting, and comfortable, and the entire day was very enjoyable and relaxing.
Our first stop also turned out to be the highlight. Just a mile or so outside of East Cowes we visited Osborne House. It was bought by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1851, and substantially enlarged and altered over the following years. Much of the work both on the house and in the grounds and gardens was planned and supervised by Prince Albert. His goal, and the goal of the couple, was to make the house a comfortable and private family home, rather than a royal palace. It became their favorite refuge from court life, and the family, including the royal couple’s 9 children, spent many holidays and birthdays there.
After Prince Albert’s untimely death in 1861, Queen Victoria found solace in the house during her grief, and any subsequent changes in the house were guided by her desire to follow what Prince Albert would have wanted. It was also at Osborne House that she found comfort and support from several of the household staff, including Highland servant John Brown, her personal secretary Henry Ponsonby, and her Indian secretary Abdul Karim.
Somewhat surprisingly to me at first, none of the Queen’s children wished to retain the house after her death in 1901, and the house, but not the contents, were donated to the nation. After several other uses in the last century, the house is now owned by English Heritage, which has done a very commendable job in restoring many of the rooms to the condition that they would have been in during Queen Victoria’s life. As I have already noted, the contents of the house remain the property of the Queen, and the house is literally filled with the sculptures, paintings, photos, furniture, and numerous personal memorabilia of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their children. Prime Ministers and various cabinet ministers during her reign also visited the house, and it is said that all of them would readily recognize the house and contents if they returned today. The house is thus a very remarkable record and reflection of the personal tastes, style, and interests of the Queen and her family.
I found the house to be comfortable and I think I would have enjoyed living there. I particularly enjoyed the gardens and the sweeping views from the house down to the Channel. For me, Victorian architecture and furnishings are obviously different from current or modern architecture and style, but not so different as to seem ”ancient” or ”foreign” as say something from the Tudor period.
My partner and sister enjoyed the visit very much, but I don’t think either of them would have enjoyed living there as much as I. I think both of them would have been bothered by the numerous paintings and sculptures of the Queen herself.
It is this latter factor that my partner believes is the reason why none of the Queen’s surviving children wished to live in it after her death. Everything in the house reminds one of Queen Victoria, and even though her children installed a large brass memorial to her above the bed in which she died, I guess for them the entire house was really a memorial, quintessentially Victorian. Thus, Osborne House is a remarkable window into the life of a remarkable monarch.
