Traveling...to England 2009 #1

My Favorite place to travel is England, by far.  I can't get enough of it. I love the history, the museums, the stately homes, the countryside and just about everything that remains from pre-1850.  Just about.
More about that later.

Last May, 2009, Ed and I went to Chawton House Library where I gave them three volumes of La Belle Assemblee, including both from 1816 in which the fashion plates were intace. I also had a volume of 1815 without the fashion plates, but I included loose fashion plates from all of those months. I am on the left and Chawton House Librarian Jacqui Grainger is on the right.


Chawton House was one of the two large estates left to Jane Austen's brother Edward, who was "adopted" by relatives of Mrs. Austen who had no children of their own. He later changed his name of Edward Austen-Leigh.   

At right is a painting by Roy Connelly of Chawton Great House made on site in September of 2009.

Chawton House LIbrary is devoted to the study of women writers before 1900.  The house is on long-term lease from descendents of the Austen-Knight family to a foundation started by American Sandy Lerner, one of the founders of Cisco Systems. She and the foundation have restored the house and are working to restore the gardens to their 18th century condition. I have visited there several times.

When we arrived at Heathrow, Ed and I rented a car and drove to Wilshire where we had reservations at Stanton Manor Hotel, near Chippenham.
We stayed here several nights, traveling to Chippenham, to tour Bowood House, the Bowood Rhododendron Gardens, and Corsham Court. Most of the people staying in the hotel were there for the Horse Trials at a nearby estate. then we went on to a hotel in Alton for our visit to Chawton.

Bowood is the country home of the Marquess of Lansdowne and family. After WWII, the main house was demolished and various parts of the library and orangery wing were remodeled for the family and exhibitions of their art and treasures.

Corsham Court is mostly Victorian and has a beautiful garden and many art and decorative treasures.

The peacocks weren't parading much that day, just sitting around looking superior. 

After our visit to Chawton and the Chawton House Library, we went to  Gilbert White's home and garden in Selbourne, Hampshire. White kept detailed records of all his garden plants, providing a valuable resource to later researchers. Such as me. 

The next day we traveled around London to Befordshire and drove to Woburn, where we visited Woburn Abbey, a wonderful country estate where all the Whigs hung out in the early 19th century.  The Duke of Bedford and his brother Lord John Russell were important politicians and leaders of their party.  Many of the great issues of the day were discussed and decided at house parties here.

Our adventures continued the next day with a visit to Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, the country home of the Viscounts Melbourne and the Lamb family. Emily Lamb grew up here with here brothers. Later she inherited the house and her second husband, Lord Palmerston died here at age 80.

 The next day we visited Hatfield House and toured the mansion plus the church, St. Etheldreda's, where Lady Melbourne, her son PM Melbourne and his wife Lady Caroline Lamb are supposedly buried.  In the House I found a painting of Emily, Lady Cowper, by William Owen, below.

The church has suffered lately from the floor falling in. A volunteer guide said that many of the burial places could not be identified any more.  The Melbourne Chapel was in complete disrepair and I can only hope it is being repaired.  Hatfield House is very interesting as the seat of the Earls of Salisbury, with the present earl still active in national poltical affairs. It was built in the time of James I on the estated that once housed Elizabeth while her sister Mary was Queen of England. It was here that Elizabeth learned of her sister's death and her own elevation to the throne.

Following our Hatfield visit, we very gladly drove back to Heathrow and left the car. We spent a bit of time looking at the new Terminal Five before we boarded the Heathrow Express and started the second half of our holiday in London. Below a few more pictures from the countryside (first) half of our trip.

Bowood Gardens

Chippenham

Finishing up repairs on Chawton Cottage for the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's move there with her sister, mother, and friend Martha.

Laburnum at Gilbert White's Garden

The Staircase at Brocket Hall

Brocket Hall Drawing Room

 Brocket Hall Ballroom 

 

Brocket Hall Boudoir

 

Brocket's lovely grounds, now a golf course

Old House at Hatfield, known to Elizabeth I

St. Ethelreda's door

State Dining Room at Woburn Abbey

Queen Victoria's Bedroom (?)

Aerial View of Woburn Abbey

Florida: the agony and the ecstasy

I've been going to FL since I was quite little; in fact I remember on our first flight from Chicago to Miami, we slept in pullman-like berths on the all-night propr-plane trip.

We went to Hollywood to stay at a house owned by my father's partner. We went to Hollywood Beach and enjoyed the white sand. Almost every year after that we went to Florida, visiting Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Ft. Myers and Ft. Myers Beach. In those long ago day, Ft. Myers Beach was almost empty, with just a few shacky cottages on stilts, and we took a small car ferry to Sanibel for shelling, many years before the first bridge was built and Sanibel was developed.

Sanibel above and below

It's quite built up now with lots of condos and fancy houses, stores and restaurants. But they have preserved some  areas and the beach is supposedly sancroant.  The wildlife refuge is called, of all things, Ding Darling, after an environmentalist. "The refuge is part of the largest undeveloped mangrove ecosystem in the United States. It is world famous for its spectacular migratory bird populations."

 "Ding" won two Pulitzer Prizes for his editorial cartoons. He often advocated protection of wildlife and was a pioneer in conservation of natural habitates. 

In 1934, President Roosevelt appointed "Ding" Darling as the Director of the U.S. Biological Survey, the forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Eventually, my parents settled on a double lot in the Florida Keys. I have tons of pictures which I will eventually copy into digital files. For now here are some internet pictures of Key Colony Beach. As I recall, KCB and its neighbor just north, Cocoa Plum Beach, were created in the early 50's by dredging shallows and piling up the coral/mud called marl. Eventually the two idlands were formed with canals, a marina, oceanfront property, and a sewer system with a water treatment facility, something rather rare for the Keys.

Our place was almost at the point at the lower right where the canal meets the ocean. I think we were the fourth or fifth lot from the corner. We had our own boat landing and little beach where we often found great shells. Behind our place was an open area where we flew kites with the kids but which is now tennis courts and gardens.

We actually had a place called a botel for the first few years we spent there. It was on a canal and had a dock for our boat. Then my parents bought the house near the point which was very pretty and had a lovely yard Daddy doted on. He loved growing various tropical flowers as well as petunias and other things we would have had in the midwest.

Because the angle at which the island sat made the Atlantic beach face south instead of east, as one would expect, Mother often used to say in Florida, the sun comes up in the north. In the winter we would watch the sunrise and it really did seem like it rose from the north. And when we watch the rollers coming into the beach on a windy day, it seemed like we were looking east instead of south.

Many times the dolphins would come up the canal from the ocean, for the fish were plentiful in the quiet flats behind the island and they had breakfast lunch and dinner at the ready. For several years, there was one dolphin with a baby that came back until finally, the baby had taken off on its own, now full grown.

Actually this picture is much more like the views we had of free dolphins in the wild. The above pair was probably in one of the many dolphin shows.

Hungry Pelicans were frequent visitors to our pier.

Beautiful Key Colony Beach

More Opera

As I think about all the Live in HD from the Met broadcasts I have seen in Milwaukee and Naples, I remember almost all of them as highlights.



In the second year, 2007-08, I saw most of the offerings, beginning with Anna Netrebko in Romeo et Juliette by Gounod.

Hansel and Gretel was next, an imaginative staging, but I far prefer the more colorful candy house.

The 2007-08 season ended with La Fille du Regiment (below) which was well sung by Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez but again had dark and dreary staging which made it unattractive.

 

The 2008-09 season was excellent, to be expected by then.  Few transmission problems and corporate sponsors, international venues, etc.  The Biggest of the Big Time.

In February, Anna Netrebko was breathtaking as Lucia de Lammermoor.

Dr. Atomic (above) by John Adams was interestingly staged and had some lovely music though most of it was forgettable, leaving one with the feeling it could have also been a very effective stage play dealing with Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, his brilliance compounded by his conscience.

Thais (above) stared Renee Fleming and a great costume staff.

The just ended season of 2009-10 was better than ever.

Tosca (below) with Karita Mattila and a particularly excellent Scarpia..

 Turandot.

 

Aida (above)

 

Tales of Hoffman (above)

Der Rosenkavalier with Renee Fleming and Susan Graham.

I missed Simon Boccanegra with Placido Domingo singing the baritone lead. But I will catch it another time, for sure.

The final production was Armida, about which I have already commented.

Next year 2010-11 has a great line up:

11 productions starting with a new production of Das Rheingold on October 9, 2010 and ending with another new production, Die Walküre on May 14, 2011. The remaining productions are Boris Godunov, Don Pasquale, Don Carlo, La Fanciulla del West, Iphigénie en Tauride, a rebroadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor, Le Comte Ory, Capriccio and Trovatore.What an embarrassment of riches!!