Christmas Trees at Work

I think they speak for themselves really.  Main reception:

 An event room:

 Cafe:

 Another event room:

 Canteen:

My favourite is the tree outside the cafe that they decorated with big balls.  You can see them out the window.

A Shameless Attempt to Get a Valid Sainsbury's Voucher

I read a newspaper article recently about how someone blogged about poor service at a Tesco which resulted in the company actually addressing the problems.  So I am going to give it a try.  My problem is with Sainsbury's.  Several days ago, I received the bottom voucher shown at left.  I returned to Sainsbury's a few days later and brought it to the information desk.  The staff were very friendly, helpful, understood the problem, and seemed to want to help me.   So unlike the blogger that went before me, my problem was not with the local staff.  My problem is that Sainsbury's is printing unusable vouchers.  You will notice that in another voucher that was left behind by the previous shopper shown in the top half of the image left is for first time on-line use.  I am not eligible for that one.  But I have included it to demonstrate the presence of the code that the on-line shopper enters to redeem it… and the absence of a code on the coupon that I do qualify for.  The numerous staff that helped me all proclaimed the voucher faulty.  But there is a problem here.  It is not like I just went up to Sainsbury's one day and suggested that they give me £10 if I spend over £50 online.  Sainsbury's actually suggested it… and then made it impossible by not including the on-line redeem code.  So I am looking for a valid £10 voucher for me and all the other on-line users who spent more that £50 this week because it is the right thing to do.

Strictly

The summer days and winter nights in London are longer than in Providence. My six years here is relatively short considering the years I spent in New England, so the length summer days and winter nights are still jarring. For some reason the rapidness of the change in daylight is, for me, most noticeable immediately following the equinoxes. In autumn, my heightened awareness of the quickly advancing wall of darkness is accompanied by the start of the new season of Strictly Come Dancing. I usually do not like these types of shows, but there is something about this one that buoys my spirits. From the incredibly talented orchestra, the wonderfully brilliant delivery of old-fashion wisecracks by presenter Bruce Forsyth, the clarity from judge Craig Revel Horwood on how to get a higher score, the appreciation of dance, the amazing costumes, to the friendly atmosphere amongst of the participants, I love almost everything about it. Maybe it recalls my former self… that part of me that still longs to leap out of my body and meld with a stream of music… and the camaraderie of being surrounded by souls striving for the same transcendence. But maybe my affection is largely due to the timing of the show. As the earth travels through the bleakest part of its orbit relative to the spot I happen to be sitting upon it, I find myself looking forward to the light, jovial nature of the show. Sometimes, when standing on a dark platform waiting a train to or from work, my mind conjures up the energy of the orchestra blasting the theme song with Brucey shuffling his 85-year old feet across the stage as a break from the ominous and increasing darkness, so much darker than the recollections of the winters of my youth.

Photo Credit

Judges Craig Revel Horwood, Darcey Bussell, and Len Goodman (Bruno Tonioli out of view) with Bruce Forsyth: Mirror Online

Bath

I never get sick of looking at buildings and recognisable portions of buildings still in place after thousands of years. So last weekend in Bath was no disappointment. We started with tea in the Grand Pump Room a la Jane Austen who lived in Bath for a while. Someone made a rookie mistake of pouring her tea without straining it, but to save her the embarrassment, I won't name which one of us it was…



Getting back to the Roman baths, it is fed by a natural hot spring and the Romans built a bath house and temple complex around it. Everything below ground level (which is the tops of those square pillars around the edge of the Great Bath pictured above) is Roman, including the lead-lined baths and the conduits that still today carry the water to and from them. The other malarkey (which I like to call: The Roman Bath Experience) was built by the Victorians. Most museums are very ineffective in their use of audio visual media, but not so here. There is this awesome space that has the exposed foundation and stairs to the bath house to one side, and to the temple on another, and an outdoor altar on another. They put screens at two different spots in that space that start out with you looking at the current view from where your standing and then slowly it layers on more and more of the complex as it looked in Roman times, zooming out and around and then back to where you are standing. It really gives you a sense of the space and changes your whole perspective of the ruins.




The abbey church is right next to the baths and you can see it popping out in the background in the picture of the Great Bath, above. It has the most stunning sculpture of Jacob's ladder on the front of the church. I have never seen anything like it. The inside was inspiring as well.



Photo Credits

Us standing on a Roman floor: a member of staff at The Roman Baths

The Great Bath: Wikipedia

Jacob's Ladder on Bath Abbey: TripAdvisor

An Italian in Putney

No I did not pour chips onto my pizza, it came to the table that way... on purpose! Ah London...

Do you like apples?

A week or two ago, one of my coworkers brought in a bag of apples that were obviously from an apple tree and not a store. They were delicious. Turns out that there are a couple of apple trees in the hospital grounds that I did not know about. They have been a regular feature of my lunch ever since. I don't even have to carry them in, and they taste great.

That same coworker told me about more apple trees a couple miles down the road that are in a common. He said he gets a kick out of watching people coming out of ASDA (right next to the common) with the bags of apples that they just bought when they could have gotten apples for free just a few hundred feet away. I suspect that it doesn't occur to them, as we are trained be dependent on the supermarket. I know I never thought to look for apple trees in the hospital grounds and I have worked there for more than five and a half years now... Ah! maybe the apples are a long service award.

Photo Credits

Apple: Wikipedia
Good Will Hunting: third row centre

Kings Cross

Kings Cross is a railway station in London. Like the Doric Arch from the Euston Railway Station down the road, its namesake is long gone. We used to live within walking distance of Kings Cross, but now that we live further afield I do not frequent it very much anymore… except for this week.

The first of my interesting encounters came when I spotted a locomotive on a side rail. The image left is a model of it. Maybe it is usually there but this is the first time I've seen it. It is a nominated locomotive for hauling the royal train. Until I saw it, I was unaware that there was such a thing.

My second encounter was with a champagne bar. Self proclaimed as the longest champagne bar in Europe, it opened around the time we moved here and has been haunting me to take my beloved to it as a treat ever since. I finally got around to that this week. The champagne was fantastic. We ordered a little cheese platter to go with it, which came with inedible stone chips in the shape and colour of toasted bread. The bar runs along side the platform where the Eurostar arrives. The Eurostar is a high speed rail service between London and Paris. In my head, this location always had a little bit of a romanticised air. There is a high glass wall that separates the bar from the train. I had always been under the impression that the train traveled under the English channel in a tunnel. But seeing the train roll in, I now wonder if it is simply traveling on the seabed. Wow, was it filthy. Still, I had a lovely time indulging in a little bubbly, and I am glad we finally went.


Photo Credits

Queens Messenger Model: Olivia's Trains
Searcy Champagne Bar: Design My Night
Platform 9¾ Film Location: Laura Porter

A Garden and a Floor

Last weekend we visited St Dunstans in the East. It was built in 1100 and repaired and added to until it was destroyed in the Blitz in 1941. The ruin was turned into a public garden in 1971 and is occasionally used for outdoor services. It is even more stunning than the photos suggest. The parish was merged with All Hallows by the Tower, which we also visited. It was also stunning, but in different ways. It has the most amazing roman flooring I have seen so far. It is from a house around 300. I never get tired of seeing bits of really really old buildings. There are some impressive roman artifacts on display in the crypt, and the crypt itself is beautiful. There has been a church here since at least 675. It was also burned in The Blitz but it was restored.

Photo Credits

St Dunstans Garden: My Beloved
Roman floor: All Hallows by the Tower

Overflow at Hatfield Railway Station

Last Wednesday, I was walking up the stairs from Platform 2 at Hatfield Railway Station.  I was in the midst of a thick pack of people. A little girl shouted at the top of her lungs from the station car park, which you can easily see from the stairs, "Daddy! Daddy!".  I saw no response from anyone around me. Seconds later an equally loud shout, "Daddy! Daddy! I had the best day!" A short pause, "I made a new friend!"  Most people in the pack produced a modest smile, me included. A group smile in a pack of commuters is a rare event for me.  In fact, this was my first.  That little girl was so happy that it spilled over into us. I too would like to be so happy that it overflows into a group of passing strangers.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Hatfield House

We finally visited the inside of Hatfield House (above) last weekend. It was built in 1611 by the First Earl of Salisbury using bricks from the Royal Palace at Hatfield. One wing of the old palace (left) remains. It was built in 1497 by Cardinal Morton. I do not know where he got his bricks. Henry VIII took the palace along with other booty when he was separated England from the Roman Catholics. All of his children lived in the old palace at some point: Edward in his childhood, Mary in her teens when she was made to serve as Elizabeth's lady after being declared illegitimate, and Elizabeth most of her life prior to her ascension. She was living there when she learned she was Queen and held first Council of State in the palace's Great Hall in 1558.

The house is the current residence of the 7th Marquess of Salisbury and contains an almost absurd amount of impressive artifacts and portraits from early modern through contemporary England including the Rainbow and Ermine Portraits of Elizabeth I. The contributions of the Cecil family to the history of England are also too numerous to recount here, but I feel obliged to mention one in particular: Lord Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. He served as Prime Minister for 13 years under Victoria and Edward VII. He not only inspired the huge statue at the entrance to the great park on which Hatfield House is situated, but he is thought by some to be the inspiration for the phrase 'Bob's your uncle' from when he appointed his nephew to Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887.

Thursday last, we saw Thelma Holt's and the Oxford University Dramatic Society's production of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors in the Banqueting Hall of the old palace. Our recent viewing of the family photos in the house helped us to recognise that Lord and Lady Salisbury were in attendance. The performance was a clever contemporary interpretation the merged live music, recorded sound and music, meta-reference, immersion, and slow-motion acting elements into it. These elements brought a freshness into the production while still respecting the language and essence of the original. Artemas Froushan and Samuel Plumb as Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse managed to distinguish themselves despite the magnificently strong ensemble. What a treat!



Photo Credits

Hatfield House: Wikimedia Commons

Old Palace: Trish and Craig Hammond

Gate Statue: Wikimedia Commons

Comedy of Errors: getSURREY

Banqueting Hall Ceiling: Victor Naumenko

St Etheldreda

Moving to a new area means searching for a church with an 8 o'clock service. Luckily, a very conspicuous church at the top of the hill in Old Hatfield obliged. St Etheldreda was a 7th-century Saxon princess who founded an abbey in Ely. The bishops of Ely apparently owned the land when a church was established here in the 13th century, so it seems fitting that the church would share the abbey's patron saint.

The porch shown is the one we enter through to attend the service. Although the tractor, has since been removed, the interior shown in the 1960 photograph marking the harvest festival captures the essence of the nave, even today.

Although not visible from the nave, one distinctive feature of the church is the tomb of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury. Cecil was given Hatfield House (more about that in another blog) by James I. The tomb has a remarkable full-sized memento mori parallel to and beneath the effigy above. The tomb was originally outside the church, but Cecil's son had the side chapel built around the tomb to bring it indoors. The chapel is much more ornate than the rest of the building.

Another distinctive feature, St Eltheldreda's bells regularly infuse themselves into our lives and into the lives of our neighbours. In addition to ringing in joyous celebration at weddings and at Sunday masses (10, not 8 …apparently we 8-o-clockers are a less joyous lot), the ringers practice their various peals most Thursday nights at 8. It is a wonderful vast timbre that blankets the hill and beyond.

Photo Credits

Tower from the yard: Wikimedia Commons
Porch: Vicky's Vibes
Tractor: Diomedia
Tomb: Svetlana and Olaf Lange

Top of St Pauls

Yesterday we got to walk onto the dome of St Pauls.

The Gherkin & Financial District                   The Globe & Millennium Bridge

The Eye                                                       Fleet Street

Temple Bar Gate                                          Paternoster Square

The Visitors 2013

Our July 2013 lives were dominated by the promise and the realisation of the arrival of certain visitors.  I was tasked with collecting photographic evidence of their presence.  Neither the taking pictures nor the remembering to take pictures is a strong suit for me.  However, I managed this meagre collection of almost in focus images.  We are both grateful beyond expression for the series of miracles that lead to these people being in this place at this time.

 On Westminster Bridge

 At Covent Garden

On a train

At Graduation

On a bus

On Southbank

In a flat

At High Tea

In a Hotel Lounge

Heading to the Radley Shop

Travelling to and from work

So one thing that has changed since we moved is that it takes longer for me to get to work.  If I catch the right set of trains, I can get to work in 65 minutes.  But most of the time, it takes me about 90 minutes.  

Previously, the view rushing past the coach window would have been buildings and roads and brick and glass.  That is still largerly true, but the view for the portion of my journey nearest our new neighborhood is a stark contrast. Here are a couple glimpses.

Old Hatfield

We are only a few minutes walk away from a quaint old town.  Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.  In the interest of full disclosure, the rest of the town is not quite as picturesque.

Photo Credits

Fore Street: Hatfield House

Graveyard Cottage: Richard Ashworth

The Eight Bells: Danger Man

Rooftops: My Beloved
1847 Sketch: Our Hatfield