Blog Catch Up

Ok it’s 10:44 on Tuesday, Ava’s still in her nightie, just finished a tea party with her stuffed animals and is now working on a bead project.

I am patiently (well ok maybe patient isn’t the best word to describe me) waiting for my fine friend the refrigerator guy, who is supposed to be coming sometime between 9 and 1 to fix the infamous appliance which is downstairs dripping.

After a long discussion last week about whose fault it was that my Fri. fridge appt. was cancelled, I was apparently put in the books for 11-3 today…but then yesterday when I placed my 33rd call (yes it seems like that many) I was informed the engineer would come between 9 and 1 today.

Ai yai yai.

Now regarding the machine, (which I must reiterate hates me) in addition to not cooling, has been beeping at odd intervals for the past several weeks. And this past week a voracious hum has been emanating from it. Clearly it wants to die.

At the moment all is silent because I was told to defrost again before service call…thus the dripping downstairs. Let’s hope the guy shows up.

As for food preservation of late, I’ve relied on the freezer, which has been in an increasingly sad state, some shelves still freezing, some hitting fridge temps, ice maker gone to pot.

This exercise has really been a foray into what is relatively shelf stable (isn’t cheese all bacteria anyway…). I have been tempted to put things outside at night but I did spot a fox slinking through the neighborhood last week, and Lord knows cats stop into our patio enough as it is (ask Joe how much he enjoys seeing them come and go).

Enough on the domestic scene.

Since mid-October Claire’s enjoyed a few more horse riding lessons, Ava got to go to the cinema (Cindermouse) with her class and I’ve been steeped in Jane Austen.

Our Austen group met to listen to a speaker share information about women’s roles during the Victorian age (essentially it was critical they marry money). We also watched video clips about Jane Austen and her books, choice of characters, settings, etc.

On the 22nd we tripped off to see her home in Chawton, a cottage given to her and her mother and sister by her brother, who came into wealth via distant relatives who raised him.

It was here, at this cottage, that Jane spent the last eight years of her life and did the majority of her “mature writing.” (I apparently am still in my immature writing phase.)

The house is a lovely red brick building across the street from a dainty little tea shop with cups decorating the walls and hanging from the ceiling. There we had tea/coffee, then walked down the lane to the “big” house (that of Jane’s brother) to admire the gardens.

Prior to Jane’s death, she had been involved with the family’s project of taking the existing gardens and landscaping them, moving the earth to create vistas and whatnot. The result is a lovely expanse of green with gravel walkways (not a result of the Austen’s ambitions), scenic viewing spots and gorgeous trees.

Back down to the cottage we then went for a tour of Jane’s home, where we wandered through bedrooms and living areas, saw the tiny desk at which she wrote, along with other furnishings.

We then adjourned to lunch at a nearby pub (lovely goat cheese tart) and onto Chawton House (now known as Chawton House Library). The House (of which we got a partial tour) is over 400 years old, and the recorded history of the land on which it stands stretches even further back.

About Chawton House…

During the 13th century there were frequent visits to Chawton by King Henry III and then his son, King Edward I, the manor having become an important staging post for royal journeys between London and Winchester.

In April 1551 the land was sold for £180 to John Knight, whose family had been tenant farmers in Chawton since the thirteenth century and who had prospered sufficiently to acquire a large estate.

The freehold has remained in the Knight family since the sixteenth century, though on many occasions the ownership passed laterally and sometimes by female descent, requiring several heirs to change their surnames to Knight.

In 1781, Thomas Knight II inherited and adopted a son of the Reverend George Austen, who was a cousin of Thomas Knight's. The Austens had six sons and two daughters, and the Knights adopted the third eldest son, Edward.

Edward Austen Knight eventually took over management of the estates at Godmersham and Chawton in 1797, living mostly at Godmersham and letting the Great House at Chawton to gentlemen tenants.

In 1809 he offered a house in the village to his mother and two sisters Cassandra and Jane, and it was there that Jane Austen began the most prolific period of her writing life. Her career as a novelist took off with the publication of Sense and Sensibility in 1811, and she went on to publish a further three of her novels while at Chawton (two more followed shortly after her death). She lived in Chawton almost until her death in 1817, only moving to Winchester near the end of her life to be nearer medical care.

Today Chawton House is a library with a mission “to promote study and research in early English women's writing; to protect and preserve Chawton House, an English manor house dating from the Elizabethan period; and to maintain a rural English working manor farm of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for the benefit of everyone.”

Chawton House Library is a recent charity founded by the American entrepreneur and philanthropist, Sandy Lerner, via the charitable foundation established by her and her husband Leonard Bosack, the Leonard X. Bosack and Bette M. Kruger Foundation. The Library’s collection of books, which focuses on women's writing in English from 1600 to 1830, is available to the public for use.

(The House is leased to the charity and remains in the Knight family.)

We got to see some of the very old books in the collection, several open to specific passages and pictures having to do with Austen’s books. Wonderful stuff.
The house is very grand from the outside, much wood and many nooks and crannies, window seats and lovely views of the grounds within.

Back at the bus, we resumed our Austen fest, this time watching Persuasion on the return trip. (We watched Northanger Abbey en route.)

I could get used to these Jane Austen outings.

Also recently, I attended the Frieze Art Fair, which is a HUGE event in Regents Park (in tents, some sculptures outdoors).

I went w/ a group that organized a tour so as to get a better handle on the fair given its enormity. (More than 150 contemporary art galleries exhibit, and special projects, talks and educational events are part of the affair, as well.)

It’s a great event, I’m very glad I went, very glad I took a tour and very glad we went early as by mid afternoon it was overwhelming (crowd + exhibits = overload).
After perusing the sculptures in great, sunny weather, I made my way back to the peace and quiet of home before school let out.

On Monday, Oct. 19, I headed off to the railway station to meet up with a group of women for a hike in the woods (really a chatty walk). It was so nice to get out of London and enjoy fresh air, good conversation and quite pleasant weather – not cold and a slight drizzle for maybe 45 minutes.

In the middle of our 8 mile walk we stopped at a pub for a leisurely lunch, then continued on through Seven Oaks & Idle Hill…here is the description:

This walk explores a very rural area of Kent and passes through a pattern of small woods and fields to reach Ide Hill, the only village on the route. Ide Hill is charming as well as being, at 800 feet, the highest village in the county. Henry VIII used to go hunting hereabouts when he was courting Anne Boleyn.

No doubt Anne has less romantic notions about the area now.

On Oct. 21st I met up w/ a friend for one of the infamous London Walks (walks of various parts of town, museums, etc., led by tour guides – generally 2 hours of insight). The one we chose was “Legal and Illegal London.”

This tour took us to the Inns of Court, a “warren of cloisters, courtyards and passageways set amongst some of the best gardens in London.”

We wandered through the four inns, peeking in gardens (some public, some restricted access), then into the Royal Court building, which is gorgeous. We caught glimpses of barristers in their wigs and gowns and learned a bit about the legal system.
Frankly I’m still a bit mystified…enjoyable outing nonetheless.

And that brings me to the end of last week (gee I’m doing pretty good here given it’s only Tuesday…am I (gulp) caught up on this blog for the time being???). We ended the week with dinner and drinks with friends at a local Italian restaurant we’ve enjoyed a few times.

Over the weekend Claire and I, together with two of her friends and another mom, went down to the British Museum for a group “backpack” activity(essentially a bag filled with various activities based on age/theme).

We opted for the Ancient Greeks, so our activities led us through various parts of the museum, where the girls put on costumes the Ancient Greeks would have worn, then struck poses like those in many of the statues, played knuckle bones (games played with the ankle bones of sheep and goats), put puzzles together based on architectural exhibits, discerned stories on pots and matched up depictions of modern day Olympic events with those of old.

It was a great outing and we’ll definitely seek out backpack activities at area museums again! (I’m thinking they should do the same for adults...)

On Sunday the time changed so we had a more leisurely morning (so how was it we walked into Mass late?!?). We then hit the Marylebone market for relatively shelf stable food and had lunch at a café in the area.

Yesterday was Ava’s first day of fall break so off we went to see Up. It’s a great children’s movie that everyone should see.

With errands, lunch at McDonald’s, library stop and Claire retrieval, it was a busy day out, and today has been a lazy one in.

As I wrap up this diatribe, I’m knocking on wood that the fridge is indeed up and running (the engineer visited a couple hours ago). I haven’t yet heard any beeps or buzzes from below…who knows if that’s good or bad at this point.

Cheers and may all your appliances be cooperating!