Coronation Trip, Day Eight: Royal Leamington Spa

Sorry, no photos. The internet in this hotel is slower than Frankenstein walkin’ through glue (as the mother character says in Mart Crowley’s play A Breeze from the Gulf.) I will perhaps add them when I get to stronger internet someplace.

1) After coffee and croissants, I walked through a mix of neighborhood styles through sunny weather to the station, where I boarded the train to Leamington Spa. Christian joined me when the train stopped at Kenilworth; Paul had family obligations and couldn’t be with us.

2) In a twinkling we arrived in Leamington, where it was raining a bit. Christian had promised a light day after all the trekking I’ve been doing. We took in the local art gallery/community center, once the famous Royal Pump Rooms as part of the spa. Bits of the spa have been preserved as museum exhibitions, and they had some interesting art on display, including a Tuke, and a set of four shelves with white and pastel covered jars on them that reminded me of a friend’s bathroom.

3) We walked through Jephson Gardens, got coffees (I have finally learned to order a “flat white”), and sat on a bench to catch up on four years and admire some astonishing trees. One little old gentleman riding a scooter admired my hat.

4) We continued our promenade by wandering through a small glasshouse (we’d say conservatory in the US), and then settled on an Italian place for lunch: rosé and chicken panini . . . and another rosé. Then some mild windowshopping . . . and heavy rain. We returned to the pump rooms lobby for shelter, and then off to the station.

5) Back in Kenilworth, it was pleasant to reawaken my memory to sights seen on my last visit. Christian allowed me to duck into St. Nicholas Church on the way home, and beautiful and empty old church with lovely stained glass.

6) My kind friends had taken care of my laundry, and it was then up to me to repack my suitcase before the cocktail. I must say, the Brown Gold cocktail they serve is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with whiskey. Absolutely delightful.

7) Christian had arranged for us to dine early at the local pub, the Virgins and Castle. Walking there the early evening sun was bright and brilliant. Whatever might have been in the air had been washed away by the rain! Kenilworth really is quite lovely.

8) For about the first 40 minutes of our evening we had a table for two alone in a back dining room and were able to talk with abandon. We were seated near old (or old-style) leaded and mullioned windows overlooking a tree-lined patio. But after two quartets of People Older Than I arrived, I had to be more considered in my volume.

9) Old fashioneds (I just wasn’t in the mood for a pint), breaded Brie to start, and then a burger. Christian had some sort of chorizo hash followed by lemon chicken. We finished off with a stimulating glass of rioja, but not the rioja he introduced me to on my last visit.

10) I was deposited in an über to return to my hotel, and the drive from Coventry was made more beautiful by the gentle and clear light of the sunset. Nothing to my mind could have been more English.

11) Tomorrow, Bath! Tonight, sleep and gratitude.

Coronation Trip, Day Seven: English Country Houses

1) Before I rushed out the door early for my train, I had to snap a photo of the building across the street from my hotel, and the large weed flowering exuberantly from the cornice of an upper floor window. Such a charming detail of my time in London.

2) The cabby (who had been at it for four hours already) and I chatted a bit about the coronation, London traffic (he used abrupt and colorful language when someone attempted to cut him off), and the current state of the UK before lapsing into silence about halfway to Euston Station.

3) Euston Station, by the way, has no visible place to throw away trash like used paper coffee cups. I had to go up to the next floor in search or something, which I finally found: a clear plastic bag held to the wall by a dispenser or something.

4) My train journey to Coventry was beautifully quiet, so I was able to keep reading 1939: The Last Season and glimpse some rainy countryside. Occasionally that would include sheep, or small fields of fluorescent yellow, very dramatic on a gray day.

5) As promised, Paul and Christian were there to meet me at the exit, our first reunion since before the pandemic. When visiting them, as Greer Garson said to Karen Morley in Pride and Prejudice, “I tremble and obey.” Before I knew it I was in their car and we were driving to their home in Kenilworth for elevenses (coffee and sausage pie), and an impromptu chat with one of their nice elderly neighbors (who quite reminded me of my mother).

6) The remainder of the afternoon was spent meandering along English country roads, “The colors of the day//Lively green and grey,” twisting and turning here and there, often more crowded than one might expect, and punctuated by two stops: Baddesley Clinton and Packwood, Tudor and/or Tudor/influenced country houses now operated by the National Trust.

6a) In the back of the car, and with its ambient noise, I was not always able to follow along with what the boys were saying. (Anyone reading this already knows I ahem have comprehension issues at times, especially with background noise, and I can already hear the chorus from two or three people gleefully chanting “Russian, Thousand Island, vinaigrette! Two blocks down and take a left!”) When I would occasionally ask a question, the answer would sometimes sound something like “Fargle Hadgley!” in a tone with a bit of a smile in it that said “We have told you this already.” And they may have. I accept it all as flowers gratefully accept the rain, never having been steered wrong by their ability as guides.

6a.1) They will read this and smile, because they are very aware of my many faults and love me anyway. And I feel the same.

A Baddesley Clinton interior. These people have clearly stolen my life.

7) Baddesley Clinton is a Tudor and Tudor-acting-and-appearing moated house with some beautiful garden beds of red and yellow flowers, wisteria, heraldic stained glass, and — gasp! — a priest hide where Catholic priests hid out when necessary. A lovely chapel with small stained glass medallions in the windows completely charmed me.

7a) Seeing the low velvet early 20th-century sofas in the ground floor rooms made me think of cozy house-party weekends. But the most delightful detail was a mid-20th century typewriter in the study!

Packwood House from its garden.

8) Packwood House is a much-augmented Tudor house, the most enduring achievement of Graham Baron Ash. Seeing its great hall (originally a medieval cow shed), with its gorgeous refectory table, and the long dark corridor lined with tapestries and deep sofas reminded me of Nancy Cunard’s account of her mother Emerald’s house parties at their country home, Nevill Holt. The house is full of tapestries, Delft tiles, and Objects of That Ilk.

8a) Fun fact: Queen Mary came to tour the house in 1927! It was not recorded whether she said “I am coveting it with my eyes” to her host about anything in his collection.

8b) But first we had lunch in their chaotic café, absolutely overrun with people. We had trouble finding an empty table and seized one as soon as its occupants made a move. The nice counterman told Paul “It was all quiet until about 45 minutes ago, and then boom, everyone came in!” I had a “Sicilian lemonade” with my panini, quite refreshing.

8c) The gardens of Packwood were very beautiful, and to my eye, seen best on a gray day. Most famous was the Yew Garden, full of exceedingly large and carefully clipped yew trees. At least one family was playing tag there. At the end of a long path we went through a narrow opening in the hedge, turned left, and gradually realized we were going up a spiral path toward the center of a yew tree. Masterfully designed!

8d) We made a circuit of the pond, admired the sunken garden, and then very happily discovered the kitchen garden, full of interesting plants and espaliered fruit trees. It might have been my favorite!

9) And then more winding down English country roads bordered with hedgerows back home for a couple tasty cocktails, Indian takeaway (which was delivered, but is still called takeaway here), and four years worth of catching up on our lives, and one week’s catching up on my laundry.

10) I am snugly ensconced in my Coventry hotel now, with its snail-like internet, and ready to tour Leamington Spa with Christian tomorrow.

With the sunken garden of Packwood in the background.

Coronation Trip, Day Six: Mostly Leicester Square

1) When I got up I knew I would be needing a nail clipper, one thing I just hadn’t thought of. One fingernail had split, and I looked at it warily as I attempted to make coffee with the hotel coffeemaker.

2) I loafed “in a decorative and highly charming manner” (to quote the late Monte Beragon), wrote my column, cleaned up, and headed out to an essential appointment. Along the way I stopped at a nondescript pub near Earl’s Court station for brunch. Pro tip: they make you order at the bar in this country.

3) The essential appointment was for a massage, which was in Vauxhall, and which proved something I already knew: I am ready for the glue factory.

3a) Vauxhall looks very built up, urban, and intimidating. Its legacy is prettier, as it was the neighborhood of the famous pleasure garden called Vauxhall Gardens. I learned about it from 1943’s The Man in Grey (an important scene takes place there); earlier it was called Spring Gardens, and figures in the plot of the scandalous Forever Amber.

4) Next stop, Leicester Square, with no agenda but to wander about before a 6:30 dinner engagement. The joint was jumpin’! Hundreds and hundreds of people milling about with Good Bank Holiday Energy.

I think it’s kind of unfortunate that clothing store for people has moved into a building with Horse Clothing advertised so prominently on it.

4a) My first big surprise was to happen upon a street called Cecil Court, which a friend had very much encouraged me to try to find. And there it was, without me even having to try! A small street full of interesting little galleries and bookstores, and a shop with beautiful old bits of silver.

4b) And later on, Covent Garden itself! Fabled in song and story as the flower market of London, it’s now the London equivalent of Faneuil Hall Marketplace. I recognized the portico of St. Paul’s, which is where the first scene of Shaw’s Pygmalion (and its musical offspring My Fair Lady) takes place.

A post-prandial portrait of our dinner party: Me, Stu, Andi, and Amber.

5) At the appointed time I approached the restaurant, and there was my friend Andi from Interlochen and her family. And there was much rejoicing! Some evenings there’s just rare conviviality and conversation around a table, and that’s what we had.

6) Fortunately for my friends in Kenilworth, I got back to my hotel room just in time to watch the coronation concert, which I really hadn’t given a thought. But I obediently tuned in, and I must say — well done!

7) And now, the packing is almost done, and it’s off to Coventry tomorrow. I will finally have to buy an umbrella.

Coronation Trip, Day Five: Coronation Day

In which your storyteller realizes he has traveled across an ocean to stand in the rain for three hours in his best clothes to watch a screen.

1) Unbelievably, I hadn’t gotten to bed until nearly 1 AM, and when the alarm went at 7, I simply could not face it. Coronation be damned, give me another half hour of sleep!

2) But by 8:45 I was dressed smartly in my Sunday best and out the door with an umbrella borrowed from the hotel. And before long I had to start using it, too.

An important — neglected? — verse from “God Save the King.”

3) A largeish emptyish coffee shop on Kensington High Street had the coronation broadcast going on four screens grouped together as one. As I sat there with my latte (I can never figure out how to order coffee in Europe — “Coffee, please” is never enough) and my chocolate croissant, I debated just staying there. But then I said “No!” And off I went to Holland Park.

It was already raining when I arrived.

4) And Holland Park turned out to be exactly the right place for me to see the coronation. A giant screen had been set up at one corner of a large grassy field, with dozens of canvas slingback beach chairs in semicircular rows in front of it. As I stood in the back under the hotel umbrella starting about 10 AM, I realized I would be standing there for just over three hours and wishing I’d brought an Eleanor Lavish Memorial Mackintosh Square. I was certainly not going to risk a soggy bottom in my suit sitting on one of those chairs.

5) The real reason Holland Park was right for me was the crowd size: comparatively small. I doubt there were more than 300 people there at any one time. It really had a nice community feeling to it, and I would have felt intimidated by myself in the bigger crowds along the procession route or in Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens.

6) At one point the video froze on a image of various religious types in the Abbey, but the audio had moved on to the clip-clopping of horses. To my surprise, I calmly got out my phone to watch on Yewtybbe until they got things right.

7) To paraphrase the late Jane Austen, “there was a shocking lack of tiaras.” I’ve heard rumors that this was the King’s wish, and I don’t care. Streamlining the monarchy is a good idea, but Daddy needs some sparkle. So many jobs have uniforms, and the job of a princess requires a tiara. There, I’ve said it.

And there he is, Francis Dymoke, the King’s Champion!

8) Streamlining the monarchy is a good idea, but not the part that involves my family. So it was a great relief and a real thrill to see the King’s Champion, Francis Dymoke, bearing the Royal Standard in the procession. Undoubtedly my favorite moment, I could not stop myself smiling while Francis was on screen.

9) Almost as soon as the procession ended and the ceremony begun, I was startled by a voice saying “Excuse me, may I speak to you?” It was a journalist from Agence France Presse (I hope I got the name right) who I had seen videotaping at one end of the area. So, I was interviewed by the foreign press! Now I understand why celebrities have to be so careful, as I was so focused on the ceremony I wasn’t expecting to answer questions about Camilla, or anything else, really.

With the nice French reporter just before I left.

9a) He did ask me about why the coronation was important to me (“Well, my ancestry is from the Champions of the Kings of England, so I really wanted to see Francis Dymoke bear the Royal Standard in the procession”), why I was dressed up (“This is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion and I wanted to look my best, and for me that means a suit and tie”), and how Charles would do as a monarch (“[pause] Well, everyone had low expectations for Edward VII, and he exceeded them all to become the Uncle of Europe, so let’s see how Charles does.”) Sometimes I’m afraid he was quite unintelligible, but that’s because I was old and deaf, dehydrated, and my feet hurt. Who knows what I said?! Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn into an International Incident.

9b) After the reporter returned to his position (wearing a gold plastic crown over his camo green rain poncho), the nice English lady standing just behind me said “Well done, Robert from Boston.” And we had a nice chat.

10) When the television announcer said “Colobium Sindonis, Supertunica,” I blurted out “Gesundheit” before I could stop myself, which caused a Lady Older Than I in front of me to turn around and stare.

11) It did go on a bit, didn’t it? After Charles was crowned I noticed people starting to leave, particularly families with young children. And once the King and Queen left the Abbey, and I knew Francis wouldn’t be on screen any longer — and because Nature was Calling — I left, too.

12) Back in my room I caught the balcony appearance, and then went down to the restaurant for a sandwich, and then back upstairs for a NAP. And somewhere in there I had to catch up on dialogue in Messenger; multitasking is overrated.

13) With a brain of concrete, I trudged next door to the Sainsbury’s to search out some dinner. Last night at dinner Gail asked “You know there’s a hierarchy, don’t you?” “Waitrose to start, right?” “Yes, Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, and then Aldi.” (I hope I remembered that in the correct order.) Possibly because of the coronation, there was no hot food to take away, but I was happy to make do with a couple sandwiches.

14) Catching up on the news and the socials, some people have been enthralled with the day, others have not, either because they don’t like the monarchy in general, Charles and/or Camilla specifically, Charles and Camilla’s treatement of Diana, Prince Andrew, the Sussexes, and/or Great Britain’s violent colonial past. [Insert Your Own Reasons I May Have Missed Here; There Are Quite a Few.] And I won’t say those are bad reasons. It’s been a long time since Great Britain has had an actively incompetent monarch, George IV, “nothing but a painted bag of maraschino and plum pudding.” After “Edward the Caresser,” British rulers have been almost ostentatiously uxorious and dutiful (the Duke of Windsor and That Woman the notable exceptions). As Eleanor of Aquitaine so memorably said in The Lion in Winter, “What family doesn’t have its ups and downs?”

15) I’m not traveling with Uncle Bill’s copy of Harnett Kane’s Louisiana Hayride (I usually don’t), about the corrupt and bullying reign of Huey Long in Louisiana, famously ended by assassination. But his account of Long’s funeral teaches a lesson. All the people from the swamps and bayous who believed the Kingfish cared for them came to Baton Rouge for what may have been the only state funeral Louisiana has ever had. But Kane made the point that it was important for them to have that moment. And while there are a lot of problems in the UK — both with the monarchy and the government — and a lot of problems in the USA, and in every country (as a civilization we are falling apart with centrifugal force), we need this moment of pomp and circumstance and dreaming and ancient ritual. I do, anyway, and I know I’m not alone.

15a) And I needed to see Francis Dymoke. That was important to me, as a touchstone to my father and his mother, for whom that heritage was so important.

15b) I actually responded to a friend quoting Debbie Reynolds in In and Out: “I need some flowers and some placecards and some beauty. It’s like heroin.”

16) Unbelievably, it’s after 10:45 PM. Daddy needs to go to bed!

Coronation Trip, Day Four: Windsor to Start

1) The alarm that jolted me awake had been gently tinkling along for about four minutes before I realized. I felt tense and rushed through breakfast and a bit of packing (I needed to check out), but before I knew it I was out in the cool morning air en route to Windsor Castle.

2) At Richmond, the end of the line, I needed to switch to a train, which left about ten minutes later. At that hour there were so many schoolboys in blue uniforms with their packs and satchels, on their way to school. Through the train windows I actually saw lambs grazing and suckling with their ewes!

3) The station at Windsor is practically inside the castle it’s so close, but there’s a street that curves uphill to get to the entrance, lined with pubs and gift shops. I had a cup of coffee at Windsor Royal Station before going to get in line.

4) Everyone in line was quite friendly — some had just been to Paris and compared the Windsor experience favorably to the Eiffel Tower — and when it started to rain (which it did twice) people offered me shelter.

4a) That said, the line to get in was just sort of everybody — unticketed, different ticket times — and the staff could have sorted that better. (Otherwise, the staff experience was wonderful). But the item I really wish they’d had in the shop was an umbrella like the staff’s” black, large, vented, with “Windsor Castle” very plain in either white or yellow.

5) First up, the Queen’s Doll’s House and the State Apartments, which were around in back and involved waiting outside in line until they opened at 10 AM. (Why they shouldn’t be open when we arrived I do not know.)

5a) And then . . . something that could have become a Situation. Ahead of me in line I saw someone who looked vaguely familiar, and then I realized who it was: someone I had ghosted on social media almost two years ago. What are the chances?! Why did I ghost him? Well dahling, flirting online with a cute, somewhat younger man who loves china is one thing, but flirting with a radical conservative who follows conspiracy-theory-embracing politicians is quite another. In the immortal words of Miss Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time f’that!” Thank goodness we didn’t make eye contact.

6) Finalmente, we were admitted, and I have to say, the Doll’s House was amazing. But why it was exhibited in a black-dark gallery with almost no light — my goodness, is it that light-sensitive? It’s truly a work of art, and a collection of works of art.

7) Trekking upstairs to the State Apartments — where all photography is forbidden — I saw a large marble statue of a man on a staircase landing who I couldn’t recognize. The guide said it was George IV, and I replied “Oh! The artist has liberated him of about half his total weight!”

7a) Some particular works that stood out: in the Garter Throne Room, a portrait of Elizabeth II in her Garter robes and coronation gown; a gigantic malachite vase given to Queen Victoria by the Russian tsar; several exquisite gold cups, some jeweled; a portrait of Prince Philip outside Windsor carrying rolled-up architectural plans.

7b) The Waterloo Chamber, which George IV created to celebrate most of the Great Men involved in defeating Napoleon, also made an impression. Most of the portraits were by Lawrence, and the way the paintings are placarded for a minute I thought everyone’s first name was Lawrence — oopsie!

7c) To walk into St. George’s Hall, felt a bit unreal. Big as it is, it looks smaller than it does on television.

8) From the Working State Apartments (those in active use by the Royal Family), I went to the Historic State Apartments, which were occupied by Charles II and Catherine of Braganza. What richness! What a galaxy of beautiful paintings! It certainly made me think of Forever Amber in a new way, given that she was one of the mistresses of Charles II.

8a) The bed in the king’s bedroom was not that of Charles II, but a special one made or commissioned for George IV. Deliciously overdone, and probably the size of my own bedroom.

9) There was a small room displaying various china services, claustrophobically full of people, but I could have taken home much of it gladly.

10) By this time the sun was mostly out, and I wandered to the next destination, St. George’s Chapel. (This is where Edward VII and Alexandra were married, and are buried, and where Harry and Meghan were married, too.) Aside from all the pale stained glass of (I think) Garter knights, there were some really beautiful Royal memorials. First I noticed George V and Queen Mary, lying in state like the old medieval monuments but in modern dress, the lion under George’s feet and the unicorn under Mary’s. Edward and Alexandra’s monument, elsewhere, was much the same.

10a) Then there was the emotional extravagance of the memorial to Princess Charlotte, who died in childbirth. Her shrouded body lies on a block of marble while her spirit (with one breast exposed) begins to soar toward Heaven. An angel next to her bears the body of her stillborn baby. Four shrouded figures mourn at the base.

11) Walking into the quire, I was so impressed with the intimacy of the space (it looks larger on television), and it was moving to stand right by the seat where Elizabeth mourned Philip alone at his funeral.

12) Nothing interested me in the shops — to my surprise — so I rounded out my stay at a nearby pub with a spritz and a salad. And then the train home.

13) It got warm in the city, and I had an easy walk to my next hotel, the Xenia, where I stayed in 2019. And they have been so nice here! And I had such a beautiful nap.

The evening light in Kensington — this is just what I love.

14) In the evening I was invited to the Chelsea Arts Club, about 20 minutes away, to have dinner with Gail and Francis, the King’s Champion, and their friends. Gail met me outside with a big hug, and then brought me through an active, no-nonsense good mood pub to a small lawn with tables where the rest of the party were. Everyone was a delight, and I got to toast Francis with the last stanza of the Ode.

15) We were squeezed into an exuberantly full and lively dining room, and the conversation through dinner went from the coronation (obviously) to London to New York to friends to . . . oh, everything. “I couldn’t have liked it more!”

With Francis and Gail outside the Chelsea Arts Club, where photos and phones are forbidden inside.

16) Turns out Francis will not be part of the procession outside the Abbey, so now I don’t feel like I have to get up at the crack of dawn to clamber into the big seating areas near the Palace — especially as it’s going to rain midday. I will probably go to Holland Park and view things over there. But I’d better find an umbrella . . .

Coronation Trip, Day Three: Kensington Palace, Queen's Gallery, and the Mall

1) The day began early and leisurely, including some email with a friend, and then and early and leisurely promenade down Kensington High Street to the palace. I was surprised how close I’d come to it yesterday.

2) A prominent feature as I approached was a statue of William III (of William and Mary fame). How shocking to discover on its base that it was given by the Kaiser!

The staircase on which Victoria met Albert.

3) Though 15 minutes early, I was nowhere near the head of the line for my entrance time. But it was most pleasant to talk with the lady behind me, and then with her friends who joined the line just before our entrance time was opened.

4) Only after I went up the staircase did I learn that it was the one on which Victoria met Albert. Excitement!

5) Kensington Palace had three exhibition components: a special show called Crown to Couture, basically comparing Hanoverian court culture to 21st-century celebrity culture; its Jewel Room, centered around an emerald parure designed by Albert for Victoria; and Victoria: A Royal Childhood, interpreting Victoria’s early life in the rooms in which she lived.

5a) Crown to Couture felt crowded: a lot of stuff and a lot of people in what felt like complicated traffic patterns, at least at the beginning. But this exhibit was very meticulously considered, contrasting some pretty amazing court clothes — those enormous skirts! — with looks from the Met Gala.

5b) Very surprising to see a satirical illustration of a lady being laced into a corset by a grenadier, because I remember buying a reproduction of it at Colonial Williamsburg in 1980. (And I think I still have it . . . )

5c) The exhibit continued up the grand staircase, with its famous murals by William Kent into the state apartments of George I and II. So many people on that staircase taking selfies (yes, me included)! Some amazing gowns, but I confess I was a whisper more interested in the paintings, and the rooms themselves. One of the guides present started talking about the weathervane, over 300 years old, installed over one of the fireplaces.

5d) Then in the next space I was delighted to find friends! Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and a couple others.

The Fife Tiara. Must be seen to be believed. No photograph does it justice.

6) Then the Jewel Room, which is based around a central display of some stunning 19th-century pieces: an emerald parure designed for Victoria by Albert (those emeralds are amazing), and a small but dazzling tiara with “swing-set” teardrop diamonds, given to the Duchess of Fife (one of the daughters of Edward VII) as a wedding gift. One friend says it’s the most beautiful tiara of them all, and it’s easy to see why.

6a) But Crown and Couture appeared here also, in part with a stunning skull necklace.

Worn by Jason Momoa to the premiere of Aquaman.

7) The tour of Queen Victoria’s childhood rooms did something very unusual, but very appropriate considering her large collection of dolls. Little porcelain dolls were seen in every room, representing Victoria, her mother the Duchess of Kent, her evil comptroller Sir John Conroy, and others. This was done most effectively in the small ballroom where Victoria’s 17th birthday ball had been held. Half a dozen torcheres in the center of the room were all topped with dancing couples that would spin in turn!

7a) Another unexpected delight was a large toy theatre with a recording of Donizetti’s I Puritani playing in the background, one of her favorites.

Look how charming this is! The doll sitting on the books represents Princess Victoria.

8) Walking to an outside table at the café, a gust of wind blew most of my chips away.

9) Before I left the palace, I did go into the sunken garden that has now been dedicated to Princess Diana. While I’m not a fan of the statue, the garden itself is very beautiful, and its scent becomes present as soon as you walk into it. Overall it is a lovely and touching memorial.

10) I took a slow and stately promenade through Kensington Gardens to my next destination and was delighted or surprised by: a) enormous swans preening themselves, b) the sudden appearance of the Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall, c) a sign indicating that I had just walked the famous Rotten Row, d) the Wellington Arch (which I recognized from Korda’s 1947 film of An Ideal Husband with Paulette Goddard, Michael Wilding, and costumes by Cecil Beaton) . . . and then finally, a corner of Buckingham Palace.

11) My goodness, all the hoopla in front of the palace! But I didn’t pause, because my next destination was almost upon me: the Queen’s Gallery and its special exhibition, Dressing the Georgians.

12) I must say, the staff at the Queen’s Gallery could not have been nicer or more delightful. If you are ever in London, you must go. I was early for my ticket time, and set off the metal detector twice, and they still made me feel absolutely welcome.

13) And then — rounding a corner I could not believe my eyes. There, in front of me talking to one of his many fans, was Zack Pinsent, Regency tailor and social media celebrity. I have admired him since the BBC documentary about him came out in 2018 (I remember about 25 people messaged me on ye Fycebykke “Robert, you have to see this guy!” or “This made me think of you!”). And there he was, six feet away explain to a Man Older Than I that he had just popped in to show his dad around.

The most unexpected and thrilling part of my day.

13a) I did finally work the nerve to interrupt — “Please forgive me . . . ” — and both he and his father could not have been more gracious. We talked for a minute or two about the exhibitions, and then his father took our photo. After that I had to return to the entrance of that room to view the parts of the exhibit I missed, but I was unable to concentrate due to Fanboy Bliss for about five minutes.

14) This exhibition, which followed the evolution of court fashion through the Hanoverians, also yielded a lot of familiar portraits, mostly of the daughters of George III. Mercy, these paintings are huge! That said, in general this family was not very fashion forward.

15) Bonus: the curator gave a talk about men’s wigs which interested me more than I expected.

Princess Charlotte’s silver wedding gown.

16) Leaving the gallery, I returned to the Mall so I could see all the coronation preparations, and all the crowds. Already there are people out in pup tents, enormous sets of bleachers, gigantic flags looking very fresh and clean. I called Craig while I wandered about, and eventually ended up passing through the Horse Guards entrance to the Real World.

17) By this time my feet had already died, and eventually I ended up in the Horse and Guardsman Pub near Trafalgar Square for an old fashioned in memory of Tyler Fitzgerald and a steak and ale pie. And I thought, “How am I supposed to eat this thing?!” And I knew Etiquetteer would say “Without attracting attention!” Which is true, but not particularly helpful.

18) Back in my room, I packed up again. I have to leave very early for Windsor (why did I book a 9:30 ticket?), and then I switch hotels, and then I have a dinner engagement.

Coronation Trip, Day Two: Tate and Kensington

1) Marriotts That Include Breakfast may always be guaranteed to offer miniature chocolate croissants, and I am so grateful.

2) Today was entirely unscheduled — thank goodness, as my flight plans changed — and suddenly I thought “Why not go to the Tate?” And wouldn’t you know it, they have a special exhibition about the Rossettis on, which made it a natural choice.

3) One might think that the London Underground would be like the MBTA, or even the New York subway. But it is really like the commuter rail, with travel zones and comparable pricing.

4) It will not surprise you to learn that I arrived at the Tate just a whisper before opening. Sitting on a stone bench contemplating some homoerotic statuary, I couldn’t help but notice an elderly lady drifting about it my vicinity. She had signs of colorful eccentricity about her: knitted cap with silk roses pinned to it, three inches of blue-green paisley skirt showing beyond the hem of her Carnaby Street-ish coat (white dots on narrow black), and the telltale warning sign for me: unsteady eye liner. And I thought to myself “Please, please do not speak to me.”

Homoerotic statue outside the Tate.

4a) She spoke to me.

4b) And you know, we had a lovely conversation. No, she was not here from Australia for the coronation, just to see family, but it was so cold and she loved the Rossettis. So that was an unexpectedly pleasant start to my Tate visit!

5) The family visited the Tate when we were here that Christmas (it must have been 1987), and I was surprised that all I could remember of it was a) its size, and b) Millais’s famous Ophelia, of which I bought the poster in the gift shop. Turns out I remembered the size wrong, too; some of the galleries are vast, but overall the museum is not that large.

I thought I had taken more pictures in the Rossetti exhibition.

6) Overall, what I saw fell into four categories: a) Marvelous, b) I Never Would Have Thought of That, c) Why Is This Art? (also It’s Not Art Just Because They Say So), and d) I’d Appreciate This More If My Feet Didn’t Hurt So Much. Most of the Rossetti exhibition fell into the first category; it took me an hour to see all of it, beautiful and thought-provoking. The last, sadly, was much of their dazzling collection of JMW Turner, which is beautifully presented. But I was seeing it at the very end.

Often modern art is best repurposed as a background for selfies.

6a) So often during this museum visit I would remember friends or others with whom I’ve talked about art, and what they love. One friend loves Mark Rothko, and there was a beautiful Rothko very sensibly hung in a room full of Turners. Another once told me he wanted to be buried at sea, and there was a moving Turner painting of just that. The Rossetti exhibition started out with poetry about mothers and children, which made me think of my precious great-niece and her mamma.

This, on the other hand, is marvelous.

7) So often I thought about my father, too, because like him, I am beginning to look for places to sit down. (Also, I have returned to size 36.) With no clear plans for the rest of the day, I knew I must indulge in my favorite vice that’s so risky in public: napping. And so I did, like a block of wood, for over 45 minutes.

Marvelous.

8) In the late afternoon I wandered over to Kensington High Street for a little promenade and window shopping. Of course a bookstore would enter into this, and I walked out of a Waterstone’s with 1939: the Last Season by Ann de Courcy. So far it is a lot less on debutantes and a lot more on social conditions, but I have hopes.

9) I noticed a smart café with a sign identifying it as The Ivy. “Not The Ivy, is it?” I asked myself, thinking of the one that keeps turning up in theatrical memoirs and that Noel Coward mentions in a few of his stories (like “Star Quality.”) Turns out probably not, but I had a sumptuous little dinner there, absolutely tossing aside my good intentions to pick up something prepared from Tesco. Travel must allow for spontaneity.

9a) First, an Old British cocktail (gin, elderflower, mint, lime, and champagne) and a first course of asparagus and hollandaise. Then a bacon cheeseburger with some amazing fri — uh, chips — that had a pale tomato horseradishy business with them. Halfway through that my second drink arrived, their King’s Martini in honor of the coronation: Beefeater Crown Jewel, Aker English Dry apertif, Pierre Ferrand, garnished with a grapefruit twist (which I made them switch to a lemon for me). WOW. It’s worth noting that they serve their martinis in high-stemmed coupe glasses.

9b) And then for dessert, a chocolate bombe set in a sea of foamy meringue, over which the waiter poured a small pitcher of hot caramel sauce, melting the chocolate shell of the bombe to reveal the vanilla ice cream within. Not just dessert, it’s dinner theatre!

9c) It just kills me that they had a no photography policy, but I was not tempted to violate it — except to photograph the signs in the lobby.

10) I thought about rambling through a nearby bit of Holland Park, but it was too cold for my jacket. But walking home I saw the most beautiful white camellias!

11) Tomorrow, Kensington Palace and the Queen’s Gallery at Buck House!

Coronation Trip, Day One: Flight to London

“I wish you’d forget this zeppelin crap and come on over for the coronation!” — Ruth Kobart as Hattie in The Hindenburg (1975)

1) In the pre-dawn hours — because one can never be sure — I summoned a Lyft to bring me to Terminal E at Logan. Ridesharing apps have definitely made early-morning flights easier. In my distant neighborhood taxi service was not just unreliable, it was arrogantly unreliable. Now I can get to the airport in relative calm.

1a) And one doesn’t have to be anxious about what the final cost will be. That said, when drivers only drive to the GPS, one has to wonder just what the computer is teaching them. (Translation: where the hell are we?!)

2) Easy check-in, though I did note the trainee checking my passport and boarding pass. I experienced the creative tension between wanting to express compassion for someone learning a new and complicated job vs. the frantic anxiety that any momentary delay of any kind in processing my documents might indicate I cannot board my flight. Then I faced a mostly empty terminal for an hour — bliss.

2a) That frantic anxiety returned when I could not find my passport in the appropriate pocket moments before my boarding group was called; it was in another pocket.

3) An uneventful flight of six hours found me either discovering that I had been napping because my head had fallen forward, or reading The New York Review of Books on a wide variety of subjects I wouldn’t necessarily have put in front of my eyes — mostly artists from Baya to Dave the Potter to Piranesi.

3a) They feed you rather well on BA in whatever their designation for steerage is, and the staff were all very pleasant. One of the attendants had a really marvelous baby pink manicure.

3b) Interestingly on this flight, there seemed to me several moments when half the passengers felt the need to congregate in the aisle directly behind me. Like the Swallows of Capistrano, every half hour or so someone in the row behind me had to stand up just as the flight attendant was about to pass. My shoulders notice these things.

4) I expected the usual British customs interview with someone like the nice old lady who chatted with me on my visit in 2019 — very Barbara Pym — but now it’s all machines and face recognition.

5) On my very first trip to London (Christmas, 1987 or 1988), my sister met me and we took the Tube into the city. This time I knew I needed to get a bus — but you can’t just pay on the bus, the nice man at the curb explained, you have to get your ticket from a machine in the terminal. And then the bus driver was SO NICE and dropped me right by my hotel — which I had thought was a scheduled stop on that route and wasn’t! I felt like Lucy Ricardo’s mother. “Mother, the bus doesn’t stop here!” “Well, the driver told me he would drop me here as long as I promised never to take another New York City bus again.”

5a) Yes, I tipped him.

6) No one at this hotel (the guests I mean) is at all excited about the coronation, and the only visible hoopla was a Union Jack by the front desk.

7) By this time Daddy needed some food and drink, and got squeezed into the bar at the Italian place around the corner for arancini, salmon, and green beans, and some mild rosé. No one had a British accent. They were all Italian (the staff) or American (“We watch Stanley Tucci’s show . . . We’ve been drinking all day, so we need focaccia.”)

8) The adventure really begins tomorrow, which so far is unscheduled!

Coronation Plans

“I wish you’d forget this zeppelin crap and come on over for the coronation!” — Ruth Kobart as Hattie in The Hindenburg (1975)

Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone. — John Ciardi

1) A couple days ago it was finally announced that Francis Dymoke, the King’s Champion, will bear the Royal Standard in the coronation procession of King Charles III on May 6. I made plans to be there as soon as the date was announced in October, and have been on tenterhooks waiting for this confirmation. Now I have to figure out just exactly where I can elbow my way in for a view of the procession on the sidewalk with the rest of the hoi polloi.

2) Throughout my preparations I have been thinking a lot about my Granny Dimmick, for whom this would have meant a great deal, and her mother Alice Vivian. (Those who have already listened patiently to the Dimmick genealogy may skip ahead; those who who have listened impatiently already have 😉.) Early in my childhood my Granny impressed on me and my sister* that we were descended from the Dymokes, the Champions of the Kings of England. Turns out Thomas Dimmock, who helped settle Barnstable, was the first one in the colonies. We were taught that he deliberately changed the spelling of his name to disassociate from the family in England.

Henry Dymoke, championing away at the coronation of 1821. It’s all about accessorizing.

2a) Just what is a King’s Champion? William the Conquerer first created the position. Over time the Champion’s role fighting the sovereign’s personal battles was reduced to a ceremonial appearance at the coronation banquet, riding in on a white horse to throw down the gauntlet three times as a challenge to any present. When Queen Victoria’s coronation came along, there wasn’t enough money for a banquet (those Hanoverians and their appetites!), so (I believe) the Champion’s role was reduced to leading the procession into the Abbey bearing the Royal Standard.

2a) The role of Champion is associated with the estate of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire, where the Dymokes still live. Childhood Me was thrilled when my cousin Hal actually got to visit there about 50 years ago. Granny was overjoyed with the large brass rubbing he did of Sir Robert Dymoke’s memorial in the little church there, and the special album Hal created for her. I was thrilled when I got to visit Scrivelsby in 2013, something I never ever expected to get to do.

3) So, this Dymoke ancestry was very important to Granny. As important to her and her sisters was their descent from Fielding Lewis, George Washington’s brother-in-law (through his second wife Betty) who sacrificed his fortune to run the foundry for the Continental Army during the Revolution, and was therefore their ticket into the DAR. (We are descended from Fielding’s son John by his first wife, Catherine Washington, who was George’s first cousin.)

4) I have been asking myself why would these grand and very distant associations mean so much to my grandmother, and to her mother? Alice Vivian was the daughter of a Confederate general who died in 1862, so it’s easy to assume that they declined from a position of some affluence to . . . to something substantially less than that. Then of course she married a man who didn’t seem to do much but sit around and read the newspapers (accounts vary), so to keep body and soul (and seven children) together, Alice Vivian had to run a boardinghouse in New Orleans. Even with a cook, a hall boy, and six daughters to help out, that’s a lot of work!** It may be that this was one way Alice Vivian could assert her claims to gentility, better than just a landlady.

My grandmother’s family sometime in the 1940s. Top row L to R: Granny (Mary Ella), Jim, Johnnie, Kate (for Kathleen Mavourneen); bottom row L to R: Bess (or Sister), Sister (or Bess), their father John Anthony Evans, and Fannie.

4a) By all accounts Alice Vivian was a strong character, and so were all her daughters. I never knew Fannie or Sister or Bess, but I had my granny right next door growing up, and we saw Kate and Lal (widowed and sharing a house) fairly often, and Johnnie (who lived in Tennessee) on rare visits. They all had that big Evans smile, which was inherited by my father and his siblings, and to a degree by me.

5) So perhaps this trip is as much an homage to my granny as for my own enjoyment. And I am certainly determined to enjoy it! While I’m on the island, I’ll also visit, in chronological order: Kensington Palace, the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle; my friends in Coventry/Kenilworth; Bath (which is to say Bahth, not Baath or Bawth), including No. 1 Royal Crescent, the Roman Baths, and the Pump Room (which features in Jane Austen’s Persuasion); and back in London, tea at Fortnum’s, a Royal Opera performance of my beloved Aïda, and Hampton Court. Wish me luck on this orgy of history!

*My older cousins may have been spared slightly as Granny and Grampa lived next door to us. It’s quite something to have grandparents right next door.

**Aunt Kate, the youngest, once told me that in the evenings after dinner there could be up to 40 people sitting around in the parlor: two parents, seven children, and around 30 boarders, who I gather were often Tulane Medical students. She said they’d hold their seats as long as they could because as soon as someone made a move for the door, they’d be met with a chorus of “And while you’re up, could you get me . . .”

Monday Afternoon, 27 March

1) According to the internet, today is Gloria Swanson’s birthday. Instead of returning to my beloved Sunset Boulevard, let’s enjoy her vocal hit of 1929, “Love, Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere,” as seen in her film The Trespasser. Skip past the musical introduction to 00:25 for Gloria, honking away at the piano. I love this.

1a) Ben Selvin did a dance band version, which I also love.

2) A quick roam through the Athenaeum this morning yielded some treasures: The Correct Thing in Good Society (which I have borrowed before), Lars Porcena, or The Future of Swearing and Improper Language, by Robert Graves; Don’t: A Manual of Mistakes and Improprieties more or less prevalent in Conduct and Speech (1883), of which I have a newer edition; and, in preparation for my coronation trip a month (!) from now, George V: Never a Dull Moment, by Jane Ridley; and at long last, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

2a) I have always avoided Pride and Prejudice, mostly because everyone else just flocks to it. Emma and Persuasion have had my allegiance all this time. But since I will be spending a couple days in Bath, I feel like I must read it before I go.

2b) Also, the 1940 movie version with Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Marsha Hunt, Ann Rutherford, Karen Morley, Melville Cooper, and my beloved Edna May Oliver, has softened me toward it. Yes, I know, I know — it is inaccurate to the wildest possible degree! not least in its use of hoopskirts. But we must remember that they’d just made Gone With the Wind the previous year and had all those hoopskirts lying around in the wardrobe . . .

3) My Little Green Card was not in my wallet when I opened it at ye Ryche Brys supermarket. Instantly I knew I would have to return to the Scene of my Lunch, the Back Deck, to retrieve it. All I had to do was walk in the door — resplendent in white spring overcoat, pale green bow tie, and burgundy fedora — for the Nice Young Barman to turn toward the register. I didn’t even have to say “I believe you have something for me!” It seems my card was the talk of the bar, as two young men there joined in the general rejoicing, as well as complimented me on my turnout.

Wednesday, 22 March -- Midday

1) All I really want to do today is sit here and eat cheese. There are pros and cons to that.

2) Last night a friend came over for dinner to explain heat pumps to me — thank goodness, as I missed that course in mechanical engineering . . . and all those other engineering courses. Reviewing the only proposal I’ve received so far, the vendor a) overestimated my square footage by over 40%, b) did not specify removal of the existing furnace, and c) proved that I’m going to have to learn a new vocabulary to comprehend what is being shared. I am clearly going to have to go into Hotel Contract Review Mode from my days at ye Instytytte to be sure that nothing is overlooked.

2a) Once again, I have a reason to be grateful for the many, many people in my life who know more than I do and are willing to share their knowledge with me.

2b) Very successful menu: poached salmon (I must remember to put it on the stove and forget about it more often), “Scottish” risotto, Italian comfort food using Scots-identified ingredients like whiskey and dill (and smoked salmon, which I omitted this time); and boiled asparagus. My guest brought orange marmalade cakes, which were amazingly good served warm.

3) Finally finished the second volume of Chips Channon’s diaries, all 1,000+ pages of it, covering 1938-1943. If he wasn’t swanning about with the Duchess of Kent or dining with the great hostesses Emerald Cunard, Laura Corrigan, and Mrs. Greville, he was “frolicking” with his brother-in-law, taking Turkish baths with half of Parliament, or pining for his lover in India.

3a) Unread books stack up like firewood in this house, and I’ve now started on one I picked up someplace last year: Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler, by Anne Nelson. A very different sort of WWII story from Chips’s!

Saturday, 18 March -- At Random

1) Today would have been Gramma’s 121st birthday, since she was 81 when she died in July, 1983. Forty years ago. I can’t wish her still with us — she was truly failing — but there is always something I want to share with her, some beautiful thing or new piece of information.

2) What software engineers call “updates” I call “removing functionality.” Stop it.

3) My horoscope said that March would be more social for me, and that has certainly proved true. Working on a column today on free speech vs. civility because tomorrow I’m violating my No Scheduling rule twice: brunch with friends from out of town, and then two local friends coming to my place for dinner. But rules are for breaking, and life is for living! Accommodation must be made.

3a) My two informal rules for writing days (usually Sundays and Wednesday) are to schedule nothing, not even a grocery delivery or a trip to the dry cleaners, and to complete something significant by 11 AM. The latter defines whether or not it’s been a good day.

Monday, 6 March -- New York, Day Last/The Morning After

This might be the Get Off My Lawn day during my trip.

Yesterday evening, one of my English friends chided me (somewhat) gently about spending the day in the lounge and not exploring. “You’re getting old!” he said. “Admitted!” I replied.

1) The Moxy Times Square is one of a young, hip brand of hotels run by Myrriot, with what I’d call all the modern inconveniences. In the summer of 2021 I stayed at the one on 28th Street and enjoyed it. This time, while the room I was in had its charms — and the shower was amazing — the bed had to be entered from the foot because that’s how wide the room was. The a/c vents immediately behind the headboard blasted out arctic air at intervals, even though the thermostat was set to 76. As a writer, what I really missed was a desk and chair.

1a) But the bed was super-comfortable, and as I mentioned, the shower was amazing, and it was for only one night.

2) After combat in the café next door for coffee and a breakfast sandwich, I spent the morning reading and writing, and packing, and then used up the rest of my “destination fee” for a couple sandwiches in the café.

3) Since my lunch engagement had been canceled, I was then able to wheel my luggage to a favorite New York destination: the Metropolitan Lounge of the Moynihan Train Hall. And I spent a delightful afternoon writing, working out some details for my next trip, and spending a little more time than usual on social media. It was wonderful.

3a) I hadn’t been there in nine months, and it was interesting to see both that the bar had finally been completed and opened, and the banter of the bartender with some regular travelers.

4) The staff (all of them wonderful) have perfected the procedure of getting first class passengers to the platform before general boarding. Now an usher lines everyone up at the escalator, escorts everyone down at once, opens the barrier at the escalator, and sends us down before the track is even announced. It couldn’t have been smoother.

5) Bourbon and soda, stuffed chicken dinner, and a little nap while I watched The Rains Came through my ear buds. Before I knew it, we were home!

6) By the time I walked through my front door, the Little Formless Fears* had started to take over, anxieties about having done or said the wrong thing, or in such a way that I could be easily misconstrued. At least they didn’t impact my sleep too badly.

7) Overall, an action-packed trip including partying with the 20-somethings on Wednesday, Edward Hopper, the Stonewall Inn, and an amazing choral concert on Thursday; the joy of Interlochen community (and prosecco) Friday night, the joy of my hosts and their friends over dinner on Saturday (what at evening!), and mass on Sunday, followed by getting a giant rainbow wig lobbed at me during drag bingo. In the words of the late Noel Coward, “I couldn’t have liked it more.” But I am exhausted. “Aging actress, yesterday’s glamor queen . . . “ yup that’s me!

8) “There’s got to be a morning after,” as that unfortunate song goes, and mine has been marked by the usual post-trip tasks: writing a Lovely Note to my hosts, laundry, poor customer service from ye Vyrizyn, housecleaning, and moving almost every piece of furniture in the dining room to replace the light bulbs — much of it to Pod Save America and Lawrence of Arabia. And I finally, two months later, took out all the decaying Christmas holly that had been petrifying in vases.

9) Now I can think about the spring: home improvements, more socializing, more writing, and preparations for my trip to England in May for the coronation of Charles III. It’s going to be a busy two months!

*From Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, which I read in college.

Sat-Sun, 4-5 March -- New York, Days Four and Five

1) My breakfast in the hotel breakfast room had an extra serving of drama halfway through, when an angry father (grandfather?) and a little boy sat near me. It seems the little boy had wandered or run away — it wasn’t clear to me where or how long the search had taken — but the father was understandably exercised.

1a) He then said something about going to a museum, and the little boy said “I don’t want to go to the museum.” And it thought, wow, it takes guts or no brains to say that after the dressing-down he just got.

2) After returning to my hosts in Brooklyn, the previous evening’s prosecco caught up with me, and I retired first to the rectory library to work on a column, and then to bed with an ibuprofen. Because I knew I had to be on my best behavior for the evening’s dinner party.

3) Without knowing it, when my hosts arranged their home full of antiques, china, silver, framed photographs, books, and marvelous paintings, they recreated something of the atmosphere of the home of my great-aunts on Moss Street back in Lago di Carlo. That’s always my goal in my own home, of course, but theirs is spotlessly clean — not a speck of dust anywhere — whereas in my house I could practically name the dust bunnies.

4) The resulting evening could not have been more perfect, not least because my hosts handled everything with such poise, from a variety of cocktails to a dry-brined 20-pound turkey. (I envy them their poise; I can’t quite seem to pull that off at my own dinners.) Of the eight gentlemen around the table, I was the oldest by a good 20 years. Conversation took many delightful turns, but sometimes the best part of table talk is only the stimulating impression in left rather than specific recall.

4a) When it was over, one of my hosts commented that “You plan something for days and days, and then in a only a couple hours, it’s all over.” Which kind of distills my career in event planning. “But the memory lingers on,” as the old song goes, and that night provided happy ones.

5) Sunday morning I did stay for mass, which included some impressive Duruflé. There was more in the service to touch my mind than I expected, and I ended up taking Communion for the first time in I can’t even say how long.

6) In the late afternoon, installed in the city, I joined some Interlochen friends for drag bingo at Pieces on Christopher Street. It was mortifying not to recognize someone I’ve known for years (I blame both the pandemic and a backwards baseball cap, but still . . . ), and then it was unexpected that the hostess, Miss Chaka Khanvict, threw her first wig at me during her opening number. But then, as I say so often, Travel is so broadening.

7) Perhaps it was being hit by that wig, but my imagination just ran dry as I was leaving Pieces with no clear plans, so I drifted back to Boucherie for dinner, and then to my hotel. It must be time to head home, because when you run out of ideas in New York, why are you even there?

8) But really, this trip has included wonderful friends, both from high school and Boston; amazing music, generous and flawless hospitality, religious contemplation, and assault with a giant rainbow wig, so I have nothing to complain about — and I know it.

Friday, 3 March -- New York, Day Three

1) Very late in the morning — very late — I trotted off to the F train with my laptop and overnight bag for the Lexington. I knew I didn’t want to have to trek all the way back to Brooklyn after a late concert. En route, I had the first of four New York Experiences, on the 6 train. A man sitting near me, fast asleep, almost fell on me when the train jolted. That got him awake, to be sure! We had some incoherent banter (because I couldn’t understand what he was saying, not because his speech was impaired), and I signed off with “Safe travels, dude,” and got the hell outta there.

2) New York Experience II, after I checked in, was going to Phil’s Stationery near my hotel to look for some hard-to-find pen cartridges. Phil’s, on 47th Street, felt promising as soon as I walked in, as the back of the store appeared in complete chaos, and the elderly gentleman in the black velvet yarmulke took no nonsense, but with a twinkle in his eye. My first request, for some Parker refills, didn’t impress him much. “But,” I continued, “I need your help with a couple more unusual requests.” He looked me dead in the eye and said “Then I think you’ve come to the right place for something unusual.”

2a) On the off chance that I’d find a good stationery store, I’d packed three pens that needed refills. The second was a rosewood felt tip pen by Hallmark that my cousin Margie Bess Tims gave me when I graduated from high school. The gentleman was impressed but “Ohhh, you need a Hallmark nib for that,” with some regret, as they are difficult to come by, even on eBay. So that was that.

2b) The third pen, a hexagonal brass pen with a screw-off magnetic cap — well, we sweated over that darn thing about 20 minutes! For this I ended up working with the other gentleman in the store, wearing a green T-shirt and missing a few teeth. I knew the cartridges weren’t standard, and everything he pulled out of almost every drawer (it is amazing the breadth of stuff they have) — well, the thing was just a fraction of a hair too wide to fit into the point thingy on the pen. Eventually he jury-rigged something, but there were moments when I just wanted to say “I don’t need to understand it, I just need it to work, LOL!”

2b.1) Also, the near-continuous banter back and forth between them, and then between the three of us — more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

2c) Checking out, I finally remembered to show them the first pen, made from the original stage flooring of Boston Symphony Hall, a gift from the Boston Pops staff when I left ye Instytytte. He said “If I had my camera, I’d take a picture of that.”

3) New York Experience III took place walking back to my hotel. At Lexington and 47th (I think), just as pedestrians were starting across the street, a skateboarder zoomed through the crowd. A man in his 40s, dressed in a below-the-knee white faux-sheepskin coat, long untidy salt-and-pepper hair, unshaven, and of course loudly complaining about the world. Clearly one Viking helmet away from an insurrectionist. He was nearly hit by an oncoming SUV — I was sure I was about to witness a fatality — but the vehicle stopped in time and the dude swerved just enough. Crazy, man!

4) Met my friend Julien for a midafternoon snack at the Smith. He and I hadn’t had a chance to catch up in about 300 years, and the stories were sparkling and multidirectional.

5) It will not surprise you to learn that I was half an hour early for dinner at my favorite New York restaurant, Café Luxembourg. But it was an opportunity to squeeze into a barstool and enjoy a Three Naked Ladies cocktail, always bracing. But oof, even at 5 PM, this place is crowded to bursting! I wasn’t sure they could shoehorn any more people in.

6) Austin and his BF Vance joined me for dinner, which for me consisted of a manhattan, half a dozen oysters, duck confit (I’d never make that at home) with another manhattan, and coffee. Thank goodness I took a pass on dessert!

7) We ankled over to Geffen Hall through noticeably chillier streets. And what joy, almost the first person I saw inside the lobby was my friend Kate; we last saw each other at graduation! We used to share a voice lesson with Mrs. Jones (Interlochen trivia: before there was an actual musical theatre program, all the theatre majors who took voice lessons were sent to Mrs. Jones.) So Kate was a big part of my senior year. Seeing her, she quite literally has not changed. And there were other friends to greet, and the insanity of having arrived about five minutes before curtain.

8) As to the concert. Well. I admit I hadn’t read up on what the program would be. All I remembered was that the orchestra was being sent to perform with the New York Philharmonic, and that there would be the world premiere of something called Mukti. I won’t attempt to describe it, but it certainly demonstrated the energy and vigor that Interlochen students have always brought to the stage.

8a) There was also luggage without wheels, mannequins with lampshades for heads, and an emotional support dog on stage.

9) The reception afterward — we did not keep our seats until the applause ended, and so got first dibs on the prosecco and macarons — was a joyous mob scene, and it was thrilling to catch up with a few folks, including a couple Etiquetteer readers. I was truly sorry to see the evening end, but our herd of black sheep remains strong, and we get stronger every time we renew contact.

10) The true advantage of the tote bag I had been given at the volunteer gathering Wednesday night was to use it for my galoshes on Friday. I knew it would rain, and I was just not going to let it ruin my shoes. Still, I didn’t win any grace and poise awards trying to stretch them over my brown oxfords. Oof.

11) New York Experience IV would probably be opening a cab door on a rainy night and discovering that there are actually people in there. Oopsie!

11) I did eventually get a cab — very nice cabby — and shambled into my hotel room about midnight, after an amazing day of friends and school spirit and New York Experiences.

Thursday, 2 March -- New York, Day Two

1) After a relaxed morning with very good coffee, I headed into the city to see Edward Hopper’s New York at the Whitney before it closes on Sunday. But first, an early lunch at La Pecora Bianca nearby: chicken paillard with greens and a glass of rosé, preceded by fried zucchini. I may have to write a column about that fried zucchini, because . . . how on earth do you eat them?

1a) After having hosted my first etiquette dinner in three years two weeks ago, I felt mildly virtuous when I realized I had spilled a dab of tomato sauce on the front of my dress shirt (where it could not be hidden). I did not panic, I kept calm, dipped a corner of my napkin into my water glass, and dabbed away the stain, just like Etiquetteer taught me.

2) The Whitney was jammed with culture-mad New Yorkers, most of them older than I. One old lady purposefully moved past the two young women at the entrance. The one closest to me called after her, “You’re supposed to show your ticket before you enter the museum!” “We’ve already been in, I’m just going to the ladies room,” replied the other, who turned and proceeded downstairs even though the staff clearly expected her to return with her ticket.

2a) Without intending to, I proceeded to make things more difficult for her because I was mistakenly two minutes early for my timed-entry ticket. Let’s just say she wasn’t happy with me either.

2b) If you go: essential amenities like coat check and restrooms are inside the museum and cannot be accessed until your timed entry. Not very visitor-friendly, but that’s how the building was designed.

2c) My own impatience led me to huff and puff up six flights of stairs to the exhibition, which left me feeling a glow. I’m clearly going to have to go into training for the coronation in May.

3) The Hopper show was a breath of air to dispel cultural cobwebs. Some of his most famous paintings, as one would expect, but many unexpected delights. His viewpoint from above showed the influence of the long-vanished elevated trains. One included a nursery maid (described as a “caregiver” on the card, which is not how she’d’ve been described when Hopper painted the painting), pushing a baby carriage, her blue wimple-style headdress blowing behind her. A woman next to me was telling her husband it was a nun, but I pointed out that nurses and nursemaids very often had caps like that back in the 1920s. “Look in all those Busby Berkeley musical numbers,” I told them. “There’s usually at least one someplace in there.” I was thinking of 42nd Street and the “Pettin’ in the Park” number in Gold Diggers of 1933.

4) The Hoppers were theatregoers, and in the room of his theatre paintings (wonderful) they backed a long padded bench with a row of their ticket stubs. They not only saved them, they wrote the name of the play on each one! At far right, “Hamlet (Gielgud)” showed that they saw the greatest Hamlet of his generation in his New York run.

Sailors and Floozies.

5) The galleries were very full of paintings and people, so I found more breathing room in the permanent collection, as well as Paul Cadmus’s famous Sailors and Floozies and another of his paintings.

6) I also popped into No Existe: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurrican Maria, not really expecting much, but very much drawn into some political protest graphic design that packed a punch.

7) With several hours to fill before my next engagement, I took on the pose of a flâneur and just strolled faux-aimlessly at a stately pace about town, but always in the direction of the Stonewall Memorial. And then I ended up just hanging out, for the first time, inside the famous Stonewall Inn, not least because I found an outlet where I could recharge my phone. I nursed a mild bourbon and soda, read bits of Being Dead Is No Excuse, and exchanged thoughts and ideas with a couple Instagram friends. The vibe was very relaxed.

8) In the evening, a choral concert at St. Luke in the Fields, “The Golden Age of Portuguese Music,” which I attended with my hosts. A professional ensemble of twelve voices gave us an uninterrupted hour of beautiful, brooding, meditative harmonies. The interior of St. Luke in the Fields is bright white and unadorned, but the music kept suggesting to me darker and richer spaces like the churches I saw in Spain last year, particularly El Escorial.

8a) Earlier in the day, texting with a friend who knows music of this sort, he said “Great program! And so rarely performed.” My humorous reply: “I hope I’m not about to find out why.” Instead, I found out how wonderful it was.

9) Post-concert dinner at nearby La Boucherie: Sazeracs, pâté en croûte, a savory cassoulet with a light red wine, and then Paris-Brest for dessert.

Sometimes modern art is really best as a background for selfies.

Wednesday, 1 March -- New York, Day One

1) One feature of aging: sleeping badly the night before travel. I ended up starting the day at 4:45, well before the 9:15 departure of my train. The advantage: being able to proceed in relative calm, knowing I had acres of time to do what needed to be done.

2) I was able to write and publish a column on the trip down to New York. The atmosphere on a train isn’t always conducive to writing. Not in the quiet car this trip, I was surrounded by people on conference calls; the lady sitting next to me was actually on a Zoom call for about 20 minutes, but at least she was off camera. It amused me to realize that, whatever conversation I was overhearing, they were all of an identical anonymous corporate language. I couldn’t distinguish anything to identify an industry, field, or occupation!

2a) It all sounded so dead.

3) Then whoosh, off to Brooklyn from Herald Square in a pungent kaff kaff F train. Very few people seem to be masking still on the subway, but Excessive Personal Odor is still a very good reason to mask.

4) Every time I arrive to stay with my friends in Brooklyn (this is the third time I have been their guest), I think of the Countess Olenska going to Skuytercliff to stay with the van der Luydens in the Age of Innocence: “. . . and these kind friends have taken me in . . . You were right in telling me how kind they were; I feel myself so safe here.” A cup of tea and half an hour of conversation is such a calm way to begin a trip to New York.

5) Those, and a NAP. Mercy, having been up so early!

6) And then some minor plastic surgery, and off on the F train to a gathering of Interlochen volunteers. Arriving at Holiday Cocktail Lounge, I learned there had been some debate as to whether or not I’d’ve been the first person there. In fact, I wasn’t; another volunteer who had to leave early showed up five minutes before I did.

7) By the end of the gathering, the joint was jumping, as they say, and I had met some engaging personalities in the younger generation of Interlochen volunteers. We are in good hands.

7a) The real bonus for me, of course, was that the presiding genius of the lounge was my old schoolfellow Drew, who with secrecy and some ceremony presented me with a deep-fried Oreo. All I can say is, bury me with a halo of deep-fried Oreos.

7b), Also, oh my God, the deviled eggs there are beyond ambrosia. Om nom nom.

8) Back at home with my hosts en pyjama as Chips Channon would have said, we got to catch up and talk about Massachusetts museums, 19th-century interiors, and Things of That Ilk, and of course books.

9) For bedtime reading I was handed Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. And I did read the first chapter before I turned out the lights. Very amusing, but it’s mighty clear that Lake Charles is not even close to the Mississippi Delta. Still, there was more than a whiff of my granny and her sisters, the atmosphere of their homes, and their ideas of How Things Were Done. That said, I do have to wonder how many of the stories given are factual. They name names!

Wednesday, 8 February -- Mary, Queen of Scots

1) My friend Miss Percy reminded me that today is the anniversary of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, when he sent this article from the NYT about recently decoded letters of hers discovered in France. Of course the first thing I thought of was the notoriously funny “Death of Mary Queen of Scots” by Monty Python, to which I was introduced by friends in college. “Aw thynke she’s daid.” “No Ay’m nawt.”

2) But my love of Mary goes back much further and is more serious than that. When Mother and Daddy got us the World Book Encyclopedia in 1972 or 1973, I learned about not just the Presidents and First Ladies, but also Mary. My vague memories of what interested me about her then were her becoming queen as a baby six days old, being raised in France and then returning to Scotland as a widow, her second marriage to Darnley, deposition, being forced to accept the “hospitality” of Elizabeth, and of course her execution.

3) My father’s parents were not readers, but I have their copy of Best Loved Poems of the American People, which included “Mary, Queen of Scots,” by a Scottish poet, Henry Glassford Bell. (I believe, in fact, that it’s the only reason his name remains known to history.) The pictures he painted of Mary’s life — growing up in a French convent with her four friends, her marriage to Francis, the murder of Rizzio, etc. — enchanted me as a boy. Also his device after the first stanza of beginning all the others “The scene was changed.”

3a) A sample of his product: “No marvel that the lady wept? it was the land of France,
The chosen home of chivalry, the garden of romance!
The past was bright, like those dear hills so far behind her bark;
The future, like the gathering night, was ominous and dark!”

3b) Later, of course, one discovers that he didn’t have all his facts quite straight, but perhaps not badly enough to revoke his Poetic License.

4) In college I haunted Boston Book Annex near Park Drive; indeed, I still have several of the books I bought there then. After I had devoured Stefan Zweig’s Marie Antoinette: Portrait of an Average Woman, I was thrilled to stumble upon his Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles. Now we get more into the jeweled fiery heart of the matter! Zweig paints a dramatic picture of all Mary’s life — the treachery of the Scottish lords and her illegitimate half-brother the Earl of Moray, the splendor of Elizabeth I and her dark plotting with her court, Mary’s infatuation with tall, slim, blond, possibly bisexual Lord Darnley (who at least for a while shared a bed with David Rizzio), the malign domination of the Earl of Bothwell, and all that came after.

4a) But especially riveting is Zweig’s account of Mary’s execution and her preparations for it. Good stage management makes such a difference on these occasions. “Mary allotted the minutes of her remaining hours with far more thoughtfulness and circumspection than had been her wont in ordinary life. As a great princess, she wished to die a great death; and, with the immaculate sense for style which had always characterized her, with her native artistry and her inborn talent for seemly behaviour on solemn occasions, Mary prepared for her exit from life as one prepares for a festival, a triumph, a grand ceremony. Nothing was to be improvised, nothing was to be left to chance. Every effect was to be calculated; all was to be regal, splendid, and imposing. The details were to be as carefully thought out as the words of one of those heroic sagas that depict the exemplary death of a martyr.”

4b) I’ll spare you the details of her scaffold wardrobe, which are well known. But I’ve always remembered what happened immediately afterward: “At length, however, when the executioner lifted up the head and shouted: ‘God save the queen!’ the Dean of Peterborough summoned up courage to say: ‘Amen! Amen! So perish all the queen’s enemies.’ The Earl of Kent came up to the dead body and, with lowered voice, said: ‘Such end happen to all the queen’s and Gospel’s enemies!’ Turns out I’ve been misquoting every time I’ve said “Thus to all the Queen’s and Gospel’s enemies!” whenever some evil person has been thwarted. Oopsie.

4c) The most horrifying detail is about Mary’s devoted little dog. “Unnoticed, Mary’s Skye terrier had crept beneath her petticoat. Now the little beast sprang forth “embrued in her blood.” Afterwards, “it would not depart from the dead corpse, but came and lay between her head and shoulders.” By force it was taken away and sent to be washed.”

5) Alison Weir’s Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley added more depth to my understanding of her second marriage and its explosive conclusion. Also, who knew that venereal disease was then treated with mercury (!), which resulted not least in bad breath?! This was Darnley’s problem, not Mary’s, but my goodness — one more reason they were all painted with their mouths closed.

6) Eventually the 1936 Mary of Scotland fell under my eye. But as Betty Schaefer said in Sunset Boulevard, “I wouldn’t bother. It’s from hunger.” Even Katharine Hepburn, who starred as Mary, later said she’d have preferred to play Elizabeth, and I’m like “Gurrrrllllll, you should have.” With Frederic March as Bothwell, John Carradine as Rizzio, and a cast of actors only I would remember, not to mention costumes by Walter Plunkett — what a wasted effort.

7) When I was in London in 2019, I was surprised and excited to see an exhibition of Mary’s embroidery of animals, her pastime in captivity. I wish I could find those photos.

8) So those are the sources of my love for Mary, Queen of Scots. “Then weigh,” as Mr. Bell concludes his poem, “against a grain of sand the glories of a throne.”

9) And now, Radio Four will explode.

Monday, 6 February -- Quotes of the Day

1) I fell out of the habit of morning devotional, and this morning the need to reground my days led me back. Mother’s Bible opened to I Corinthians 16, where verse 14 stayed with me: “Let all your deeds be done with love.” How many of us can say that?

1a) And later I noticed verse 21: “This salutation is from me, Paul, in my own handwriting.” The value of handwritten correspondence presents itself yet again!

2) And within #273 of Baltasar Gracián’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom, this nugget: “The person swayed by passion cannot speak of things are they are: passion speaks in him, not reason. Each person speaks according to his emotion or his humor, and all are far from the truth.”

3) And from the horoscope at Five Elements Oracle: “. . . a lovely day to work on creative projects. Write or feed the mind with uplifting words, fill up the senses with art, music & sound. The muse is with us . . . Notice the beauty around you.”

Saturday, 21 January -- Palm Springs, Day Two

1) To wake in the morning, early, quite naturally, and see the clean lines of sunrise — the geometry of the trees, the flat straightness of the pool, the cloudless clarity of the sky — is a quiet and special moment, and I am so grateful.

2) The morning I spent mostly writing. My hosts thoughtfully stocked the casita with exquisite coffee and I could figure out the coffeemaker easily.

3) This morning I learned that you could spread banana bread with butter and make it warm and crispy in an iron skillet. Amazing.

4) At noon the five of us piled into a minivan and set off for Joshua Tree National Park, which I hadn’t been able to visit last year. We drove through incredible flatness, past a wind farm of enormous white windmills that looked like a Busby Berkeley chorus line slightly out of synch, and up through mountain passes into the next county.

5) I cannot remember the last time I ate at a fried chicken fast food place, or had a Dr. Pepper, but we pulled into a Popeye’s for a late lunch and I got to enjoy both — and happy memories of Church’s Fried Chicken for Sunday lunch growing up. Om nom nom.

6) Joshua Tree National Park is enormous, obviously, and we drove through miles and miles of it, stopping three or four times to see the sights. Did Joshua trees inspire Dr. Seuss to create the Lorax? Or did they evolve from seaweed, since apparently this was originally seabed in ancient times? A couple of the many questions that came up.

7) The cholla cacti — white, “furry,” dangerous — walking through those was chilly and curious. The presence of small children and a few dogs also concerned me, not because they weren’t well minded (all the dogs were on leashes), but just because there is always a risk for injury.

8) Skull Rock, an astonishing rock formation hollowed by ancient water currents into the shape of a skull, was exceedingly popular with tourists, especially overseas tourists. One friend commented on how many different languages we heard here.

9) Finally we came to a spacious and windy scenic overlook which — praise be! — included a restroom. As Sir Roderick Bland exclaimed to the wine waiter in Noel Coward’s Bon Voyage, “The moment is urgent.”

10) Later I scrambled up to take in the view while my friends returned to the van. A young woman passing with friends insisted on taking my phone from my hands to take my picture for me with the view. She was so eager to do this for me that I didn’t dare tell here there were no sinks in the restroom.

11) The chill in the wind was starting to take its toll, and I think we were all glad to return to the vehicle, and then back to Palm Springs.

12) After an attempted nap — really more what Mother called “quiet time” — Dave and Owings and I went off to a reliable local place for prime rib. Conversation about our parents dovetailed with observance of the local color and happy interaction with our efficient, chirpy waitress.

13) I returned to a couple unexpected invitations, including one from someone I didn’t expect to be here, so pleasant speculation and happy memories need to interact with logistics, previous commitments, and what the tarot would call the Possible Future: plans other people have or might be making that I don’t yet know about.

14) Lovely to have an early night and just collapse!

Hochmina made me laugh.