London Daze

Today is our last full day in London. We have been unable to post because there is no internet in our hotel. Friday after we arrived, we went on to the Holywell Music Co. (the harp store) and then to the Tate Modern where we saw a wonderful show on cities and had a tapas dinner. We then walked from Blackfriars all the way down to Big Ben along the Thames and it was a wonderful evening.

Saturday, we hooked up with Lissa and Cordelia again and it poured for most of the day. We hoofed it to Oxford Market, then onto the National Portrait Gallery. We then went to the Methodist Center for a very inexpensive and great meal, and back to the hotel for a rest. Lissa and Kathy Lovin went to Regent's Park for a Shakespeare play (which was rained out) and I took the harpists to the Ghost Walk of London which started at St. Paul's Cathedral and wended through the streets of old London City - very scary and well done by our guide. We went on to an Indian feast at the nearby Masala before retiring.

Today, the news of the Glasgow terror and the other recent developments hangs heavy in the air, but there is a block party in Earl's Court (our neighborhood), the Concert for Diana is tonight at Wembley Stadium, the Wimbledon tennis championships continue, and it's the first day London is banning smoking in public places. Our first trip today was with Lissa and Cordelia for a walk up Sloane Street where we bid them goodbye before they left for New York. We continued on to Buckingham Palace to see a very busy and not too interesting changing of the guard. We went on to have a light lunch and some of us continued to a Punk Art exhibit at the Barbicon, with another group going up Oxford St. shopping. We reconnected at a Bangladesh Festival in Regent's Park which had fabulous food and beautiful clothing and jewelry. Just now the teams are tired and resting before we find some food for our last dinner in London.

Susie

Lissa had her molar pulled. She had to stay home from our trip to the Castle. We didn't try to smell the tooth.

Group in front of Arundel Castle, home of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk.



The view of the countryside from the Castle Keep staircase.

St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, with her harp, is one of the stained glass windows at St. Peter & St. Paul's Parish.

http://www.sspeterandpaul-rustington.org.uk/

A very historical site, it is surrounded by an ancient graveyard. Unfortunately we were unable to get up to the stained glass window and advise you of its scent.

The composer Sir Hubert Parry, who wrote several hymns including 'Rustington', lived in Rustington right down the street from this church.

Jillian Risigari-Gai and Nicole Warburton in dress rehearsal at St. Peter & St. Paul's

Our concert on June 27th raised more than 600 GBP for the Chichester Diocesem Association for Family Support Work. The church was full of a very appreciative crowd, and there was a lovely reception in the parish hall afterward. FYI the church smells a little like the window, below, as it was built in 1170.

Kathy with Ancient Window at Elm Farm

Elm Farm, our house, was built in the 1640s. At that time, Medieval builders made windows by creating an opening covered with wooden slats that are bevelled so the wind glances off of them at an angle. The house was updated and additions were made in the front and the back so the Medieval window was preserved in the wall of the music room. FYI, this ancient wood stinks if you put your nose right up to it, which of course, we all did.

Karen Vaughan Master Class

Today, Monday, June 25 we had a wonderful four hour Master Class with Karen Vaughan from the London Symphony.

Driving in the UK!

The Gates to Elm Farm


Yesterday, June 22, we ventured forth in two rental cars toward Bath and Stonehenge for the day. The willing Princeton and I were picked up by the car rental company in a little van and taken to the rental office in nearby Littlehampton. Then we had to drive back to the house and pick up the students - but our gates to Elm Farm are very, very narrow and impossible to enter or exit, so we had to park across the street and load the students in.



Princeton had no trouble in his compact car that held a total of 5 people, and I had seven total in our little Vauxhall wagon. So off we went, a little slowly at first, with designated navigators in each car, Prince with Nicole Warburton and I with Kathy Lovin. Roundabouts are a real popular traffic-flow manager here, and they are incredibly dangerous - remember, everything is now on the left, but the driving column and steering wheel are on the right. Instead of traffic going counterclockwise through a roundabout, as it does in the Northeast US, it goes clockwise here.

Both Princeton and I had stick shifts, and I was having trouble getting the car to start up in 1st gear, finding the ratio between the clutch and the gas pedal to be really strange. I had to give it a LOT of gas to get it to go, so I was dreading stopping and having to start up in first gear every time. After about 40 minutes, we were driving through Chichester and one of the girls in the back of my car said, "The car is smoking"....whereupon I immediately pulled over and ordered everyone to evacuate the car immediately. We waited and waited, and the smoke subsided. I called the rental company and told them that the clutch was a problem in the car and it had started smoking. Being the generous and lovely car rental agent that he was, he immediately said, "Oh, you mean you've burned out the clutch, then." I said, "No I have NOT burned out the clutch; it does not function correctly."

So we called the British equivalent of AAA to come and see if they could help. A nearby guy had meanwhile helped us push the car into a parking spot so it was out of the road. The AAA driver was lovely. He said there was nothing wrong with the car and asked if I had ever driven a shift before. I told him I had a Toyota stick shift for many years and had learned to drive in a VW bus with a stick shift. So I asked him to observe me driving the car and we discovered that what I thought was first gear, was in fact, third. I had not pushed the stick shift to the left far enough to get it to first gear, and had been trying to start up from a dead stop in third gear. Of course, that took lots of gas, and eventually the transmission started to smoke! I felt like an idiot. But the car was still usable, so we continued on.

Meanwhile, Princeton and the other students were far ahead of us and they arrived in Bath in time to take in the tourist sights. We drove in about 1.5 hours later and though the baths were closed for the evening we could take in the lovely city, and see the cathedral and walk the streets. We all had a great dinner of fish and chips in Bath, and then drove back via Stonehenge which was an amazing sight to see at sunset.

The students were exhausted after a long day of worrying about navigating each car through unfamiliar territory, and Princeton and I were absolutely shattered. But we both now know how to drive in England!

Stonehenge at sunset on June 22, 2007.

The lovely, incomparable Cordelia Avery during an elegant moment at Elm Farm

St. Peter & St. Paul Parish - site of our concert to benefit family charities for the church - 7 PM, June 27, 2007

Vanessa Adame trying to turn a page during rehearsal at Elm Farm

St David's stained glass window at Chichester Cathedral

Jillian Risigari-Gai, Nicole Warburton and Sadie Ettinger rehearsing at Elm Farm

Our house in Rustington, UK

Jaleh Behtash posing as a harpist-troll

Summer Solstice 2007 Rustington, W. Sussex

Summer Harp Course students at Chichester Cathedral

from the left: Nicole Warburton, Gretchen Brauer, Sadie Ettinger, Lindsay Koerner, Princeton Arnold (our loyal chef, musician, and good friend for many years), Jaleh Behtash, Jackie Urlik, Cordelia Avery, Vanessa Adame (D-unit), and Jillian Risigari-Gai.