Friday, April 27. Sunny first thing in the morning, and warmer, but soon turned to rain again. To Bath to lunch with Jeff (nephew) and partner Liz, whom L hadn't met and was keen to. Though narrow, part of the road followed the Fosse Way, which is the sort of discovery that is always warming (and a village was called Street on the Fosse, unimaginatively enough). With Jeff and Liz to a new bakery they had wanted to try out - Jeff hankers for nice bread after his years in Belgium. What they were baking looked nice, though most of what we would have liked to order was sold out. Much talk. Liz involved with reporting triathlon for the Olympics - she's a triathlete herself. L keen to reacquaint herself with Bath Abbey. The memorials there have a perhaps unique coherence, because they all fall within a fairly narrow timespan - you wouldn't be far wrong if you said they were all people Jane Austen could have known. L disappointed to find that the fan vaulting was C19 - Abbey was actually a ruin until restoration began at the end of C16, and the present roof is the second since then. The church didn't count for much until Bath became fashionable.
South then across Somerset until suddenly it was all so much more beautiful and warmer and more springlike and we were in Dorset. Found a room in a fairly upmarket place in Beaminster where bed is wide enough to sleep crossways. For 5 people at a time. Walking round the town, puzzled by streams of children coming out of all the alleyways - like the Pied Piper. Concluded there must be a disco on at the High School or something, but later it seemed this is just what they do on a Friday night, milling round in groups without any particular purpose. Thought it was a bad sign. Cuffs of my trousers have been perpetually wet for the last month, walking in the non-stop downpours - hope to dry them tonight in the spacious wardrobe provided. Shall I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled?

Thursday, April 26. Set out to drive to Bower Hinton in Somerset where we were invited to lunch. As usual, L and I had different ideas about how long it would take, and high words were exchanged. She said 3 hours, I said no more than 2, so we agreed to allow two and a half, and to leave at 9.30. In the event it took 2 and a quarter, but we didn't get away till 10.15 due to the incompetence of the car hire people, who claimed to have lost the booking due to a computer glitch. Somehow it's always hopeless people whose computers play up. Left my hat behind in Oxford, having parked it on top of the wardrobe on the grounds that wet cold Oxford was not worthy for the display of such a fine piece of headgear. Through Beedon, maybe - quite likely, I think - the site of Mons Badonicus, past Stonehenge, and to BH at last with faultless navigation. Barely arrived when Maureen and Michael B (old Dorset friends) asked us to spend the night, which was not a thing to refuse. Lunch of melanzane al forno and many glasses of red wine, in the evening a freshly made soup of fennel, cauliflower, broccoli with many more. Their garden full of spring growth - forget-me-nots, bluebells, daffodils, tulips, and a big rosemary bush all covered in blue flowers. There is a kind of small tree we see everywhere covered with pompoms of rose-pink blossom like a flowering plum, but it may be something quite different. Maureen and Michael took us to the top of Ham Hill where the warm yellow stone is quarried that so much here is built of - a hill-fort originally, but much obliterated by millennia of quarrying. From here you can probably see as many counties as your imagination can find names for. Then to their church, v small and plain complete with musicians' gallery right out of Under the Greenwood Tree reached by an outside staircase. Slept in great comfort.

Wednesday, April 25. Anzac Day. Perhaps we should get the Eurostar to France and drop in on the Western Front - I'm sure there'd be a group from my old school paying their respects. Old school activities, right wing politics, both manifestations of getting stuck in adolescence. Wondered during the night how my reaction to a work like the Birth of Venus might be describable in terms of Lacan's discourses. It's all a question of where the implied reader is to be located. If implied reader = Other = inarticulate $, then it is the discourse of the analyst where delight (a) is Agent. The payoff being S1, a new social realignment, as Production. But perhaps it is inarticulateness in the face of the work that is Production. Seems a fruitful line of thought. Is the difference between these 2 the difference between the beautiful and the sublime? A book I picked up in Blackwell's about C. S. Lewis's fantasy novels in the first 60 pages has used both the words 'scary' and 'comfy' in ordinary critical discourse. Oddly enough, these same two words came up in a discussion I was having with S about the way baby words crowded out real ones. Enough to upset your tummy!
At breakfast in the college dining room there seemed to be many fewer students than expected - surprising, as we would have thought all Oxford colleges were chock a block. Students usually in same-sex groups - they are very young, reinforcing my feelings about undesirability of them being driven into each others' arms. They have to pay for each element of the meal individually - a rasher of bacon costs 34p, I noticed - so perhaps the reason there are fewer than I might have expected is that they skip breakfast.
Went to the Ashmolean in the morning while L looked after washing. Large parties of primary school children being taken around the displays of Ancient Egypt, which I find a rather repellent civilisation. Took a long time to find the A-S collections; if the Alfred jewel was there, as they claim, I didn't see it. The whole place could do with more exposition - rather a pointless collection, I thought, taking it all round. Big surprise a reproduction of the Willendorf Venus, which turned out to be only around 7.5 cm high, whereas from pictures I'd expected something quite massive. Then to lunch with Gill and David W and Nick and Lindy P (cousins' cousins) at the White Horse. Though Nick someone I have always known about, we had never properly met, since the only other time we encountered one another (12 years ago) I couldn't really be counted as one of the company, in consequence of gastric flu (that tainted gherkin again). Nick and Lindy have been big in disadvantaged education. A pleasant afternoon, then back to St Hugh's in pouring rain. After goodbyes L and I walked round the block, admiring walls of ancient eroded red brick, much older than the college, and college lawns with tulips and daffodils. In Italy the tulips were already over. Out for a walk in the evening found an Italian place for pasta where we were the last customers (suspect the pesto was thinned with beef stock, so if you're a vegetarian, be wary). I'm not sure how the conversation turned that way, but the proprietor brought out an MS book he had written, about as thick as a house brick, which was an exhaustive English-Spanish dictionary of phrasal verbs. Also favoured us with a brief history of the English language, so we went to bed much enlightened.

Tuesday, April 24. Got ourselves to Victoria and then thrashed about a bit looking for the Oxford Tube - though we'd travelled on it a few times the precise details of where it left from seemed to have escaped us, and it's not clearly signposted (Buckingham Palace Road, Stand 10, for future reference). Then to Oxford. The road the bus takes runs almost straight, which means it passes over the Chilterns at their SW end, and then in a deep chalk cutting down into the plain of Oxford. Clouds of kestrels over the motorway. Sheep and cattle here for the first time, whereas on the London side the only livestock were horses, which seems a wasteful use of land. Fields of rape, in yellow flower. On first sight of these gentle hills you wonder how it was they held back the first wave of A-S settlement, until you think about what it would mean to fight uphill. Bus driver's vowels noticeably shifted anti-clockwise to Australian. St Hugh's, where we were booked, a long haul for suitcases, up the Banbury Road in light rain. Originally a women's college, now coed as are all except one, I think. Long corridors, lots of fire doors, and a room not a lot bigger than the friars' cells we saw in San Marco, though sans frescos by Fra Angelico. Not sure I've ever been in a student's college room before, but for £55 for the two of us, what can you expect? And how is it they have vacant rooms in term time? Could be a glum sort of life if you were a student, I rather feel, and calculated to promote precocious sexual activity - not necessarily a good thing. Back to town, and coffee in a new place A1 recommended while L revealed her plans for the rest of the week, which she claimed to have been too frightened to tell me before. Then wandered round while she did tasks of various kinds. Dinner in a pub.

Monday, April 23. A few aches during the night, and waking to find I couldn't see very well concluded another change in weather on its way. Though hard to see how weather could change any more, considering it has hardly been the same for ten minutes at a time since we got here. Over breakfast watched a squirrel annoying some pigeons in the park below our window, later went out to catch up on internet things while L made return visit to London Archives/ hairdresser. She has her voice back now, but is still coughing well.
Found internet cafe nearby in what is clearly a student precinct - vegetarian cafes, gay bookshops, all the things young people care about. By the time I emerged into the street the change had arrived - temperature dropped about 10 degrees and rain driven by blustery wind. Umbrella turned itself inside out several times and then folded into 4, a number of the ribs having snapped. Nevertheless searched out Red Lion Square and found the house where Rossettti , then Morris and Burne Jones, lived in the 50s: flat-fronted grey-yellow brick, 4 storeys with basement. Now several sets of business premises. Off to Queen Square where Morrises lived after Red House, but little original still standing. Then via The Brunswick, a shopping centre that would impress anyone that hasn't been to Westfield Tuggerah, where ditched the umbrella and bought another, returning home with a Lebanese wrap from the King of Felafel to await L's return, warm up and dry off.
Read some of a Swedish murder mystery from a series that claims to have sold 10 million copies worldwide - I find it derivative and feeble. Ditto with Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow which made such a splash a few years ago - once you got past the fact that the hero was a gay woman Eskimo there was nothing there. Conclusion: it's easy to be a celebrated writer if you're not writing in English.
When L came back set out for evensong at Westminster Abbey - through misreading the tube map arrived late and were seated outwside the choir screen. Effect rather of looking into a secret place - inside, lit by red-shaded lamps on the desks, we could see the choir, while outside we faced the richly gilded screen and an altar with a cloth embroidered with the Latin distich 'Crux fidelis inter omnes / arbor una nobilis' - no doubt from some source well-known to everyone besides me. The music and the prayers coming out through the screen created just the feeling I had missed the previous evening. It being St George's day, the prayers were of a national character, but specifically directed to include all English people whatever their ethnicity, faith or orientation. Finished with Kipling's great anti-war hymn. L felt it showed where the mainstream C of E was these days, and it was a good place. Huge congregation, as we saw when those lucky enough to have been inside came out - not bad for Monday 5pm. Afterwards A2 took us to Jamie's Italian in Covent Garden. Parted around 9, as A1 had work to finish. Hope to see them at Christmas.

Sunday, April 22. Woke to wide pale blue sky and sunshine. Leaving shirts to wash while we set out on projected journey to Bexleyheath (Red House), could hear washing machine agitating half-heartedly in bursts of about 5 seconds. Machine comes with instruction booklet of ludicrous complexity, examples of typical weights for sheets, towels, etc, and instructions not to underload or overload the machine. As it essentially doesn't work, I don't know why they bother. How different from our own machine at home, where you just pile everything in, switch it on, and away it goes. English have never mastered anything to do with plumbing (or the 20th century at all, L would say). She wet her stockinged feet in the bathroom this morning because there is no floor waste, and the floor is graded outwards, towards the door. Yesterday, as well as being unable to work the shower, she pulled the shower-curtain fixings out of the wall. Some people might call her inept, but I blame the English.
To get to Red House, train from Waterloo past public housing of various ages - one block that L thought early C20 I thought could have been post-war. A look at the brickwork would no doubt reveal all. Speaking of brickwork, on the Circle line, which is old enough to have outdoor sections where you can get a look at the construction, I was delighted to see in an archway that the bricks were laid at 45 degrees to the direction of the tracks (and I suppose there were several such layers making up the arch and at right angles to one another). Little to be seen from the train appealed to any of the senses, though by the time we came to cuttings the embankments were now covered with a flush of lime-green leaves. Bexleyheath station offered no directions to what must be the only feature of local interest, a mini-cab driver equally ingorant. When we got to Red House, a reasonable crowd which kept on arriving seemed to show that our interest was not just a personal quirk. A red brick wall outside; inside rhododendrons, holly, a kitchen garden, and where the old orchard had been apple and pear trees still in blossom with first leaves. One old apple that had fallen still sending up sprays of rose-pink flowers. On the NW corner of the house, an espaliered pear the same from which Morris could pick fruit out the window of a small morning-room inside the front door. In the hall, big square terracotta tiles - a painted settle I thought showed Rossetti's hand - guide thought several artists probably contributed.
Little of original paintwork left inside, the house having been through several owners, But various papers and fabrics displayed. Saw another version of the Burne Jones tiles of the Judgement of Paris - goddesses still looked like a trio of year 9 schoolgirls changing for sport. Exterior charming in red brick and tile, and the angle on the south side with the well did not disappoint. Something to see the building which had so great an influence on later domestic architecture, particularly Edwardian - something like the Woolley Building a remote descendant.
Lunch in the tearoom was a gluey minestrone with a microwaved bread roll - L didn't finish. On the way back, lost our sense of direction completely, and had to take refuge in a bus that took a twisting route through endless streets of unlovely houses with pebblecrete finish to a quite different station. Deciding to ride on from Waterloo to Charing Cross was a major blunder, since our arrival coincided with finish of London Marathon. A huge scrum to get through the barriers - one was held open for runners, but neither of us could claim to be that - and then a long close-packed shuffle along underground tunnels to the platform. Would have been a good opportunity for a terrorist, but perhaps they're claustrophobic.
To choral evensong later at St Bartholomew the Great. Layout of church unusual - choir, pulpit and organ at one end, high altar at the other. Sermon by a priest I took to be Nigerian with an accent so thick I could make little of it. V high church, and I didn't think it worked, asking the congregation to combine the roles of voyeurs and participants - either the 4th wall is there or it isn't. Perhaps it was just that the high church is so out of sympathy with the impulse that gave us the great C18 and 19 hymns - the Book of Common Praise, which they used, full of lame C20 stuff. The congregation numbered 50 or so, mostly men. L said if she was looking for a man it would be one of her first ports of call. If it should come to that, I wish her luck.
What really did work was post-evensong - a blessing of the elements with antiphons sung or spoken from one end of the church to the other and an organ passage like the last trump in the middle. Sense that something important and inaccessible was occurring. Came out into the rain. I had left my far from integral umbrella at home, but we found we could get on pretty well with L's if I held the umbrella with one hand and clasped her tightly round the waist with the other and we walked in synchronised counter-step as for a 3-legged race. By King's Cross the rain had stopped, and we walked hand-in-hand down Judd Street singing the Mosman Prep school song at the tops of our voices. After that, what could have been nicer than a plate of pasta con olio e aglio followed by a Time Team special on an A-S treasure? Nothing I could think of.

Saturday, April 21. A rather disturbed night, what with the tainted gherkin. Came to me that reaction to the great paintings bears some similarity to thoughts I had about Hamlet - viz that from the point of view of narrative the audience is the hero. Not clear how this applies to looking at a painting, but the idea seems fruitful. Sunshine on waking, but still cold. To meet A and A2 - A1 and A2 I should call them, like the bananas, and A2's mother Kerry for brunch, so after many embraces walked through squares and streets to Lantana, a cafe in Fitzrovia currently highly regarded and run by Australians. A long queue outside, but A1 magic worked as usual, and we were seated straight away. Fortunately the weather held, as we were on the footpath, though a brief sprinkle brought out the shopkeepers who unwound awnings, and then wound them back in again just as quickly when the sun came out. Afterwards to National Gallery where female contingent went to see Turner exhibition while A1 and I made for permanent collection. Turned out we have the same strategy for gallery viewing, though A1, being right-handed, walks around the right-hand wall whereas I make for the left. As it turned out, we saw more Turners than the other party, though we didn't look at them, because they were on the wrong wall. Unlimited stuff, and we only saw a fraction, a single exception to our viewing policy being when A1 spotted Holbein's Ambassadors through glass doors a long way away, and we went for a closer look. Was impressed with how dead flat the impasto is, and how ultimately unnaturalistic this makes the two figures. Came out to find it was much warmer and dined at home on pork and egg pie and salad. Heavy dose of garlic made me feel a bit better.

Friday, April 20. Good to be able to cook up some toast and coffee for ourselves rather than having to go out and pay. Local butter much better than Italian, which beside being unsalted always seemed to have a rancid undertone. The local butter we bought turned out to be from NZ, which was probably all to the good. Sought to have a shower only to find there was no hot water. I may be a Protestant, but I'm not the Victorian sort who found moral virtue in a cold shower, so had a cold wash instead. Had forgotten how hard the water is in London as tried vainly to lather up for an adequate shave. No doubt why A's place afforded a pressure pak of shaving foam for sensitive skin (as if any real man ever haed sensitive skin).
Morning's project was to be the London Archives - in Clerkenwell, quite a walk from the nearest tube. Found the building. Looked for the entrance, along with another woman on the same errand. L said 'I bet it turns out to be closed on Friday or something', and as the book says, in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled, so it was. Walked back past a v handsome Victorian school with walled grounds - over one entrance a carved lintel said 'Girls and Infants'. A tower at the corner was for the caretaker. Guessed it might have been a charitable foundation of the mercers and drapers, who seemed to have a hall nearby. Would have gone into the local church, but you had to summon someone to open it, which seemed a step too far for a purely casual interest. Then back to Middle Temple to lunch with A.  L had wanted to dine in Middle Temple Hall, so A said it would have to be Friday, the only day their food was tolerable. Raining hard by this time. A arrived with a friend - still looking for a pupillage though in same year as A - and we all had fish and chips. Nice enough, though suspect a tainted gherkin in the tartare sauce for internal troubles that struck me that night. Would guess the hall early C17 from the carving on the hammer-beam roof - walls all decorated with arms of members and armorial glass, mostly C18, in the windows. At the end a large portrait of Charles I, with a smaller Charles II (I thought) on his right, and William III two places away on the left. In the toilets nothing so vulgar as a hand dryer, but a pile of fresh fluffy hand towels in case Lord Justice whoever should need one. Inside the entrance, in a list of presidents, or whatever the head of the Inn is called, the one for 1975 had 5 surnames hyphenated.
Coffee in a shop later and then set out to the far north west in search of an exhibition of mini-prints where we thought Louise had something. Perhaps we got it wrong. Afterwards, an internet cafe full of men skyping their families back in Bangladesh. Home in the rain.

 Thursday, April 19. Crossed London the long way last night to join L in new lodgings , travelling about two thirds of the Circle line where all the brutal confidence of C19 engineering is on view - massive girders holding up the ceiling, bathroom tiles as in NY subway. Passing the opportunity to change for Fenchurch Street, then Liverpool Street and King's Cross, tried to remember what was the fourth station on the Monopoly board, but without success. Girl opposite me reading Tina Fey autobiography whiuch I had just put down at A's place. Synchronicity! A and I agreed that while entertaining it's a book that reveals nothing - just a succession of stand-up comedy routines and one-liners. New place one of those flats that are jammed into the structure of an old house. Stairway and hall where your elbows graze the wall on either side, then 2 good bedrooms and a bathroom with a big sitting room/kitchen above. Bathroom with a mercifully heated floor of pretending travertine and modern fittings so beautifully designed it was an IQ test just to empty the handbasin. The shower at least was more user-friendly than either S or A's, in both of which the mixer taps delivered water either ice-cold or scalding hot quite unpredictably whatever setting they were put on.
Dined at Lebanese cafe - L too poorly to eat much. Some of the nicest hummus I have ever had. Complimented the man behind the counter, who was pleased. Were going to watch television, but the controls were complicated and we were tired. A propos English TV, it occurred to me that English intonation makes all the news seem very grave and important, whereas for us it's just one darn thing after another. On retiring, double bed quickly proved untenable, effect of mattress rather like that of cyclone wire with a blanket thrown over it. Have slept on a layer of cardboard over cyclone wire in the past (Wattie Creek), but this was something different: retreated to the single beds in the 2nd bedroom and slept like logs. Breakfast at a Brazilian cafe with a Polish girl in charge. Her English limited, L had lost her voice, I my usual inarticulate self so communication difficult. Excellent coffee.
Then to our new lodgings, a studio apartment I suppose you'd call it in a concierged block about halfway between Russell Square and King's Cross. Ee told us it was a red light district, but I put that down to her private fantasy - the result of reading about too many bad girls in the 18th century. Afterwards, L having examined a phone box near King's X Station, not so sure. Meeting K in Natural History Museum for lunch where we had much talk over sandwiches and coffee. L bought me a roast beef sandwich - a kind of Freudian response she slips into in the presence of vegetarians. K still cut up about her sister's death a year ago and dissolved in tears when the topic turned that way. Had it been my place, I would have hugged her, but I think for someone once so close there is a line that can't be crossed. Conversation little constrained by L's total loss of voice - where necessary she wrote speaker's notes for me on a scrap of paper which I enlarged on. Boy at next table with big glass buttons in his ears that threw circles of light on his neck in a fascinating way.
K suggested seeing more of Natural History Museum, but we were keen to have a look at V&A which I have felt I was doomed never to have a chance of exploring. The museums are free, though the V&A made a rather peremptory request for £3 at the entrance which we were shamed into contributing. L felt it could have been dressed up with one of those things where the coin you drop in goes round and round before finally falling into a bin - one such at Wyong Plaza used to provide great entertainment. At the Natural History Museum your £3 makes a dinosaur skeleton light up, though why you would want to I don't know.
More decorative Dutch firebacks and wrought iron railings than I am ever likely to see agin. Enjoyed stained glass gallery, but felt that that art lost its way in about C15 - not regained till the best of the C19. Some Constables made me think of T - they have a print of the Haywain which to him is a picture of a dog and a tractor, which he will point out with 'Woof woof' and 'Rrrrrr'. Victorian paintings always good value - one from 1842 of Cinderella about to try the glass slipper where the principal character looked just like the young Queen Victoria. Made me reflect on the inevitable choices we all must make at different times. Was Cinderella happy ever after - or Victoria - or K? L says K must feel regretful when she sees us together - which I'm inclined to think just self-congratulation on L's part. A ganymede whose prominent buttocks seemed to have been accentuated with rouge I found distasteful. Highlight here a big Burne Jones, though a Rossetti of Jane Morris was also striking. Those 2 alone, perhaps, didn't raise the question of what I was looking at which I found troublous in Florence. Out and goodbyes sometime after 5, after perusing disappointing selection of postcards. On way home enjoyed a supermarket experience which enabled me to create pasta with a tomato sauce enriched with capsicum, olives, finely chopped lemon rind, and fresh oregano. A number of the ingredients we bought were already in our cupboard, but we weren't to know that. Then to bed after repeat of New Tricks on BBC1. Slept soundly.

Wednesday, April 18. To Woking, to Woking, to buy a fat hen. None for sale, worse luck. Waded through early C18 ludicrous legal Latin, but the bad girls we were chasing proved elusive. Noted many others, however, charged with being 'lewd and idle', plus a member of the criminal dynasty from which L traces her ancestry. So perhaps it's a good thing that a number of records of indictments from the 1710s and thereabouts no longer exist. L also lost £20 through not validating her oyster card, though compared with the gentleman who had his pocket picked in 1718 of sixteen pounds in gold and silver, it seems a bit trifling.
Today we move house, away from A's effusive hospitality, so he can sleep in his own bed again. Tomorrow to fresh woods.

Tuesday, April 17. Still getting used to English ways - footpath rule is that locals walk on thr right, tourists on the left. As there are lots of tourists this makes for maximum confusion. Went shopping at Tesco and almost fell foul of queuing rules - it seems that you form one queue for all the checkouts, rather than going to the nearest vacant one. At least I know which way the traffic is coming from, which I could never get used to in Italy, where in any case most streets were only one and a half lanes wide. Also, in this country zebra crossings mean you can cross, whereas Italian ones are likely to have inconspicuous pedestrian lights as well. At least in NY the lights are obvious (once you know they're there). A's apartment v comfortable for a couple and could hardly be more central. Next door is Greycoat Hospital, once a charitable foundation, now a girls' comprehensive. Every so often a twittering crowd of girls in maroon tracksuit tops goes past the window on the way to the grounds of Westminster School for sport. A tells us that private schools here are obliged to share their facilities with other neighbouring schools, on pain of losing their charitable status. From A's bookshelves read a few chapters of 'Five on a Treasure Island' in French. The whole narrative is transported to France, the children being called François, Mick, Annie and Claud(in)e, while Timmy the dog becomes Dagobert!
Out in the evening with Oscar and Jennifer Hill whom I hadn't seen for 33 years, though L, A and Gracie have had more recent contact. Oscar a now retired professor of psychiatry and looking very fit after having had more bypasses than the Hume highway. I had imam bayeldi, which when I tasted it made me feel that the imam's problem was probably an allergy to cumin. Back via Jubilee Line to Westminster, next to and 50 metres below the bed of the Thames. Amazing revetments as you travel the 3 long flights of escalators - L says just like new Grammar assembly hall. Home to sleep, though L has caught cold and coughing hard. Tomorrow I guess she'll be croaking at Woking.

Monday, April 16. Slow start, then out to locate Westminster Record Office (closed) and University Women's Club - shabby genteel in West End. They too turned out to be closed on the day L was proposing to dine there. Took a fancy to visit St John's Wood where all those Victorians kept their mistresses, so set off in that direction. On the way passed US embassy where security precautions quite ludicrous. If I'd had my bag with me, I would have been tempted to throw it over the wall just to see what happened. Old part of St John's Wood is single-fronted terraces, three storeys with basement, but apparently only one room deep. There's a bit of garden at the back, where the kiddies could play. A limit to what you can hope for if you're a mistress, I guess. Then walking round the edge of Regent's Park to Baker Street. London blocks very long, but many blocks of Edwardian mansion flats to admire on the way. A returned late, after hectic day having to find grounds for an injunction in a dispute between cabs and mini-cabs. Something of the sort, I seem to recall, occurred in 'Carry on Cabbie' - a lesser vehicle, I'm afraid, as are all those with Sid James. Then out to Soho to a Vietnamese noodle place. I made some word play, affirming the noodles were not likely to be more venomous than the ones I had eaten in HK. Not very good, perhaps, but one has to work with the materials available. In the event it was closed, so went across the street for Thai, which was quite adequate. Slept very soundly, but dreamt Lawrence was stealing my ideas on church history, which left me a bit aggrieved.

Sunday, April 15. To mass at 11. The church has seating for 100, but there were about a dozen standing. In a country such as this where there has always only been one church, religious observance has a very different meaning from in Australia. What that meaning is, I'm not sure, but something to think about. T this morning displayed remarkable intelligence. Overhearing X saying that my feet must be cold and I needed slippers, he went to get his own slippers and tried to fit them to my feet. One of his would just about accommodate my big toe. He doesn't say many words, but understands a lot, whether in English or Welsh. And though he says 'bo' for a ball, the moon, a light, a light switch, etc, in an extended metonymic chain, if you say 'where is the moon' he points out the window, not to a ball or a light. Seems to give the lie to the Whorfian hypothesis. In afternoon, after T's sleep, to local trattoria - antipasti alone would have made quite a handsome meal. Then with X to airport and reluctant goodbyes. Have been to smaller airports and flown in smaller planes, but not often. Landed at London city after skimming high rise buildings at rooftop height. Reminded me of old HK airport, where you could virtually pluck people's washing from the lines out of the plane windows. Much more convenient than Heathrow, so soon to A in SW1 and effusive welcome.

Saturday, April 14. Raining hard and v cold. Set off late with L and S first to Medici-Riccardi Palace where chapel with frescoes of Magi quite stunning. Perhaps most striking thing I have seen. Also grand baroque staterooms of conventional and boring kind. Exterior masonry on Via Cavour quite cyclopean in scale and rusticated within an inch of its life. Crossed to Ultr'arno by a bridge below Ponte Vecchio - river yellow with mud from week of rain. Past crime scene with police tape and lots of municipal police in their white firemen's helmets and a body wrapped in gold-coloured plastic to a trattoria just off Santo Spirito square. For me, pasta with a dish of tripes - good, but oversalted. Later to more frescoes, and finally Palazzo Vecchio, which I had wanted to see because it is such a striking building. Cheap umbrella bought in Sydney had more or less given up by this time - many others discarded in the street. Two observations of the day, probably obvious to everyone except me - It ragazzo = Fr garçon, which of course = OE wræcca; 'waffle' is a Low German diminutive of 'wafer'. Finally bused home opposite a trio of sweet American girls who must have been staying at Settignano. But why would you stay at Settignano, one wonders. Arrived back just as vigil mass was coming out in Chiesa San Martino a Mensola downstairs. Just as it has, I suppose, every Saturday evening since C9.

Friday, April 13. Out to breakfast at pasticceria, then to town. L set out to look for hairdresser while I did Museo del Opera del Duomo. All stuff removed from cathedral at various times. A Sebastian really stuck with arrows like a hedgehog as in life of St Edmund - most have just one arrow through the neck or something. A sculptured group including a Madonna with glass eyes - X says not unusual, but a first for me. A Michelangelo pieta left unfinished on account of flaws in the marble I found all the more impressive on account of one of the figures being just roughly blocked out. Particularly liked a huge sculpture with figures of rejoicing children in high relief. Then to Duomo to take pictures of glass for L. Somehow no queue. Afterwards climbed campanile - they said 414 steps, but the first 100 or so were the hardest. A spiral section near the top was not altogether pleasant. Took many pix of rooftops. Meanwhile L, freshly coiffed, had located reasonably cheap eatery and public toilet - something town could do with more of. Then walked to Santa Croce with many frescoes, but hard to see in dim light. Original glass again, side aisles gothic vault with pitched roof over the nave. Corinthian columns, but with simpler capitals than in Duomo. Many tombs of notabilities, including Galileo, Macchiavelli, Dante, the last put up by admirers in C19. L said 'si monumentum requiris...'. L v pleased with 6 euro admission charge and good selection of postcards - showed the place was properly run. I liked a plaque that said the church had been given the title of minor basilica by Pius XI in 1933, in the 12th year (I think) of the reign of Victor Emmanuel III, while Benito Mussolini was head of government.
Talk with L about troubles at Sydney Uni which X feels would make her unwilling to come back. Inclined to think this looms large for the young people who are making a fuss in Sydney because it is the first cause they have been involved in, whereas from perspective of apartheid and Vietnam campaigns, etc, etc, one feels a diminished sense of outrage. People have to realise that in a self-indulgent age such as the present there is little support for public goods. The same cultural context that allows people to breakfast in coffee shops, and fly off to conferences, let alone holidays, in faraway places, is killing the universities. A may call us 'puritans of the left' - it's a title I don't disdain.
Met S and adjourned to what he said was oldest cafe in Florence for drinks. He was keen we should dine at the best pizza place - it didn't open till 7.30, so I suggested a walk over the Ponte Vecchio. All jewellers' shops - little that appealed to me, though L liked some cameos. V pricey. Walked over to Pitti Palace - brutalist construction - and S pointed out Vasari corridor which runs across the top of the Ponte Vecchio and through and around buildings to allow the Medici to get around town unobserved. Not generally open, though X has had a tour. Then to pizza place - gas-fired wood-burning oven like a hellmouth and pizzas with big charred bubbles. Most excellent. Drank a lot of beer. They use a strong flour and the crust is very chewy. Later watched bizarre anime called Revolutionary Girl. Struck by the word 'yami' meaning shadow in the Japanese, cf Cantonese yam, Warlbiri yama. Japanese word likely a Chinese borrowing. So to bed and dreamless sleep.

Thursday, April 12. Feeling disturbed since visiting Uffizi, not knowing what I was seeing. Back today à la récherche d'un grand récit. Started at C13 paintings this time, some in style not out of place in AS manuscript. S calls it 'generalized Carolingian', which may or may not be right. Both of us struck by a Filippino Lippi of the Virgin adoring the Christ child which caught very well the way baby and mother's gazes interact. Before the great Botticellis it seemed to me that the combination of their sheer size and the obvious, though not necessarily transparent, allegory compels a sort of adoration, a surrender to the symbol, of an almost religious kind. Not that the people for whom these things were made were anything special, morally speaking.
Then to the Duomo - vast and bare inside, though this reflects a more modern taste, shrines and altars etc having been cleaned out C17 and subsequently. Marriage of classic and gothic - ceilings vaulted, arcades with pointed arches, though carried on square Corinthian pillars and pilasters. And the dome is just 4 intersecting pointed arches. Wondered how it all stood up, as there is little buttressing. S suggested Gothic arch approximates a catenary, which seemed implausible to me. L very struck with C15 glass, though I found green and yellow tones a little garish. Total lack of postcards - L thought place could be a lot better managed from point of view of extracting the tourist dollar. Later saw San Lorenzo, where S said the square is a great place for pickpockets. Inside very grand; outside bare masonry. Apparently a donation was promised which never materialized. Braised radicchio and mashed potato in evening with fresh sage. X opened I Tatti wine - I drank too much.

Wednesday, April 11. 'Dawn has broken, stormy and pale'. Poured all morning and bitterly cold. Sat on sofa with eiderdown wrapped round me up to my chin while L and S mocked me. Tuscan bread and oeufs mouillés for lunch. Local bread and butter have no salt, which seems a mistake to me, while they over-salt their meat dishes. S says it is one reason that bread becomes hard so quickly. In afternoon to Villa I Tatti at invitation of X, where she is a fellow. Up to the top of formal garden which steps down the hill in landings of river stones laid in mosaic and flights of steps between. Enclosures of clipped topiary in balls, cubes and pyramids - all shades of green between flanking high, steep-sided cypress hedges. The sun came out just as we were looking down at it, and clouds of steam, bursting from the hedges, drifted like gold dust across the garden. Then up a wisteria walk to the entrance of the library. X showed us round, pointing out various Sienese masterworks collected by Berenson, a picture of whom at the entrance looked rather like George V with woofy hair.
Dark green highly polished terrazzo underfoot, beautiful carpets, furniture, etc. Then arrived Prue James (wife of Clive) and Lydia someone who seemed to be an Italian cultural wheel of some kind and was travelling with Prue, closely followed by S and T. A uniformed maid served us tea with freshly baked shortbread and tiny coconut macaroons. They bake every day in case one of the fellows should feel like a nibble. The word decadent is hardly adequate. Berenson bought the estate in 1907, plus more or less all the land round about; he constructed the villa, laid out - or had laid out for him - the formal gardens, etc, etc. Though he was a successful art dealer, he was hardly Bill Gates, which you would need to be to buy anything similar now. No doubt that a bit of money went a long way in Italy in those days. Much talk between Prue and the director, who dropped in along with his wife. She is editing a newly discovered Dante MS given to her by the Prof of Latin at Cambridge - v interested when we told her some of said Prof's secret history. Then back home where S turned on the heating, which for him was something of an admission.

Tuesday, April 10. Out early with S to buy milk. V cold. Breakfasted on slice of colomba (Easter delicacy like panettone baked in shape of dove) and rock-hard remnant of hot x bun, there being no bread. L and I caught bus to town and found our way to Uffizi. Located an ATM, but it was out of order (ATMs not so common - the one at the station in Milan was well-hidden, but police helped me track it down). L changed some money at a bureau de change, which looked like a rip-off to me. Endless queue outside duomo - S later told us it was for going up to the top of the dome, and he expected the queue for the cathedral itself would be much less. At Uffizi, unexpected collection of classical sculptures, which kept us busy for quite a while. The major part of the art collection is in rooms off a u-shaped glassed-in veranda on the top floor, of which the ceiling is richly decorated, partly with allegorical subjects, partly with reference to arts and sciences. Just under the ceiling and all around, small portraits of notable people mostly from C17 and 18. Loved a picture of Electress Sophie looking like Charles II in drag. Larger portraits here and there of which Eleanora of Toledo with small son was outstanding. Wondered what they glassed the veranda in with before glass readily available - X later told us they used panels of oiled linen. Worked our way round pictures on the far side from the entrance after dispute as to method of viewing resolved in my favour. Endless stuff. Stopped for coffee about 2, then plowed on. Got as far as Botticelli when S rang, wanting to rendezvous. Almost impossible to find way out. Pushed along with T across river to Piazza Santo Spirito where ate sandwiches and drank beer in the square  - popular with derelicts and dogs. Into basilica for look at Michelangelo crucifixion, passing endless artworks unregarded on the way. Somehow, mannerist sculpture seems to invite you to take the work of art as an object in a way that earlier and less practised works do not. Then home - T as usual a great hit on bus with an elderly nun who poked out her tongue and 2 twentyish girls who laughed and made faces at him. L referred to them as the nun's nieces, which S said was nonsense.

Easter Monday. L snoring during the night sounded just like a mouth-organ. Woke to see full moon in almost cloudless sky and sounds of T being readied for breakfast. Wondered whether Milton's description of the wall of Paradise is based on a) Tuscan landscape, or b) artist's depiction of same. Walked with S while T had midday sleep; afterwards went out with S looking for bread. Conversation about Hopkins - S feels that the fact that he never wrote a perfect poem is an expression of Christian humility. for my part, some poems of his that I value very highly. Bitterly cold though sunny. Later walked uphill to Corbignano, small place with oratory. All wondered what exactly an oratory was. Site of C19 vision of virgin by girl called Vanella. Olive trees all round, some with enormous stocks supporting slender living shoots, others with holes, etc. Small clump of prickly pear with fruit. Up and up to Settignano, substantial town high up with views to Florence. Remarked to L how like Kiewa valley Tuscan landscape is. As in Florence, streets paved with big blocks chased for a better grip - some seemed like calcareous sandstone, with laminar weathering. Walls everywhere, grilles, shutters, yellow wash, red tiles. Stopped at a little bar, then followed Via Maria delle Grazie down to Villa Strozzi again and so home. T awake by now and a trifle fretful. Out in the afternoon to see a monastery that was a daughter house of Vallombrosa. Past unlovely modern apartment blocks on far side of the Arno up into Chianti countryside: quite wild with wooded hills, olives, vines - snow visible on high ridges on the far horizon. Single lane corrugated dirt with traffic in both directions. X drove fearlessly. Country construction rubble stone rather than stucco, patched with brick and tile or whatever came to hand. Back by what I like to think was original fascist autostrada, though now demoted to secondary status.

Easter Sunday - S and T and I went out walking early in the garden - soon began to pour, with lightning close by. Had a feeling the weather was changing, and X announced a migraine at breakfast. L and I went to mass at San Martino - packed with people though quite a way from the town. Managed all right with responses from Order of Service, but totally at a loss in sermon and bits the congregation were supposed to know. Not necessary to understand the language, however, to appreciate that priest had fine command of rhetoric, and something to be celebrating Easter where services have continued for 1200 years. Weather now wondrous cold. X drove us to Fiesole, where we walked up a steep pedestrian street to a restaurant high above the valley. Could think of nothing but Milton. Assorted bruschette followed by pasta and several glasses of chianti did something to warm the constitution, while S and X took turns feeding and amusing T. Later walked higher still, with whole of Valdarno spread out below. Roman ruins on way back to car with massive masonry. Came home, danced to amuse T; X went to bed.

Easter Saturday out to breakfast of pastries and coffee. T gets tributes of chocolate Easter eggs and pastries wherever he goes. Racial hierarchy pointed out by S: Italians behind the counter, Chinese clearing tables, African glad-handing and hoping for tips outside the door. Bus to Florence - saw friars' cells with frescos by Fra Angelico and followers. Followers not as good. Lovely annunciation at head of the stairs. X v illuminating. Pointed out how friars' cells have scenes for contemplation while lesser people have narrative scenes for instruction. Refectories with representations of Last Supper - Judas in one with black halo. Nice harrowing of hell with a devil squashed under the gate which has been torn off its hinges. Fell in with a family in the library looking for a college for their daughter - X able to promote Oberlin. Later, slices of pizza, coffee, gelato as we walked around city through maze of alleys, archways, etc. Quizzed S & X on syllabification of 'piazza' - ended up deciding question probably meaningless in Italian. Home tired but happy after long walk. V cold. Had insight about narrative about 4am, so got up early. Seems to me that 'becoming' can be likened to a journey and 'use' to a task, so in the sort of schema I have written about, these terms occur at the transitions between presentation and representation (becoming) and between representation and presentation (use). Must put this to S.

Good Friday woke refreshed. X led us downstairs to church where service was of lessons and responses. Understood about 85% of the written text, though could not have spoken a word if called on to do so. Read aloud quite creditably too, I thought. Distancing/strangeness of this kind of relation to language gave a welcome sense of mystery, it seemed to me. Then back upstairs to finish making buns, v successfully. Walked in garden with S, X and T - relics of cultivation in times past are mint, fennel, even artichokes naturalized in the grass. Poppies and spring flowers. Walked with S and L up to a villa where Ros Pesman (History) had once stayed, with gardens and woods ideal for children, though of present occupants' twin children, girl is too shy, boy too disturbed to make much use of it all. Olive trees typically consist of shoots from an old stock cut off at ground level - apparently they are v subject to rot or disease. Later we saw some with holes and old, apparently dead trunks supporting live shoots. In afternoon, setting out for a longer walk, waylaid by nonnas intent on finding new place for S and X when their current tenure runs out in June. A younger woman took us to inspect a place, but she couldn't find it, went back, set out again with nonna leaning on S's arm who led us through a heavy door into a once grand villa with internal garden court - turned out not suitable - then another house with an embroidered padded heart like a kettle-holder hanging over the doorway saying 'E nato Arturo'. No luck there either, but later saw Arturo himself about 2 weeks old. Then by ourselves (sans nonna) up a dirt road to a grand estate - Villa Strozzi - with splendid avenue of umbrella pines. Everywhere stucco walls in ochre washes, cream, mustard, sometimes tan, shallow hipped roofs, window shutters. External doors are heavy, walls often topped with spikes, broken glass. Security seems a cultural imperative. Later S made a dish of barba di frati, a water-meadow kind of vegetable like a fleshier chive, and a potato gratin.
Long talk about narrative - S sees its essence as recursion in 4 modes: presenting, representing, becoming and using, with relative correspondences to fantasy, signifier of the barred other, desire and drive. Seemed to me these are homologous with subject, modifier, verb and object, or rather with their corresponding functions. Much useful talk. Slept soundly but woke early to convince myself that these terms could form a mutually equipollent tetrad.

Thursday, April 5. Leaving HK was accosted by one of a pair of orthodox Jews on their way back to Israel via Moscow. They had come a day late for their flight through some misunderstanding. He: 'Are you a Jew?' (I guess it was the hat); me: 'No, but I have great respect for the Jewish faith'. He makes prayerful gestures. The general gist was that he thought I could either persuade the booking clerk to waive the fee, or else if I stood around in the background the clerk would not take advantage of him. Touching faith. I think I persuaded him of the good faith of all concerned, but didn't see him again.
Flight to Milan passed in 5 minute sleeps. Watched The Artist from 3 rows in front. 'Wonder was not that it was done well...' From Milan airport the train passed through endless industrial wasteland - if there was a nice part of the city, we didn't see it. Central station a fascist masterpiece modelled on the Baths of Caracalla or something. Much SPQR, wolves suckling children, eagles, etc etc. Everywhere young women with raven hair, ivory complexions, and distinguished noses. L very shirty when a beggar woman seized our cases and lifted them onto the train, but I was just as pleased to do without the task and pay 5 euros. Across the flood plain of the Po till Bologna, dead flat fields, newly tilled or with first flush of green, farmhouses of Roman type, many derelict. Not an animal in sight, nor for the most part at all during our stay in Italy, except for dogs (omnipresent) and a cat or two. X says there are wild boar, and porcupine quills are found in their garden from time to time, but none of either while we were there. Later formed theory that number of dogs inversely correlated with prevalence of piercings.
After Bologna mostly one long tunnel till Florence. Met by S with T in stroller, who led us through many streets to the bus. Passed baptistry and duomo - exteriors all panelled in green and white marble (is the green serpentine? - I don't know) with some rusty-coloured ceramic inserts forcefully reminiscent of Strawberry Hill Gothic. Is that where the style comes from - not sure of the relative chronology, since the facade of the duomo as a whole is not original. Pavements narrow, traffic heavy. Longish bus ride  to where S, X and T have their apartment in an old convent; downstairs is the church of San Martino a Mensola, 9th century. Tile floors, high ceilings, views of cypresses, olives, high distant hills. Drank beer and feasted on fresh broad beans and pecorino. Later S made risi e bisi. Started to feel crushing fatigue but stayed awake long enough to make hot cross bun dough for the morrow.

Wednesday April 4. Daytime flight to HK marginally less tedious than at night - Tiwi islands green-khaki cutouts on a glassy sea. Watched Pirates of the Caribbean from the row in front and Iron Lady twice, once with English, once with Chinese subtitles. Landed in thick sea fog - heavily wooded mountains looming through the mist reminiscent of lower reaches of the Hawkesbury. Feeling a bit seedy on arrival, picked up on realising amazing cheapness of everything. Hotel full of tour group I guessed to be Dutch from their demeanour. In morning L and I walked all over the older parts of the city - little remains, but what does v grand. Spent some time finding St John's cathedral - pleasing building in white stucco. Original clear glass windows in wrought iron frames with external wooden shutters make for a tropical feeling reinforced by ceiling fans, etc. Modern stained glass, one window of the miraculous draught of fishes, one ascension, one crucifixion, I found undistinguished and ugly. A side chapel with threadbare regimental banners as from a ghost army seemed appropriate. Trees are clearly cherished, scaffolding built around therm, etc. A long queue of people waiting to catch tram to the Peak, so we hailed a cab which cost almost nothing but short-circuited what would have been a good hour's wait. Vistas rather obscured by fog, but another Dutch person at least able to tell us which direction we were looking.
On top of precarious-looking structure on the harbour side, fog cleared enough to see across to Kowloon and high hills behind. Coming down caught the tram for which there was no press. L rode almost vertical section standing up so she could take pictures to admiration and apprehension of Indonesian woman who pressed her to visit in Jakarta. Later wandered through the downtown looking for somewhere to eat. Shop assistants on lunch break spread rugs on any unused part of the roadway, such as bus zones, and spread out picnics & play cards. Ditto in pedestrian overpasses, etc. No success in finding anything suitable, so back to hotel area to cheap and echt eatery with all the menu in Chinese. Bowl of noodles plus all the bits of a duck they couldn't sell. Rested up in hotel for 1 am flight - looking out the window reckoned that you could tell the time by taxis - by the time 40 have passed a minute has gone by. Late evening enlivened by surprise meeting with V - old friend from police days at the airport to greet his daughter returning from Korea. L had ferreted him out from the police website. He shouted pork dumplings done in 5 ways - v toothsome. V now president of HK lawn bowls, which could be a handy introduction if one played. And so into the long night flight to Milan.