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.