Took my first foray into the database this morning to look for comments by site reviewers. It’s amazing – it works! Reviewers wrote things and I can review.
I always get a sense of wonder when I build something and it works. I recall as an engineer seeing millions of “things” being made and having a certain awe that I designed them and they actually worked well enough to be produced in large quantities.
An afternoon under blue skies. Pleasant temperature until the sun went down.
Yosemite is still full of people even in February.
The video is a little unsteady but hopefully that will improve with practice.
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Walking through Customs when I arrive back in California I always worry that I unknowingly broke some rule and will get a lecture from someone.
This year I filled out my customs form and admitted that, yes I had been walking over pasture while hiking in the Yorkshire Dales.
Customs pulled me to one side, sent my baggage through the scanner and asked for my hiking boots. Oh no they still had Yorkshire mud on them. I duly handed them over wondering what they were going to do – not cheap boots, big concern!
Imagine my surprise when a very courteous agent cleaned off the soles for me. I apologized thinking that these people are protecting our borders and the cleaning of my hiking boots is not the most important thing they could be doing but they explained that it was all part of the job. Everything was done with smiles and great courtesy.
You have to give credit where its due, the agents I dealt with were first class examples of great service.
The Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth provides a view of navel history that reaches back over 2000 years, from the Roman Fortress in the northern part of the harbor to the very latest in warships. What struck me about the display was that it is the big objects that get our attention, the warships and the guns. However, if you go to #7 boathouse you can view a display of the trades and crafts that sustained the dockyard through its heyday in the first half of the 20th century. This led me to wonder about all the people that worked in the establishment. With so many people involved, over 20,000 in the early 1900’s, I wondered about the lives of the people and what it might have cost them to build and maintain these warships. In a way the Historic Dockyard felt a little like a ghost town – once thriving and bustling with people now just a few objects remain to remind us of the lives spent in maintaining the fleet.
Why Visit Sissinghurst
Vita Sackville West was a woman who marched to the beat of her own drum at a time when most women were held captive by the social norms of the first half of the twentieth century. For those interested in the creative mind she is perhaps one of those examples of individuals that break free of the existing paradigms and show us that we can all lead a life that is our own as opposed to one that is conferred on us by the norms of the day.
To be fair she did not have the economic restrictions of the average person. She was born into an aristocratic family and subsequently married Harold Nicholson, a senior diplomat who was part of the team that created the Versailles Treaty.
Paradoxically she was perhaps the subject of greater social pressures than the average person.
Her creations included poetry, novels, books on gardening, a regular newspaper column on gardening and of course the garden at Sissinghurst.
Knole
I was drawn to Sissinghurst to see where Vita worked and to get a feel for the surroundings in which she lived and created.
To make the tour complete we started with a visit to Knole to see where she grew up. I found the house to be a mixed experience. On the one hand you can feel a sense of history as you walk through the rooms that are open to the public but at the same time I felt a sense of darkness, a result not helped by the fact that, no doubt for preservation purposes, the lighting in the rooms is fairly low key. Unfortunately photography is not allowed on most of the tour and so the images in the video show only the outside of the house.
Sissinghurst
My first view was of the tops of the oast houses, something that so much a part of Kent. For reasons I cannot explain I find oast houses to be comforting, perhaps they speak of warm summer days and the endless summers of youth. Quickly though the tower is revealed, standing majestically as it has done for hundreds of years, and then as you draw closer the remainder of the red brick buildings show themselves. Although the day is cloudy I feel a warmth in the house and I can imagine living a very peaceful life in these surroundings. My inclination would be to sit and soak up the atmosphere but the gardens are very popular and there are visitors everywhere. Stopping on the tower stairs to look at Vita’s room I’m struck by the cozy appearance of the room; although practically it might have been very cold in winter. I can imagine curling up on a winters day with a fire in the grate and good book to read. I wonder if this has any connection with “A Room Of One’s Own” but the Nicholson’s didn’t buy this house until after its publication and so perhaps the connection is the other way round, who knows. Once again it would be nice to dwell at the entrance to her sanctum but visitors abound and finding a sense of peace to be with this place is hard.
The gardens are vibrant in spite of the fact that it’s a grey October day. I’m not a gardener and so much of the detail is lost to me but you cannot walk in these gardens without getting a sense of the devotion and care that went into their creation and their maintenance. Nature thrives but in a controlled way. In spite of my preference for unfettered nature I’m impressed by the manicured appearance of the gardens – they bring a sense of serenity as you stroll quietly in and out of the hedge lined “rooms”.
Reflections 