Travel: Cheltenham

When we staggered off the plane at Heathrow, we immediately took a minibus to Cheltenham. I'd been initially resistant - there's So! Much! in London - but once there, was disappointed when it was time to leave before I'd done half of what I wanted to explore.

The main event was the Cheltenham Literature Festival, where we all saw Judi Dench and John Cleese, and went to the "Jane Austen Tea" which was really a discussion by Dierdre Le Faye about her investigations into Austen. A couple of us (there were 5 of us travelling together) thought that she was too nit-picky; I found her method of stringing together small details outright Sherlockain.

I also went to the Val McDermid tea and the talk by the guy who wrote The Marshmallow Test, a man who is very smart and surprisingly witty.

Because most of these boiled down to "buy my books" and there was a food fair down the main drag on the first day we were there, I already knew before I went to London that I was going to end up buying a second suitcase for the trip back. But you can't GET some of those jelly flavors in America!

We also ate magnificently, including at The Beehive Pub (highly recommended) and the Daffodil, which played The Mayfair on Sherlock. The management not only didn't giggle when we asked to be "put close to the John and Mary table," the manager came out and pointed out not just exactly where Cumberbatch stood and a couple of her waiters who'd been in the show as waiters. Superb food, but I just adored The Beehive.

I also adored St. Mary's church, which is hidden by buildings. I kept running back to take more photos every time the weather changed.

Pictures: ( under the cut )

Travel: Jane Austen

The Austen tea at Cheltenham was one of the quick sellouts. I found Dierdre Le Faye's talk fascinating; she was talking about how she'd read a casual line from, say, Mansfield Park about taking a fork in the road, and then another casual line about how the land was flat somewhere, and add a few more casual lines and confidently say "They took a left turn at [x] and Austen is describing this part of the country, which she had visted when..."

I started my spending spree by buying all three of the books she was signing - her latest compilation of Austen's letters ("I like to pretend I'm Cassandra and she's writing to me"), Jane Austen's Country Life and The World of Jane Austen.

That last is also the title of the 2015 JASNA Big Do, so perhaps Le Faye will be coming to America.

Val McDermid's talk included her work on the update of Northanger Abbey as part of a modernization project, and the writing problems of having to stick to the original plot and that the tension of the original plot had been "relieved far too soon, only 3/4 the way through the book, leaving a gentle canter to the altar."

And on the Tuesday of our trip, M and I hared off to Bath. We had exactly 7 hours, so we visited with slightly more efficiency than leisure, shoving in the Roman Baths, the Assembly Room/Fashion Museum (I was aided in our timeline by the museum being much smaller than I expected), the Jane Austen Centre whose main exhibit is the new waxwork, but my favorite part being the sign on the wall explaining incomes and what they would buy you, and Bath Abbey.

Between the first parts of that sentence and the Abbey we stopped for tea at The Pump Room. The waiter's head kind of exploded when I said I didn't want tea or coffee -- I loathe both -- so M said "bring her hot cocoa." The decadent results are under the cut.

Also under the cut are some shots of things from the Abbey, including a diptych exhibit running along one wall. Frankly, there are better shots of the waxwork and the baths than my camera takes.

Pictures: ( under the cut )

England 3: Sherlock Holmes

Wednesday was spent mostly at the Victoria and Albert and Thursday was mostly spent haunting the area around Covent Garden (and speaking of hauntings, every night I wasn't in the theater I was taking a different ghost tour).

But Friday was the two biggest events: Sherlock Holmes and Poppies.

Lynne had been to the Sherlock Holmes exhibit the night before because she was one of the sponsors (The Other M has a photo of her pointing at her name on the "Thank you" board. And it's why I'm not bothering to anonymize her). So she had gotten to go to the big 'do the night before, tweeting things like "Standing next to Mark Gatiss. Ho, hum, another night in London" and not tweeting about wanting to lick either the exhibits or Ian McKellen.

The next day, we were the second group too, the rest of the group being rounded out by one of the 221B Concom and one of the Tin Boxers (both studying in London), a couple of Lynne's local friends and a couple of mine from the Staggering Stories podcast.

Bring a camera; although we all got busted for taking photos in the exhibit (which is prohibited) there are two things which you can take photos of, as shown below.

( photo cut )

( Exhibit details below. Spoilers, sweetie! )

Mind you, for anyone who buys souvenirs - the ink on neither the tea towel nor the mug will last long without flaking. I was extremely disappointed by that; I like the motto "SHERLOCK HOLMES: the man who never lived and will never die" and planned on giving that mug hard use. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the deerstalker in the exclusive Cristy's "Sherlock" tweed was reasonably priced. Frankly, I expected it to be 100 pounds or more, and it's slightly less than 50.

England extra: What the hell, more St. Marys photos

( I really was all over that church like a rash. )

I know what made that light streak... but I tell people it's a ghost.

England finale: Poppies

After the Holmes exhibit, we split up. L stayed with her friends, and The Other M, while M and C and I left with Jean and Fake Keith of Staggering Stories to meet up with Keith, AsdaMan, and El Presidente of Staggering Stories. (Only Jean is a London native, so the Staggering Storytellers were taking the opportunity to do a little in-country tourism.)

I had no idea until I got there the impact and the sheer size of the installation, which is flooding all around the Tower, lapping and pouring and advancing in waves.

I also had no idea, until we turned the corner and saw the line of volunteers (200 per shift) that the poppies were being assembled, not just being taken out of a box and stuck in the ground. Someone -- usually in military uniform, the Tower is, after all, still a military base(ish) and a historical site -- hammered in a stalk. Then a volunteer in red would gently place the petals on the stem and screw them down with the center of the flower.

The last third of my photo album is a wash of red. It's really impossible to show the impact, much less the size of it, in 600 x 600 pixels. Here in America, we keep seeing the same two photos: poppies waterfalling from the "Weeping Window" and heading to the Thames, and the Queen and Duke wandering among them. Like St. Mary's, I kept trying to get the right "emotion" shot.

( Judge for yourself. )