Kitchen, Rant.

It looks so simple, doesn't it.

 

Just some new worktops, new sink and taps, new cupboards.  But oh, it hides a multitude of painful days, painful months. 

It took me a month to clear out, and pack elsewhere in the house, 24 years worth of clutter from the old kitchen and utility, together amounting to by far the largest space in the house.  Then commenced two months of work, starting on the 25th June and still not quite finished.

The arguments began a year ago.  I didn't want a new kitchen at all.  The old one was clean, well-designed, and perfectly functional.  Why throw out - literally - a £600 dishwasher to replace it with an inferior model, (of which more later) simply for the sake of appearances? Why throw out solid, well-made and spotlessly clean cupboards, just for the sake of appearances?

Husband, a structural engineer, is obsessed with cracks, and wanted builders to knock out all the plaster where we had an extension 24 years ago, to sort out, in the building's underlying structure, the permanent visual problem of cracks.  They are not a safety or structural problem.  Everyone we spoke to without exception said "Just paper over the cracks and in the time the possible purchasers have bought and settled in, they won't notice them".  But no, husband had to have perfection so that "if we pop our clogs the kids, (28 and 30 and both homeowners) will find it easier to sell the house and make more money on it". So, he reasoned, if this disruptive building work has to take place, why not have a stylish new kitchen at the same time?

Personally, I think I have done enough for our offspring, and would like a peaceful and calm retirement.  Not massive hassle going on for months. The kids could easily sort out the work (if they thought it important which I am sure they don't) when the house was empty, assuming we had both "popped our clogs" and they had to clear the whole house. 

I lost the "no new kitchen at all" argument, but bargained for a new door in the back wall which would lead straight out into the garden.  This I have achieved, see above on the right, and it is a great improvement.  You feel less trapped in a kitchen where you can get out into the garden.  And it lets so much more light in.

I lost the argument over the dishwasher, and the new one, which is inferior, doesn't actually work properly, so an engineer will be coming out on Monday.

The argument over the steam oven fizzled out after husband asked his secretary, whose daughter is a professional chef, whether professional chefs use steam ovens.  They don't.

The argument over which cupboard fronts to choose - well I never stood a chance - husband was determined from the outset to have his own way, and there was no discussion. It doesn't bother me that much, although I feel we have chosen the wrong colour work-top.

But we still have (against my advice) three ovens, because as well as the new built-in oven and built-in combination microwave, we have to have the old oven fitted under the work-top so that once a year at Christmas, all the dishes and plates can be warmed without sacrificing cooking space.  So a full cupboard under the worktop sacrificed for one day a year.  Which, surely in the not-to-distant future, will not be necessary - surely one of our two daughters will take over Christmas, at least once?  After 26 years, when will we stop hosting?

I lost the argument over an induction hob because apparently everyone has induction hobs nowadays and soon no other kind will be available to buy.

So what did I gain, other than a new back door into the garden?  We agreed on the new flooring, Karndean wood-effect.  We agreed on the colour of the paint.  We needed a new ceiling (because of the cracks), and new ceiling lights. 


Before the workmen started, nothing was broken, everything worked.  They damaged the burglar alarm, which would cost more than it is worth to repair.  After plumbing and electrical changes, they have left the boiler in a state where it is now on all the time, despite everything being switched to "off" positions. In a heatwave.

They keep on defecating in our toilet, which is a problem because the downstairs toilet has collapsed under the strain and been removed entirely, so now they have to tramp through the house and go upstairs. Which should be private as far as I am concerned. Yesterday they left actual .... well, I won't go on.

Last night we had our first proper cooked meal in our own home since 12th June.  Food does soothe, and my nerves, which were on edge for eight weeks, have calmed a little.  That was before I found out that the dishwasher is not working properly.  And that the new flooring for the downstairs toilet can't be done until September, so we will be without this facility for another month, as the flooring has to be done before the plumbing.

Next, husband wants to go through the same crack-repair scenario in the room next door, which was also extended at the same time, and has the same "problem" (which, in this room, is invisible to the naked eye).

And he wants to start in two weeks time. 

Walsingham

Part of the ruins of the refectory wall, Walsingham Abbey, Norfolk

Shakespeare  as ever so succinct, so evocative, captured  scenes like this when he wrote of the:

"Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang"  (Sonnet 73).

It is a striking thought that Shakespeare, whose parents had lived through the Reformation,   was already seeing ruins, only one generation from the dissolution of the monasteries.  Time did not dissolve these walls, they were deliberately hacked down and the roofs torn off to hasten internal decay.

Another poem, again from the sixteenth century, is attributed to Philip, Earl of Arundel (1557 - 1595). 


"Bitter, bitter oh to behould
     The grasse to growe
Where the walls of Walsingham
     So stately did shewe.

Such were the works of Walsingham
     Where she did stand
Such are the wrackes as noe do shewe
     Of that holy land.

Levell levell with the ground
     The towres doe lye
Which with their golden, glittering tops
     Pearsed once to the sky."

Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel was the son, grandson and great-grandson of men attainted for treason.  His great-grandfather, the third Duke of Norfolk, escaped death, (the fate of the other two) only because Henry VIII died in the night as the Duke was awaiting execution the next morning. The latter then spent the whole of the reign of King Edward VI imprisoned in the Tower of London, to be released on the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary.

Philip, a Catholic martyr, was also attainted for treason, and spent six years in the Tower awaiting execution, primarily for his Catholic faith.  He died of either malnutrition, dysentery or poisoning, (reports vary) in 1595 and was canonised by Pope Paul VI on 25th October 1970.

Walsingham had for centuries been a major centre for pilgrimage in England.  Every medieval king is said to have visited. 

Henry VIII walked barefoot from the slipper chapel and offered a necklace of great value immediately after the birth of his first son, Prince Henry, on New Year's Day, 1511, and made two payments in the same year to the royal glazier for work in the Lady Chapel.  Tragically, the baby died soon after, on 22nd February at barely seven weeks old.

Katherine of Aragon, his first Queen, wrote to Henry on 16th September 1513, after victory over the Scots at the Battle of Flodden, that she would now go on pilgrimage to Walsingham, and was recorded as being present there on 23rd September. 

The Abbey at Walsingham was destroyed by Henry VIII along with every other great religious house in England during the late 1530's, by which time much water had passed under the bridges of Henry's youthful idealism.

Walsingham has revived in the last hundred years as a place of pilgrimage.  There is both an Anglican and a Catholic shrine. 

When I visited on 7th July, the Union of Catholic Mothers was on pilgrimage at Walsingham. I was impressed.  These ladies, many of them advanced in years, processed from the Slipper Chapel

to enter through the great monastery gate and hear a mass under the former eastern window, the last remaining stones of the former abbey church.

 

As a mere tourist I was humbled by their dedication, and wondered whether I should consider becoming a Catholic myself.  Then I remembered that my mother (who died in 1987, and is a very distant figure to me now) had been brought up as a Catholic, although she never spoke about it to me.  My brother, who undertook extensive research in family history, unearthed the details. 

 

Perhaps it is not only the shape of a nose or the colour of hair which runs in families. 

 

 

 

 





Holiday Reading

 



Here is a book I picked up at a Sue Ryder shop.  It was outside in a box marked "two for £1". So old and rundown that it did not merit a place on the bookshelves inside. 

 

(The other one I bought for the £1 was a slim paperback of Shakespeare's sonnets, a substantial section of which is printed upside down.  Odd).

 

The book does not have a date inside it, either in the opening print credits or in the editor's introduction, so I did not know from which decade it hailed.  I guessed the 1930's.  It does smell. This reminds me of my friend, who won't buy a second-hand book on principle because they don't feel nice, and they smell.  I will admit it doesn't feel nice. 

 

I've since looked it up on Amazon and my guess was apparently correct, mid-1930's. 

 

I bought it because I had a great friend many years ago who enthused about Bentley's book "Trent's Last Case", much praised as a classic detective story. 

 

Further, I do love an old hardback, especially one from the 1930's.  And I do love a "dip-in and dip-out" type of book, which seems like ideal holiday reading.

 

The treasures within exceeded even my expectations.  There was a story by Ronald Knox, the uncle of Penelope Fitzgerald.  Penelope Fitzgerald made her name with a biography of all her uncles.  It is called "The Knox Brothers" and I bought it (of course) after reading the excellent biography of Penelope by Hermione Lee.  It's in a pile to come to later, in the winter I think.

 

I admit the detective story by Ronald Knox was not very good, but it is indicative of the snobbery and elitism of the 1930's, that if you were from the upper middle class, with an Oxbridge education, and preferably a man as well, you could get mediocre work published. 

 

Another story is by GDH and Margaret Cole, a husband and wife team of elite 1920's academics, who are more usually noted for their socialist economic theories.  I had no idea that they also wrote detective stories.  Again, it is not particularly brilliant, but sheds an interesting light on their otherwise austere public image.

 

The best story I have read so far in this collection is by Dorothy L Sayers, still a classic author in print and still being adapted for TV and other media after all these years. 

It is the only story which has so far made me want to read more by this author.  Oh, and one other thing, of course, is that Dorothy L Sayers was a contemporary of my great heroine, Vera Brittain.  They were students together at Oxford.

 

The common feature of the other selections I have read is that they are ALL set in one of three locations.  Either in an Oxford College or a gentleman's club or in the home of an eccentric old upper-middle-class gentleman.  This old gentleman invariably has a housekeeper or butler, lives alone and has been found dead, usually by the housekeeper/butler, who is immediately cast as a suspect.  Really it is a little bit tedious, and I stopped after reading four of these.  Another feature of the less well-written stories is that they make heavy weather of laying out the clues and the hindrances to discovery of the eventual murderer. 

 

It's interesting to note this as a stage in literary development, though, a curiosity, and a little light entertainment from time to time. 

 

The book is definitely holiday reading only, and I have put it aside for the time being. 

Birthday Reflections

So I am now 62.  It is hard to believe this.  I am still active, love to walk and enjoy the outdoors, and love to read although I now rely on a battery of glasses.  I have my TV watching glasses, my normal everyday vari-focals,  my reading glasses for all reading (including computer use) and my special reading glasses, for very close work, eg sewing or looking at small maps.  That's four pairs.  I have also got a magnifying glass for looking at maps, and two pairs of sunglasses in different prescriptions.  One for driving and one for reading.  That's six pairs of glasses in all.

On a recent trip to a National Trust property, a display asked what is the thing you most value, your treasure.  Several people put "my husband" and kids put their tablet or I-pad.  I reflected, and realised that it is my reading glasses.

Last week, we entertained my 90 year-old mother-in-law.  She expressed an interest in going to the sea-side, so after my husband drove 120 miles to fetch her from her home, we then drove a further 70 and stayed in a caravan on the North Norfolk coast.  She absolutely loved it.  It's so inspiring, that she still has such zest for life.  We hired a wheel-chair in case we needed it, but in fact we went everywhere in the car (including the ten-minute walk from the caravan to the actual sea-beach).  We sat in chairs with our coats on, looking at the waves, and we visited a real-ale shop.  She still has a great appetite, and fully appreciated the food we bought from local shops, which my husband cooked. 

Looking back to when she was my age, she seemed very old to me, then.  By the time she was my age, 62, she already had a gorgeous little grand-daughter, (our elder child) and another one expected.   We are not so fortunate, but at least both our girls at last have steady partners, with whom they live.  It may be another couple of years or more, by which time I will be in my mid-sixties, but we may yet have grandchildren.

Looking at the other families in the street (we have lived here thirty-one years), none of the children who were babies or toddlers when we moved in have had a child.  Two are married, a third is status unknown, but no grandchildren.  The eldest is now 35.  This is the way people do things now.

Thirties - double income, no kids yet - DINKY.

Sixties -  no grandchildren yet - NOGY

Nineties - Survived a World-War, Incredibly Tough, And Loving Life - SAW IT ALL.

I am happy.

Altars, Duffy, Finished at Last

Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York

I won't refer in my heading to the full book title, "The Stripping of the Altars", because I don't want to attract people looking for references to seedy clubs.

The final page (593) has been turned.  I have spent a long time reading this book, and have to record my grateful thanks to the Lincolnshire Library Service, which allowed me to borrow from its reserve stocks, even though I do not live in Lincolnshire nor pay Council Tax there.  Lincolnshire is an enlightened county as far as libraries are concerned.

I have read about the ancient Medieval church rituals, which were abolished over the period from the 1530's to the 1580's.  The abolition starts with the so-called "Reformation" initiated by Henry VIII, mainly as a means of getting his own way. (Religiously, he retreated somewhat in his last years , but not in terms of despoiling and seizing church goods).  The reign of his son, Edward VI, took things much further, and abolished the Chantries,  (Chantries were chapels set up and equipped, with lay priests funded by parishioners' wills, to pray for the souls of those who left money, and their families).  The Chantries' goods and lands were also seized by the Crown.  New prayer books were published which went further than ever before in removing references to traditional services.

Mary's reign attempted, with considerable success, to reinstate traditional religious practices. A good part of the success must be attributed to underlying loyalty among parishioners, their fondness for the old ways, and the fact that they had hidden, or otherwise preserved, the images, vestments and books on which the old religion depended for its physical forms. Many parishes re-adopted them with enthusiasm.  Mary's reign did not last long enough for the reinstatement of traditional religion to become embedded.

Elizabeth, despite her vow not to "look into men's souls" went the whole hog in removing and searching out images - this involved breaking stained glass, and burning, chopping up or profaning the objects, statues and goods which Catholic services used.  This process was still going on in the 1560's and 1570's.

A new generation grew up which had known nothing else, and so the Protestant Reformation became embedded. 

A sad by-product of the process was the abolition of the Medieval Mystery Plays, which were too closely related to the Catholic religion, and hence had to be first censored and cut about, and finally abolished altogether.  Thus a central part of English town life, the civic pre-occupation with the cycle of plays and their associated processions, was also lost.

I have bought a ticket for the Everyman NT Live production, and have bought a copy of the text (in an Oxfam shop, naturally) to read beforehand.  Looking forward to that.

What surprises me most, after reading about all this iconoclasm, is that anything was left at all for us to gawp at, (mostly in tourist mode).  There are stained glasses, restored of course, as is the one at the top of this post.  There are painted carvings, as shown in my post below.  There are some wonderful illuminated manuscripts in the British Library and a few other collections.  Most treasures were stripped and swept away.

As a result of reading this book, I have now got some new objectives - apart from having a look at Mystery Plays.  Firstly, a long list of Norfolk churches, referred to in Duffy, to visit over time.  A thought about how the huge expansion of Elizabethan drama, most popularly seen in Shakespeare, must have been in part a response to the vacuum left by the destruction of the images of the church and the religious plays. A development of this thought is a plan to read more about the death of Marlowe, who is thought by some to have been assassinated because of his atheism, rather than merely being the victim of a tavern brawl. 

It's all so exciting.

Poem Wot I Wrote

 

 

Song of Evening

 

Colours fade

Pushing time

Beyond the line

Stars appear

In hemisphere

 

Night is never pitch dark.

Who said it was?

Who mired their soul in pitch?

It’s not so bad.

 

Moon hands back the sun’s gift,

Currency exchange

Gold for silver

Is that too little?

 

Don’t forget the million stars

The world will turn.

Hope return.

 

 

 

 

Medieval Journeys

Morris Dancers

 

Here's a picture from my medieval journey last weekend.  I've been reading a book called "The Stripping of the Altars" by Eamon Duffy. 

Eamon Duffy was interviewed recently on TV.  He took part in a debate about "Wolf Hall".   This book, as I wrote in my last post, includes depictions of Thomas More, (and Catholics) as bad, bad people.  Eamon Duffy is a Catholic, and a Cambridge Don.  His book is scholarly (by which I mean very detailed, and not an easy read).

Professor Duffy also contributed two letters to the debate in "The Times" (I refer in my post below). Perhaps needless to say, he defended the reputation of Thomas More. 

In the book are some black and white photographs portraying aspects of medieval pre-reformation worship.  Of course, it was not called Catholicism then.  It was just national worship.

I noticed that a lot of the photographs were from churches in Norfolk, which is a county reasonably accessible for me.  Last weekend, on a return trip from Wells-next-the Sea, I made a detour to find the parish church in North Elmham.  The picture in "Altars" shows part of a wooden screen, called a "Rood Screen".

I was stunned by the colours, having only seen the rather faded black and white picture in the book.  Above is just a very tiny part of the screen, some decoration filled into spaces in the carving above portraits of the saints which make up most of the screen.  Isn't it glorious?  And this is after more than 500 years, and at least three sets of iconoclasmic attacks -

(1)  the "Reformation" - Henry VIII's personally motivated attack on traditional church worship.
(2) Elizabethan reversal of her elder sister Mary's restoration of the traditional church.
(3) The "Puritans" who "won" the Civil War and fiercely opposed decoration and pictures in churches.

The screens apparently survived by being turned upside down and used as floorboards, where the pictures stayed safe until the nineteenth century, when some antiquarians dug them up. 

What I also like, is that the pictures are not restricted to religious themes.  The Morris Dancers, while not pagan, are a fun thing.  People enjoyed them.  Of course, the Puritans repressed them, but Charles II restored the tradition.

English history is so endlessly fascinating.