In Olympus per men quod bestia

Bruce here. Two weeks ago Ellie had left her fiddle for some maintenance work at the Oxford Violin Shop, within sight of the old city. Saturday was a lovely spring morning, and we returned to pick it up. In the middle is the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. As you look up at its tower you can see the visitors – having mounted the steep winding staircase of the stone tower -- peering out over the town and valley below them. Oxford is inhabited by marvelous ancient men and creatures; I’ll let them speak for themselves.

I have determined to let serendipity guide my steps in this country; Saturday they passed through the ancient oaken doors of St. John’s College. Wandering in its quadrangle, we chanced upon its vaulted old chapel and the Junior Organ Scholar, an apple-cheeked English lad who was setting up for weekend events. He invited us to go see the College porter and ask for programs (that means “tickets”) for the concert of organ duets that would be held there Sunday night. We did, and came back Sunday night for Evensong services and for the concert. We were treated to the St. John’s Choir: Bach, a spiritual, and liturgical chants, and to French organ soloists combining the chapel organ and a “chamber organ” in duets of Bach, Buxtehüde, Mozart, and others. It was pretty much like being in Heaven.

Week Five

This week at Uni was back to normal, thank goodness. No more disruptive weather. People still complained of ice, at which I tried to keep a straight face.

We've been learning how to cast. The material is a rubber that comes in a big sheet, marked out in 2" cubes, that you cut off and put in a pyrex measuring cup, then pop into the microwave for about a minute. It's insanely sensitive to overheating, at which point it turns a horrible yellow and starts producing carcinogenic fumes, and has to be put in the fume cabinet and tossed out. Once it is melted, you dab it onto the object you want to cast, trying to get in every nook and cranny. It starts cooling off quickly, so the melting and dabbing and cooling process has to be gone through many times before the object is adequately coated. When it's coated, about a 1/4" thick, it can be peeled off intact and put on again many times, as it it both strong and flexible. The next step is to coat the thing with layers of mud rock (plastering strips), let it dry, paint it with polyvinyl acetate (adhesive that dries rock hard), and let it dry. You now have the rubber cast and the hardened plaster to keep its shape.






It's remarkable because it can be used on almost anything and does not mar the surface. I did a wood carving, and Andreas did a bronze statue of Narcissus, just the head and shoulders. The point of this is to give us experience with casting and gilding. This coming week we will finally start gilding. We'll be gilding the leaves we made for the chandelier, as well as the objects we have cast. We're also making objects for other classes to guild. That's one of the neat things about the school --when one class needs something for a lesson, the material often comes from the project of another department. For example, the chessboards that we are learning to French Polish were made by a woodworking class.

I'm including a picture of the classroom full of project chairs undergoing restoration and French polishing. I French polishing this week, on the chessboard, but all around me the Second Year BA's were working on chairs that they had done all the conservation and restoration on, making a leg here, replacing a carved bit there.

I really hope I get to carve something; I find myself drawn to the material. I really like working on the Gimson chair, especially the hand work, like making mortises, even though we're almost never allowed to go work on it. There's a certain free-flowing shape to the day with Campbell, and if we're up to our elbows in some process, he keeps us. So the chair is progressing very slowly. But I will be insufferably proud when it's done.

One of our lectures this week was on making size wash. (That's size as in glue.) It's something you would put on a new piece of timber that you want to look consistent with the old wood, and it was also used in places where there might be lots of humidity, such as a linen press, because the wash is tough and water resistant. It's made of twelve parts water, one part glue ("Scotch glue", pearl glue, hide glue are all names for it) and earth pigments. The pigments to imitate different kinds of wood are:
-- Red ochre: mahogany
-- Yellow ochre: old pine
-- Slate umber: dirty old runners and dust boards.

This pertains directly to something Kate and I were unclear about, back in Marshfield with our last camel-back sofa: should we attempt to make new wood repairs to the frame look old? The answer is yes, and size wash would be one way to do it.

We also learned how to make black lacquer, which is an opaque shellac like what you see on a japanned box, so that you see nothing of the grain of the wood. The magic ingredient is soot.

Oh yes: about the pictures at left and below! Remember the rubbery stuff, used in casting? Well, I took a picture of Lucinda working on something while the goo dried on a bronze bust. When it was done, Andreas carefully applied the plaster to the outside. The final picture shows the mold -- cut off of the bronze bust -- and a
reproduction made out of plaster, which was poured into the rubbery mold. Lucinda treks from London part-time, but Andreas and I are the two foreigners in the Master's Program. He's from Greece, and brought us back some yummy olive spice puree from his last trip to Athens. The only word recognizable on the jar was "Unilever".

Oxford Saturday

My week at school was pretty much of a bust because of the snow. Even my placement didn’t happen because the horsehair shipment got delayed by the weather. But on Saturday we went to Oxford, and the weather was good enough to take pictures and have a lovely afternoon. So I’ll write about that.

Our first stop, after dropping off my fiddle at a violin shop to have some work done, was at the covered market, a sea of exotic fruits and vegetables and animals from the sea and woods (almost) ready for cooking. To a Vermonter, it’s a riot of delectables. I guess that’s a new word, but it’s accurate. It’s an incredibly picturesque town, but real and alive, and bustling. We ate lunch at the Turf Tavern, an ancient pub with the usual low ceilings and beams, accessible only by following your nose through a series of tiny alleys, and no signs anywhere. Even without any signs, it was crammed.

Much of Oxford is 500 years old, including the Bodleian Library, started 500 years ago by Sir Thomas Bodley, who built it for “the republic of scholars.” I believe it is the first library in Britain. The oldest part of it is the lecture hall, pictured here, and it has the most extraordinary ceiling, and I believe it, too, is a first: the first vaulted ceiling without internal supports, thanks to a complex system of carved pieces, whose angles deliver the pressure so evenly and perfectly to the walls that it supports a floor above. Above it are the stacks, two rooms 400 and 500 years old, of unspeakable beauty and aura. No picture taking is allowed, so I’ll have to describe them. The volumes are ancient leather books, many in Greek and Latin. The ceilings are all vaulted woodwork, with carvings and brightly painted panels, very large and Elizabethan. However, the library is very much in use. Students were coming and going. As a U.K. student, I could get permission to use the library, but I would have to have a very particular reason, and get a letter from my faculty explaining why I needed access. It was tempting to change my major to be allowed to use the library!

They have a Gutenburg Bible, and a volume of Shakespeare’s works, the first publication of his plays in one volume, if I remember correctly. The guide said that when the library acquired it, the volume was already a hundred years after Shakespeare wrote, and was much used and dog-eared. There are even elbow marks. They were able to deduce, from the wear on the pages, which were the most read plays, and the most read scenes from each play. The top five plays were, fifth: Macbeth. Fourth: Henry IV, part one. Third: The Tempest. Second: Julius Caesar. At the top, the most read play: Romeo and Juliet. And the most read scene? The balcony scene!

When we came out of the Bodleian , we heard a most wonderful sound of singing and an orchestra. It was coming from the Sheldonian Theatre, pictured here, and we discovered that that very evening was to be a concert, including the Mozart Requiem, one of my all-time favourite pieces. So we had dinner at another pub and joined the line at seven o’clock. There were about 200 singers, full orchestra, and four soloists, and the chorus had come together just that day for the only rehearsal. The hall is round, with padded bench seating going up in many tiers, with gilt ornamental work everywhere. The concert was excellent and the Mozart more than fulfilled what one needed it to be. The Lachrymosa movement, predictably, made me cry. What a bit of luck, to stumble onto a concert like that! We can’t wait for our next trip, and Oxford is only 20 miles away from Lane End.

Home in the Chiltern Hills

We’ve been busy getting moved into our new place in Lane End, fighting with the uncommon slush, mud and snow, and helping our landlady Karen be done with her projects and headed back to the US. But popular demand requires some notes about our residence.

Lane End is a village on top of one of the Chiltern Hills, with several roads down into the valley of the River Wye, which is where High Wycombe is. Lane End has two butchers, three pubs, excellent Tandoori food, the Royal Mail, and "a surgery." What more could you ask? We are just south of the huge M40 east-west roadway running from London to Oxford, which runs near High Wycombe. South of us is pretty much hills and valleys, pastures and farms, down toward the River Thames. Famous people who have lived in the Chiltern Hills include Oscar Wilde, Mr. Toad, Rattie, Badger, and the others.

Our cottage is at the end of a row of attached dwellings likely built in the last century for farm workers. We’re on a muddy driveway, accessible from the paved road to the next hamlet Freith, and also used by tractors and manure wagons on their way to the fields behind us. Each cottage has a small enclosed yard, a garden plot in “the allotment” (that’s what they call the land out back shared by all), and direct access to the wide world of walking paths and fields.

Winter came to Lane End eight days ago, and we have few pictures from before: the back of the row -- with ours to the left, and looking out from a walking path. One dreary evening Ellie thought it was great fun to picture me hauling a bag of coal through our back yard. I took some pictures of the front of the cottage, as well as the back side – from out in the allotment, and the view across the back valley.

We are free to live outside of the urban apartment environs of the University in High Wycombe, and we are free to explore tiny lanes and villages in the hills, by virtue of our Vauxhall Corsa. though it seems tiny, we are amazed by its headroom, legroom and visibility. And the huge stuff we can fit in the hatchback, with the seats down!

Bird Update

Yum. Just a note to say that we let our feathered friends hang till Sunday evening, then gave them the treatment that must come to all wild game. Served roasted, with potatoes, garlic and parsnips (followed by salad, lemon curd cake and tea) they were just dandy. Ellie did her magic with them but afterwards pronounced them rather tough in the breast, and thought we really do need to get a local recipe: perhaps braised. . . .?

Well? You asked!