Category: Britain
“I should be sorry if I only entertained them, I wish to make them better.”
– attr. George Frederic Handel, on being complimented for Messiah
Holidays for me are entirely bound up in my family’s traditions. What we eat, when we decorate, even how the decor looks is deeply meaningful to me. It’s also an at-home holiday for us, we hang out together (friends are very welcome if not required!) but we’d rather stay in eating our sugar cookies, rib roast (Christmas Eve meal) or special baked french toast breakfast (Christmas morning). One year we varied it up and went skiing in the Tirol of Austria, which was a great holiday, but the consensus of all the family afterwards that even though it was amazing, it hadn’t felt at all like Christmas.
Jeff’s family has their own traditions as well, and it’s been really fun getting learn and incorporate a new set of them – particularly breakfast at a particularly wonderful diner and getting to enjoy the excitement of nieces and nephews of Christmas morning.
For the four years we’ve been married we’ve been able to alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas with either family and it’s been a great compromise but this year…well, Thanksgiving turned out a bit unexpected. And as for Christmas, the Atlantic Ocean is not small and plane fare beyond us currently, plus we really like being in London! So Jeff and I have had a few discussions about the new phase we’re finding ourselves in about having to rely on ourselves to either perpetuate the traditions we want to keep and forge new ones for ourselves. We’re going to have to tweak this a bit over the next few years. I have to admit, it always feels slightly less Christmas-y without my parents, siblings, and friends around to spend hours playing games with, dinner at the big table, and lots of time and good conversation.
But as for building new traditions for just the two of us, I wouldn’t mind an annual repeat of Saturday night! Feeling just a bit detached from Christmas this year, in spite of the gorgeousness of London in full holiday splendor, I booked us a couple of tickets for a performance of Handel’s Messiah at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church, which makes up a part of Trafalgar Square.
St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields is an old church, it’s been around for nearly a thousand years, even though the present incarnation has only been around since the early 18th century when the building was discovered to be in desperation need of renovation. Plenty of significant people are buried there, and it actually serves as the parish church for the Royal Family, and Downing Street.
It’s still very much in operation as a church, but in recent years it has cultivated a role for itself as a major hub of classical music support as well. It puts on regular concerts and performances throughout the year, including some free ones meant to be taken in during a lunch break or afternoon out and about.
Jeff and I got dressed up and bundled against the wet and cold and took in an evening of the entire Messiah by candlelight.
The setting was lovely (garlands and candles everywhere), the music was beautiful, and I for one came away feeling much more seasonal. Sometimes you just need to hear something unabashedly Baroque! It was a lovely way to gear myself up for this week – when we shall be attempting the formidable Rodgers family feast with just two people in the kitchen instead of the typical six minimum. Because new traditions are important, but some old ones are vital.
“What fresh hill is this?”
– Dorothy Parker
This week has been alternately delightful and rough. Behold your links. As a bonus, here, have a shot of Trafalgar square all gussied up for the holiday while I make up behind work and plan my weekend escapes.
The Hairpin is starting a series called Internet Work and Invisible Labor, about the work that goes into web production. Their first interview is the Fug Girls (whom I love!), but I’m curious to see who else they get involved in this since this is the field I’ve moved into – though not yet in anything half as prestigious – and I think it’s interesting how some people don’t see what I do (content creation, content marketing, media strategy) as work. Writing is a lot of work, it’s not easy and making a successful career at it is damn hard sometimes. (Caitlin Kelly wrote about this too, lately.)
I truly believe that Benedict Cumberbatch is one of the British-est names ever devised, right up there was Alistair Fothergill. Enjoy, therefore, this thing I found. (Bumblebee Vegemite! Also I’m seriously excited for series three of Sherlock.)
This is just a commercial, but it sums up the problem succinctly
Here’s your tumblr find of the week. Nothing but London gorgeousness through and through.
I like complex mathematics boiled down (honest to goodness, the analogy that got the theory of space time and quantum mechanics into my head was a loaf of bread and a block of Swiss cheese), so it’s oddly comforting to know that we rank somewhere between a banana and potato at birth.
A ridiculously good read about the development of the retail mannequin, of all things. Miss Modesty, a seemingly drunken hostess, gender bending, history -it’s like Shakespeare up in here!
For the headline alone you should read this. But also enjoy the astronomical odds.
How gorgeous are these boxes?
This week’s been frantic, so this short article on busy people and their weekends was a timely reminder.
ETA: A surprise Beyonce album dropped today! Frankly, I kind of like the surprise nature of it, it’s a refreshing change to the hype and buildup you often get (though I readily admit only a mega performer could probably pull it off). Beyonce makes up a significant portion of my workout mixes, it must be said.
“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”
— Douglas Adams
Holy mother of pain, kittens!
Yesterday’s post was drafted in advance of a Series of Events, when all was well and the washing machine and I were having a delightful domestic fling. Quite suddenly and without warning all went spectacularly upside down. Like all great tragic love affairs, ours did a lot of damage on the way out.
But first let me go back!
Over the weekend it became clear that our washing machine would need to be replaced. It had had a few funny spells where its various lights would flash or the whole thing would turn on (or alternatively refuse to turn off) without instruction, but these had all be cured with a period of rest from duties. But as of Sunday we knew it was no good. It had given up the ghost and refused to work any more. We had to walk the whole thing out of its niche to inspect it, avoiding scraping up the linoleum to the best of our ability – revealing of course a degree of filth that had to be cleaned up. Several reviews online and investigations into the make and model confirmed that the behavior it was displaying meant it had gone the way of all the earth. With our landlady’s permission we ordered a new one, to be delivered on Tuesday.
Monday morning started out just fine. Jeff went to the office and I was just getting up and about when suddenly my phone rang and it was Jeff, sounding irritated and out of breath.
“Apparently I’m supposed to be in Gloucester right now and they didn’t tell me. Can you start packing?”
That’s a bit of a way to kick off the week. Being of profound packing experience I began rounding up necessities and waited for him to get home to tell me the story. As it turns out, multiple of his colleagues had been assigned to various spots around the country over the weekend without being told or told incorrectly, so come that morning a number of people were not where they were officially supposed to be. By the time he got home he had been told to sit tight and await further instructions – which of course meant that after an hour or so he was asked to come straight back into the London office to work there for the day.
I remained suspicious and refused to unpack. A good thing it turned out, since that night he was assigned to go to Peterborough for three days. He headed out early Tuesday morning.
That same morning, our brand shiny new machine arrived and was installed by two very helpful workmen, and it appeared that all was well in test runs. The first time I attempted to use it, however, the sink (through which it connects) filled straight up…and refused to drain. Which is to say, of course, it overfilled. Emphatically. Luckily I was in the kitchen for the rinse cycle because water began pouring down the sides of the cupboard and onto the floor – I was afraid that a hose hadn’t been connected properly at first, though latter evidence revealed this was not the case.
Necessity being the mother of invention, I grabbed a couple of pots and began frantically ferrying the sink water to the bathroom (slipping and sliding all over the now wet and slick floor) until the cycle finished which luckily put a stop to the flood. After which I spent a couple hours mopping up the mess (more filth discovered) before marching grimly to the nearest bodega for drain cleaner, and the bakery for a fortifying pain au chocolat.
Both the trip-to-Gloucester-that-wasn’t and this adventure have put me pretty badly behind this week. I’m doubly grateful for a nice night out on Monday because everything since then has been a bit dire. The manageable side of dire, but dire nonetheless.
On the other hand, we have successfully proved that in extremis, I’m capable of feats of strength that are pretty impressive. Such as dragging a machine across the kitchen floor in mere seconds sans injury.
Pray the drain un-clogger works permanently, ducklings, the next step is professional help. Which I may or may not currently stand in need of myself.
…whether on museum placards, pub signs, or elsewhere, is a source of continuous delight to me. It’s like the entire country is trying to out-cheek each other.
The Swiss Army Knife. It slays me!
Small Dog Syndrome 