Wales, Italy 2006

Christmas Day, 2006
I arrived in Manchester as planned, no hitches, on Christmas morning and was greeted by Peter and Joe. It was a perfect flight -- no upper respiratory problems, a terrific book in hand, no nasty terrorists putting a damper on things.
The first day several old friends came by the house, and by eleven, I was ready for bed. On Monday, Boxing Day, Peter, Joe, Lee, and Peter's sister Maureen and I drove to Llandudno, on Colwyn Bay, for a Christmas pantomime. [For the uninitiated, this is a show with songs and horridly corny jokes, and based on a children's story or tale from English history. No miming is involved.] This one was "Aladdin." It was spectacularly produced, filled with spectacle, lighting effects and glorious costumes. I enjoyed it, but Peter pronounced it, with a sniff, as having no soul. Still, it was a great day trip and I loved it.
On Thursday, Peter's own panto opened. This was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Four of the boys from "Oliver" were in it, as were four other actors I have performed with. And I knew several of the backstage and box office crew from previous visits. Liz Watkins, one of the ushers, asked me to come the next day and sell programs, which I did. [One has to pay for programs in Britain, whereas they're free in the USA.] My old friend Ruth, also working in programs, has invited me out for some as-yet-unspecified day to go to a museum and have lunch. The British hospitality has already begun in earnest...
"Snow White..." was lots of fun, and my friend Steve Davies, who played the Dame, was hilarious perfection. The Dame, I should explain, is a drag role, each appearance onstage in a more and more outlandish costume. Steve was gloriously over-the-top, and wowed the crowd. (The remainder of this journal comes from my emails home.)

Dear Friends and Family,
Sorry I haven't been reporting in with any regularity, but most of my time has been spent either reading or writing or illustrating. Last week I finished all the finished rough drawings for "My Dad Did Something Bad" and began the first draft of the new picture book, "Calvin and the Girls." Now that I'm back from LONDON, I can take it back up again.
On Saturday morning Peter and I were given a ride to Chester and let off at the train station. Peter's nephew had found (online, naturally) excellent, cheap seats, and the train ride went smoothly.
On arrival, Peter and I walked a few blocks to the Euston Square Hotel, a sparkling new hotel near Bloomsbury. After check-in we walked down into the West End. Peter wanted to see shows; I wanted merely to let London seep into my spirit. We parted at the theatre ticket booth in Leicester Square, where he had gotten tickets to a matinee and an evening show, and I struck off on my own.
Peter is a picky eater, so I took the chance to have a Chinese meal while on my own. Mr. Wu's, however, was not a particularly felicitous choice, but it was cheap and plentiful. The General Gao's chicken was more evocative of the good general's saddle, but no matter: I was pleased to get any Chinese food at all. Afterward, I sniffed around the Chinese markets to find a tin of lichee tea for Peter's partner David (currently on a world cruise), and after about a dozen tries, was finally successful.
From there I made a beeline to the National Gallery and spent a few delightful hours there, longer than I usually do. Then I hit the many secondhand bookstores on Charing Cross Road, buying nothing, but enjoying the process of rooting around. I also found a delectable little cul-de-sac, a court lined with many antiquarian bookshops, a new discovery.
I met Peter at 7:30 in front of the Apollo Theatre, to find out when his show (Jessica Lange in "The Glass Menagerie") let out, then began scouting the restaurants of Soho for my evening meal. After discarding an inordinate amount of prospects, I hit pay dirt.
Melati is a restaurant on Great Windmill Street, specializing in Indonesian, Malaysian, and Singapore cuisine. I had no reservation, so was sent up several flights of stairs to an attic dining area, filled with dining parties, and settled down with a novel. The waiter brought me a dish of mahoy goreng, a glorious feast comprised of rice noodles, sliced fish cake, chicken, egg, and shrimp. It was quite spicy (which Peter would have hated!) but deliciously enjoyable. I washed it down with a Tiger beer, lingered as long as I could, and eventually left to meet Peter. We walked back to the hotel, both convinced that we'd had the better time.
Sunday morning we walked half a mile or so to the British Museum, which, astonishingly, Peter had never visited. We stayed for a couple of hours, marvelling (mostly) at the Greek and Assyrian ancient art. Peter was duly impressed and I was glad to return to this treasure house. Just before leaving, we spent a bit of time in the fabulous Reading Room, where Karl Marx spent so much time writing his (unworkable) social theories. It is massive, a huge cavern of a place, and oddly, completely open to any visitors.
We had arranged to meet Tony Younger for lunch, meeting under the great porch of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Tony is an old friend of Peter and David's, and has hosted Peter and me twice on visits to London. He is a handsome ex-military man of 77, an American's perfect paradigm of the pukka Englishman. On the way to the restaurant, Tony accidently jostled a crazy old lady who was trying to pass. He apologized, but she sailed into a symphony of invective, and he was unable to palliate her. For a full three minutes she railed at us, telling Tony (a native Londoner, incidentally) "We don't want your kind here!" We had apparently run into one of these pathetic street crazies. After a while we were able to scrape her off and toddled off down the Strand.
The restaurant, Salieri, was one I'd been to before with my cousin Dana, her daughter and son-in-law. Over-the-wall decor, perfect service, and impeccable food. I had a grilled tuna steak with steamed vegetables in lemon butter -- wonderful. Tony, despite our protestations, treated us.
Afterward, Peter and I walked to the Thames and crossed Waterloo Bridge. We strolled along the south bank toward the Globe Theatre, stopping at the Tate museum for another exposure to art, more adventurious, edgier than the previous day's. On exiting, we walked across the beautiful Hunderford footbridge and ended up in front of St. Paul's cathedral, whose size and magnificence I always find newly impressive. We walked back up Fleet Street, and as the evening darkened, toward the theatre district. I was to have my Christmas present from Peter this evening. First we refreshed ourselves with tea and scones at a delightful patisserie in Soho, Valerie's.
My gift was Sondheim's "Follies" in concert, an all-star extravaganza at the London Palladium (Judy Garland's last venue). I'd never been in this theatre before, the grandest and most voluptuously outfitted theatre in London. The show was, without going into too much detail, magnificent, one of the most thrilling evenings I've spent in a theatre in years. The highlight was an American performer, Kim Criswell, singing "I'm Still Here," which was also the first act curtain. I never expect to hear a better rendition; this song I know so well might have been freshly minted this very evening, a one-time-only occasion.
Walking back to the hotel, my euphoria kept my mind off my physical weariness. Peter estimated that we had walked over seven miles that day.
We took the train back home this morning. It had been a virtually perfect visit, with London under blue cloudless skies the entire time, mildly cool rather than cold -- perfection.
It is Monday night. Next Sunday I fly to Venice for a week, and after that, a visit with my nephew Toby in Lecce, a baroque jewel of a town in the heel of Italy's boot. I think I'd better begin resting for the revels...

Venice, Sunday, Feb 11
Peter and Joe got me up at 3 a.m. (groan!) and I was at the airport in plenty of time. The connection from Treviso airport to Venice, which I’d been sweating, was a breeze. But at my arrival at Piazzale Roma, I hit a majnor snag. I’d spent my last pounds on the bus ticket to Venice and naturally hoped that I would be able to get cash from an ATM. No Such luck. Every ATM I tried failed to recognize my password, a first for me as getting money from them on past trips had been child’s play. Alas, not this time. For a full hour, panic growing, I scampered about trying various banks. (Try scampering with a heavy bag in tow!) Finally, near despair, I found a money exchange at the train station, and was able to get an advance on my credit card -- actually relieved to pay an exorbitant 19% interest rate.
I made the wizest investment possible in having reserved a blue Venice card. This enabled me to ride public transportation and use the public WCs free for the entire week. The Vaporetto, the gloriously reliable conveyance plying the Venetian waters 24 hours a day, runs on average every ten minutes, both ways. After midnight it’s every 25 minutes. I made up for my investment by the second day. And only twice was I asked to show it.
I’d had no luck finding a hotel in Venice proper, but had to make do with the Hotel Buon Pesce on the Lido. It turned out to be perfect, on the north side of the island, and a very short bus ride to the Vaporetto stop. As it turned out, I loved the Lido. It’s a resort in summer and not at all lively in winter, but it suited me perfectly. I’ll stay there on any future visits to the city. The desk clerk was Annamaria, a plump, affable and helpful girl with thick glasses. She was a joy to see every day.
My room was fine, clean, and decorated with a nod to the 18th century. It was also quiet, looking out over parkland.
After dropping everything off, I was eager to get back to the city. The Vaporetto deposited me at the San Zaccaria stop just as the fog was rolling back out to sea. Another sea confronted me in Piazza S. Marco: a torrent of people, in town for Carnivale. Many were in masks, others in full fig, every kind of costume you could imagine. Some were homemade, but others were clearly the products of fine shops, or rentals. I snapped many pictures.
The reason I was in Venice in the first place was to shoot material for my project of painting Venice at night. Some of the day shots were adaptable, but mainly I had to wait till dusk to hunt up my subjects. My hours were spent hunting up picturesque squares, campielli, and richly bedizened celebrants, but as this was my third trip to Venice, I didn’t mind.

Monday, Feb. 12
Breakfast at the Buon Pesce was lush outlay, but during the week’s stay I stuck mostly to granola and hardboiled eggs. The servers, young firls with very good English, were quite generous with the coffee when they realized my capacity for the stuff. I ate well and thus had little need for large lunches.
In my perambulations around San Marco and beyond I found a shop featuring something completely new and surprising. One candymaker, displayed marzipan in the window unlike any other I’d ever seen. Instead of the typical fruit shapes, there were all sorts of raw and cooked seafood, hors d’oevres, devilled eggs, olives and very realistic lemons. I knew that this trip might pack on the pounds, so I resisted with the greatest difficulty.
Crossing the bridge at the church of San Moise, I saw a gondolier setting out with another boatload of passengers, and I was all but certain that he was Lino, who had given me my first gondola ride fourteen years ago. He looked just like the man I remembered, but with the addition of that many years. He was already to far away before I could call out to him and find out.
I ended the day in the northern sestiere of Cannareggio, ravenous for seafood and eager for anything. I found a lovely little place, Ristorante al Gazebo. The gnocchi in salmon cream nearly lifted me into a whole new level of consciousness; the mixed fried seafood just about finished off the job. A half-liter of white wine coddled me into bliss and I lingered over the meal as long as I could It was the best seafood I was to have on the whole trip, though I sought constantly to find its equal.
When I finally, and reluctantly, emerged into the night, the gentle rain which had started earlier had by now developed into a steady flood. The nearest Vaporetto stop was about a quarter of a mile away, so I was forced to dash madly from one awning to another -- though I got soaked anyway. But it had all been worth it.

Tuesday, Feb. 13
Having explored Venice on previous visits, I determined this time to scout out some of the outlying islands. I’d visited Murano on my last trip, but I now had a quest to complete. Murano produces art glass in prodigious quantities: every creature you can find on the earth is reproduced in glass, along with all kinds of stemware, art glass, et cetera. I wanted to find a hummingbird for my sister Brenda, who collects them. Surely on Murano I would find what I was looking for.
No such luck.
In the first shop I spoke with the owners, who luckily gave me the right word to work with: I sketched a hummingbird in my notebook. “Ah, colibri!” they said. So I proceeded to look EVERYWHERE, in virtually every shop I could find. There were Disney characters, vehicles, animals and birds of every type – but no hummingbirds. Rhinos, elephants, clowns, Popeye and Olive Oyl, crocodiles, cuttlefish, sharks and rays, beetles and dragonflies, owls and penguins, snails and dinosaurs, 18th century dandies in full feather – everything but the Budapest String Quartet – and hummingbirds. Finally I settled on a fine little singing bird, very delicately wrought with exquisite detail.
Some of the work done on Murano is gorgeous, and yes, some of it is the worst kind of junk. In one shop, which seemed to specialize in the very best work, I was surprised to find the vilest piece of all: a clown sitting on a toilet. Loathing clowns even in full dress, I fled in horror.
On Murano I found one of the loveliest churches in the whole lagoon, the church of San Donato, and nearby was a restaurant that lured me in, Busa alla Torre. The owner and headwaiter, a mountainous redhead turning rapidly grey, with a formidable beard, took me in hand and provided a feast.
Back in the city, I wandered about shooting various subjects, and found a perfect city square, the Campo SS Apostoli. Everything is here, not just for the tourists: newstands, a pet shop, a gloveseller at a stand, gondoliers lounging about waiting for fares, trees, a venerable old cobbled-together church, a handful of small restaurants. Old facades both stately and squalid – or both -- look down on the bustling life. A real people’s square.
I did a bit more shooting and shopping, and set out for dinner, at the one place it was necessary to stop. On my first trip to Venice I’d discovered a small family run restaurant, Trattoria Ai Cugnai. It was run by two middle-aged ladies, and on my first visit the place had won my heart. I returned three days later in company with two Englishwomen I’d met and we were treated as royalty. On my last trip to Venice, in 1999, I was remembered, and warmly embraced. Incredibly, now eight years later, I was instantly recognized and received kisses Italian style (once on each cheek) by the ladies. They had aged, of course, and one seemed quite frail, but I was in heaven at being remembered with evident fondness.
As I was dining fairly early, the only other patrons in the room were a gay male couple several tables away who smiled at me and seemed curious as to whether I was also a member of the tribe.

Wednesday, Feb. 14
I hadn’t really explored the Lido properly, so I set out on foot. First stop: the island’s cemetery, including one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. Then the beach on the south side of the island, home to the great resort hotels. The grandest and most venerable, the Grand Hotel Des Bains, was shuttered for the season, but the beach in front of it was open. I strolled about for half an hour, finding a few delicate shells, then strolled through the back streets to the S. Elisabetta vaporetto stop. There I caught a bus that took me almost to the other end of the island, from where I walked back to the center. I sighted not one but two old ladies in mink coats, riding bicycles. Women here would be the despair of PETA, and a bicycle seems not the slightest bit out of character, no, not even while wrapped in fur.
On the vaporetto, I got out at the S. Elena stop, to explore part of Venice that tourists never see (like most of the Lido). I wandered north through the Public Gardens, uncharacteristically green and spacious for Venice. The rest of the day I shot possible future paintings, and stumbled on the small Fundamenta Cavagnis, which I’d shot in fog at dusk on my last visit, and subsequently painted.
For dinner that night I’d intended to dine at Ristorante Al Zucco (the pumpkin), a highly recommended boite in S. Polo. Getting there from the S. Stae vaporetto stop, I discovered the Campo S. Giacomo da L’Orio, which had been deep in water when I’d seen it in company with Kathy and Marie. It reminded me to be grateful that on this trip there was no acqua alta (the high waters that routinely plague the city) to trouble me.
Al Zucco’s recommendation must have been well-deserved; it was booked up. Nearby was the Trattoria al Ponte, so I sat down for what turned out to be a true feast. Visually, too: the waiter was a deeply attractive, pony-tailed blond who seemed determined to make my experience a memorable one. For appetizer I ordered a Venetian specialty, sarde in saor. Sardines, vinegar-marinated in fried onions and served cold sounds off-putting, but it was delectable. My main course was cuttlefish (in its own ink) served with two bolsters of polenta, another Venetian specialty. It’s an entirely black and white dish, and surprisingly tasty. All this was washed down with a carafe of the local white wine.
I walked slowly back to S. Stae through the deserted alleyways, impressed as always by the safety of Venice even at night. The mysterious, winding streets, the ancient wellheads illuminated by moonlight, the utter silence of the city under the stars, are like a drug.
I sat outside on my vaporetto ride back to the Lido, feasting on the beauty of the illuminated palazzi on the Grand Canal and trying with little success to get useable shots. At the hotel, footsore and weary from my long day, I sank into the hottest tub I could draw, poured a glass of prosecco, and read. Bliss.

Thursday, Feb. 15
I set out with little purpose other than to shoot Venice and see some art. Venice is unique, a living work of art in itself. An artist or sensualist (and I am both) with an eye for detail is the ideal visitor to the city. I let my sight bathe in the welter of carved detail, discolored walls, oddments of ornament, and unexpected architectural whimsies. Lunch was at Rosa Rossa (Red Rose), a pizzeria I’d liked on my first visit 14 years ago.
The first of only two museums that I visited on this trip was the Peggy Guggenheim collection, where I’d been before. This was the third time but my pleasure in it was undiminished. In fact, while here I began reading a fascinating biography of the lady, doubly enhancing my appreciation of the collection.
I returned to the Lido a bit early and decided, as a change of pace, to have Chinese food. The fractured English translations on the menu were highly amusing (like wanton soup; does it splash into your lap and have sex with you?) but the food was plentiful and quite surprisingly good. I began with excellent steamed dumplings. The cashew chicken and fried rice were utterly unlike their American counterparts, but fragrant, light, and flavorful.
I was back at the hotel by ten and finished my book (Best American Essays 2006).

Friday, Feb. 16
Today was my chance to explore the outer islands. The boat took me from Murano to Burano first, a voyage of some twenty minutes. Burano is a quaint fishing village specializing in lace-making, though I understand today a good bit of its product for sale originates in Hong Kong. The artists themselves are dying out and the tradition itself is therefore endangered. However, I did see several ancient crones bent over their work. Unlike Venice, the natives paint their houses bright colors, some quite garish; the effect is charming. The Buranese are friendlier, perhaps, than the Venetians. I spent a couple of hours there and then took the vaporetto to Torcello, remote from Venice and close to the mainland.
There is very little to see here, but what there is is choice. Torcello seems ideal farmland, though not much seems to be under active cultivation. Some pugnacious geese and a couple of tethered goats were the only livestock I saw on the long walk from the vaporetto stop. There is a hotel, a museum, a couple of restaurants, and a shop or two. In the main square however are two of the crown jewels of Italian architecture. The church of S. Fosca is small but lovely, set among cedars. The interior is all circular spaces, simple and profoundly lovely. The only other visitor was a middle-aged, mustachioed Greek woman who kept surreptitiously snapping pictures, officially verboten. I forbore to do so myself.
This was a harder resolution to maintain in the main cathedral, Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta de Torcello. Here too, a couple of camera buffs kept shooting the artwork, glancing furtively around to avoid detection.
At the far end of the basilica is a vast mosaic of various saints, Jesus and Mary.Typically, the anonymous 13th century artists lavished their most inspired work on the sinners undergoing the fires of damnation. It’s ironic how the art of Christianity, supposedly a religion of love, adores dwelling on pain and punishment.
The masterpiece of the church, among so many, is a chapel at the right, decorated by an 11th century mosaic of Jesus, the apostles, and a couple of archangels. Some have called this the greatest treasure in all Venice and they may be right. The work is exquisite and somehow preserved in all its original glory, a brilliant and elaborate expression of faith in the Byzantine style.
On the way back to the vaporetto -- slowly, slowly -- I conversed with a shopkeeper, who was as enchanted by the glorious day as I was, a sapphire, unclouded sky overhead, warm and lazy. Tranquillo e bello.
Dinner that night was at Al Vecio Portal, which I settled on out of sheer weariness. It was simply there. I ordered a simple menu turistico from the dark sexy brute of a waiter, a plate of spaghetti bolognese, a roast breast of chicken and a salad peppery with arugula. In mid-dinner, a couple came in in 18th century dress. The lady in green had the utmost trouble getting her panniered skirt through the tables, but sat down opposite me, where I admired her beauty and her rich costume. The plumes of her hat bobbed merrily as she and her companion laughed through the meal. Versailles vacationing in Venice.

Saturday, Feb. 17
My last full day in Venice I spent most of my time at Ca’ Pesaro, a grand palazzo converted in 1897 into a wonderful modern art museum. I hadn’t seen it before. Most of the collection is academic work drawn from past Venice Biennales, lushly over-the-top, but a good deal of it is quite forward looking. I specially liked a lovely Bonnard nude, and some Matisse prints. There were some oddities. I’d never seen a Carl Larsson painting in a museum. But here was an apple-cheeked serving girl, a merry misfit among all these lush Mediterranean beauties.
There was an oriental collection on the top floor but it wasn’t open until two, so I settled down in the café with my Guggenheim book. The collection turned out to be hardly worthy of the wait, but it was nice to sit, anyway. The rest of the afternoon I shot as much of paintable Venice as I could, then wandered in the direction of Piazza San Marco.
I rather like crowds, but this was ridiculous. During the week the carnival celebrants had been plentiful, but this evening one could hardly move among the cheek-by-jowl crowd. I stood it for twenty minutes or so and then squeezed my way out of the throng to find a restaurant. I found another with a tourist menu but lightning did not strike twice: this was the only truly indifferent meal of the entire trip. I returned to the Lido for packing and an early night.

Sunday morning I was not awakened in time by the front desk, so had to forego a shower and rushed to meet the cab which had been called for me. He got me to the vaporetto stop in hardly more than a minute, and the boat arrived shortly. I was sad to leave the place, yet eager to get back to begin the next adventure. The bus to Treviso was on time and everything went smoothly all the way back to Liverpool. Peter greeted me.
That night we were joined by Peter’s sister Maureen, Steve and Andrew, Lee Hassett and a young man named Matthew, Ruth and her husband and daughter. Dinner was at the carvery in Lavister, a delightful end to a long, long day.

I returned from Venice on Sunday afternoon, only to get up at four the next morning for another trip to Italy. Peter should be canonized for his willingness to be rousted out of bed in the middle of the night. This time I was going to visit my nephew Toby and Francesca, the Italian girl he has fallen in love with. I adore Italy, and yet I’d never been south of Rome before. I looked forward to a grand adventure.

Monday, Feb. 19
This seemed truly to be one of the longest days in memory. I could only get to the Bari airport via Paris and Milan, so I was prepared for long waits in airports. Peter got me to the Manchester airport easily and I checked my bag long before the crowd arrived. This time I was wise enough to arm myself with plenty of euros before leaving Britain. The flight to Paris was on time and gave me over an hour to make my connection. Yes, everything was moving along splendidly.
Paris lay under a blanket of fog, however, and my flight to Milan was delayed a bit. Then delayed a bit more. Then cancelled altogether. I realized that I would miss my connection to Bari, so I frenetically sought help from a lovely gamine at the help desk. She efficiently routed me through Rome, but I was to arrive two hours later than expected. It remained only to contact Toby so he wouldn’t give up on me and return to Lecce, an hour and a half drive from Bari.
I was unable to get through, but I hoped I could phone him in Rome; Alitalia had other plans. The plane was late and I had to sprint through the airport like a fox with hounds in pursuit, all the way into another terminal. It was nip and tuck and I sank into my seat only moments before the plane doors were slammed shut. No time for a phone call.
At Bari I discovered that Alitalia had misplaced my bag. I finally managed to contact Toby and it was a joy to see him striding into the airport to greet me. He was willing to wait for a second flight from Rome to arrive. Still no bag, but we were assured that it would come eventually and I would be contacted. We began the drive home.
Southern Italy at night is magical. A purple sky, palm trees, soft lights, a new experience ahead, and one of my dearest friends with me: nirvana. We drove home and arrived quite late; luckily Francesca was still up.
Francesca is a petite girl with short black curly hair and a smile that could melt ice. I warmed to her immediately and the next few days only confirmed my first impression. I was to meet her family and friends, and of the entire group, she was the only one of us to speak fluently both in Italian and English. Toby is still learning Italian and my own is woefully limited. Yet any difficulties we had in communicating were unimportant and merely added to the merriment. I marvel at the patience of Italians.

Tuesday, Feb. 20.
I woke from my 9-hour sleep to be find that Toby had already been out to buy me a toothbrush and razor. Francesca, a student at the Universita di Lecce, had already gone. Toby took me to a charming café nearby and we had coffee and dangerously delicious pastries, served by a handsome young barman with lushly black eyes. Add ears and a tail and you would have had a perfect satyr.
Afterward we walked through the Centro Storico, I snapping pictures one after another. Lecce is a national treasure, called the Florence of the South because of its rich heritage of baroque architecture. Buildings swarm with detail, putti and angels and demons and miraculous beasts in the easily workable local calcareous stone. The origins of the barocco leccese are obscure, but they differ from the creamy, flowing Roman style. It was originally thought to be Spanish in influence, but is apparently not. In the center of the city is a semi-exposed Roman amphitheatre, and a column with the city’s patron saint, S. Oronzo, perched so high even the pigeons left him alone.
Near the central piazza is the antiquarian bookshop of Niceta (Nico) Maggi and Mario Cazzato. These neighbors of Francesca’s parents are the gay couple Toby was eager to introduce me to. Only Mario was in the shop today. He is a handsome man of 52, with the confident Italian facial features of an opera singer; he shares some of the facial characteristics of both Placido Domingo and the late Richard Tucker. He greeted me warmly in the Italian style, kisses on both cheeks. I observed throughout the visit that even if one is parted from a friend or family for a couple of hours, this greeting is repeated. Is this a southern Italian custom, or have I noticed it only because this was my first experience of Italian family life? No matter; I fell easily into the custom.
Soon after, Francesca picked us up at the Public Garden and we had lunch at Trattoria Nonna Tetti, a charming hole in the wall near one of the city’s five remaining gates. The menu was extensive and even included horse (I respectfully declined). Instead I had the fantasia di Nonna, quill pasta with tomatoes, mushrooms, cheeses and some sort of ground meat. In addition, Toby ordered a vast selection of vegetables and antipasti – too much food, really, but all delightful. The best was braised chicory (which I’ve only had raw, in salads), mildly bitter and drenched in olive oil.

All during this trip I sampled Pugliese regional cooking. Without really getting much of a handle on it I can report that the main characteristics are a certain spiciness, an emphasis on local produce, and a full, rich intensity of flavor. We had water with this meal, but later I had some of the local red wine. It is distributed in jugs, then transferred to carafes at home. I am convinced now that the Italians export lesser wines and keep the best for themselves – perfectly understandable. The guidebooks say that Puglia is known for the high quality of its wines and olive oil. I believe it.
After lunch, we dropped Francesca off at the university, on the outskirts of town, and went back to the house. I read and rested while Toby ran off to his Italian lesson. He returned quickly: the class was cancelled because of some holiday. He took me out of the historical center into the commercial district to buy a shirt. I was astonished to see Lecce unfold before me: a prosperous modern city with beautifully appointed shops. We stopped first at a pasticceria. Toby conversed voluably with the owner, and it was a joy to see my nephew using his Italian completely without self-consciousness. To his disappointment, they were out of their specialty. This, Toby tells me, is a fig with an almond inserted into the center, then dipped in chocolate. At the COIN department store, I bought a perfect shirt, dark purplish blue with sunflowers lightly embroidered in the same color. A good dressy shirt.
Francesca fixed dinner that night, a blissful concoction of quill pasta and orrechieri, meatballs, green and black olives – terrifico. I was stuffed, but she then produced an additional dish, a meatloaf cooked in a skillet, stuffed with cheeses and olives.

Wednesday, Feb. 21
Che un giorno gioioso! We awoke to a clear blue sky and a temperature of about 65. To my relief, my bag had arrived. Toby drove me down the coast to see Otranto. We took the shore route, and the Adriatic was bluer than I could ever have imagined, clean and clear. I was able to see a good bit of the southern Italian countryside, endless olive orchards studded with trulli, a local hut made of stones piled together. In the vineyards and orchards they are used for storage, but may also be gathered together to serve as homes, each hut given the functions of a separate room.
The land is sere yet fertile, similar to southern California, and probably of like climate. Huge prickly pear colonies abound, the cacti as high as an elephant’s eye.
This was an inlet where one could see little grottos carved into the seaside cliffs, some created by humans, others by the actions of the rough waves. Toby led me to a hidden grotto, the water below a dazzling limpid turquoise, accessible by steps carved into the rock. It must be, when not visited by tourists, an ideal swimming hole. I have seldom seen such impressive natural beauty.
We drove further south through forests of eucalyptus, umbrella pine and palm. Otranto, halfway down the coast to the end of the heel of Italy’s boot, was somnolent in the warm midday sun. Almost everything was closed for siesta, but we found the Trattoria Glen Rose open. Again we ordered extravagantly: grilled vegetables, then fried appetizers that turned out to be stuffed green olives, covered with a batter and deep-fried. The main course was pasta studded with clams and mussels. We washed down this glorious repast with acqua frizzante.
Toby went back to the car to nap while I explored and photographed. Otranto is home to an ancient castle immortalized in a gothic novel by Horace Walpole. It must have been created early in the middle ages and is a most impressive pile sitting in full sunlight, small shrubs peeking out of the chinks in its walls. The deep moat is lined with grass, since very few conquering armies assault the town now. It was not always so, as I learned later. I strolled down to the marina and into the southern part of the town; the only living soul I saw was a goat who seemed quite curious to see this Yankee clicking a small magic box.
Eventually I returned to the car as arranged, and Toby took me to the cathedral. It is a magnificent church, plain inside, with a ceiling decorated in a gilded grid with elaborate carvings within. But the floor is the highlight. This 14th century mosaic, primitive in style, depicts a mad jumble of animals and people. The people were generally biblical characters, like Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. The animals run the gamut from elephants and camels to chimeras, gryphons, and other mythological beasts, roaming about the floor or enthusiastically attacking one another. In a shop off to the side, Toby bought both of us posters of this floor. Along the sides of the cathedral are fragments of ancient frescoes, some indistinct, others blazing with color. In a cloister toward the back is a grisly memorial of an attack by Turks sometime in the middle ages. The marauding army entertained themselves by lopping off the heads of the citizenry in an orgy of blood lust. Displayed were at least two paintings of the event, and what I can only describe as an ossocollage. Behind three glass panels are arrangements of the bones of the departed, skulls grinning, the other bones framing them in fanciful patterns. Beneath an altar in the middle is a huge misshapen stone, but I never was able to determine its significance.
Just before we left a coffin was wheeled in and the church began to fill up with people. The departed must have been very popular, for there were many mourners, most of them under 30. When they had all filed in, Toby and I quietly slipped out. On the way back, Toby called Nico, Mario’s partner. We were to meet at Angela’s later.

The house that Francesca’s parents share with Mario and Nico is on Piazzetta Tancredi, opposite (what else?) an exuberantly ornate church. One enters a small green door into a courtyard with a flight of stairs. Angela was waiting for us at the top. She is an effusive, compact woman who apparently lives to make others feel welcome. She greeted us Italian style and we came into the house. It is a comfortable jumble, with many books and personal mementos very much in evidence, a home of thinking, reading people. From the dining room, we scaled a ladder onto the roof garden to see the views of the city. The garden is on several levels and it’s shared with Nico and Mario.
Back downstairs, we sat in the living room, snacking on guacamole that Toby and Francesca had made. Presently Nico came in. Nico is one of the most gloriously over-the-top personalities one could ever hope to meet. Some might consider him a bit too much; I did not. A quiff of dark hair, bright black eyes and a baroque way of expressing himself – I adored him from the first moment. Toby teased me into doing a caricature of him, and from then on, my pen was seldom in my pocket.
We went in to dinner and soon Mario joined us. Angela had prepared a magnificent explosion of pasta and love, and the wine flowed freely. Dinner lasted over two hours, one of the best evenings I have ever spent in Italy. It was like visiting the country for the first time. Una sera giocosa!
The tone of this evening was to be repeated over and over, to my absolute delight. Only Francesca was easily bilingual. Nico has a little English, Mario less. Toby was speaking quite voluably and my reticence disappeared to the point where my Italian was coming back. But the secret to the evening’s success was this: the lack of complete comprehension was of no importance. All of the meals we had together were a wild melange of food, wine, and Italian culture; sex was discussed as frankly as the weather – and at every meal! Not a party for the faint-hearted or timid. My straitlaced younger self would have cringed, but the older, Dionysian Michael adored it all.
When Toby and his brothers were children I used to entertain them by drawing. One game was for them to draw a squiggle, a random line or series of them, which I would transform into a cartoon. Toby very quickly re-introduced this and I drew, by my estimation, and over the next days, at least two hours. All were submitting squiggles, and I was even transforming their names. By the end of every meal I felt more Italian than Federico Fellini.

Thursday and Friday, Feb. 22-23
In the morning Toby and I went back to Nico and Mario’s Libreria del Sole, the antiquarian bookshop. At noon Toby, Nico and I walked through the city back to N&M’s house, closing up the shop – Italian style – for a three-hour siesta (or in our case, lunch). Nico and I chattered mostly about movies; he’s a huge film buff, as I am. Lunch included the local red wine, which I had to force myself NOT to overindulge in. Angela once again cooked, along with some dishes by Nico.
After lunch I walked a few blocks to the Archeological Museum. It is a national treasure, of course, and had more Greek pottery than I’ve seen in any other museum. The building is old, but the new interior is a masterpiece of design, leading the visitor easily through the collection. In addition to the Greek and Roman artifacts, there was a display of work from an Italian illustrator of children’s books, and a gallery featuring art “From di Chirico to Warhol.” Several Marilyn Monroes by Warhol were featured, and the star was also the subject of two huge, horrible adulatory paintings. The poor woman would be 81 today. Isn’t it time to let her quietly moulder away?
Just before dinner at Nico and Mario’s, Angelo, a childhood friend of Nico’s, joined us. He is currently staying with them while a student. Angelo is markedly shy, handsome with a boyish smile, and with a five-day stubble. The evening was again very much like the previous one, with Angelo now requesting drawings of angels. He too got a caricature, as N and M had earlier.
That night, Angela asked me to do a drawing of Darwin for a national journal of Rationalist thought, L’Ateo. Her husband Giacomo is the regional editor. In addition I did a caricature of Pope Benedict and a cartoon critical of the Church’s failure to address the subject of pedophile priests. These will go into future journals.
On the last night I brought my camera to commemorate this visit but the results are fuzzy and often out of focus. My grateful heart will remember the visit more accurately. I sadly said goodbye to my new friends and the delightful Angela, and we made an early night of it.

Saturday, Feb. 24
Toby got me up at four to drive me to the airport in Bari. I hated to leave him, but knew that I’d be back. This marvelous circle of friends and family have extracted a promise from me to stay longer next time. The plan is to return this summer for two or three weeks. I’ll be hosted by both houses. I can hardly wait.
Peter and Joe picked me up at the airport and that night I had another social engagement. Chris Dukes picked me up and we met Eric and Keith at a country inn, Pant yr Ochain, for a robust dinner. Unwilling to wean myself from Italy too quickly, I ordered pasta. The knee-bucklingly tasty treacle tart at the end brought me gently back to Britain.
The last week was pleasant, although by now I was ready to get back. On the last weekend, Peter and Joe and I drove to the Welsh coast, and on the way back, stopped at a Catholic shrine that you would have loved, St. Winefried’s Well. The saint allegedly had her head lopped off, but it was reattached, and the well was dedicated in her name. It was a lovely medieval structure, with the well and bathing pools inside.

Wales '86

Wales 1986

Thursday-Friday, June 26-27
I took Thursday off from work – I had tons of jobs to do before my trip. Laurie Wayne came around at 4:15 to drive me to the airport. There was scandalous traffic all the way to Logan and I was on tenterhooks, though Laurie was placidity incarnate. On my flight to Heathrow I was surrounded by a chattering group of gardeners from San Francisco.
We landed at 6:20 a.m. and cleared customs in under 40 minutes. With luggage in tow I strolled for several miles to the area where I was welcomed by a beaming Michael Quarrier. We were on the road by 7:00 a.m. We drove out of the environs of London through a light ground mist which followed us all the way to Chester. We took the freeways out as far as Oxford, then through the town itself, too quickly. Then through the countryside up to Gloucester, stopping briefly on Birdlip Hill to gaze down into the Vale of Evesham, pale blue with mist, which Michael kept cursing but which I found deliciously atmospheric. We stopped at a pub, The Raven, and I had a pint of bitter and a sausage roll. By this time it was past noon. We arrived in Chester shortly, a lovely small city ringed by a beautifully preserved medieval wall. We drove to Michael’s home, a semidetached bungalow with a fine garden in back. Michael stoutly denies being much of a gardener; the yard belies such a claim.
I took a 3-hour nap in the afternoon, a good deal more refreshing than I would have expected. Michael woke me with a nice spot of tea, then we went into the center of Chester to walk around the wall. It was even more attractive than I expected. At the point where I started, a canal can be seen flowing far below the wall. At the first corner is a tower from which Charles I watched his army defeated by Cromwell’s forces. The progression around the city included sights of Chester cathedral, an elaborate clock celebrating Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, part of the older Roman wall, a splendid view of the River Dee, the hideous new police department building, the racecourse and the Watergate, in the wall’s west gate. It was a grand tour: Michael is a mine of information.
Home, Michael prepared a princely feed. Starting off with crab bisque, we went on to carrots and potatoes and heavenly stuffed quail. We finished off with an ice cream sundae, vanilla topped with chocolate chips and almonds, swimming in rich yellow Advokat, an eggnog liqueur.
Over port, crackers and cheese, we were joined by Peter Swingler and his partner David, a looker with fine long brown legs. We had a fine time and I went to bed tired but happy – and slept wonderfully.

Saturday, June 28

Michael woke me up with a brimming cup of coffee and the sly admission that he gone out to the Club, a gay bar, and gotten lucky. Indeed, his bit of luck was still upstairs. Michael went out to attend to his laundry and I went out to the living room, where I was soon joined by Michael’s trick. Tim is quite young and good looking, with thick, tousled hair, a nice amused-looking mouth bracketed with small dimples, pale eyes rimmed with black lashes. He had a nice body and engagingly sexy walk.
Michael came back and we dropped Tim downtown and drove to Wrexham in a roundabout way. And what a way! A short way out of Chester we were into Wales; the signs were now bilingual. We drove south and west into lovely hilly country. The higher we got, the fewer trees grew. By Horseshoe pass, a spectacular turn around a deep valley, most of the trees were below us. The scenery was delightful as we drove around and through Llangollen, then by a beautiful monastery, the Vale of the Cross.
We arrived in Wrexham and drove to Grove Park Little Theatre. A Saturday coffee was underway in the bar. Mona Stansfield greeted me warmly at the door. Present were Jenny Glover, as sweet and toasty as in Boston; Phil Edwards, plump, randy and funny; and his young lover Russell, a leggy redhead with a square jaw and green eyes and, emerging from tight white shorts, long muscular freckled legs. Peter and David came in later, as did Eluned Evans. Phil gave me a tour of the theatre. It’s bigger than Vokes, seats 204, with a well-raked auditorium. The theatre sits in the middle of the city and is painted an odd but pleasant mulberry color. It’s rather split- or multi-leveled, with dressing rooms in the basement, but the stage has no decent wing space at all. Midway up from the stage level to the entrance is a little tea bar. Upstairs beyond that is the bar. I felt immediately at home.
From the theatre we drove out of town a few miles to Erddig, a ‘stately home’ in the midst of extensive renovation. The last scion of the Yorke family, Philip, died alone, reclusive and grindingly poor in a corner room, with only his dog and an occasional accommodating boy scout for company. As he was (obviously!) the last of his line, the National Historic Trust took over the estate and opened it up to the public.
The place is vast, dark, and roughly filled in, as it’s still in the midst of restoration. Its fine gardens are also being reworked. Less than a mile away is a small agricultural museum. Walking back we crossed a broad field studded about with sheep and goats. To get back to the car we took a beautiful path through a thick forest.
Back in Wrexham we drove to Jenny’s. She had arranged a high tea in my honor. Also present were Eluned, Peter and David, Phil and Russell. It was delectable, four kinds of sandwiches, scones, breads and chocolate cake, strawberries and cream. Although it was hot and muggy it was still fun. Afterward we watched part of Wimbledon on television (Peter is a huge fan), and then, off to the theatre!
At the door I saw Heini and Rommi Przibram, Griff and Charlotte Baines. Heini and Rommi, Richard Morris, Phil Edwards, Eluned, Fred Evans, Ray Ledsham, Margaret Armstrong, Steven Freudmann and others circulated -- in character as all were in the show. Also before the show I saw Hazel and Len Simm and little Glenys Morgan.
The play was the second part of Nicholas Nickleby, four hours that seemed a good deal shorter, except for the bloody heat. Had a thumping good time.
There was a cast party and reception afterward, filled with beer and cheer and during which I got to see a good deal more of Ray and Richard. This year Ray, it turns out, played an old part of mine: Charles Condomine in Blithe Spirit.

Sunday, June 29
Woke up at 11:30. Michael and I went through my new road atlas of Britain (a birthday gift from Michael, bought at Erddig) and marked out the routes we’ve taken this trip. I want to keep it up to date, as a wonderful memento of the trip. We drove into the main part of Chester, had lunch at the Carriage House, then walked to Chester Cathedral. It’s from the twelfth century, was updated and extended over the next 300 years, and even had some nice Victorian touches. I found, by happy accident, Thackeray’s grave in the church. We also explored the Abbey, attached to the cathedral, then walked the Rows, the shopping area of the city. Michael’s knees were in danger of giving out so I explored a few shops while he brought the car around to the visitors’ center. There we saw a film on Chester and I cashed a traveler’s check. Walking through the Grosvenor Gardens I was amused to note more than one couple lying on the grass only several degrees from making the beast with two backs. Then home for drinks and relaxation. Chris, a friend of Michael’s, came over to join us for drinks and dinner -- a classic Yorkshire Pudding, a rib roast and stuffed red peppers. We ended with poached pears in wine with ice cream. During dessert we were joined by two more old friends of Michael’s, Geoffey and Philip. After a nice chat we went down to The Club. It’s a lively place – bar downstairs and disco up. Danced a bit with Chris. Michael scored again with Graham, a weedy boy with streaked hair, a moustache and lots of teeth, sort of a young, ‘80s version of Neville Chamberlain. (I’m uncharitably inclined to believe that Michael’s scores are rent boys.) Back home, I went to bed reeking of Club smoke, though considerably more relaxed than on previous nights. Tomorrow we travel!

Monday, June 30
Michael awakened me early and I packed for the trip north. We let Graham off in Ellesmere Port and drove across very flat country in bad traffic toward York. Soon we crossed the Pennines, beautiful mountains steeper than I would have believed in England. It turned quite cold, mist so heavy it seemed almost wintry. Above the timberline ragged sheep were our only company. We descended into the Manchester area and later reached Pontefract, once the center for liquorice farming (!). It’s also the site of the ruined Pomfret Castle, where the feckless fool Richard II was murdered.
Soon after we were in York. Like Chester, the city is walled and has a great cathedral. But the stone of York Minster is grey-white limestone to Chester’s muddy red-brown. This church is a splendid airy gothic pile, with small gargoyles sprouting from the spires like spiteful pigeons. I explored it alone after having lunch with Michael in a pub, The York Arms. It was as lovely inside York Minster as out, the quintessence of the Gothic cathedral. Afterward I cashed a couple of travelers’ checks. Michael dropped me off at York Castle while he got reacquainted with an old friend he had seen. (Michael is a native of York.) I climbed the steep hill to Clifford’s Tower, the only standing part of the castle. I carefully ascended the narrow steps to the walk around the battlements, head reeling, legs, arms, hands, feet tingling. Struggling manfully with my acrophobia I made it around clockwise. To my left, the town falls away down the steep hill; to the right is the hollow crater of the ruined tower. When I made it down to the ground I looked up and felt somewhat foolish to realize how close to the ground the battlements were. The museum was a different matter – delight for a good two hours. In essence, its programme is a social history of the English people. The most impressive item to me was a recently discovered Saxon helmet from around 700 A.D.
At 5:30 Michael picked me up at a designated spot and we drove over to see his mother. She is 77 (seems younger), and imperially trim; I found her charming. Michael strenuously objected to this characterization later. He describes her rather as a “charming monster”, probably with some justification. Their failed relationship makes his already considerable complexity more poignant. I thought of Nanny, the grandmother who raised me.
We sped north out of York, past Darlington, past Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to the small city of Alnwick high up in Northumberland, three miles from the North Sea. We checked in at the White Swan, a converted carriage house in the center of town. The Alnwick Festival was in progress, many young men and women parading about in costume from all periods. We ate a Lucullan dinner in the hotel restaurant, The Bondgate (sea trout rolled in oatmeal, sauteed in limes, wonderful cream of celery soup, Alnwick moor mushrooms in tomato and garlic, ending in chocolate gateau). Afterward I strolled around the town while Michael slummed in the hotel lobby. Dusk comes later in these northern regions: at 10:00! A heavy mist lay over the town, lit by occasional lonely lights, a marvellous atmosphere where one felt anything could happen. The town is old, old, heavy with grey stone, which the mist softened to an antique beauty. One pub, the Queen’s Head, has a noteworthy pub sign, good Queen Bess’s face glowering out of a flower of spiked lace.
When I returned to the hotel Michael was holding court among a bevy of young Norwegian girls, over to play in the festival band. They all speak good English and were charm incarnate. They play again tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. and we are going to hear them.
The exceedingly attractive young manager of the hotel, in a Gordon tartan kilt, came over to visit briefly. I had a Perrier, Michael a Drambuie, and then we went on up to bed.

Tuesday, July 1
We had a vast English breakfast in the hotel restaurant – figs, jam, marmalade and oatcakes, and a grilled kipper, washed down with first-rate coffee. After a stroll around Alnwick, whose ghostly beauty had flown during the night, we checked out. We packed the car and walked to the town square to hear the band from Bryne, Norway. After about ten minutes we drove out of town, past Alnwick Castle, northward along the North Sea. Bamburgh Castle, an enormous fortress hight above the sea, was closed, except for some schoolchildren on a special permit. So we contented ourselves by walking halfway around it. In one stretch facing the sea, the walls were coated with beautiful, tiny snails.
Back on the road we went north around Berwick-upon-Tweed and we were in Scotland. It wasn’t noticeably different from Northumberland until we climbed into the Lammermuir Hills, glorious and quite lonely except for thousands of sheep. Michael stopped just below Whiteadder Reservoir in a green valley, so I could take pictures of the shy, photogenic spotty-faced sheep. On the down side of Lammermuir we stopped at a pub in Gifford, the Goblin Ha’, where we had a pint of bitter and I had a sausage, onion and apple pie. Michael had the ploughman’s lunch. I wrote a few postcards here and we drove on to Edinburgh.
The city is primarily of dark grey stone, very crisp and airily gothic. What I saw of it was glorious. Princes Street is what every big-city street should be. And towering over it on an immense promontory, Edinburgh Castle, with the delicate spire of the Walter Scott monument below it. Michael and I drove west toward Glasgow to our hotel, the Royal Scot, beautiful, newish, though plain on the outside. We checked in, lightened our loads, and took a bus back into Edinburgh. Michael toured the castle while I did a bit of gift shopping. We met for a delightful dinner at a bistro called Nimmo’s: haggis with neeps, rainbow trout stuffed with Scottish cheeses and grilled, and a bottle of Neuminster. (I can now go to my grave having eaten haggis, the Scottish national dish, with no more obligation to eat it again.) It was now too late to go to the theatre so we came back, Michael to absorb a bit of scotch, I to write postcards and update this journal.

Wednesday, July 2
A most unusual day. We got up for breakfast at the hotel, another English classic: eggs, kidneys, bangers, black pudding, grilled tomatoes, plus marmalade and croissants. We drove into Edinburgh proper and walked around the castle to the camera obscura exhibit, shown by a beautiful young guide with a delicious thick burr, then down the “Royal Mile.” I left Michael at a pub, the Jolly Judge, while I did some more shopping.
Around 1:00 p.m. we drove south toward Carlisle through breathtaking countryside, in the valley below the Pentland Hills. Finally in the area of Carlisle, we started looking for Hadrian’s Wall, which had become a sort of obsession with me. We searched for an hour with no results. The wall, as beautifully chronicled in photographs, eluded us completely. We drove west all the way to Bowness-on-Solway and only found a map that indicated where the original Roman fort stood. We saw no wall, no bare stones at all, only a mound where it might have stood, still unexcavated at this point. Snappish and sullen, we drove down the coast along Solway Firth to Maryport.
Michael booked us at Maryport as an experiment, having no knowledge of the town. Our hotel, the Waverley, is a perfect example of the second-class seaside resort hotel, postwar austerity still clinging to it. The town itself is lackluster and Michael was as appalled as I was. We drove down to a town with the evocative name of Cockermouth, for dinner at a pleasant restaurant. Soup, game pie, and a very frothy cheesecake – not the substantial, Jewish-American classic but not bad, either. We drove back by way of Worthington, a lovely seaside town seven miles down the coast. Back at the Waverley we sat in the lounge, I reading Anthony Burgess, Michael watching Wimbledon. On television are, among other things, Rashomon, and a re-run of Rhoda, inexplicably very popular over here.

Thursday, July 3
Today I am forty. Time marches on.
We left Maryport right after the hotel breakfast. After a short stop at Cockermouth to send a card to Sasha, we drove into the glorious Cumbrian mountains, the fabled Lake District. The first lake was Crummock Water, and immediately after, Buttermere. The lakes themselves are very impressive in themselves, set among the dramatic mountains; the perfect weather added immeasurably to the show. And for the first half hour there were few cars. The landscape changed subtly from hill and grass to valleys of granite boulders, then to exquisite leafy dells and twisting turns. We circled north to go around Bassenthwaite Lake, then south again alongside Thirlmere, the Grasmere, then the gorgeous little town of Ambleside. The road turned and twisted along, we with it, both overjoyed at the beauty of the land.
We stopped in the town of Coniston, where Ruskin is buried. At the Crown Hotel, outside on the terrace, we stopped for a coffee. I walked down the street to a butcher shop and bought two Scotch eggs, a pub delicacy I remember from my first visit in 1971 and have been searching for since I arrived. We ate them and walked through town, and I picked up some postcards. We headed south along Coniston Water, east again and northward along Windermere, the grandest of the lakes and the one most popular with tourists. It was getting on for lunchtime, so we went through dazzling Bowness-on-Windermere and stopped in the town of Windermere itself. We found a nice restaurant; I had fresh-caught Windermere char covered with a sauce made with prawns and peppers. I drank a nice shandy. A chocolate gateau followed. Michael went back to the car while I made a leisurely turn through the town. We headed back to Chester and arrived in an impressive hour and forty-five minutes.
After an or so of rest, we picked up Chris Parkin and drove over to spend the evening at Geoffrey and Philip’s. The delightful wine and cheese party featured a glorious array of cheeses: red Leicester, brie, Cheshire, Stilton, and Wenby, a mild smooth product of Yorkshire.
We were joined by Geoffrey and Philip’s next-door neighbor Judy Martindale, a fun, friendly divorcee. She’s a good laugher. We listened to music and visited, and on top of all the wine I had a bit of gin and tonic, the result being…

Friday, July 4
…A fiendish hangover. I suffered the predictable consequences until around noon. By 1:00 my headache was almost gone, my ablutions were done, and so Michael took me to the Chester Zoo. It’s a fine collection of birds, beasts, fish and breathtaking gardens. Vast beds of roses, arranged by variety, were as much a treat as the fauna. After a couple of hours, Michael brought me home to pack before transferring me to Peter and David’s.
What a superb host Michael Quarrier has been! Campy, exasperating, tireless and terrifically funny, he really showed me Britain, though it must sometimes have been exhausting to someone of his age and (let’s be frank) weight. This morning he showed me programs and pictures of his old shows, including his outrageous costumes as the Dame in the Christmas pantomimes. His eyes glowed with the mischief and delight of a ten-year-old.
Michael drove me over the border to Wales, to Peter and David’s house. Crocus Cottage is an exquisite place next to a pub, the Nag’s Head. Still in a state of restoration, it has a large kitchen, a cozy library-sitting room, music room, and a large, as-yet-undefined room now used for storage. Above all this are bath and bedrooms. I’m cozily situated in a nice bedroom, Peter’s I think.
Michael stayed for a bit, Russell and Phil came over, bringing a birthday cake! Soon Michael left (till we meet again on Sunday night) and we had dinner and a delightful visit.
Dinner, prepared by David, was a south of France concoction, a hotpot of chicken, cheese, mushrooms and tomatoes over rice. Lots of rich red rioja. We listened to music – David brought out CDs of an old singer I’d never heard of, Zarah Leander, a Swede who was wildly popular in Nazi Germany. I also discovered that David is a devotee of Billy Holiday and Peter, apostasy of apostasies, can’t stand her! (“Dismal bitch!”) Peter went on up to bed, and beautiful David and I listened to her. These were the later recordings, where the cream had drained away from her voice, leaving only a ragged rasp as the vessel for that imperishable style. Yes, I can already tell that this part of my trip is going to be as enjoyable as the first. I am so much at home with all of these friends.

Saturday, July 5
Wonderful day, especially at evening. Woke up latish, nice Granola-type cereal. Then Peter and David and I drove downtown where I did a spot of shopping (the Spitting Image books and a copy of Punch). Then to Grove Park for their Saturday morning coffee – a regular custom, apparently. From there I was taken to Phil and Russell’s where I was presented with yet another birthday gift, the record of the musical show Pickwick, which I’ve sought for years. Peter and David went on, I stayed for a nice lunch of fried fish, etc., ending with a peach meringue.
Phil then drove me to Oswestry, Shropshire, through the dazzling Welsh countryside. Dorothy Davies, my old show director from Maryland is from there originally, and spends half the year there with her husband Cyril. I was determined to at least try to find her. There was, of course, only half a chance that she would be there -- or even be alive. We stopped at a shop where a friend of a friend of Phil’s was supposed to be. No luck. We were directed to the library, and had a bit of luck: Dorothy is a Catholic, so we were given the number of a priest who might know her. Phil got him on the phone. The man was a bit vague, said he thought he knew of her but wasn’t exactly sure. (With a name like Davies, just across the border from Wales…) The priest might have been loath to give information in case we might not be entirely savory characters – our search could have seemed a bit shadowy. But Phil was a superb detective, asking succinct, to-the-point questions. It wasn’t his fault that we had no real luck; this was, to be truthful, rather a quixotic search. But I liked seeing Oswestry itself, so much a part of the life of a friend. Since I had Dorothy’s American address, I sent her a postcard. A remembrance of her hometown from an old friend will please the old darling. Again, if she’s still alive.
Phil brought me back to Peter around six. We drove to Eastham, a suburb of Birkenhead, to pick up David, who’s spending the night at his mother’s house. From there we drove to Manchester. I’d always imagined the city to be a large, gritty eyesore but it is nothing of the kind! Manchester is grand and beautiful in the classic Victorian mold, with elegant tall buildings and lovely parks. In its red-brick grandiosity it reminded me of a statelier Boston.
We stopped (for the loo) at Philip’s, a friend of Peter and David’s. Philip’s place is a shrine of show-biz memorabilia – Judy Garland’s image everywhere, show posters and film placards encrusting the walls. We then drove a few blocks north to the theatre.
This was originally the Royal Corn Exchange, a vast domed hall. Now a great theatre is constructed in the center, a vast fretwork of scaffolds, supports with banks of seats, a ring of lighting equipment and bits of set suspended in the middle.
We took our seats, three on the very top row – surprisingly a fabulous view. We looked almost directly down into a pit of light. The play began. It’s the first English production of a classic 19th century French farce, Court in the Act. To recall its elaborate plot would require pages; let it suffice to say that it was a perfect night in the theatre -- three delicious settings, brilliant costumes, skillful comedic playing from a superb company. The glittering jewel of the production was the lead actress, Gabrielle Drake, a brilliant farceuse who skillfully used even her costumes as props. This was lucky, as she was repeatedly required to slip out of them. A memorable evening in the theatre, and Peter and David were as enchanted as I.
At the intermission three different Britons thanked me for coming over to visit. Most Americans, terrified by the meltdown in Chechnya, have elected to stay home this summer, a decided damper on the British tourist industry.
Afterward we strolled through the city, glowing with lights and even more beautiful than earlier. We surveyed the menus of several restaurants, finally settling on La Terrazza. David and I shared a bottle of Soave. Peter had appetizers, which I avoided, being rather stuffed on this visit already. My dish was worth the wait: linguini Terrazza, in a saffron-cream sauce with squid and shrimp. We ended with coffee and Amaretto biscuits. On leaving we had difficulty finding our way out of the city. Dropping David in Eastham, we came home. An unforgettable day.

Sunday, July 6
How can one pick one day of a marvelous vacation as being better than all the rest? That’s easy. It must simply rate as one of the great days of your life. This one did.
I got up around ten. Shortly, Peter came back with Phil and Russell, Jenny, Eluned, and Fred Evans. We piled ourselves and the picnic hampers into two cars and headed for the Derbyshire Peak District. Our destination was the town of Buxton, Derbyshire, but most of what we saw till Macclesfield was in Cheshire. Buxton is a charming large town constructed largely of soft brown Derbyshire stone. In the center of town stands the Buxton Opera House, alongside a lovely green park. In the Pavilion we all sat down to drink coffee and wait for Claire, a friend of the group who now lives in Mansfield. I was enchanted by Claire, an extravagantly pretty brunette with a soft sweet voice and, I was told, an extremely vacant and dithery personality. I never saw a hint of this.
We all moved the picnic gear to a soft slope by the stream that meanders through the park. The cloth was spread; the food was unpacked; we picnickers settled down – and immediately sprang up again. The ground was wet and quickly seeping through the cloth. There were plenty of plastic bags, however, now emptied of food and equipment, and we sat on those. The picnic began.
Wine! Chicken! Ham! Quiche! Cheese and cucumber, watercress, egg salad sandwiches, too! The company was incomparable and the weather was coolish, but utterly pleasant. On the patio of the Pavilion above an amateur brass band played, and all was as close to perfection as I ever expect to find. It was almost a caricature of carefree Sunday indolence and I loved it. There were even duck families swimming in the stream alongside us. If a White Rabbit with waistcoat and pocket watch had run by I wouldn’t have been at all surprised. This was truly Wonderland.
All good things must end so we took all the stuff back to the cars, then came back to stroll through the park and we even rode the kiddie train around the pond.
We had theatre tickets, but there was time before curtain to take a field trip. We piled back into the cars and drove to the village of Ashford-in-the-Water. And yes, it was perfect too – the most beautiful village I have ever seen [Note in 2003: this judgment still stands.] Everything was in soft grey stone – the Sheepwash bridge, rose-coated Bridge House, the church, tombstones, private houses – all untouched by the ugliness so plentifully to be found in this century. But time ran as fast there as it does in any town. We drove back to Buxton through deep valleys dark with tangled trees.
The Buxton Opera House is a large white, gold and burgundy auditorium, foaming with putti, shields, curlicues -- all the rococo glory of your classic opera house. As we settled into our seats Michael Quarrier joined us.
The show was Blood Brothers, a musical (sort of) by Willy Russell. The plot involved poor twins separated at birth, one sold to a barren rich woman. It was hopelessly contrived, with impossible implausibilities, a paucity of music, bad set, and at least thirty references in the lyrics to Marilyn Monroe. Nonetheless I enjoyed it if only because of the company I was in. It was a fine ending to a delectable day. We all separated from Claire, whom I hated to see go, and got back in the cars and drove home. Fred went with Peter and me. In a heavy rain all the way home, we talked about the show and acting in general. If “the days that make us happy make us wise,” I was Solomon.

Monday, July 7
Perfect day succeeds perfect day! After breakfast Phil and Jenny came by to take me on a drive around North Wales. We started by going west to see Theatre Clwyd in the town of Mold; it’s a large, imposing affair on a magnificent hill. We drove towards Denbigh, a hilly town of (what else?) picturesque charm. West, on the Denbigh moors, we saw the ruin of the great house they destroyed when filming the George C. Scott/Susannah York Jane Eyre. It stood on a hill with dark clouds behind – a perfect metaphor for the character of Rochester. Further on, hills turned to leafy glens. We crossed the river Conwy to a town called Betwys-y-Coed and had tea on the terrace of an old hotel. Phil and Jenny are sprightly companions and I must applaud them right here for indulging my propensity to stop and photograph things.
On the way to Swallow Falls, we stopped short behind a tourist coach. For five minutes we didn’t move. Then ten. Then fifteen. Behind us and before us stood an endless line of cars. Roadwork up ahead. Finally the coach tore into the opposing lane, Phil following. Immediately behind us came a huge yellow lorry. Bracketed by these behemoths, we barrelled on through.
Further up the road we turned at Capel Curig. Below stretched the twin lakes at the base of the Snowdon mountain range. We crept upward, mountains of green crushed-velvet in the distance. In the Pass of Llanberis we stopped for me to snap some more pictures. I wanted to stay at this valley of ragged rock and velvety grass forever, but more wonders beckoned: Llanberis Castle, the foot of Mount Snowdon, more towns and countryside.
At Caernarvon, the magnificent site of Prince Charles’s investiture, we stopped for lunch -- beer from one shop, fish and chips from another. The latter was dripping with fat and cholesterol and bursting with flavor, yummy to the last licked finger. The essence of gustatorial guilt.
We toured the town on foot, going around the castle down to the bridge at the Menai Strait, the sublimely beautiful body of water between Wales proper and the Island of Anglesey. We crossed the Britannia Bridge and visited Llanfairpwllgwyngullgogerychwyrn-
drobellllantysiliogogogoch. Back over another bridge onto the mainland, we passed through Bangor, Llanfairfechan, Penmaenmawr, and exquisite little Conwy. Here is a fine castle with fragmented wall, hilly steep streets looking over the mouth of the Conwy river. We crossed the bridge and stopped at the resort town of Llandudno. A broad Edwardian promenade fronts the sea. Embraced by the hollow between Great- and Little Orme Heads, it’s a most attractive town.
Through Colwyn (Costa Geriatrica, Phil snorted), Abergele, St. Asaph, and Denbigh we headed home. We picked up Russell on the way back from the train and got two bottles of bardolino. Jenny cooked a great meal. Fine end to a great day, no? No. There was more to come.
Phil and Russell brought me back to Peter and David’s for the reunion of our New York travel party last summer. Richard Morris brought slides and we had a showing. By and by Ray Ledsham showed up (he’d been at an audition) and the party got into full swing. Richard had even (at my request) brought a goodly part of his animal skull collection, which all but Peter found absorbing. Soon the party had to end and David and I played Lena Horne’s one woman show for awhile and then to bed.

Tuesday, July 8
The morning began with a nice surprise: David brought me juice and tea in bed. Phil came by around 9:30 and he, Peter and I drove to Liverpool. It was seedy and rundown in parts and I never got a sense of the center of the place, but I liked it anyway. We got to Penny Lane (Beatle holy site) and got out to prowl about, and stopped for coffee and madeira cake at Sergeant Pepper’s Country Kitchen. My cake was all right but something nasty was floating in my coffee so I sent it back. They accepted it silently, no apologies or offer to replace it, which I would have undoubtedly refused. It wasn’t at all a nice place – in fact a certifiable tourist trap, and Peter and Phil were suitably indignant.
Downtown, I bought a couple of secondhand show albums. We met Russell, who works in Liverpool, at a pub called the Lisbon, a nice, light place with ornate ceiling, spacious and pleasant. We all settled down to the same meal, steak and kidney pie with mixed vegetables and chips.
Also on the downtown tour was The Cavern, where the Fab Four started their career. Sadly, the original hole-in-the-wall has been torn down, the whole replaced by an American-style indoor downtown mall. In the center was a truly hideous bronze statue of four young men vaguely reminiscent of the Beatles. John was the only one easy to pick out, being hung about with dried flowers. I couldn’t help but feel that such a careless, stupid chunk of ‘art’ was insulting to a group of such good musicians. They deserved better.
Driving through other parts of Liverpool I could perceive what a grand city it still is, below the evident fiscal depression, the loss of style that Peter and Phil bemoaned all the time we were there.
We took a wrong turn coming out of the tunnel so we headed for a moribund resort on the tip of the Wirral, the peninisula between the estuaries of the Mersey and the Dee. New Brighton is almost a ghost town, but because of its marvelous view of the bay, there are plans to try to revive its fortunes. We drove home through the rather prettier towns of the Wirral, West Kirby and Neston.
Michael Quarrier came by. He had arranged to give a talk to the Erddig Women’s Association on the Christmas pantomime. We stopped at the theatre to get a costume and wig for Michael. He was most offended at playing the Dame in the outfit which Peter had selected for him. We picked up Hilda, who was to play music for the talk.
At St. Michael’s Church Peter gave an informative and entertaining talk on the history of the traditional panto. I loved every minute, and the ladies responded with chuckles and nods of recognition. When Peter got up to the present day he spoke of working with one of the best ‘Dames’ he had ever seen. “Hit it, Hilda…”
Hilda struck a chord and Michael sashayed in. He wore heavy, tartish makeup, a yellow and silver-lame sheath quivering with flounces, a high yellow confection of a turban covered with silver fruit and topped with yellow feathers -- a perfect lampoon of Carmen Miranda.
Michael launched into an hilarious monologue that simply finished us off. The women were seeing the embodiment of a cherished institution; to me it was a prime sample of a branch of theatre I don’t know at all; and a good time was had by all. It was quite an experience, and I regret that the panto is only an English tradition. Americans must settle for the inevitable Messiah and Nutcracker every year, with little variation. Where’s the fun?
Back home we ate dinner with TV. David fixed a delicious meal and we talked books till bedtime.

Wednesday, July 9
David and Peter went out early to work and I lazed about, getting my bags in order and waiting for Phil, due at some unspecified time. I listened to another of David’s Zarah Leander records – what a find she is. Phil arrived after 11:30 and we drove to Wrexham to pick up Jenny, our destination Llangollen and the International Eisteddfod. We found a parking space on a grassy slope, walked across a humpbacked stone bridge, and suddenly the hills really were alive with the sound of music.
A choir was singing in the distance, sounding as pale and pure on the breeze as the wind through reeds. Phil, working at the Wales Gas tent, got us in the gate free, which meant that we didn’t have a ticket to the musical events, but no matter. Enough music was piped outside to give us the feel of the festival. At the tent, Phil introduced us to his boss and directed us to the drinks counter. Phil began working; Jenny had a white wine, I an ale. The meal was smoked mackerel, quiche, new potato and salad, with caramelized orange and brandy snap for dessert, followed by coffee, Stilton and crackers.
When we finished we had to leave Phil behind to work. Jenny and I wandered the grounds, absorbing the free stuff. There was an enjoyable demonstration of ancient instruments being filmed by the BBC. We worked our way around the circle back to Phil’s tent to tell him we were going into the town itself. He agreed to meet us in an hour and a quarter, to take us back to Wrexham. Outside the festival gate we ran into Richard Morris, and he joined us in our walk around Llangollen. We mainly hit the antique stores, in my fruitless search for a traditional teapot. Instead I found a nice Staffordshire stirrup cup. Richard lives here, so he was a fount of information about the town.
Back in Wrexham we stopped at Phil’s mother’s house for a spot of tea. She was pleasant and friendly though Phil told me afterward that she wasn’t always so. Peter for instance, fell afoul of her sometime in the past and now regards her with something akin to horror.
Phil took us to Jenny’s and I said goodbye to him there. He’s been a wonderful guide and splendid company, but then so has everyone. I spent the remainder of the afternoon at Jenny’s, listening to a taped interview with Stephen Sondheim while Jenny bathed and got ready for the dinner party.
At 7:30 Peter came by to drive us to Heini and Rommi Przibram’s house, a large residence fronted by a rose garden. Most of the guests were already there: Ray Ledsham, Eluned, Michael Q., and our hosts’ daughter Bridie. Ray could only stay a bit, but Richard Morris and David joined us as the evening wore on. Heini overheard David and me discussing Zarah Leander and burst into a symphony of devotion to her. The evening was over too soon and I hated to say goodbye to these wonderful people who’ve made this a perfect holiday.

Thursday, July 10
After packing and my morning wash-up, I had a lush breakfast that David, bless him, had prepared. He drove Peter and me to the rail station in Chester and we got our tickets. Passsing through Crewe, Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley, Birmingham, Coventry, we arrived at Euston before I quite realized we were actually in the city.
We easily made it to the tube station and traveled to Earl’s Court. My bags had never seemed so heavy; I wondered if I’d even make it to the hotel. Finally we reached it: the Philbeach Hotel, in the curve of one of London’s great crescents. After dropping our bags we departed for Leicester Square. We didn’t want to see the same shows so we split up. Peter decided on Stepping Out, a long-running show about tap-dancing. I got a ticket for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We lunched at a favorite spot of Peter’s, Stockpot. I had curried eggs – not bad but hardly what I expected.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, was pleasant except for a few minor irritations: three of the cast, including the female lead, were replaced due to ‘indisposition,’ the performers were deafeningly miked (an ugly American import, I’m afraid), and the relentless mugging of the six younger brothers transcended caricature. They were like hillbillies on speed, perfect boors devoid of charm. Quibbles aside, it was entertaining but not a patch on the movie. After the show I met Peter at the half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square. From there we walked to Covent Garden. The market I remember so fondly from 1971 has vanished. The remaining shell has been turned into an American-style mall; Eliza Doolittle’s grimy domain has been gentrified out of existence. I might have been in Boston’s Quincy Market or any one of a hundred similar malls. This sad metamorphosis didn’t keep me from shopping, though. Dress Circle, a show music wonderland, is here.
After scouting dozens of splendid cafés (Peter is a criminally finicky eater) we settled on a nice creperie. I had a crepe with ratatouille and chicken accompanied by a kir. Peter (o, lost soul) had a hamburger with fries.
The play we had chosen was Alan Ayckbourne’s A Chorus of Disapproval at the Duke of York’s. The theatre itself is a baroque charmer; the play was less successful. It’s not fun to see a master like Ayckbourne produce a play so tedious and unnecessary -- one forty-five minutes too long. Some of the performances were expertly done and the production itself was smooth. But the heat and the length of the evening pulled this into the losing column.
It was sprinkling lightly when we emerged into the night. We strolled up Piccadilly to find a pub. The Clarence, on a side street, was cozy, warm, friendly and tiny. After Peter’s lemonade and my pint of bitter it was soon “time, gentlemen,” so we got to the Green Street stop and took the tube back to Earl’s Court.

Friday, July 11
I woke long before Peter. I had a solitary breakfast with my book in the hotel restaurant then fetched my camera and told a sleepy Peter that I would be back within the hour. I expected to make a wide circle around the neighborhood and return to the hotel as a logical procession. London had other ideas. I got hopelessly lost and had to be guided back by pub- and shopkeepers. And halfway out, I discovered that I had only 2 exposures left.
We tubed into the heart of town. Peter wanted to go to Foyle’s so I got off at the Green Street stop and toured the city on foot -- to exhaustion, as I like to do. It was fun to be on my own for a while, mobile, footloose and curious. I met Peter at the Charlie Chaplin statue in Leicester Square, an inept bronze excrescence that looks no more like Chaplin than I do. Another puny ‘tribute’ to a great artist from a negligible one. We walked to Covent Garden to mine the remainder of Dress Circle. Afterwards we walked to the National Theatre on the South Bank. On the Strand I bought a Scotch egg to munch on the way.
This was my first visit to the National. Our play, Brighton Beach Memoirs, was at the Lyttleton. While Peter had a spot of lunch I took the lift to the upper level lobby of the Olivier Theatre. I honestly and legitimately expected to find a grand portrait of the master actor, perhaps in one of his memorable roles. Instead there was a modest bronze head, respectful but to my mind an inadequate tribute. Unlike Chaplin, it was at least recognizable.
Brighton Beach Memoirs was the best Neil Simon I’ve ever seen. Production: superb. Actors: superb to brilliant. Even their American accents were impeccable. Our seats were dress circle, first row: excellent. Both of us were highly entertained and moved. We were both walking in the clouds as we walked back to the West End.
We walked to a gay bar on St. Martin’s Lane to meet Peter’s friend Alan, a beautiful bearded blond who makes wigs and hats for shows. After drinks we walked to a sidewalk café in Soho for dinner. On the way I spotted one of the actors from Seven Brides….
The last show of the trip was the Donmar Warehouse Theatre production of Side by Side by Sondheim. Alan walked us to the theatre and left us. I had enjoyed his company tremendously.
In spite of overfamiliarity with the material, which I was never terribly fond of in the first place, the show was entertaining. The four performers were highly accomplished, a good enough reason for the show.
Afterward it was raining lustily – the only drenching downfall I ran into on the whole trip. We flew down Shaftesbury Avenue, ducking into shops and underneath galleries, to the General Store, where I at long last found my teapot, a plump little charmer covered with rosebuds. Then we took the Underground back to Earl’s Court and made a mad dash for the hotel in still-pelting rain, a bath, a drink, a bed.

Saturday, July 12
We got up at 7:30 and I called Heathrow to check my terminal. After the briefest of breakfasts with Peter we packed and were informed we had a phone call. It was David, saying goodbye. (He has been one of the loveliest discoveries of this trip.) On the tube to Heathrow, the zipper on Peter’s bag came out, the first of a string of mishaps. The second was when I got up from my seat to discover I’d been sitting on a huge soft wad of chewing gum. Opening my bag for fresh slacks I pinched my hand in the catch, drawing copious blood. The checkout counter was the most clotted throng of people I’d been in since the Tokyo subway. After I checked in, we said goodbye and I made my way to the departure gate. I hated saying goodbye to Peter.
The flight back was not without one final mishap: with an almost deliberate thoroughness I hurled an entire martini into my lap. But not even gin-soaked trousers could spoil a wonderful trip like this.

Wales '05

Wales 2005 (A journal in email)

Dear Friends and Family,
Well, here I am in Britain. I arrived with no problem, except my by-now-customary upper respiratory difficulties. They were particularly nasty this time, and are only sorting themselves out now, six days after my arrival. I shall spare you the sodden details...
For those of you to whom this message is a surprise, I should mention that I have been invited over to be in a production of "Oliver!" at the Gateway Theatre in Chester, England. I finally met my director, Leslie Churchill Ward, on Monday night. She is just as irrepressibly bubbly in person as she is via email. I knew Simon Phillips, the music director, from previous visits. He has been wonderfully generous towards my efforts to sing, given my current vocal difficulties. With steady infusions of Sudafed and a Niagara of tea, however, my larynx should soon be liberated from its prison. So far I haven't had the opportunity to work on my scene since we've only done group music rehearsals. I have been put into the tenors. The top note expected of me is a wowser, but I should be able to reach it with no difficulties once my problems have been laid to rest.
As it turns out, I know a few people from my earlier adventure in British theatre, "The Sound of Music" (May 2002). The Mother Superior in that production, Maureen Tolefree, is the Mrs. Bedwin, and my scene as Dr. Grimwig is with her. Another of the nuns, a warm and utterly delightful woman named Pat Pearce, is in the production, as is her charming husband Dave. Chris Dukes, with whom I had most of my scenes in "S.O.M.", is in the production. So is John Lindop, who plays Fagin. Steve Davies, the director of "S.O.M.", is playing a short but highly decorative role in "Oliver!" and he has become one of my favorite friends over here. There are a couple of others, and many of the backstage personnel are the same here -- and all are friendly and seem to be glad to see me again. Chris, in particular, is going to be a great pleasure to work with, and she has volunteered to carry me away to various corners of Britain for adventuring on a couple of the weekends that we're not rehearsing. Oh, joy!
I'm staying with my friends Peter and David across the border from England in Wrexham, North Wales. Wrexham is a charming market town, rapidly growing into a small city. Peter and David's house is not far from the town center, and so I will be doing a good deal of brisk walking while here. Luckily the weather will allow me to do this painlessly. Yes, rain is frequent, but the sun always reliably returns. The temperatures have remained somewhere between 40 and 55 degrees. A short stroll down the street from here is the local pub, Acton Park. I stopped in for a pint of bitter the other day and was pleased to see on the bulletin board, the poster I'd designed for Peter's previous show. (The "Oliver!" poster is printed now, so I should take a copy down one of these days.) The Acton Park is a charmer, filled with light and with a lovely fireplace roaring away in the non-smoking section. Yes, this should be a MOST pleasant stay...
Next week Peter and I are going to London for a couple of days. Peter has already gotten us tickets for a spectacular show, the Christmas pantomime at the Old Vic, starring Ian McKellen as the Dame. Perhaps a word regarding the panto is called for here, as it's an indigenous British custom with no American equivalent. Pantomime as we Americans know it is not part of the show. It's just called that. The show comes from one of a series of typical stories, like Cinderella, Aladdin, Dick Whittington and his Cat, Babes in the Wood, etc., that are used as a template for a local writer (in Wrexham's case Peter) to write a show featuring jokes (some anciently traditional), pop and traditional songs with new, saucy lyrics making reference to current events, and wildly extravagant sets and costumes. There's a "principal girl", a "principal boy" or hero, traditionally played by a girl (though that tradition is changing), and the Dame. The Dame is ALWAYS played by a man, in escalatingly outrageous costumes, and with the most outrageous playing style manageable. Michael Quarrier, my first British guest when I got to know my Brits, was a wonderful, and popular, Dame. Drag, by the way, is an ancient and venerable tradition in Britain, a tradition that would send the American crazy-Christers into anguished prayer meetings. The panto is played around Christmas, a week or so before and often into early January. In the big cities, pantomimes are big business. The leading companies perform quite elaborate ones, usually with big stars playing the Dame. Over here, Ian McKellan is as big a star as one could possibly hope for, and he has even gotten a glowing write-up in the New York Times.
Well, I see out the window that the clouds have flown away once more, telling me I should take a stroll down to the town center for lunch.

Dear Friends and Family,
The horrendous rains and flooding that have battered Scotland and the north of England have left North Wales unmolested. And Wednesday, as Peter and I boarded the train to London, the sun came out in full. During the two days there it was always shining. We arrived at Euston station and parted. Peter had a ticket to a panto near Victoria Station and I wanted to 'do' London. We agreed to meet at the TKTS booth in Leicester Square at 5:00.
I meandered down to the West End through Bloomsbury, and arrived at my destination: the National Portrait Gallery. I am familiar with the collection from former visits, but there's always worthy new work to be seen. My favorite portrait was of a theatrical producer named Thelma Holt, whom I'd never heard of. But her portrait, by Jennifer McRae, is a splendid piece of work, islands of bright colors working against quiet ones, with feathery brushwork and a wealth of rich detail. The Gallery has another of her works, the playwright Michael Frayn. Rather than plow through the bulk of the collection, I made a beeline for the Tudor era portraits, my great favorites. By the time I had savored them to the full, and seen a special exhibition of caricature, it was time to stroll about the theatre district till it was time to meet Peter. Back at the TKTS booth I bought a ticket to a new production of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd."
Peter was late in joining me, and could not join me for dinner; he left immediately to pick up his bag, which he'd left at his theatre. We agreed to meet later, and I set out to find a restaurant. Peter, alas, is the world's pickiest eater, strictly a meat and potatoes man, so I was pleased to scout for something a bit more exotic.
Exotic it turned out not to be, but it was immensely satisfying. Near Cambridge Circus I found a little Italian restaurant I'd never seen before. I hadn't had a scrap of seafood since my arrival in this nautical nation, so I ordered an all-seafood meal. Spectacular! A cold seafood salad came first, accompanied by a glass of pinot grigio. The main course was trotta ala Cleopatra, a delectable piece of trout broiled in butter and topped with capers and tiny shrimp. I managed to eat it without moaning in ecstasy, but it was a proper job, I can tell you. This had to be the finest seafood dish I've had in a decade.
In front of my theatre I found Peter, who had come to find out when my play got out. He had acquired a ticket to London's newest sellout, a stage mounting of "Mary Poppins," for which single tickets MAY be had. On Peter's advice, I got a ticket myself, for the next day's matinee, then returned to the New Ambassador to see my musical.
This mounting of "Sweeney Todd" is adventurous and has been well-received by the critics, and I was looking forward to it with great pleasure. My seatmate was an American, a copy editor at TIME, and she was friendly and, as it turns out, absolutely new to the play. The actors in this production, with the exception of the title character, all play musical instruments when not in a scene, a new and intriguing experiment that, alas, doesn't work especially well. The staging was minimalist to a fault, and unfortunately geared to an audience already familiar with the play; a stranger would have missed a good deal of the subtleties, not to mention several crucial plot elements. In the scene where Todd sings plangently of his daughter Joanna while slicing the throats of his clientele one by one, the actor stood on top of a black coffin while caressing a smaller red coffin. No indication that a procession of innocent victims was meeting their grisly fates! Mrs. Lovett, at the end, is not thrust into an oven, but instead has her throat slit. In short, a novel approach, but a failure. The actor who sang Sweeney was properly vicious and pathetic, but the acting honors went to Mrs. Lovett. Imagine, if you can, Bert Lahr in a miniskirt. (Yes, the costumes ran the gamut from 1880s London to the Swingin' Sixties.) She was a fine singer (when not on the trumpet!) and whenever in the thick of the action, a comic revelation.
I met Peter as his show was letting out. As we sprinted for the train, he raved about "Mary Poppins," good news to this future ticket-holder. We took the train from Charing Cross Station to Peter's friend Tony Younger's house in South London, in an agreeable neighborhood called Forest Hill.
Tony is a former Army man, now retired to the house in which he grew up, and a most charming and affable host. He made us tea and we caught up from our previous visit. (Peter and I had stayed with Tony on my visit in 2002.) We were joined by Min, a Korean student who is renting a room from him, and Tony's godson Jeremy. Jeremy is a handsome and burly man who enjoys hunting. During our conversation, rather disconcertingly, he gave us a demonstration of the process of cleaning a pheasant, luckily in mime rather than with an actual bird.
The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, Peter and I took the train back to London. Peter had errands to run and I wanted to explore the wealth of bookstores on Charing Cross Road, so we parted and agreed to meet later at dinner. Once more I had the option of more adventurous eating, so had a dish of curried chicken at an Indian restaurant. Not bad, but for an enthusiast of Indian food, something of a letdown.
A greater letdown was yet to come. I found "Mary Poppins" to be a grossly overblown production, the additional new songs woefully inferior to the original songs from the film. When an old song was performed, I felt a perceptible lift, though even these were drowned in snowdrifts of gooey overproduction. The sweet original had become an inflated dinosaur of a production, with unnecessary story elements added, light effects which drew attention from the performers, and a three-hour playing time that would surely exhaust small children, for whom the story was created! For instance, in the number "Step in Time," a real rouser with less extraneous detail, the character of Bert, aided by wires, walked up the side of the proscenium, across the top, and back down the side. It stopped the number in its tracks and meant absolutely nothing. In other words, they did it because they could, and for no other reason. A couple of the effects, like Mary's final exit, lifted aloft above the crowd, were suitably effective.
The actors, when not engulfed in distracting production values, were fine. The lead, Laura Michelle Kelly, was perfect. The Bert was charming and, I suspect, a star in the making. Rosemary Ashe, a particular favorite of mine, was wasted, however, in a small and utterly extraneous role. Of course it will run for years, and of course it will come to Broadway, where it will again be a hot ticket. But good it ain't -- pure junk food.
I met Peter afterward and we walked down to the Thames, across the Hungerford bridge to the Old Vic. This venerable theatre, where I'd been only once before, is one of the grandest venues in all London, a magnet to the cream of British acting. This year they are presenting a professional Pantomime, "Aladdin." This was Peter's treat to me, and so I took him to a nearby Italian restaurant where we had a delightful meal. We had the prettiest little waitress I have ever seen, and she was pleased that I ordered in Italian, and generally made our meal a fine experience.
"Aladdin" turned out to be the supreme highlight of the trip. The star of the show was the great Shakespearian actor Ian McKellan, playing the Dame part: The Widow Twankey. I have seldom seen a more sidesplitting performance. He played the role with a campiness that I may never see equalled, and with a rich and hearty comic sensibility that I hardly suspected was there. Each of his costumes, as tradition dictates, was more outrageous than the previous one, and he swanned about in them like the master of comedy that he so clearly is. The other actors were hardly less wonderful, and the comic villain, Richard Allam, was McKellan's equal.
Everything was highly professional, and the sets were spectacular. The designer, unbelievably, is a prodigious 12-year-old girl who will assuredly go on to even bigger successes. The costumes and lighting were also near to perfection, and I was practically levitating as we left the theatre. This was an experience I'll long remember.
We got back to Tony's earlier than the previous evening, but went to bed before midnight this time, as our train back to Chester was at 10:45 and we had to travel across London -- during rush hour -- to return to Euston Station. I saw less of London itself than on previous visits, but what I saw was choice. And it was a great pleasure to see Tony again. (The last time I stayed with him I'd given him a book, the Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh. It was just the right gift and he remembered it fondly, so last night I ordered a volume of Waugh's complete travel writings through Amazon and had it sent to him.)
The trip was a complete joy, and it's always a great treat to visit this "flowre of cities alle." Especially in the company of Peter Swingler.

The rehearsal schedule has stepped up now and for the rest of my time here, or at least until the 19th of February, I should be working harder. My gig as the dancing lead cop in "Consider Yourself" is getting better. Nightstick held perpendicularly, I lead sort of a flying wedge of six other cops down to the center of the stage, doing a sort of a knees-up-Mother-Brown, where we do a sort of crossover step for eight counts. Thereupon, I let a blast on my whistle and we prance off to the side to arrest some unseen malefactor. In "Oom-Pah-Pah" I'm just another drunken, lower-class reveler, grabbing wenches and knocking down pints of ale, no special steps. In "Who Will Buy?" I sing offstage since my scene as Dr. Grimwig is inserted into the middle of the song.
Saturday night I had an unusual and pleasant experience. My friend David and I were invited to a private concert in a private home. This was in a small town called Bollington. We dropped Peter off in Manchester, after having picked up a friend of David's named Michael Jessup. Michael sat in front reading directions to David as we took the most circuitous of routes to get there, by highway, country road and many a twisting byway. Finally we arrived. Bollington is set in some rather steep hills, and we had to park at the foot of one and walk up -- up a seeming 50-degree angle.
Val Makin was our hostess. I'd met her before, when I was over to perform in "The Sound of Music," and I had signed a copy of one of my books for her, for the artist who was appearing that evening, Andrew Wilde. Her house, at the crest of the mountain -- I mean hill -- is cozy and friendly, clearly the house of someone who has traveled widely. We settled into comfortable chairs and soon Wilde appeared.
Andrew Wilde is a plump, almost-young man with the look of a huge, bespectacled baby. He is rumored to be temperamental, and we saw a flash of it when he shot a sharp glance at a couple who began to applaud between the movements of one piece. He settled down and began the program with an adagio by Mozart, played with slow deliberation. The next item was Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, followed by two nocturnes, then two scherzi by Chopin. His playing is expert, though the scherzi were a bit bombastic. The program was well-received so he gave us two encores, more Chopin. It was a good, safe program, but I wished he had gone a bit further outside the Romantics than Mozart.
Afterward, sandwiches and wine were passed about and we even spoke briefly with Wilde. He was quite pleasant, if a bit standoffish. A propos the Chopin nocturnes I mentioned a favorite modern piece of mine, likewise a nocturne, by Samuel Barber. He has performed the piece, it turned out, so I rather wished he had included this or something similar. Still, a good evening and a slightly unusual one.
I understand that a good deal of my native land is under snow, particularly New England. I promised myself I wouldn't brag, but I must confess that the TWO snows we've had here have lasted on the ground for hardly more than a couple of hours.
I must leave and have lunch at the Bumble Tea Room with Peter's delightful sister Maureen. More later.

Friday, January 28
Today I took the bus down to Oswestry, Shropshire. This was the childhood home of one of my friends back in Maryland. Dorothy Davies directed me in three plays, all by Noel Coward, "Blithe Spirit," "Hay Fever," and "Shadow Play." She and her husband Cyril were in their late 70s back then, so I imagine that both are likely dead by now. Nonetheless, I wanted to see the town that produced her.
The one hour bus trip was through glorious scenery, twisting roads through quirky villages. One sight was completely unexpected: a huge monkey puzzle tree as tall as a two story building. Oswestry is a typical market town, quite pleasant for a few hours. I enjoyed walking the narrow, labyrinthine streets, always thinking, "ah, yes, these are the streets that my old friend knew so well." Oswestry castle, at the top of steep winding steps, proved to be little more than a few outcroppings of rock and foundation stones, the rest of the building having been razed centuries before by some marauding army or another. The parish church of St. Oswald, almost a thousand years old, was fragrant with the ghostly incense of a millenium. The day had started sunny in Wrexham, but by the time I got back to the Oswestry bus station to wait for the return home, the sky was swollen with cold, black clouds. I huddled into my coat and longed for the fireside back at Peter and David's.

Saturday, January 29
This evening Peter and David were invited to Lee's for dinner; I was invited out to a small birthday party for another friend. (My social life may be slightly better here than in Boston!) Chris Dukes and I took Eric Jones and his partner Keith to dinner, to celebrate Eric's 60th birthday. The scene was a spectacular restaurant in Llangollen, the Cornmill. It's in an actual 18th century mill beside the river Dee. The river rushes by it -- and through it, as the wheel is still a working mill. This was the best meal I've had here yet and it was made all the better by the company. We downed champagne and a good red Italian wine and laughed like loons; these Welsh are born to party. My meal was a camembert and black grape tart, then roast chicken with a mushroom and red wine sauce, followed by a bread pudding with an apricot brandy sauce that I expect to be dreaming about for years. These delightful people plan to come to Boston next year...and if so, they will be welcome.

Sunday, January 30
Today was an all-day rehearsal. We began at 10:00 a.m. and ended at 5:00. Luckily I'd brought a book, Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd," but I finished it long before we ended. The play is coming together very well now, except for a couple of shaky spots and, regretfully, one of the performances. It's becoming obvious that Jonathan, the boy playing Oliver, is woefully inadequate. Leslie, our director, has been trying to cajole more of a real performance out of him, but to little avail. He is said to have auditioned brilliantly. But he has been giving less and less, and seems listless to the point of indifference. He is NOT a resourceful actor but must be told everything to do. At this point he can't be replaced, though one particular boy in the chorus could possibly do it. This kid, who comes in to deliver some books in my scene, is also one of the boys in the workhouse. When given a bowl of gruel, he looks mortally offended and when the real food is paraded past him to the workhouse sponsors, he projects a ferocious hunger. But it's too late to engage him. Jonathan could improve, though it seems less and less likely. At best, this might prove an interesting experiment, a play without a central character...
"Oliver!" is a pretty hoary old piece by now, overexposed over the years, and it’s only mounted because it brings in huge crowds. That said, I must say that it has a splendid score and the opening number, "Food, Glorious Food" is a rousing piece, a perfect song to set the tone. The show is blessed with some delicious character parts, and in this production they have been given to masters. Chris, my friend from the Saturday revels, is playing Mrs. Sowerberry, and her undertaker husband is played by Steve Davies, the former director of "Sound of Music." Theirs is a short scene with song, "That's Your Funeral," and they play it with the scintillating brilliance of true stars. They are not only screamingly funny, they are truly Dickensian. The other couple, the Widow Corney and Mr. Bumble, are played by Pat Pearce and Ken Williams, a new guy I didn't know before. Their scenes are so good that they almost throw the play off balance.

Monday, January 31
This has been one of the best days yet. I took the bus to Chester and met Leslie (our director) and Amy, one of the women in the chorus with whose husband Robin I have several bits with in two numbers. We started off with coffee at Cafe Nero and were joined by another lady, Wendy, whom I also knew from the earlier play. Wonderful. Lunch (without Wendy, however) was at a restaurant called Aquavit, nominally Scandinavian, but more acurately continental. Splendid food and company. This day was planned as my opportunity to get to know Leslie better, and it worked out even better, as Amy is pure gold, as warm and friendly as anyone could want. We were together for about five hours -- that passed like mere minutes. Then I came home to catch up on my email.
Peter has just brought me up a bowl of salad and a scotch egg. My cup runneth over -- again. Now wonder I feel so much at home here!

Friday, February 4
Today Peter took off work and gave me a grand tour of the Peak District and Buxton, a town I'd fallen in love with back in 1986. We shoved off at around ten, driving through the Cheshire countryside in an enchanting roundabout way. Peter even got lost at one point. The day was perfect, warm and still, with great puffs of white cloud in a mostly sunny sky. As we rose into the foothills of the Pennines, however, the day became more gray. But nothing could spoil our outing. The Peak District is shared by Cheshire and Derbyshire, and as we passed into the latter, towns melted away. The glorious mountains, smooth and green and not a bit craggy, are broken only by the very occasional farm. A lace fretwork of ancient low stone walls give the landscape the look of a vast green quilt draped over a mountain range. Our only companions were sheep. The road we were on is called, for some reason lost in the mists of time, the Cat and the Fiddle.
We reached Buxton about an hour and a half after starting. Buxton, in the heart of Derbyshire, was the site of one of the most enjoyable days in my life, which I have remembered with extraordinary vividness ever since that July day in 1986. About eight or nine of my British friends and I piled into two cars and drove to Buxton for a picnic and a day's pleasure. The sun shone; a band played in a gazebo above the park; duck families glided over the stream beside us as we spread our cloths for the picnic. After eating we piled into the cars again and drove a dozen miles to Ashford-in-the-Water, an idyllic village set above a lazy, meandering river. It struck me then as the most beautiful village I'd ever seen. Afterward we returned to Buxton to see a (not very good) musical, "Blood Brothers," in the Opera House, then returned to Wrexham. Ever since then I have remembered it with a fondness that has never faded.
But this was winter. No baby ducks plied the waters this time, only adult geese, ducks and swans. We found our old picnic spot, then walked to an old hotel pub for lunch. The Old Cock Pub is decorated from floor to ceiling with chickens -- ceramic chickens, framed chicken prints, chicken placemats, children's drawings of chickens -- you name it. In honor of the place I had a chicken tikka and cream cheese sandwich and a cream ale; the chickens looked down on us in silent reproach. From there we walked over to the Opera House, which was exactly as I remembered it, an ornate little jewel box. Buxton is an ancient spa, transformed during Victorian times into a resort for the rich and pampered, and it still retains a faded air of grandeur. Elegant buildings in the local gray stone rise above beautiful parkland, and the grandest one of all is a large indoor garden which, sadly, was closed for the season.
After checking out a couple of the local antique stores, we drove on to Ashford-in-the-Water. To me it still holds the title of most beautiful village I've seen, just as I'd hoped. Memory had played me false, however -- I remembered the stone as soft butterscotch brown, whereas it's actually a soft dove-gray. The famous Sheepwash Bridge spans the river Wye, which runs clean and clear, and even in winter it is home to great numbers of waterfowl. This time we stayed a bit longer and walked around the narrow streets. Everything is kept beautifully; it is very likely popular as a spot for filming, if an idyllic English village is called for. There are only a mere handful of shops, and all is still and calm. In the churchyard burial ground, snowdrops are blooming in profusion, and we even saw some crocus breaking the ground.
We drove north through tiny hamlets and broad farmlands, then got onto the highway to Manchester. I was to be dropped off to spend the night and next day with Phil Edwards, one of the delightful friends I made in the summer of 1985.
Having wearied of being burgled time and again in his old neighborhood, Phil has bought a new place. Phil himself is an outrageous and charming man with the broken nose of a prizefighter and the twinking eyes of an aging pixie, which he in fact is. Together we laugh more than is seemly in two men in our fifties, and his company is champagne. Peter dropped me off and drove back to Wrexham, and a bit later Phil and I drove down to central Manchester.
He had made reservations at a restaurant called Velvet. Velvet supposedly has a mostly gay clientele, but tonight there were as many straight couples as not. A palpable feeling of conviviality filled the room. I had a fine half a roast chicken with a mushroom risotto, faultlessly cooked and quite filling. Afterward we toured a couple of the local bars, Tribeca and the Rembrandt, then went back home to watch a movie.

Saturday, February 6
I have been fighting another damnable sinus thing for the past couple of days, and last night was somewhat difficult. But in the morning I was fine and rose at the scandalous time of 9:30. Phil fixed us breakfast, and we drove into the City Centre to the Manchester Art Gallery. This museum is a huge and varied gallery, with an enormous, first-rate collection of Victorian painting, the largest and finest I've seen. I have a soft spot for this detail-crammed, often sentimental, sometimes outright ludicrous style of painting; this was truly a banquet. Their European collection is fine and covers several centuries, but English art predominates here. Several special exhibitions were going on, including some spectacular 20th C. painting.
Our late lunch was at a huge and ornate bar, the Via Rosso. We returned to the house as the afternoon waned, and I relaxed while Phil showered for a dinner with his sister and some friends that night. He returned me to Wrexham and we parted. But even with a heavy rehearsal schedule from now till opening night I'm sure to see him again on this trip.
Tonight, Peter showed me that David has found a larger, louder police whistle than the one I’ve been using in "Consider Yourself." If anyone in the audience should fall asleep, this should wake them up. I'll find out tomorrow since we rehearse all day long.

Dear Friends and Family,
As of today, I return to you in less than three weeks. But of course I'm nowhere near ready to come back yet! Here are the details of a few days...

Sunday, Feb. 6
Today our rehearsal began at 10 in the morning and ran to 5:00. The first two hours were concerned with choreographing the curtain call -- when you have a cast of roughly forty, arranging this is more a matter of traffic control than stagecraft. In addition, there was reprise music to run over. One musical number, the title song, remained to be staged, then we ran the show.
We broke at five and tables were rearranged for Bingo -- but please don't skip to the next paragraph just yet. Bingo in the British Isles is different from ours. Here the game is big business and most towns of some size have a hall devoted strictly to it. It's generally played by the elderly and people of modest income, and huge cash prizes are promised -- and presumably given out. But our game was intended as a benefit for Tip Top Players, and the prizes ran more to chocolate and wine. Yankee Bingo provides piles of beans and cards with five columns, whereas the British give out pads of eight sheets, in nine columns numbered up to 90. The numbers are read off with unseemly speed, and one crosses them off with a pen. After the first four games, there's a break.
Three of the boys from the show were sitting at my end of the table, so I idly sketched a caricature of one of them on the back of one of my sheets. The other two boys naturally wanted drawings so I gladly drew them. I knew from prior experience what was in store for me at the regular rehearsal on Wednesday, so on Monday I bought a small drawing pad...

Tuesday, Feb. 8
Today I saw an old friend I first met in 1985. Jenny Glover is about my age and has always looked older, but the gap is widening more and more as the years go by. She has grown quite stout and subsequently has heart problems, and her hair is now snow white and alarmingly sparse. As her house swarms with cats, a visit there would have reduced me to a sneezing, eyes-watering, gelatinous mess. So we arranged to meet in town at her lunch hour. She still has the warmth and coziness of a teapot, but I wonder if her health will allow us to meet again.

Wednesday, Feb. 10
Today the sky was streaked with enormous blue patches with no threatening clouds, so I walked to the nearby village of Gresford, a roundtrip of about seven miles. First I stopped midway for lunch at The Beeches, the first pub Peter took me to on my arrival. Gresford is an old village, and I'd never seen much of it since the main road passes along the edge of town. As I walked along the Gresford High Street, I came upon a gorgeous pond, sprinkled with ducks and hundreds of small gulls. The sun was out in full, turning the water to blue and gold. Along the west side of the pond is a line of terraced houses, modest homes of red brick. How lucky, I thought, to be able to look out your window and see such an enchanting view! In a moment the wind changed direction and the smile died on my lips. The smell was indescribable, something between an uncleaned monkey cage and a week-old corpse. I rushed past to get to the center of the village, but the wind capriciously changed again and followed me all the way.
In the center of Gresford is a beautiful old gothic church, blackened with age and soot, and bristling with gargoyles. An ancient yew tree grows in the churchyard, and it's said to be at least 1600 years old; I believe it. Its cluster of trunks is as thick as a small house and the texture of the bark looked like a rushing, tumbling stream of brown water. I tried to go into the church but it was locked, so I wandered around looking at the gravestones, most of them worn smooth -- and unreadable -- with time. The oldest birthdate I could still manage to read was 1605. A sexton was attending to one of the graves so I stopped for a moment to chat with him. He assured me of the tree's date, but as he was a mere sprout in his seventies, I can only take his word for it.
I braced myself for the pond stench as I made my way back to the main road, stepping up my pace. I heard a soft clip-clop behind me. A young woman in full riding silks and a riding cap was seated on a shaggy white percheron, shambling along lazily; they clopped along beside me for a spell. I was irresistibly reminded of one of those Thelwell cartoons from the old Punch Magazine.
All along my route I noticed that crocuses have popped up all over the place, and daffodils are everywhere. I saw two trees covered with little white blooms. February be damned, spring has definitely arrived in Wales.
At rehearsal it happened just as I predicted: the boys in the show came at me in a solid wave, clamoring to be drawn. I pulled my pad out and opened my pen and in a surprisingly orderly manner they sat for me one at a time. I'm fast, thank heaven, and took hardly more than a minute to do each one. Every now and then I had to take a break to actually rehearse, but at the end of the evening my pad had been reduced to one lone sheet. There are still some boys to draw yet, and the grownups have been hinting broadly that they'd like drawings too, so I guess my fate is sealed. Luckily, I enjoy it all immensely. Kids are the best damn audience in the world.

Thursday, Feb. 10
Bought a new pad today. On your mark... get set... go!

Saturday Feb. 12
In the morning Peter and David and I piled into the car and drove up to Port Sunlight, a community built by Lord Lever for the employees of the company he founded, Lever Brothers. It's a gorgeous town, built very much in Ye Olde Englishe style, but with a neat grid to the streets and spacious, well-maintained lawns. The premiere attraction of the town is the Lady Lever Museum, a grand art gallery in a beautiful belle epoque building. It's a smallish collection, very good, though hung badly. Glass has been placed over most of the large oils, and too many of them are placed, in the good ol' 19th century manner, too high to appreciate fully.
Afterward, Peter drove me to our rehearsal spaces to pick up my costumes. The dancing policeman costume is very Keystone Kops, surmounted by a tall black felt hat; the drunken reveler costume is nothing more than frowsy looking pants and shirt, with a rough suede overjacket. I'll look like a blacksmith or a common laborer out for a bit of drink and a willing wench. But the Dr. Grimwig costume! The man is clearly intended to be a human peacock: high purple pants, a plum colored jacket in the Regency style, a wild paisley waistcoat with an ascot tie in the same pattern. It's quite the most elaborate rig I've been fitted for in thirty years of doing theatre.

Sunday Feb. 13
Today was long and arduous, a typical tech Sunday; nobody on earth could enjoy such a day. We began at 2:30 in the afternoon with the announcement that several pieces of set had not yet arrived. The tech crew put the quite complicated set together laboriously -- but thoroughly -- so we were even later in starting. Typically, the show was done in short fits and starts, with no scene played out to the end. After a short break for dinner, we had our one and only dress rehearsal. I was concerned about my costume change from low barfly to the elegant Dr. Grimwig, but managed to put it together with time to spare. The cast seemed quite happy at the end, and Leslie, our director, was jubilant. I forsee a happy run.

Monday Feb. 14, Valentine's day
The day began bright and sunny, with only a few clouds in the sky, a most propitious beginning. I walked downtown in the glorious sunshine, grooving on the flowers that are springing up everywhere. Even the hedges are budding leaves and blooms, and by the time I'm ready to fly back to America, the springtime here should be even further along. One dark thought spoils it all: this is all certainly due to global warming, that phenomenon that our Commander-in-Chimp doesn't think is a problem. Still, it's hard not to delight in the physical world when the sun is out in full. I walked down into a new part of Wrexham, a winding green parkway south of town, then back to the town centre for lunch at La Baguette.
Opening night. An hour before curtain, Leslie and Peter addressed the company. Peter was practically levitating with pleasure. Opening night was sold out except for two single seats at the very back of the theatre -- which seats 430. And the rest of the run seems to be sold out except for a handful of single seats on Saturday. Those will be sold, too. That means that by the end of the run we will have entertained about 3000 people. Leslie gave us a few notes. I had two. My opening line as Dr. Grimwig tends to be swallowed by the scene change, so I'm going to have to bellow it like a Wagnerian tenor. And as the dancing policeman, I'm going to have to change into smaller black shoes, which pleases me. The heavy boots they gave me to dance in have been quite clumsy; imagine hoofing with two heavy loaves of bread strapped to your feet.
The show began well, continued even better, and our pace was brisk and efficient. This is due in part to Simon Phillips, our music director, who has consistently played his tempi more briskly than is generally done. We also have a crackerjack crew, who kept the set changes moving smoothly. The opening number, "Food, Glorious Food" is performed marvelously by the boys, who as far as I'm concerned are the true stars of the show. The audience is clearly in love with the lot of them. The part of the set that I do my scene on is inconsequential, but the other pieces make up for it. Fagin's den, in particular, is a marvel.
The most effective part of the show, I think, is Bill Sikes's murder of Nancy. It is nothing short of harrowing, and her cries for mercy are heartrending. After his attempt to strangle her has failed, leaving her weak and on her knees, he pushes her backward with his foot and finishes the job with a club. (To add a note of realism, the crew has placed a cauliflower out of sight for him to club, providing a sickeningly convincing sound.) A few minutes later, Bill himself is shot while trying to crawl up a ladder. He makes it halfway up, and is shot again, falling down onto the bridge, then down steps. It's most gratifying to see this monster meet such a dramatic end. Leslie has added a touch of grace to the final scene which is not in the libretto. Nancy's body is still lying high on the bridge while Oliver, saved, is taken offstage by Mr. Brownlow. It's always seemed to me a shame that this young woman, who has saved the boy's life, lies forgotten at the end. Leslie has brought Bet, Nancy's young companion, onto the stage to weep over her friend as the curtain falls.
The audience's response was gratifying, and our first night -- which is always a bit ragged -- was deemed a roaring success. Leslie was joyful -- and so were we.

Wednesday Feb. 16
Last night was a repeat of opening night, with everything running just a bit more smoothly. And today the sun is shining again.

February 27
Dear Friends and Family,
The play ended yesterday with two solid, sold-out, and very well-received performances. After Friday night's performance about twenty of us went out to a local Chinese restaurant, Cherry Valley, for a massive Chinese blowout -- course after course after course. Throwing all restraint to the winds I wolfed down everything that was put before me, making for a most uncomfortable night. The company and the occasion made it all worthwhile but I must confess to having felt decidedly delicate in the morning.
Lee Hassett picked me up at noon for the matinee. It felt strange to perform in the daytime after so many evening performances, and everyone seemed markedly closer as we approach the end. Ours is a huge cast, forty adults and thirty boys, so I only got to know about fifteen or twenty people well -- in addition to the friends I made during "The Sound of Music."
The performance was pitch perfect, and moved quickly. Since we had about 3 and a half hours between shows I had a sandwich and coffee in the theatre bar with Peter and several of the cast members, then went down to our basement dressing room to read before the others returned for the final costuming.
For the first time since the late rehearsals, I stood in the wings and watched the entire show -- except the scenes in which I appeared, of course. Just before curtain, I stepped out onto the stage and quietly told the assembled boys how much I had enjoyed getting to know them, and how impressed I was with the work they've been doing. They were delighted, and I could see that my having sat down to draw for them had truly paid off. Since that time two or three weeks ago, they have sort of adopted me as a mascot and my affection for them has grown and grown. Three or four of them have become favorites, naturally, but they are all delightful performers, and together, are truly the soul of the show.
I loved the show seen in this intimate way, and it was gratifying to see that Jonathan, our Oliver, has fulfilled every expectation. His indifferent playing in the later rehearsals has disappeared, and in our week onstage he has given a rich, deeply-felt performance. He clearly has that one thing that talent and work are useless without: an unforced charm that audience can't help but respond to. The show, as usual, moved along briskly, due largely to that smoothly running machine, our crew.
During the run of the play I went through most of two drawing tablets drawing caricatures of the boys and the rest of the cast. As I was leaving the stage, one of the stagehands, a chubby, pleasant young man, shyly asked if I would draw him, too. So as they dismantled the set for the warehouse, I stood about and drew them all, to their delight. What a wonderful tool drawing is for breaking the ice.
In the theatre bar afterwards, we said our goodbyes, although there is to be one last party tonight; forty people have made reservations. I'll miss these wonderful players, especially the boys. It's heartbreaking to think that I'll almost certainly never see them again. Though I've always prided myself on being an uncle to multitudes, sometimes I think I might have made a pretty good father myself...
It has been a lazy, pleasant day, with periods of bright sunshine, and Peter and David and I have hardly done anything but read the papers. In times past, the end of a show brought days of melancholy. Now I feel only a mild regret, a nameless emptiness, and it never lasts for long. And tomorrow I fly to Dublin!

Dear Friends and Family,
I'm sitting in an internet cafe just a few steps from my hotel, aching with exhaustion but deliriously happy. Dublin is delight upon delight, a city rich in sights, literary associations, and wonderful good manners-- which I've always valued.
My flight from Liverpool (yesterday) took less than an hour, and a bus whisked me into the city center in half an hour. My hotel, an almost too-modest establishment called the Charles Stewart, was right on the bus route. It's a tiny, worn establishment, the birthplace of Irish writer (and surgeon!) Oliver St. John Gogarty, a great pal of James Joyce, my literary hero. My room is about the size of one of my closets, but clean and comfortable. I unpacked and immediately hit the street.
Within the first half hour of walking I was greeted by rain, a light snow, and hail! Then later the sun came out in full as I was walking through the park. Dublin is small and compact, and eminently walkable. I liked the city immediately (no surprise to anyone who knows me) but as I entered the magnificent park St. Stephen's Green, like turned to love. It must be the loveliest park in Europe. At once the sun came out, and my happiness was only increased by the cup of hot chocolate I'd brought with me. There is a series of chocolate shops, Butler's, throughout the city, and they make an exquisite cup of the stuff. I proceeded to Merrion Square, and walked all around it reading the plaques on the buildings. The Duke of Wellington was born there, as was Oscar Wilde. Across from chez Oscar is a sculpture of him, lounging on a huge rock. It doesn't quite look like the Wilde I know from photos, but is a nice tribute anyway.
I found the Irish National Gallery not a block away and walked in for the few more minutes it was open, determined to return the following day. I managed to see a couple of the galleries, a tempting foretaste of what's to come.
Temple Bar, the area south of the Liffey, is glutted with restaurants and I finally settled on Italian, The Botticelli, and had a large pizza. Afterward I was so tired from my long hike that I decided to make it a short evening. This was helped by the disconcerting Dublin habit of closing everything up early. A multiplex on O'Connell Street was playing an American romantic comedy (“In Good Company”) and I settled down to enjoy it.

Tuesday, Feb. 22
I started off in the hotel restaurant with a hearty breakfast, which comes with the room. My ultimate goal was the National Gallery, but I first stopped to do a bit of shopping, a birthday gift for my cousin Lisa. I was able to buy it, have it wrapped, and buy a box from the stationer's next door, AND mail it within one hour. From there -- on to the Gallery.
This is a wonderful collection, with much Irish art, including a long gallery devoted to the Yeats family. The poet's father and brother were both fine painters, and so, to my surprise, was his sister. Fine work, but nothing to William Butler Yeats's incredible verse.
To my delight, the museum has a huge collection of painting from the Italian Renaissance, and a glorious Vermeer as well, one of the rarest of the rare. I stopped only to have a slice of fudge tart and a bottle of water, which was lunch enough for me. I spent a long time in the museum shop, one of the best I've seen.
Dublin's Francis Street is the place for antique shopping, so I repaired there. A gentle rain had started, but hardly worth putting up an umbrella for, and I made a special effort to include St. Stephen's Green on my route. The antique shops were plentiful, but most of the stuff was wildly out of my range, just as well since my packing for my return is going to require herculean effort simply to squeeze everything in. Several of the shop owners were quite friendly, and all of them mentioned the cold, which is nothing. I assured them that the Boston weather was much colder.
The friendliness has been my greatest and best surprise. As I was looking for a bureau de change on my first walk down O'Connell Street, I got into a conversation with a charming man coming out of a pub, who gave me advice. He was pleasant and curious about Boston. And before the movie yesterday I stopped at another pub, Madigan's, for a half pint of Guinness, and the man at the next stool politely engaged me in conversation, just enough to be friendly, and allowed me to return to my book. Ah, these Irish!

Dear Friends and Family,
Wednesday was another typical Dublin day: rain, hail (again!), snow, and bright sun. I got up early to walk north to see the Hugh Lane, a museum of modern art I was very much looking forward to seeing. But it is closed till April! I was quite chagrinned at missing a wonderful collection. I headed farther north, just to exercise, and happened onto Eccles Street, where Joyce's Leopold Bloom, the most real, the most human of literary characters, started his long day's journey into Nighttown in "Ulysses." Number 7, his house, has been torn down (but hey, he wasn't real!), so I walked back to the museum next to the Hugh Lane, the Irish Writer's museum. It was a joy, of course and held me for three hours. I haven't a trace of Irish in me, but my head is crammed with Irish literature so I had a lovely time.
Lunch was in a bookstore cafe, and then I walked over to Trinity College. I didn't particularly want to see the Book of Kells, but wandered over the large campus. The kind host at my hotel had given me a map that went a bit further than the one in my guidebook, so I wandered south to see if I could find the house where George Bernard Shaw was born. I lucked out, and found it. It's a shockingly modest place, but in a delightful neighborhood (I was expecting a slum), and found out that there is SO much more to Dublin than the tourists' area. That part of town is lively and lovely and very much like an American city, though with a different flavor. I'd been told that Dublin is fine for a few days visit but quite dull after that. I have not found it so at all; it keeps revealing itself to me like a set of nesting Russian dolls.
I found a wonderful market, just before closing, and was able to buy some foreign coins for the daughter of a friend of mine from Natick. I wandered about the city, making my by-now-necessary walk through St. Stephen's Green, this time with a cup of hot white chocolate (!) in my happy hand. Dinner was at a delightful Irish bar, O'Neill's, so very much like my neighborhood's Doyle's, but a bit grander, lots of gleaming mirrors and mahogany wood. I had a poached salmon piled high with salad and steamed snow peas -- heaven.
Today, Thursday, I did a bit of shopping --and mailing-- then went to the Irish National Museum. It was a trip through time to the ancient Bog People, the Vikings, and even the Egyptians. Delight upon delight. I had a fiery dish of Thai Chicken and Rice at an interesting little hole in the wall on Dame Street, with high Georgian ceilings and the walls painted a dim series of VERY ODD pastels, a pale light filtering through a skylight. But the food was sublime.
The Chester Beatty Library was next, in Dublin Castle. This collection was amassed by an American mining engineer, a wonderful philanthropist who endowed the Irish people with this stunning collection of old manuscripts, Islamic, Oriental, etc., with an addition of Asian art. I spent two hours there, then went walking in the castle gardens. I stumbled across a bizarre fountain hidden away in a corner. The figure in it is a huge coiled snake worked in blue and clear glass, and was something I imagine many visitors miss altogether.
Dinner was at the Twenty Twenty, ostensibly Persian, though I saw no evidence of it. My pasta dish was perfect and I am, at the moment, logy with red wine and food, glorious food, and happy as is humanly possible.

Friday, Feb. 25
On Friday morning I stopped by Butler's for another fabulous hot chocolate (this is getting to be a serious addiction), then got a ticket for a bus tour of the south coast. This was scheduled to last for four and a half hours. We boarded at 11:00. Our guide was a middle-aged leprechaun named Richard Kelly. He began by telling us he had serious bad news for us -- but his demeanor clearly indicated that he was having us on. This bad news was that the tour was going to have to let us off three blocks away instead of at the starting-off point. I figured we were in for a good deal of classic blarney when traffic forced us to stop briefly at a rusty old overhead railway bridge, the beauty of which he began extolling at length. We continued down the Liffey toward the sea, and into the lovely seaside suburb of Sandycove. The Irish sea was rolling in in huge brown waves, and the sky was nearly clear except for some huge cumulus clouds to the north. We continued down the coast to Sandymount, and the martello tower where "Ulysses" began, with 'Stately, plump Buck Mulligan' greeting the morning. Joyce based Mulligan, it is said, on the poet and wit Oliver St. John Gogarty, who was born in the house which is now my hotel.
At the resort town of Bray we stopped to 'have a pee and smell the sea,' and where the poor addicts among us could get out and smoke a cigarette. Bray is charming, a large town fronting the sea, which did indeed smell wonderful. We next hit Dalkey, which our guide told us is something of a magnet for celebrities (Angelica Huston, Mel Gibson, Sean Penn). At Blackrock we turned inland, into the Wicklow mountains; some of the distant peaks were still coated with light snow. Our ultimate goal was Powerscourt, reached by way of some of the loveliest scenery I've seen on this trip. At the main gate Mr. Kelly squeezed the bus through a stone gate with only a couple of inches leeway on each side, a feat I could never have managed.
Powerscourt is a stately mansion with acres and acres of formal garden. We were given an hour and a half to tour the place, which I thought was more than generous. It turned out to be the very minimum we could have wished. Lunch in the Powerscourt restaurant was perhaps the best meal I had in Ireland, a large salmon cake accompanied by three generous salads. It was so huge a meal that I had to pass up the most delectable tray of sweets you can imagine, but my lunch was more than satisfying.
It was colder here than in the city, so I bundled up and marched into the formal garden. The garden is quiet and mysterious; one could almost imagine gryphons or winged horses glaring balefully at one from the undergrowth. It took most of the remaining hour after the meal to explore. Tall trees of all species grow thickly here, but to my chagrin the identifying tags were in Gaelic! I climbed the steep hill to the Pepperpot tower, an ancient crenellated round tower guarded by several cannon. I suspect this predates the estate and main house. Further on are Japanese gardens, which were more English than Asian, with a mossy gothic rock grotto set into one corner.
In the center of the gardens is a lake, with a bronze copy of Bernini's triton fountain in the center -- a lovely reminder of Rome. A handful of waterfowl shivered in a small flock at one end. Up a slight hill I found the family's pet cemetery. The earliest stone is from 1901, commemorating a favorite borzoi. There's even a stone for Eugenie, a cow! I noticed that the time was moving along faster than I'd expected, and Mr. Kelly had warned us that the bus would leave exactly on time. I stepped up my pace.
The ride back to Dublin was further inland, and just as scenically satisfying as the route down. We approached Dublin through the suburb of Donnybrook (yes, such a place actually exists) and on into the city. Our first familiar sight was my beloved St. Stephen's Green.
All along our tour Mr. Kelly kept up a running commentary, even breaking into song on several occasions. He was witty and learned and highly knowledgable about Ireland's history, even its geology. I hated for our journey to end.
That evening I decided to return to O'Neill's for dinner. O'Neill's may be a typical Irish pub (I didn't go into very many), but I doubt it; it is distinctly quirky. It's not one bar, but a series of small, sociable rooms cobbled together, situated on several levels. When I arrived the dinner crowd had definitely beaten me but I wandered through the place and finally managed to nail down an empty table. I ordered an ale and left it along with my bag and book to order food. Lunch had been such a Luccullan feed that I wanted no more than a sandwich. The counterman, a tall and beautiful young man with enormous ears, had clearly been working there for only a short time. I ordered the veggie delux, and he looked at me in sheer panic. He didn't seem to quite know what he was doing, so, worried that someone might lay claim to my table, I went back to sip on my ale and read for a short spell. When I finally got the sandwich the promised goat cheese was nowhere in evidence. He had merely put a green salad between two slices of bread and grilled it. After a few exploratory bites, I took it back up and the colleen at the bar said, "Oh, dear, he's me brother, and he IS new... I'll get you another." The replacement was fine and I lingered over dinner as long as I could. I'd bought a small sketchbook that morning, so I did a few caricatures of unsuspecting denizens of the bar.

Saturday, Feb. 26
Dublin presented me with one final gift: a flawless blue sky and warm sunshine. My flight was in mid-afternoon so I treated myself to one last stroll through the city. For the first time since my first day St. Stephen's Green was sunny and filled with people enjoying the balmy weather. There is, I found, much more to it than I'd suspected. In one corner was an almost-hidden monument to Yeats by Henry Moore. From one angle it looked more like a monumental pelvic bone from some strange creature, but as I walked around it, it took on a distinct likeness to the Max Beerbohm caricature of the young poet, languid and self-conscious of his growing fame. It occurred to me that I hadn't really explored Merrion Square, only walked around it, so I walked the few blocks there. It's a wonderful park, with hidden gardens, formal and rich.
Dublin has its beggars, but I've seen no more on my whole trip than one sees in three blocks along Boston's Newbury Street. But today there were at least five on my walk back to the hotel. I picked up my bag and got the bus to the airport.
This city made a wonderful first impression on me. It is a delight for tourists, but I think it must be an even better place to live and work. Since most shops snap shut at precisely six o'clock, tourists can only dine or drink, or go to the theatre. It's a modern, prosperous city, just as Ireland now seems a forward-looking, confident country, no longer the despair of Joyce and Samuel Beckett, the "sow that eats her own farrow." I'll be back.
Peter picked me up at the Liverpool airport and drove me home. A dinner was planned for that evening at Chez Jules, a French restaurant in Chester. It was a very festive party, wine-soaked and delightful in every way. There were twelve of us, and all are now friends of mine except a new couple I hadn't met. I finally had a chance to get to know Pam, our choreographer, a bit better. She is a great Dublin enthusiast. The food was so sublime I won't even go into it, and the company was even better. They shooed us out at nine, and we moved the party to Wrexham, to our local pub, the Acton Park. A glorious end to my trip.
The next morning Peter and Maureen took me to the airport and I headed home. My flight was smooth till Philadelphia. There, my plane was delayed for an hour, but on my arrival at Logan Toby was there to meet me, the happiest greeting I could hope for. My bag was lost and he patiently waited while I flew frantically through the masses of bags stacked up in the storage area. I never could find it. At long last I contacted an agent who assured me that my bag would be sent out the following day.
Robert Dimmick was waiting at the house, having turned on the heat for me and provided a vase of cut flowers. He and Toby and I went down to Doyle’s, then back to Robert’s for a final liqueur. I was in bed by midnight, and, if mildly disconcerted by the huge piles of snow on the streets, delighted to be home.