Places I Would Rather Be Today

Back at Kenilworth.


image: Christie B. Cochrell, Large Window, Kenilworth

Castle Living

I love the toaster we had for our breakfasts in the Great Hall of the Castle for our breakfasts in grand style where Bishops used to convene. The slices of bread travelled from front towards back of it on a conveyor belt, and when they got to the far end were flipped headlong onto their other side for their ride out on a lower-down belt.


image: Christie B. Cochrell, Durham Castle courtyard

Castle Window

Very old glass indeed, though surely not from the 11th Century, like much of Durham Castle. It was light there by four in the morning, and kept on until after ten at night—while the Cathedral bells went on and on, with solemn regularity.

The peals of bells on Sundays and again on Thursday evening made me think of The Nine Tailors with Lord Peter Wimsey and the happy year at Mills when I devoured all the Wimsey mysteries. In Durham I was reading another book set in a Cathedral close, Charles Palliser's The Unburied.


image: Christie B. Cochrell, Castle Window

Turrets and Spires

The view from my window in Durham Castle. (Up 39 steps, all narrow, steep, and winding.) My very own turret!

I could sit on the high window ledge, drinking cardamom-scented coffee—bought from a stall in the covered market on the cobbled square downhill from the Cathedral close, and wonder at getting to stay there in that magic place.


image: Christie B. Cochrell, Turret

Among the Romans VI

Some favorite Classical musicians:

The Beatles = Cimictus

The Rolling Stones = Lapides Provolventes

The Grateful Dead = Mortui Grati

The Beach Boys = Pueri Litoris

The Who = Ille Quis

The Temptations = Inlecebrae

The Monkees = Simitatores

Among the Romans V

Abutebaris modo subjunctivo.

(You've been misusing the subjunctive.
)

Among the Romans IV

Atque memento, nulli adsunt Romanorum qui locutionem tuam corrigant.

(And remember, there aren't any Romans around to correct your pronunciation.)

Among the Romans III

quando omni flunkus, mortati

(When all else fails, play dead)

Journeying

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think.

—Lawrence Durrell

Consolation

Those not travelling in northern England need not be sad—see here for consolation—