Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 August 2004 19:45:18
OK, so July's London cultural event didn't happen till August, but my goodness it was a good one. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you:
Eltham Palace ( http://www.elthampalace.org.uk ) (note to self: figure out how to do proper links).
I can't tell you how fabulous it was. And it's just down the road! There's no way I can do it justice, but click on the link for a little taster. Basically, it started out life as a medieval palace (where no less than Henry VIII spent much of his boyhood), but by the mid-17th century had fallen into rack and ruin and only the great hall was left, the estate was turned into a farm and the wonderful hall used as a barn. It was eventually bought in the 1930s by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld, who built a house onto the great hall and turned the whole thing into art deco heaven. It's just exquisite. It also has some gloriously eccentric touches, such as the "living quarters" for Mah-Jongg (known as "Jonggie"), their pet ring-tailed lemur, which was built into a wall and decorated with scenes from his native Madagascar, and Virginia's bath's gold-mosaic tile splashbacks. There were so many wonderful details, the whole place was absolutely stunning - I loved it. My friend and I spent a good couple of hours looking round the house, then a bit of time in the shop where I was hoping to get some art deco earrings, but although they had some lovely ones they were way too expensive so I ended up with a pot of English Heritage cherry and vintage port jam instead. After that and a leisurely cup of tea or two in the teashop we spent another good hour wandering round the grounds - sunken gardens, moat, bridges, rock garden - it was just great. I took lots of pictures of the garden as I have this hare-brained plan that when I have more time I will get out my pastels and do some drawings from photos. Quite when I think I'm going to do this I really don't know - this has been a hare-brained plan for quite a while, and I've got hundreds of photos of various gardens and riversides and landscapes which I'll probably never ever get round to drawing, even if I could remember where they all are.
In other news, at church this morning I was chatting with a friend and somehow the conversation came round to Christian Connection (which is the UK equivalent of Deeleea's G.O.D.S. dating website). I shared a couple of anecdotes which a few years on still make me laugh, and then my friend said "Right, I'll be coming to you for a few sermon illustrations then". Me and my big mouth.