A last weekend with livredor

[lethargic_man]

Comprising a trip to Cripplegate, Cambridge, Leytonstone, Golders Green, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan

Friday

On Friday, having a little time to kill before we headed off to Cambridge, we decided to go on pilgrimage search for the church of St Giles, Cripplegate, where Cromwell was married and Milton buried, which Jo Walton described so strikingly on rec.arts.sf.fandom. Jo and Emmet described it as being surrounded by large and ugly concrete buildings so, not having precise directions, we set out to find it by looking for the largest, ugliest concrete buildings we could see in the area, and more by luck than anything else, found it in the end.

The area was extensively bombed during the Blitz; of the church only the tower survived intact, and every other building in the area was razed, leading to the odd phenomenon of this mediaeval church surrounded by entirely by twentieth-century buildings (and graves in the churchyard now being located in groups raised a foot about the surrounding paved path). To my surprise it was located within the Barbican compound, and within sight of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where, many years ago, I'd performed with the JYO. Possibly I'd even seen it from the outside before.

I didn't go into the church, for reasons involving priesthood and dead bodies; I'll leave livredor to describe that.

I didn't find (most of) the area as bad as Jo and Emmet did; and there were some interesting bits of architecture we found there and on the way there. There was also a bit of London wall, which tied in nicely with references in Quicksilver, which I had been reading, to "the stumps of the Roman wall around London". I hadn't realised there was any of this left; I think of London as having been built over and burned and bombed and rebuilt so many times that there's nothing that old left.

Afterwards, we spent most of the journey up to Great Shelford discussing rysmiel's book. livredor reflected that comparisons with Jewish theology weren't perhaps such a good idea if they'd require half an hour to explain; I reflected that the structure of such a comparison would be like that of a page of Talmud, where the footnotes were longer than the main text.

pseudomonas came around for Friday night dinner, sporting a T-shirt decorated with his LJ icon. Amongst the topics of conversation were new siddurim and old; livredor's father had a Victorian siddur, which I pounced on to compare with modern ones, and learned a thing or two new from it.

Saturday

On Saturday we were favoured with lovely sunny weather for the walk to shul -- which is six miles away in Cambridge, and takes us an hour and three quarters. We went through Grantchester and the open countryside, to avoid the trafficacious main road. I wouldn't like to do that walk on a regular basis, but it makes a pleasant change, especially in terms of getting away from London.

Topics of conversation on the walk included what I learned in the New North London Synagogue's learning programme about revenge in Talmudic literature; we also reflected upon the fact that when Jesus said "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's", he was quoting from events of eighty years earlier, and the best part of two thousand miles away across the Roman Empire. Or so I thought at the time; I'm not so sure now, on failing to find supporting evidence on googling and consulting a book of mine, that I haven't been taking rysmiel overliterally here. I am, however, more sure that King Lear was a real person. Well, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, at least.

After all this walk, we got to shul more or less on time, which pleased me, as I grossly underestimated the time to walk there the previous times I'd done so; and were rewarded afterwards with a big kiddush.

Afterwards, we went to pseudomonas's place until Shabbos went out (not very long at this time of year), then accompanied him back to Great Shelford for Havdala, which I managed to make the biggest mess of possible, dropping the spice jar in the wine, spilling wine everywhere, and inadvertently snorting the spice. Most disappointing, I didn't get any kind of high from it, just a noseful of spice. Next time I must use nutmeg.

Still, it achieved its purpose (Havdala, that is, not snorting the spice): we let Shabbos out, then lit the Menorah, and headed off to London for doseybat's birthday party, which was full of more LJ people than you can shake a stick at, including one person (damerell) I hadn't seen this century (by the pedantic definition, at least); and also livredor's friend blue_mai, whom I hadn't met yet, and who turned out to be friendly, born thirty and sensible (or so it seemed), and an Adept Camera Geek to boot.

Someone at the party told me they had heard how if you slice a grape nearly in two and microwave it, it will produce sparks, due to the shape of the grape acting as a waveguide. I attempted to do so, but failed miserably; all I ended up achieving was several cooked grapes.

Sunday

doseybat's mother kindly offered to put up some of the people at the party, so though I got far too little sleep, I did at least get the comfort of a proper bed. :o) During breakfast on Sunday morning, we were entertained by doseybat's mother, who is charming, and her plants (including one with purple leaves, which blue_mai took a fancy to and a cutting from, and another with green leaves covered by purple hairs), and doseybat's Turkish Puzzle Ring. As some of you will know, I have a four-member puzzle ring like the one on the right, which so entranced doseybat that compilerbitch got an eight-member ring for her (similar to the one on the left). Now, on my year off I'd met a girl who'd bought a six-membered puzzle ring in a shop in Massachussetts, complete with instructions (which is more than I got with mine, which I'd bought in Jaffa). Unfortunately the instructions had been for the wrong ring, and she'd wandered Israel for eight months hoping to find someone who could put it back together before she'd seen me wearing mine. It took me thirty-five minutes to solve, of which thirty were spent figuring out that hers was put together in the mirror-image pattern to mine. So seeing doseybat's ring, I took it as a challenge to solve. Unfortunately for doseybat, who can't put it together herself, at least one of the times I tried to solve hers, I ran out of time, and had to leave it in pieces (until the next time doseybat saw compilerbitch). Fortunately, this time, to the relief of all concered, I was able to put the ring back together with no problems.

In the afternoon, livredor and I met up with my friend Sabine, and we had a mosey around Golders Hill Park, the pergola in Hill House Gardens, and the nearby bit of Hampstead Heath which, despite what the name suggests to me, was there wooded. The three together comprise a lovely park, away from the bustle and noise of London, ideal for getting away from it all on a Shabbos afternoon, and I'm glad I was able finally to show it to livredor. It took me nearly four years to properly discover the park (though I'd been cycling around it all the while), and only now, by virtue of going around the herb garden in the wrong direction, did I discover there was a greenhouse there too.

Following a nice refreshing cup of tea, we went our separate ways -- livredor to her parents' Chanukah party in Great Shelford, and myself to the New North London Synagogue's Chanukah party in Finchley, where I met someone I hadn't seen in ten years. This seems to happen to me quite a bit there. :o)

The New North London's Chanukah party was supposed to involve latkes. In fact they served stubby cylinders of potato mash lightly fried on the outside -- the same as at the Marom party I'd been to on Saturday. That's not what latkes means to me: grated potato welded together with a little egg, and fried to the consistency of chips. Perhaps it's a north/south thing, like what's a turnip and what's a swede. I suppose if I want to have True Latkes down here, I'm going to have to make them myself.

Comments

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

is that 8 ring picture a random one from the net? its very different from mine, the individual rings seem to be separated by quite a wide margin so you can see the weavework all the way through. the individual rings on mine are quite flat at the front, concealing the interior. i had no idea they could come in so many varieties and still work!

did you find a pic of a 20/30 one? im very intrigued by these.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a random one I found from the Net. I thought it did match my memory of yours. If you can find a better one, I'll substitute it.

Likewise, feel free to go googling in search of a picture of a 20-30-membered ring. Or alternatively, remind me shortly before the next time I get to meet you in person, whenever that turns out to be.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

The one in the pic does seem to be mechanically similar to doseybat's, you're right.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

(although it looks like a 6 ring rather than an 8 ring)