Lady Day

What a great day it's been today! I can't recall a drier spell of weather in March, which means I have planted all my potatoes. And to have hot sunshine as well...

I took Caroline's Japanese student round the churches of Cheltenham today, and (topically) pointed out the Annunciation windows in the Parish Church and St Gregory's, both Victorian glass. This one (right) is a much older panel in the Burrell Collection: I photographed it a few years ago. It's a far more elaborate representation, possibly German. Unusually, God the Father is himself visible top left, that link between creation and redemption again.

As someone wrote recently, The Annunciation is logically the most important feast day in the calendar: without it, there would be no Nativity, no Easter.

Cheltenham in blossom

Appropriately, seeing as it's the week of the equinox, our photography tutor set us - for homework - the task of taking a seasonal image. So yesterday I biked down to the town centre and braved the traffic buzzing round Berkeley Place, so as to try to capture the blossom without also including cars or signage. (I am not really ever going to master post-production zapping, I have begun to realise.)

Jonathon Porritt

The programme for the Cheltenham Science Festival came today. Unfortunately, we are going to miss it all this year, as we shall be in Portugal meeting up with Thomas. A pity, because it is full of good things, including a talk by Festival regular Jonathon Porritt on "The Limits of our Planet". One of Jonathon's earlier appearances was at our Festival of Literature in 1993, when Canadian poet Heather Spears - self-appointed artist in residence that year - sketched him.

I have dug out the sketch to publicise a talk Jonathon is giving on 25th May here in Cheltenham entitled, "A sustainable world: reasons to be hopeful". (7.30 at Friends' Meeting House, Cheltenham, GL52 2NP - admission £3: prior booking needed.) This is under the auspices of Christian Ecology Link, of which he has for long been one of the Patrons.

Did anyone hear him on Any Questions? today: excellent.

Gold and the gospel

Expert gilder, Teresa Llewellyn is currently at work applying gold leaf to the tabernacle on the high altar of St Gregory's Church, Cheltenham. A very skilled job it is. "Can you see," she asked me, "the tiny animal head gargoyles? Unless you are up here on the scaffolding, they are invisible."

Teresa's work involves removing from the elaborate stonework the grime of ages and gold paint (of the 1970s), before she applies an incredibly thin layer of gold leaf, one of which she is holding in my photograph. A parishioner has given money to the church specifically for this purpose - some £10,000 or more I understand. It raises again the question asked by the disciples of Jesus, when a woman anointed him with a jar of very expensive ointment, "Why this waste? This ointment could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor." (Matthew, 26)

I don't know what today's answer sounds like, but I do think any expenditure of this level needs discussing within a parish community before it's embarked upon. It might even lead to the eventual decision to refuse an earmarked gift, if it was determined not to be right to be spending such a huge sum on what is essentially an unnecessary decoration. God knows there is enough real need in today's world!

Romeo and Juliet

We were treated to an evening out on Monday - Romeo and Juliet at the just-reopened Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford. From my tour last December, I knew already how extensive the rebuilding has been. And very impressive it is also for its main purpose of presenting Shakespeare! My seat was in the back row of the Circle right at the side, no distance from the stage. The balcony scene took place just below me, and it mattered not at all that I couldn't see the back wall. Possibly, though, I wouldn't wish to sit any higher up.

The exhilarating production by Rupert Goold disturbed me, though it clearly entranced the Worcester school party alongside me. Goold deliberately alienates us with a mixture of period and modern dress, and an unconventionally plain-looking (grunge being their motif) pair of lovers. His cast throws away many beautiful lines, or plays them against their normal dramatic sense. The programme book contains just a couple of essays, on martyrdom and suicide, which threw little light for me on the production's values or its intended relationship to previous interpretations.

Altogether, the evening lacked a sense of history, which for the reopening of such an historically important place of theatre was disconcerting.

Revcounter at CEL

Polonius’ advice to his son was, “Beware of entrance to a quarrel.” So, it is with reluctance that I take issue with the keynote speaker at last Saturday’s Christian Ecology Link conference.

Polonius also pointed out that “the apparel oft proclaims the man,” a modern rendering of which might be “What you see is what you get.” Certainly, Father Peter Owen Jones could hardly look less like the conventional C of E vicar, and his message, too, set him apart from the norm. You don’t hear too many Sunday sermons referencing what a Druid has to say, for instance – and not once, but twice.

Our venue was St John’s Church, Waterloo. “Where,” Father Peter asked, “here in this place, is the space for herons, the food for red admiral butterflies?” As it happened, I could answer this easily: before his talk, I had strolled in the church’s beautiful garden; and there are these days many species of fish in the River Thames, just adjacent.

Yes, there’s plenty of indifference to nature within our church communities. And we do need reminding of the reason for Christian Ecology link’s existence. I liked the image of CEL as the pill dropped into the establishment’s water, still – after thirty years – relatively undissolved.

Father Peter, however, complains that there is precious little in the New Testament that relates to our treatment of the natural world. Jesus’ use of sheep, goats, sparrows and lilies of the field within his parables presumably doesn’t suffice. My objection is more fundamental, however: does he not appreciate the New Testament’s linkage between the story of our redemption and the glory of God’s creation? “It is he,” in the words of Pope Benedict, “the Creator himself, who entered into history, and can still enter into history and act in it, because he is the God of the whole and not just of a part. If we recognise this, obviously what follows is that the Redemption, what it means to be Christian, and simply the Christian faith in itself, always signify responsibility with regard to Creation.”

This is why I shall be celebrating the Easter Vigil in church, rather than by a bonfire on Firle Beacon.

"Carnival"

Despite being as I thought rather good at Latin when at school, I have only recently realised that carnival means "putting aside meat". Well, this is what we are going to try to do (for the first time) this Lent. So on Sunday Caroline's lunch menu featured duck (before the cheese). Sadly, however, it wasn't the birds that she had stored for the occasion in our garden shed freezer: when she went to fetch them, she discovered they had "flown": I hope the thief enjoyed his or her treat as much as we did our expensive one. Now, belatedly, we have a lock on the door.

Transition lunch

It was thirty years or more ago that Caroline and I first visited St George's Association, situated down a long drive just off Junction 13 of the M5. A delightful Sister Pauline Mary ran it - a home for educationally less able girls, who had by then become middle aged women. The huge range of buildings, complete with caged birds, was quite inappropriate for so small a community, and shortly afterwards it moved to a house in Lansdown here in Cheltenham.

The work of St George's has now changed and expanded, to include a café in the town centre, where our friend Malcolm has recently taken over as chef. Enterprisingly, he organised a special lunch today for the Transition Town Cheltenham network: a good time was had by all, and Malcolm catered for a full house.

"Is Christianity dying in the West?"

The well-known broadcaster Elaine Storkey was our stimulating speaker at the Severn Forum this evening, revisiting "the secularisation thesis". Her slides gave us a barrage of statistics and quotations, first of all to substantiate the thesis - as if we were not aware of declining church attendances. I liked the juxtaposition of a photograph of the London bus slogan, "There's probably no God..." with the cartoon of a church by a bus-stop, and its notice, "There's probably no bus so come to church and enjoy yourself a bit."

More interesting was Dr. Storkey's analysis of religious life as mutating, not disappearing. Of the 40% who are dechurched (or lapsed), more than half she said are waiting to be asked to return to the fold. Of the 40% unchurched, with no experience of worship, how many, she asks, may have a longing for God? The ways of being religious have moved into the symbolic marketplace; but how do we meet them there? Who is going to claim their baggage from the carousel?

My answer was this, with which our speaker agreed - as I knew she would being President of Tear Fund, with its carbon fast: when the church takes seriously the challenge of environmental degradation, and the need to uphold God's creation, we find ourselves very readily alongside those unchurched masses, many of whom are doing much to right the wrongs we should be talking about within our churches, but are not.

Coldwell Bottom

At last Caroline has treated herself to some new boots (£16 in the Bath Road). So today was green welly baptism day up near Coberley: we braved the wind and rain to do my favourite walk, up the track past the prehistoric burial tumps to Barber Wood, round it and down along the edge of the great sweep that is Coldwell Bottom. And the question for discussion was, should the countryside be treated as a recreational playground?

Badminton anyone?

I'm in need of training for a projected cycle ride from home to Ampleforth, starting on Palm Sunday. So this morning a friendly pacemaker led me on a preparatory spin - 26 miles before lunch, a looped route with the Badminton estate at its extremity. (He lives near Tetbury.) The weather wasn't as Spring-like as yesterday's, but it kept dry, and I didn't miss my gloves. Coming back, the wind was behind us, which made a difference.

Probably it's only in South Gloucs. that one can pass the country homes of both a Duke and a Prince (Highgrove) within such a short distance of one another. There's a fine view of the side of the Duke's William Kent-designed mansion from the lane we took. But what's that mysterious-looking upside down top hat flying above the flagpole? I don't remember hearing any aircraft noise, and it doesn't look like a bird.

So last year

We have just learnt that the postman on a pushbike is now a thing of the past here in Leckhampton. No longer will we see Pete turn up at our gate on his cycle for a chat about the latest Manchester United news. At least, we may still get the news, but not the cycle, as he and his letters now get delivered by van nearby, and the round is then made on foot. Not a great contribution to cutting carbon, one would have thought - and what's become of all those bikes?

Danish maestri

Here are the bright stars who make up the Danish String Quartet, playing an encore at the end of a taxing programme at the Pittville Pump Room. My neighbour confided that she doesn't approve of encores after a major work such as what made up the second half yesterday evening - Beethoven Op 127. Nor does she like quartets "without a pair of clean shoes between them." (The four did indeed resemble, not so much a string quartet as a pop group.)

However, I was in no position to strike up an argument with someone so kind: I turned up at the box office just a few minutes before the concert, but before I could buy myself a ticket, she had thrust one into my hands and wouldn't hear of my paying her for it. When my other neighbour likewise thrust a spare programme in my direction, I realised it was my lucky evening.

And very good it was too, to hear such uninhibited playing, particularly in early pieces by Nielsen and Thomas Adès, which made up the first half. When it comes to the Beethoven, I'm spoilt by having the Hungarian and the Lindsays' recordings and also (since Gloucestershire Libraries' giveaway sale the other weekend - incomprehensible!) a boxed set of performances by the brilliant Takács.

Connect 4 + 2

Cheltenham Connect is a worthy local initiative for revitalising the community, as I've mentioned previously. One of its generous supporters is the proprietor of The Brown Jug, not quite our nearest pub: it's one I've not visited much. Since I last ventured downstairs there, the rather scruffy skittle alley has been turned into quite a sizeable lounge - big enough for about 70 of us to sit down for a quiz last evening, organised by Cheltenham Connect's Go Green group.

Faithful followers of my blog will realise that a pub quiz is not something that features much - and for Caroline it was a first. But we thought it was time to support at least one of Cheltenham Connect's initiatives, so we signed up, tagging onto a team consisting of four habitués - who thanked us at the end for venturing outside our comfort zone.

In fact, it was good fun: we didn't do too badly, laughing a lot, and learning quite a bit too. In view of some of the questions, it surprised me that the winning team (pictured, with their prizes) did not seem to contain any street-wise whiz kids.

Pittville pranks

I paid a second visit to the open west 2011 this morning, at our university's doomed Pittville Campus. On the way in, I noticed a broken pillar. Upon enquiry inside, I was told that the emergency services had been called out and that on arrival they had duly taped off the area around it.

In fact it turned out to be one of the prize-winning entries in the exhibition! And yes, its title is Broken Pillar. The artist (from Korea), Shan Hur, spotted the cantilevered entrance to the gallery area, and exactly matched the profile of the existing rear pillars in making two totally unnecessary new ones. (The left one - out of my picture - is intact.)

Within the foyer of the building, he has another work, a fake cash machine built into the wall. Again, it has taken many of us in (the students couldn't believe their luck!). Both these enjoyably unexpected exhibits seem entirely at home in a contemporary show of this kind, but "art"?

Discovering Gloucester

Though we live so near, I paid two visits yesterday to parts of Gloucester that were unknown to me. In the evening, David Behar Perahia presided over a performance as artist in residence in the Cathedral, leading a very informal procession up into the spacious tribune gallery, from which I discovered there is a spectacular view of the Choir and - in daylight - the East Window. Earlier, our serried ranks had dribbled through the Cloisters, where actor/musicians had sat in each corner before blocks of stone, which they attacked periodically (and rhythmically) to give a vivid impression of what it must have felt like to have been there when the building was being erected.

The artist's starting point was "awe and wonder about the simple idea that this cathedral was built out of human measures." And admirably did he and his young cast, by this unusual and imaginative performance, convey the same sense to me - as I guess to many of the large number present, for most of whom visiting the Cathedral would be a very occasional experience.

In the morning and afternoon, I had attended the conference organised by The John Ray Initiative entitled "Energising the future" at Redcliffe College. Though it is a short distance from the City Centre, its grounds are extensive, the rear garden being dominated by this huge plane tree, ringed at present by croci. Though the four speakers contradicted one another frequently, it was all very gentlemanly. But having been duly stimulated, I was glad by teatime to be able to escape from what is essentially a talking shop.

the open west 2011

I have this evening started a photography course at the University. I am hoping it will help me to get to grips with Photoshop better. There are 14 of us - I being clearly the oldest: I think I am going to enjoy it!

Arriving early at the Pittville Campus, I had a look round the open west, which is on in the Summerfireld Gallery till 5th March. I liked it when it began in 2009; much less so, last year's. This year however there is much to admire, including Jake Lever's amazing, suspended boat. I shall go back.

Veiled vale

A starry night meant low temperatures again in Cheltenham, one of the coldest places in the country apparently. Having scraped the ice off the car windscreen, I was rewarded with a lift up to Ullenwood, and walked back from there - in broad sunshine. The Severn Vale was shrouded in mist, May Hill looking like a distant island.

Spring is round the corner now, with snowdrops and woodpeckers as advance guards. Despite the frost, there was still plenty of mud coming down from The Crippets and through the deer farm. GCHQ dominates the view from the escarpment here: its occupants are no doubt sitting in their shirt sleeves, the twin boilers going full pelt - as can be seen:

Univ.

Visiting friends in Oxfordshire at the weekend, I found myself in demand to conduct a whistle stop tour of the Oxford colleges. Naturally, we ended up at mine, University College. We came in from Logic Lane, making for the chapel. It was a sunless day, and in the dark interior, Abraham van Linge's mid-17th Century glass dazzled us. Can there be a more vivid Jonah and the whale anywhere?

From the chapel, we hastened (via a quick look inside the hall) to leave by the college's back entrance, late for our rendezvous. There was a new - to me - slatted wooden gate barring our way, with a combination lock, but a passing undergraduate kindly opened it for us as he made for the library. Through we went, the door clicking shut behind us, but then... Disaster! The back gates into Kybald Street, 50 yards further on, were firmly locked also. So there we were sandwiched in no man's land.

We had plenty of time to let our imaginations work on a solution: one of my companions suggested climbing back in over the dustbins and the 12-foot wall; but, happily, before we had need to try this, we were able to hail another passer-by inside the college, who came to our rescue with the combination. This has not improved my reputation as a guide to my alma mater.

Incidentally, being a Univ. man, I do hate the abbreviation "uni", as in "Where were you at uni?"

Home comfort

The Donmar production of King Lear came to (our) town tonight as to many others with a Cineworld. Another great opportunity to hear Shakespeare at top level.

So many passages seemed fresh and new - and to the point: "Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art." This was particularly apt for Poverty & Homelessness Action Week, when it's salutary to remind oneself of how lucky it is to have a house of one's own. My two sisters and I each, outright or jointly, own a home, and have done so for most of our adult lives. But none of my four children, by contrast, though adult, have a home of their own: some I suppose may never have one.

Meanwhile our home has today acquired its new-look solar panels, levered up with great effort onto the roof and about to spring into action, we hope. The house itself is blissfully warm throughout, thanks to our new boilers: I doubt if it has ever been warmer.

Moorend Magi

After an icy seven days, Chris, Craig and Mark, our trio of patient plumbers, secured us some working radiators last night. It felt luxurious. The bees nesting in the void below our shower room are waking up, unaware of what season it is. There is honey there to be collected, so Chris tells us.

We are still shivering on the lower floors, but the outside temperature is now above freezing, and anyway tomorrow we are promised house-wide central heating! We shall not know ourselves. The battle then will be to remember to wind down the thermostatic valves, so we are not heating the whole neighbourhood.

Next step: getting three very heavy solar panels up onto the roof: our house has four storeys!

Back to Meantime

15 months ago, I reported on a previous visit to Cheltenham's experimental visual art centre, Meantime. This weekend's "show" is if anything more perplexing than the last. In her residency, Felicity Hammond has put together "Constructed Reality: The Remnants of Ephemeral Art". In it, she claims to be responding "to the exploration of what it means to archive," and asks: "Do we lose even more authenticity through secondary representation?"

Meantime is on two floors. What you see in the ground floor is a display of architectural plans in two dimensions; and a short video depicting something going on down the steps in the basement area of the building - or rather the next door building, formerly the printers I used to go to, Hayman's. Upstairs, there is another video projected on the end wall of the gallery, with a third shown on an adjacent TV screen. Both these include images of the artist, doing things.

I only found one of the three videos of any aesthetic interest: the camera had been set up at night in the illuminated upstairs gallery, facing the full-length doors seen on the right of my photograph of the outside - the room had presumably been used as a storage loft originally. Felicity, dressed in black and I imagine wearing a black hood, then opened the doors slowly, so all you could see of her was her hands moving.

Her residency essay concludes, "The archive may echo the original performance in its content, but takes on a new reality and validity as being read as a part of our external, present reality." I ask, what is the use of such experiments if they do not result in an evident display of virtuosity?

Forgiveness

Striking images of people who have become reconciled with those harming them featured in an exhibition at the University of Gloucestershire this week. Entitled The F-Word: Images of Forgiveness, it's the brainchild of journalist Marina Cantacuzino and photographer Brian Moody: they travelled across four continents to collect stories of people whose lives had been shattered by violence, tragedy and injustice - and who had chosen to take the challenging and often painful journey towards forgiveness. Huddled in the midst of the tableaux - as if ganged up against - were the University's three rather warlike figures sculpted by Lynn Chadwick.

The timing of this exhibition's local visit fits well with the end of the long-running inquest into the July 2005 London bombings, which has brought so many brave people's testimony to our attention. That too may be a step in the direction of forgiveness.

Cricket memorabilia

Sorting through some old photographs a few days ago, I came across one of my grandfather's cricket team, Sutton Coldfield. I Googled the club, which is still flourishing, and, having just bought a new scanner, I was able to send a copy to them. Now they say they are interested in anything else from that era, so I have put together an on-line collection. It includes this rather blurred image of C.O. Gray and my grandfather (then 27) going out to open the batting for Sutton Coldfield v. Walsall, at the 1910 August Bank Holiday, a century ago. I particularly like the thatched pavilion in the background, which reminds me of J.M. Barrie's design of the same vintage which still graces the Stanway ground.

140 years of history

Day 4 of our house being overrun by plumbers is coming to an end. The temperature has dropped, as forecast, and we look like being without heating till next week!

They have removed the hot water cylinder from the airing cupboard in one of our top floor bedrooms. Behind where it stood, you can see an old bell mechanism: no doubt this originally was the servant's quarter.

We have also uncovered a patch of (Victorian?) wallpaper, with a rather interesting musical motif. But alas no forgotten stash of jewellery has materialised from underneath the floorboards.