And this is how we ended Sunday - in a small restaurant in Forest Row with a really good band playing lots of interesting music. Irish jigs, Breton tunes, Hungarian gypsy rhythms, even tunes from Sweden.
They were wonderful. Really energetic and creative, and such a mix of instruments! Clarinet, whistle, two fiddles, accordion, two drummers and bass. All squashed into a fairly small area. Only the whistle and the singers had mics, otherwide it was all accoustic.
A grand ending to a fun day.
This is the view Virgina Woolf had from her writing desk. With the time change, we were there just before sunset, so it's a bit dark. But at least the sun was out, so the chalk cliffs stand out.
Christopher Robin and Pooh also reside in this part of the world. We stopped and walked in the place where A.A. Milne placed his Winnie the Pooh stories.
Gorgeous country, just gorgeous. Lovely walking, and there were lots of people out on the sunny day.
Three of us, Jane, Tappan and I, went on a quest on Sunday. The storytelling course took a break for the weekend, so we got off-campus in Jane's car. Woolf is Tappan's favorite writer and he had researched where she lived and wrote and created. Not far from here, as it turns out.
This picture is Woolf's writing hut. It's on the grounds of the garden at her house, Monk's House, in Rodmell. She had a lovely view of the South Downs from her writing desk. I tried to get a picture of her desk, but my camera wouldn't take through the glass.
Her sister's house was not far away, and between the two of them and all of the people who were in and out at various times, they led quite a bohemian lifestyle. They all came to be known as the Bloomsbury Group, an influential group of intellectuals, writers, artists and philosophers.
The houses were remote and quiet, and sanctuaries of creativity, away from the city and noise. The economist John Maynard Keynes wrote at least one of his books there. Every surface of both houses was painted or adorned in some way: hand-painted wallpaper and tables, all kinds of ceramics, paintings, sculptures, even fabric designs which are still commercially available.
And that is the extent of what I know about the Bloomsbury group! But can you imagine the fascinating discussions that must have taken place there.
Wow. Just saw a fascinating storytelling performance about Eleanor of Castille, wife and queen of Edward II, Longshanks. Nasty man, he was, hammer of the Scots as I recall. But his wife was a very strong woman who lived mid-1200's.
Not nearly as much was written about her as about queens before and after her, but the two women who put this show together started doing the research about four years ago. And was started by one of them taking shelter in a small church during a rainstorm and wandering over to a corner that had a small display about Eleanor. Such a small beginning to bear such fruit. And after a whole lot of work and travel. I was just blown away, not only by the show but even more by their dedication and determination. Such a labor of love!
And I got to talk about the Wonder Tale I'm doing in the class with another woman who has been telling it for awhile. We compared notes, which was great because there's a part that confuses me. And she has been telling one of my favorites, Jumping Mouse, which among other things is a Plains Indian tale, so I could help her with that. She was French. Another woman was Greek, and she runs a storytelling school in Crete. So wonderful to be around so many storytellers.
Tomorrow I am getting off the Emerson campus. One of the other students lives in London, so has a car. Tomorrow three of us are taking off to visit Virginia Wolf's house, and the house of AA Milne, author of the Winnie the Pooh books. I get to see more of the countryside. Granted, it will be from the inside of a really small car, but still, should be fun. I imagine there will be pictures....
On my walk this morning, I ran across these tiny mushrooms. Can you see them? A white circle to the right, a white blobby patch upper left.
The sun was out all day again, just beautiful. Walked to the local biodynamic organic farm for lunch. Then into the village to find a shop that would have a crochet hook and a darning needle. I swear I started out with one of each, but dammed if I can find them. Also picked up some lovely local wool yarn. Wouldn't want to run out of projects, you know!
This is the pub we went to on Wednesday, and I went today. Such a classic building!
The green stuff on this roof is moss. It's everywhere. I've seen it before, I know how wet England is, but it still hits me when I'm over here. I was telling someone today about the weather extremes in Colorado, 83F (20C) one day, and a snowy 38 (3C) the next, and she couldn't imagine it. Me, I can't imagine why everything here doesn't just rot away, taken over by the moss.
Tablehurst Farm is on the walk into town. I stopped there to see what they offer, and saw this real, live dovecote! It's beautifully made, and the doves seem very happy.
I suspect I'll be visiting the farm regularly. They have a coffee shop, and a small market. Today I picked up more muesli for breakfast, a pasty for dinner, and Nairn's oatcakes, which I love. And it's only a 10-15-minute walk from the college.
We got done today at 12:30, so after lunch I started wandering the area. Haven't done that before. It was sunny again, yay, so it was a really beautiful day for a walk.
Our homework for the weekend is to work on, then tell our wonder tale to someone, and to get the bones of our personal tale written down. I was going to work on my wonder tale as I walked, but it involves a big white bear, and it was difficult to focus on that in an area that reminds me more of JRR Tolkien than Jack London!
So I--some of you can predict what I did next--decided a visit to the pub was in order. Just to loosen up the old gears, doncha know. It did help! Got the first part of my tale pretty well set. Drank Scrumpy Jack, which is a nicely dry cider, tasty but strong. On my walk back, I decided I need to write a story, or a pipe tune, called "Staggering to Emerson on the Back of Scrumpy Jack".
This picture is the countryside around the college, farm country.
We got off early today, so six of us walked into Forest Row for a pint this evening. It was a gorgous, sunny, fairly dry day, so we were able to sit outside. The pub is old--built in 1452. And classic brick/half-timber. Lovely, and good beer. The college is alcohol-free, so the beer was much appreciated. (Picture on FB)
Went to a curry restaurant which was not my favorite. Too much sugar, not enough curry.
Another busy day in the Storytelling Hut. As usual, so much that I don't remember it all, but one of the exercises was to tell our Wonder Tale (one of the classic big tales, long complex stories) to a partner as if we were gossiping. As in, Gasp! She did, I swear! Well I never! Didn't know he had it in him! Always thought there was something shifty about them! Didn't I just say nothing good would come of that?!
Adds a whole other dimension to the story, and was a lot of fun, from both sides.
I am enjoying this gradual approach to storytelling, and I am really enjoying the other people in the class. All are different, all are fascinating. I feel like a slug!
One couple is making gardens in dumpsters (they call them skips here) in a concrete jungle in London. Filmmaker, therapist, IT pro, artist, a Swiss woman who is working on her English, and a peripatetic young Austrian woman who is just going from place to place all around the world. An age difference of probably 40 years between youngest and oldest. But we all fit and make a very interesting whole. With a lot of accents!
Sorry for no pictures! The wifi here, or at least the wifi I've tried to use, isn't fast enough to upload pix, so I'm putting them on Facebook. Sorry to those who aren't on FB!
It was rainy/misty again today, so I was glad we didn't have an outside portion of our day. I don't think my shoes are going to dry out until I leave. Apparently this Fall is wetter than normal. The colors and berries and vegetation are wonderful though, and there's a slight cinnamon-ish smell to the foliage. Hadn't noticed it until one of my classmates pointed it out. She says it always smells like home to her.
It's been another amazing day. I feel as if I've been here two weeks, not two days, we've done so much. The most interesting activity was telling a personal story or event to a partner, and that person then told it back to you as a legend, a story that everyone already knew, starting with Once upon a time... It was a fascinating experience, to hear your story mirrored back to you with different points emphasized, people turned into characters in fairy tales, and so on. Very fun, terrifying and illuminating. When I was once-upon-a-timing my partner's story, I wanted to be sure I included most of the points he considered to be important, but change them into a form you might read in a classic fairy tale, and that was hard. It worked, though, for both of us.
Class starts at 8:30 (don't be late!), and tea is at 10. Lunch at 12:45, class at 2:30, tea around 4, and we're done at 5:00. We are different people at 5:00 than we were at 8:30. The facilitators of the course are really good, and the pace is perfect for tackling the difficult task of 1) learning a long, involved classic tale, 2) eventually interweaving that with a personal tale, and 3) telling the whole shebang in an hour with a partner. Huh. Still not sure how that's going to work!
Tomorrow, however, we get off early, and there are at least three of us who are going to check out one of the three pubs we saw last night in our trip to Forest Row. My brain needs a beer!
Apparently this weekend there is a music festival in town, and on Sunday night there's a ceili band at a bar. Their former name included the word Breton, so I'm hopeful there might be some sort of bagpipe involved!
Off to bed. It's almost 23:30 here and tomorrow's another busy day.
Hope all of you are well.
Emerson College is amazing, a center for all sorts of creativity. I'm here for the Once Upon a Lifetime storytelling course, but there are many other courses in the curriculum. I've been too tired and busy to really find out what all the college offers, but there are people here for a Sacred Geometry course, there is a fellow from Scotland who is writing his thesis, and there are many other people who are at meals that I haven't had a chance to talk to yet. Eventually I'll figure it all out, but jetlag, being in class all day, and homework haven't given me much time to satisfy my curiosity about this place.
It is absolutely beautiful, though. I see Beatrix Potter and JRR Tolkien everywhere I walk. I took pictures today, but I need wifi to upload them, and only one building has wifi, and I'm just too tired to go there tonight. I'll do that on another day. But for example, today I encountered a Japanese maple that has to be 15' high! I had no idea they got that big; Ace (shortened version of acer palmatum, the actual name of the plant), in front of our house in Denver is only about a foot high, and we've been nursing him along for 3 years.
Every roof has moss growing on it. Paint doesn't stay long on the buildings because of the wet. Such a difference from the high desert of Colorado. Today rained lightly for most of the day; I was very glad to have my brimmed hat.
The first day of the storytelling course was great. There are nine other students and two facilitators. Many of the students have been here before, for other storytelling courses, language, or whatever. All of them are fascinating people with a strong ethic of working in the world, creating groups or initiating events, all focused on making their corners of the world better places. Some know their next step, some are searching, all are interested in integrating story into their lives.
One of our tasks today was to wander the grounds and identify things in the environment that were part of our story to this point. Then we formed groups of three and toured those objects to share those parts of our lives with the other two. In our group, there were three entirely different ways of presenting our lives. One woman took us on a travelogue of her life, walking us from place to place that reminded her of this or that event.
Mine was a collage of various plants that reminded me of places or times in my life: a cockleburr took me back to Kansas, purple astors reminded me of the mountains (both of those plants were WAY larger than I'm used to). A thistle reminded me of Scotland and piping.
And the third member of our group picked up leaves, pods, twigs etc and made a sort of map and took us on a journey from this event represented by this leaf, to another event represented by this seed pod, and on to his present life. I've no doubt the other groups were similarly different. The activity was intended to spark memories to use in the course, which is about telling personal stories. Such an interesting way to approach memory!
Accomodations are very simple and spartan: twin bed, toilet and showers downstairs, shared kitchen on the same floor as the bedrooms. Worst thing about my room is the smell of the cleaning product. It does not agree with my stomach.
Took a trip into the village of Forest Row this evening. One of the students has a car, and we needed groceries, as the school only serves lunch. The village is small, one main road. Old buildings, including a couple of pubs that I think must look just as they did two centuries ago. Haven't had a chance to sample them yet, but that's coming.
Pictures in a later post!
Step 1, packing, check!
Step 2, checked in for flight, check!
Plenty early. Flight is only 10 minutes delayed and is supposed to land on time in morning. I think it's time to hunt down a beer.
