Travelling East

The travellers depart

Sally left me (for a while)
In February 2019 Sally set off to travel almost 2,000 miles away from Saltaire to Saint Petersburg in Russia. Then she’ll go a further 440 miles to Moscow, not to mention a further 3,790 milles to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia and finally a further 725 miles to Beijing in China. Almost 5,000 miles in total….mostly by train…. All being well she’ll fly back home after her adventure of a lifetime, inspired by her pal Maggie’s dream to travel on the Trans-Siberian railway. Sometimes dreams come true. I’m holding the fort and experiencing the adventure by proxy via WhatsApp and texts.

To the East and back.... Amy's Japanese adventure, savoured by proxy

Big world, small world
In some ways the world is a small place, given that pictures and voices can travel almost instantaneously via cyber-routes. But in other ways, the distances between countries are still very great and geographical features still have to be traversed by foot, bicycle, car, train, boat, plane…. Maggie’s daughter, Amy, recently worked in Japan and brought back recipes (and prezzies) to expand my palate and tell tales that illuminated Japanese culture. The last time I experienced Sally leaving me for so many nights was when she completed her medical elective in Mysore, South India – that was about 5,000 miles away, as well….

Carpe Diem
But seizing the day is what it’s all about, I suppose. Birthdays, Easter, Bonfire Night, Armistice Day, Christmas, New Year, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, St George’s Day (aka Shakespeare’s birthday….) If an opportunity presents itself, as E M Forster declared in A Room with a View:

By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes – a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.

Memories are made of this.

The everlasting Yes
Sally said Yes to Maggie’s madcap dream and there they are, on the banks of the River Neva, visiting St Isaac’s cathedral and the Nevsky Prospect, attending the ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre and downing several shots of vodka….

One element of this year's "birthday season" for Amy.... carpe diem! Declare the Everlasting YES!

Here at the palace I will rest awhile

Afternoon tea and a shock for George III
En route to Salisbury Cathedral (see previous blog) and before the ecstasy of Stonehenge (following blog) we rested for afternoon tea at Blenheim Palace. As you do. Apart from the glory of the treat, we had a guided tour round the State Rooms, a virtual tour round a weird “Untold Story” with ghostly projections giving a flavour of Blenheim’s history (and in fact on the return journey we stopped again to peer into the Duke’s rooms.) At times like these, I usually feel like Heathcliff must have felt staring into the windows of Thrushcross Grange, expecting at any moment to be thrashed and sent back to Wuthering Heights. At Blenheim the guides were in fact very welcoming, impressively knowledgeable and were able to motormouth through the chequered history of battles, wars, loveless marriages, tragic events, bitter legal disputes and architect tiffs that went into the creating of the only building in England called a Palace that’s neither royal nor connected to the church. Although the construction began during Queen Anne’s time, it was George III who cemented Blenheim’s reputation as being too big for its non-royal boots by gasping “We have nothing to equal this!”

"Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail"
In John Donne’s poem of witty poetical advice To Sir Henry Wotton he remarks that “Life is a voyage,” “Cities are sepulchres,” “Courts are theatres” and “The country is a desert” unless you can look within and “Be then thine own home.” No amount of luxury or power will satisfy your soul if you fail “to thine own self be true” as Shakespeare had Polonius say in Hamlet. Donne admires the snail who carries “his own house still, still is at home” and the fish who glide by “leaving no print where they pass.” Seeking fame or fortune means nothing without loved ones. I’m sometimes puzzled by my own politics of liking big houses and estates (and supporting the Monarchy as an institution 100%) – when I’m instinctively liberal and hate entitlement and the unfair distribution/hoarding of wealth by the few. Could it be that my “view within” (as E M Forster put it in A Room With A View) recognises that the “gorgeous palaces” can be seen as prisons, trapping those inside whose souls can never truly be free?