Madonnas & Miracles at the Fitzwilliam

The major exhibition this Spring at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, is Madonnas & Miracles, The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy.

Last week I went along to a preview event, below are my thoughts along with some hints and tips which may add to your appreciation of the exhibition. But first here is the official trailer ...

You can also see more photos of some of the exhibits in a local news report, here. And the Fitzwilliam Museum as lots of useful information here. I'll add more links to press reviews, as and when I stumble across them.

This exhibition is the culmination of over 4 years cross-disciplinary research by Cambridge University's departments of Italian, History, Architecture and History or Art. It was funded by a grant from the EU, which has covered the cost of the research, the exhibition and the transportation as well as the cleaning and conservation of many of the exhibits. I've often wondered how long it takes to put on a large scale exhibition, and hearing the curators/organisers talk about the research in hundreds of libraries, archives and museums mainly in Italy but worldwide, certainly underlined the massive task that was undertaken.

So, what did I think of the exhibition? 

The title 'Madonnas & Miracles' led me to expect lots of gold painted altar pieces, but it's really about how families and women in particular, made prayer and their faith in God and the Saints, part of their day to day life and coping strategy in times of adversity. Of course there are lots of Madonnas among the exhibits, including a beautiful painting by Botticelli which is featured on the poster, but the focus is on objects which would be treasured by ordinary working folk - ceramics, beads, bowls and cutlery which would be handled while a prayer was murmered or painted plaques offering to a church as thanks for a miracle. Afterwards I thought that 'Domestic Devotions' would be a more accurate title . . . and to my surprise I've now found the research team's web site and blog is called just that! I wonder how and why they decided on the different title for the exhibition?

To transport you to Renaissance Italy, the exhibition space has been divided into rooms with dark green or blue walls, there's even a fire place and a bed. Stone effect archways frame the openings between - rugged semi-circular arches symbolise the masculine world around the piazzas and square topped doorways frame the domestic feminine world inside the home. A fact I would not have noticed if I hadn't read the Fitz's Instagram feed!

The theme of the exhibition is, I think, a bit obscure and academic - although the curators stressed how relevant the themes are to today. If you visit I'd be interested to know what you think. But many of the exhibits are intriguing, charming and have a link to ordinary people rather than the rich an famous. So it's well worth a visit (its' free to go in) and there is some wonderful imagery which you can enjoy without even reading the labels (though the labels are very clear and informative).

Here are my highlights:

- the pottery nativity table centre-piece, this is just fabulous and it's worth popping into the exhibition just to see this alone. I can imagine how this would illustrate the Christmas story told to children. And there is another ceramic nativity which incorporates inkwells ... which would be useful for Christmas cards and thank you letters!

  

- the Camerino wooden doll of baby Jesus, this life-like painted wooden baby is nearly 600 years old. It is from the nunnery in Camerino which was devastated by an earthquake last October, amazingly the doll survived unscathed. Apparently life-like baby dolls were popular with the nuns, who would cuddle and kiss them as part of there devotional rituals. Maybe they needed something to cuddle.

- the 'singing knives', which are engraved with music for the Benediction at the beginning of a meal and the Grace afterwards. Recordings of the prayers being sung (very beautifully) by members of St John's College choir, can be heard on the headphones next to the exhibit.

- look out for the rabbits munching their lunch in one of the large photo panels showing a scene from a painted interior. Just one of many sensitively observed scenes in the backgrounds of the pictures in the exhibition.

- I loved the jaunty horses on a ceramic plaque of St Sebastian and St Roch, who were both poplar saints for protecting a household from the plague. Notice how St Roch seems to be pointing to a rip in his tights ... actually he's drawing attention to a scar from a nasty plague boil, to give YOU hope that HE DID so YOU CAN survive. The ceramics and the illustrated woodcut pamphlets are probably my favourite things in the exhibition and the reason I'll go back for another look.

- And don't miss the wooden model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, like beautiful Renaissance lego! Imagine a family telling stories as they put the building together, perhaps tales of the pilgrimage grandfather went on years ago.

To sum up ...

Well worth a visit if you're in Cambridge. I learnt a lot. Take time to look and find the unexpected and think about how the objects on display were once part of someone's daily life.

Greenery and other colours

Each year Pantone selects a colour for the year and for 2017 the colour is 'Greenery' or to be more precise 'Pantone 15-0343 TCX', so be prepared for lots of green in the style magazines this year. The reason I've mentioned this is because it nicely links the first day of 2017 ... Happy New Year! ... to something I've been planning to blog about but haven't got round to, mainly because the first blog post evolved into something quite unexpected...

I'll begin at the beginning ... I was looking at a list of UK Butterflies' larval food plants, the reason to see if we could grow more plants in our garden that butterflies need - not just flowers. I saw that Brimstone caterpillars need Buckthorn. The Alder Buckthorn, Frangula alnus likes acidic woodlands - you don't find that in SW Suffolk - but Purging Buckthorn, Rhamnus cathartic, is very similar and that is the shrub our local Brimstones would be searching for on which to lay their eggs. And so began my search for  Purging Buckthorn in the local hedgerows. I eventually found some on the Devil's Dyke and more planted by the gamekeeper for Pheasant coverts along our favourite hare-watching walk.

I didn't expect to find more Purging Buckthorn when I visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to see the fabulous exhibition 'Colour - the art and science of illuminated manuscripts', but that's exactly what happened! 

(By the way the last day of the exhibition is Monday 2nd January so you could visit if you get your skates on, otherwise do look at the online resources which are brilliant.)

The first part of the exhibition looks at the pigments used by medieval scribes and illuminators, ground up earth pigments and semi-precious stones and plants like madder and woad and BUCKTHORN BERRIES! The caption in the exhibition explained that the purple juice of Purging Buckthorn berries made green ink!

I picked some Buckthorn berries and found some basic instructions for making ink from berries ... which recommended freezing the berries as when defrosted the juice will extract easier without needing to add water.

I then mashed the berries into a paste, adding a tiny amount of water.

I then pressed this through a tea-strainer, the consistency of a fruit coulis (DO NOT EAT! it's called Purging for a reason)  

Then I added about a teaspoon of vinegar and a pinch of salt, this acts as a preservative, so the ink doesn't go mouldy.

And to make the ink slightly viscous so it holds onto the pen-nib/quill/brush, you need a teaspoon of gum arabic. 

Result - INK!

And the magic bit is that it's purple but turns green as it dries!

After further research I discovered that by using alum (as a mordant) the ink can be made a green colour and it was by a complex distilling process that the colour 'Sap Green' was made from Buckthorn berries.


I was keen to make some more colours ... 

I found a jar of dried Cochineal beetles, a holiday souvenir from a street market in Lanzarote, soaked in hot water they produced an intense red-pink colour.

But without alum to fix the colour, the ink dried a dirty grey-brown. In the next batch I added a pinch of alum and hey presto! PINK INK!


What colour next?

I remembered the Saffron harvested from our Saffron crocuses, this year the yield had been good so I have a small jar of dried stigmas in the kitchen cupboard. I put a small pinch of Saffron in a mortar and ground them to a fine powder.

Mixed with a little water and WOOOOO! Liquid gold!

The Saffron ink needed no alum and the colour is intense. No wonder it was prized as a colour in medieval times

Painting Saffron yellow over Cochineal pink creates a lovely bright red.

I used my home-made inks to make some Christmas cards, writing with a quill. The Buckthorn ink gradually changing from purple through indigo to green. I added red berries (and forgot to photograph them!)

One of my Christmas presents was the book 'Colour, travels through the Paintbox' by Victoria Finlay, it's a fascinating journey through the stories of colour pigments. It's certainly got me thinking about how much we take for granted the coloured paints, pens, crayons and inks we can buy so easily today. And it's sure to inspire more ink-making experiments.

Wishing you a creative 2017

Celia

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Cambridge on a sunny afternoon

Hello, have you been enjoying the rather fabulous summer weather? Have you been watching some loooong loooong matches at Wimbledon?

This afternoon I heard snippets of the tennis commentary as I drove into Cambridge, the Tardis laden with bags and bags of old magazines. I don't know what possessed me to hang on to them for so long, almost 15 years of RHS The Garden mags. I used to read every page and keep them for future reference (in the days before Google) but they got stashed in the far corner of the room we rarely go into and forgotten. A few years ago I tried to find someone who may have a use for them, without success.

Feeling in a decluttering frame of mind I announced on Twitter that all The Garden mags would go in the paper recycling bin unless someone spoke up sharpish . . .

"Squeaky Gate wants them!"

So . . . that's where they've gone . . . to the lovely people at Squeaky Gate in Cambridge, a charity that works with people who have slipped outside the education system for whatever reason and need a helping hand to regain their confidence and believe in themselves and the skills they have through music, performance AND this summer through a very exciting garden design project. They are getting lots of help from the talented gardeners at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens and an eminent garden designer . . . my mountain of magazines will be cut up and used to inspire their garden ideas.

Happy that I'd got rid of my clutter and met some lovely people along the way, I headed out of the scorching city centre to the leafy lanes of Grantchester to rendezvous with Rachel - you may remember we collaborated on a collection of silver and enamel jewellery designs. Most of the pieces have been sold and we decided to end our joint venture, today we settled up the final payments between us over afternoon tea at The Orchard Tea Garden in Grantchester. If ever a place is the epitome of tranquil academe on a sunny afternoon then it is here - where the ghosts of Rupert Brooke and his languid friends stretch out on green canvas deck chairs under the twisted boughs of apple trees, just a stones throw from Grantchester church . . .

Stands the church clock at ten to three?

And is there honey still for tea?

In this timeless corner of England, it always will.

Celia
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PS this blog is brought to you from a tent in our garden, I'll add links later - blogger app won't let me do them on my iPad

PPS has Andy Murray won yet?

PPPS Now with added links x

Cambridge . . . shhhh don't tell – there's a secret Ark

I didn't have any high hopes about today . . . the Tardis needed its annual service, which meant driving to 'car land' on the outer fringes of Cambridge and while the mechanics tinkered with its bits, I could use a complimentary pass to catch the bus into town . . . probably a whole day traipsing around in the cold and rain – quite frankly I wasn't in the mood.

But then, I remembered somewhere I'd been meaning to find for years . . . I had a plan!

After some errands in town and a brief uninspiring wander around the clothes department of John Lewis, I headed off to the Fitzwilliam Museum for 'elevenses' – a pot of tea and a Duke of Cambridge Tartlet (not a euphemism) –  I felt better already :-)

So then, let me take you down some lesser known lanes of Cambridge . . .

Retrace your steps from the Fitz, back towards town and on your left set back behind trees you'll find Little St Mary's Church. Go down the lane, stopping to look through the railings at the charmingly wild graveyard; and you'll find this building tucked away down a little side lane . . . it is, or rather it was, the Ark.

Between 1884 and 1984, this was the Museum of Archaeology and it contained a collection of hundreds of plaster casts of Ancient Greek and Roman statues; students of Classics and Art History could study life size replicas of all the great sculptures from antiquity . . . and I have very fond memories of spending hours sitting with my sketch book among the crowded dusty plaster figures.

The old Ark is now Peterhouse Library, so where did the largest intact collection of 19th century plaster casts of antique statuary get moved to?

Follow me, and I'll take you there . . .

 

Past the boatyard and down Laundress Lane to Silver Street and over the bridge . . .

Cross 'The Backs' and carry on straight down Sidgwick Avenue, lined with stately London Plane trees; and you will get to the Sidgwick Site – an eclectic mix of modern buildings which house the HQs of various faculties of the University of Cambridge.

I found a suitably academic looking information board and worked out that the Classicists HQ is in SO50, which just happened to be the building I was standing next to. I found my way to the door via some very low-key signage, but don't let that put you off – go through the glass doors and up the stairs and . . .

OH! good gracious me! you'll find yourself in the most amazing gallery filled to the gunnels with every classical statue you ever saw in an Art History text book . . . and many more!

And what's more, there are comfy armchairs that you can sit in . . . it's as if I'd stumbled upon Professor Mary Beard's personal sitting room! Do you think she's trying to keep it a secret so she has it all to herself?

 Well, for an hour or so today, I had it all to myself :-) it was pleasantly warm (not hot like in John Lewis) and beautifully light; it was quiet and peaceful – I sat among the statues. Someone (maybe Mary?) had thoughtfully typed out some classical verse in either Ancient Greek or Latin (helpfully translated into English for people like me who didn't do Classics) neatly laminated the pages and blu-tacked them next to the relevant statues . . . so very 'Cambridge'.

This little chap caught my eye . . . I think he's Mary's pet owl ;-)

When you're feeling calm and refreshed enough to return to the real world out side the Ark, it's only a short walk through the Sidgwick Site and out onto West Road; turn right and you'll see the iconic Cambridge view of King's College across the meadows along the River Cam.

I took my usual route into town, along Garret Hostel Lane (probably the first time I've ever seen it completely deserted!) and then down Senate House Passage – stepping in the footsteps of probably every person who has ever studied at Cambridge University over the past 800 years.

I was really uplifted by finding the new Ark . . . don't tell anyone, it's our secret . . . and Mary's ;-)


Celia
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Snow Country – Japanese woodcuts at the Fitz

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has a wonderful collection of Japanese woodcuts and about once a year a selection is displayed in the Shiba Gallery . . . a small room at the top of the stairs from the entrance lobby. These exhibitions are always a treat – beautifully displayed, sensitively curated and with fascinating information in the labels.

Utagawa Kunisada (1786 1865) Winter – Shinobazu Pond

This winter the theme has been Snow, the exhibition closes this Sunday (13th January 2013) if you haven't seen it yet and are able to get there, I can recommend going along (entrance is free!) – there is no substitute to seeing the real prints for appreciating the scale, intricate details and meticulous printmaking techniques. But if you can't get there or even if you can visit (or, like me, you have visited but didn't have time to read all the labels thoroughly – there's a huge amount of information to take in) 'Snow Country - woodcuts of the Japanese Winter' is now online . . . and the Fitz does this sort of thing very very well!

So, if the snow is falling outside your window this weekend, find a comfortable and warm place to sit and be transported to 18th/19th century Japan.

For printmakers I can highly recommend the section about the various techniques for depicting snow.

For a taster . . . here are two of my favourite prints . . .

Hiroshige lets the paper do the talking . . .

A triptych by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) Mountain and river on the Kiso road


ばちゃ    bacha    splat!

Utagawa Kuniyasu (1794-1832)
Kabuki actors Segawa Kikunojô V and Bandô Mitsugorô III

Stay warm!

Celia
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New galleries, exhibitions, a magazine feature and something completely different

The last few weeks have been busy – and even more that I expected!

Just before we went on holiday in September, the arts journalist Hazel Foxon spent a morning with me in my studio to research an article she was writing for the 'arts in the east' magazine Venue. If you live in Beds, Cambs, Essex, Herts, London, Norfolk or Suffolk look out for it in libraries, galleries and theatres – it's a glossy colour mag with David Bowie on the cover and it's FREE
. . . or you can see the article here.

I've framed prints and packed unframed work in time for the pre-Christmas rush and delivered it to Edwards & Todd in London; the Jessica Muir Gallery in Long Melford and Smiths Row in Bury St Edmunds.

My work will be included in a special exhibition of "Smaller Pictures" at the Church Street Gallery in Saffron Walden, starting on 1st December and continuing throughout December.

I am very excited to have been invited to exhibit in two lovely galleries . . .
Cambridge Contemporary Art is a beautiful bright exhibition space within sight of King's College Chapel right in the historic centre of Cambridge. I will also be delivering some framed work for inclusion in their Christmas exhibition which runs through December.
The other venue is in Suffolk but right over on the coast – it's The Gallery at Snape Maltings, I've delivered my prints just in time to be included in the Winter exhibtion. This is probably Suffolk's most famous arts venue in a beautiful setting beside the River Alde at the end of a long estuary. The concert halls, shops, galleries and restaurants attract lots of visitors throughout the year; if the sun is shining (as it was yesterday!) the views of the river and the boats are stunning.

As you can imagine, I've been spending lots of time framing prints and writing lists; but among all the requests from galleries I received an invite from Southwold Life Boat Crew:

"We're having a tweetup on 24/11 would love it if you came.
If you can't make up your mind then how does tea,
cake & lifeboat display sound?"

Well, although I live in Suffolk and enjoy reading the morning weather tweets from the life boat station right over in the diagonally opposite corner of the county, a 150mile road trip for cake was a bit keen! I politely declined. Then I received a message from a photographer who lives only a few miles from me "I'm going, I'll give you a lift" and before I knew it I had a place reserved on a boat to go out on a training exercise with the life boat crew! You can read what happened and see Celia Bartlett's fantastic photo-essay of the day with Southwold RNLI.

Celia Bartlett ready for action at sea!

Well they say 'a change is as good as a rest', and being bounced over the grey waves of the north sea with salt water waves crashing into my face certainly blew the cobwebs away! If that's what a 'calm day' is like the volunteer life boat crews have my full respect for going out in all weathers to rescue those in danger off the Suffolk coast. Please consider giving your support to the RNLI.

Celia
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Oh, to be in England now that April's there . . .

When Dinahmow planned her trip back to revisit the country she left many years ago, I suspect she had in mind – like Robert Browning – blossom and a chaffinch singing on a bough. Unfortunately the jet-stream has delivered England's much needed rain, and lots and lots of it!

Today's plan was a rendez-vous with not just Dinahmow but also Lizzie-made; the selected meeting place was the brand shiny new Harriet's Café Tearooms in Cambridge . . . and jolly nice it is too!

Fortified with tea/coffee and toasted tea-cakes we ventured forth down cobbled lanes shiny with puddles; there were no tourist groups to jostle with, just the occasional student on a bike. The only person in the view from Magdalene Bridge was a man baling water out of the punts.

Bloggers are hardy souls . . .

and the sunflowers looked happy!

We were on our way to Kettles Yard to see Alfred Wallis: ships and boats. The elderly Cornish sailor took up painting to fill the void in his life after his wife died. He painted on scraps of card and board using paints from the hardware store. He painted his memories, he painted what he knew well . . . ships and the sea.

And that might have been that, but Alfred Wallis lived in St Ives and it was 1928 . . . two artists from London were in St Ives planning to establish an artists' colony by the sea . . . they were Ben Nicholson and Kit Wood and as the saying goes 'the rest is history'.

On the way back into town we passed a shop full of bright things . . . it drew us bloggers in like wasps to a jam sarnie! Some of us couldn't resist buying things!

What with all that art and designy things and choosing, not to mention the incessant rain, we were in need of sustainance and there was only one place to go for a true English comfort food experience . . .

Fitzbillies!

Feeling satisfyingly filled up with delicious warming tastiness on toast, we were ready to face the rain again. But first I needed to buy a couple of Chelsea buns (you can't go into Fitzbillies and NOT buy Chelsea buns, that would, be . . . well . . . just wrong!) I nearly panicked when I couldn't see any CB's under or on the counter. But there was no need to fret, the CB's are now held in a stainless steel cupboard – nick-named 'the dalek' – it's there at the back against the blue tiled wall, with the stack of bun-bags on the top.

And look, I've got a lovely present! One of Lizzie's beautiful hand-bound books and a linocut of Spanish lemons :-) A lovely way to remember our meet-up day.


Celia
x

Lessons from the little water buffalo

Yesterday afternoon I took break from carving a woodcut and glanced across to my computer screen, I spotted a Tweet from @CambridgeNewsUK "Works of art stolen after break-in at Fitzwilliam Museum in #Cambridge - more details soon" – I felt a lump in my throat . . . if it's 'my' little buffalo, I'll cry!

The news was out that last Friday, 13th April, at round 7.30pm thieves had broken into the Fitzwilliam Museum and had taken 18 carved jade objects from the oriental gallery (on the ground floor just behind the atrium café) one of them was this green jade buffalo . . . 'my' buffalo.

Fitzwilliam Museum id object 167886

I remember the day I first met the little buffalo, it was a school visit to the museum with Mrs Slade, the pottery teacher. She pointed out the carved green jade water buffalo . . . she got us to look at his round tummy and serene face, the folds of soft flesh under his chin and the little whorl of hair on his forehead. I fell totally in love with him.

For nearly 40 years the little water buffalo has been part of my visits to the Fitzwilliam Museum and my visits home; he was there when I was on my way to my holiday job in the museum one summer (shuffling card indexes in the coins department); I took Cliff to meet him; I've stood in front of him when I was sad; I've shared a moment with him when I felt happy; and he was there when I went to see the Vermeers a few weeks ago.

But today . . . who knows where the little buffalo is? I hope he's not damaged. I hope he's safe. I hope I'll be able to see him again . . . but there's more I can learn from my buffalo . . .

When I looked at the Fitzwilliam Museum website yesterday, I read the 'History Note':

Taken from Qianlong’s Summer Palace by a Scotch subaltern,
when it was sacked in 1861.
At his death he left it to his sister, who died in 1907.
Oscar Raphael bought it at the sale of her effects.
Bequeathed: (Raphael, Oscar C.; 1946)

I thought about the 'life' of the little water buffalo; he began as a small boulder of green jade about the size of a man's foot, in a Chinese river . . .

photo borrowed from Friends of Jade

Then 500 years ago a craftsman sat the boulder on his work table, looked at it and saw a little water buffalo, sitting down and turning his head to sniff the air. I wonder how many hours work it took for him to 'release' the little buffalo's form form the rough stone?

In China, jade was precious, more special than gold or silver . . . where did the little buffalo spend the next 300 years? In a temple, a garden or palace? Who did he calm and inspire?

What is known is that in the early 1800s the little buffalo was one of the treasures in the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, Yuan Ming Yuan . . .

 

This beautiful complex of gardens and palaces was the Emperor's retreat from the summer heat of Beijing.

The next chapter in the little buffalo's life is dramatic and distressing . . . it was during the Second Opium War, it was 1860 and the French and British armies had marched on Beijing. Two British envoys, a journalist from the Times and their escort of troops went ahead to meet with Chinese officials for peace talks . . . it went horribly wrong and the British group were imprisoned and brutally tortured.

The British High Commissioner to China was Lord Elgin (the son of Elgin of 'The Elgin Marbles' fame) here he is arriving in Beijing . . .

Outraged by the atrocity he ordered the destruction of Yuan Ming Yuan . . .

3,500 British soldiers attacked the palace and set it on fire, one of the soldiers was 27 year Charles Gordon (later to find fame as General Gordon in the Sudan), he wrote in his diary:

We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money...I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army.

There was much disapproval, Victor Hugo the French author, wrote:

Two robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving laughing hand-in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is called France and the other Britain.

 

One of the objects stolen was a little green jade buffalo.


The last 40 years has been a short chapter in the life story of the little water buffalo. Who knows what the next twist in the tale will be? Where will the the next scenes take place? Will he return to China or to Cambridge? And what lessons will he teach to those who look?



Celia
x

On being a tour guide for the day

Did you guess who Friday's visitor to PPP-HQ was? 

Here are some more clues . .  .

The Very Important Garden Blogger is passionate about vegetables

'Does not do flowers' (you must know by now!)

And has a naughty sense of humour . . .  Oooooo Matron!

Yes, it was indeed Matron of Down on the Allotment who arrived on my doorstep not long after breakfast on Friday morning. After a cuppa and a chat (about veg seeds) Matron joined me to tidy up the hen house and collect the eggs; then we had a tour of my plot – I'll let Matron tell you more about that.

We then jumped in to the 'tardis' and took a scenic route through 'hare country' to Saffron Walden and Audley End House. Matron wanted to see the walled vegetable garden, a showcase for Garden Organic's Heritage vegetables and fruit. The greenhouses are under wraps for repair and there were few vegetables to be seen, but with no leaves to cover the branches the expertly trained and pruned fruit trees and brushes were works of horticultural art.

 My particular favourites were the criss-cross living trellis of old apple varieties.

And the fan-trained pear trees along the high garden wall.


After a quick look in the stables, we were in need of a warming lunch – we headed straight for the Housekeeper's Room for big bowls of broccoli and stilton soup.

We were lucky that our visit coincided with a re-enactment day in the Service Wing.

 There was laundry hanging up to dry . . .

The Dairy Maid was shaping freshly churned butter into pats and pressing them with beautifully carved moulds . . .

And in the kitchen "Everything but the squeak" of a pig was being made into pies, brawns, roasts and jellied stock; presented just as it would have been in the 1880s.

Later in the afternoon we drove to Cambridge; it was fun being a "tourist in my own town" as I waited on Garret Hostel Lane Bridge for Matron to take the iconic tourist shots of the river and bridges and punts.

Along The Backs another iconic Cambridge view is changing . . . trees were being felled behind King's College. But before you throw up your hand in horror, it's all part of a grand plan called The Backs Landscape Strategy, if you follow the link and download The Backs Landscape Report, you'll find a fascinating history of how the land beside the river behind the central Cambridge colleges has evolved over the centuries. Many great landscape architects produced plans and ideas of how it should change, some plans were implemented others weren't. Cambridge University is 900 years old and it sees time in bigger chunks than the life-span of one generation.

You may be surprised to learn that the primary reason for Matron's visit wasn't vegetables, or dogs, but to hear King's College Choir sing in the Chapel – Matron is also passionate about music and in particular choral music.

Not many people realise that anyone can go to Choral Evensong in King's College Chapel, it takes place on most days during the university term times and it cost nothing! You just have to turn up about 15 minutes before the service and join the queue at the door.

Once inside, we took our seats just a few feet from the choir stalls; the light was fading outside and as it did the colours of the huge stained glass windows softened and dissolved into blackness leaving the chapel lit by dozens of candles. The choir quietly processed through the archway under the organ screen and took their places . . . then the service began. We, the congregation, each had our laminated service cards with very precise instructions when to stand, sit, kneel, turn to face the altar. It was a well rehearsed operation – they've done it many times before – just for a few centuries.

Our eyes became accustomed to the darkness so we could see the lacy fan vaulting high above and the choristers' faces as they concentrated hard on following the music . . . 'Erkenne mich, mein Hüter' by Bach; the responses set by Byrd; Psalms 86 set by Atkins and 88 by Colborne; the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis again by Byrd; and finally the anthem 'In the midst of life' by Purcell.

It was sublime! It was like a meditation, so relaxing and uplifting. Where else can you just walk in for free and hear a 45 minutes of the best choral music in the world!? Just marvelous!

So, how do you follow that then? We met Cliff in The Eagle, one of the oldest of Cambridge's many pubs – frequented in the past by RAF pilots in WWII and Watson and Crick when they were mulling over the structure of DNA; and had a drink before walking around the corner to Fitzbillies for supper . . . which definitely didn't disappoint!


Celia, with thanks to Matron for an excuse for a great day.
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