Having a rest

 I arrived at Sheila’s house in Somerset after a tiring journey from London on Monday. After navigating my bags from my hotel in Craven Terrace down to Paddington Station—a 10 minute walk, thank goodness for rolling bags—I only had to wait a half hour before the train to Bristol. Paddington is much nicer than it used to be, when Sheila and I used to catch the train to visit her parents, who also lived in Somerset, in 1978-1980. It was very Victorian back then and they’ve kept the historical part of it—the soaring arches and large posters everywhere of what the station looked like in Victorian times—but also have added in all of the shops and cafes that the large train stations need nowadays. Paddington serves most of the southwest of England, Bristol down to Cornwall. 

The other thing they have modernized are the restrooms (I can’t get used to saying “toilets”) and while I miss Paddington Cat and the nice ladies who worked in the facilities, I don’t miss having to pay to use them. Paddington Cat, you say? I have heard of Paddington Bear but what was Paddington Cat? Tiddles, aka Paddington Cat, was a very obese cat that lived in the Ladies room, having been adopted by one of the attendants as a kitten. He lived from 1970-1983 and has his own Wikipedia page. Seriously, check it out.

In the meantime, here I am with Paddington Bear for the requisite selfie. I had to stand in line.

When I went down to the Ladies (I think there is now a lift but most people use the old stairs), there was a much better poster of Paddington.

So, I bid adieu to lovely London. And for the last morning, she certainly showered her blessings on me. From the lovely breakfast I had at Les Filles, a cafe a short walk down from my hotel

To my all-too-brief visit to the National Gallery . . . To think that I almost didn’t go! I had got up on Monday morning focused on the 1:02 train time, thinking that I would have an awfully long time to sit at Paddington, considering it was only 9:00 a.m. Then I thought that, seeing as it was bright and sunny, why didn’t I do one last walk with my GPSmyCity app on my phone. I’ve used the app a little bit, especially on Sunday (post on that will appear soon, under Sept 26th) when I walked 10 miles around first Richmond Park and then Covent Garden, Jubilee Bridge, South Bank, Westminster Bridge, various Underground stations. 

I thus pulled out my phone and scrolled over to the app while I drank my coffee at Les Filles. The first thing that popped up on my app was “National Gallery.” I had passed by the Gallery the night I went to the concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields (probably haven’t written about that yet, I am doing these blogs all out of sequence) but thought that, as the weather was so good, I would stick to sightseeing outdoors. Then I read the description of the Gallery, the part about the Leonardos and Renaissance art. Growing up Catholic, I am always moved by Renaissance art, it reminds me of the beautiful holy pictures the teachers would give us for doing good work. But it’s more than that. When I visited the Uffizi Gallery in Florence in 1976 and actually saw the paintings in real life, glowing and jewel like, I realized that no photograph could really do them justice. And that feeling was reinforced when we went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid a few years ago. The museum had room after room after room of amazing Renaissance art, curated in a way that showed how painting techniques developed. The Renaissance artists always had the ability to paint in gorgeous colors but it was fascinating to me, someone who can’t really paint in 3-D very well, to see how the form developed. And the faces!! 

Well, all of those memories came to me as I was sitting in the cafe and I decided that I could get to the National Gallery by Underground and at least take an hourlong stroll (there’s no admission fee and yet I could still book a time) and still get back to the hotel, pick up my luggage from Left Luggage (bless that hotel!) and get to Paddington. Which is what I did.

If I lived in London (a big IF at London flat prices) I would go to the National Gallery every day! I would volunteer to work there, even if it did mean standing in doorways watching to make sure no one tried to steal a painting. I would prefer the gift shop but, well, it’s all dreaming, isn’t it? I don’t live in London, have no plans to do so . . . Unless I were to suddenly become a millionaire ;)

The Gallery opens at 10:00 and I arrived at 10:30. Very few people there, an experience that was totally unlike the Louvre. I only went to the Renaissance rooms but that was more than enough. I find, personally, that after awhile I need to leave and think over what I have seen, revisit the photos I have taken of those pictures that particularly moved me. Which is why I need to live in London (grin).

This fresco is one that I think I will print a copy of and keep on my desk for those times that I get too preoccupied. There is such a stillness about it. I actually VERY briefly considered becoming a nun when I was young. I’m not going to write about that, it came out of reading the life story of St. Teresa of Avila (Teresa is my religious name.) This painting is of the Clare order though, St Teresa was a Carmelite and I was taught by the Sisters of the Holy Names (just to keep the orders straight.) St Clare was the disciple of St Francis of Assisi. The fresco comes from an old chapel in Siena. 

Anyway, I said goodbye to London as we pulled out of Paddington and headed southwest. I feel about this visit to London the way I felt about the visit to Paris two Octobers ago; it far surpassed any of my expectations. 

By the time I arrived at Highbridge, having done the train change at Bristol and heaved my cases on and off the trains, I decided I am NOT going to Heathrow by train next Wednesday. Getting there with all my paraphernalia will be brutal—train from Highbridge to Bristol, then another from Bristol to Paddington and a third from Paddington to Heathrow. And expensive whereas if I can get myself from Highbridge to Weston-super-Mare, I can catch a National Express that will only have one change (at Bristol) and I won’t have to heave those cases up from platform to train. They will slide nicely in and out of the bus’ hold. Or so I hope.

I have spent the past day and a half at Sheila’s sitting on the couch, often dozing. Now that I have stopped moving, I’ve realized how tired I am. We have one more mini trip left—this weekend in Salisbury—but I am not sorry to say that the big traveling is almost over. One last push next Wednesday/Thursday and this time next week I will be at Heathrow, waiting for my flight to New York, then on to Phoenix. 

And an absolutely magical month will be logged into the memory bank. And the pages of Blogspot.