Today we went to the Yorkshire museum, Faifax House, Clifford's Tower, and the York Castle Museum.
I enjoyed the Viking and medieval finds at the museum. Hardly any had dates on them. People seemed to just toss beautiful solid gold pendants into nearby fields as they fled from place to place. There is a really beautiful Viking helmet as well, and a lot of fan merchandise from the coronation of Richard III. There was also a natural history section with a dodo skeleton.
The Fairfax House in Georgian. It only took us half an hour to see it all in spite of the efforts of a plethora of volunteer docents. They had a nice collection of grandfather clocks.
Then we had lunch at Betty's tea room. For this we actually stood in line outside! It turned out to be worth it. I had rarebit, and Hannah had a tower of little sandwiches, scones, and tarts. We met one of her professors. She said to me, shaking me warmly by the hand, "You must be so proud." I am, certainly.
Clifford's tower is from the 11th century and has a great view. It was also covered in daffodils at the base. Have I mentioned that the weather is fantastic? To the point where the sunshine is harming some of my photographs.
The Castle museum was big fun. Imagine the third floor at the RMSC times 100. Hannah's writing a paper for her museum class about ambient sounds, so she had to go back and add a section, because they had used them so well. At one point I kept looking over my shoulder for the horse-drawn cart that I kept hearing behind me. There were also interesting records of a typical week's worth of deaths in Victorian days. Besides childbirth and smallpox, there was dropsy and inflammation of the abdomen. And there was an extensive dungeon.
Hannah went back to write, and I went to photograph the magnificent towers of the minster in the late afternoon light. Then I stayed for evensong. It featured the girls' choir. They sang Pergolisi's Stabat Mater. They weren't at all cute--they are little professionals. The lesson was the tower of Babel in which god punishes humanity for their hubris in uniting to raise up a magnificent tower. Ha ha!
6 comments:
you are missing our best snow storm.
We had at least a foot today, and another foot is expected by morning.
Ashwani plowed. thank goodness (goodness being Ashwani) We did not get our mail. I fell down just walking to the driveway. Not hurt of course, it is soft. Everything is closed, the air port, Little, GEH, schools of course, including RIT.
Did I mention that yesterday it was 54 and I walked around without a coat! The predicted this and I could not believe it.
Wow, that's a lot of snow! Glad you did not hurt yourself. No snow here but it got really cold.
Kalyani, I have been enjoying your York updates, thank you for posting.
My internet connection has been mostly off, and sometimes on. We just had Time Warner here, It was the modem! It is fixed. Not much better than that. (well, I guess there are a lot of things better than that, but I am enjoying the moment.)
Watching Les Miserables, the musical-which I enjoy. K2 and RC, do you remember Dad telling us the story every night as he read it? It is a very vivid memory for me.
I don't remember! I remember Tale of Two Cities, though. He liked the French, I guess. I watched the same young man in Week with Marylin last night.
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