Hanging Arundel

With certain royal nuptials occurring today across the pond, it seemed fitting to pay a blog visit to Arundel, and peripherally, one of the world's most famous wedding planners - by royal decree, if not by reputation.

But first, before we get there, it was time for Foster Tours to take us through the booming English metropolis known as Burpham.

The village of Burpham is roughly five square miles, with a current population reported at around 145.  This particular misty afternoon, we boosted those numbers by 5.

The gorgeous village with the rolling hills also holds the regal claim of birthing one of the greatest cricket players in the history of the sport.

Here he is revisiting his Glory Days, regaling us Yanks with some of the tales of his youth, replete with all the triumphant victories one could imagine would accompany any tale of a cricket game. 

The village literally has one main street, consisting of thatched flint cottages.

It's also home to the Church of England parish of Saint Mary, which has its own lepers' window by which lepers could watch a Mass back in the day when leprosy was a thing.

Its rich literary history also sang to our dear friend Martin, and serves still as the burial site for his favorite poet, Mervyn Peake, author of the fantasy Gormenghast. 

This afternoon, folks were feeling a little sheepish. 

My favorite gals hanging out at the town's wall 

From Burpham, it was on to nearby Arundel, home to the Brewers and of course, the Red Lion.

Arundel, and its castle take on a special meaning today, of all days.

Arundel Castle has been the principal seat of the Dukes of Norfolk and their ancestors for more than 850 years.  It was built in the 11th Century by Roger de Montgomery, the Earl of Arundel.  It was seized by the crown in 1102.

To this day, it still serves as the home of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk and their children.

The Duke of Norfolk, who is currently Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the 18th Duke of Norfolk, is the premiere duke in the peerage of England.  His seat, is somewhere in the castle over our shoulders.

So why is this of particular interest today?

One of the other duties of the Duke of Norfolk includes helping to plan, of all things, weddings in the monarchy.

Cheers to all!

Saturday In The Park

So there's a wonderful weekend tradition in England (and many other parts of the world) that we managed to squeeze in during our UK tour, courtesy of he of the fleet feet himself, Andy Foster.

It's called Park Run UK, and it was the perfect way to start off a weekend (with apologies to Premier League fans who were glued to their television sets for a different kind of sporting event later that day).

Park Runs are volunteer-led, free 5K (3.1 mile) runs that provide social and relaxed exercise outings for thousands of runners and walkers every Saturday morning.

The first Park Run ever was in Bushy Park, in Teddington, UK, where 13 runners gathered on October 2, 2004.  From there, park runs continued to expand across England, assimilating dozens of other green spaces into the Park Run repertoire.

This particular morning, we set off for Hotham Park in Bognor Regis, ready to leave an indelible mark on a 5K course.

Hotham Park encompasses 22 acres, first becoming a public park on January 1, 1947.  It's named after Sir Richard Hotham, an East India merchant and House of Commons politician who was also considered the founder of modern Bognor Regis.

  What's Bognor Regis?  Funny you should ask.

Bognor Regis is a seasize resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, about 55 miles southwest of London.  The seaside resort Bognor was developed by the aforementioned Sir Richard Hotham in the late 18th century on what was a sandy, undeveloped coastline at the time.  It was visited by King George V in 1928, which helped provide the regal surname, by royal consent.

This particular morning, we bore our best Bognor Regis smiles, pre-race.

Look how intently Andy is listening to the pre-race instructions.  Actually, he was sizing up his competition.

And we were off!  Andrew made a gametime start line decision to forego the pre-planned Group Run, in favor of Carlos' version of a Group Run.  He bolted early and fast, and represented E Streeter nation quite admirably.

Andy hasn't hit the wall. Yet.

Heather and Andy know how to make an entrance

That's one proud dad running with his Boston Marathon buddy there.

Shedding some of the wardrobe on this muggy morning

There, as always, cheering her family on, is our biggest supporter, and on this day, official race photographer, Jackie

Andrew tried to lap past Heather on his home stretch run.

He was all thumbs up, she wasn't having any part of it.

Our smiles were even greater after the race was over.

Behind us is the park's original clock tower, housing Hotham's 1794 clock.

Fun fact: the Bognor Regis race organizer was making a trek to the United States the week after this race, to compete in his first Boston Marathon.

Duncan Stephenson-Gill did quite well for himself on that wet and wild Monday, logging the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston in 3:28:21

Nicely done, Duncan!  And thanks for having us!

People reaching, people touching

A real celebration

Waiting for us all

If we want it, really want it

Can you dig it (yes, I can)

And I've been waiting such a long time

For the day, yeah yeah

Of Sea Devils, Zygons, Crickets and Seagulls

Time to leave London proper for a couple of days to head south and visit some dear friends on the southern coast of England

A kiss before we go

And another album cover for Andrew

From there, it was southward bound, and on to unite with our extended circle of friends, courtesy of the late Martin Brewer.

Martin, as readers of this blog knows, was taken from us far too soon, in October of 2015.  But his death created a bond between his homeland family and friends with his U.S. friends, a bond that prospers and creates new memories that live on in Martin's wake.  I think he'd be busting his buttons knowing his life united so many families and friends that will carry on shared experiences for years to come.  Me, I can never thank those folks enough for keeping an eye on Heather whilst she studied abroad in London for her spring semester.  Her sabbaticals southward provided her with the sense of family and home that helped her get through some of the bumpier stretches of homesickness during her five months in the U.K.

Back to Littlehampton, and the requisite shoreline tour, complete with a pass through Harbour Park Amusements, and the misshapen East Beast Cafe.

The last time Andrew and I were in Littlehampton, we were with Barry, in the U.K. to attend Martin's funeral service.  This time, the circumstances were a lot happier.

Last time out, Paul Askew served as our local tour guide.  This time, it was Andy Foster, who regaled us with tales of Jan's dad's years as Harbormaster at the River Arun, which pours into the English Channel behind us.

A sidebar, aimed squarely at both Paul and Andy, tour guides extraordinaire.

Both these fine gents know that Andrew and I are Doctor Who fans, and were both awesome to include in their tour moments the factoid that the 1974 episode Doctor Who and the Sea Devils was filmed at nearby Climping Beach.  This fact has stayed with both Andrew and I, as it provided us with our modest brush with Who lore.

Alas, it turns out not to be true.

I was so excited to seek out a Sea Devils pic to accompany this blog and out Littlehampton sojourn, I was devastated to learn the Sea Devils was actually filmed at the Isle of Wight.

But fear not Paul and Andy!

It turns out not one but TWO other Doctor Who serials were actually filmed on the beach at Climping - a favorite of mine, Terror of the Zygons as well as the Enemy of The World.  We'll have to incorporate this expanded Who trivia into future Littlehampton tours.

Speaking of Zygons and Sea Devils, over at Casa de Foster, Andy and Jan had their hands full corralling their tribe of tribbles, or guinea pigs as the case may be

At night, it was a wonderful reunion with Martin's mom Gillian and brother Paul, Martin's mate Paul Askew and another round of the Fosters' kidney-busting, world renowned chili.

Memories that will last a lifetime.

Post chili, it was time for a frustrating, and potentially fruitless attempt by Andy and Paul to teach these damn Yankees exactly what the game of cricket is all about.

We'd still be there if we were trying to fully understand how the game is played

Jackie took to it immediately

Andrew needed some extra assistance from Andy. 

Damned if we ever figured out what donkey drops, beamers, blockers, or diamond ducks were though.

Hold on tight, boys and gulls - next up is the invigorating experience known as the U.K. Park Run!  Sweat, smiles and hysterics to follow!

Elementary, My Dear (Wat)Son

Turning the keyboard over to the Great Detective's greatest fan for today's blog - take it away, Andrew!

From 1887-1927, a Scottish physician named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, known by his friends as a bellowing, red-faced sportsman and occasional occultist, dabbled from time to time in what he called "charlatan" mystery stories. Inspired by his favorite professor at the University of Edinburgh's Medical School, who would dazzle his classes by deducing note-perfect diagnoses for patients after gathering the most seemingly insignificant details, good Sir Arthur got to spinning tales about a gifted, near-sociopathic, tortured consulting detective who prowled after criminals and all other sorts of tweed-jacketed wrongdoers  through the foggy streets and seedy back alleys of Victorian London, accompanied by an ever-faithful companion and documentarian. Conan Doyle published these stories, 60 in total, through the Strand Magazine, largely as a source of income when his patient clientele wasn't streaming through the examination room, and -- ironically -- was known to be quite dismissive of them, even attempting to kill off his star detective at one point before public clamor (and an empty wallet) made him reconsider and resurrect. These funny little stories, incidentally, are the most adapted body of material in literary history, generating over a century's worth of TV shows, radio dramas, theater plays, movies, and spoofs that number several hundred strong, and almost single-handedly gave birth to the fields of forensic science and criminology, at a time when Scotland Yard and police forces in general were just getting off the ground.

These stories wound their way, as they've done for billions of other readers, into the lap of an impressionable thirteen year old lad from Massachusetts, who then proceeded to read every line and consume every adaptation he could find about this most famous example of a gifted man doing literally whatever he could to escape boredom. While the bulk of those stories are narrated by the detective's trusty Boswell, two are notable for breaking from the formula, as the Great Detective narrates from his own point of view instead, and this particular post is following suit. Yes, we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming from the Blogfather to change hats, as it were, to shift for a moment into a deerstalker cap, with a pipe and magnifying glass to complete the ensemble. Today's casefile is brought to you all by Cook the Younger, that selfsame impressionable lad now grown into... a still-impressionable lad, who was able to make a pilgrimage on our London vacation to the most famous address in the world, and is here now to tell you all about it. 

Cook the Older and Lady Heather bowed out for this next portion of the trip, jonesing for what's believed to be the ONLY Dunkin Donuts in the entire U.K., which just so happened to be conveniently located right down the same block. You can lead a horse to English tea, but you can't make him drink it when wicked pissah iced coffee is right within reach (I'm unsure what his review of said coffee was/if the authentic recipe has made its way across the Pond... I just know he nearly cried when he got back onto MA soil and had a decaf iced mocha, cream only, back as his binky). My camera-shy mom Jackie, however, who's as beset upon as poor Mrs. Hudson by my day-to-day antics and housekeeping habits... or lack thereof... was on-hand to document one of the highlights of this bookworm's literary life.

We got to pay our respects at 221B Baker St., the home of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Some quick background, before we ascend seventeen steps (it's a canon detail) into Mr. Holmes' consulting rooms. There are probably some among you readers, who care about things like "Facts" and "Reality," who're scratching your heads right now and saying, "I thought these were fictional characters? How is this, like, a real thing that he's talking about here?" Well to you all, I say... good question, actually. For decades, there was really no map point for literary pilgrims like Yours Truly to go visit, no matter how many laps of Baker St. they walked or address markers they scrutinized. But luckily, Mr. Holmes has generated a fan club in literally every major city and region across the globe, and in 1990, the London-based chapter got sick of having to deal with such inconveniences (it's on their home turf, after all!), and so they got an official permit from the borough of Westminster and set up the official Sherlock Holmes Museum, complete with a real, genuine 221B address and a meticulous recreation from book and adaptation details of Holmes' and Watson's professional and personal quarters. And what do they look like, you may wonder? Well, come upstairs and see...

Nourished by a cup of Mrs. Hudson's best-brewed tea, thousands of innocents from London and all manner of places besides would sit right here in this chair before describing their deadly, annoying, awkward, tragic, or downright bizarre stories; a hawkish figure would be perched across the room, listening through his steepled fingers and veil of pipe smoke. His genius mind would deduce, a hansom cab would be ordered, and off they'd go down cobbled streets, chasing criminals who ranged in offense from pickpockets to ax-murderers, with even the occasional ghost (dog) or two thrown in for variety.

Doctor Watson's work table is situated nearby, equipped with everything an accomplished Victorian military doctor might be expected to own, as well as a variety of writing utensils, should the particulars of a client's story or any deductive feats... or domestic peculiarities... of his remarkable friend require writing down at a moment's notice.

Brief aside for literary buffs who care about this kinda stuff: Conan Doyle was generations ahead of his time by playing fast and loose with metafiction: aka, there's an explanation in the stories themselves about how/why the stories are set down into writing. Within Holmes' textual universe, Dr. Watson relates every case after its conclusion to the best of his memory, before sending it off for publication, leading several Victorian readers to actually send fan-mail directly to Dr. Watson himself, whom they believed to be a nonfiction author!

Those domestic peculiarities, which made life hellish for Holmes' housemates during times when there was no arch-criminal to stimulate the detective's powers or Parisian espionage to engage his mind, famously included such pastimes as composing violin concertos at 3:00 in the morning, smoking tobacco kept handily close in a velvet Persian slipper, doping from a cocaine-syringe on the mantle (in the days before usage of the drug was discovered to be as devastating as we in the 21st century know it to be), staring longingly at the picture of a woman... The Woman, who's on record as being the only person to have ever successfully duped the super-sleuth, or, in his most manic episode-- 

-- shooting the initials VR (for Victoria Regina, the Latin translation of Holmes' revered female monarch) into the wallpaper with a revolver, to the sheer horror of Mrs. Hudson and the extreme concern of Dr. Watson.

Continue upstairs to the next floor, and you'll find a suitably ghoulish and macabre trophy museum of sorts, memorializing all the crime fighting duo's most famous cases, including (but not limited to):

The Adventure of the Speckled Band:
- Note to fathers: attempts to murder your daughters for inheritance, through the use of venomous snakes concealed in the central heating vent, tend to end poorly for all involved parties. Just talk it out over brunch, next time.

The Hound of the Baskervilles:

-Note to PETA: no spectral demon hounds were harmed in the making of this exhibit.

The Final Problem: 

- Note to everyone: Professor Moriarty, the OG supervillain, the Joker to Holmes' Batman, is intimidating as hell to face down in a staring contest, even in wax form.

In a trip that contained a Baker(Street)'s dozen highlights for the whole family, any one of which could've individually been the crowning highlight of another vacation, this pitstop will forever stand out as being really special for me personally. We visited some historic landmarks where "real" history has been made for millennia, places that were already considered ancient centuries before the Pilgrims ever set foot in this New World, clubs and stages and bars where social & cultural revolutions were born out of sheer guitar electricity. I own the fact that a fan-made museum for a "fictional" character, no matter how meticulously curated, may not seem like it holds up in comparison.

However, for the billions that have visited... have come for consultations in... this abode in its textual form, and followed breathlessly along with its inhabitants on their adventures -- as if the criminals they stalked would become alerted by your disturbing the air -- this place is magic made tangible brick and mortar. It's a loving monument not so much to a particular figure, per se, but to the flesh-and-blood status he claims in the imaginations of billions across the globe. Children in kindergarten and hermits in the desert can identify Holmes at a glance from his deerstalker silhouette, and associate him as the mascot and reigning master of an entire literary genre; that collective imagination and admiration is so strong, so-deep rooted, so widespread, that it's actually managed to spring from one world to land at a map point for all the people here in this one, blurring the lines between both.  To this budding writer and bibliophile, there's nothing elementary, my dear Watson, about that.

Thanks all, for following along here through my ramblings. The next post will be returning you to your regularly scheduled programming, where, sneak peak, I'm guessing you'll learn about our Herculean efforts to understand the impenetrable rules of cricket, and where I'll discover the sheer glory of a hearty English breakfast. In the meantime, pick up a book and escape into some other universe for a while... if it's anything like this one, who knows?...maybe I'll be able to meet you there one day.

 "But there can be no grave for Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson...Shall they not always live in Baker Street? Are they not there this moment, as one writes? Outside, the hansoms rattle through the rain, and Moriarty plans his latest devilry. Within, the sea-coal flames upon the hearth and Holmes and Watson take their well-won case...So they still live for all that love them well; in a romantic chamber of the heart, in a nostalgic country of the mind, where it is always 1895."  - Vincent Starrett, 1920