Monty Python Fans?

One of our recent theater outings was to the London presentation of the Tony-winning Broadway hit, "Spamalot". The title, of course, is a word-play on Camelot and the musical comedy is set in the time of King Arthur and the search for the Holy Grail. Of course, it's a stage version of the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

Neither of us has been a Monty Python fan, though many in the audience obviously were -- at one point it seemed the entire audience was reciting some of the dialog and singing along with a couple of the songs. These were obviously the devoted fans of Monty Python -- it reminded us of the days when Jill, our youngest, would recite the entire dialogue from the movie "Princess Bride", which she watched dozens of times.

Tim Curry, who starred in the show on Broadway, now plays the lead in the London version -- we were surprised at what a good singing voice he has. The play was filled with innovative pieces -- Chuck's favorite was when the Lady of the Lake, who had not been on stage for some time, came on to sing a song entitled "What Ever Happened to My Part?"

Though we're not Monty Python fans, we did enjoy the show, which we felt was very inventive and creatively unusual. If you get the chance, see it.

Our visit to Bampton

In our former stay in England in 2000/2001, we lived in a village in Oxfordshire where Kathi volunteered her services in the local village school in Buckland. One of the teachers there (later the head teacher) was Pauline Hawkins. We got to know Pauline and her husband David (a retired RAF officer) and they visited us in Monterey after our return home from that time in England. We've also gotten together with David and Pauline for dinner in London a few months ago.

In October we had a chance to spend a weekend with them at their beautiful cottage home (Mill Green) in the village of Bampton, a few miles from our former temporary home in Buckland. On Saturday we walked around the village and visited the typically beautiful village church, as well as the village's library. Pauline is active as a volunteer in various pursuits in the village and David has served for several years as the mayor; we enjoyed having them show us an interesting display about the bells in the church tower. We went from London to Oxford by bus where David picked us up in his car. On the way to Bampton he gave us a nostalgic drive through Buckland, our former home for a year.

On Saturday afternoon David took Chuck to Gloucester to see a rugby match -- Chuck's first -- of the local team against the team from Bristol. The locals won handily. That evening saw us sharing a delicious dinner and absolutely fascinating conversation with the Hawkins and two other couples.

On Sunday we took a walk along the Thames as it makes its way through the countryside between Bampton and Buckland. It was great fun for us to get back to the English countryside and to see some of the sites of our old "stomping grounds" in Oxfordshire. Then Pauline drove us back to Oxford for the bus ride back to London.

Some pictures of our return to the countryside are at: http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/2122393/

Visitors

We've recently enjoyed several visitors to London in September. John and Marguerite Boley (John is a Naval Academy classmate of Chuck's) were taking a several week tour of the UK and spent a weekend in London. And Jeff and Lynn Dittrich, friends of ours from Marina (near Monterey) in California were on a European tour about the same time. Their schedules worked out so that they were all in London on the same weekend and the six of us had a chance to get together for some touring.

Being late September, we figured it was one of the last weekends when a boat ride on the Thames might be pleasant, so we arranged for us to go by boat to Kew Gardens, the huge Botanical Gardens a few miles upstream from central London. (The day turned out to have a few intermittent showers, but not enough to keep us indoors.) An additional attraction at Kew at this time was the recently-refurbished Kew Palace which, for some time, was the home of King George III (the king the Americans revolted against) and his family. In an incredible feat of logistics and timing, the six of us managed to rendezvous at Westminster pier to catch the boat at the right time (the Boleys' hotel was near Heathrow; the Dittrichs' at Earls Court and we came from Marylebone, all using different modes of transport).

We were all a bit surprised at how modest the Palace itself was -- much less luxurious (and much smaller) than Buckingham Palace (which came much later) but also less luxurious (and much smaller) than Hampton Court Palace or Whitehall Palace (destroyed by fire) which both came much later.

The first photo shows Lynn Dittrich, Marguerite and John. The second is of Jeff Dittrich taking a picture of Chuck taking a picture of him. The last picture is of the palace.


A couple of weeks later Catriana Hepburn spent a few days with us. She and her family live in Scotland where they operate a combination farm and country hotel near Ayr. We have visited them there twice for delightful country weekends. With Catriana we attended the theatre to see Guys and Dolls (a very enjoyable show!), and also visited the Spitalfield Market, one of the famous historical market sites of London.
The first picture, of course, is of Kathi with Catriana outside the market; the other is of Catriana with Chuck at the statue of George Washington outside the National Gallery in London.