Patrick Egan's Blog, page 5

The Journey’s End 3: Inside Wimborne Minster-The Man In The Wall & The Chained Library

[Wimborne Minster. The Church of St Cuthburga. Wimborne, Dorset. Photo is mine.]

The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.

~~Anon

Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

~~Thomas Gray Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

How do I say farewell to Dorset? What words? What ideas? What phrases? How can I tell the whole story when the story, hopefully, is not at an end, for me, forever?

And, what of the entire trip? Paris and the Garden of Luxembourg. The Latin Quarter. Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Morocco? The Medina of Tangier. The Blue City and the tile factories of Fez. And the highlight? The camel ride into the edge of the Sahara Desert. The adobe villages, the High Atlas Mountains and the chaos of the Market Square in Marrakech.

And I can not forget the pot of honey at the breakfast table on our last day in the warmth. The swarms of bees trying to get their honey back. The warmth, left behind, and the chill and rain that met us in London. The languid days in our hotel, watching the pelting rain on the roofs of the adjacent buildings.

I cannot think of these things now. I must concentrate on the town where I lived forty some years ago…where all this started. Where my love of English footpaths, pubs and Cathedrals began in earnest. The recollections of the desert? I must file them away for a future time, new blogs, new sharing of photos, other stories and other regrets. I was cursed with the need to pay attention to every detail, every leaf and every grain of sand. Every child’s eyes and every woman in a Burka. The men in turbans and the young girls in Hajibs. I memorize everything because I have this lingering fear that I may never see these things again.

Accordingly I must stop this flood and stay focused on another special place of mine. The Minster church in Wimborne. Back in the days when I lived in Wimborne, I spent many hours sitting in this beautiful place. I wasn’t praying then, I was absorbing history. I was fortunate to be sitting in the right place one evening when a group of bell ringers came through the main door and headed for a smaller door that I had not noticed. I stopped one of the women and made an inquiry. Before I could say “bats”, I was up in the belfry and given a rope. I heard a few seconds of instruction and then I was ringing the changes! I felt special. I felt a part of something. And, I knew that my tug resulted in a tone that was heard throughout the town and into the country.

That’s what happens when it’s quiet and the wind blows in your favor. The music of the clapper against the iron wall of the carillon drifts.

[The belfry floor from below. I was up there. I rang the changes. Photo is mine.]

The Minster has a number of interesting places to visit and things to see. Here are the two major attractions:

The Chained Library

The second largest chained library in Europe is here in the Minster. It was founded in 1686. The small room of books that are literally chained to prevent thievery is at the end twenty-six steps up a narrow winding staircase.

[It’s a hard steep climb to the Chained Library. Video is mine.]

Here are just a few of priceless items in the room:

[The Polyglott Bible. (1657). It’s in nine languages. Each character is hand set from hot metal. There are six volumes. The black ink was produced by oak apples crushed and blended with lead oxide. Photo is mine.]

[Each book is chained for protection. Photo is mine.]

The Man In The Wall

Pity poor Anthony Ettricke. He had some issues with the church. But he was a man of means so his requests were taken quite seriously by the Minster. After one particularly difficult session with the church fathers, he vowed to not be buried outside the church walls, and not in the ground. He also did not want to be buried within the church. In the end, he was buried in the wall. To further complicate things, he truly believed he would die in 1693. So his casket was inscribed and sat somewhere in storage awaiting…awaiting his death. He lived another ten years. So, the date of death had to be corrected.

It was.

[The casket of Mr. Ettricke. The death date nicely done over. He is in the wall but the casket does not appear outside the church. Photo is mine.]

Oh, there is so much more I could write. More stories to tell about my experiences in this church. So many memories…of a Christmas concert performed by the students of the school where I taught. Of showing the beautiful tracery and vaulting of the ceiling to my wife. Sitting in the crypt (now a children’s play area, not at all spooky, but beautiful with arches and stained glass), writing in my journal.

My journal. Only three times during this entire trip–two months of travel–was I able to catch up in my entries. Always looking, filming, studying, observing and learning. I should have been sitting down, to catch my breath, and to be in the moment and to write.

That’s what ideally should happen. But that’s not the way I work. Not the way I travel. I’m in the moment, for sure, but I can’t stop sometimes.

There’s too much to see in this amazing world. I hope it holds together. I have a zillion more places to visit.

…I will be sharing more at a future date. I must be off now to jump aboard a large ship and sail the North Atlantic.

Fini

Journey’s End 2: Ringo Blaze & The Screaming Toilet Fish From Hell

[The White Hart Pub. The same place I remember so well. But, not the same place I found a few nights ago. Photo is mine.]

Me to my brother, Dan: They call themselves Ringo Blaze & The Screaming Toilet Fish From Hell. Eh?

My brother, Dan to me: Green or purple eight inch spiked mohawk. Totally punk.

The story goes something like this:

It was early November, 1984, on an unusually warm evening in Wimborne. My teaching day was over and I found myself sitting on the stone wall, adjacent to the churchyard of the Wimborne Minster (Church of St. Cuthburga). The antique engravings from the 18th century depict a number of gravestones in the green space. Today, only a single memorial cross dedicated to those men and women who died in the Great War, WW I. I wondered where all the stones went. Some parishes stack them along the stone walls of the churchyard. Here there was nothing. I made a mental note to look into this, being a Taphophile even back then.

[The Wimborne Minster. Photo is mine.]

The afternoon had slowly blended into early evening. The clerks, shopkeepers, barbers and teachers were heading home or to their favorite pub (their ‘local’). I worked up a dry throat watching all the people bustling about. My downtown local was just around the corner and down a lane, cobbled and rough on the feet. Setting off I entered the Corn Market Square in just over four minutes. There it was…The White Hart. Amber light glowed from the mullioned windows as darkness fell. I headed for the main entrance.

[Entrance to The White Hart. No handbills this time around. No Ringo Blaze. Photo is mine.]

The noise level inside told me that it was a young crowd. In I went, passing a collection of posters and handbills for music, fairs, garden club meetings and lawn bowling events. I didn’t notice it at first. Inside, I bumped into a young woman who had cut my hair just two days earlier.

Hi, I said.

Hi, she said.

I know you, I said.

She stared at me and took a tiny step back.

You cut my hair two days ago, I said. I really like the cut. Got plenty of compliments from my students. I lied.

We spoke for a few minutes and I finished my pint of best bitter. I decided to go home and make a plan for dinner. On the way out, I noticed a small poster. It was an advertisement for a band that would be playing at The White Hart in a few weeks hence. The band’s name was Ringo Blaze…

Whoa. That was some singular name for a group. That alone would be a draw, for me anyway. I didn’t have a camera with me then so there is no visual proof of such a poster, so you will have to take my word for it.

A few weeks later, I told my brother about the group. He described the punk nature of the name. I was surprised because I associated punk with Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols. New York City’s Lower East Side. Anything but a small pub in a quaint English village in the middle of Thomas Hardy Country.

Flash forward to four days ago. Mariam and I were in Wimborne for two nights before heading to Southampton. I was needing a icy Fever Tree Tonic water so we headed for the White Hart. As soon as we entered, I sensed something was off, truly off. The room where Mariam and I met a former student of mine was filled with boxes of clothes, old newspapers and dirty glass ware. And, the place was without any customers. And, it was the time of day when most pubs were crowded. What was going on? There was a little girl, about eight years old, standing by the pool table holding a cue stick. At the angle she held it while trying to hit the three ball…well, I was waiting for the tearing sound of the felt.

[The interior of The White Hart. Empty but for two customers. A bartender and a little girl. Photo is mine.]

To round out the story, give it an ending of sorts and tie up loose questions, I can say that I found out what happened to The White Hart…the White Hart of my memory. It seems that a number of months ago, the place was closed down because of alleged drug selling. It was only recently re-opened. Just in time for us to see it in it’s present state of unkemptness. I never did find out, however, about the piles of clothes in one of the rooms, or who the little girl was, and why she wasn’t in school.

I just hope the new owners pull it all together. It’s a very old pub. Lots of tradition. Lots of memories made there.

Including my very own. And, most likely those of Ringo Blaze himself.

The Journey’s End 1: Winchester Cathedral

[In the nave of Winchester Cathedral. A man stands at a mirror, allowing the viewer to study and admire the vaulting of the ceiling without cracking a vertebra in one’s upper neck. Photo is mine.]

Winchester Cathedral

You’re bringing me down

You stood and you watched as

My baby left town.

~~New Vaudeville Band

It was the mid-afternoon on Monday, October 14, that we stood in the drizzle, at one of the gates that opened to the churchyard of this interesting and very awesome cathedral. Somewhere in the vicinity was a footpath. Not just any path leading from just another lawn in front just another church. No, indeed. This path took off to the east and didn’t end until a weary rambler, or pilgrim, stood at the front door of Canterbury Cathedral. This was the start of the famous route that was immortalized by Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1380 – 1390), one of the most important literary pieces in English Literature.

Try memorizing the Prologue in Middle English if you have nothing to do for a year.

However, we were not in the mood to walk for three months. Maybe someday, but not on this day. We were here, on our way to Wimborne, Dorset, to visit the graves of two people. One was a soldier who did a bad thing on a hot day. The other, a woman who changed the course of literature.

Let’s discuss Thomas Thetcher first, if you don’t mind.

[The tombstone of Thomas Thetcher. As you can read, his death is a cautionary tale. Photo is mine.]

The unfortunate Grenadier should have known better than to drink a small beer on a hot day. Perhaps he was caught off guard by the fact that a day in mid-May, in England, shouldn’t be that hot. But it was and he paid the price for his actions. I’m wondering about his mates. Didn’t they try to stop him? Talk him down? Suggest hard cider? (ick).

Let’s leave poor Thomas out in the chill and rain and go inside, have a gentle argument about why we weren’t willing to go to an ATM to get cash (because the credit card/tap thing was down) just to visit one other grave. In the end we paid the entry fee in pounds. Once inside we headed to her grave. It’s in the floor, to the left of the transept.

[Jane Austen’s brass memorial. Photo taken by Mariam Voutsis]

Of course, this is one of the most popular woman author of the early 19th century. On the floor, in black stone is a large slab over her actual grave. The inscription was likely, but not proven, composed by her father. In it, he gets his name mentioned a few times. He was an important guy, after all. But it says nothing of her writings. Nothing. Makes you wonder.

I left Mariam to write her thoughts in a book while I scoped out the location of the Gents room. On the way back, I saw the entry to the crypt. Standing at the top step of a narrow and steep seven steps below, I felt a cold breeze drifting up the stairs. I went down. Whoa, I thought. It looked like the crypt was flooded. Was that water? It was. And it was as still and silent as a sheet of highly reflective glass. Interesting, I thought. Why the water?

Then I looked further. It was an art exhibit. It was overwhelming in it’s serenity, it’s spooky nature and it’s quiet sublime beauty.

Look for yourself:

[A solitary figure of a man. The crypt of Winchester Cathedral. Photo is mine.]

I would have lingered. Mariam and I, however, had to be miles away to check in at a hotel in Wimborne, Dorset. I used to live there in the 1980s, as many of you know. I wanted to return to that charming town to gather more information and visit a few more places I somehow never got around to see…back in the day.

Here is a last look of the interior of the Cathedral. I love the simple unadorned aspects of Winchester. I’ll come back some day…to visit once again, the grave of poor Thomas, the Grenadier. And, of course, sit beside the last resting place of a woman who changed things for women writers for generations.

[Video is mine]

Judge Wyndham’s Oak

[The Celtic Tree of Life. Source: Google search. CelticArtStudio.]

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening earth.

~~Tagore

A few days ago, my friend, Tim, asked me if he had ever taken me to see Judge Wyndham’s Oak. I said that I have no recollection of such a visit. He said, Let’s go then, shall we? Sure, I said.

So, off we drove, through roads narrow and menacing. Even Tim, a proper Englishman well used to lanes where the hedge-row ivy leaves banged and scraped against the car doors, said: Let’s go another way.

The showers had given way to a partly sunny afternoon, windy, fresh and vigorous. We parked in a lot adjacent to an old country church. I wanted to poke around the moldy grave stones and read the poignant epitaphs, but Tim said that we would stop at the church in a bit.

He had a tree to show me.

We passed through a gate and found ourselves in a large field populated by a flock of sheep. They stepped aside as we crossed their pasture, baaing at us every few seconds.

The tree right in front of us was grown from an acorn from the Judge’s Oak, said Tim.

[The child of Judge Wyndham’s Oak. The real tree is hidden in the distance. Photo is mine.]

We continued on our way across the field. The wind picked up and I was feeling fairly comfortable. A moment later, we came upon what looked like just another tree in just another pasture.

It was anything but.

As we approached the oak tree, I do believe I felt the weight of years in the size of the trunk, the bifurcation of the thick branches and the fact that the tree is said to be 1,000 years old! They don’t grow trees like that back home.

Technically, it is located in Silton, Dorset, and was among a number of historic oaks that marked the boundary between Selwood Forest and Gillingham Forest. It was part of a large medieval hunting ground. (Later we drove to the far end of the forest on the other side of the town of Gillingham. It was one very large hunting preserve.) We can be fairly confident about the tree’s age because the British are very meticulous about keeping records of just about everything. An important oak, used as a legal boundary, would be carefully documented.

[The 1,000 year old oak, Quercus robur. Photo is mine.]

I stood in the tree’s shadow. I put my hand among the low lying leaves. I even stepped inside the trunk. It was wired together like an old man’s back.

[If the need arose, I could have spent the night inside this old tree. I’m sure it would have stories to tell. Photo is mine.]

Tim walked off a few yards. Perhaps he knew I needed a few minutes to feel the ageing vibes from the DNA of this other old guy. I closed my eyes as I leaned against the massive trunk. I tried to tune into the ancient echoes of voices, centuries old, of other people who stood in the very spot I occupied. It’s been said that the sound waves produced by the vocal chords of human speech, never really go away…totally away. They just get more faint. But they’re still out there, somewhere. Who stood here? Who kissed a farm girl, loved a man, dreamed of happiness, cried about a loss, cried about a broken heart, cried because of crippling loneliness, the death of a wife, a husband, father, mother…one’s faith?

Who stood where I was standing. Did they think about the things I think about?

I looked over the field at the church…I saw the tops of gravestones just beyond the stonewall. Were the lovers reclining under this tree, once upon a time, so many many years ago now buried over there? I can barely see those small mounds, their graves. Does that churchyard soil cover a rotted oak coffin? Are their human remains now part of the soil, part of the groundwater, part of the transpiration that carries their molecules aloft, into the clouds and then to be rained down again to water an acorn destined to be 1,000 years old?

Some things are never meant to be answered, I suppose.

Aethelgifu, The Teenage Abbess: A Peak Inside The Walls Of The Shaftesbury Abbey

[Gold Hill, Shafesbury]

Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers.

It was a chilly day, this fourth day of October. Chilly and windy. Mariam and I had just had a very enjoyable lunch with a former student of mine, Sally, and her husband, Matthew. Sally was in my Geography class when I had the joy of being an exchange teacher at a school in southern Dorset. It was 1984-85 and after a decade or two of trying to reconnect with former staff and students via Facebook, I finally linked up with Sally. She and her friend helped me to navigate the intricate British School System…not an easy thing to do.

That was forty years ago!

So, there we were with forty-five minutes on our hands before they had to return to their horse farm in Hampshire. We needed a bit of fresh air, so we strolled along the Abbey Walk, overlooking the dreamy, green hills of Dorset. Sheep appeared as tiny white dots in the hazy distance. The view was breathtaking, but not like the Grand Canyon, but more like a cathedral.

[The hills of Dorset stretch out behind Mariam. The Abbey Walk, Shaftesbury. Photo is mine.]

[Ruins of the once important Abbey in Shaftesbury, Dorset, England. Photo is mine.]

We arrived at the end of the walk, turned and began our way back to the town center. On our left were the stone walls of a former abbey. It had always been closed when I had made this walk, back in the day. The four of us decided to have a look. It was free (donation only) so why not? A gentleman stepped out from the gift shop and greeted us. We asked for the sixty second lecture as Sally and Matthew were pressed for time. Our questions piled on and after five minutes we were left to roam the grounds on our own.

So, what was so important about this place, this smallish ground broken by rock mounds and clusters of flowers and an empty tomb?

Let me tell you a brief tale…a tale of kings, vikings, saints, sinners…

But here’s the caveat…how can I tell a cohesive story about a place that has existed in one form or another since 888 AD? I’ll try.

King Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington, Wiltshire, in 878 AD. Ten years later he founded the Abbey where I now stood. It was the first community not to be connected with a male community (for obvious reasons), and he appointed his daughter, Aethelgifu, as the first Abbess. She was very pious, very independent, very knowledgeable…and very young. When she donned the habit of Abbess, she was of fifteen years old. These days, most fifteen-year-olds are busy Tik-Tocking (a generalization, I know) and not the spiritual head of ninety nuns.

[Just inside the gate of the Abbey is the stone coffin. Photo is mine.]

The Abbey was connected to royalty for over 650 years, until it was dissolved on the order of Henry VIII (in 1539).

Who else passed, or was carried through the gates of this revered place? In 944, St. Elgiva, wife of King Edmund was buried there. In 978, the boy King Edward, grandson of St. Elgiva, was murdered at a royal hunting cottage in Corfe Castle. One story told is that his body was thrown down a well. Soon, miracles began being attributed to Edward. His bones were somehow and not without controversy, eventually made there way to Shaftesbury Abbey.

Then more miracles, more pilgrims, and more money began flowing into the coffers.

Edward was canonized in 1001, and because of his fame and importance as a saint, his bones were distributed to other churches. More on him at the end.

In 1501, Catherine of Aragon stayed at the Abbey on her way to London to marry Prince Arthur, the elder brother of Henry VIII. Sadly, Arthur died unexpectedly, so Catherine did the obvious. She married Henry. His dispute with the Pope led to a split with the Catholics, which in turn led to the founding of the Church of England.

The rest is history, as they say.

Shortly afterwards, the Dissolution of the Monasteries began. Shaftesbury was literally taken apart, the stones stolen by local lords to build the great houses in the nearby hills.

In 1985, a charity took over the grounds and some excavations began. Some believe that a small lead casket found on the site, may be the remains of Edward. This is still an open question. The bones ended up at a Russian Orthodox Church in Woking. Go figure.

Ten years later, a new alter, designed by Richard Grasby was built. Hopefully to accept the mortal remains of Edward, returned to the Abbey at some future date. Don’t hold your breath.

[A future resting place for Edward the Martyr? Photo is mine.]

I’ve just given you a story covering over a millennium of history. The history of an Abbey, not so famous as some, but important and vital in it’s own way.

We left Sally and Matthew to their long drive home.

Me? I ducked into a small book shop…just to look around.

Just to look around, mind you.

[Video content is mine.]

(The information used in this post came from the pamphlet “A Brief History and Guide to the Abbey Garden” published by The Shaftesbury Abbey Museum and Gardens.)

At The Pall Mall Barbershop On A Cold Rainy Day

[Photo credit: Getty Images. Google Search.]

A barber’s hands have the power to transform not just a person’s appearance, but their entire outlook on life.

I woke up this morning after dreaming of walking through a glorious city in the rain. It was a city of cathedrals and domed churches. But it was all wet. The people were wet. The sidewalks were slick with wet. Did I mention it was raining? And, in that dream, I felt an urge. I got out of bed and made my way into the bathroom without a single incident of slamming my foot against a luggage wheel. Was it all that rain?

Looking into the mirror I realized that I looked like the Werewolf of London had broken out of Highgate Cemetery, (for full disclosure read my last blog post).

That’s it, I said to no one. I’m tired of looking like Iggy Pop. I need a haircut. Within a few minutes I was booking an appointment at the Pall Mall Barbers. I scanned the photos of the available hair cutters. Cindy was too young and chic. Arnold was bald. I chose Viktor because he had wild curls and a certain panache about his expression.

On the street, I was walking slow, still sore from the night of immobility. Let’s get a taxi, I said. Okay, Mariam said. Some £9 later we had succeeded in getting around to the other side of Trafalgar Square. Close but not there. The driver, in the best cockney accent said that the street we were looking for was just there. She pointed to a orange barrier about fifty feet away.

We’ll get out here, I said.

[Read this sentence aloud] – You can wouk, it’s close, she said.

A few minutes later, I was hanging up my coat and scarf and preparing to get seated, when Viktor emerged from behind a curtain, entering the scene like an Oxford Don arriving for a lecture. I shook his hand and sat in the seat. We consulted a moment. I showed him a photo of me taken about forty-five years ago for a school yearbook. I was going to say: Yes, that’s me, but as I looked once more at it, I wondered…is that really how I looked once upon a time? I ignored my doubts and pointed to the hair part of the picture. We studied it together, Viktor and me. He rose up and looked at me with a smile. Have I finally found a friend? I asked myself.

After I took my seat and he had pinned the large black cape around me, he told me to get ready for the shampoo. Now, back home, that’s often done by a woman in a side room in the salon. Not here. I was told to bend over and put my neck against the porcelain sink. I felt like Louis XVI, or worse yet, a ninth-grader at the school nurses’ vomitorium.

The cut was progressing well. I watched as my grey (or as I like to say, silver) hair fell in clumps on my chest and stomach. I was feeling good. After many attempts to get the right cut for me, I felt this was going to work. It was then that I glanced up at the shelf of shampoos, conditioners and various kinds of “product” and saw it.

[Viktor’s station. Photo is mine.]

On the shelf above the Barbicide. Was that a bottle of blended scotch? I realized right then I was in the company of gentlemen (although there was a woman in the chair next to me). To sit in that magic chair and sip a scotch…this wasn’t 72nd Street. It was nice to see, but I’m not imbibing these days so it was a interesting curiosity.

Wait! I can hear my readers say. Hold on. You’re in one of the most famous cities on the planet, home of King Charles III, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and so much more, and you’re wasting your valuable blog site time on talking about a hair cut? What’s wrong with you?

Actually nothing.

On the way back to the hotel, we had a short detour to make. A visit to the largest bookstore in Europe…Waterstones on Piccadilly Street. I needed a few more books to add to the growing pile of books that will come home with me and keep me company on cold rainy days…much like this one. After a purchase, a cappuccino for Mariam and myself, we set off for the hotel. While waiting for a green walk light, the sidewalk behind me began filling up with marchers from a certain country in Africa that starts with a “C”. They were singing protest songs in their language. The signs read something about calling on the Empire to stop it’s duplicity and stop allowing discrimination against Christians back in their homeland. I’d like to say more about them and their cause, but I have to tread carefully here. I intend to post this blog on Facebook…and I’ve had an issue or two about my posts from Morocco.

Memes. I must take care not to use or refer or mention certain things I observe because I might be accused of perpetuating a negative cultural meme. Or, things I would use as “tags” might be seen as me misleading people and luring them in to add to the views and/or likes regarding my content. I would never do that to my faithful readers. I would not trick people with misleading comments. I simply beg them to read my blogs. It’s a lot simpler.

And, how did it all work out?

[Before the haircut. Photo credit: toplawyer.law.]

[After the haircut. Photo courtesy of Mariam Voutsis.]

It’s now 7:00 pm, GMT and it’s still raining.

Breakfast in Marrakech/Dinner in London

[Trafalger Square, London. The National Gallery of Art in the background. A fast car in the foreground. A lion and a blue-lit fountain in the middle ground. Photo is mine.]

Keep calm and go to London…

The title above makes it sound like it’s a skip and a flip to make the three and a half-hour trip to London from the Red City of Marrakech. Well, it’s a bit more complicated than it sounds. We left Morocco in tear-inducing brightness and landed in England, not quite in the loaming gloom, but nearly so. We were late taking off so already we were off our schedule. Luggage, customs and ordering the cab ate up more time.

And then the drive to our hotel. I’ll make this ordeal as brief as possible. It took us longer to get to the Club Quarters Hotel off Trafalger Square from Gatwick that it did to fly in from North Africa.

That said, I’ll skip the few things we managed to do in the three days we’ve been here. We shopped. We went to the Tate Museum. We went to a play called Abegail’s Room. But what we did today, Sunday, September 29, was something else entirely.

We went to a place I’ve always planned on visiting but never seemed to have the time. That would be Highgate Cemetery. It’s not on the usual tourist maps because it is well to the north of the city center. One famous grave draws most of the visitors, I would suspect. That of Karl Marx. The rest of the cemetery, divided between the East Gate and the West is a feast for the eyes of anyone interested in famous cemeteries…and who isn’t? I am. The ivy, the moldy stones, the dead flowers, the wind in the trees, the architecture of the mausoleums and the dark shady areas along the muddy lanes. Some would say such things are morbid, but nothing could be further from that. Indeed, it’s a place to revere the departed, celebrate the famous dead and the majority of the people who were known only to their families and friends. All of them were loved, cherished and honored in some way while they took a breath. And we should do the same after they depart this earthly moment. The deceased are not to blame for the overgrown holly or the shady foliage. There are no lawns to mow here, few benches to sit and rest and visit. To be fair, even though I find this kind of place calming and contemplative, it’s not necessarily a place I would choose to spend a night, hidden where the night-guards could not find me. And, I would like to be able to tell people I could easily carry a lantern and be such a night-guard…but that would not be the truth. If Dracula roams anyplace in London, it’s here. If the Werewolf of London, stalks any lanes, it’s here.

It’s all here.

[Photo is mine.]

[Photo is mine.]

[Photo is mine.]

[The Man. Karl Marx. Photo is mine.]

Be sure to click below.

[Video is mine.]

[Photo is mine.]

Oh, there’s more videos and photos where these came from. No pictures of Piccadilly Circus on this day. Not from this blogger. Instead, I took you on a little trip…from North Africa to North London. From a hot breakfast in a warm hotel to a chilly windy afternoon among the stones of a famous cemetery, bearing witness to the lives and memories of the innumerable dead.

Written by a true Irishman…

The Terminus

[A card, purchased at a small souk in the Marrakech Market. It is my name, Patrick, written in Arabic by a calligrapher. The cost was about $4.00. A small amount for a priceless piece of art. Important to me. Photo is mine.]

The end of journey is not a period, but a comma.

~~ Anon

Wait! Wait for a moment. Don’t go. Come over here and sit. There is a soft cushion and a richly textured rug for you. Take off your shoes. Relax here while I pour you a glass of mint tea. Sit here with me, one last time, for I have one more tale to tell you…

But, before I begin my story, I must ask you to relive the past ten days with me. This will not take long, for I am tired and my muscles are sore. And I need my sleep.

Ten days ago, a young man named Kamal stood waiting for us at the Tangier Airport. He was holding a card in his hand:

[I have arrived at many airports in my years of traveling. After walking past many men and women holding signs for people, this is the first time I saw my name on such a card. Photo is mine.]

We drove away to our hotel and our journey officially began. I have covered the many highlights of our tour in previous blog posts so I see no need to recap them here. I will just mention my favorites:

The city of Chefchaouen, the Blue City impressed me deeply. The passageways, the climb to our hotel, the souks…and the buildings of blue. Truly beautiful in so many ways.

Fez. A storied city that is the center of tile-making and leather works. I stood and looked down on vats of dye. I smelled the pigeon feces that is used in the tanning process. I bought a leather belt and soft slippers. Mariam now uses a new red leather wallet, which she loves.

The camel ride into the Sahara. My dream has been fulfilled. I hoped for a look up at a black sky full of uncountable stars, but the cloud cover had other ideas.

We stayed at a hotel in the Dades Gorge of the Atlas Mountains that was one of my favorite places. Spacious rooms and cool quiet ambience.

[Our bedroom at a remote old hotel in the Atlas Mountains. Photo is mine.]

We made a stop at a Mosque and a tomb which was closed until the time of prayer. Inside the adjacent Kasbah, the women squatted in doorways talking while the children ran about. We carried a large plastic bag of pens to give to the kids. A few accepted, and then word spread. Soon every child in the Kasbah had come for a pen. In ten minutes, we were out of pens.

[Before we handed out our pens to the children, we stood at the entrance to a Mosque. We, as non-Muslims, were not allowed to enter. The far door at center faces east, the direction of Mecca. Photo is mine.]

We drove for six hours on the last day of the road journey. We were heading for Marrakech.

[We drove for hours, watching the arid landscape slowly give way to a light shade of green. A little more rainfall. The adobe villages flew by us on each side of the car. Here’s a few seconds of filming from the car. After this, I put the iPhone away and tried to sleep. Video is mine.]

Which brings us the final stop on our journey. The famous city of Marrakech, the Red City. Listen to Crosby, Stills & Nash’s Marrakech Express as you watch it. I made attempts to add the song, but I got bogged down in the various methods. Besides, I need to tell you one final story before I settle back and read a folktale or two from my book.

The Final Story

[A Minaret of a Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech, close by to the Market Square. Photo is mine.]

Once a year, during the holiday of Ramadan, a practicing Muslim is required to fast from dawn to dusk (seventeen hours a day) for twenty-nine to thirty days. There are exceptions to this, however. Health reasons, economics and others. But, the rule is pretty solid and sure.

Look closely at the Minaret. Count the number of spheres. There are four. However, the fourth ball, the one at the top is of great interest. It is the focus of my last story. Some say the lower spheres signify the major religions of the world: Islam, Judaism and Christianity, others (including me) believe they stand for the three elements of life according to Islam: Water Air & Fire. The small ball on the very top… It too has various interpretations to explain why it’s there. This is the one I prefer:

The wife of Sultan Yacoub el-Mansour broke her fast early. For this indiscretion, she was given a penance. She had all her gold jewelry melted down to make a sphere. This is the fourth one, the small one on the top.

This story, as in all stories, is likely to be the product of the imagination of one of the many storytellers that can be found in Marrakech. A city of storytellers.

If a Muslim chooses not to fast for a particular reason, he or she must feed sixty people after the holiday. And, that act of not denying yourself a fast, will help to feed others. Hopefully, it is said, the poor will benefit.

My story is now ended. All that is left is to get picked up by Kamal at 9:30 tomorrow morning, Sept. 26, and be on our British Airways flight to London. There, another few weeks will provide us with yet more stories, laughs, people and side trips down the narrow lanes and busy streets of London and the open skies, often full of rain, along the footpaths of Dorset. Join us again in a few days as I revisit old haunts of my days living in Dorset.

Don’t go away…

[Mariam. Photo is mine.]

Good night from Morocco.

A note to my readers: When I get back home I will have a project that will be published on n WordPress and YouTube. It was filmed two nights ago when we had dinner in the Market. We did a walk through the amazing chaos of the night. Right now it’s a nearly 8 minutes of unbroken video. I plan to edit it and add some music…but not too much because the sights need the sounds . The clapping, calling, music and more. Just be patient.

At The Monkey Finger Mountains: The Palm Frond Boys And The Sad Girl

[The Monkey Finger Mountains in the Sahara. Photo is mine.]

Nearly every bone and muscle in my body was saying to me: Did you just ride into the desert on a large animal with a large hump? I ignored the voices coming from the dark regions of my body and sat back in the seat of our van.

Would you like to stop here to see The Monkey Finger Mountains? Kamal asked.

Sure, I said.

So we pulled over onto an overlook. A dozen cars and mini-busses were scattered about. I was reaching for my iPhone when I felt twelve eyes looking at me through the window. There were six boys outside, standing in the crumbled gravel and holding green objects in their hands. I knew they were going to try and sell me their goods. I was prepared to say no. We got out and I said no. The three of us snapped a few pictures and I shot a video or two of the spectacular landscape. They did indeed resemble the fingers of a monkey. We were just about to return to the car when I heard:

Excuse me.

It was a young girl, about ten years old. She was Muslim but she was not wearing a Hajib. Instead, she was wearing dark blue pants and a grey hoodie. She was holding out her hand. In her palm were three coins. I recognized them as Euros. Instinctively, I said:

I’m sorry.

I tried looking at her face, but she never raised her head. She just simply stared at the coins in her hand, clearly disappointed. I immediately felt sorry for her. She continued to stare at her hand. Within seconds, the boys crowded around, most holding Euros. One boy had two US dollar bills. I looked at Mariam and then to Kamal.

Don’t we have some way to change these for them? I asked.

We changed the small coins and the dollar bills for the boys.

Now for her, I said.

We completed the exchange for her and walked off to our car. I looked back at the boys. They were approaching a car that had just pulled in. I saw the girl, her head down, standing by herself…away from the boys. I felt another pang of sorrow for this sad girl. She was alone. I’ve often been alone and it’s not a feeling I would wish on anyone. No one should feel alone…unless it’s by choice. Their choice. Not a comfortable way to feel throughout the day. And, I got the feeling that she was often alone. Alone in her solitude…in a strongly patriarchal society.

But, it was not over. As we made our way to the paved road, I looked back. There was a group of about ten tourists, posing in front of the Monkey Finger Mountains. The sad girl had made her way to the viewpoint. She stood in front the group as if this were her extended family.

Sadness came over me one more time. She wanted to be noticed, to belong to something larger. Her group of male friends had ignored her. We nearly ignored her. The group was ignoring her.

Is this the way she lived?

What were her innermost thoughts on that day. On that day in front of the Monkey Finger Mountains.

[This is a downloaded image from Google. It is not the Sad Girl in my post. Kamal suggested that it might not be appropriate to photograph her. So I didn’t. The girl in the image here is in an urban environment, not the Sahara. And I doubt she is Muslim. I may be wrong about the last statement. It’s intended to depict a lonely girl in a hoodie. This way, it works. I wanted to give my readers a visual. Source: Google search.]

A Tale of Very Old Water Tunnels, Dying Palms & A Police Citation

[One of the many towns we encountered on our way west…toward Marrakesh. Photo is mine.]

Traveling-it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.

~~ Ibn Battuta

The Great Dunes are behind us. My dream of riding into the largest desert in the world has been fulfilled. I have no regrets, except for the lingering feeling that I was not the only one to be sorry to leave. I do believe that the dunes themselves will be missing me. Missing my affection, my need to be close among them. And my hope that they will stay as pure and undeveloped for others to enjoy…and for me to return to someday.

We turned west and began our long drive to Marrakesh. Oddly, we have found ourselves in the eastern Sahara only a few weeks after rare rainfalls. The dunes were almost a light chocolate color. Now we drove through small lakes covering the road and walking in silt, an inch thick. Everywhere, women in black or men in long white djellabas sweeping the dust from doorways and sidewalks. We pass groups of boys kicking a soccer ball. Four or five young girls stand together, chatting and laughing.

We entered a narrow valley and I noticed that there were a number of blackened Palm trees.

A forest fire, he said. But in some locations they purposely burn Date Palms. He then told me a strange and interesting story:

When a Palm tree faces death, a bio-chemical reaction takes place and the tree produces extra growth hormones. The dates harvested from partially burned trees are very good. A sort of good-bye to the world. The ones burned in the forest fire are growing back but there were no extra hormones. I found this story of a dying tree producing chemicals that would be the tree’s last hurrah a bit poignant.

[Date Palms caught in a forest fire. They had no chance to produce the sumptuous fruit, but they are growing back with new leaves at the crown. Photo is mine.]

Kamal points out some moderate sized mounds off to the right. They made a row that stretches for miles.

I see them, I said. What are they for?

It’s a very old irrigation system. Dating from the 11th or 12th century, He said.

Interesting, I said.

[Notice the linear mounds. They’re the Khettaras and they are very old. Photo is mine.]

Want to look closer at one? he said.

A few minutes later we pulled into a small parking lot. A man in traditional clothing stood by a small structure. Kamal said something to him and we walked past and up a small mound. It resembled an old-style well, the kind you see in The Wizard of Oz or Little House on the Prairie. We looked down into the blackness. He rolled a wooden wheel with his feet bringing up a basket.

They would bring up the sand with these buckets, he said. He then stood back and pointed to similar mounds that stretched into the distance. In those days, this is the way water was brought down from the High Atlas Mountains. They’re called Khettaras. Want to go down? he said.

Down where? I asked.

Let’s go, he said. We went back to the place where the man was standing. I looked down into the semi-darkness. Down we went, about thirty steps. At the bottom, I found myself standing in a tunnel that could have been part of set for a Stars Wars sequel.

[This tunnel connects with the mounds on the surface. They were once filled with water but have been replaced with modern aqueducts. Photo is mine.]

I found the whole thing quite interesting, but we had places to go and a person to see. So we continued eastward. Now, at this point, the effects of the camel ride from the day before was beginning to manifest itself in my inner thighs and lower. Nothing new, really. I unsnapped the seat belt and made a cushion of my shirt on Mariam’s lap. She’s the strong one. I am made of weaker stuff and needed to stretch out. It wasn’t much of a stretch since the empty seat belt things were jamming me in the back. Kamal had some quiet but very lovely Moroccan music playing from his Spotify playlist. I closed my eyes and began to dream of sand dunes. Three minutes later, I was dreaming of camels and an especially difficult rock forward and back, side to side. Soon I was talking to my camel. Mariam later claims I snored for a few minutes. I told her no, I was talking camel.

The car gently jolted to a stop and I was awake.

Patrick, said Kamal. Seat belt.

I sat up and a policeman was standing near the door staring at me. He said something to me. I was speechless. I had a flashing image of me in a Moroccan prison for not wearing a seat belt. That doesn’t even happen in New Jersey, so I thought I was safe. But no. In the end, I was faced with a fine of 300 dirham. Kamal later succeeded in getting it reduced to 100.

And so we were on our way once again. We met his sister in a small town and arrived, at the end of a rocky, narrow road, at one of the most interesting hotels I’ve ever stayed in.

It’s spacious and old, or it looks old. And I’d like to think it’s haunted.

If not, it looks haunted.