It’s The End, But It’s Far From Over

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain

I wish, I wish I was a youth again

But a youth again I can never be

Till apples grow on an ivy tree.

~~”Love Is Pleasing” The Dubliners

[The Bridge of Sighs, Venice. Photo is mine]

I didn’t think I could do it. I worried that we couldn’t afford it. I thought we were taking on too much. Was it more than we could pull off? Somehow, though, it all came together and it worked like a charm on a little girl’s bracelet. We were older by four years since our last visit to England. Even then I had trouble walking and had to scurry through muddy fields to catch up with Mariam and our friends.

I didn’t think I could do it.

I had taken her to England and shared with her the footpaths that I love. The thatched cottages, pubs, fields of rape, Roman roads, Christmas pantomimes, chilly and quiet country churches, mossy churchyards that were surely haunted. Stone walls of Yorkshire, crashing waves of the Cornish Coast, the Jamaica Inn, the Ploughmans lunch, steak and kidney pies, a room temperature pint of The Best Bitter, the bell (“Time, Gentleman, please”), the jaw-dropping grandeur of the Gothic English Cathedrals, driving on the left, the hedgerows that were over four hundred years old, the fields of sheep, sitting on a log in a gloomy forest with cold water, a chunk of bread and a chunk of Stilton, the effigies in the old churches, Jane Austen’s grave in Winchester Cathedral, the manor houses, lonely country lanes, place names like Hoo Farm, Puddletown, Sturminster Newton, Plucks Gutter, Blue Pigeons, Maypole, Chislet Marshes and Wagtail to name a few. I sat with her atop a Tumulus, where the ancient ashes of forgotten local chieftains are mingling with the soil. We sat under the hot sun in Trafalgar Square, walked the halls of art of the National Gallery, ate lunch in a crypt beneath St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, graves beside our table. I took her to the Barley Mow Pub where I drank a pint or two of the “Best Bitter” beer.

I had shown her the England that meant something special to me. An England that held many memories of many trips over the decades.

But after the Covid lockdown we were anxious to travel again. Mariam had been talking about showing me the beauties of Italy for years. She wanted to show me the Sistine Chapel in Rome and DiVinci’s Last Supper in Milan. During my travels in Europe, somehow Italy eluded me. Someone once told me that there was no off season in Rome. Somehow, the idea of crowds put me off any plans to tour Italy.

Until the day I came to realize that it was high time that Mariam had a go at planning a trip and sharing with me the places that she had seen years before we met. Crowds or no crowds, I became interested in seeing for myself the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica.

While we were working out an Italian itinerary, something on the Internet came across my screen. It was a cruise from Venice to Rome calling at ports along the Dalmation Coast. We would see Croatia and Montenegro. It was a relatively small ship (number of passengers were about 275). This wasn’t a Carnival Cruise by any means. It suited us just fine. Despite the hefty cost, we booked the trip. I have posted several blogs that described our experiences. The foul weather prevented us from visiting a few places, but one can’t control the weather. We rode a gondola in Venice, climbed hills in Rovinj, walked in the rain at Pompeii, and saw the Pope in Rome.

[The Duomo in Milan. Photo is mine]

From Milan we went to Lake Como to see the beautiful villages. We returned to Milan and rode the train for six hours to Paris. A week in Paris. We walked a cemetery and saw the graves of artists and existentialists. We celebrated my birthday in a nice restraurant. We went to see the show at the Moulin Rouge.

The Chunnel Train took us to London. A Jack the Ripper tour, tickets to Hamilton and just wandering for a few days.

A quick return to Dorset to visit our dear friends. And then, something new. Something I had been reading and thinking about for many years. A short 5-day trip on a canal. We chose the Kennett Avon Canal not too distant from Salisbury.

Then Brighton to see what an old Seaside Resort looked like. And, of course, the famous Pier.

From Brighton we drove to the White Cliffs of Dover. I had made it so far. I felt good. Mariam felt good. Onto to our final destination…Canterbury.

I had been here several time since the mid-1980’s for only for a brief visit. This time I made sure we set enough time aside for me to sit in the vastness of the Cathedral and sketch some architectural features. We sat in the quiet of Crypt where Becket’s body was first placed after his martyrdom.

Today we walked the Great Stour Way for 2.51 miles. I was uncomfortable but able to walk without holding onto Mariam. I plan to post this on Saturday June 24th. Then I will go down into the crypt at the Cathedral again to attempt to draw the arches and capitals and columns in the cool dark rooms.

Tuesday will find us packing. My problem is where to find the room for the books I bought during this extended adventure.

I will ask Mariam to sit beside me and I will recite a favorite short poem by A. E. Housman from A Shropshire Lad:

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, What farms are those?

~ ~ ~

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

So, here, very near the end…is this the last adventure I will be having? No more walking the footpaths of Dorset, Yorkshire or Kent? Will Mariam push open another swing bridge on another canal? Will I sit in the chill of another forgotten parish church and look at the slabs on the floor that mark the graves of a long-dead villager? Have I reached the age and have I reached the point when anything is a little too much?

I hope this is not the final post from across the sea. I need to see the breathtaking dunes of the Sahara Desert, look down into the vast fjords of Norway or cross the equator and take a boat up the Amazon.

Sometime soon, maybe not in my remaining years, but almost certainly in my grandson’s life, much of what we are so used to seeing as our physical world will be changed.

I hope it not too late, for me or my descendants.

[A portion of the floor of Canterbury Cathedral. The stone has been polished by the steps of pilgrims and seekers for a thousand years. Photo is mine]