Ely with Olivia - A Perfect Day Trip from Cambridge

Last week Olivia and I took the bus to the cathedral town of Ely. The history of the cathedral is particularly interesting to us because the original monastic community there was begun by a woman, a Saxon princess named Etheldreda . 1400 years ago Etheldreda married to a local prince and was given the Isle of Ely as a dowry. At that time, Ely was surrounded by marshes and accessible only by boat. Etheldreda’s first husband died and she married another prince, Egfrid. Seven years later Etheldreda had a vision and wished to become a nun. Egfrid released her from the bonds of marriage and she joined a monastery, but before long, Egfrid changed his mind and came to collect her. Etheldreda fled to the Isle of Ely and took refuge there. She founded a double monastery for monks and nuns in 673, but died six years later of a throat tumor brought on by the bubonic plague. When her wooden coffin was reopened in 695, her body had been preserved and the tumor healed. Thus the already revered woman became saintly. For 200 years the monastery flourished, but in 869 the Danes came and burned and pillaged everything.

In 970 the ruined monastery was reopened and in 1081 the work on the cathedral began. Many of the materials used in building the cathedral were brought to the site by boat. The cathedral is a wonderful mix of architecture from Norman all the way through to Victorian. Two unique features are the Lady Chapel completed in 1349 and the largest of its kind and the wooden octagonal lantern.

The Lady Chapel would have originally been brightly painted with beautifully colored stained glass and adorned with statues of saints. All this was destroyed in 1541 after the dissolution of the monasteries. Now, it is completely white with an striking statue of Mary in a bright blue gown, arms reaching towards the heavens, responding to God’s call. We both like the statue very much, but some people have criticized it for not being reverent enough.

The octagonal, wooden lantern was constructed after the central Norman tower fell in 1322. Instead of rebuilding a square tower a monk named Alan de Walsingham had the idea of opening the space up even more and created an eight-sided tower topped with a striking combination of 200 tons of wood and lead.

As we walked through the chapel pointing out scenes to each other in the stained glass windows, we both whispered. It does fill you with awe and wonder to be in such a place, marked and visited for more than a thousand years. As we left, we walked down the street and through the old porta, the huge stone gatehouse that you would have entered to get to the monastery originally. In a pasture on what used to be the site of the medieval vineyard, we watched 3 shaggy ponies munching on parsnips .

Merry Christmas

Ho, Ho, Ho

There are some times when you realize that you really don’t belong in this country, much as you may love it.

Last week we went to something called “Reindeer Night” at a local farm. Olivia’s choir from school was singing, and Wendy had arranged for a ride earlier. Eliot and I decided it would be fun to tag along too.

It was dark and about 35 degrees and raining steadily when Eliot and I set off at 4:15. Our friend Devrin dropped us off at some shops several miles outside Cambridge; we had been instructed to make use of the “park and ride scheme” because parking at the farm itself was limited. We had originally invited Devrin and his kids along with us, but he muttered something about a phone call and headed back to Cambridge. Devrin is a smart guy; I should have been paying better attention.

Confident, however, in the “park and ride scheme” and in the general organizational competence of the English, Eliot and I waved goodbye to Devrin and trudged off into the night. It was dark. And cold. And wet. And muddy. None of the parking attendants had heard anything about a park and ride scheme. They suggested we wait out by the road.

Twenty minutes later, Eliot, who had been chattering merrily away all this time, asked me why we were standing next to a busy road, in the middle of a field, in the rain. This struck me as a remarkably intelligent question. So we trudged back to find the parking attendants. In the interval they had determined that there indeed was a park and ride scheme in operation, though no one knew exactly when it would begin to operate. They advised patience.

Several other parents had straggled in by this time, though none of them, as I think about it now, had a three year old in tow. And they were all wearing wellies. It was about this time that it began to dawn on me that I may have seriously misjudged this particular venture. But this was also about the time (quarter past five, for those of you keeping score at home) that lights appeared in the distance. Things were looking up!

The lights got closer, and the roar of an engine louder. Here, at last, after standing in the rain and the cold and the mud for 45 minutes, was our park and ride scheme. The kind folks from the farm had sent it for us, and it was …. a tractor. Yep. A tractor. Or, to be perfectly accurate, a tractor pulling a hay wagon.

Well, we were going to a farm, after all.

Now, I grew up in a cold-ish part of the world (New Hampshire) and I think of myself as fairly tough. But the chill of an English winter is of a different order. 35 degrees isn’t that cold by the thermometer, but I’d rather have zero in New Hampshire than 35 here. Unlike the raging, good vs. evil spiritual warfare of a New England winter, where you always know whose side you’re on and that light will eventually triumph over darkness if you just hang on long enough, the damp of an English winter sneaks around, insinuating itself like Iago into your thoughts, your attitude, your whole outlook on life. Coleridge said that Iago was an example of “motiveless malignancy,” and that pretty much gets to the heart of a rainy English night in December.

Fifteen minutes later, the hay wagon deposited us at the farm. Eliot and I had now spent a full hour getting to Reindeer Night. And what was Reindeer Night? Well, for three pounds a head you get to walk around in the mud with hundreds of other people, look at a few donkeys—and, well, that’s about it, really. You could spend a couple of extra pounds for some mulled wine in a paper cup. The ubiquitous Santa in his grotto was there, too, but Olivia has I think seen enough old men in grottos for one year. Oh—and there were reindeer, too, in a stable. They looked rather the worse for wear, to be honest. Santa must have worked them pretty hard over the last couple of years before retiring to his grotto.


Trying to restore feeling to my feet by stamping and jumping, peering at a bunch of broken down reindeer, slipping and sliding around in the dark, feeling mud and who knows what else slowly seeping through the soles of my shoes, I realized that, to coin a phrase, I’m just not from around here. It’s as if there’s a hidden code, and if you see the words “farm” and “night” and “December” in relative proximity to each other, you immediately think: “leave three-year-olds at home,” “wear wellies,” “bring a torch” “expect a tractor,” and “pretend to have a good time.” Unless, of course, you’re me, in which case that particular neuron didn’t fire, and you bring your three year old out in his sneakers to sit in the rain in an open hay wagon because you thought, in your innocence, that it would be “fun” to see some reindeer. I looked around. No one else had brought a three year old. Everyone else was wearing wellies. And, just to rub it in, they were all pretending to have a good time, too.

Ah: I almost forgot the reason we had gone through all this. Olivia’s choir sang Christmas carols in the Reindeer’s stable. And—but you knew this already—they sounded magnificent.

The Nativity Pageant At Holy Trinity

This morning Eliot and Olivia participated in the annual Nativity Pageant at the church we attend here in Cambridge. You see Olivia standing outside the church with some of her friends. Olivia was Mary and Eliot was Sheep #1. Both had lines to memorize and said them perfectly. As these things go, the pageant went off fairly well considering there were, at a minimum, 15 three year old sheep.

The Barton School Christmas Fayre

This morning Olivia and I attended her school Christmas Fayre with two of her good friends, Heidi and Morgan. And no, I didn't spell it incorrectly. Based on my first experience, the annual school Christmas Fayre seems to be a Christmas bazaar and school carnival rolled into one. The school's multipurpose room was filled with stalls selling Christmas crafts that the children had made, baked goods and various games you could play for a small fee.

Olivia tried her luck at the "Lucky Lolly"stall (received a unmarked lolly, so no prize), the "Jammy Jar" stall (won a jar full of goodies only a kid would love: plastic monster finger puppet, plastic bear, plastic bendy pencil and a box of smarties - which are like M&Ms and probably made of plastic), and the snowman raffle, where to my amazement she won a stuffed snowman on her first try. The odds were against her so I thought that one would be a safe. At least the snowman wasn't plastic.

She finished the morning off with a visit to Santa in his grotto. There, for a mere 2 pounds, you are allowed behind the tinsel barrier and escorted by an adult elf, through a little maze of what I think are supposed to be snowdrifts, but which really look like piles of boxes covered in white sheets bedecked with candles, to an elderly Santa crouching in a dimly lit corner. I think we both thought the set up a bit odd, so I accompanied her. After a brief visit in which Santa asked her her name and her age, but not where she lived, she received a wrapped gift. It turned out to be a set of plastic craft beads.

Abroad during Election Day

Today is the first time since we've been here that I wish I was back home. I'd like to stand in line with some other Americans at the polls and feel like I'm part of history. As it is, we printed out and mailed in our absentee ballots a while ago and there's nothing to do today. By the time the first polls close it will be after midnight here. I doubt we'll still be awake. Being abroad during a presidential election, especially one like this where so much is at stake, seems wrong. I've been reminded, though, that the English do care what happens in America. More than Americans ever care about what happens in another country's presidential election.

This past Saturday, I was chatting with a man at a rummage sale, and his eagerness to talk about the election was genuine. He wanted to know what I thought and was eager for my response. He knew all about the candidates. For the last 6 weeks, every Sunday morning, at the church we attend, prayers have been offered on behalf of the American people and the candidates running - that God will guide and direct our decisions and our next president. I attend a women's Bible study on Tuesday mornings. We begin with someone opening in prayer. This morning a prayer was given by a woman named Maggie. Her only prayer was for the people of America as they voted today, and she asked that whoever is elected will guide the country with wisdom and justice. She prayed that her grandchildren, who are American citizens, would never have to fight in a war. And I realized that we are all hoping for the same.

It's good to be somewhere else and be reminded that the decisions we make do affect each other - greatly. And it's good to be reminded how to care about the rest of the world too.

Those Friendly Brits

A few weeks ago, when we visited Bury St. Edmund’s, our kids were clambering around on the ruins of the old Abbey there. The ruins are in a lovely public park, open to all. It was early in the morning, and we were some of the first people there. An older British couple wandered by, and the woman looked at our children for a moment. I expected her to make some comment about how cute they were (that’s what usually happens). But instead, she looked at me and said, in her proper middle-class British way: “These are very important ruins; I don’t think children should be climbing on them.”

I was, admittedly, taken aback. There were no signs saying to keep off, the place is a public park, and indeed, within an hour, there were probably 50 kids dashing around and over the ruined walls. So it’s clear we weren’t breaking any rules. The key here is the woman’s phrasing: “I don’t think….” She apparently felt perfectly entitled to give her opinion about the behavior of our children, despite the fact that they were a) not disturbing her; and b) not breaking any rules. She probably also heard our accents and saw our backpacks and pegged us as stupid Americans who wouldn’t know culture if we fell over it.

Of course, I spent the next hour thinking of all the clever and devastating things I could have said. Like, “Oh, these are very important ruins? I thought they were just a bunch of old stones!” Or, “I just love the warmth of the British people, you know?” Or, “Thanks, but no one asked you.” Or maybe, “Where I come from we still have an empire, not just ruins” (though, on second thought, that one’s not strictly accurate). Anyway, what I did say was “I don’t think they’re hurting anything,” which I thought was all right given the circumstances and considering that I’m a pretty conflict-averse person. And, amazingly, she came right back at me: “They still shouldn’t be climbing on them,” she announced, before turning on her heel and marching away.

I was reminded of this incident the other day, during Halloween. As Wendy mentioned in her earlier post, trick-or-treating isn’t really that common over here. But it’s not because people think there might be a danger to children, or someone might give them poisoned candy. Just the reverse, actually. Apparently 6-year olds requesting candy once a year is both an invasion of privacy and terrifying for pensioners (aka senior citizens). The other day a local newspaper noted, very seriously, that “Halloween can be harmless fun, but sometimes members of the community can become distressed by unexpected callers.” (Unexpected callers? How could they be unexpected, unless you’ve somehow missed that it’s Halloween?) On the BBC web site today there was a story entitled “Should Halloween be banned?” And lots of communities give away signs like the one on the right. And on reflection, though I'm sure some of Olivia's disappointment this year had to do with not scoring much candy, I wonder if there's a deeper level as well, in which she was forced to confront that fact that kids just aren't at the center of the world here, even on a day (like Halloween) that's supposed to be for them.

So part of it is that the British just don't indulge children the way that Americans do. And the over-60 crowd can be particularly chilly. But the other part is this sense of privacy, which is interesting because, of course, in many ways people over here live much less private lives. Their homes are smaller and closer together, they're outside in public a lot more, they take public transportation more often. All these things help make European quality of life much higher in all kinds of ways. But there may be a kind of compensation in which you've got to protect what few boundaries you have left. In the US we barricade ourselves in huge homes and sentimentalize children. In the UK they do neither.