returning home

It's a beautiful, mildly sunny morning here, in London. 

(out my window, towards the back this time)

I almost wish I had another day here. I say "almost." I am so ready to go home.

My flight is at noon. I plan to leave the hotel at 9, and so I can fit in an early morning walk. After breakfast. They can be pokey with serving it and I don't want to take chances.

Where might I walk? Well, in many previous visits to London, I'd stayed closer to Sloan Square. Same Kensington neighborhood, but away from the chaos of Brompton Road. I walk over there now. Not so much for old times sake, but for the quiet.

I guess I expected a tidier face of London in these blocks which, after all, are at a price point you wouldn't believe. 

But no. For a society that is so darn stratified, trash here knows no class boundaries. It's everywhere. Such a visually interesting city...

... with such indifference to litter.

Okay, you probably think I'm exaggerating. That I come here with a bias. Ha. I'll break from my principled position of respect for the local, not liking to post pics that highlight the indignities of a tough existence, just because I think London deserves this:

And this...

And in the very lovely block of my hotel (though not next to it), this:

So I ask the staff -- is it that there is a trash collectors' strike, or is there some problem with rubbish removal service? No, they tell me. It's the way Londoners are. Indifferent to it. They'll put their trash right next to a sign telling them not to do so. (Yes, see above!) In front of their own homes, seemingly hurting themselves too. 

Is it that they've given up? Or is there no pride of place? We're not talking impoverished neighborhoods. This is a district of expensive homes. 

And speaking of expensive homes, there's another trait in this town that I don't much care for: padlocked private parks.

It used to drive me nuts when I'd spot a small green space on the map, walk over with the girls (when they were little) and find that "Do not Enter" sign. Walking past this particular little park, I see that no one is using it. And yet there is stands: locked. [Some wealthy Londoners with private access to such city gardens "generously" let in the public for two days each year. Read about it here.]

What can I say -- the city has so many virtues. It's vibrant, diverse, culturally exciting, visually -- well, potentially grand. But you have to not mind its problems and at my age, I do mind, especially since so many places in this world, in Europe where I usually travel, do have a pride of place. We're on this planet for such a short spec of time. It seems obvious to me that we are all responsible for the people and places we encounter in our very small orbit. We owe them something. Care, kindness, respect.

Londoners, get it together! Do better by your city!

(I'll leave you with a photo that makes me smile: the discreet sign by the door, announcing my hotel. Nothing flashy, nothing grand. Just small and intimate.)

 

At the airport, I find hierarchies firmly in place and my dedication to Delta pays off. I'm zipped through without hassle or delays. Given my back and knee issues, I am actually very grateful.

And the flight takes off on time. (I watch endless episodes of Frazier for the 8 hour 8 minute flight to Detroit, laughing too loudly, dozing off occasionally. Some traveler recently wrote that on overseas flight, light TV reruns are the best. I agree. Movies are hit or miss and finding one you like can be frustrating, but known to you TV shows? A real chuckle can be had.) And my layover in Detroit is the perfect amount of waiting minutes and by 6 pm, Ed is there at Madison's airport, waiting.

I have missed you, my travel-hating ever patient partner in the project of living a principled, calm and happy farmette life. So good to be home.Tomorrow, I'll take stock of the damage my absence has done in the flower fields. Tonight, I just want to stay content with being back.

with so much love...

to London

You travel, you suffer the inconvenience, you see beautiful things, you go home and it's done. If you traveled well, you will have stimulated your senses deeply. The show you bought tickets for, whether a classical performance or Taylor Swift, moved you to tears, the museum opened your eyes to new art forms, the meal you ate was like no other. You're ready to do all this again: a new place, with the potential for new impressions, new beautiful parks, new tasty foods, here we go! And again! It's like me to live like this. Soaking in what I see, whom I meet, what I eat. But every once in a while, I demand more of myself. 

On this trip, I demanded more. 

Poland required of me that extra charge. I needed more stamina, for one thing! Social perseverance. You have to remember that I am a quiet person who rarely these days steps out of her home orbit. I see friends. Occasionally. Certainly not every day for periods of 6, 7, 8 hours at a time, nine days in a row. That intensity works beautifully for those friends who are almost family, but otherwise -- it's work!

Sissinghurst -- it asked that I focus with care, with an open mind and heart. It asked that I bring back thoughts and images I've had that lay dormant for decades now. It very much set forth the stage for my future conduct -- in the farmette flower fields and beyond. In other words, I needed to get ready for it, and I needed to take away more than just a stack of flower notes and photos and the occasional souvenir. 

All this has been exhausting and as a result, I've consistently slept poorly. (The more mentally tired I am, the worst the night promises to be.) It hasn't helped that I seem to have shot my unreplaced knee early on and the pain from that is irritating, especially at 3 o'clock in the morning. I took a selfie yesterday in the gardens and looking at it, I thought -- my, but I suddenly look ancient! It may have been the lighting. I don't think it was the lighting.

But this last night, my next to last night in Europe and final night at Sissinghurst -- I slept beautifully. The magic of Sissinghurst? Maybe. More likely, the contentment that follows when you truly believe that you did the best you could and did not shy away from the challenges. (And nothing fell apart and you didn't get sick and the weather was like a gift!)

I wake up smiling. Good morning, Sissinghurst!

It's going to be a beautiful day!

I go down to breakfast early. So that I can sit by the window. Mmmm, wonderful breakfast options once again.

 

And once again I go on to a second course, this time just porridge. 

It's just after 9 when I am done and packed and ready to go. Richard will be driving me to the station in Staplehurst, but not for another hour.

I go for a walk. Toward the Estate buildings first. Closed of course, but still, it gives me a few minutes to just stand outside and look. And reinforce all that I have taken away from here. 

It also gives me a chance to see a family member walk over to the private wing. Who are you? In age, you could be the son of the grandson. [Adam is the grandson of Vita and Harold. He has five children -- three sons by a first wife, two daughters by his second wife who is the very well known and well regarded author and gardener, Sarah Raven. But Adam and Sarah rarely come down to Sissinghurst. Rumor has it that they have a fraught relationship with the National Trust. Something to do with the mini series that was made about Sissinghurst and the Trust and Adam and Sarah's plan to do organic farming and grow fruits and vegetables here. There were issues. You can watch some of it on YouTube.]

(I think this cottage too is used by the family)

I walk on. To the vegetable garden, because the walk there passes the stretch of countryside that I find so beautiful...

And because the vegetable garden remains open 24/7. And, of course, there's beauty in all that grows here.

As I study the layout, admire the berries, the pea pods, the sunflowers, my thoughts go back to the Estate itself: it attracts visitors from all over the world, but it's not as if it's ever packed. Right now, in August, there are no buses dropping off tired groups of seniors (though there are plenty of seniors! Gardens always attract an older crowd). It is no Giverny. It's tame here. You dont have to come in the last hour before closing to feel you have the place to yourself. [I'm sure it gets more crowded in spring. Understandable. August is a slow month in the gardens. Vita wrote this about August: "dull time, heavy time, when everything has lost its youth and is overgrown and mature." Still, Monet's garden attracts 500 000 visitors each year. Sissinghurst -- more like 100 000.]

And I wonder -- the people who come for the gardens, are they the live and let live type, without the judgemental horror that I think would belong to those who find unusual relational behavior to be reprehensible? Can you even separate Sissinghurst, the gardens, from Sissinghurst, the estate once owned and managed by Vita and Harold? Should you?

 

 

 

It's a good ending to my visit here.

 

On the drive to the station, we talk about Sissinghurst. Who lives there now, their relationship to the National Trust, the future of all these mansions in Britain, given that even the wealthy here are often cash poor and cannot pay the required taxes on their inheritance, let alone maintain the properties to a "proper standard."

Though many of these estates wind up being donated to the National Trust, Sissinghurst is different, in that a handful of visitors can actually stay on the premises (me, for example).  Richard tells me there's no other National Trust property quite like it. So I ask him how is it that he and Anna became "owners for a decade." Perhaps predictably, it's complicated. Richard was the vicar in the village. He and Anna befriended the previous "owners" and when their time was up, he was ready for the challenge. Anna, who has a background in hospitality, was less certain about plunging forth. But plunge they did and put in a bid, and then it was down to a dozen finalists, and then down to six, and finally theirs won. And now day in and day out, she is baking cakes for tea and overseeing the kitchen in the mornings and corresponding with silly people like me who want to know about the local restaurants and whether a certain room is bright and sunny, while he is attending to the finances and acting as a taxi service to those (again, like me) who come here without a car.

Perhaps the only good thing about this kind of work is that it shuts down for three winter months.

You mean you're open in March already? Good to know!

(Train ride to London)

And now I am back in my hotel, the Knightsbridge, a lovely place in a godawful (from my perspective) part of town. Or is it that all of London just seems this way to me? Crowded noisy and dirty? (Think: rubbish on the streets, heaping trash bags waiting at the curb for who knows how long for pick up... like New York! Which is one reason why I do not like New York.)

I would have tried another neighborhood of the city, a quieter one, with a more neighborhoody feel to it, but I was tied to this one because of my missing suitcase. Which did eventually show up here. But, not to fuss. I do like the hotel -- it's small and charming and once again they upgraded me to a giant room for who knows what reason. Maybe I joined some kind of loyalty program when booking. I tend to do that sort of thing.

One more impediment to my arrival in London: somewhere between Sissinghurst and London I blew out my lower back. Maybe I lifted a heavy bag too quickly. The fault is always with a sudden movement or a sudden heave, so now I am without a functional back and without a functional knee. This gives me an excuse not to do much this afternoon. You've got your view of the Parliament Buildings and Big Ben from the train, what else could you possibly want from this city!

Still, I do want my coffee, preferably with a pastry, so with great difficulty I get myself up and moving to venture out onto Brompton Road in search of a coffee shop. I'll give you one pretty sight of a side street:

And then the great monster road itself,  Brompton, though I've spared you the sidewalk with the piled trash. I have my standards!

Oh, and of my "lunch." I consider myself a bit of an expert on blueberry tarts, having sampled (and documented here on Ocean such samplings) at least a dozen this year alone, from France to Poland and now England, and I will say, this one in London is one heck of a good blueberry tart. They tell me it has elderflower something or other in it. I couldn't hear what exactly because older people cannot distinguish words easily when there is a din of music and loud talking in the dining area.

Toward evening I set out once again. I made a reservation in a restaurant that sounded just too good to pass by, even though google told me it's a 37 minute walk from my hotel and with my back and knee issues, I knew I needed to double that. 

I walked through Hyde Park. It was green. It was loud. It had many bicycles. People seemed happy.

(And I found an expanse that actually had few people or cyclists in it. It was not easy.)

 

(I also found a guy wearing a t-shirt which, if seen by my grandkids, would cause them to exclaim to me "hey, you say that all the time!" True. I do.)

And then back into the city. Having some time to kill, I side step onto nearby Oxford Street. 

 

 

I already know that I'm not a fan of it. I've always disliked it because it's so packed with so many irrelevant stores, but I'm near Selfridges, yet another department store (I've already checked Harvey Nichols earlier today) and I still haven't found anything for the kids. Clothes they can use in early fall.  

Nope. Not here either. These stores are for foreigners who have a few oil fields among their holdings, or Brits who talk in hushed voices lest someone recognize that they are toff. (I learned that word today! One of the restaurant people explained -- posh. It means posh.)

The restaurant, by the way, is called Apricity. 

 

 

 I had to look that word up -- it's a new one for me. It means the light and warmth of the sun. That sounds kind of new agey and it definitely is not what drew me here. What did pull me in was the write up (and of course the reviews). It's not cheap, but then nothing in this city is cheap. My tart and coffee eaten in humble surroundings had cost me $21.56. (I just looked at my credit card notice.) And honestly -- the dinner total was not that far away from yesterday's at the Milk House! Pretty remarkable considering I am in London.

About the restaurant and what drew me to it: Apricity uses (in their words) hyper-seasonal sustainable produce from small-scale farmers and locally foraged ingredients, with a low-waste approach to cooking. They get not a Michelin rosette, but a Michelin green star. I read about British vegetables here, and regeneratively farmed meat, and sustainably caught fish of the British Isles. And they pay a fair wage to their staff. This is a big deal to me, having worked in a restaurant for several years and having seen what happens when cooks, dish washers and waitstaff rely on discretionary tipping to get by. Here, the chef-owner is a woman and in London there are very few women chefs in good restaurants.

 

Yes, but how is the food???

It is very, very good. I'm going to say it because it's true: it was probably the best dinner I've ever had in any of my trips to London. 

It started with a fabulous Negroni drink: they collect leftover red wine and make vermouths out of them. This they add to their Negronis. For the meal, I ordered the stuffed zucchini flower with zucchini pieces and cucumber slices on the side. Pickled cucumber slices (they called it "smacked cucumber"). The British are very prone to adding pickled stuff to a cold dish.  

For the second course I ordered the mushrooms. 

 

 

 

Black pearl and oyster, over Flanders wheat. Hearing about where they were grown (in the city of London) and what was used to stimulate their growth was scary (this is London: anything grown here to me is suspect), but the combination of crispy and creamy was totally wonderful. 

And I ordered dessert. I had to! I asked for the strawberry dish which also had a basil granita and I believe cashew cream. It also had something crispy and sticky in it, which added a pleasant crunch, but the most memorable things was the combination of all these flavors. Outstanding! 

Are the British ready for this gem of a restaurant??

The walk home was... long. I considered hailing a cab, but the thought of that was somewhat terrifying as the traffic in the city remains dense, despite the fees imposed on drivers within the center. When I had asked about that on the long and congested ride from the airport the cabbie laughed and said -- the fees changed nothing. Everyone just pays them. And by the way, it's unfair! You own a car, you shouldn't have to pay to drive it. He told me!

 

 

So I walked. And I thought about how strange that I had bumped into a Taylor Swift concert in Scotland, I had bumped into the tail end of one in Warsaw, and now again -- Taylor Swift is here, in London. For you Swifties out there, let me reassure you, I am not just secretly here to attend her show!

And that was London for me. Tomorrow morning, I leave. To return home.

with love...

to Sissinghurst

How do I even begin to describe the pull I feel toward Sissinghurst... Let's start with this question: do you know about Sissinghurst? You don't? Let me describe its essentials.

Sissinghurst was the home of Vita Sackville-West (an author person and gardener extraordinaire) and her husband Harold Nicolson (a politician, diplomat, and also author person and gardener). They lived there from 1930 until she died in 1962 and he died in 1968. Their son, Nigel signed the property to the care and oversight of the National Trust in 1967, so that it could, well, continue to be cared for in a proper way. (Even as he stayed on, as did Vita's grandson.)

The property consists of some structures, a few crumbling walls and gardens. The Cottage Garden, the White Garden, the Purple Border -- but I'm getting ahead of myself. Because it's not just about flowers. Sissinghurst really is Vita's creation and it reflects her ideas about, well everything! Gardening to be sure: maximalist abundance! Minimalism, which I love in principle, doesn't belong in gardens. Here, bounty must rule. But Vita embodied more than just a passion for growing things. She had ideas and convictions that went against the grain of conventional life and, oh, maybe thirty years ago, I read about her, and I read her correspondence with Virginia Woolf (who was her lover for a while) and I was fascinated by it all. I always felt a pull toward those who bucked convention and I thought how it must be to let loose, at least at the edges. It's not easy to live according to your own moral compass, without fear of judgment. Of course, eventually I met Ed and with him, and with retirement, and with age, I relaxed and it became easier. 

Of course, Ocean is one big stand against convention. Who do you know that publishes daily updates on life as lived over the span of decades? And doesn't care that this just isn't done? And that so many frown at this behind your back (or not behind your back)?

But there's more: Vita surrounded herself with people who stood by her despite her peculiarities, if you want to call them that. I found this intriguing: she stayed married despite her passionate affairs with women. (It should be noted that Harold also had affairs -- his with men. But from what I've read, they also adored each other.) She had two kids, and eventually grandchildren, and yet she remained her own person. And all that is reflected in the ideas that drove her to throw herself with passion into the project of creating the gardens of Sissinghurst. And writing about gardening in a way that's beautiful, unusual and quite touching.

 Sometime in early spring, when I was toiling away at yet another garden expansion at the farmette -- this time pushing the Big Bed more into the courtyard -- I returned in my thoughts to Sissinghurst. I knew I'd be in Europe in August. The Poland trip. Why not stop in Sissinghurst on the return home? It proved to be a not so hard addition: a night in London, then a train ride to Staplehurst (near Sissinghurst)  and then two nights at Sissinghurst Castle Farmhouse before returning home.

That's the backstory. Now for this London morning:

Breakfast in the UK is always kind of predictable. Eggs with sausage, tomato, beans, with a toast rack of once warm toast. Brown or white. Or, better yet -- porridge, which is, I think, a horrible term they use for oatmeal. At my hotel, breakfast is slow, charming, and nicely decadent (meaning croissants, berries, etc.). I choose porridge.

My train to Staplehurst isn't until 1 pm, so I ramble around a little, sticking to my neighborhood, ultimately poking into the Harrods Department Store (Ed reminded me that I need nothing and therefore should buy nothing, even if Air France can and will pay for it) and especially its Food Halls. This is a very pleasant memory for me: Harrods Food Halls were my first introduction into the exquisite world of quality food, back when I was in London more frequently because my then husband did research on intellectual movements in England of past centuries. Sure, everything in the Food Halls was too expensive for us, but I'd never quite seen anything like this before (this was back in the late 70s and early 80s). A passion and dedication to quality in food. In London of all places. 

 

I do notice that what has happened to Harrods overall has also happened to the Food Halls. All of these food emporia are for the well heeled (pun intended). But Harrods is, in my view for the super well heeled. There are at least shelves of affordable biscuits in Paris' Bon Marche -- the French counterpart to this. In Harrods, there is nothing affordable in the whole store. (Can you tell by the photo above?)

I remember I got harshly reprimanded back in the day, for taking out my camera and trying to photograph what I saw. How times have changed...

(so British: Beef Wellington)

(so British: pigeon)

I see a Harrods uptick in poshness very quickly as I look around in the "casual" women's clothing department to pick up something I can charge to Air France when I send them my mildly annoyed letter. (The suitcase is now scheduled to arrive tonight, in London, even as I will already be gone.) I spend about 30 minutes there and I find nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a sweater or a t-shirt -- nothing at all that I could justify as an essential replacement for things Air France is holding onto. 

Not wanting to completely let go of my privileged position of great need as a consequence of their inept handling of my bag, I buy a face cream and a lipstick. Terribly expensive, but hey, these are essentials if you're without your cosmetics bag for a whole 24 hours plus, don't you think? (Receipts saved.)

Okay, time to take that train to Staplehurst. I leave instructions for my suitcase at the hotel and travel with just my tote. This fortuitous division of clothes took mega planning on my part! My Polish friends laughed that I had a list of what I would wear when, and what I would need on which day. But I had to do that! It's that or you over-pack!

And now it's time to go to Charring Cross Station. Crosssing the city as I go from my hotel to Charring Cross makes me realize that it's not just Harrods and the environs that draw crowds. London is teeming with people! So many visitors milling about! It's packed!

The Station itself, though, is great in that it has seats and the information board clearly tells you what train is pulling up where and when you can get on and what stops are on the way. Important word here: *clearly* and to be seen from all points in the big waiting room. You don't often see that in train stations (I'm lookin' at you, Madrid!). 

 

 

I take the train on the comfy Souteastern line, with Wifi. Train travel has gotten a lot of disgusted and scornful press in recent months in the UK, but anecdotally, I can report that not only was Charring Cross station comfy, but it was well stocked: people enjoyed their pasties while they waited.

I bought a glossy for the ride. (Can you guess which one?)

Yes of course -- the one with the "Save the Albion Cow" headline.

(train view, moving out of London across the Thames)

My home for the next two nights is jaw-dropping awesome: it is part of the Sissinghurst estate and it was once part of Vita and Harold's orbit: the Sissinghurst Farmhouse. Right now it is of course owned by the National Trust. Sort of. The Trust owns the "brick and mortar" of the house, but they lease the inside for a ten year period -- currently it's in the hands of Richard and Anna, a couple that furnish, take care of and operate the b&b.  And yes, you can walk from it right up to the gardens. 

Richard picks me up at the station and we talk about Sissinghurst, the set up with the Farmhouse, their work as b&b hosts. (I haven't met anyone who likes to do this for decades upon decades; I suppose you wear out changing towels and greeting guests, especially in a place like this where the average stay he tells me is 1.5 days.) 

The Farmhouse b&b:

View from my room is toward the rest of the estate:

Check in is at 4 and so I have an hour to kill. I walk over to the Sissinghurst Estate coffee shop and buy a crumble and a latte.

(In the coffee shop: the iconic photo of Vita and Harold)

And then I meander. Over to the gift shop.

Mistake.

You cannot imagine a more attractive gift shop for me than one that bases itself on these gardens, and on these writers who once lived here, and the art that they collected (think: Bristol Blue glass vases and bottles). Time flies when you're picking out cards *and such* to take home.

Outside again, I look out toward the fields: sheep, with birds on their backs...

I peak out at the entrance to the gardens and rest of the estate and talk to the ticket guard about optimal times to visit:

And then I return to the b&b to check in.

At the Farmhouse, Richard points me to the living room where they serve afternoon tea and freshly baked cakes and scones. Today it's lemon raspberry cake and scones with the whole clotted cream and jam deal. Of course, I just have to!

And I do that walk to the gardens for the first time today. The tickets person told me that the time when it's least crowded is in the last hour. The gardens close at 5:30. I'm there at 4:30 (and by the end, I have the entire huge place to myself). 

First, let me include here the Elizabethan Tower, because this is what first attracted Vita to the place (Harold, on the other hand, was swayed by the nut trees) back in 1930, when she first saw it.

 

 

You can climb up to take in the views, but, too, halfway up is where Vita chose to sequester herself to write. Harold never went there. Maybe two or three times in the decades they lived at Sissinghurst. The room has no windows, but a few more steps would lead you out to see Kent's landscape unfold before you. 

(And an inadequate photo for you of her room since you can't go inside it, and the Tower is narrow, so capturing the entirety or even her desk to the side is impossible...)

 

(along the Tower's stairwell...)

The views from the top:

I'm especially curious how the gardens fare in August, because this is a tough time for us gardeners in the northern climes. In late spring everything feels fresh, hopeful, abundant. In August it feels like you've made too many mistakes and allowed too much expansion in places where you wanted no expansion at all (phloxes, go easy on your neighbors!). Many of us basically throw up our hands and give up until next year.

So how is it in Sissinghurst?

It is at once more abundant and different than I had expected. Much more August-y. Not so much depleted, as in its "senior" phase. In Giverny, they make sure that each season explodes with color and abundance. But Vita (I read) saw this differently. She allowed her garden to transform itself as the season progressed. The National Trust follows her in this, though in some places, it has planted a few annuals --  dahlias come to mind -- to at least hint at what it's like there earlier in the summer. I'm going to post tons of pics from my walk today, but it'll be haphazard, reflecting my rather haphazard walk through it. I went where my eyes took me, ignoring the maps, the notes I had. That's the way I'll post photos today.

(Vita loved climbing roses)

(familiar to me glads!)

(a clematis, climbing a tree)

(In the last half hour, it was only him and me...)

(the White Garden is only a little white in August...)

So, was it absolutely inspiring? I think, in the end, that's the wrong word. Vita's garden and mine are hugely different, not only because she had sunshine galore (Ed! the trees! shade!), and magnificent crumbling walls as backdrops, but she also had gardeners working for her. She'd buy, they'd do the labor. (Yes, she and Harold came from wealth, and when her mother died and left her fortunes in part to her daughter, Vita and Harold put a heck of a lot of that fortune into Sissinghurst.)

But if not inspiring, then what?

Affirming. In the end, I truly think I understand her intent here and I share that intent on my own small scale and with sometimes different interpretations and expectation. I share, for example, her love of climbers. Vita discovered clematis late, but when she did, she incorporated it into her scheme with alacrity! I myself have 10 clematis climbing up houses, poles, trunks and trees. And I also love vines as backdrops. And she uses the gladiolus murielae bulbs! (I say "she" because the gardeners here try to stay faithful to her planting ideas). But more importantly, she strives for an effect that I understand and love and then let go of in August. On a small scale and with less knowledge to be sure. But I think given my means and energies, I'm experimenting in similar directions. (Think, too, meadows and orchards!)

In a separate building they had the library room where they entertained. Rarely. These were not party people, though each, of course, had strong relationships with others. All kinds of relationships. Yet their continued love for each other is well documented. I've always been impressed by that. Jealousy did not figure into their lives. A rare pair indeed!

In the evening I get a lift from Richard over to the Three Chimneys Restaurant. The weather turned from windy and mostly cloudy to wet and totally overcast. The dining spot itself is your classic English country pub type eatery. Three hundred years old, they claim. Award winning, they claim ("best pub dining in Kent!"). Locally sourced ingredients, they claim. My hosts' favorite eatery. Let's take a look:

 

Past the tumult of the pub...

... there is a vast dining room with a chalk board menu. I take the soup of the day (cauliflower and garlic) and the salmon (over spinach and potatoes). And because I'm in a British pub, I stick with their tap beer.

And it is all excellent! The soup is dense and flavorful, the fish -- perfectly prepared. One fourth the price of London, twice the tastiness. I'm not surprised.

It's very very late when I finally turn out the light. The Internet here is breathtakingly slow and I posted a record 43 photos today, each one taking seemingly hours to load. But I'm deeply content. Vita and Harold's garden, struggling between privacy and openness to the public in their lifetime, reminds me of my own ambivalence with this. As you know the farmette gardens are exceptionally private. Almost no one sees them in person. At the same time, I post endless photos of them here, on Ocean. Vita wrote about her gardening experiences in great detail (and wit and wisdom) for the Observer, without specifically mentioning what she was describing -- Sissinghurst. When she and Harold experimented with opening the estate to visitors (for a year or two they did this, for a couple of hours a week, charging a small entrance fee which you dropped in a bucket), Harold was appalled at the occasional presence of strangers. Vita, on the other hand, accepted it as a price to pay for having others see her work.

Tomorrow, I'll return to the gardens. Tonight, I have to log in some sleep!