Yule 2019

The end of November for us included Jethro Buck’s vernissage at the Crane Kalman Gallery on Brompton Road, my gastroscopy at the Royal Marsden (positive results), the Sophia conference on Johannes Kepler, the heathen ritual in honour of Tyr, Eastleigh with Claire, Clio & Malcolm and lunch at the New Forest Inn, the Thanksgiving dinner at the Club, a dinner with Chloe & Matt at Vardo’s, and a dinner at Sticks n Sushi with Patrick & Sue.

December’s pre-yule days began at the Royal Festival Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra (conductor: Christopher Warren-Green; pianist: Ivana Gavrić) and enjoying Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and Holst’s The Planets. We were able to place a poppy at the WWII Merchant Marine War Memorial for Keith's dad Charles Stanley Slack who had been on the ship Laconia. And then we took the train to Liskeard where Liz met us. Cornwall near Callington was, as always, enchantingly beautiful. We visited the market in Tavistock, the medieval manor house and mill at Cotehele, and had dinner at the Springer Spaniel. Liz is an incredible hostess, and we had wonderful conversations with her every day. A message from Giny in the Netherlands made us worry about Stephan & Koen in Amsterdam, but eventually we learned that they are both okay. Richard and I got back just in time for the Whitelands House Christmas Party. Our yule celebrations began the next day with the Agonium in honour of Sol Indiges, the ‘indigenous sun’.

The evening of 11 December, the Agonium, was the ‘mixer’ at our Club. It was a good start. The disappointment the following day was the sweeping Tory victory in the Brexit election. I turned the news off for the night as soon as it was clear what was happening. It’s been a lethargic melancholy since, and with James, Eamonn, Rix, Gin and Sylvester, we will have a Brexit wake chez nous on the 31st of January. Rix will make a goat curry.

For the Ides on the 13th, we lustrated our oak tree at the Duke of York’s, cooked our 18 pound turkey, visited Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park and had negroni. The next day, we tried to get to Penny’s in Putney but got the wrong bus and were only able to arrive five hours later. By the time we arrived, it was only family who were still present plus Carol’s daughter Samantha, but we still had a good time, and Guy and Caroline drove us home afterwards.

We buried the old year at sunset on the Consualia, the 15th. Richard and I celebrated the evening with Glenrothes whisky, and the following day with Penny we enjoyed at the Curzon Victoria the film Knives Out with Jamie Lee Curtiss, Chris Evans and Daniel Craig. Our Saturnalian indulgence on the 17th we did in the evening at home. A Marsden visit the following day. And then Barbara and Patrick arrived on the Opalia, the 19th. We had intended to attend the midwinter’s ritual of the Pagan Federation, but with an ink disaster on the bed soaking through the bedspread, our new white blanket, the sheets and underbed to the mattress – part of Richard’s vacating his work from the living room, we cancelled going to the Conway Hall at the last minute.

On the 21st, the Divalia, I phoned Fern in Naples. She is now 93 and has decided to move into an Independent Living set-up. Barbara and Patrick took us that night to the Pizza Express for dinner. Our concluding yule celebration are the Larentalia on the 23rd. Barbara and Patrick had left for the Windsors. Richard and I went to the courtyard of St. Michael’s Cornhill. The church itself, sadly, is still closed. It used to be the most pagan church, especially during the yuletide, of any of the City’s churches. We consoled ourselves with Irish coffees at the Royal Exchange which, surprisingly, were cold but still delicious. Negroni followed for us afterwards at the Club and then a lot more at home.

Christmas Eve was for us a 5:2 day. The mistake of the day was my opening an account with Investous. I will not say how much I lost in the week that ensued, but it hurts and was a complete scam. Christmas itself was at Ben & Tan’s and the family. We were 22 in all. Gin fetched us; we took an Uber home, but it was all a feast and fun.

Barbara and Patrick returned from the Windsors for one night. On the Saturday following xmas, we had a most enjoyable time and dinner with James and Eamonn at the Club. The next evening, Chloe and Matt stopped briefly on their way back from the Isle of Wight before the next day being off to Vienna and then Amsterdam. It is always lovely to see them. For New Year’s Eve, Richard and I enjoyed ourselves quietly at home and watched the year in and the fireworks on the TV and from the comfort of our bed.

And that is us up-to-date.

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Well, it was, but Dreamweaver changed its settings, and virtually another two months have expired before I have had a chance to post this. We have been essentially home-bodies working on our projects and happily so. My ‘End of Life’ reflections continue to occupy my time beyond email and various physios; Richard continues with his art work as well as attempting a massive cleanout of accumulation. We have had dinners at the Rixies with Gin, Rix, Sylvester & Judith; at Paddy & Keir’s in Dalston; with ourselves at Cantina Azteca in celebration of the second Carmentalia; with Rosemary & Frankie at Balans Soho; with Chloe & Matt at The Gate; with Francis at Romulo; with Gin, Rix, Sylvester, Eamonn & James chez nous as a Brexit wake and with Rix’s delicious goat curry; with just ourselves at ROSL following vernissages at the Portland Gallery (Francis Macdonald) and Grosvenor Gallery (Jim Moir); twice with Gin chez nous; and a lunch with Gillie at the National Portrait Gallery (that followed with the fascinating Gaugin exhibit at the National Museum) and lunches just the two of us at Taqueria after visiting Liz and another at Gailes when visiting Portobello Road.

There have been dental appointments for both of us, and I have seen my dermatologist at the Cadogan Clinic and also underwent a formalin sigmoidoscopy treatment at the Royal Marsden for angiodysplasias/telangiectasia. This last was relatively gruelling and will probably be repeated in six weeks’ time, but it all appears to be part of the perpetual process of enduring this late stage in life. It could all be worse than it is at present. And cinema: I had to walk out of 1917 because of the hand-held camera work, and then the next day with its replacement for me by the Curzon I had to keep my eyes shut for The Personal History of David Copperfield for the same reason. I slept through the film and have not been able to have a cappuccino since. Much more enjoyable and for me doable was Little Women. We have been relatively pleased with the Academy Awards and the Oscars to Renée Zellweger for Judy, Joaquin Phoenix for Joker and Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. I was only disappointed that Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory was not among the significant nominations. And since the Awards, we have seen Parasite and, admittedly though it has a violent turn, found it to be an incredibly excellent film.

Music-wise, we have enjoyed at the Cadogan Hall Pete Long & His Good Men for a splendid afternoon concert: “Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall 1938.” I cried through much of it. And at St Martin’s-in-the Fields, there has been a splendid Nonsuch Singers Bach & Handel concert with James’ oboe playing being most lovely. There has also been Stephen Frank’s vernissage at the Queen’s Park Gallery. Another vernissage “Atmospheres: Artists of the Transvangarde” at the October Gallery. This was a fascinating collection and presentation of numerous artists. While we forgotthe January mixer at the Sloane Club (too close to New Year’s), we did not miss February’s and engaged in conversations with Rosemary & Tara and also with Paul. Evenlientje made us a negroni to start, and although it was during our February nefastus, it being the Ides Eve, we  allowed ourselves an evening of exception. We switched next to the Aperol spritzers that were actually on offer and also consumed delicious hors-d’oeuvres. And finally, at the Anglo-Finish Society Edward Clark gave a most splendid talk on Sibelius.

My most shameful disaster has been the relatively expensive scam I have already mentioned with Investous. Enough said on that front. We endured for the rest the Senate impeachment non-trial and the pathetic State of the Union address to Congress. I found most of this last horrifying, and the Guaidó presentation with everyone standing utterly shameless.

In all, we visited Liz three times – twice at her home and the last at the Princess Louise of Kensington hospice where she is now. She is nearing the end, and it is sad.

We have been to two moots. The first was a most interesting talk on the northern calendar. The second was my presentation on ‘Who are the Greek and Roman Gods; and are They real?’ I was followed by Dominic Hampshire on “Why Rome Fell”. The answer he gave was DNA contamination by the influx of non-Romans. I found his talk highly depressing. My reading in this interval has included Ian McEwan’s Guardian article on the utter foolishness and deceit of Brexit. He has provided an excellent summary. I have also most appreciated Neil Young’s ‘An Open Letter to Donald J. Trump’. I have read both David Brown and Gavin Hopps’ The Extravagance of Music and Stuart Nicholson’s Ella Fitzgerald; also John Beckett’s Paganism in Depth: A Polytheist Approach. It was with this last a pleasure to read someone’s ideas that resonate as much as they do with my own. I am at present about a quarter-way through Alon Goshen-Gottstein’s Same God, Other God: Judaism, Hinduism, and the Problem of Idolatry. As far as Brown & Hopps are concerned, I will say that while the pagan may share an understanding of the transcendent with the Christian, the epiphanic divine is more apt to be accepted as impersonal (perhaps a pantheistic immanence) or as personalised but differently than the Abrahamic entity or ‘God’ (e.g., as the Goddess) or as pluralised with a range of personalities (e.g., the gods). In addition, for the epiphanic vision or experience, a pagan is less likely to employ the metaphors ‘high’, ‘higher’, ‘highest’ and instead accepts the extra-reality more immediately as an ‘other’ or a ‘parallel’. Pagans do not experience materiality as ‘low’ and/or without the extravagance of there being also something more. And while the authors separate the religious and aesthetic – exalting the former over the latter, I take them as fully one and the same.

We now have the Terminalia tomorrow, the last day of the Roman year – and hopefully the day on which I might finally be able to post this update, to be followed by the epagomenal carnival and then the new year’s day on the first of March. But an enduring memory from recent times occurred for me during my every-other-day cycling in Battersea Park. I retain the image of a tall and very attractive young mother beaming with joy while watching her little toddler walking. This was utterly beautiful. And there was another moment that both Richard and I were able to thrill with while waiting for the bus at the bus stop. A mother was with her two young sons who were misbehaving while squabbling. At one point the two lads suddenly looked up at us and smiled in pure and adorable innocence. We all then smiled together.

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Well, once again Dreamweaver did not come through. And, now at the end of March, after a session with Scott, I just might be able complete my update from last year up to now. I’ll see shortly, but first I wish to update my update. It is already, thanks to covid-19, a much different world from when this update was first begun. When I heard through the BBC about the first SARS-like virus case in China (December?), I already had the feeling that this was about to become much different than anything else.

Hillary’s 85th birthday celebration coincided with the Roman Terminalia – not that anyone else was aware of that. Richard and I had the address wrong and ended up near the Gerkin. From there, we got an Uber to the correct address. It was not Hillary’s actual birthday since that is “too close” to xmas and new year’s. It was a crowded affair with a fair amount of champagne, some eats and some cake. Most fun was with Sylvester, Aunt Shirley and Henry, a mathematician/statistician. Gin drove us home. Richard and I finished the year with the bit of 14-year-old Oban we had rescued from Peter’s flat.

For the Regifugium, we went to the British Museum, though the horrendous traffic and numerous bus changes did not make the getting there at all easy. The exhibit on Troy was overly crowded, poorly designed and most difficult to read the display cases read-outs. It was also too dark. The catalogue will probably be its best part. Benugo’s for lunch was enjoyable. I had squid, roast chicken and apple crumble. Napped in the Members Room after and have continued to read about Sibelius. The next day was the book launch at the October Gallery. One day later Darby and Steven came by for hors-d’oeuvres and drinks before their concert at Cadogan Hall. They brought sushi. And the following day, Kostas and Marta popped in to say hello – being on a break from Amsterdam while Marta’s parent, who were visiting, took care of Alan. Two days after this, it was the Roman new year’s day. Richard and I visited Burton’s Court but otherwise basically celebrated at home.

Other things that got done this month included another Royal Marsden visit, several Marsden telephone appointments, the Dora Maar exhibition at the Tate Modern, white tea and various high tea inclusions at Padma’s sumptuous flat nearby on Sloane Avenue, and a splendid concert at the Cadogan Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andris Poga: Sibelius’ Karelia Suite, Bruch’s Violin Concerto #1 (with Kristīne Balanas)and Rachmaninov’s Symphony #3. It was after these that the corona virus began to close in. Steven and Hillary cancelled our luncheon date at the Tate Britain for later that week. We in turn avoided both Nova Stellar and the Pagan Federation’s Imbolc celebration at Conway Hall but did get to the mixer at the Sloane Club (Abi, Rosemary, Tara only briefly, Padma and her Latvian friend, Chris & Mary and Michael Stephen who is a neighbour on our floor). The following day Chelsea Manning tried to hang herself, and since then the high court has turned down the possibility of a bail release for Julian Assange.

For Friday the 13th and with trepidation not for the date but the mounting corona avalanche, we ubered to Waterloo and then trained to the Southampton Airport Parkway to have lunch with our beloved Claire as well as with Clio and Malcolm in Winchester and then to visit Sophia Watson’s paintings in the library. A last farmers’ market next door, as it has turned out, was the next day. Chloë came to us later that day for lunch. She seems to me more lovely each successive time. I nice phone call from Liz Green on the Ides of March to see how we are. Three days later, it was a Zoom meeting with a lawyer that Gin had arranged. Gin stayed for lunch and has since popped in briefly with homeopathic medicines and in the next day or two from when I am now writing will come with some food. We are now in quarantine and have recognisable signs of the virus infection. Everything else has been cancelled – except our Eurostar tickets for the next month to Amsterdam. These will represent a £402 loss as they are not refundable.

We or I have talked with Marie-Laure, Scott (in connection to my computer and the Dreamweaver problem), to Marlowe and briefly to Jimmy. Gin, Natacha and Marie-Laure phone to check up on us. We remain uncertain at this point whether we are still at early stages or that it is a relatively mild case. I’ve been continuing my every-other-day morning cycling to, through and back from Battersea Park (now densely full every day of joggers and cyclists), and the contrast with the ontic holiness of nature bursting to life with vernal blossoms could scarcely be greater. My feeling: if this is it, this is it. I could not be more grateful for the joys and loves and friends that I have been more than privileged to have known in this life. I have no regrets. As I used to say to young hospital lads when volunteering during the Aids crisis, “More is not necessarily better.”