Ladies Of A Certain Age

A Little Light Reading

  Thought you may be interested to know some of the books that have
appeared on the Venice shelf of my library in recent months.....

DATE AUTHOR  TITLE DESCRIPTION - (F) denotes fiction

1902 JAMES, Henry The Wings of a Dove (F)
Dying heiress deceived by a pair of lovers, but in the end becomes their
moral redeemer.

1904 PAULI, G. Venice (No 2 in "Great Art Cities")
Period guide - might have been used by the Two Ladies

1912 MANN, Thomas Death In Venice (F)
Composer caught in a cholera epidemic and his passion for a young boy.
Dies from the effects of one of them.

1914 RICHARDS, Ted Venice - A Sketchbook
Lovely pencil drawings of pre-WW1 Venice

1956 McCARTHY, Mary The Stones of Florence & Venice Observed

1960 MORRIS, James Venice
The best book I have read to get under the skin and into the heart of
Venice

1962 BRION, Marcel Venice - The Masque of Italy

1978 LAURITZEN, Peter & ZIELKE, Alexander The Palaces of Venice

1980 MORRIS, Jan The Venetian Empire - a Sea Voyage

1985 STAINTON, Lindsay Turner's Venice
J.M.W. Turner's Venetian paintings and sketchbooks

1988 MARQUISEE, Michael Venice - An Illustrated Anthology

1990 VEDRENNE, Elizabeth & MARTIN, Andre Living in Venice
A "World of Interiors" style peek into sumptuous and fascinating
Venetian homes

1992 ST AUBIN DE TERAN, Lisa Venice - The Four Seasons
Life in Venice by an authoress/adventurer inhabitant

1997 ROMANELLI, Giandomenico Venice: Art & Architecture
Sumptuous, 2 volume colour art books

2000 QUILL, Sarah Ruskin's Venice - The Stones Revisited
Return to and photographs of those places included in John Ruskin's
"Stones of Venice"

2001 VICKERS, Sally Miss Garnett's Angel (F)
Middle aged lady enchanted by  Venice

2002 HALL, John Gondolas and Grapes
The story of  Hall's renowned cultural  "Pre-University Course" - which
he has run in Venice since 1965

2003 DE BLASI, Marlena A Thousand Days in Venice
Middle aged lady enchanted by  Venice and a Venetian - and marries him!

2003 LINKS, J.G. (Editor) The Stones of Venice
Abridged, paperback  version of Ruskin's 3 Volume work

2004 DA MOSTO, Francesco Francesco's Venice
The Book of the TV Series, presented by charming inhabitant

2006 SIMONIS, Damien Lonely Planet Guide to Venice
Non-glossy but in-depth descriptions of offbeat as well as well known
places

Very Important Packing

Now one thing is certain - and VERY important. Ladies of a Certain Age MUST have their cup of tea when travelling!

There is nothing in the world quite so reassuring and comforting, after a long journey, when arriving in a foreign place, than to have a nice cup of tea before you do anything else. This is what the writer of the 1906 diary had to say when they arrived in Venice....

"A perfectly delicious row in a gondola to Hotel Britannia, through little dark canals, a soft sea breeze blowing and the stars brilliant. The hotel stands at the entrance of the Grand Canal. The Manager was awaiting us, and, after a nice cup of tea, slept the rest of the night."
- Friday May 11th 1906

SO....secreted in an accessible part of my travelling luggage and compacted down ever so small will be the essential items required to make tea on arrival. Tea bags - of course, (you can get a hundred or so squashed down into a very small space in the main luggage for the weeks supply!). Sweeteners (I have tried and tried, but cannot give up sweetening my tea - and after all, if you don't enjoy it, what the heck is the point in having it? - so sweetened it  comes).

For arrival only, until some provision shopping has been done, a small plastic container of dried milk. Oh, yes - a few biscuits will go down very nicely as well. Chocolate for preference - though if you aretravelling at a warm time of the year, perhaps that is not such a good idea.

Well, that's one part of the packing done, anyway!

Two Weeks to go and Counting......

This afternoon, these two ladies practised taking tea in style, at the Swan at Streatley, on the river Thames. In three weeks time, we will be doing the same in a beautiful hotel  on the Grand Canal in Venice! Today, it was wet and miserable, so a very English cream tea with Earl Grey was just the ticket.

Our tea marked both the end of summer, (for we sat inside instead of riverside, watching the swans) but also served as a little memorial occasion for our mothers - this week being the anniversaries of both their passings.

It was one of Liz's Mother's favourite places to take tea - and although my own mother never visited, still with the comforting tea, scones, jam and cream, I was reminded of her own abundant warmth and hospitality. We both raised a cup to them, remembered them with our deepest love, and then tucked them both back under our hearts.

Invited to Tea!

SO exciting..... I told the manager of the hotel in which The Ladies stayed of our upcoming visit and the story behind it - and he has invited us to tea!

To see lots of images of where we will have this treat, visit here and click on the "English" button. As Liz commented."Hmmm - I think this calls for a special little outfit". it does indeed :-)

I am hoping that the hotel still holds all their old records, and so might be able to trace The Ladies' visit, and maybe even the rooms in which they stayed?

A Lady of a Certain Age Moves to Brittany

"I'm in my garden in Finistere, filling out change of address cards. It's an afternoon at the beginning of September 2000, a soft haze over the countryside. The Atlantic is breathing tides and seaweed, the reassuring sound of the warning buoy like an owl.

I live in Finistere because I've moved here.....it wasn't by chance: for a woman of experience, there's no such thing as chance....

A couple of months - that's all it took. I left the country I'd lived in for 55 years. The time had come. Drunk on freedom, I drove away. I wasn't looking - but I found Finistere. Not far from Brest I felt I was getting close, and then it wasn't long before I was standing in front of the parcel of paradise that is mine".

I picked up this book in a charity shop in Winchester this afternoon (Winchester, the City of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Winchester,
bathed today in glorious autumnal sunshine)...Chosen firstly because I was
attracted to the "watercolour painting on watercolour paper" cover, then by the title. But having read the first three chapters, I realise that I recognise the narrative - it was a book  serialised on the radio - and I remember being captivated by the fragment of the story that I got to
hear - I didn't catch all the episodes.

So now a book that sang to me from the shelves is enchanting me on the page. The author, too, is a Lady of a Certain age - and I can't wait to see how she experiences her new found freedom!

And Then, of Course, There's the Other One...

I had forgotten about it really – focussing more on the Diary of Two Ladies, I suppose because I identified more with them.

But this is what should really be thought of, I think, as the "first" of two companion diaries. They were, after all, bought together...and i believe them to be linked.

This honeymoon diary is clearly written by the gentleman of the nuptial pair, Captain Henry Alworth Fellowes Merewether, ("late 66^th Regiment"), as an account of his travels with his new wife, May Elisabeth Abdy Caldwell, in the early spring of 1883. It is clearly written by a man – for it is full of financial accounts – the price of everything, including the charges for each stay in each hotel on their grand tour.

By 1906, the year that the Two Ladies of the Venice diary were travelling, I can find no trace of Henry – but I do have a record of his death in 1911, aged 68, in "a large institution for the Senile and Demented".

I suspect that the 1906 diary is indeed written by May, visiting the haunts of her happier days after her wedding – for indeed, I suspect that the hotel in which she and Mabel Lyons (the travelling companion), stayed was only feet away from the one in which she spent her honeymoon. I have no firm confirmation, but a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the same person features in both, and is the authoress of the later record.

What sad story is encapsulated in these two diaries? Was Henry already ailing in 1906 – did May travel to revisit the places of her earlier days with a beloved husband? Will I ever discover more? Is there anyone out there who knows anything of these names – and how much more I have to transcribe, I now realise, before we travel to Venice ourselves, in October!

Monet In the Same Hotel.........

I made an interesting discovery made today - In the autumn of 1908 Claude Monet stayed and painted his Venetian series of paintings, in the same Hotel Brittania (now the Europa & Regina) in which our two Ladies stayed in 1906.

Enjoy this very interesting website (from which the above illustration was taken) about what he created while he was there......

Deciding What to Take

The time has come to make decisions about what to take to Venice. I am
not actually packing just yet - but doing all the thinking about "which shoes??"
(at the moment, I will possibly spend the week walking the streets of Venice in trainers, due to two Morton's neuromas - neural swellings - between three of the toes of my right foot), and more importantly, "which sketchbook?" - "how any watercolour pencils" and "don't forget the battery charger for thedigital camera!"

I have a travel checklist (Download Travelist.doc ) which I have compiled ver the years, which is invaluable to me when preparing what to take. o any of the items there find a place in your own planning when ravelling?

Over the next few weeks, I would also like to share some fashion images from the period. Our Ladies were "well heeled", wealthy women staying in one of the best hotels in Venice at the time. So the dresses in these plates - the Fashions a la Mode of the early years of the 1900's (this one is from 1904), will give you some idea of what they may have worn during their own stay.

Now close your eyes and imagine them - taking tea on the balcony of the Hotel Brittannia, opposite the Salute, as the orchestra plays those Viennese waltzes....

Do Venice like a Venetian

Has someone told them that we are going? This was the headline on the Sunday newspaper - the travel section of "The Observer" had a two page spread on how to enjoy Venice, out of season, and as the locals do. Lots of recommendations for restaurants (two of which are within walking distance of the apartment in which we will be staying), and accommodation (apparently, those "in the know" are now staying in apartments or B&B's rather than extortionate hotels!

But the section which caught my eye was that giving details of the flea markets - one, out on the Lido every week, and a monthly one, described as "the Venetian equivalent of a car boot sale" held once monthly. There was a phone number to find out the dates of the monthly market - so lead me to that dialling tone, pronto!

Here's the article, in full, online......

More of The Story

   

To read a little more of the story of the original 1906 journal, take a look at the website which accompanies this blog, and click on "Venice"