Ludlow

Having learned our lesson about train travel in the English countryside, we gave ourselves plenty of time for the next leg of our trip, and of course everything worked out beautifully. Our excellent fun on the trains ended in the most picturesque English countryside imaginable, replete with cascading river, quacking ducks, giant oak trees, and, in the near distance in the morning as you stand on your balcony, lowing sheep.

Loveliest of Trees
Those of you who are familiar with the work of the poet A.E. Housman may recall his famous poem about the cherry tree, and how since life passes quickly, it is good to spend time admiring it not just in the spring, but also in the winter. Taking this lesson to heart, the good people of Ludlow have planted a cherry tree in Housman’s memory in one of the local churchyards. We managed through trial and error to find this tree and its plaque. We were a bit troubled to see that it was quite a young tree, until we spotted, on the opposite side of the churchyard, another cherry tree, at least hoary with age, and although it did seem to have recently sported a leaf or two, perhaps actually dead. So we admired them both.

Ludlow Fair
Describing the tendency of rural people to have a drink or two when visiting the metropolis, Housman wrote: “I have been to Ludlow Fair, and left my necktie God knows where.” The fair itself is everything you could wish it to be, with tables full of local produce and small household items, but Susan couldn’t rest until we had found a shop facing the square where the Fair is held, and she bought me a neck tie. I’m not sure what people felt as I posed in front of the stalls to prove that I still had it before I left for home, but certainly I felt that I’d entered into the spirit of the thing. We also tried to pitch the local museum’s gift shop on the idea of producing ties for that very purpose, but we met with some resistance from the woman behind the counter. She didn’t say anything of course, but the words “loopy colonials” were written for a moment in the thought balloon above her head.

Birmingham

Susan and I spent August this year going to cultural institutions around London. Then in September, we decided that we’d make a pilgrimage or two. Our first adventure involved going to Shropshire to see the home town of one of our favourite English poets, A.E. Housman. Unfortunately, this effort also gave us a good taste of British rail travel, which consisted in this case of taking three and a half hours for a 45-minute trip to Birmingham, so we decided to stop the night and spend part of the next day exploring the town.

The Bull Ring
I had first visited Birmingham with Susan in 2004, when David Sless had a bunch of us to Coventry to talk about health information design. We had a few hours to spare when all the dust had settled, so we tootled over to Birmingham to take a look. She snapped a photo of me in front of a giant bronze bull that gives its name to the central shopping complex. I did my best to look as though I had no idea I was standing in front of this giant, charging animal, but I’m afraid the photo itself doesn’t quite manage to convey my fecklessness, since it is, after all, a statue of a rampaging bull, and not the real thing.

Pre-Raphaelites Galore
If there is one thing you can say about Birmingham, it is that they have an art gallery that is worth the trip. It is quite large and impressive, with a very good bronze statue of Satan in the lobby, and enough work by the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood to make your head spin. If you’ve seen it in a book about the pre-Raphaelites, odds are good that the original is in the museum at Birmingham. Or rather, since many of the pre-Raphaelites had no compunction about painting the same picture more than once, it might be more accurate to say that one of the versions will be there. Perhaps, for instance, the Rossetti Prosperine where Jane Morris has red hair.