"Hoover" and Henry

So in the UK they call vacuuming "hoovering." They "hoover" things the way we blow our noses on kleenex (regardless of the actual manufacturor or provider of paper tissues).

In Chichester Cathedral, things were quite somber and serious, except for this guy, who was doing his regular job, operated by another cheerful young guy doing his regular job.



I had already used that image on a post elsewhere (click it to see), when I went to a charity shop and saw his mini-me!


Henry is neither a Hoover nor a Dyson. What is Henry's verb? Surely he sucks, but does he hoover? This is not really for Americans to know.

Leaving England

I'm putting the last things in my bag. Then I sleep, and we'll leave for the airport at 6:45 a.m. I'll be in Albuquerque, I hope, at 9:00 p.m., having been in Charlotte and then Phoenix before.

One piece of paper I want to chuck out rather than keep has nots on things I wanted to remember, or look up:

Roomster
white vinegar
skids
waltzer

I would love to look up everything I've seen or talked to people about, but I've spent a lot of time seeing things and talking to people. I still haven't even looked at my photos from Sunday, though I did move them into a folder on the computer and back up the hard drive. I know some are really good, too. I hope. :-)

So tomorrow I get to see Keith and Doozy, and in a few days, Marty and Ashlee.
Maybe if I stay awake, I can sleep longer in the plane.

Reflection of a crane, in Liverpool

I go home the day after tomorrow. There is too much to see here for me to really keep up with processing all the photos I'm taking, but I like this reflection, of the crane and of older buildings.


When I get home, I'll be busy telling stories, eating familiar food, sleeping in my own bed, seeing Keith's new car, and visiting Marty and Ashlee (who moved out while I was gone) in their new place (which is our old place, and Keith's parents' very old place, from when Keith was pre-school age). I might never finish processing photos! But in the lefthand column of this blog is a list of places and dates, and links to photos when they're available, in case you want to see what I saw on my adventures, and what looked interesting to me.

Here's the rest of the Liverpool time: http://s26.photobucket.com/user/SandraDodd/library/Europe/Sandra2013/July9and10Liverpool

---

Note seven years later:

When I stop paying for photobucket, which has devolved sadly, the photos will be here, but not as visible. You might need to click each one...
https://sandradodd.com/user/SandraDodd/library/Europe/Sandra2013/July9and10Liverpool

I'm grateful to Vlad Gurdiga who, in 2020, imported all those photobucket folders to my site, with the same name. So if you're ever looking for a photo (of you, or of something I took), you can try replacing the photobucket-beginning of the URL with sandradodd.

Exotic gravel

I brought a few small rocks with me that I picked up from gravel in Albuquerque. They were all river rocks (rounded), of porous and bubble-filled lava rock. Some were like these, and some *were* these:


Today in Liphook I saw gravel made of black slate:

There is the shadow of my camera, and of two people wondering why I was taking a photo of gravel.

When we were in Zaltbommel, in the Netherlands, where they don't have rocks, and make their castles and bridges of bricks, there was a long path and a public area done all in gravel, of the sort they do have.

There was in the fountain, some regular gravel made of rocks. I don't know where they got it. I'm not exaggerating their use of brick. Roads, houses, walls, churches... brick, brick, brick.

Coronation handkerchief, George VI

I bought two handkerchiefs in an antique shop (jumble bric-a-brac overflowing place). I tried to look it up to find out more about it, figuring images would be out there. I'm not finding any.

(I washed it, so it needs to be ironed again, but it had two creases before;
if I get it home and iron it and scan it, I might replace this image.)

I've found these two on etsy and ebay (click the images to see those listings), but not one like the one I got.

Here's another one at the Victoria and Albert museum, also different:
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O367539/handkerchief-liberty-co-ltd/


I got another one, too, a cotton child's handkerchief printed in three colors:

More nearly, more clearly

Discovered something!

I've wondered where the words to Day by Day, from Godspell, came from. They weren't Biblical, or ast least not in that form, and I had always thought of that musical as being very (almost irritatingly) Biblical.

I found something. On the base of a statue of St. Richard of Chichester, this:



So I went to google, and found this!

Day By Day Lyricist
Question:
Okay so I KNOW the song Day by Day is based on an ancient prayer, but I can't for the life of me figure out who wrote it! Do you know? I'll keep searching my books but if you can get this and tell me before my children's sermon on Sunday I'll be very grateful!

Answer from Stephen Schwartz:
"Day by Day" was written by Richard of Chichester (1197-1253) (if there was such a person). Here is an easy way to find out who wrote the other adapted hymns in GODSPELL: Go to any Episcopal church and look up the title in the hymnal (usually titles, as in the case of "Day by Day", are listed by the first line of the song.) If you can do that by Sunday, you will have your answer in time. Sincerely, Stephen Schwartz

I like that I came upon it "all natural" (as we say in Five Crowns Games when there are no jokers or wild cards involved), by walking up to the statue, reading it, recognizing it as that song, taking a photo, and THEN googling!


Richard was Bishop of Chichester in the 13th century, so the words were modernized later, because they're 16th/17th century style. Here are links to Saint Richard's Catholic biography (with continental education and activities, and a recalcitrant English king) and to the wikipedia page (more neutral and less religious, perhaps). Here's a very nice page created and maintained by a Brother Richard in Minnesota: Saint Richard of Chichester (*1197 +1253). A nice bit of trivia from that page is this: "Chichester's spire is Britain's only cathedral tower visible from sea."

According to Wikipedia, Richard was a little strict, or perhaps the world was a lax place, but as bishop, Richard specified that priests should, honestly, truly NOT have romantic involvements. And that "The Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer were to be learned in the mother tongue; priests were to celebrate mass in clean robes, to use a silver or golden chalice..." Many of the silver chalices used since then were on display, for 50p, just this week!

My favorite is this: "Practices such as gambling at baptisms and marriages is strictly forbidden."

Okay... what OTHER practices "such as" gambling were referred to? I want to know. And I'm not so surprised that Brits were gambling there. Probably gambling ABOUT those things, at the ceremony. These people place bets on everything. Overhearing a conversation at dinner last night about personal insurance policies, I was too tired to mention that it was gambling on one's own death. Americans do it too, but seriously: Brits gamble on everything. American elections. Births of royal babies.

Oh, wait. I went to get a link to prove that, and it's worse than I knew.
Brits Betting on Royal Baby's Sex, Career Choice and Olympic Chances
Online gambling company has seen half a million dollars staked on Will and Kate's pregnancy

http://www2.williamhill.com/?gclid=CKW9-rGou7gCFafLtAodEBgAKA I don't know if they let foreigners play, but that offers bets on "every reality TV show; film, TV, book awards and more." This one's more sports-looking, but advertised on google royal baby bets: http://www.coral.co.uk/sports-betting-50 and this third one? You can bet on American football, or Australian. I didn't find the place to bet on the baby's life, but there is a page on how to recognize addiction and to be safe(r) gambling: Reponsible Gaming

But back to St. Richard.

So he wrote (or spoke on his deathbed) this very poetic prayer, and it ended up in an American musical in the early 1970's. And I stumbled into a discovery without knowing the Espiscopal or Church of England hymnal. And he was WAY Catholic, and agents of the English reformation destroyed his shrine.

I wonder if there were bets on who would be canonized, and how long their shrines would last? I wonder if there were bets on whether Richard III's grave would be located, and where.

Below is the statue from the side and from some distance. The words are on the back of the base. The people to the right in the second photo are Adam and Julie, who took me to Chichester.

two and two and two

I like the two and two and two of this photo. I like the straightness of the lines, too. The building on the left is Chichester Cathedral, the right is the separate bell tower, and the statue is of St. Richard of Chichester (a newish statue of a 13th Century saint). The roofs beyond belong to a church-related school.