Must Go Back to Work Soon

 

Francisco and I visited a National Trust house with an interior made by Khadami Asalache, a civil servant and writer born in Kenya who studied math and architecture and traveled a lot. The woodwork in the house was sort of roughly done--not sanded, pencil guidelines left. But it was interesting to be in. And it was inspiring--I told Francisco that we should lean into our own quirkiness when fixing up our house when we return. For instance, Asalache basically decoupaged pictures from a Botticelli book in one area of his kitchen. I'm all for that.   

The National Trust loves to not let you take pictures. That makes me incredibly grumpy so I'm sharing a bunch of their instagram pictures here: 

There was decoration everywhere--this is from a ceiling. The ceilings felt like they were going to fall down on you--the plaster was so loose.

This guy mixed his own woodwork and painting with old Madonnas and new abstract art. The eclecticism was wonderful. 

He had art from and artistic influences from many different countries. Oh--he started out by working on wood discarded in dumpsters, which they call "skips" here. 

I should mention--after having been at many National Trust properties, I know that they have evolving conservational directives. At some of the places they still have food in the cupboards left by the residents. So weird!

Francisco and I then visited a community garden around the corner. Then walked to a different neighborhood and saw a Graham Greene house and the church from The End of the Affair. 

Second day of amazing weather. 

The community garden

These enormous flags were planted in a large circle around a tree??

One of the places Graham Greene lived

The church from The End of the Affair

After school Blaze played at the park while Q read. 

In the evening, an artist came by to drop off a plein air painting that we bought from him of our green. I like it even more in person. We prepped the boys to ask him some questions about it. I'm thrilled to bring this memory home with us. (I saw him painting this in our green, which is how I found it.)

In the evening we went to mass for the Feast of the Ascension, a holy day of obligation here. In the U.S., in the midst of the intensity that is our life there, all holy days of obligation made me mad, honestly--I was always at the end of my rope and our schedule had no give in it and it was just so hard. So I was thrilled to find out that here, where our life is calmer, I'm happy, delighted, to go to mass mid-week. (It also helped that the boys were perfectly excellent in mass--and generally are pretty good now.) My goal for our return--to set up a life where I can receive a holy day as a great and happy thing, a gift. (I'm not at all sure that that's possible with my job, but I guess it's good to at least know what I want?)

After mass, we bought ice cream bars to eat in the park.