Islington: The 'off-Broadway' of London

It's Sunday 4th November and the sun is out so we are going for a walk. We reach into our city walks of London pack given to us by Karen and Dick Aldis before we left for England and decide on this one. We take the tube to Angel and start out on a nice Sunday stroll looking at small theatres. This first one is mostly comedy showings.
This one is called the Almeida Theatre which is written about: 'always a showcase of today's more challenging playwrights'. It has been restored. Ed and I both decided it is plain compared to the other buildings. This one, the Kings Head Theatre is more impressive when standing in front of it than the picture shows. It has seen the likes of Kenneth Branagh on its stage.

This is the Little Angel Puppet Theatre tucked away in an alleyway and is the home of British puppetry.

Highgate Autumn

London has Autumn but doesn't have the color that is found in most parts of the U.S. I really miss that. Even the color in Kansas where I've lived most of my life and thought was usually a dull place for autumn color outshines London for color. The past few days have been outstanding as far as weather though. We had coffee breaks out on the patio it was so nice.
Friday 2nd November, 2007: No groups today so I did some spot carpet shampooing and guest laundry. Ed is busy raking leaves. It must be done at least every week or we would be buried in them as we have so many trees. We heard from the new young Mennonite church in south England that I had talked about before that has gone from a group of 8 to 30 plus. They meet 3 times/week in a small flat and the neighbors are complaining of the noise as it is in the evenings. So now they have to find a place to worship. They are mostly immigrants from all over, but the instigators are originally from South America. The main family whose father does the pastoring had to flee from Columbia as they feared for their lives due to their beliefs. They are in contact with the LMC and Urban Expression in London for ways of developing the church. It's exciting.
Sharon, the 23 y.o. on the top floor invited us to supper and we had a wonderful vegetarian curry. Reminded me of when we were early married as we ate with a mis-matched set of dishes, in her tiny room and helped to clean up in the tiniest of kitchens that is actually in the room of the other young girl on the top floor. Community living has it's upsides. She had the day off and felt like cooking so around 4:30 asked if we wanted to come up for supper.
Ed was able to call through to Barry Bontrager in Wichita where he is regaining strength at a rehab hospital following a heart attack with a few complications. It was good for Ed to get to talk with him. Praise God for his miraculous recovery.

Today we have three guys and two girls here staying in the guest rooms who are taking a little holiday from Europe where they are trainees. They are all from Canada, at least the guys are.
We also had the Bridge Builders advisory board here for lunch and their semi annual meeting. We also had a birthday tea. Whenever a worker at the LMC has a birthday, they get to choose what they want at tea. Today it was Alistair McKay's 44th bday and he chose scones with clotted cream and jam. The other part of the tradition is that of course we sing happy birthday to the tune they choose. Alastair chose the second half of the doxology, formerly known as 606. Then someone reads the same chapter in Psalms as they are old, so Psalms 44 was read. Then they recount on a special birthday memory.

Halloween party at the LMC

We, or Ed I should say, cleaned out the garage/carriage house to have a halloween party. We invited the house, the church, and some neighbors. The first picture is of the neighbors' kids Devonte and Destiny. Destiny refuses to acknowledge you if you call her Destiny as she has decided to be called Amolia.
We ended up with 28 people there at one time or another. We bobbed for apples, played charades, did the monster mash, except for Ed who says he is not opposed to dancing but just doesn't know how, and watched the animated films Charlie Browns The Great Pumkin and Disney's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Since it was a week night most went home fairly early.
Even Frankenstein enjoyed bobbing for apples.
Elvis decided to show up for a bite of apple.

LMC Happenings

I realized that I put things on the blog that are mostly not related to our work at The London Mennonite Centre. So I am going to try to journal a little more about what is going on at the Centre and things that we and the others that work here are involved with. The picture is just for something to jazz it up. It was taken on Portobello road market.
Today, Kathy Thiessen is going to a Friends Meeting House where she was invited to talk to them about the Mennonites and our peace & justice stance. Ed is busy putting together the reports that the workers at the LMC are writing about their last six months here for the Board and Trustee meetings coming up next week. Vic is busy trying to nail down future seminar dates and have finalized two more for May and July.
I have done a variety of things like laundry and cleaning of guest rooms, answering email and inputting new and revised info into our data base. Tonight our church is meeting at the centre for supper, communion, and prayer. We have a new young married couple attending as well as two young girls. The attendees vary often as there are those who come during times of attending University in London or on a short work term, etc.
Ed and I have started to attend one of the home groups that meet every other Thursday evening, or once a fortnight as they say here.
It has been a beautiful two days here with lots of sunshine and mild temps.

i

The Victoria & Albert Museum

It's Saturday, October 27 and we are not expecting any groups or guests today so Ed and I decided to take advantage and explore another part of London that we have not seen yet.
This takes us to the Victoria & Albert Museum or as referred to here as the V&A. Like most of the other museums, it is free with a few special exhibits that cost extra. The exhibits are usually there for a few months at a time then move somewhere else. We don't too often take in the exhibits as there is plenty to see otherwise, unless it is really intriguing.
This first picture is of the early Europe cast room. It's a huge room full of casts of monuments, sarcophagus', and many other grand archetechural monuments and such that are famous. The shear size is impressive.
The second and third pictures are taken in the musical instruments room. Most all of them are behind glass with special lighting. They had all kinds of woodwind, stringed, and even some brass instruments. There were quite a lot of harpsichords.

This last picture is of a 'choir screen' which of course is where the choir would be standing behind. I couldn't get the entire thing in my camera as there is an arch between me and the screen and I couldn't get in front of it as there was only about 10 feet between the screen and the railing. The V&A building is very lovely but it seems that I didn't get a picture of it.

Portobello Road Market

After the V&A, we took a tube to Notting Hill Gate and followed the crowds to Portobello Road Market which has been in existence since the late 1860's in one form or another. The second hand market is on Fridays, while the antiques market is held on Saturdays. Fruit and vegetable vendors, sellers of knickknacks, antiques shops, and junk shops stuffed with treasures occupy the central part of the market every day of the week.
You may have seen the movie Notting Hill with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant which has greatly popularized this area which has also increased some of the prices! After getting home, we borrowed the DVD from Vic, the director of the LMC, and watched it. It was fun to see the places we had just been to. Plus near the end of the movie when Anna (Julia R) is filming a period piece in London, they are filming at Hampstead Heath which is where we have been frequently and is only about 1 1/2 mile walk from where we live.
The first picture is one of many eating stalls. The huge pans have different kinds of paella (pronounced: pie-eh'-ya). It's a little similar to jambalaya but often not as spicy. The smells are wonderful! This is Potobello Road Market and we walked from one end to the other, then turned around and went back. The length is probably around 1/2 mile. Besides all the stalls in the street, the shops are great as well.

There are many interesting shop signs.
Many of the houses are painted in these bright colors.
Along the way before you get to the market we passed one of George Orwell's many London residences. It's marked with one of those blue round plaques that I talked about in a previous blog entry.

A day at the markets

I, Phyllis, had a long day on my feet yesterday cooking for a group of 22 at the centre and so decided to take Sunday to get outside and visit some markets. London is full of all kinds of them. First I went to Spitalfieds which has a bit of everything. I was able to find a unique gift for my oldest daughter, Emily, for her birthday which was on 1oth of October. Better late than never! Then I went through petticoat lane market which is a lot of textiles. This picture is a book market that is every weekend on the south bank. There are tables and tables full of used books.

Busking on the Thames sound bank

After I was done at the markets, I took the tube to London Bridge station and walked along the south bank of the Thames because even though it was only 58 degrees, the sun was shining and there was no wind. So it was a beautiful day for London. Here were two different buskers along the way. These in the top picture were a country/blues type.
These guys in the bottom picture were definitely jazzy.

New at the Tate Modern

Okay yes, it's a big crack in the floor. This is the latest display in the large area of the Tate which is the museum of modern art in London. I couldn't believe it when I heard the new exhibit was a long crack but sure enough! This is the description: (First off there is a lengthy description of her past work and how it relates but I'll spare you) It is by Doris Salcedo and is called "Shibboleth" (you can look up the word meaning) "Look down into the crack and you see not Tate Moderns foundation but a carefully constructed concrete cast formation, embedded with chain-link wire fence. For Salcedo, the crack reveals a colonial and imperial history that has been disregarded, marginalised or simply obliterated...the history of racism, running parallel to the history of modernity and... its untold dark side.
Ok....enough. It runs about 75 to 100 yards long and it was rather amazing to see how many people were milling around it on the afternoon I was there let alone all the other days!

Backyard activity

Recently, Ed did a lot of trimming/pruning and cleaning up of brush that was laying around in the back yard. We decided to burn some of the old, seasoned wood to clear out some space for the new trimmings. In London you can burn cuttings during the day. I was really surprised as in the States most places ban burning, esp in cities. We had a nice hot dog roast followed by s'mores.
The girl on the right in the picture below is Nina. She is 16, from Germany, and is living with the Thiessens who know her family. She is wanting to improve her English and so is going to school in London. She has a lot of energy and is fun to have around here.

A walk in Highgate

Highgate is one of the many "villages" that make up greater London. We live between Highgate, Muswell Hill, and Crouch End. Highgate is considered posh with a number of famous people living there. Here are a couple of houses that we walked by on one of our Sunday morning walks.

Photography seminar

This is one of the pictures that Ed took during the seminar that he likes.
The presenter was Howard Zehr which I talk about in the next section and he is the one in the foreground. Dick Lehman is in the red shirt.

Cross Currents seminar

On Saturday the 13th, we had a Cross Currents seminar at the Centre. This one was presented by Howard Zehr who is a prof at Eastern Mennonite University and is on a sabbatical. He is one of the gurus of peace and restorative justice. He does some things with photography and this seminar was on photography as meditation, a spiritual discipline. Ed attended and I tried to listen in when I could. It was really good. He was able to help Ed with some things that were frustrating him with his digital shots. He was accompanied by Dick Lehman who is a good friend of his. Dick is a well known potter who lives in Goshen, IN. We have a number of his things at our house. They are staying around a few extra days and it is nice to have them around.

On Sunday, several of us went to a concert at St Albans church in central London. First of all the church was beautiful and the choir(s) were fantastic. There were two pieces that were scores for 40 parts. This was done by having the choir divided into eight choirs, with five parts in each choir. The eight choirs surrounded the audience. It was nice to sit, close your eyes and drink in the music. Those old churches are great for that. The only uncomfortable thing were the very hard benches. An hour and a half of that made for a very sore rear.

House Meal

On Monday nights we have "House meal". This is actually a picture taken in May but I wanted to include one. Tonight we had aubergine curry. Aubergine is eggplant and that's what the Brits call eggplant. Anyway, it was really good and spicey! We take turns on who fixes the main dish, salad, etc. Our contribution tonight was naan bread which meant all I had to do was to walk to the store and buy it. It's very assessible here as Indian food is practically a staple here. There are at least two Indian restuarants within very close walking distance from us.

Highgate Cemetery

If you have been following our blog since we got to London, you may remember when Ed was putting on a Highgate cemetery resident of the week. Highgate Cemetery has a lot of famous people in it and to go through the cemetery you have to pay a fee. To take pictures you have to pay extra! So we walked along the gate of the cemetery and got some shots so they aren't as good as if we had gone in.
Much of it is really old and overgrown. Some of it has been reclaimed and they are working at it all the time. It's a huge job though as the ivy and such just crawls all over everything. Some of the areas look like you are in a horror movie scene.

Wood Green Mennonite Church

This is one of the activities that often happen after church
The Wood Green Mennonite Church rents out the auditorium/fellowship hall of a Baptist church to have our church services in. Since the Baptist church meets in the mornings, we meet at 3pm. We put up this sign each Sunday and have to take it down after services. The Hall is cold, even in the summer and in the winter I have frozen feet by the end of the service. Like most buildings, there is no parking lot so we have to find a spot on the road somewhere. The blue van is the Centre's and these are some of the people that live at the Centre waiting for Ed to open the van.

Visitors to the Centre

I thought I would give more info on the happenings at the Centre for awhile to give you a better idea of what goes on here.

The Bridge Builders team are in Durham, about 4 to 5 hours north of London doing a five day training seminar on Skills for Mediation and Facilitation in the Church. In one of our guest rooms for the past ten days we had Dave and Rose Haury from Harrisburg, PA here. Rose was a volunteer at the Centre in the late 70's and Dave was a student in London living at the Centre. This is where they met and later got married. These kind of stories are fun to hear.
We also had John Ebersole who is American but has lived in Zurich for many years and was in London for an interview for his dissertation (I think) or at least a project he is working on.
Hearing stories from people, where they are at, how they got there, and what they are doing is one of the perks of this position.

Markets

This is a part of Covent Garden market that we visited on Saturday. It's probably four times this size. I didn't get pictures of the actual market at Spitalfields where we went on Sunday. I think because I was so awed by all the wonderful food booths. The food was so beautiful and smelled even better. We ended up eating some kind of Jamacan pastry sandwich.

Markets & Historic sites

We took a walk on Sunday, October 7th, to Spitalfields, a market since 1638, now running mostly on Sundays. On the way to the market from the tube station, we passed this pub called The Ten Bells which is where prostitutes Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly drank on the nights they each became victims of Jack the Ripper in 1888.
This is a house on the way which is done up by American anglophile Dennis Severs, so as to look, sound, and smell as it would have centuries ago. It's set up to look like someone is presently living there in the 1700's. It was not open when we passed by so we didn't see inside.

Covent Garden Market

On Saturday we didn't have much going on at the Centre so Ed & I decided to visit a market. I'd heard and read about this market but we hadn't been there yet as there are many, many markets in London. This one is in Central London with stalls full of jewelry, clothes, food, etc. There are also a number of performers. This guy is supplementing his guitar playing with a pop can filled with beans or pebbles and he has it under his left foot in which he taps his foot and makes a rattling noise.
Here are two Jamaican brothers who did several acrobatic things as well as the limbo.

Random pictures

After being in the States for two weeks then getting back to London and jumping right into work, we haven't been away from the Centre much and haven't taken any pictures. This top picture is of Kim, The London Mennonite Centre's accountant. This is her youngest, Kazeem, who comes to the Centre every day after school. One of his favorite things to do is of course spend time on the computer. Ed noticed that nearly every day he pulls up an image of a guitar that he has his eye on. He aspires to be a musician and have his own band.
We were on a walk in a small village in the Cotswolds on our trip late in August and there were these two dogs guarding their property. I took the picture because it seems that everyone has pure bred dogs. I don't think I've seen anything but. I've also noticed that all dogs are well behaved and mind their masters. So when we walk through the parks and woods in London, many dogs are off leash but stick fairly close to their masters and come when called.

Two of our neighbors

The human is Herman, our neighbor in Woodland Park, CO who, with his wife Mary, lives down the mountain from us. He is originally from Germany but has lived in Colorado for nearly 30 years. He is retired and has many hobbies. One is that he is building a castle in his back yard. It is a small one, but one that will be livable when he is done. He has been featured on several episodes of one of HGTVs programs about unusual homes. Here he is feeding one of our other neighbors whom he calls Josephine. Josephine is a fox and has either a partner or friend (fox) that is more timid than Josephine and didn't show up for this photo shoot. Ed and I noticed many times that we would spot a fox around and Herman has been able to befriend her and feed her by hand. Here he found some cold french fries (chips if you are British) that were left by one of the workers on our building site.
At first she was shy about posing for Ed and the camera but she didn't run off so I think we have a friend.

A trip to the States

Ed and I took a trip to the states from Sept 12-27. We flew from London to Colorado Springs on the 12th and had perfect connections. We spent two days in the Springs with Emily and JJ then drove to Harper to visit my mom and family and friends. We had a great time visiting with everyone which included a get together with many friends at Pam and Jerry Gerbers house on a Sunday evening.

We then drove back to Colorado Springs and spent the rest of the time at Emily and JJ's house. Ed spent most of that time working with the City, County, bank, and general contractor trying to get things moved along so that we could get the certificate of occupancy which means we could then move our things out of storage and into the house. Several inspections took place while we were there, (electrical, pluming, and structural.) That allowed us to move things from storage into our garage but not into the house as the driveway still needs to be paved and the wall on the drive up to the house needs some erosion control things to be done to it which should take place on the first and second week of October. By putting money into an account which states that the money will be used for the paving and erosion control issues, the city did provide us with a C.O. but not until the day we were leaving for London. So Emily and JJ will have to do this on their own. Luckily they have good family, friends, and church support to help them out.

Special thanks to Spike and Gloria for staying around several extra days to help us move our things from the storage sheds into the garage. Also to Merv, JJ's dad, and Tonya and Corbin Graber for their extra muscle on that day.

A real big thanks to Jim Hathaway for doing tons of work on the house since we have been in London. Without him, I'm sure we would not be this far along. He has been a real driving force and has been a great communicator with us on the progress.

Here are a few pictures.

Initial moving day

Moving the couch up the stairs.
This is a picture of our house using a telephoto lens from about 1/2 mile away looking up to our property.

Thanks Tonya!

After a day full of moving lots of storage containers and furniture we needed sustenance. Tonya Graber provided pizza, pop, and a few other goodies.

Washer & Dryer installation

When the washer goes into it's spin cycle it should be smooth with no shaking about. Between Spike Hostetler, Merv Birky, and JJ Birky, and Ed of course but not in the pictures, we have our W&D installed and perfectly balanced. Spike spent a long time on the refrigerator but I don't have any pictures of that. It took at least 30 minutes if not longer to get the ref up the stairs due to a very tight fit.

The final moments

We were in the middle of moving a few things into the great room when we looked out the large windows of the great room and saw a full moon rising over rampart range. It was a great ending to the day. So then we plopped down onto the couch and put our feet up.