England 2019 April 22-30.

It's been a long time since my last post - I'm sorry about that, but I intend on rectifying this issue. I'm off for a week+ in London and Brighton, England starting April 22nd!. It was just too tempting as Editor of the Batik Guild Magazine to not-miss the AGM and meet my people. It is my hope that I still have enough creative juice in me to generate some travel-logs.

This trip, I intend on exploring everything by foot, London east of St. Paul's Cathedral, including a tramp along the remains of the Roman and Medieval gates and walls, then across the Thames, to Southwark Cathedral where it turns out, they have quite the music program! I'll provide a knowledgeable review of Mozart's Requiem (by candlelight) at St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, buried deep in a calendar of lingering Easter music, and embraced on both sides by Handel's Messiah, which I can not stand. The Mozart is being sung by the Choirs of Jesus College, Cambridge, who upon review of other works they have recorded, are pitch-perfect. Promises to be a wonderful night! There are 2 organ recitals to chase and I do so because so much of western music's organ and choral works were written with cathedrals in mind, not little pump organs found in the old family home. Just watch the recessional of Diana's funeral and the timing of Sir John Taverner's "Song for Athene" in the Abbey, which accompanied her liberation from her earthly circumstance (though actually composed for someone else). I'm staying in never-disappointing youth hostels, to meet like-minded travelers from around the world. And I have a ticket to a one-woman play.

Traveling light, I start with old clothes and replace them when abroad, thus having new clean threads and souvenirs of my adventure partway through. A self-imposed rule prevents me from buying art books in Toronto, so the Tate shops and the Royal Academy in London are my meccas. I can have 2 carry-on bags, which presumes I can do just that(!) au gratis on the return flight.

This is going to be fun. Happy to have you along!

She Said I'd Thrive (Batik, 2018) (#45 and #47)

Thickened fabric dyes scraped by a credit card, exploring the tentative emotional existence of a surviving artist.