Letter 20 from Europe RV trip

We arrived at the summer house in late afternoon on Friday, were given a tour of the house, and then had dinner. That night, we watched a movie the modern way – on a home entertainment screen. On the schedule was the new version of “Pride and Prejudice”. Verdict: two approvals (from both men) and two disapprovals (from both women). Those two women of course are big Jane Austin fans – and they weren’t happy with the so-called “modernization” of the story. Still aren’t! Too many extraneous “art movie” scenes! Some people are never happy.

Saturday morning was spent in the house, working on letters and pictures on the computer. Afterwards, we went just a short distance down the road to a museum. The barn red farm buildings dated from as long ago as 400 years. There were 6 or 7 buildings, including barns, and one out-house that seemed to be communal since it was a five holer. (Incidentally, Swedish barn red color is derived from paint with cuprous oxide, a very good preservative and anti-foulant. In the US it was used to mix in paints for boat hulls when boats were made of wood. That’s why the norm for houses all over Sweden even now is a red brick-colored wooden house with white trim and a reddish-orange tile roof). Once there had been a farm village on the site, but the government had decreed that villages had to break apart because there were too many fires when the houses were close together. So farm houses were built fields apart. These were then used for many years by employees of the local iron mill. When the mill closed, the buildings were turned over to a local preservation group. Mats and Helena had walked around the grounds of this museum several times. This time, as we looked in the windows of the houses, a lady approached us and asked if we’d like to see the inside of the buildings.

Of course, the answer was yes, so she went into the main building and returned with a bunch of huge, antique keys. The oldest house had belonged to a poor farm family. One was fixed up as a cobbler’s home. Another was newer and the residents had been wealthier. The museum’s collection included lots of donated artifacts – such as the pole with a neck manacle at the end of it that had been used by a resident policeman to control perps. It had a metal circle that could be positioned on a prisoner’s neck to keep him from escaping. There were dishes, pots, beds, and everything else people owned, including musical instruments. Perhaps the most interesting artifact was the nail violin. This was a board with nails in particular patterns. It was held close to the body and played by pressure from a bow against the nails. Never heard of such a thing before.

One house had a series of paintings made by a local artist whose name is still well-known in Sweden. Some of them were illustrations of bible stories, but others were more about life at the times. Even less wealthy people used wall paintings to decorate their homes. There were decorations in all the buildings. The entire complex was very interesting, and we enjoyed seeing it, but it really reinforced our basic thankfulness at being born at a good time in a good place! The Swedish peasant had a very hard life.

Another house had two beds built into a curtained inside wall for adults and several small window seats on the outside wall. The children slept in those window seats, snug as a bug could be sleeping against an outside wall that had very little insulation.

Before we left the museum, we had coffee and ice cream. Gotta keep up traditions (especially about ice cream). Then we returned home, had dinner and watched another movie. This one was a French movie about World War I. It was called “A Very Long Engagement”. It is a very interesting mix of a war movie, a love story, a mystery, and a historical account of WWI, both funny and sad. Very nice.

Sunday did seem a bit cooler and Mats and Helena offered the possibility of a flea market after Ron brought up the subject. So off we went in search of a few good fleas. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any markets open. In Sweden, flea markets apparently are open on Saturday, but closed on Sunday. But we did find an abandoned iron mill that had been made into an industrial museum. After that visit, we went out for pizza! As a matter of fact, the Swedish pizza made by an Iranian immigrant was very good. Afterwards, we went shopping in the supermarket next door to the pizza parlor, and then returned to the summer house. After dinner, we decided to walk through the national park just across the street.

It was also an abandoned mill site. It consists of a large collection of really beautiful buildings and including the remains of the steel mill, the remains of a flour mill, stables, a mansion and more. Most had been built on the river in the 1800’s. They were rescued from deterioration, repaired and painted white and now are a busy conference center. Very nice, indeed. The only untoward note was the presence of large numbers of mosquitoes and other flying insects. They didn’t bother us, because we had sprayed ourselves with anti-insect spray, but they sure were a nuisance. It’s not at all surprising that there are so many. There are rivers, lakes and other bodies of water everywhere in Sweden. There is no way to avoid standing water.

By the time we had finished our tour of the mill area, it was late. We knew we had to go to bed early, because we needed to leave for the airport at 6:30 A.M. so there was no movie that night. Of course, we didn’t go to bed early because we were talking, but we did try. Our week in Sweden had been even more enjoyable than we had expected, We are going to miss our Swedish friends.

Getting back from Sweden was quite easy. Mats and Helena drove us the long distance to the airport. On the way, Mats had to fill the gas tank on his VW sedan. The pump stopped at 800 Swedish crowns because that is all the credit the pump allowed. That is over $100 in American money and it was not enough to fill his tank! Talk about a thrilling experience.

We had time for coffee before our plane, and went through both security and passport control easily, although Adelle set off the buzzers as usual. That is an unanticipated result of two knee replacements. When we handed the passport to the Swedish official, he remembered us from the flight from England, and he asked how we had enjoyed our week! The plane took off on time and landed at Luton Airport on the dot. Then we walked forever to get to the English passport control officer. English airport designers seem to be excessively fond of long corridors leading only to more long corridors.

We didn’t have too long a wait for the bus that would return us to Oxford, but it was ten minutes late. When the driver made his announcements, he said that the highway situation was worse than usual and he expected to arrive in Oxford about forty minutes late. As it happened, he was only thirty minutes late, but before we figured out where to catch the bus from Oxford to Stonesfield, the correct bus had left the station. We had a cup of coffee and waited for the next one, and arrived back in Stonesfield at about 5 p.m. We had spent an entire day traveling.

We had dinner with Nicky, Fay and Lily, and then talked for a while about what we’d done while we were away, what they’d done in our absence, and what we planned to do in the morning. Nicky took us to task for not mentioning the most outstanding part of our visit to the ruined manor house that we mentioned in Letter 18, and so we are going to describe the dovecote of what was once called Minster Lovell.

We only remembered the name of this place after the later conversation. While sitting in the living room, we looked up information on the ruins – and this time, the name stuck at least for a while! Perhaps that’s because at least one of the owners of the house was described in the booklet as a powerful and well-known “lord”.

The dovecote was the only part of the complex that was not in ruins. We’ve always heard the term “dove cote” but never had any real knowledge of what it is. This one was an enormous stone and brick circular building with nesting spaces—literally holes in the walls-- for probably 1,000 birds on the inside. There was a roof but it didn’t close the space off. The birds could certainly fly out. The size of the whole thing was amazing. We still can’t get our minds around the idea of “keeping” so many birds. We assume that they were raised for food – but for how many people?

Then the conversation turned to the next morning, and Nicky offered to accompany us on a tour of Oxford. We gratefully accepted. Good thing she came with us. We’d never had had time to see all we did if we’d been on our own. Oxford is crowded, confusing and beautiful. We walked past some of the many colleges (which were handsome); saw the Oxford Camera (a circular building open only to students); and the Bodleian Library (probably spelled wrong), which was enormous. The buildings were old and beautiful. We couldn’t help feeling that they added panache to the education. We went into the Cathedral that had been the original Oxford College, now St Mary’s Church. As it got bigger, so many centuries ago, “new” buildings were added and the Cathedral returned to being a place of worship.

This Church played a very important role in the history of modern Protestantism. John Wesley first preached about his conversion in this church after which he became persona non grata here but still managed to found Methodism. John Keble started the Oxford movement here. It moved the Anglican Church closer to Catholicism by preaching the return to the orthodoxy of the “old church” and a renewed authority of the priesthood, both things that had been anathema to the thinkers and doers who had produced the Protestant reformation.

A person would need a week to see everything in Oxford. We only had one day, so we only visited the Natural History Museum and the Pitt-Rivers Anthropology Museum, since they are housed in the same building. We’ll try to describe that experience in the next letter.