But first: Wednesday was the class I was perhaps the most excited about this semester: I took my students to Museum of London Docklands specifically for the London, Sugar, Slavery exhibit… It's an exhibit where my research and both classes and the topic all meshed for one brief moment. Twain discusses…there is an obvious food connection… I don't think the students were *quite* as excited as I was about the overlap… But they were impressed by the exhibit and the museum in general. There is a lot of information there--and it is all well designed. The London, Sugar, Slavery exhibit is powerful, for sure. There is also a Life on the docks exhibit elsewhere that is set up like a dock in the 19th century. It's very atmospheric! You could imagine all kinds of creepiness around the corner of those old brick buildings… It's was kind of like a theme park or something like that… There were also exhibits on London Docks in WWII and its history with labor movements. In case anyone was wondering--I definitely recommend it! Then, we went to a nearby pub (The Cat and the Canary). This will have been our last pub visit as a class… That's how few classes there are left for us!
Yesterday, then, was the Chelsea Physic Garden behind the scenes tour with Mary Bly… It wasn't the loveliest of days-- the gray remains-- but Spring is desperately fighting its way out… and there were flowers and buds on trees and hopeful little signs like that around… This Garden is a research and teaching space… and the oldest botanical garden (in Europe?/England?/the world?). The head gardener led us on the tour-- and he introduced us to the various themed gardens in the space. There were scientific gardens that focused on the historical remedy plants. (He joked that maybe two of these are still in use-- the rest have been proven to be useless or actually harmful.) There are also plants that are now being researched for their medicinal and related properties. He made mention of cannabis here-- which is of course medicinal… There was another "drug" plant he described in their collection that is a "licensed" plant because it could be made into a drug… khat, I believe, is the one he mentioned. It has useful properties… just it is being manufactured as a drug, just getting popular in the UK. The other dodgy one he described he wouldn't even let us near. He said it was one of the most dangerous--if not THE deadliest--plants in the world. Used in traditional South American cultures in hunting-- they would dip their arrowheads in this and the prey would be dead in 15 seconds. It's wicked fast acting. (This plant was tucked away and out of our reach… He said they couldn't trust us/visitors/people in general not to do something stupid… He told an anecdote of a simple berry plant that people weren't supposed to touch… So he looked over and a woman was leaning over and eating the berries directly from the bush without using her hands. Loophole!)
Those were the drug plants… There was also coffee plants (made me nostalgic for my long lost coffee plant…) and paper plants (i.e. plants that would be used to make paper!) and hardwoods and a grapefruit tree (the largest grapefruit tree in the UK) and mandrakes… there were several HP references… and perfume plants and samples of nuts and spices from everywhere and a green roof… It was great!!
There was also a random tree from CA that Mary Bly, myself, and another visitor all found VERY familiar smelling-- but we couldn't place it directly. The closest I could come was eucalyptus-- but it wasn't that-- and it was a native species to CA and it smelled WONDERFUL-- like home!!
The gardener said that the Garden (right in Chelsea--about a mile or less from the recently purchased most expensive property in the world--and walking distance from my flat) is on priceless land. The founder of the garden-- a guy named Sloane, made all kinds of rules about keeping this space as a garden for posterity. SO they only have to pay L5 a year in rent… which is insanity! It is also a weird-- a happily odd-- microclimate for London. It's south-facing, and part of the city's heat island (he described it even more so-- they're right next door to lots of rich old people who keep their heaters on all the time) and gets plenty of rain. So they can grow plants that most UK sites wouldn't be able to… (I think he meant Kew Gardens here-- there was definitely some cross-town rivalry when he mentioned them!)
Even as a non-gardener, I found it a fascinating visit--and hopefully some of the pictures will turn out!
After that, I checked out a nearby famous gallery called Saatchi. I was really trying to be a grown up there--and maybe even buy something really small… But it was no dice. I had the same *meh* feeling that I often have with new modern art… I am just not cultured enough. (There HAD been a series about Asian art that had a lot of cat motifs… I would have bought out the place if that had still been on!) There was one exhibit that was a bunch of blue plastic shopping bags that took up the whole huge living-room sized gallery. That was probably my favorite… tho not exactly something someone could just buy… and it's also not exactly something that translates into a postcard… But a selfie--that's just right!
What else have I been doing this week?! Not a DANG thing!! I fell down the rabbit hole of the Harry Potter series when I assigned the first book for my class. I just went through and read them all, hardly coming up for breath. It is a waste of time, of course. There are about a billion things I should be doing instead… BUT they are so great-- and I haven't read them in years… AND there is a LOT of London related stuff in them. (And by book 7, Cornwall!) So it wan't totally unconnected… AND I'd just taken the class to Platform 9 3/4, and HP sites in Oxford, and a bonus trip to the HP tour at WB studios… So it was definitely in the air… :)
NOW, though, it's April-- no fooling-- and I am quickly running out of time in London… There is still SO MUCH left to do-- and I have to get planning the May portion of my visit… and write SOMETHING, sometime before it all gets out of hand… my conference paper, for example?!
And so...
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