Puttering in the Study

Getting Back on the Blog

After three weeks of vacation, two weeks of trial, and a week of insane catchup, I'm starting to post again.

I'll start with some overdue book reviews, and go from there.

We're Getting the Band Back Together - The Drydock Tables are Baaaack!

After 30 years in various garages, I've finally got my old ship drydock tables back together.

I don't remember my room in my grandmother's house having a desk in it when we moved in in 1974, just the terrifying print of the sad Depression-era baby. But it did by 1977, which I suspect means the desk came from Pop's old stationery store next to the Hub because it was sold around that time, and various tables and shelves made it into the house and garage - including the monster safe in the garage.

It likely came from the old Demmer Company at one point or another.  (Maybe it was Ms. Rountree's?  Is it looking at us from the mezzanine in this picture of Pop at the original Marshall Stationery in 1950?) This August 1977 photo shows the initial docks painted on the desk (which had previously been antiqued, so this is all reversible).  You just know Mother had to really appreciate me scribbling "Carrier Docks" on a perfectly good table. And no, I don't recall why my 7th grade class picture is in the background.

By high school two years later the docks were filled out, and I was using one of Mom's card tables and the seat to a piano (which is in front of the table in the photo).  I added an airfield for the small planes that didn't belong to a specific carrier, complete with a helo pad, and marked out individual spots for 1/700 carrier squadrons where the paints had been in 1977.  And the first dock got detailed a bit to resemble 1010 at Pearl Harbor.  And I Sharpie'd in the more mature lettering "Naval Base" in the corner.The big Revell 1/542 Essex class carriers usually filled it - Ricky Toussaint gave me five he'd built (who has five of the same model?  I mean other than me?  Even I only built four of them.) and you can still see them in the 1980-ish photo at left.  With, of course the pictures of Jane Seymour, Carrie Fisher and Battlestar Galactica because of course.  (As an aside, why did it never occur to me to either sand off the ridiculous keels that made those Revell carriers list, or add bilge keels to make them sit level?)

The desk was later moved out to the garage on West Burleson, probably when Lucinda moved back and Zach moved it, and later when the garage was being cleaned out to our garage on Harris Lake.  I moved it to the carport at Fern a couple of years ago with the idea of using it as the study desk there, but we've never found the room.  Yesterday afternoon I carried it down to the workshop and set it up so I have a place to sit and read, write or work if I want a closer view of the lake.

Liverpool

Oh did we ever love Liverpool! Our tour guide had a master's degree in the Beatles (you can get that at university in Liverpool) and we saw the outstanding Beatles Story, where we got to experience the old Cavern in all its dark and cramped glory.

 On the way out Parker got to see the world's tackiest party barge (a sinking Titanic).

On the city tour we saw the downtown club scene (including the original and current site of the Cavern) and the locations of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.   The song Penny Lane, interestingly, isn't named for the street, but for the bus stop on the street, which was where all the locations can still be seen.

Dublin

We apparently didn't see Dublin Castle the last time we were here, so that was new, and we got to spend some time at Trinity College, seeing the Book of Kells and one of my favorite spaces, the Long Room in the library.

After that we got a chance to hit a couple of bookstores, and then yet another bus ride back to the ship.

Cobh (the port for Waterford Crystal)

Yeah, yeah, it's Ireland and very historic and unnaturally green.  So how do we get to where they make Waterford crystal?

We really enjoyed the tour of the factory, where we got to see all the amazing work they do, and picked up an ornament for the tree (no, not the monster Jamie is posing with!)   Had a stop later near an old castle, and C&P and I had a nice walk in the rain.  

Then back at the pier noticed that the Crystal Symphony we were on in November 2001 was just pulling out of the port at Cobh (incidentally the last port call made by Titanic as shown in this, the last photo taken of the ship before its sinking, taken from the same location).  So naturally I got a picture of it with our summer 2002 twins Parker and Collin.   One day they'll do the math on this picture and be really grossed out, but until then, it's just an interesting photo.

 

Windsor Castle

For our last day outside London before boarding the ship we went over to Windsor to tour the palace.  As usual, the tour was tremendously well-organized, and I liked it so much I bought two books on the history of the place.

Again, we had dinner at the Byron Proper Burgers in Windsor before returning to our hotel near Heathrow.

 

The White Cliffs of Dover

When we realized that our ship would be passing through the Channel in the middle of the night, Jamie and her parents insisted that we take the boys to see it, and I'm glad we did, even though it was a two day trip that saw us on the road from London to Maidstone the first day (that night - the only one we didn't spend in London - was the night of the London bridge and market attacks).

The boys loved the visit - they looked for rocks and shells along the path and argued the whole way about what things were. 

 

Stonehenge

If there's a site where there is more made to do about less, I'm not aware of it.  I don't mean to talk Stonehenge down, and they have a really nicely maintained site (now that they've moved the highway out of the actual site) but it's just weird seeing it from the highway, and there's just so little to actually see.

The most important thing I learned was that our conception of the site as a once-complete circle with identically sized and finished monoliths is probably wrong.  The "back" of the circle has smaller stones and there's strong evidence it was never actually finished.

Stowe Gardens & Byron Proper Burgers

If I have a bucket list, a visit to Stowe Gardens is probably on it.  Stowe is one of the masterpieces of landscape architecture, and since it was within reach during our recent visit to the UK. we were able to spend a day at it last month.

We toured the house (now a boys' school) and I was able to hit all three of the walking tours shown on the map - four if you count the walk from the visitors center.  I had all three boys for most of the first, one for the second, and I did the third solo, which made everyone happy (the picture at right shows just how thrilled Grayson was after finishing two of the walks).

Once we got back to London, we just had to go have dinner at the closest Byron Proper Burgers, which also made everyone happy.  

Parker's Meng Kids B-17 model

Parker likes the Meng Kids' versions of heavy bombers (he finds them, in his favorite word, "adorable").  He's already built a RAF Lancaster, and yesterday we put together their B-17, which is of course his favorite plane.

But around the time we finished, the markings started looking awfully familiar, and we finally realized why - they're the "Nine O Nine" plane that we saw and took a ride on in Longview a few years ago.