Mother Orange, why do you do this to me? Of course I must respond now. My apologies, Samantha and others, and Sam, I'll reply to your kind response once you've had time to catch up with all our other comments (or by Tuesday night before I hit the road myself Weds. a.m., whichever comes first). Mother O and I are so far ahead of her now that Sam may not catch up (if she ever wishes to) for some time yet. But at least the two of us are filling up vast tracts of text that Samantha won't have to pay that much attention to, either, if she so chooses - we're an archipelago of possibly extraneous islands in the Sea of Sam here, popping up all through her pages, and this might not be a good thing. Yet normally I'd be getting my glimpse at Great Hotels now, but the Travel Channel has pre-empted her today, so it's not all my fault that I'm here instead (also checked the Travel Channel's schedule for Gt. Hotels to see that next month she's vacated the noon to one timeslot altogether - what am I going to do when I'm home at lunch now? This is very bad...
Ham House - sounds like you had as fun a day as you would have had visiting the house itself, but it is a lovely area, isn't it? As I've always discovered in England trips, there's perpetually next time (that should be a theme for Sam's wanderings as well, and I'll have lots more suggestions, too). And to be honest (and I now know this from the guide's inside view of things now) it's much better to visit a house not on a day when it's over-run with crowds like you would have encountered that day. You get far better and intimate tours when fewer people are around, I assure you. And Erica Pibbsworth - a name worthy of a literary novel character itself... Best tour guide I ever had, by the way, was not at one of my beloved ancient country houses, but on the HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship, still hanging in there in Portsmouth Harbour. It's still in the Royal Navy, and the tour guides are naval officers as well. Tours are crisply begun at the very second indicated on your ticket, and amazingly you crawl all over the many decks of that monster (Old Ironsides was just a pup compared to it). Perhaps sparked by watching Master and Commander (a far smaller warship but identical in time and everything else), I still remember that tour, 8 years ago, as if it were yesterday.
And the novel, Mother O, was finished when I mentioned it here, I'm sure, or maybe still being polished. Anyway, it's been done for over a year now, and I personally love it (after all, it's mine). Quite lyrical, I think, anyway, and wonderfully romantic (no surprise there), but in this day even getting an agent merely to consent to read a single page precis by an unpublished first-time author is virtually impossible without connections or some other in, and that I do not have. But I wrote it mostly for me and some friends. I will, though, be more than happy for you to read it - I can actually e-mail it to you in single chapter chunks (how did Hawthorne and ****ens, much less Fitzgerald, do this without a pc?). It's actually a novel within a novel, lush romantic romance between English Edwardian young architect and client's daughter framed by drabber contemporary life but still romantic leanings here, with connections back and forth sort of like Possession, French Lieutenant's Woman, the English Patient, and that amazing play of Tom Stoppard', Arcadia. I think it's great stuff, but then I was the target audience. So think about it...
So is that it for now? Always a true pleasure to talk with you Mother O (I'm actually gonna wash my car and get a quick run in outside while it's relatively warm here - bet you can't do that in Syracuse today). And Samantha, sorry to take another 10 inches out of page 3, and hope you won't mind my responding to you and your exfoliations later on. Bye now.
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