Sunday, November 30, 2008
London

Winter has arrived with a vengeance. It is cold and it is soggy. And that’s the thing about English rain…it’s never really a proper downpour. It’s always just a light spritz, a gentle drizzle, sometimes just the finest spray! Like Hawaii, in many ways, except that in Hawaii that spray lasts precisely five minutes and then the sun–and the rainbows!–come out again and the day goes on as if that shower had never happened at all.

Here, the spray continues all day–just enough to ensure that your umbrella is raised and the streets are wet and the populace stays indoors sipping hot chocolate, or, in this season that’s merry and bright, hot mulled wine. Yes, that’s a very English thing indeed and all weekend long I’ve been seeing hot mulled wine offered everywhere at 3 pounds a glass–from Borough Market to Covent Garden, jaded shoppers are sipping these potent potations in a Dickensian tradition that lives on in the 21 st century. Oh, and also hot roasted chestnuts have been appearing on carts everywhere in keeping with the carol,
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,
Jack Frost nipping at your nose…”

Thanks to my resolution to attend Mass each Sunday in a different historic church in London, I resisted the temptation to go to the 9 am service at my parish church,St. Etheldreda’s, and instead kept myself busy till about 11 am. I had Breakfast in Bed–uuummmm!–hot toasted buttered croissants (I have developed such a love for Lurpak) and steaming coffee. Now that’s Sunday comfort food for you! I hammered out my November newsletter, then did my exercises and showered and at 11 .30 am, I was out of the house and in a bus and headed to Church. I decided to go to Berkeley (pronounced Barkley in this country, in the same way that Derby is Darby, I suppose) Square to attend the 12. 30 mass at Immaculate Conception Church.This is usually referred to as ‘Farm Church’ as it is on Farm Street in Mayfair and sits at one end of Mount Street Gardens (the same one in which KGB spies left secret notes for each other in the slats on the many benches that pepper the pathways).

As I said before, it was cold and it was soggy, so I was surprised to see how packed the church was. It’s Gothic interior is quite breathtaking with its high ceiling and tons of decorative details including Byzantine mosaics, innumerable carvings around the altar and pulpit, paintings on the walls). It turned out that the congregation was composed largely of ‘pilgrims’, devotees of the Jesuit martyr St. Edmund Campion. They’d been on the road since September, having started out at Oxford where Campion was a student at St. John’s College, and making their way to London where he was condemned to death by hanging for converting to Catholicism, joining the Jesuits and preaching secretly when his ministry began. His Feast Day is celebrated on December 1 (Chriselle’s Birthday) which is why the pilgrimage ended today in London where he was martyred.

Of course, I obtained all this information from the web only after I got home and decided to read up on him. While his name sounded familiar to me, I could not quite place him. I remember now that he is revered in Oxford and that might have been where I first heard his name. I also realize how dangerous it might have been to continue to profess allegiance to the Vatican in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Campion lived and preached and ministered to Catholics while in hiding and while being continually hounded. He was finally exposed by a spy, taken to the Tower where at his Trial, he presented a stirring defence of his faith, but was condemned to Death. He was hung, drawn and quartered in 1581 and was canonized a saint in 1980.

I was surprised to see that the congregation comprised multiple ethnicities. Of course, the majority were white English but I saw South Asians, East Asians and Blacks among the pilgrims. Fr. Hugh Duffy, S.J. said Mass and preached a sermon that was inspiring and particularly designed for his faithful congregation of pilgrims. I realized that he was a Scotsman when he referred, at one point, to St. Andrew, who, he said, was “the patron saint of the greatest country in the world”. This drew a hearty laugh from the congregation and I became aware, once again, of the healthy Anglo-Scots rivalry that continues to exist all over the British Isles. I sat for a few minutes, in the aftermath of the terrible terrorist attacks on Bombay, thinking that perhaps a reunification of Pakistan and India might be the solution to the continued bitterness that shrouds relations between these two countries. Perhaps if they are united politically, once again, the rivalry can continue, but on a more humorous level and without the threat of war or terrorism marring such a union. But perhaps that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

Back on the bus, I spoke to Llew and our Canadian guests who were at breakfast in Southport preparing for their long drive back to Toronto. I had intended to stay on the bus to Old Spitalfields Antiques Market but the weather strongly deterred me. Instead, I got off at my home stop and treated myself to a huge Italian lunch as I was starving by the time mass ended. I had mushroom soup for starters, garlic bread with cannelloni and salad (all courtesy of Sainsburys) and lemon tart for dessert. Then, replete with my large meal, I caught up on email correspondence and felt drowsy enough to take a short nap.

At 5 pm, I left my flat again, got on the bus and joined the throng of holiday shoppers at Oxford Street. At Marks and Spencer, I found some presents to take back home to India–prices are rapidly coming down and with the dollar so strong again, it is a great time to buy. Up in the lingerie section, I sought underwear but as I was getting ready to pay, the store made the announcement that it was closing in five minutes. That’s when I realised that they close at 6 pm on Sundays–even during the holiday season! Now that would never happen in the Land of Mamon, aka the United States. So I quickly paid for my purchases and was out and on the bus again, weighed down with gifts.

I spent a rather quiet evening with the telly, watching Far from the Madding Crowd with Julie Christie and Alan Bates. I realised in the first five minutes that I had seen this version before in Bombay, aeons ago, in the private British Council auditorium. Some scenes remained burned in my memory–the ones, in the beginning, with the sheep tumbling down the cliffs, another of the house on fire and Gabriel’s attempts to quell the flames. I ate another lovely dinner as I watched until I grew too sleepy and almost fell asleep on the couch.

It was the soggiest weekend in my memory but apart from the fact that today was rather unproductive, I really did use my time effectively and did not allow the rain to deter my plans ovet the past three days.