Dear Mom,
This evening finds us in the city of Lincoln, a really charming medieval town with a great cathedral (which we’ll visit tomorrow morning).
Our two days at the Cambridge Folk Festival were great, despite it being rather soggy on the second day. (It’s England, so you have to expect rain at least 50 percent of the time. I don’t make the rules.) In addition to some great acts at the festival — like Judy Collins, Rufus Wainright, and Kiefer Sutherland — we got to enjoy Cambridge and the environs of the University, which I’m sure you’ll remember fondly.
Today we drove up here to Lincoln, taking a detour through a pretty little village called Godmanchester, situated beside a canal. Carol remembered passing through the lock there as girl, on a canal boat with her parents. As luck would have it, there was a couple passing through the very same lock with their boat when we came upon it, and Carol really savored the nostalgia evoked by the scene. I think she’s quite enjoying being back in the country of her birth.
From there we drove through the gathering rain to Lincoln, settling in at a really sweet little hotel that was apparently once a palace gatehouse. After taking a rest, we went to see the new movie Oppenheimer, which was brilliant, then followed that up with some pub food and a pint. Now we’re back in our cosy room.
‘Til next time, cheers to you!
Last time, I wrote:
Carol and I are now on our UK trip, so I finally have some news worth narrating.
Actually, the first newsworthy item was probably one that happened the evening before we left home — this past Monday night. Carol and I were watching TV in our living room when five big hornets decided to join our soirée. They came down the chimney into the fireplace, so we figured there must be a nest up there. I managed to kill ‘em all, but we knew the trouble was just starting.
The next morning — the very day we were supposed to leave — we appealed to the Mairie (mayor’s office and seat of local government) in Sixt sur Aff for help. Much to our astonishment, within less than an hour, they directed to our place a pest control contractor, who promptly killed the hornets and removed the nest (and cleaned up) — all at no charge. It was the first time I ever saw French workers move that fast!
Anyway, later that day we traveled to the coastal town of Roscoff, where we spent the night before taking the ferry to Plymouth on the south coast of England. It was raining, naturally — England’s default condition — but despite generally wobbly weather we had a pleasant stay the last couple days with our friends Bellinda and Bob in Bristol.
Bellinda is a mostly-retired British astrophysicist who, like Carol, spent 38 years of her career in the US (at Harvard). In fact, she got her undergrad degree at Saint Andrews two years after Carol.
Bob is a big-hearted American, an ex-Air Force intelligence guy who is also a fanatical fan of the Boston Red Sox, with all sorts of memorabilia signed by guys like Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, and Jim Lonborg. (Randy will remember those guys, I’m sure.) Bob gave me one of his many baseball caps, a souvenir from the 2013 World Series won by the Sox.
Both Bob and Bellinda are quite Christian (Church of England). Bob and I had lots of interesting conversation about the provenance of the gospels, and early Christian history.
Yesterday, Bellinda showed us around Bristol— the Cathedral, several landmarks, parks, and so on. I must admit, it was a much nicer city than I had expected, one with quite an interesting history. Then last night, she and Bob took us out to a terrific Indian restaurant close to their place.
After we left Bristol today, Carol and I visited Tintern Abbey, a famous medieval ruin that you might also have encountered on one of your trips here.
This evening we are near Cambridge, and the next couple days we’ll be visiting the Cambridge Folk Festival.
I hope this finds you well, and enjoying your friends at Gloucester House. I’ll write again in a few days, but in the meantime if you want to follow what we’re up to, you can track our activities on Facebook.
Love as always,
Ron
Previous messages:
It was great to talk to you and Randy the other day! You looked like you’re still flourishing at Gloucester House.
I was a bit concerned when you said you hadn’t received the sweater that Carol and I sent you for your birthday. Here’s a picture of what it should look like:
Amazon says it was delivered there on June 10th. Maybe you could check in your closet, and see if perhaps the Gloucester House staff put it directly in there when it arrived?
There isn’t a whole lot of news here since I wrote my last letter to you. Today Carol and I went to the gym for our workout, and now the housecleaner who comes once a week (her name is Leticia) is cleaning the place.
I’m sorry to hear it’s been so hot over there! Around here we’ve mainly had 70s and low 80s, with a bit of rain from time to time to make the garden happy. I’m actually quite pleased with the garden this year. I was afraid that since we were away for a long time to the US this spring, the yard might be too out of control for me to whip it back into shape; but I’ve been able to get a surprising amount done. On the other hand, starting in a couple weeks we’ll be away again to the UK and Ireland for a little over a month, and then not long after that we’ll be in Vienna for another month — so by the time all *that* is done, we probably won’t even be able to find the place for all the weeds.
In the meantime, though, our Hibiscus and Dahlias are starting to come in, and along with the roses, we’re getting some very nice color:
I wish you could be over here to see it all!
Tomorrow Carol and I are going to up Rennes, which is the capital of Bretagne and one of the three large-ish cities within an hour of us. (The others are Vannes and Nantes.) We’re going to try out a new doctor and get our prescriptions filled, and then we’re going to head over to the driving school, where I’m going to try to get signed up for getting my permit this winter. (I would start earlier but we’re going to be away for most of the time before November.) Truth is, I’m pretty petrified about the whole ordeal — I’m still extremely shy about, y’know, talking to actual French people — but not surprisingly, it’s hard to avoid that here.
Anyway, that’s about all there is to report at present. I should have a bit more to talk about once we start our trip on the 25th. Meantime, take care and give me a shout when you’re able!
Love,
Ron
It seems like we have more and more difficulty getting in touch with each other by phone these days, so I have decided to try this as an experiment. I’ve set up this page on my website to give you updates about how and what we’re doing over on this side of the Big Water, show you some pictures, and so on. If you can remember to check it at the same time you’re checking Facebook, you can always see what we’re up to.
You can always write to us, too, of course! In case you don’t have it easily to hand, Here’s make our mailing address and my phone number. I’ll make sure you can always find that information here:
Address:
6 le Bois Baron
35550 Sixt-sur-Aff, France
Phone: +33 6 38 95 98 23
So…
How are things at Gloucester House? What kinds of crafts and games have you been doing lately? Who has been to visit you recently?
I hope you are staying safe from the summer heat and all the smoky air coming down from Canada. Believe it or not, we are now even getting some of that Canadian wildfire smoke on this side of the Atlantic! Fortunately it’s not too bad around these parts at present.
You’ve probably heard about a bunch of rioting over here, in Paris and other cities, in the wake of a policeman shooting a young man after a traffic stop — a lot like the rioting that happened in the US after George Floyd. Anyway, have no worries about us: we’re quite safe here in rural Brittany, and even in Paris the unrest is only found in some of the outlying arrondissements. Tamsyn seems perfectly safe there.
We’ve had a busy spring and summer so far. As you may recall, Carol and I went to Amsterdam some weeks ago to see the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of Vermeer paintings at the Rijksmuseum. We both enjoyed the show quite a lot — Vermeer was one of the most brilliant painters of his age. And it was great to see a lot of other artists’ paintings in the Rijksmuseum that I had studied back in graduate school. About Amsterdam itself, though, I was not as enthusiastic. It was crowded and dirty, with an undercurrent of drugs and licentiousness that I just found kind of off-putting. I guess it’s all my police upbringing.
I did, though, really enjoy visiting the town of Etretas on the Normandy coast on the way back from the Netherlands. The cliffs of Etretas have been painted by generations of French artists, most famously by Monet. And we got a pretty day to see them:
Since getting back to La Gacilly, I have mostly been very busy getting the yard in shape and trying once again to see if I can get sufficiently fluent in French. Carol found out that if I don’t get my French driver’s license — if I get caught driving on my US license — I could be in for some pretty severe penalties, including jail time. So she is now doing all the driving, while I try to get good enough in French to go to driving school and get my license.
As usual in summer, though, the biggest chunk of my time most days goes to yard maintenance. After putting in a lot of sweat equity, we finally have some lovely roses again, as well as some gorgeous hydrangeas.
Now I’m just waiting for my dahlias to pop!
I’ve also been ripping out some old junk hedges and preparing a huge new planting bed on the hill down to our lower yard. It’s been hard work! Last week I managed to wrench my back pretty badly, so I’ve been trying to go a little easier on my body since then (no choice, honestly) — but I think I’m almost back to my usual old self again.
Last month we had all our downstairs windows and doors replaced with nice double-pane ones. The house definitely looks better now from the outside, and we have a lot more light inside, which is so important to Carol, especially. The new windows were expensive (no surprise there), but we’re hoping that the energy savings, together with the increase in resale value of the house, will mostly compensate for the cost.
I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but Carol and I are now members at the local gym, and we’ve been going three days a week to try to improve our fitness a bit. When I was at UVa, I went to the gym most days over many years, so it feels good to get back to that routine again.
We also recently had a housecleaner come and give the place a thorough cleaning, and we are now having her come once a week for a couple hours. It’s a big, hard-to-clean house, so we’ve really needed some help. Our hope is that if we can keep down the level of dust and dirt in the place, it might be easier on my allergies.
Like me, Carol has been working very hard in the garden since we got back from Amsterdam; but she has also been able to dedicate some quality time to painting. The photo below shows her latest work-in-progress, inspired by some of our favorite roses in the back garden.
As for all our kids, they seem to be doing well. Audrey is coming up on her 40th birthday, can you believe it? (I feel ancient.) She is getting more involved with teaching academics and training kids in outdoor skills, in the homeschool community there around Stafford. She is also taking Tae Kwon Do (Korean martial arts), and she’s doing really well with that.
Carol’s daughter Kim got a new job not long ago managing a chain restaurant, and she seems to be doing very well. Right now she’s in Texas getting a couple weeks of management training. She seems to be in a good relationship now with her boyfriend Alex, who seems like a nice guy and a talented chef.
Jordan… Well, I rarely hear from Jordan. I know that he has finally been able to buy a house near Boulder — yay! — and he finally also got a pickup truck, which he’s been wanting for quite some time. So he seems to be doing well on that Google salary. I think he has a girlfriend as well, though he keeps things so close to the vest that he might celebrate a silver anniversary before I ever find out he’s gotten married. That’s okay, though — he’s a great fellow, and I always love my visits with him.
Tamsyn is doing extremely well working for an energy consulting firm in Exeter. She works really hard, and the business clearly values her a great deal — allowing her to live in Paris as long as she comes in to the UK office every once in a while to spend some time with her team. Right now Tamsyn is actually in Spain at a festival. She loves to travel whenever she gets the chance. She and several of her Parisian friends are going to be staying at the house here for a few days while Carol and I are gone on our trip to the British Isles. Hopefully the place will still be standing when we get back.
Finally, Randall is doing well, too. The folks at the UVa Police encouraged him to apply for a Corporal job, and he just interviewed for that a few days ago. That was right after he got back from his annual two week USMC reserve training at Camp Lejeune. He should hear something back about the job before the end of next week. With regard to his application to UVa for this fall, Randall had gotten wait-listed; but unfortunately he found out while he was away at Lejeune that he didn’t get accepted. I’m not sure what his next step is, but I know he is very determined to get his degree, and I’m confident he’ll get it done.
Randall is also having to say goodbye to his girlfriend Alis, who is finished with her culinary internship in Charlottesville and now has to go back to Mexico. They have become very close since meeting over the winter, and he says he would like to marry her. I’m not quite sure what the next steps are in that saga, either; when I talked to her a couple months ago, she was planning to go work in Hungary (I believe) as the next phase of her culinary career. I guess we’ll see what transpires.
Well, this letter has gotten a bit longer than I expected! I should probably bring it to a close for the time being, and let you get back to your life there. Don’t forget to check back to this page from time to time — I’ll probably refresh it again in a couple weeks, before we take off for our upcoming trip to the UK and Ireland. More about that as it happens!
Please take care, and give us a call when you’re able. We love you and miss you!
Ron and Carol
Ronald Crittenden 