So, the tour I went on in the UK was a Pride-and-Prejudice pilgrimage, where we were going to study the text, in-depth. It was operated by the people who do the podcast 'Harry Potter and the Sacred Text', a company called 'Common Ground' which does pilgrimages based around literary texts (and may have been influenced or created by the podcast creators), and was hosted by Sarah Stewart-Holland of the Pantsuit Politics podcast, who was my initial point of interest in the pilgrimage.
In the course of the pilgrimage, we would wander the fields of Derbyshire, visit Chatsworth House (which substituted as Pemberley in the 2005 Pride And Prejudice movie), walk past a number of influences in the English literature of the era, and explore the characters while ruminating on the text.
Over the week, we climbed hills and hiked fields, climbed over stiles, and skirted rivers.
It was...pretty good.
In essence, it's doing what fandom often does - picking apart the characters and their motivations, their thoughts, and internalities, and reading into the canon. Sometimes more than the canon allows for.
We were headquartered at the Rutland Arms in Bakewell, a small town in Derbyshire, about 50 minutes from the town of Chesterfield. Ever heard of 'Bakewell tarts'? Welp, this is apparently the town.
The Rutland Arms is an old hotel, which is divided into two parts with a road running between. I suspect one was the stables and the other was the main house/hostel - and they've done both up with rooms in which to stay. I was in the 'old stables' part, sharing a room with another woman, and we got along pretty well.
They've done a great job of keeping it in a certain style, and it's warm. So warm. I can sit around in my sleeping stuff in the evening, instead of having to rug up. That's something I'm going to sincerely resent next winter.
--
Day 1 was meeting and greeting, a brief explanation of how the next few days was going to work, and then a brief class before we had a little free time and dinner.
Day 2 was a 4 mile walk up hill and over dale to Chatsworth House (the externals were used for Pemberley in the 2005 movie version of P&P). The participants were warned about fitness and about walking capability, and given advice on what to pack, and pretty much everyone was ready and able for it. One person struggled a little bit - she was older, and I don't think she'd really considered how much strain the walks would put on her body, but she got through the entire week.
Chatsworth House is pretty impressive, no matter what you think of the 2005 P&P movie. That said, thinking about the degree of wealth that allowed people to build (rebuild, renovate, decorate, develop) places like this boggles the brain.
Everything gleams with artistry and skill, whether the portraits, art, or sculpture through the house, or the design of the rooms or gardens.
Notable things: a portrait of Elizabeth Spencer, portrayed as Diana emerging from the clouds. Leaves from an Australian tree to furnish an artwork by a Sydney artist. The Cascade and Fountain, both of which are gravity fed from a natural reservoir in the hills above the estate.
And then there was THE ROCKERY. I don't have words for how amazing this was, so have a couple of pictures:
Our study topic the first day was Darcy. Who he was and who he became. The weight of what had happened the summer previous to the story, and the underlying reasons (but not excuses) for his behaviour and sense of pride. Going to the location used as Pemberley for the 2005 movie gave us insight into the kind of family the Darcys might have been, and into how Elizabeth might have felt marrying into such a family.
I started the day with a full breakfast. The hotel offered a hot breakfast as part of our package and rather to my susrprise, given how much I'd eaten the previous day, I was hungry enough to eat it all.
Since it was still before we were due to leave for the day's walk, I headed up to see the church on the hill: All Saints Bakewell. The next day, I discovered there were old Celtic cross stones discovered in the foundations, suggesting its been a place of worship since before the middle ages.
Some of the headstones, though... Multiple children dying before they reached 5, and even those that did teach adolescence of adulthood could be cut off in the prime of life so easily. There was also a set of what looked like coffins, with Human-shaped carvings out of them and a hole in the bottom. Somewhat macabrely, I realised they were probably morgue boxes, made to keep corpses cold, with the hole in the bottom to drain the fluids...
--
Our class contemplation today was on Lizzie Bennett, on the kind of heroine she was, on the choice she made to refuse Mr Collins, and how it came before they learned that Bingley had quit Netherfield (for until that point, it was half-expected that Jane would have married him). With a pilgrimage theme of "status" and a consideration of the precarity of a woman's situation in past eras, there were a lot of thoughts being aired, and we continued to discuss them as we hiked across the countryside with a fantastic local guide, Chris.
There were some lovely oddities along the way: a rubber chicken and a toy t-rex eyeballing us along a laneway, a call to deliver a household of excess appleage, and pears growing over a garden wall. A heifer cow grazed on a hill rather as a goat does, before we walked in silent contemplation by the river swelling past us, while the ducks use it like a roller coaster!
The hike was long and they warned up - 5-6 miles over the course of the day - and up hill and down dale! But also in the realm of so much beauty and wilderness (and also sheep shit and cow shit), an ancient Roman settlement, and several weirs and cascades.
It ended up being closer to 8 miles! WHEW.
And after dinner, there was the P&P 2005 rewatch, which I skipped and regretted skipping as per an earlier post.
--
Our character studies were Mrs Bennett, and Charlotte Lucas, with a little bit of time spent on the sisters. It was an interesting conversation, not least for the variety of opinions given about their motives, their extrapolated history, and the choices they had vs the choices they made.
--
Stannage Edge is a ridge of rock in the Peak District, and is best visually known from the 2005 P&P movie with Keira Knightly standing atop it while the wind swirls her dress around her. I'm sure people have dome the hike in delicate regency-style dresses, but all I had was my emerald green raincoat and Daniel.
Oh, and clinging to the rock at the top of a hike is a small family joke, c/o B1 who did something like this when she ascended a massive hill in Wales.
There was an old church where Little John was claimed to be buried, which was still locally used. It had a full setup for kids down one side of the church, including toys and books to keep them entertained during the service. So I went to look at the music on the organ to work out what kind of stuff they sang. It was a hymn that I knew, and I checked the tune by humming it.
Several people (mostly from my tour group) gave me slightly shocked looks. And I pointed out (in a normal volume voice) that this is an actively used church because of the 'nursery' space which would be very noisy during the course of a standard church service in which there were families.
It was kind of funny, but also a bit sad. They might have just dismissed it as 'that irreverent Aussie', which is also fair. But my faith isn't in a distant, serious God, but a God who made cats and octopus to slide through ridiculously small spaces, stuck gold and steel and carborundum in rocks, and electricity in frogs' legs (okay, that's where they started to realise it could be harnessed), and created the wide and starry universe, but incarnated to the limitations of a human being.
That's not the norm of religious upbringing, I know. But damn, it's a fun one.
Finally, as we left the church area, I noticed some gentlemen maintaining a local cricket pitch... I suspect this passed the Americans by entirely.
The final dinner was quite good. For once, they set the tables up with nametags, picking people to go into groups rather than letting everyone choose for themselves. There were topical questions, and I think they'd done a careful job of making sure there were introverts and extroverts mixed together so there was no one person stuck trying to manage all the conversation at a table.
Overall, the pilgrimage was enjoyable.
And there's another one organised by the same group (and featuring Sarah Stewart Holland) happening on Emma next year. Which I can't afford, because it's in May which is only 9 months away, and I don't even know if I'll be working then. I surely can't afford as long a holiday as I did this time either. Which is a bummer, because I like Emma rather more than I do Pride and Prejudice and I suspect the profile of the people who go is going to be distinctly different from the P&P group...
But the UK! In May! Again! GRARGH.
In the course of the pilgrimage, we would wander the fields of Derbyshire, visit Chatsworth House (which substituted as Pemberley in the 2005 Pride And Prejudice movie), walk past a number of influences in the English literature of the era, and explore the characters while ruminating on the text.
Over the week, we climbed hills and hiked fields, climbed over stiles, and skirted rivers.
It was...pretty good.
In essence, it's doing what fandom often does - picking apart the characters and their motivations, their thoughts, and internalities, and reading into the canon. Sometimes more than the canon allows for.
We were headquartered at the Rutland Arms in Bakewell, a small town in Derbyshire, about 50 minutes from the town of Chesterfield. Ever heard of 'Bakewell tarts'? Welp, this is apparently the town.
The Rutland Arms is an old hotel, which is divided into two parts with a road running between. I suspect one was the stables and the other was the main house/hostel - and they've done both up with rooms in which to stay. I was in the 'old stables' part, sharing a room with another woman, and we got along pretty well.
They've done a great job of keeping it in a certain style, and it's warm. So warm. I can sit around in my sleeping stuff in the evening, instead of having to rug up. That's something I'm going to sincerely resent next winter.
--
Day 1 was meeting and greeting, a brief explanation of how the next few days was going to work, and then a brief class before we had a little free time and dinner.
Day 2: Chatsworth House & Darcy
Day 2 was a 4 mile walk up hill and over dale to Chatsworth House (the externals were used for Pemberley in the 2005 movie version of P&P). The participants were warned about fitness and about walking capability, and given advice on what to pack, and pretty much everyone was ready and able for it. One person struggled a little bit - she was older, and I don't think she'd really considered how much strain the walks would put on her body, but she got through the entire week.
Chatsworth House is pretty impressive, no matter what you think of the 2005 P&P movie. That said, thinking about the degree of wealth that allowed people to build (rebuild, renovate, decorate, develop) places like this boggles the brain.
Everything gleams with artistry and skill, whether the portraits, art, or sculpture through the house, or the design of the rooms or gardens.
Notable things: a portrait of Elizabeth Spencer, portrayed as Diana emerging from the clouds. Leaves from an Australian tree to furnish an artwork by a Sydney artist. The Cascade and Fountain, both of which are gravity fed from a natural reservoir in the hills above the estate.
And then there was THE ROCKERY. I don't have words for how amazing this was, so have a couple of pictures:
Our study topic the first day was Darcy. Who he was and who he became. The weight of what had happened the summer previous to the story, and the underlying reasons (but not excuses) for his behaviour and sense of pride. Going to the location used as Pemberley for the 2005 movie gave us insight into the kind of family the Darcys might have been, and into how Elizabeth might have felt marrying into such a family.
Day 3: the Long Walk
I started the day with a full breakfast. The hotel offered a hot breakfast as part of our package and rather to my susrprise, given how much I'd eaten the previous day, I was hungry enough to eat it all.
Since it was still before we were due to leave for the day's walk, I headed up to see the church on the hill: All Saints Bakewell. The next day, I discovered there were old Celtic cross stones discovered in the foundations, suggesting its been a place of worship since before the middle ages.
Some of the headstones, though... Multiple children dying before they reached 5, and even those that did teach adolescence of adulthood could be cut off in the prime of life so easily. There was also a set of what looked like coffins, with Human-shaped carvings out of them and a hole in the bottom. Somewhat macabrely, I realised they were probably morgue boxes, made to keep corpses cold, with the hole in the bottom to drain the fluids...
--
Our class contemplation today was on Lizzie Bennett, on the kind of heroine she was, on the choice she made to refuse Mr Collins, and how it came before they learned that Bingley had quit Netherfield (for until that point, it was half-expected that Jane would have married him). With a pilgrimage theme of "status" and a consideration of the precarity of a woman's situation in past eras, there were a lot of thoughts being aired, and we continued to discuss them as we hiked across the countryside with a fantastic local guide, Chris.
There were some lovely oddities along the way: a rubber chicken and a toy t-rex eyeballing us along a laneway, a call to deliver a household of excess appleage, and pears growing over a garden wall. A heifer cow grazed on a hill rather as a goat does, before we walked in silent contemplation by the river swelling past us, while the ducks use it like a roller coaster!
The hike was long and they warned up - 5-6 miles over the course of the day - and up hill and down dale! But also in the realm of so much beauty and wilderness (and also sheep shit and cow shit), an ancient Roman settlement, and several weirs and cascades.
It ended up being closer to 8 miles! WHEW.
And after dinner, there was the P&P 2005 rewatch, which I skipped and regretted skipping as per an earlier post.
--
Day 4 and 5 of Derbyshire
Our character studies were Mrs Bennett, and Charlotte Lucas, with a little bit of time spent on the sisters. It was an interesting conversation, not least for the variety of opinions given about their motives, their extrapolated history, and the choices they had vs the choices they made.
--
Stannage Edge is a ridge of rock in the Peak District, and is best visually known from the 2005 P&P movie with Keira Knightly standing atop it while the wind swirls her dress around her. I'm sure people have dome the hike in delicate regency-style dresses, but all I had was my emerald green raincoat and Daniel.
Oh, and clinging to the rock at the top of a hike is a small family joke, c/o B1 who did something like this when she ascended a massive hill in Wales.
There was an old church where Little John was claimed to be buried, which was still locally used. It had a full setup for kids down one side of the church, including toys and books to keep them entertained during the service. So I went to look at the music on the organ to work out what kind of stuff they sang. It was a hymn that I knew, and I checked the tune by humming it.
Several people (mostly from my tour group) gave me slightly shocked looks. And I pointed out (in a normal volume voice) that this is an actively used church because of the 'nursery' space which would be very noisy during the course of a standard church service in which there were families.
It was kind of funny, but also a bit sad. They might have just dismissed it as 'that irreverent Aussie', which is also fair. But my faith isn't in a distant, serious God, but a God who made cats and octopus to slide through ridiculously small spaces, stuck gold and steel and carborundum in rocks, and electricity in frogs' legs (okay, that's where they started to realise it could be harnessed), and created the wide and starry universe, but incarnated to the limitations of a human being.
That's not the norm of religious upbringing, I know. But damn, it's a fun one.
Finally, as we left the church area, I noticed some gentlemen maintaining a local cricket pitch... I suspect this passed the Americans by entirely.
The final dinner was quite good. For once, they set the tables up with nametags, picking people to go into groups rather than letting everyone choose for themselves. There were topical questions, and I think they'd done a careful job of making sure there were introverts and extroverts mixed together so there was no one person stuck trying to manage all the conversation at a table.
Overall, the pilgrimage was enjoyable.
And there's another one organised by the same group (and featuring Sarah Stewart Holland) happening on Emma next year. Which I can't afford, because it's in May which is only 9 months away, and I don't even know if I'll be working then. I surely can't afford as long a holiday as I did this time either. Which is a bummer, because I like Emma rather more than I do Pride and Prejudice and I suspect the profile of the people who go is going to be distinctly different from the P&P group...
But the UK! In May! Again! GRARGH.
I am really enjoying Porto, except for the feeling of having to DO ALL THE THINGS.
But I think I shall go and catch the train across the river this evening to the gardens on the hill and maybe watch the sunset from there (if I don't get crushed by the madding crowds).
I am thinking about an all-day tour tomorrow, to a national park with some waterfalls and suchlike. I was out on an all-day tour of the Douro vallue yesterday, though. And did a walking tour this morning...
eta: tour is booked out, so it will be a quieter day tomorrow. The alternative that I tried to book fell through (he said he had an accident and won't be doing tours until next week, but I suspect that it's as simple as "there's only one person who's booked for this tour and so it's not worth it").
Probably just as well.
But I think I shall go and catch the train across the river this evening to the gardens on the hill and maybe watch the sunset from there (if I don't get crushed by the madding crowds).
I am thinking about an all-day tour tomorrow, to a national park with some waterfalls and suchlike. I was out on an all-day tour of the Douro vallue yesterday, though. And did a walking tour this morning...
eta: tour is booked out, so it will be a quieter day tomorrow. The alternative that I tried to book fell through (he said he had an accident and won't be doing tours until next week, but I suspect that it's as simple as "there's only one person who's booked for this tour and so it's not worth it").
Probably just as well.
The 20 Thousand Hertz podcast dives deep into Why is movie dialogue so hard to understand?, providing six possible reasons why more and more people are turning on subtitles/captions for movies, TV, and the streaming services we use to watch them. Reason six comes with a solution!
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Dallas Taylor, 20k.org’s founder, points out video games have solved this problem: most permit users to individually adjust the loudness settings for
- music
- sound effects
- dialogue
Movie sound, on the other hand, is designed to be impressive in a great big theater. But of course most of us watch the screen sector’s output at home.
https://www.20k.org/episodes/subtitleson has both the 30-minute audio and a transcript
I’m a big fan of this podcast, which is often disability-adjacent. In its nine years, it's covered how artists shape sound to convey meaning, how manufacturers tune their devices to be friendly, and how Beethoven created great music when he couldn’t hear at all.
Not surprisingly, many fans work with sound. Taylor solicited listener-produced contributions; I enjoyed the sixteen he chose. The overall winner celebrates the sonic scrapbook a Canadian sound designer keeps of his blind son’s upbringing, and introduces generational delight to the stop announcements on the Montreal transit system.
Accessibility Issue: I couldn’t open the SquareSpace transcript window using my tab key (crucial for those of us who don’t use mice) so I hope this highlight link to the control opens the transcript—let know about trouble/solutions in the comments.
I arrived in London on Friday evening, a little after the time the host and I had agreed upon thanks to a late flight departure. It was still earlier than it would have been if I'd caught the multi-stage flight that was on my itinerary.
( london )
Thanks so much,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rmc28 for coming out and meeting me on not just one, but two days! It was so great to catch up, talk, see a bit more of the UK, go steam-training, and watch women's football!
And then I went to see Twelfth Night at the Globe Theatre - the old-fashioned style theatre that Shakespeare's plays would have been shown in (ever seen 'Shakespeare In Love'? That kind of theatre). Six or seven years ago, there was a Popup Globe that came to Australia, and I saw shows in Sydney and in Melbourne, dragging various friends along, and it was just the best fun. Highly recommended.
On the way home, went and picked up some wagamama munchies - not for dinner, but for lunch the next day while I was on the train. An EastAsian-fusion restaurant, wagamama went out of business in Australia a decade ago and more, but apparently is still doing pretty well here. Not entirely surprising, I guess. We have so much food from Asia - East, South-East, South, not to mention all the other types of food from non-white countries we have in abundance - that something that's 'Asian lite' is not going to get much traffic here.
I got back to the room, and chatted a bit with the host. A nice longer chat, we touched on a bunch of topics, and I was a little disappointed that I hadn't had the opportunity to talk to him earlier.
But the place was excellently positioned, near an underground station with three lines passing through it. My only complaint was that it was a little close to a couple of pubs that were very noisy on a Friday night, although they quietened significantly after 11pm.
And the next day, I caught a train up to Chesterfield to meet the tour group for the Pride and Prejudice pilgrimage...
( london )
Thanks so much,
rmc28 for coming out and meeting me on not just one, but two days! It was so great to catch up, talk, see a bit more of the UK, go steam-training, and watch women's football!And then I went to see Twelfth Night at the Globe Theatre - the old-fashioned style theatre that Shakespeare's plays would have been shown in (ever seen 'Shakespeare In Love'? That kind of theatre). Six or seven years ago, there was a Popup Globe that came to Australia, and I saw shows in Sydney and in Melbourne, dragging various friends along, and it was just the best fun. Highly recommended.
On the way home, went and picked up some wagamama munchies - not for dinner, but for lunch the next day while I was on the train. An EastAsian-fusion restaurant, wagamama went out of business in Australia a decade ago and more, but apparently is still doing pretty well here. Not entirely surprising, I guess. We have so much food from Asia - East, South-East, South, not to mention all the other types of food from non-white countries we have in abundance - that something that's 'Asian lite' is not going to get much traffic here.
I got back to the room, and chatted a bit with the host. A nice longer chat, we touched on a bunch of topics, and I was a little disappointed that I hadn't had the opportunity to talk to him earlier.
But the place was excellently positioned, near an underground station with three lines passing through it. My only complaint was that it was a little close to a couple of pubs that were very noisy on a Friday night, although they quietened significantly after 11pm.
And the next day, I caught a train up to Chesterfield to meet the tour group for the Pride and Prejudice pilgrimage...
That feeling when there was something on, you know you could have/should have gone, but you didn't, and now you have regret.
It was a social night for the tour I'm on, but I was super-tired from the walk today (well, everyone was) so I stayed in. But I think nearly everyone else went, so I missed out on 2 hours of socialising. Then again, I'm (once again) oddball out on this tour.
Which, I know the "once again" should mean I'm used to this, but also, it's slightly harder on this one.
Walked about 7 miles yesterday, up hill and down dale, through cowpasture and sheep pasture. Definitely walking off the meals I've been eating the last couple of days.
It was a social night for the tour I'm on, but I was super-tired from the walk today (well, everyone was) so I stayed in. But I think nearly everyone else went, so I missed out on 2 hours of socialising. Then again, I'm (once again) oddball out on this tour.
Which, I know the "once again" should mean I'm used to this, but also, it's slightly harder on this one.
Walked about 7 miles yesterday, up hill and down dale, through cowpasture and sheep pasture. Definitely walking off the meals I've been eating the last couple of days.
( Italy and the cities there )
Right now, my roomie is using a fan, and I suspect plans to use it all night. On the plus side, at least I don't have to deal with the full-bore air-conditioning. They don't have that here in the UK in most places.
Right now, my roomie is using a fan, and I suspect plans to use it all night. On the plus side, at least I don't have to deal with the full-bore air-conditioning. They don't have that here in the UK in most places.
Had a good time in Amalfi - the scenery is gorgeous. The people were pretty nice, a much younger crowd of women, but with only about half the time together, it was harder to make connections. We all took each others insta accounts and will follow on that way.
Now in London for a couple of days, thence to Derbyshire.
Now in London for a couple of days, thence to Derbyshire.