You won't find the village of Loddon in most guidebooks. This seems a shame, as it offers a delightful glimpse into English country life. A wooden butcher sign advertises cuts of meat at a grassy intersection. Homes sport unique architectural features and colorful gardens. The locals play lawn bowling every afternoon. Boats tour the inland waterways, and their occupants disembark to walk the town, and see its treasures. Why not? Loddon won a prestigious Village of the Year award for its region. Mariners like the village so much they tie up their ships in the harbor, or moor along the riverbank, so they can visit the pubs in the evening. As the daylight waned one evening during our stay, the church bells called to me. So I left our room in the pub, and walked along the cobbled streets. I wandered among the gravestones, while the bells signaled the coming of darkness. Like the village, Science Fiction and Fantasy author Roger Zelazny won many prestigious awards for his stories. Although best known for his Amber series, October is a good time to read his book A Night in the Lonesome October. Each day of the month gets a chapter, and the novel contains whimsical illustrations by Gahan Wilson. Together, they tell the story of a group of strangers who have taken residence outside a quiet English village. Who are these strangers, and what are they up to? There's a man named Jack, who keeps a number of spirits captive in his house. There's a woman named Jill, who takes to the air in the evening. There's a Count who speaks with an East European accent, and someone known as the Good Doctor, who conducts experiments involving lighting and a shrouded figure. Observing all this is the Great Detective, who smokes a pipe, and seems adept at disguise. We view this village and its environs through Jack's dog Snuff. He regularly chats with Greymalk, Jill's cat. He's on sociable terms with other animals who have accompanied these strangers to the village, such as a rat, a bat, and a snake. He helps Jack prevent his trapped spirits from escaping, and protects the house from outside threat, such as a crossbow-wielding vicar. When he has a moment to himself, Snuff often walks between the houses in which the strangers reside, and draws lines of power between them in his mind. It seems as though a game is afoot, but what that game is exactly, well...you'll have to read the novel to discover. Unlike Jack and the other newcomers to the village, I didn't dig up any graves that evening in Loddon. But I did take time to enjoy the music of the bell ringers, and do a little sketching before the light ebbed away. Some may sense spirits there. Some may associate danger with the graveyard. For myself, I enjoyed the restful spirit of a peaceful English village, and the sense of history and community that the churchyard represented. Roger Zelazny may never have visited Loddon, but you can discover its quiet wonders. Once you visit there, you can always return in your mind. Like Snuff, you can draw the lines of power between the river harbor and the lawn bowlers' green, revisit the charity shops, or walk the cobbled streets. The bells can call to you again. Their siren-like song will call to you, and draw you toward the church yard: a place of serenity and power. Dragon Dave
Right now I'm reading the novel Petticoat Government by Baroness Emma Orczy. It illustrates how the French aristocracy traded favors to wield important government positions. One theme of the novel suggests that Orczy wished her English readers to understand the level of government corruption that led to the French Revolution. A chief figure in the novel is Madame de Pompadour. Although of humble origins, she rose to prominence as a favored mistress of King Louis XV. She used her influence to go on such an elaborate spending spree that the parliament instituted a Ministry of Finance. As the court traded on favors back then, the young husband of the Prime Minister's daughter was appointed the French Finance Minister. While he initially viewed himself as unqualified for such an exalted position, the young husband finds that wielding the most powerful government position in France agrees with him. He welcomes groups of petitioners to his bedchamber in the Palace of Versailles, and entertains their ideas and suggestions from his throne-like bed. Orczy sees the women as largely wielding the real power in French society back then. So while the husband listens to their plans and pleas, it is his wife, the Prime Minister's daughter, who actually decides how to spend, or check, the government's income. On one occasion, the secretary to the Finance Minister tells a supplicant that he holds no qualifications for entry. But when the young man tells the secretary that he's engaged to his daughter's friend, he is granted immediate access to the exalted chamber. On this same August 13, 1746, he succeeded in being present at the petit lever of M. le Controleur-General des Finances. Once within the secret precincts of the bedchamber he, like so many other petitioners and courtiers, was duly confronted by the stony stare of M. Achielle, and found himself face to face with an enormous bedstead of delicately painted satinwood and ormolu mounts, draped with heavy azure silk curtains which hung down from a gilded baldachin, the whole a masterpiece of the furniture-maker's art. Baroness Emma Orczy, Petticoat Government, 1910. Another theme of the novel is the French aristocracy's love of chocolate. People in important government positions have access to chocolate, which is then not sold in bars, or an ingredient for desserts, but seen as the rich man's drink. Favors are traded, and access granted, because of people close to the servants who bring and mix the hot cocoa. Earlier in the novel, the Finance Minister's secretary wins his position because his daughter brings hot chocolate to a highly-placed official each morning. Of course, the young Finance Minister finds that his new schedule of drinking a cup of hot chocolate each morning agrees with him. When the young supplicant, who is engaged to the friend of the secretary's daughter, enters the Finance Minister's bedchamber, these are his first impressions: The scent of chocolate filled his nostrils, and he vaguely saw a good-looking man reclining under a coverlet of magnificent Venetian lace, and listening placidly to what was obviously a very amusing tale related to him from well-roughed lips. From the billowy satins and laces of the couch a delicate hand was waved toward him as he attempted to pay his respects to the most powerful man in France... Earlier this month, I enjoyed discovering the rich history of chocolate in Britain, which was celebrated in Norwich Cathedral by converting a large brass mixing bowl from a chocolate factory into a baptismal font. Now, through British-Hungarian author Baroness Emma Orczy, I'm learning that chocolate played a role in bringing down the government of France in the 18th Century. Oh, for the love of chocolate! Dragon Dave
I was watching the movie "Chocolat" recently, about a woman who reinvigorates a little French village by opening a Chocolate shop. In the "making of" featurette, I learned that the first chocolate bar was produced in the mid 1800s. Before that, chocolate was mainly used as a drink. I normally associate chocolate with Switzerland. So it came as a surprise to learn that England produced the world's first chocolate bar. We always visit candy shops when we visit England, and you can find lots of varieties of candies and chocolates that are not available in the United States. But to hold the title of world's first chocolate bar producer, well, I think you'll agree that's something special. Chocolate may not own the title of many Hollywood films, but it often plays an important role in literature. American author Joanne Fluke's first novel appeared in 1980, but twenty years later, her novel The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder proved so popular she's written a staggering twenty-five sequels. Children's author Roald Dahl may have written James and the Giant Peach first, but his followup Charlie and the Chocolate Factory became his best known novel, and produced his only sequel. Then there's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, whom Agatha Christie introduced to the world in her first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Poirot indulged in fine chocolates on occasion (particularly at Christmas), and also enjoyed drinking cocoa. Chocolate figures prominently in a few Poirot stories, including "The Chocolate Box." So it seems fitting that, when Clive Exton adapted Agatha Christie's first Poirot novel, he had Captain Hastings bump into the distinguished gentleman when he is purchasing cocoa for his evening drink. On last year's trip to England, we visited Norwich Cathedral. Over 900 years of history have brought many changes to the city's center of worship. One recent addition is a brass baptismal font. The large brass bowl was once a mixing bowl used in the making of chocolate, until the local factory closed down. It now fortifies worshipper's spiritual lives, and reminds locals of Rowntree Macintosh, a center for employment there until 1994. The chocolate producer, in its storied career, created confections such as Rolo and Kitkat that people all over the world still enjoy. So the next time someone tells you chocolate isn't good for you, remind them that chocolate has brought happiness, success, and spiritual fulfillment to the world. Just be careful about eating any chocolates that come through the post, or are delivered by people you don't trust. You never know: they could be poisoned! Dragon Dave
