Flexible Domiciles

By Froylan Tiscareño

Although the author and his wife have been anchored to their last address for the past seventeen years, the theme of this book is to not sink roots. It starts with a day-to-day narrative of travel in Europe while the author enjoyed the thrillsand challengesof a years sabbatical. After a tour of England and Scotland, he explores the continent: France, the BDR (West Germany), the DDR (E. Germany), Czechoslovakia (current Czech Republic), and Poland before settling in for the winter in the town of Rastatt (located in the German state of Baden-Wrttemberg, not far from the E. bank of the Rhine River).
Resuming travel in the spring, he explores Spain and undertakes a brief foray into the North African state of Morocco. France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Turkey follow. Returning via ferry, stops were made in the coastal towns of Croatia (Dubrovnik, Split-Zadar-Pag), finally covering Slovania with its capital Ljubljana.
The next section of the book is another adventure of sorts: designing and building your own dream home. In Owner-Builder, the author recounts the problems he encountered while he acted as his own contractor. Coordinating the various subcontractors to work together to get the job done, he gained experience that convinced him that he would not want to do it again.
In the last stories in the book, the author concentrates on moving experiences. Leaving Quail Ridge is about selling his dream home, and Finding Liquid Amber details the adventures of landing at his current domicile in Irvine, California. Stitched together, these stories weave tales of reality that grab your attention like few others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483652863

Froylan Tiscareño

Froylán Tiscareño is a retired professor of mathematics who has enjoyed travel and sharing his experiences with like-minded readers. Previous published works include Flying Time, Walking to Santiago, and Baja California Adventures.

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Copyright © 2013 by Froylan Tiscareño.

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Rev. date: 06/18/2013

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Contents

How’s the Shower?

Introduction

How’s the Shower?

Kirchdorf Bronze

How’s the Shower?

Owner-Builder

Leaving Quail Ridge

Finding Liquid Amber

Family Reunion

How’s the Shower?

Introduction

The narratives in this book span an interval of over twenty years (1976-1997). They include a travelogue in Europe during a sabbatical year from my job as professor of mathematics at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, California. Next there’s a day-to-day description of building our dream house and two stories detailing our struggles while leaving one residence and moving to another. The Flexible Domiciles title was selected because this theme pervades all the stories. The sabbatical trip underscores our nomad experience, with all the ever-changing camping domiciles. We did have a semipermanent base of operations in Rastatt, West Germany (bordering the Rhine in Alsace), but the bulk of our time was spent on the road. One significant portion of our travels involved crossing the cold war border between West Germany and the DDR or former East Germany. We also traveled to Poland and Czechoslovakia (today’s Czech Republic). Though these experiences provided us no permanent domiciles, they gave us a glimpse on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Building your own home from scratch is the theme of Owner-Builder. Starting from a cardboard model, rough plans were made then turned into blueprints as I assumed the role of contractor for the project. The Owner-Builder narrative weaves in events as they unfolded in our household. Often they had nothing to do with the house construction. For instance, the kind reader will notice that one of my hobbies is flying. I pause in the narrative to insert some of my forays in the air as the construction project (priority no. 1) progresses.

Leaving Quail Ridge and Finding Liquid Amber are self-explanatory. The last story details a family reunion and is included here because my sister-in-law Dawne was obsessed with finding an alternative domicile—she was tired of living in Hemet, away from her friends. In summary, my hope is that the kind reader will enjoy these stories as much as I enjoyed putting them together.

Sincerely,

Froy Tiscareño

How’s the Shower?

(How to survive the drought while you attempt to stay clean)

Tuesday, 3 August 1976

When checking in about 06:45 at LAX’s Imperial terminal, we heard rumors that we would be leaving late because the plane had come in late the night before. The crew had to be given a twelve-hour rest before returning to work again. After breakfast in the nearby coffee shop of the Airport Marina Hotel, we returned to the Imperial terminal to check in our luggage and await further announcements about the time of departure of our charter flight. I was pleasantly surprised and not a little relieved when they accepted our three pieces of luggage without even weighing them!

At 10:10, we heard the following announcement over the public-address system: Attention, all DAN AIR passengers. There will be a delay of at least another hour in the departure of your flight due to engine check. We will make another announcement in approximately one hour.

Elsie’s parents had bid us their farewells and had left us to go face the problems of the real world. My father-in-law, Walter, had gone to his cabinet shop in Culver City where we had left him a pile of our belongings. Theresa, my mother-in-law, was sorting out in her mind the household chores that had to be done that day. I amused myself watching the crowded waiting room and the sundry activities of the people working there. I observed a new technique for picking up cigarette butts off the parking lot pavement in our marvelous machine age: a man rode atop a sweeping machine fitted with a vacuum cleaner. He maneuvered it in tight turns to suck up the few scattered butts that littered the pavement. A second man assisted him by using a plain hand broom to sweep butts out of difficult places and into the vacuum cleaner’s path. Both of the young men worked cheerfully and seemed oblivious to the din of the machine that tortured my ears when they came too close. My own inactivity reminded me of the Hurry Up and Wait work scheme of my U.S. Army days.

Elsie and I had been feverishly busy for over a week, making our house ready for our new tenants, mailing bundles of books to Germany, packing up the things we would take with us for a year’s stay in Europe. Sitting idly in the terminal, you can appreciate how we felt the hours drag.

At 11:10, there was another announcement: Attention, all DAN AIR passengers. Your plane will be late departing due to repair of an engine. Departure time is set for 14:30. If you plan to leave the terminal, please try to be back by 1:30 p.m. There will be buses leaving the front of the terminal to take those who wish to eat lunch…

Elsie mentioned that it is standard practice for an airline to provide meals for its passengers in case of departure delays. I could only think of the boredom those delays induce.

I saw our stewardesses directing people to a waiting bus. One of them asked me in a peculiar English accent if I was being collected to go to lunch.

12:10 Theresa answered the phone (we had tried to reach her a half hour before, without success) and agreed to come to take us to lunch. We went back to the Airport Marina Hotel coffee shop.

13:25 We returned to the terminal and watched our airplane being towed back from a repair station. No one was at the DAN AIR counter. Finally, a young man working outside informed us that our plane was all right, that it was due back in five minutes.

13:50 Blaring from the PA system, Attention, all DAN AIR passengers. As soon as everybody returns from the hotel, we will start loading up.

14:30 Same announcement as 13:50.

15:35 Left LAX at last! The captain explained apologetically when we reach level cruise that there had been trouble with the fuel valve in engine no. 4.

01:30 Left Bangor, Maine, after refueling.

Wednesday, 4 August

Trying to find out where Dovercourt Motors was located in London, we showed a letter to one of the stewardesses. She was sorry but did not know. But she took the letter into the pilot’s cabin, and after a long delay, she came back with a negative message. This provoked my musing about whether the pilot could find Gatwick, our destination airport. The man from San Diego sitting next to Elsie was going to join a breakneck fifteen-day tour of Europe and could also not help us. Finally, a man in the next row overheard our problem and offered his assistance. He was familiar with the city, the underground, and soon told us exactly how to get to Dovercourt Motors.

Twelve and a half hours after leaving Los Angeles, we touched down at Gatwick Airport. Customs was a breeze. We just made our way through the maze by heading for the paths marked Nothing to Declare. But I wish I could obliterate from my mind the pain of lugging all those pieces of luggage. No help from hand trucks, either. Down the stairs blocking traffic, all the way to the train station, stopping briefly to exchange dollars for pounds. Additional reminiscences include carefully planning our exit from the train at Victoria Station then checking in the two heaviest pieces while we attempted to locate our Campmobile, etc.

Elsie sat on a suitcase in a protected corner of busy Victoria Station while I attempted to contact the VW dealer by telephone. London telephones are an adventure in themselves. After I located a whole bank of them and one of them became available for me to use, I approached cautiously. Soon I relaxed, realizing that my fear of the plump box was unfounded. In fact, it was quite easy and straightforward to use. First of all, the directions were in English, even if some words were oddly spelled or strange (i.e., dialing, bye-laws, telephonist, pips, etc.). One could begin a call with as little as a 2p coin (about 3.5 cents at the then-current rate of exchange). Listen for continuous purring . . . dial your number. (But do not dial the prefix 01 for London numbers if you are dialing from London itself.) When you hear rapid pips, press in a coin.

Curiously, if one dialed 01 246 8000 between 18:00 and 20:00, one could hear a bedtime story. However, the same number dialed between 08:00 and 18:00 gave one gardening information. Dialing 01 246 8071, one could get recipes based on foodstuffs expected to be in plentiful local supply. There were also special numbers to get the cricket results, traffic conditions, etc.

I had lots of time to collect all the above gems while I was put on hold by the receptionist at Dovercourt Motors. After a long delay (she had already returned my call so that I would not face the possibility of being cut off by not pressing in a coin fast enough when the rapid pips started), she informed me that the Campmobile was not ready to be picked up. Naively incredulous, I told her that we would come over to see for ourselves.

My first experience with the London Underground (meaning subway train, not something sinister) was a fast half-hour ride to the Plaistow station. When we arrived at the VW dealership, a young man explained to us that there had been some sort of mixup with the customs papers, that our vehicle was held up at the Customs House in Ramsgate. I signed another customs declaration form and was told that we could get our vehicle perhaps on Friday. Meantime, they referred us to the Newman Hotel (349 Romford Road in Forest Gate) for overnight accommodations. They even provided a car and driver to take us there. Driving too fast for conditions in my estimation, our driver forged ahead on the wrong side of the road! Sitting on the left front, I was petrified. The driver sensed my insecure feeling, saying he sympathized, that he had been in Germany once and had had a similar reaction to the left-hand-drive automobiles and opposite-sense traffic in Bremen.

After registering at the Newman Hotel and leaving our hand luggage, we were taken back to Dovercourt Motors. Another man in a different car then drove us back to Victoria Station. We paused to eat a snack in a restaurant across the street. As we were not immediately seated—the waiters just ignored us—we just waited until two empty seats became available then sat ourselves down. Somewhat revitalized (we had been up some twenty-seven hours), we reclaimed our baggage at Victoria Station and took the underground back to Plaistow. A taxi took us to our hotel where we breathed a sigh of relief at last.

Our room at the Newham Hotel was so tiny that one of us had to get out in order to allow the other to get in. We managed to drag all of our luggage in, but in order to open a suitcase, it had to first be brought out in the hall. We considered asking for another room but changed our minds when we saw nearby ones even smaller (if the kind reader can imagine) than ours. We could survive the discomfort because we thought it would only last a couple of days.

After some twenty-nine hours of being awake, we crawled into bed. Elsie said later that this was the first time in her life that she did not suffer jet lag.

Thursday, 5 August

We glanced at the crowded queues at the Tower and decided to save it for another time. We visited instead the venerable old church called All Hallows. Located near the Tower, it figures in the annals of American history because the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, was married there. Then we walked and observed the parched grass in the parks, grim reminder that the country was in the grip of a prolonged drought. There were long lines to enter the Houses of Parliament, so we avoided this site as well. One thing I could do in London all day is window-shop, but Elsie strides resolutely ahead to her destination goal; she does not like distractions.

We inquired about tickets to see The Mousetrap at St. Martin’s theater. They were all sold out for today, but we bought some for next Tuesday. The Ambassador Theater next door had something called Happy as a Sandbag, and tickets were available. We bought some then walked past Leicester Square to an Italian restaurant (the Presto) where we had a pretty good pork-chop dinner. We walked back to the Ambassador Theater after dinner. The play was a witty look at World War II through songs, skits, etc. It featured notables such as Glenn Miller, Carmen Miranda, the Home Guard, and rationing. After the show, we hurried back to the restaurant because Elsie had forgotten her camera there. Luckily the woman in charge of clearing the tables found it, and she kept it for us. We gave her a pound tip—little more than one percent of the value of Elsie’s Rollei 35S.

Friday, 6 August

Dovercourt Motors is short of help or… ? Their telephonist will not answer any of their three different numbers. After many attempts, I finally got through, but they had bad news: our Campmobile will not be ready today. They also told me they will pay for our lodging (beginning tomorrow). We felt helpless, totally at their mercy.

Breakfast at Stratford station (we got up too late to take advantage of the free breakfast offered in the hotel). The Seven-Day Go-As-You-Please underground and bus tickets may not be cheap ($25 for two), but they save a lot of standing in line and figuring-out-what-to-do toil. Good for both the subway and the buses, all we needed to do was flash them to the attendants as we entered.

We visited the Tower, one of the sites of London. It goes way back in the history of the city. Legend has it that some of the walls were raised using mortar strengthened with the blood of beasts. Most impressive for me were the Norman Chapel, dating from about 1000, the Yeomen Warders (Beefeaters), who should receive commission from Agfa and Kodak due from all the film used by tourists to photograph them, the Royal Fusiliers Museum (City of London Regiment), which was full of mementos from battlefields and campaigns all over the world—Spain, Tibet, Afghanistan, etc. Elsie visited the crown jewels while I saw the armory. There were tons of mail, lances, crossbows, pistols, etc. Sir Walter Raleigh’s prison in the Bloody Tower kept him locked up for twelve years. He was executed—beheaded—in 1618.

Here is a collection of quaint pub names: Sugar Loaf, Prince of Wales, Marquess of Anglesey, Nag’s Head, Dog and Duck, The Swan, Pillarrs of Hercules, Nellie Dean, Crown and Two Chairmen, Sherlock Holmes, The Talbot.

In England, you have to be a seven-stone weakling to benefit from Charles Atlas’s body-building course.

SIR BARTLE FRERE

Called to the nearer presence of Christ, his Master

He laid down his earthly work in faith and joyful trust

On the 29th of May 1884

. . .

Knight Grand of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath

. . .

Her Majesty’s special envoy and plenipotentiary to the

Sultans of Zanzibar and Muscat for the suppression

Of the slave trade…

I did a brass rubbing in St. Margaret’s Church. It cost only £1.25; then we took the bus to Soho, where we (or I alone?) ogled at the alluring sex shops. We paused for supper at Trattoria Piemonte. At the department store Marks and Spencer, prewashed denims were guaranteed to fade. (What’s next?)

Saturday, 7 August

Another breakfast of a rubbery egg, baked beans out of a tin, underdone bacon, toast, and coffee. What can one expect for £6 per night? I had no energy yet ascended three-hundred-plus stairs to the top of the monument by Billigsgate Fish Market. Offering great views from the top, it was erected after a disastrous fire in 1671. The pigeons and sparrows shared the tranquility of St. Dunstan’s in the East, with the remains of a tower designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the busy city streets notwithstanding.

At last we got our chance to visit the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Here is a touching incident we experienced in the Abbey: A guide was showing a group of nuns a small bust of the Virgin. He explained that the bust was returned in 1971 after having been removed from its niche back in Henry VIII’s time (1540s!) We also saw the coronation chair, a rather lackluster antique with a stone locked beneath the seat. Elsie said it was the famous Stone of Scone, originally from Scotland. Known there as the Stone of Destiny, it has special value to the Scots, as many of their kings were crowned on this stone. They are very resentful that England has it, and periodically there are attempts to steal it and take it back to their country. The last time this happened was in 1950. It seems like the pranks of rival high school or college teams, to kidnap each other’s mascot and demand a ransom. But one could tell from the tight security that these people were not playing games but took the matter very seriously. Other impressions of Westminster Abbey: a colorful mausoleum, perhaps a bit crowded, but England has many worthy heroes. Here is a sample:

Sir Peter Warren

Knight of the Bath

Vice-Admiral of the Red Squadron of the British Fleet

. . .

But the ALMIGHTY whom alone he feared

And whose gracious protection he had often experienced,

Was pleased to remove him from a life of honour to an eternity

Of happiness on the 49th year of his age.

Other epitaphs included the following euphemisms for dying:

. . . who departed this life…

. . . who fell at the siege of Badajoz…

. . . who went to sleep on…

In the Royal Chapels area, the Most Honourable Order of the Bath listed its stall holders. In the south side, I copied down the name and titles of the current occupant of seat no. 8:

Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma, K.G., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., D.S.O.

Additionally, the coat of arms of successive occupants were collected on the back of each chair.

To round out my quite useless information, the Order of the Garter

. . . really does award a garter with the legend HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE

(Shame on him who thinks evil of it, in Old French) and according to tradition there can be no more than twenty members at any one time.

Impressions of the Houses of Parliament: The buildings were solemn yet handsome. The damage from WWII bombs needs to be pointed out, due to the careful restoration. The following patron saints were featured in mosaic in a ceiling of a lobby:

St. Andrew for Scotland

St. George for England

St. James for Wales

St. Patrick for Ireland

The House of Lords exuded elegance and comfort (not business). There was a large wool sack covered in red velvet. It served as the seat for the chief lord (the prime minister?) An oversize statue of Sir Winston Churchill stands opposite that of Lloyd George (made about natural size), with both flanking an entrance to the House of Commons. In a curious twist, vanity was made even by a third party that had plinths constructed in such a way that the top of both statues are the same height. The House itself is smaller than I had imagined it. It has oak paneling, and it is outfitted with all manner of electronic gadgetry including hanging microphones to pick up the MPs’ voices from various places in the House. There are small speakers recessed unobtrusively in the upholstery of the gallery for the convenience of the seated members and others in the audience. The speaker could watch the time from his chair on a semihidden digital clock in front of him.

Westminster Hall: The roof timbers spanned sixty-nine feet, constituting the largest medieval timber roof in northern Europe. The timbers were reconstructed in the fourteenth century, and the Hall was the site of many famous trials, including that of Sir (later, Saint) Thomas More in 1535.

Note: I am still not used to left-hand traffic, and I cross the street with apprehension.

Interesting signs about town:

In the underground trains:

IF YOU SEE AN UNATTENDED PACKAGE OR BAG IN THIS CAR

:

1. Don’t touch it.

2. Don’t pull the emergency handle between stations.

3. Etc.

DID THEY HAVE ALGEBRA WHEN YOU WERE AT SCHOOL, DAD

?

(Scottish Widows Life Assurance Company)

AVOID THE CRUSH . . . TRAVEL BETWEEN 10:00

AND

16:00

There were some impressive Rubens frescoes in the ceiling of the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall. We watched the horse guards across the street from there. What obedient and well-trained beasts they have!

The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers band was giving a concert in St. James Park. We paid 10p for the privilege of using a deck chair to sit while we listened to the band. It was a very good concert, but the band director had to put up with a strange woman who insisted on dancing around the band members while they played and obviously was trying to upstage the band director himself. Then we went and had a good Chinese dinner at Nanking Restaurant near Trafalgar Square.

Sunday, 8 August

Elsie was curious about Petticoat Lane, which turned out to be nothing more than a swap-meet style market in the street. The stalls were licensed by the Stepney Street Traders Association. Much better was the sidewalk near Green Park, sadly more yellow than green on account of the drought. Here artists displayed their handiwork: painting, jewelry, wood carvings. We had lunch by the edge of Serpentine Lake, paying for a deck chair again. We listened to speakers in Hyde Park. They had a lot to say, but was anyone really listening? I think people gathered idly around the speakers whom they considered a cheap source of entertainment. Subjects ranged from the war in Angola to diatribes of anti-U.S. Marxism (of course!) Some of the speakers apparently liked the sound of their own voices, because they ignored questions that individuals asked them. They either felt superior or did not appreciate being interrupted.

Apsley House (No. 1, London for many years, according to some guidebooks), former home of Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, is now a museum chock full of gorgeous china, silver trophies, oil paintings, etc., all collected by the first duke and his family. The duke’s most famous achievement was the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. Arthur Wellesley was buried in 1852 in what was described as the greatest ceremony of the century. There is a sixty-foot scroll in the Apsley House showing the funeral cortège. The casket was carried on a monumental car made of cast iron from the battle pieces captured at Waterloo.

Covent Garden: ancient flower and fruit market. It may have been colorful once, but now it stands empty and forlorn and soon to be demolished for the sake of progress. In fact, it has already been replaced by a modern market on the south side of the Thames.

Dinner at Curry Lord (good food). A young woman dining alone spoke to us about a good side of the drought. She was just back from Paris and reported that there had been no rain in France, either. But that’s OK with the vintners, who are anticipating one of the best wine years in decades. Which goes as proof of the old saying: Every drought has its silver wining.

Monday, 9 August

Handy tickets, these Go-As-You-Please ones. We took the bus to Ilford where we picked up the lock we had left by way of sample for Elsie’s father. The ticket checkers in the underground are mostly blacks or Indian. They need to be on their toes in order to recognize at a quick glance the multitude and great variety of tickets, passes, etc.

Young people are wearing jeans, jeans, and more jeans. They also wear T-shirts embroidered with names and slogans. Examples: Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco Giants, NY Jets, USAF Pilot, etc. Judging from the workmanship, many of these are probably from China—via Hong Kong.

The telephonists do not do their job well. When I finally made a connection, the news was not good: no Campmobile yet. Took the tube to Oxford Circle near where the Polish Consulate was. Objective was to apply for a tourist visa to visit their country. We were informed that it takes ten days, and it costs $7.20 per person. Visited Barclay’s Bank to get a £280 advance (there’s a 2-1/2 percent charge) on our BankAmericard. We can have the money tomorrow, as they must wire the USA first.

Next we visited the DAN AIR office, where they informed us that Robert Anthony handles the booking for our flight. He is the local Diamond Tours travel agent. At issue is a possible refund for the return portion of our round-trip flight since we are not going to use it.

We walked through Belgravia, a collection of upper-crust London flats. A number of embassies are also located in Belgravia. There is also a nice (private) park.

Victoria and Albert Museum: If you can’t have the real thing (think Elgin Marbles in the British Museum), make a plaster cast of it. The V and A Museum thus had an amazing collection of classic sculptures from many parts of the world. We saw only a small part of its ten acres of exhibition space.

Tuesday, 10 August

Campmobile not yet arrived! We took the bus and the underground to Diamond Tours agent Robert Anthony’s office. It was a flight of stairs down from the sidewalk. Robert was looking at the modified manifest of our return flight, a small teletype clanking away in the small office. He was offering some encouraging words to a girl with some heavy luggage about her ticket to Israel. But even with the prospect of his being able to sell the return portion of our tickets, he doubted that we could expect a refund. But there are ways… he added cryptically.

We picked up our money at Lloyd’s Bank then had lunch in a little cubbyhole of a commercial arcade. There was a nice couple from Australia eating at the next table, but we did not engage them in conversation.

We decided to go on a boat excursion to Greenwich. We passed under the streamlined span of modern London Bridge. A guide explained how its predecessor was dismantled stone by stone, crated up, and shipped to Arizona, where it was faithfully reassembled to become quite the tourist attraction. Even the water was imported to create Lake Havasu City near the Colorado River.

To combat smuggling, ships were at one time required to unload at quays above the Tower Bridge, and only between sunrise and sunset. These legal quays are mostly dequaying from disuse. A city guidebook informs that the span of Tower Bridge opens up for ship traffic very seldom these days. We passed many more unloading cranes, rusting on their platforms. Some structures are just as they were left after WWII German bombing raids, though most of the damage was repaired. The dock area has undergone a steady decline in shipping activity due to changing economic and political factors. I suspect that the cumulative effect is worse than all the damage inflicted by German bombs in the 1940s. The injury from the latter was obvious, and everyone knew what to do about it, whereas the other is an insidious disease, crippling sound buildings and machinery, with no clear way to remedy the situation.

Greenwich: Handsome complex of buildings on the south bank of the Thames—former palace of Tudor sovereigns—associated with architects Sir Christopher Wren, Inigo Jones, etc. It is presently used as the Royal Navy College and a museum—the Queen’s House and the National Maritime Museum. We walked up through a nice park to the Royal Navy College Observatory. Here we saw a great exhibit of astrolabes, or latitude-measuring devices. There were also sextants, clocks, chronometers, etc. We learned that in the nineteenth century most of shipping trade in the world used London time as a standard. A meeting in Washington, USA, in 1888 made it official: Greenwich was selected as zero-degrees longitude, or prime meridian. But today the place is mostly a museum. The observatory was moved to Herstmonceux Castle and Estate in Sussex in 1948.

The National Maritime Museum had a provocative exhibit on the subject of the American bicentennial. Very well put together, it featured segments titled The Colonists’ View, The Court of King George III, The Indians, The French.

At our embarkation point for our return to London town, there were more nautical items to see. Unfortunately, our time did not allow us to tour the interior of the Cutty Sark, an old tea clipper ship. The Gipsy Moth IV, the boat in which sir Edward Chichester sailed solo around the world in 1966, was also on display. We took the last boat back to London at 17:00, arriving at Charing Cross pier in an hour. Then we walked to Trafalgar Square by way of the Sherlock Holmes Pub where Elsie took my picture wearing my Sherlock Holmes cap. At Trafalgar, a young man had stripped down to his shorts and was wading in the pool of one of the fountains. Most people were ignoring his antics; they were busy either feeding the pigeons or taking snapshots of their children on the gigantic prostate bronze lions that flanked Nelson’s Column. Daylight lasted until way past 21:00.

We repaired to St. Martin’s Theater to see Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. It was a good performance in a small, intimate theater. Don’t tell your friends who done it, an actor exhorted the audience after the final curtain. They didn’t want rumors to spoil their chances to extend their run, even though The Mousetrap is the longest-running play—now in its twenty-fourth year—in British theater history. (For the record, the butler didn’t do it.)

Wednesday, 11 August

Good news at last: we can pick up the Campmobile today! We took a taxi to Plaistow at 11:15. Insurance (liability only, no collision) for twelve months cost us $500. When we fueled up, the tab was £7 for 9.5 gallons (but these, I presume are imperial gallons, approximately 20 percent more than a U.S. gallon). Coming out of the filling station, I was almost clobbered by a car that I inadvertedly cut off—remember, they drive on the opposite side of the street! With my survival sense awakened, I drove with more care until we found Chigwell’s Grange Farm Campground and Sports Centre. We parked our vehicle then took the underground to Stratford Station. We bought a few camping necessities then came back to arrange things in the cupboards (Elsie) and to learn how things worked (me). Sleeping on the upper bunk, we found there was more room than we had at the hotel.

Thursday, 12 August

We had a late start, scheduled another day in London town. But first we detoured to the Newham Hotel to pick up the rubber sandals I had forgotten. Nice people, they asked us whether we had really picked up our vehicle at last, how were we doing, etc. Then we shuffled to a nearby pub in Stratford where we ate a corned-beef sandwich with a half pint of lager. The English may have invented the sandwich, but they certainly didn’t do much with it.

We took a long tube ride on the Piccadilly Line to Hammersmith Station, then another long bus ride to Hampton Court. Here we were in front of an amazing complex of 1049 rooms, all built out of red bricks. There were unique serpentine designs in many of the chimneys. Built in an attractive location bordering the Thames, its history evokes the names of Cardinal Wolsey (who built Hampton Court in 1515) and Henry VIII, who expropriated it for himself. Great tapestries were the highlight of Hampton Court for yours truly.

We saw Funny Peculiar at the Garrick Theater. In contrast to the Funny ha ha expression, this play was definitely X-rated. In fact, Elsie declared it couldn’t be done in Los Angeles unless it was cleaned up.

Friday, 13 August

The Calor dealer in Abridge could not fill our propane tank, but he was helpful in providing directions to North Weald Motor Company where they could. And while you’re there, drop in at the Talbot Pub across the highway and draw a pint, the man suggested. The propane was dispensed from a pump just like gasoline, very convenient. We took the man’s advice and enjoyed a good snack at the Talbot also.

In Epping, it was time for a haircut—just 50p. There was more shopping to outfit the Campmobile, including a £13.50 deck chair in Chigwell. After getting some hamburger meat, Elsie cooked our first meal on the stove.

Saturday, 14 August

I am not superstitious, but why didn’t the hamburger agree with my stomach on Friday the thirteenth? I had to leave my bunk early to get to the bathroom in a hurry. Hopefully this is an isolated case and will not repeat again.

We investigated the electric hookup for the Campmobile. We are currently not parked where electric service is available, but we could move. Elsie wanted to use the refrigerator, and an electrical connection seemed the most efficient when we are anchored in one spot. But we could not bring it about because our connectors did not match those in the camp. The electrical hookup in the Campmobile was made for American 110V outlets, and here in England the voltage was 220. What we needed was a transformer. We would eventually get one, but not now.

For another day in London town, this time it was the British Museum, we took the 13:15 bus. We admired the incomparable Elgin Marbles, acquired by judicious payments to local officials. There was also a beautiful basalt slab with handsome hieroglyphics defaced by an unknown miller. He carved deep grooves over the glyphs so he could use the slab as the bottom of two grinding wheels. Utility was his first concern, not preservation of unique cultural assets. There was no consciousness about what this could mean to present or future generations; the common people have to eat. The days of preservation of ancient monuments and the establishments of museums were probably in the future. And who can say that the basalt slab did not make a splendid grinding stone! Anyhow, the radiating grooves superimposed over the graceful hieroglyphics tell the story of a different time and different values. And this aspect is part of the culture too, n’est-ce pas?

We also saw the celebrated Rosetta Stone and many rare books. There were autographs of many famous people, like Admiral Horatio Nelson’s hastily scribbled letter just before he would engage—and defeat—the Spanish and French fleets at Trafalgar in 1805. England expects every man to do his duty, he exhorted his marines as they attacked. Nelson himself was mortally wounded at Trafalgar. The Egyptian and Persian antiquities were a special treat.

Observation: We see only tourists in the streets (so what are we?). Dinner in Soho again at a Middle Eastern restaurant (El Greco Kebab House). Good mousaka, green salad, pita bread.

Sunday, 15 August

A couple from Chicago (Kathy and Jay Kolb) gave us a lift in their VW Campmobile, though it took us longer than via the Tube. They had been touring Europe since June and were full of information of value to us. We heard mass at Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey). When the final decorative touches are added to its cavernous domes, it will be a worthy rival to St. Mark’s in Venice for its mosaic glitter.

We took in a London transport exhibit in Syon Park. We found out that the city of London has had an underground since 1852. There was a good array of old and restored buses. Many vintage photos and posters. Syon House: the delightful home of the Duke of Northumberland, and open to the public only on certain days. Officious guides are anxious to tell you about the master’s genealogy, the furniture, tapestries, etc. One of them was saying to a group of tourists, This is the very room where Lady Jane Grey was offered the throne of England in 1558. But instead of becoming England’s second queen, she was imprisoned in the infamous tower by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, who later ordered her execution by decapitation. Such are the perils to which royalty (or would-be royalty) exposed themselves in those turbulent times. Paintings by Van Dyke and Rubens adorned Syon House. There were also marble tables with intricate mosaic designs. Everything was displayed with apparent great care to highlight utility as well as exhibit value.

We walked through the hothouse and gardens, alongside a platoon of wheelchair pensioners enjoying a day in the park. Regrettably, acres of rhododendrons were drying up. The lawns were parched. Only the dahlias seemed to be doing OK.

It took us two and a half hours to travel from Syon Park back to the campground. The route involved bus 117 to Gunnesbury Station, then the District Underground to Mile End (the operator was having some problems—the lights would go out, and the train would stop at odd intervals) Central Line to Woodford Station, finally a local milk run from Woodford-Hainault station. We walked about one and a half miles to Grange Farm Campground. I had misread the posted schedule for the bus, so we got to Chigwell via a back door.

Monday, 16 August

It was Elsie’s turn to be ill today. It’s a nuisance to have to get up in the middle of the night to tend to your diarrhea and vomiting. Elsie thinks it was a piece of Roquefort on the hamburger that caused the trouble.

Walking through St. Paul’s Cathedral, Elsie understandably moved very slowly. She turned down the suggestion of walking upstairs to the dome. So we headed for the crypt instead. A mine of bones of some of the country’s most famous people is collected there. Sample listing: Horatio Nelson, Duke of Wellington, Lawrence of Arabia, Florence Nightingale. There is also a distinctive memorial monument to Wellington on the main level of the cathedral. But compared to Napoleon’s tomb in the St. Louis chapel of Les Invalides in Paris, my vote would go for Napoleon. It is a much nobler and less ostentatious memorial.

The architect of St. Paul’s, Sir Christopher Wren, was more practical, if not less vain, when he had the following incised in a plaque above his tomb: SI MEMORIAM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE (IF YOU SEEK A MEMORIAL, LOOK AROUND YOU.)

Chancery Lane and the silver vaults was a little Fort Knox below street level. When Elsie wanted to visit the Old Bailey, the jury was in recess, and we could not get into the public gallery. We walked instead through peaceful and attractive Lincoln’s Inn. It was indeed an island of peace and calm surrounded by a sea of frenzied activity. Lawyers (called solicitors in England) are lucky if they get to study in this pleasant environment. Charles Dickens worked the area, and Inigo Jones designed the gardens. The Old Curiosity Shop was a solitary wasp’s nest attached to incongruously large and contrasting buildings. It sold cheap Dickens souvenirs.

We managed to get tickets for A Chorus Line for tonight! After a bunch of tube hopping and more walking, we rested while we had dinner (veal scaloppini) at Café Europa.

We walked eight flights of stairs up to our seat in the peanut gallery of the Drury Lane Theater. I guess you can’t expect much for 90p. But it was a good show. The plot involved the emotional and physical trials that aspiring dancers endure while trying out for a spot in a chorus line. There is much insight by writers, producers, etc., into the emotional and psychological interplay of people’s drive to achieve. We were home by midnight.

The newspaper reports that Great Tom of St. Paul’s Cathedral will step in for ailing Big Ben. Earlier reports said that a workman’s shoe had jammed big Ben’s works so badly that it would be several weeks before the damage could be repaired.

Here are some examples of cigarette advertising:

WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT . . . Rathmans King Size

(Now only 45p)

20 GOLDEN SOVEREIGNS FOR 35 PENCE

(The sovereign was a gold coin minted from about the reign of Henry VII [1485-1509] to that of Charles I [1625-1649]. Originally worth 22s 6d, it was devalued to about 10s or 11s in the twentieth century. Info gleaned from the Compact edition of the OED—Oxford English Dictionary.)

Packages do carry a health warning, but it doesn’t seem to slow the people down. Young kids are especially keen on lighting up. They smoke as they walk down the street. In the underground, one can smoke only in designated cars, so at the stations there is a mad dash for the smoking car by those who would indulge.

Tuesday, 17 August

We found a lock shop on Old Street. The man said they don’t make mortise locks like these anymore, but he did happen to have some on hand and could get us as many as we wanted. Mayfair Café: economical yet good lunch off the tourist routes.

Today we went on a shopping spree, first at the sports store of the Youth Hostel Association on John Adam Street (we bought socks, boots, and other necessities). Spread over four floors, it had a good selection but not the most enthusiastic or helpful personnel. We visited Marks and Spencer, and Hollingsworth, for other items.

Malayan chicken curry dinner at Islamabad Restaurant. Very good. We returned to Chigwell early enough to do some washing in the camp’s Laundromat. The underground did not charge us extra fare for all the bundles we were carrying.

Wednesday, 18 August

Another gorgeous day. Elsie gambled and won—she opted to not take along a sweater into the city. Fortunately, she did not need it. The parched lawns in the parks are thirsty, but the weather has been beautiful the past week.

Our VW dealer, Dovercourt Motors, did not have a map light or voltage converter. Moreover, they did not have the refund of lodging that they promised us.

I read in Soviet Life magazine at the Intourist Office that a scientist had invented a way to purify city air by spraying negative oxygen ions into the street. Great, bring it over to London without further delay. Londoners are not proud of their foul air. It nauseates me. Furthermore, do you have an invention to attenuate traffic noise? It would not be the first import from Russia: the city already has a Russian hydrofoil running between the Tower of London and Greenwich.

We traveled to the Polish embassy to pick up our passports and visas. We ate steak pie lunch near Middlesex Hospital (at the Horse Shoe, off Newman Passage on Rathburne Street, definitely off-the-tourist-trod paths). The day’s selections—three or four main dishes, two desserts—were handwritten on a small blackboard. Customers came in, glanced at the menu on the blackboard, then looked for an empty chair. The place had spartan furnishings, small tables to accommodate as many customers as possible in the little room. Many regulars addressed the lone waitress familiarly, even chiding her for not striking out from the menu something she no longer had. When she crossed off the prune pudding, someone cheered, adding that she had finally gotten rid of last Friday’s pudding. The price of the lunch was 50p. Dessert was an extra 10p ($0.17 U.S.).

After lunch we went to Foyle’s, the world’s largest bookstore. Spread over several floors, even across the street—it had a great selection of paperbacks at very cheap prices.

We walked past Kensington Palace Gardens to the Czechoslovakian Embassy, but we were too late in the day to apply for a visa. We enjoyed admiring the modern architecture of other embassies located down Kensington Palace Gardens Street.

In Kensington Park, we visited the state apartments where Queen Victoria was born and where she lived as a child. Her crib, toys, etc., are preserved. It gave one a warm feeling indeed. The Orangerie was a handsome building where orange trees were grown in tubs.

Approaching home, we stopped at quaint King’s Head Inn in Chigwell, but starched tablecloths and formal décor made us shy away. We tried instead the small place on the other side of the street. Sitting down at an empty table, we were approached by the lady of the restaurant with the question Are you booked? which we were not. So Elsie warmed us up a can of mutton stew that we happily ate at the campground.

I am growing tired of all this shuttling back and forth between Chigwell and the city of London. I am particularly annoyed by the smell of exhaust and the noise of city traffic. In other words, we have had our fill of congestion and frenzied movement of thousands of people. We need to escape to a more tranquil environment.

Thursday, 19 August

Today we leave London! Jay and Cathy graciously gave us their more current Camping and Caravanning Guidebook (ours is last year’s). They also gave us some sugar, Tang, etc., that they would not be needing. They will ship their VW to Chicago in a few days.

We stopped at a recommended electrical shop. When I explained to the mechanic that I wanted a transformer to hook up to the mains, he retorted with a strange English dialect that I found difficult to understand, but the gist of which seemed to be We don’t do any mains work here. I thanked him and resolved within myself to avoid such confrontations in the future.

We went back to the Czech embassy, got our visas in an hour, even though the price was different (£4.40 and not £2.50 as listed on an information sheet we had). A clerk explained to us that You Americans are richer. The other price is for Englishmen.

A man in front of us stood in line for forty minutes, only to be told that he had not filled out his application form completely (in quadruplicate). He refused to do it over and left in a huff instead.

Leaving the sprawling London metropolis via Hampstead Heath, we drove to St. Albans. Hampstead Heath is one of the few places that rise to the name of hill above the London plain. At St. Albans, we admired the great Norman and Gothic cathedral where a large oil painting was conspicuous for its absence. The frame stood covered in sackcloth, as if doing penance. Someone informed us that the painting was stolen in October 1973. A photograph of the work was displayed nearby, explaining that the subject (and title, I presume) of the painting was Townspeople greeting Queen Eleanor’s body on its way to London. Eleanor of Castille (died 1290) was wife to King Edward I. The artist who did the work was one Frank Salisbury.

A minister in St. Albans invited the visitors to prayer. He recited the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Not only that, but also there were Latin inscriptions everywhere inside the church, some dated even after the Reformation! The cushion kneelers had gay crewel covers stitched by women of the parish.

St. Michael’s: lovely Norman church built from the ruins of an ancient roman basilica. The woman reading a novel in the pews played an inconspicuous role as guard—not that anyone would want to steal the marble memorial to Sir Francis Bacon. The walks in the churchyard were paved with old gravestones.

St. Albans, ancient Roman town of Verulamium, dating from around 50 BC. In the museum, a little girl was industriously looking at the exhibits and filling out a quiz sheet provided by the museum itself. Even though only about one-third of the known extent of the ancient town of Verulamium has been explored, the museum had a great collection of Roman and other artifacts. We returned to the car after visiting the remains of a Roman theater.

Pearls of wisdom for driving in England:

• Left turns are very easy, but right turns require exceptional alertness until one gets accustomed to the new system.

• When approaching an intersection, look for traffic in both directions.

• A left-hand-drive vehicle like ours is at a distinct disadvantage when contemplating or attempting to overtake a large-size vehicle.

Stop signs are nonexistent in England. Instead, there are signs like these: Give Way.

On the pavement, dashed white lines across your lane prior to entering an intersection mean that traffic on the other street has the right-of-way. A double solid line means that you are to come to a complete stop before entering the intersection.

Traffic seems to move without inordinate bottlenecks, but it’s not hard to imagine that they can occur at peak hours. The Roundabout can handle only so many vehicles at a time and, since they are all moving on one level, congestion and delay seem inevitable.

Friday, 20 August

We had the usual morning ground mist-fog. We spent the day in Cambridge, which has been a university town since the thirteenth century. We saw the campuses of Christ’s College, Corpus Christi College, and Queen’s College. Because automobile traffic is (happily) restricted in the inner city, there are many bicycles, old and new alike. The old ones are muddy and rusty, matching some of the ancient buildings. Parking on the perimeter of the town is available, but quite expensive.

Cambridge is a pleasant blend of magnificent old buildings with spacious open areas. They are called pieces, backs, greens, commons, etc. The university has about twenty colleges within its structure. We saw no students as they were on their recess. Here are the dates of the various terms this year (1976): 13 January to 12 March, 20 April to 11 June, 5 October to 3 December.

Fitzwilliam Museum is in a very elegant building with a marblelous staircase! It had an impressive collection of Egyptian, Persian, and Palestinian antiquities. Personal stamps made out of onyx or cameo-fashion were featured in several display cases. Of particular interest at the moment was a Madonna by Van Dyke. It had hung there for sixteen years, on loan by its owner, but suddenly it had been auctioned off. Some museum in the USA reportedly paid a steep price for it. There was an appeal to raise £250,000 to keep the painting. The agent in charge of the sale had granted the museum three months of grace in exhibiting the painting (or come up with the money to purchase it?).

Some impressions of the chapel in King’s College: Construction begun by King Henry VI, it was finished by Henry VIII as an ostentatious monument to himself. It has delightful interior touches, like priceless stained-glass windows, profuse stone carvings with many variations of royal coats-of-arms. The fluted columns are stately and delicate, culminating in a fanned vault. A carved wood screen attributed to Philip the Carver (of unknown nationality) dates from 1533. Kneeling cushions with crewel covers had many artful designs. A large canvas by Rubens (Adoration of the Magi) occupied the place of honor on the main altar. There was a hinged screen to cover it, and hasp and lock to secure it.

In the great outdoors, people were punting on the Cam. It was perhaps not quite as romantic as the gondoliers of Venice, but unique in their own way.

We found out that the Glendora (California) High School band was performing in town, so we stayed to watch. It was in conjunction with a soccer match. Marching girls and flag twirlers wore frozen smiles, but they were enthusiastic. They had arrived just the day before and jet lag did not seem to bother them. They had bagpipers, stepladders, lots of flags, and a sizeable contingent of parents to cheer them on. One of the mothers sat next to us and told us about their new band director (borrowed from El Camino College). She said their old band director had been fired shortly before they were notified they would be making the trip to England. She added that the old band director had been a victim of meddlesome parents, infighting, and petty politics of the school board. The announcer (from Glendora) apologized because their students were accustomed to performing on a football field with yardage lines, and here they were facing a soccer field.

Saturday, 21 August

It was cold and damp this morning in the campground. Elsie complained that the shower took her coins, but no hot water came out.

We drove to Ely, in the heart of the Fens (swamps, marshes), and we visited the cathedral. Dating from 1083, it was built on the site of a former abbey founded by Ethelreda in 673. Another resident of this city was Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the short-lived Commonwealth in the 1650s. Ely means Eel Island, in reference to the swampy surroundings and good fishing. The bridge of a fairly large pleasure cruiser rose above a hedgerow. It made us realize that the nature of the country is reclaimed swampland laced with many canals. Hay had been baled and stacked in neat rows and piles. Two pheasants flew across the highway. Once in a while, we came upon a thatch-roof house, the edge trimmed in an artful, undulating design.

Bury St. Edmunds: Succinct name for the town where the saint is buried.

Long Medford: A one-street town.

Colchester: Oldest settlement in England, inhabited since 2000 BC. Its Roman ruins date from the year 44. We saw the old Norman castle built by William the Conqueror in 1066 on the remains of Roman fortifications.

We bought a gas heater and a lamp in anticipation of cold weather later on.

The roads are full of cars streaming toward the coastal resorts (ought to be a warning to us).

We stopped at the Moon and Sixpence campground in Woodbridge because all the rest are likely to be the same or worse. This in reference to the influx of holiday makers. There was an unpleasant aroma of sewer effluent in the camp. Listening to country music, Elsie would not be convinced that we weren’t somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley.

The list of strange (or at least unfamiliar) saints grows each day. I am still pondering about St. Dunstan in the East; then along comes Ethelreda (Ely) and St. Botolph (priory in Colchester).

Sunday, 22 August

The man at the Moon and Sixpence said he had a suntrap. Yes, but I would add tourist trap. We saw boats sailing in the Deben River. It was very windy.

It’s fun to drive the winding, narrow lanes that span the countryside and join the many quaint villages sprinkled over the Suffolk landscape. First, we went to Framlingham (Twinned with Coucy-le-Chateau, a sign announced). It had narrow streets, storybook houses with fronts joined together in a colorful chain. One of its streets, a little wider than the rest, bore the name"

Double Street. But the main attraction in Framlingham was a mammoth castle built in the eleventh century. Some walls and towers remain, but nothing original has survived inside. We walked the perimeter on top of the walls. A couple of miles away (at Saxtead), we visited a restored and fully functioning windmill. A stiff breeze made the ponderous blades turn.

Back on the narrow road, we admired the vegetable gardens adjacent to the homes. We also saw several hothouses with vigorously growing tomato and cucumber plants. We stopped for lunch at Southwold, facing the North Sea. The beach was a blend of sand, pebbles, and clumps of tar. There were scant few water-bathers. The wind was chilly, forcing sunbathers behind screens. Little beach huts were available to let. We parked the VW so that we had the side door on the lee. Elsie made tea and sandwiches, which went down splendidly.

Lowenstoft: Resort seashore town full of vacationers and amusement galleries. At Great Yarmouth, we watched some large tuglike boats likely on short leave from duty on North Sea oil exploration. They had huge winches and diving equipment. The few crewmen left on board were mostly concerned with tanning their aspirin-colored bodies. They lay about the deck in various states of undress. Moving northward, another side of Great Yarmouth appeared: throngs of holiday makers filled penny arcades, fair rides, candy stores, souvenir shops, etc. It reminded me of summertime in Asbury Park, New Jersey (1956).

Norwich, population 120,000, had another castle, which we saw only from the outside. There was also a cathedral with a beautiful cloister and a sharp, handsome tower. Here are some more items in my collection of eloquent epitaphs:

(A life-size statue showed a lovely young girl kneeling and with her hands together as if praying. The epitaph was on the plinth of the statue, behind—almost out of sight!)

In Caistor Churchyard

Was laid to rest by

Bertram, Bishop of Norwich

All that could die of Violet

The lovely and beloved only

Child to Penry and Evelyn

Arden Vaughn Morgan

Sweet IV who on February 22, 1919

At the age of twenty years passed

From this life to the Life Eternal

(On another face of the plinth, there was a poem by Wordsworth)

A second one:

Sacred to the memory

of

John Sheepshanks

Born February 23, 1834

Bishop of Norwich 1893-1910

Entered into rest June 3, 1912

Also of Margaret

Wife of the above

Entered into rest August 21, 1943

Aged 91 years

(In older memorials, sometimes Relict is used instead of Wife.)

And one more:

ALL YOU THAT DO THIS PLACE PASS BY

REMEMBER DEATH FOR YOU MUST DIE

AS YOU ARE NOW EVEN SO WAS I

AND AS I AM SO THAT YOU BE

THOMAS GOODING HERE DO STAY

WAITING FOR GOD’S JUDGEMENT DAY

We also visited Nurse Edith Cavell’s grave outside the church. She was executed by the Germans in 1915 in Brussels for aiding escaped prisoners of war.

Our campsite was on a bluff overlooking the North Sea. Woodhill Camping Site, Sheringham.

Monday, 23 August

Another beautiful sunshiny day with no prospect of rain, according to weather reports. If you are interested in statistics, the radio announcer said, today makes the twenty-second day the temperature has exceeded the average for this month. Ruminating on this profound declaration, I walked down the steep bluffs to the beach. A sign warned, USE OF THESE STAIRS IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK! Toddlers with only a slight assist from their parents were using them. But maybe they could not read. The wind was beginning to blow, however mildly.

Elsie suggested we continue driving along the coast—it was a good suggestion. Occasionally we were hemmed in a narrow street by wide trucks, but otherwise it was a colorful drive. There was Cley-Next-the-Sea and Wells-Next-the-Sea, among other villages. A curious mosaic of