10 May: From a grassy Knole
I made my way out to Heathrow to pick up my car at Alamo. They offered me a discounted upgrade as a new customer, so I got a Peugeot 307 instead of the infamous Micra. After gingerly practicing in the rental lot for a bit, I headed out on the open road.
Oh boy, did I have a time adjusting. For the first day or two, I was rigid with terror most of the time I was behind the wheel – it was being on the wrong side of the road, it was the narrowness of the roads, it was getting LOST of course, and it was not having a handle on the dimensions of the car, and most importantly, it was not remembering that most of the car was to my left – I kept kissing curbs, morbidly expectant for the day I’d encounter a parked car or a pedestrian in this manner. I didn’t understand at first that the car, though an automatic, needed me to choose gears. So I ran it at freeway speeds in second gear. Ooops.
Despite these handicaps, I did get to both Knole and Sissinghurst. Knole , the hereditary seat of the Sackville-West family, was fantastic. There are hundreds of fallow deer wandering around outside. Inside, it was all dark wood paneling carved with intricate figures – the Sackville-West leopard prominent. And the paintings, lordie lordie. Van Dyke, Gainsborough, Lely. I gaped around the rooms like a total rube. It was dark and creaky and alive with history – it must have been marvellous for an imaginative child to grow up in. It made me want to read Orlando again.
Then Sissinghurst, the place Vita purchased because being female she couldn’t inherit Knole – the most beautiful garden I have ever seen. I don’t know if I can describe how amazing it is – the climbing roses on the red brick, the breaking up of the space into small, intimate “rooms,” each with its own character. And everything is in perfect order – they must have elves that swarm over the garden at night, removing every yellow leaf and spiriting away any plant that isn’t at its glorious prime. Only disappointment that most of the irises and many varieties of roses weren’t quite blooming yet. But I’m happy to say I recognized a lot of plants from my own garden. Tons of columbines, a very cool hairy clematis. Intoxicating.
Then the long, frustrating drive to Elham and the Abbot’s Fireside, my base of operations for the next few days. The lanes kept getting smaller and smaller… Anyway, I got here safely, just at dinner time. I reserved a table and got escorted up to the Duke of Richmond room.
...Which was quite nice – furniture dark wood, silky as lingerie, black timbered beams in the ceilings and tiny diamond panes of glass in the windows, bathroom shining white with brass fixtures (and the narrowest bathtub I’ve ever encountered – does the proprietor imagine he’s never going to have fat people as guests?) A rather precipitous drop in the floor on the far side of the bed, just to prove its ancient age.
I had seen the fabled spit going when I came in, juices dripping off the sizzling joints. The meal turned out to be a real treat – warm goat cheese salad, then tender juicy poultry and exquisite lamb in a light gravy, with fresh veg and celestial potato fondant. It did take ages for me to get served – I felt a subtle, covert discomfort with the single female traveler here – most of the other guests are older, wealthy Dutch couples. It was interesting to see the war of styles within mine host’s breast – he has a 15th century inn with tiny panes of glass and black timbers, so people expect copper warming pans hung on the wall, when he was actually a Billie Holiday and martinis kind of guy. I ate long after I was full, then crawled into bed and fell into a bottomless slumber. (The Love of Stones turned out to be a great choice as travel book – very good, but not too taxing.)