Nether Stowey Night

Torch Parade at Nether Stowey

 Tuesday evening after supper, conference attendees were driven five miles to the village of Nether Stowey to visit Coleridge Cottage, home of the poet and his family from 1797 to 1799. You can find plenty of details at http://www.friendsofcoleridge.com/Coleridge-Cottage.htm. We wandered through the carefully restored little house and garden, encouraged by the docents to pick up everything, open all the drawers, and even try on the clothes if so moved. As darkness finally approached near 10:30pm torches were lit in the center of town and we paraded, each with burning paraffin stick in hand, up to the high site of a ruined castle. As we stood about in the dark gazing at the bright ceiling of stars with only these bits of fire to see by, a paper balloon with candle inside was sent aloft (with Lloyd's assistance) and relevant lines of a Coleridge poem were read aloud. No doubt village residents were puzzled.

Cannington Coleridge Conference

We've been too busy to blog, but we're taking a quick break from the conference now to report on things in the last few days. A good flight on Sunday night brought us to Heathrow airport--it was a half-full flight, so we could each stretch out across three seats and pretend to sleep. The airport was swarming with volunteers dressed in pink, ready to assist visitors to the Olympics.We picked up our rental car and were off, carefully adjusting to the "wrong side of the road" mode of driving.

At Cannington we got checked into our dorm rooms and were off to attend the day's presentations on Coleridge.

Ah, charming England!