Chicken and Biscuits

...and it was a good party and I survived! I met up with a senior member of the Yale staff and her friends for a very informal gathering at her impressive old-town apartment. Once the champagne started to flow people seemed to loosen up (funny that) and we sat in the garden eating fried chicken and potato salad before heading off by foot to a high point above New Haven to watch the fireworks as they exploded all along the coast, a sideshow to the main display from the nearby rocky crags. Afterwards I was given some rudimentary directions before being cast adrift to face the long walk home alone. I was totally disorientated, jetlagged and a trifle giddy from the champagne and I began to feel a little lost. Fortunately my built-in compass was working for once.

The following day I presented myself at the Yale Center for British Art as instructed and was soon being inducted into the use of the massive library and assigned a working space and a 'carrel' (oh come all ye faithful). I was introduced to another ‘fellow’ who clearly wasn't and during a lull in the proceedings we went to drink what Americans call coffee but is really dirty water. The afternoon’s activities included a tour of the whole of the center and introductions to the many staff, which meant explaining my research subject over and over again. I started out with a carefully constructed and detailed description of my thesis and a summary of the subjects of individual chapters, but by the end of the afternoon this was reduced to ‘Er, yeah, 18th century images of the Thames’. Lots of new people and information made my head spin, so I went shopping. Managing to find an out of town supermarket (it would appear that all the shops in the centre are for rich kids, and I can’t claim to be either) I staggered back in the intense heat bowed down by the weight of my gallon of milk and gallon of juice and supersize everything else. I thought I might expire. Fortunately I survived long enough to find the local wine shop where I was happy to discover, amongst other things, a cheeky little Bergerac which I am sipping right now. Delicious.

Wednesday was the first day proper and I made the most of the library and the prints and drawings room. After a terribly civilised lunch at a nearby Italian tratorria, the Prints & Drawings staff helpfully dug out sketches by Samuel Scott for me to view - stunning. I pored over these for hours. The rest of the day went by in a flash (and I didn't even doze off), and was rounded off sitting outside enjoying some chilled Italian wine on a nearby terrasse until the staff told us that actually they'd really like to go home now if it was all the same with us.

Today has been a bit of a highlight and I have been like a kid bull in a sweet china shop. I've handled drawings by Canaletto, William Blake, Willem van de Velde, Louis Philippe Boitard and John Cleveley to name but a few stars of the eighteenth century firmament. To see these things at all is a priviledge, but to be trusted to handle them is, for me anyway, breathtaking. I can't explain it. Perhaps I should ask Brian Cox.

It’s very hot. I’m sweating profusely. I’d like to leave you with that image. Chinchin!