drenched

OK, so it's a given that anyone who signs up for this trip must be an architectural history geek, but today my enthusiasm was literally dampened - if not drowned - by monsoon-like rain. Blow-your-umbrella-inside-out and fill-your-shoes-with-water rain. It was a very unprovidential way to see Providence.

And yet, a gem in the gloom was the Providence Art Club. After a parade of house museums and meticulously-restored period interiors - not that I am by any means opposed to such things - which can be so academic and formulaic, here was something so inhabited and idiosyncratic. It was almost impossible to capture the rooms in photographs, especially when they were crowded with 25 soggy Victorian Society students sheltering from a nor'easter, but here is one detail I loved: art club members' silhouettes painted on the dining room walls. Hmm, gives me an idea.