London, Theatre, and Hiking Around Oxford

Since our last update we’ve been to London, where we managed to get tickets to see the musical Oliver!, a wonderful 40-year-old show that has been revived in the West End in London in the past couple of years. It was an outstanding production, with great singers, interesting and innovative sets, and a big group of talented youngsters who played the roles of English street kids of the Charles Dickens era (the show is based on Dickens’s book Oliver Twist).

We also made a visit to Harrod’s, the famous London department store, where we explored the various children’s departments and the food halls, among others. We also enjoyed a Japanese dinner at a restaurant with various kinds of sushi on a conveyor belt—As we’ve done before at similar places, we simply picked the plates we liked off the conveyor, and after the meal the staff simply count the number (and color) of the plates to calculate the bill.

In London we stayed at our favorite little hotel, the Luna & Simone. This is a 4- or 5-story hotel (no lift!) in a long row of beautiful old buildings (1840s), many of which have been converted to small hotels. We like this place not only because it’s near Victoria Station, but also because it’s owned by a friendly, service-oriented family headed by two guys who are middle-aged identical twins. They treat us well, serve a nice breakfast, and are invariably kind and helpful.

Back at home in Oxford, we’ve again been walking and exploring, including three long walks to interesting pubs on the outskirts of the city. We returned to the beautiful Trout Inn, situated on the Thames River 2 or 3 miles north of the city—Ken walked there through the meadows of the Oxford Nature Park, and Connie took the bus, meeting him at the pub. After having lunch and enjoying the view of the river, we walked back to Oxford via the Thames Path.

We also found the Victoria Arms, another pub situated in a beautiful country setting, this one east and a bit north of us, along the River Cherwell. This pub has excellent food, picnic tables in the garden extending down to the river, and horses in the pasture next door. After a pleasant lunch, we followed a walking path south along the Cherwell, eventually walking all the way to the Oxford city centre, from which we took the bus home. This was a walk of perhaps 5 miles or so.

Finally, we found our way to North Hinksey, a village on the southwest edge of Oxford. We walked from a busline going west out of Oxford, finding the village after a walk of a half mile or so. We were in search of The Fishes, a fine pub in a big Victorian building—again with a large lawn, picnic tables, and a stream running nearby. The Fishes is located near 4 or 5 much older thatched houses, making for a very picturesque village atmosphere. After another fine lunch, we followed a public footpath through nearby woods and back to Oxford, where we walked back to the city centre before catching a bus back home to our neighborhood.

Thatched-roof houses in Hinksey

These adventures are serving at least 2 functions: They’re helping us to know the fascinating off-road nooks and crannies of our area, and they’re hopefully getting Ken in shape for an upcoming 3-day hike (with friends Mike and Jonathan) on Offa’s Dyke, along the England-Wales border. We’re starting to realize that our time here is getting short—Classes at St. Clare’s College end next week, and Heather, Steve, & Jamie will arrive on May 18 to spend 10 days or so with us before we return to the States on May 29. In the meantime, we continue to realize how fortunate we are to have this opportunity, and we’ll write more over the next month.

England Abloom & Weekend in Beautiful Somerset

In the past couple of weeks spring seems finally to have arrived. In addition to loads of daffodils, we are now seeing many flowering trees (cherries, plums, magnolias), as well as forsythia, primrose, and others.

Flowering cherries in front of our flat

We spent the past weekend with our friends Mike and Joan in the home of friends Reg and Lynne in Somerset. In addition to lovely meals and conversation in their home, Reg and Lynne took us touring to the seaside at Weymouth, Portland, and Lyme Regis, and to the abbey at Sherborne—an amazing structure with intricate fan-vaulted ceilings and a Saxon wall that is probably more than 1,000 years old. We ate our way through the countryside, with stops at some great pubs: the Pulpit, the Halfway House, and the Lord Nelson. When we weren’t eating (and drinking) lunch we were indulging ourselves in tearooms, with plenty of scones and cakes, including Mike’s favorite, Dorset apple cake.

Weymouth

Mike, Joan, Lynne, Reg, Ken at Lyme Regis

Halfway House pub

Carved altar piece at Sherborne Abbey

Window and part of fan vaulted ceiling at the abbey

Connie, Mike, Reg, and Ken made their way to the Lord Nelson pub by way of a fine hike up to Ham Hill, where we saw the faint remnants of a medieval village, the earthwork remains of one of the largest Iron Age hill forts in Europe, and the Ham Hill stone circle (a Millennium Project) in the Ham Hill Country Park. The hike covered meadows, woods, hillsides, and orchards, and we saw lots of birds and flowers. It also made the hikers late for lunch at the Lord Nelson, but Lynne and Joan eventually relented and allowed the walkers to have lunch.

Mike, Ken and Reg before the hike

Ham Hill stone circle (modern)

The villages, towns, and countryside of Somerset and the surrounding area seemed at their best during this bright, sunny weekend; before we realized it, we had eaten, drunk, and talked our way through the weekend, and were on the train for our return to Oxford. Yet again we’ve found delightful people and places, making us feel at home such a long way from home.

In front of Lynne and Reg's converted barn home

Judi Dench, Mike and Joan, Randy and Jane, Daffodils

Once again, we've neglected the blog for too long. The past few weeks have been quite busy, and we simply haven't found the time. Here are a few highlights:

We spent the weekend of March 19-21 in London, starting on Friday evening in Kingston-Upon-Thames, where we saw the venerable Judi Dench, along with an outstanding cast, perform Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Rose Theatre. The play was exceptionally well done, and the Rose is a beautiful, near-new theatre.

On Saturday afternoon we met up with our friend Jonathan and one of his friends, Celia, for a tour of Charles Dickens's home. The house has lots of Dickens memorabilia, pictures, old editions of the books, and so forth. It gives a nice sense of what it must have been like there in his time. Following that, we went to the Hunterian Museum, which is the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons--a place that is both interesting and just a little bizarre. The museum has a huge collection of preserved body parts, both human and nonhuman, giving it a sense of both the scientific and the weird. One particularly interesting display was a room dedicated to the history of the microscope, with examples of microscopes and the kinds of capabilities they have, from the very earliest crude models, up to modern electron microscopes. After drinks at a local pub, we had a delightful dinner with Jonathan and Celia in a wine bar/restaurant they knew.

On Sunday, March 21, we attended an outstanding quilt exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. This temporary exhibit houses more than 70 quilts, nearly all of them made by British people, dating from 1690 up to the present. As you might imagine, there were many different types, made from a wide variety of materials and embodying many different designs and symbols. Fascinating. In the afternoon, we again met up with Jonathan, traveling by subway to Hampstead, where we visited the home of the poet John Keats. We had seen the recent movie, "Bright Star," about the life and times of Keats, and this was a great opportunity to see his neighborhood and his home. His story is, of course a sad one: He died with tuberculosis (as had his mother and brother) at the age of 23. Keats left behind a body of fine poetry--amazing for someone so young, and who was so ill.

The following weekend, March 26-28, we were back in the beautiful town of Ludlow, where we helped friends Mike and Joan to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. A group of us had dinner together at the old Unicorn pub on Friday night, and we spent the day on our own on Saturday, browsing the market and the shops of Ludlow. Saturday evening Mike and Joan arranged to have us all (perhaps 30 people) taken to nearby Craven Arms, where we spent the evening with a private showing of a popular culture museum (The Land of Lost Content), followed by dinner in the museum dining room. The museum was a real hoot, containing hundreds of items from the 20th century: appliances, clothing, music, photographs, toys, and much more, nearly all of it prompting us to say "I remember that!" It was a delightful evening, capped by a brief program of reminiscence and fun, arranged by Jonathan.

Jonathon, Mike, Ken, Joan, Mike, John and Leslie

Jonathon presiding at festivities

On Sunday, most of the group who had attended the Saturday night festivities met up once again, for a pleasant lunch at a lovely restaurant/golf club in the countryside not far from Ludlow. We returned home by train on Sunday afternoon, having had a lovely weekend.

Monday, March 29, our old American friends Randy and Jane arrived from the States, coming to spend our two-week Easter break with us in the U.K. After some local Oxford sightseeing--some of the colleges and such--


The tower of St. Mary's church in Oxford -- note the narrow ledge Randy and Jane are on. . .

looking down on Connie.

--we set out for the north. Our first stop was nearby, outside the village of Thurleigh, at a small museum dedicated to the 306th Bomb Group of the World War II American Army Air Corps. Jane's father was a bombadier with the unit, and his picture appears in photos in a couple of places in the museum. Although it was not normally open on the day we visited, a kind and generous couple, Ralph and Daphne, have made it their life work to create and maintain this place, and they were kind enough to open it up for a private showing. Ralph was a teenager when the Americans were based at Thurleigh, and he got to know many of them. He later worked for many years as an air traffic controller there, and he has kept in touch with many of the American servicemen (including Jane's dad!!) over the years. It was a heartwarming experience to meet Ralph and Daphne and to see the place.

After leaving Ralph and Daphne, we continued north, where we spent three days in the English Lake District. The mountains were still snow-covered at the higher elevations, and the scenery was spectacular, as always, in the Lakes. We visited the homes of writers Beatrix Potter (of Peter Rabbit fame) and William Wordsworth, and took some drives through beautiful villages and countryside.




Lambing season

Our next stop was the Scottish city of Glasgow--once known primarily for its industrial production, but also the site of many important historical and architectural sights. In addition to a couple of outstanding museums, we visited some buildings inspired by, and designed by, the famous Glasgow architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald. We had an elegant afternoon tea at the Willow Room, one of numerous Glasgow tearooms designed and decorated by these people around the turn of the 20th century. Mackintosh was working about the same time as the arts and crafts architects, and some aspects of his style are similar. A real highlight was a visit to the "House for an Art Lover," based on a design by Mackintosh and MacDonald in 1901, but not actually built until the 1990s, long after both were gone.

Willow Tea Rooms

"St. Elvis -- Return to Sender" at a Glasgow museum

From Glasgow we made the short drive to Stirling, where the ancient castle is a highlight, along with the nearby Argyll's Lodging--an elegant home said to be the most complete surviving example of a 17th-century townhouse in Scotland. We stayed overnight in Stirling in a newly renovated 1820s bed-and-breakfast cottage owned by our friend Mary, with whom we had a lovely dinner at the nearby Birds & Bees pub/restaurant.

After another short drive, we arrived in Edinburgh--a city both ancient and beautiful. We stayed in a cottage (once part of a brewery) in the center of the city, from where we walked to Holyrood Palace (one of the official residences of the royal family when they are in Scotland), the spectacular modernistic Scottish Parliament building (where we had a tour), and the Edinburgh Castle (with bits of it dating from the 11th century). A highlight here was something rather unexpected--We learned of a traditional Scots music program (Stramash) taking place on Thursday evening in a church basement. This turned out to be a wonderful, poignant combination of traditional Scottish songs presented by a group including singers, a fiddler, guitarists, a harp, and a set of bagpipes. And once again we found our way to an elegant tearoom, this time at the Hotel Balmoral in Edinburgh, where we had tea and cakes in a lovely high-ceilinged room that included a harpist and potted palm trees.

Randy in the debate room of the new Parliament Building

The abbey ruins at Holyrood Palace


A guard at the Palace

Along the way we saw beautiful scenery, ate a lot of wonderful food, played cards at every opportunity, and sampled an interesting variety of beers and Scotch whisky. After our return to Oxford we spent the day on Sunday at nearby Blenheim Palace--the birthplace of Winston Churchill. The Palace is a World Heritage site, and is currently occupied by the 11th Duke of Marlborough, who is Sir Winston's godson. It's hard to do the place justice with either photos or a description--suffice it to say it's a huge, palatial house surrounded by a large expanse of beautifully landscaped gardens and parkland.



The maze at Blenheim Palace

Follow the Hand for the way out


Spring has come to Oxfordshire



"a host of golden daffodils"

Randy and Jane returned home today, and we're back to business as usual at St. Clare's in Oxford. But we have more adventures yet to come, and we'll write about them when we have time. Oh, and one more thing--If you've read this far, here's today's quiz question: Are you familiar with Cullen Skink, or have you eaten it? (Hint: It's a lot better than the name might suggest!)