Oxford

Twenty years ago, I could navigate Oxford by the back of my hand—from the train station through the campuses and botanical gardens and college backs along the Thames. Smaller than London and oozing with higher learning, Oxford was a magical place for me.

We started our trip in Oxford. This small city is only a 45-minute drive from London Heathrow, which meant that we wouldn’t need to do much jetlagged driving to get to our destination. Also, Oxford is a small city that is manageable by foot so we could park the car at the guesthouse and walk everywhere. And, walk we did. After we checked into the Newton House Guesthouse, located on the Abingdon Road (literally the road to Abingdon), we made the short walk to Christ Church, one of the largest colleges (and most beautiful, in my humble opinion) in the University. From there, we walked to the Eagle and Child, my favorite Oxford pub. I spent a fair amount of time here during my Junior Year Abroad, particularly on the patio, which is now covered. The Eagle and Child was also the favorite pub of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. In some ways, the cramped but cozy front rooms, with their tacky “patina” of age, make me think of a hobbit hole.

After a pub dinner (fish and chips and steak pies with mashed potatoes) and a pint, we walked back to the guesthouse, cutting through the university “campus” along the way. John and I decided to hit the highlights—the Bridge of Sighs, the Sheldonian, the Radcliffe Camera (Bodleian, above right)—then head down the road in the morning rather than do any further touring.

Oxford was busy with an unappealing combination of extra people in town for graduation (one gown was festooned with downy white mariboo feather, pictured above left, with Bridge of Sighs, a fancy skyway), as well as a far number of tourists. Plus, I noticed now what I didn’t notice as a twenty-year-old: Oxford felt a little shabby. Sure the High Street has tony gentlemen’s stores, where you can buy college scarves and ties, as well as an occasional hip women’s clothing store and a smattering of antique map shops. I loved the window display with stylish papier mache globes made from carefully torn maps. Ultimately the throngs and the wrappers in the street obscured my golden memories.

The highest point of the visit was the walk through the Christ Church Meadow (above left and right), which is still one of the loveliest spots I know. Quiet and populated mostly by civilized small groups, picnicking and enjoying a glorious early summer evening. 

England '10

For the past week, I have been trying to process the sounds, smells, and sights of our amazing trip to England. I have dumped three cameras’ worth of photos into iphoto. Now I’m migrating photos to facebook and flickr, to share and for posterity, but uploading and labeling is a really slow exercise. What I really want to do is write a book-length essay about every detail so I never forget this trip that we’re not likely to repeat soon. But for now, I replay the scenes that form the metaphysical space between each photograph.

Highlights:

climbing to the top of steep hills, which became our theme pretty quickly // 

not only spotting a white horse or two from the road, but seeing them close up // joining the National Trust, for which we dictated our vitals to a clerk who wrote the info up on an NCR form; the process took forever // marveling at the woo-woo New Age-y town of Glastonbury // lunching on pasties purchased in West Country bakeries // enjoying beautiful weather (mid-70s, blue skies, sunshine), which allowed us ridiculous vistas // 

making a pilgrimage to Persephone Books on Lamb’s Conduit (London) and finding a few souvenirs  // drinking countless pints of cider // meeting the local color by way of passionate innkeepers, waiters, and regulars // watching the boys fly kites on Dragon Hill // watching a hawk hunt while floating on a current at Stonehenge // walking the one-mile, standing stone–dotted perimeter of Avebury // 

overshooting the road to Hounds Tor in Dartmoor because our randomly chosen backup tor was Hookney Tor and the Grimspound, which is the setting for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hounds of the Baskerville // spending two glorious nights at Lydford House, between Okehampton and Tavistock // dipping my toes in an absurdly cold English Channel 

more to come

home

Cliched though it may be, there's truth in the expression There's no place like home.


We're back after 10 days in the U.K. Each of us is out of sorts. I'm looking forward to having more fortitude to write about our amazing trip. My little family spent serious high-quality time together. We saw some pretty spectacular things and met characters we're not soon to forget.


The photos are uploaded. We're working on the stories that will become part of the family history. I will be back soon.


As a preview, you should know that we walked through this cattle herd, and the experience was a tad fraught with fear.

creative

On I whim, I stopped by The Bead Monkey on Friday. Perhaps it wasn’t really a whim since I had an idea for a simple, go-with-everything earring. Instead of a surgical strike where I stayed focused on my plan, I browsed, which is how I came to also own the beads to make these beauts. 

hello june

I never thought you’d get here. Summer, the season, officially begins in June, though, in terms of the weather and my mental state, it's here now. June is also when my little family has decided to take summer vacation. It’s early, I know, but we want to get a jump on crowds and feel like we have some little corner of the world to ourselves.

We wrapped up May with a quick trip to Watertown. In an unusual move for us, we left town on Saturday morning rather than straight from work on Friday night. I was hoping for a less stressful start to what is often a stressful weekend with my parents. John and I got a little extra sleep on Saturday morning, and we took the boys to Bread and Chocolate for pastries before pulling out of town. Perhaps many Twin Citians left for The Lake on Friday because Saturday traffic was minimal. Nice. The skies were bright blue, which is always a perfect foil to the endless brown prairie.

Watertown was hot and windy when we arrived. If you’re an 8 or 10-year-old boy, then this is the perfect weather for a dip in chilly Lake Kampeska. On Sunday, the temps dipped to cool high 70s, which was a pleasant reprieve unless you wanted to go swimming and sliding at the water park. Without going into a play-by-play, we had a lot of quality family time. My sister Michele, who recently spent six months in Nepal and India, pulled out all the stops with a Nepalese dinner. We had a urad dal but also a stewed kale and carrot dish that was really nice. But the best thing we ate was the result of an error. Michele tinkered with a recipe for tomato and cilantro chutney that apparently didn’t turn out the way that is was intended but that was so delicious that I can’t stop thinking about it.

In a nutshell, we saw lots of people, played miniature golf at Thunder Road (this was a first), had a bonfire, and slept in our spacious six-person tent. The latter was an adventure. The wind was strong off the lake the first night, which I found wholly disconcerting. Mostly the wind rustled the trees overhead, but occasionally it would pick up and cave in the sides of the tent. Around 4:30 a.m., a nice, drenching rain started. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well. The second night was still, and—best—we had pillows for our heads.

Apropos of Memorial Day, I spent some time thinking about some of my favorite people who have passed—my grandparents, my Uncle Leo (my grandfather's closest friend, who was a second grandfather to us and could do the most amazing and realistic animal impressions), Geo J (a fellow bookseller from OBSP days, always put a book in people's hands, hip to John Grisham before he became a NYT bestseller), and Frances (our dear neighbor and kidsitter who died way too young, a month short of graduating high school and setting the world on fire).

And, I thought about my friends S and L, who were married on Memorial Day weekend fourteen years ago. I don't know the exact date of their wedding but it will forever be linked to this holiday. Last night I wished S a happy anniversary and he snorted but said thanks. I know that his marriage has been troubled for some time, but they always seem to put on a good face when they're together in public. I'm trying to avoid making this gossipy but last night I learned that they've hit an especially rough spot. I can't help but think about the promise I made at their wedding to stand by them but he's pretty unhappy and it's hard to know how best to help.

Heavy stuff aside, it was a very good weekend.