Oxford Savvy

1. Pembroke’s women’s boat took the headship in Summer 8’s recently. It means they were able to displace the top crew and then hold their place each day of bumps racing to win head of the river. We burned another boat to celebrate. 

2. The visiting students from Illinois Wesleyan were treated to a tour and drinks/canapes event in the House of Lords at Parliament. We were escorted by Miles Buckinghamshire and Baroness Trixie (who has seen Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the Queen and Barack Obama speak). 

3. In my academic review I told the headmaster and academic advisor I had swapped rowing for croquet and they laughed out loud. 

4. My position as Co-Admiral of the Punts is going quite well and, despite one mishap with a drunken finalist, Pembroke’s fleet is a strong presence on the Oxford waterways. I’m terrible at punting but excellent at eating and taking pictures of other people punting. 

5. The college hosted a goodbye dinner of sorts for the visiting students. The food was delicious, the conversation was slightly strained because there’s only so much you can talk about with your tutor (even if it is Alice), the servers were forthcoming with the wine, the program’s creator gave a tipsy speech, and the fire alarm conveniently ushered us out after an appropriate amount of time. 

6. At the dinner Alice recommended that we have cake in our last tutorial. Since we both like baking we’re going to each bring a small cake and share. I love Alice.

7. Tomorrow begins the last two weeks of my program. It’s a good thing my sister is arriving on Wednesday for a short visit to bolster my spirits. 

I’m having such a moment with Virginia Woolf right now. 

I haven’t been writing much lately because there’s been so much reading and drinking and writing and talking and dancing and sitting that by the time I get back to my computer I can’t put it all into words for a blog entry. I’m not sorry.

But I have to share this moment with somebody (without leaving my room, which would inevitably lead to a significant misapplication of time).

The more I read about and write on Virginia Woolf the more I love her and right now she’s making my head spin in the best way. (although not in a way conducive to a coherent essay — sorry Alice)

Listen to this: “But to amuse myself, let me note: Why not Poynzet Hall: a centre: all literature discussed in connection with real little incongruous living humour” (Diary, April 26, 1938). It’s an excerpt from some early musings about the novel that would become Between the Acts and I think it’s brilliant.

Real little incongruous living humour

That’s so perfect! I don’t have time to explain but if you take each word separately and consider it in terms of daily life it adds up to such an excellent statement. 

I’m willingly considering pulling an all-nighter because I wantthis essay to do that phrase justice. College work should always be like this. But then these moments wouldn’t have as much weight because I wouldn’t be able to compare it to the nights I begrudgingly chipped away hours of my night’s rest in order to meet the deadline. 

Oh Woolf, you beautiful person. 

thattimeistudiedinlondon:

On the first night, as we sat in her room in our bed & breakfast in Winchester, Grandma Becky handed over a pack of three palm-sized notebooks and said, “I also bought one for Isaac. I thought you could use them to keep track of our travels.” Ironically, the top notebook bore an illustration of Big Ben and the label “London” - the one city in U.K. we didn’t visit. But notebooks that say Battle, Warwick, Bristol, York, Edinburgh, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Oxford or any of our other stops are probably rare in American book stores.

The notebook turned out to be a very necessary tool for the trip, because its size allowed me to carry it with me always and jot down the names of obscure villages, names that called for further investigation and interesting stories. Without it, I never would have been able to remember all of the important things from even one day of traveling. That’s how busy/amazing/interesting this trip was. 

According to my notebook, we visited the following regions, sights, cities, towns and villages (in chronological order): East Sussex (Bodiam Castle), Battle, Alfriston, the White Cliffs, Winchester, Salisbury, Hindon, Stonehenge, Castle Combe, Bath, Bristol, Stourton, Stourhead Gardens, Lacock Village, South Wales - Chepstow, Symonds Yat, the Cotswolds, Broadway, Winchcombe, Cheltenham, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwick Castle, Woodstock (Blenheim Palace), Filkins, Bilbury Close, Kenilworth, Chatsworth House, North Lees Hall, the Peak District, Hathersage, Wensleydale, Yorkshire Dales, York, Edinburgh, Lincoln and Oxford.

For the first week, we were provided with a driver by Luxury Vacations, the company that organized our itinerary and accommodations. The locations before York are all from the first 7 days and Edinburgh, Lincoln and Oxford are the only cities we visited during our second week. You’ll notice that Andrew was the reason we were able to see so many places our first week: with both a car and a tour guide’s knowledge of the area, we saw areas that few tourists ever go. And when Isaac’s flight was delayed and he had to arrive a day late, Andrew’s company was able to drive him to where we were when he landed, which happened to be Stonehenge. 

While Isaac was trying to catch up, Grandma and I exclaimed over Windsor Castle’s extravagance, admired Bodiam Castle’s drawbridge and peeked through a closing gate at the field where the Battle of Hastings was fought. The countryside of Battle soon became the coast of Southern England and we passed through cities like Alfriston (a leisure village where adventure walking pilgrims come to walk up and down scenic hills) and Hastings until we came to an overlook spot with excellent access to the white cliffs. Fun fact: According to Andrew, the cliffs aren’t actually white in Dover; you have to move further south down the coast to see white cliffs. 
Although Bodiam Castle and Battle were interesting, when I saw the white cliffs I really stopped and realized the weight of this trip. It finally hit me that I was going to see places like “The White Cliffs of Dover” that I had always heard about but never thought I’d see. Aside from that, the white cliffs and the view of the channel are very impressive. I was standing at the edge of an island trying to fathom France’s proximity on the other side of this body of water. I think Grandma was imagining the approach of Norman ships because she loves 1066 history: “You wouldn’t have 1776 without 1066!”

After the cliffs we passed Arundel Castle, where the line of Duke of Norfolk still lives. Apparently we’re distant cousins of the family, which is trusted with the order of events during the coronation ceremony. That means I have inherited powers of ceremony and could emcee any event, no problem.

Before setting out, we visited Winchester Cathedral and Jane Austen’s tomb in the morning. While Daniel DeFoe was in Winchester, he asked his cab driver about the village’s character and received the response, “Debauched. Debauched, sir, like any cathedral town.” In the times when people thought they could pay off their sins through a cathedral visit, many would go to cathedral towns to have a raucous night, repent & pay off their sins, and go home clean. 

Nearby, in Salisbury, there stands the tallest medieval cathedral still standing. At the time of its construction, the bishops commissioned its height in order to attract religious tourists (and money). It’s actually slightly unnerving to stand under Salisbury Cathedral’s spire considering the architectural era in which this massive cement structure was built. I guess it’s become a modern test of parishioners’ trust in God.

Finally, at Stonehenge, the Davis family was united and the trip felt like it had really started. The previous stops were definitely legitimate, but something about having all three of us together made it feel official.

Stonehenge was cold and busy with tourists so I wasn’t overwhelmed by the pagan magestry but my camera did a great job with the rocks and beautiful blue sky. I was intrigued when Andrew pointed out a ring of mounds surrounding the monument: burial chambers that were constructed to mimic the rounded belly of a pregnant woman and channel fertility in the cycle of birth and death. Those crazy pagans.
 
In keeping with the themes of mysticism from Stonehenge, we visited the haunted village of Castle Combe for tea. Apparently the ghosts of soldiers stalk the woods surrounding C.C. because the river formed the boundary between the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex. There are reports of ghost sightings, the river running red (with the blood from the battles that used to be fought there), and a roman soldier that hangs out at the foot of the old Roman bridge. Even the place where we had tea had supposedly been cursed by an angry ousted landlord decades ago; a poster in the inn concluded, “apparently he was a better landlord than a curser because we’ve been hosting happy customers ever since.” 

Castle Combe is also one of Hollywood’s favorite locations for village shots. It’s where Stardust and War Horse were filmed:

After Castle Combe, we finished our day with an Indian dinner in Bristol, where our second bed & breakfast was located. Isaac wandered out into the night to find ourselves a pint - we settled on Doorknockers in Portcullis pub. 

On the third day, we made a stop at Stourhead Gardens in Stourton. A classic example of English gardens from the 18th century, Stourhead Gardens boast an eclectic collection of flowers and trees. They served as a sort of adult theme park and so the garden is scattered with mini-monuments for people to stop and admire as they made their rounds. The mini-monuments include temples to Flora and Apollo and a grotto. There were also holes for hermits to live in, because apparently that was actually a thing in those days. Here, mister, live in this hole and let people exclaim over your grisly appearance - it’ll be great, we promise. 

In between Stourton and Bath, we made a stop at Lacock Village for lunch and organic ice cream and I fell in love. I’m planning to retire in Missoula, Montana, but if that plan falls through I would love to retire in Lacock. Another idyllic spot for camera crews, Lacock has quaint avenues, cats, craft fairs, classic architecture, Lacock Abbey (famous for the birth of modern photography) and the pottery studio where we met a man that claimed to be distantly related to George Washington and Winston Churchill.

While we were browsing his pottery studio, Churchill’s cousin asked us if we knew the history of the potters in the area. “No, all right well I guess I’ll tell you about it then. Have you heard the story of the murder? No? That’s surprising. They say the killer was so evil that no one must say his name…”

I gave out a little yip, because I realized he was talking about the history of the Potters. Next door to the studio stands the house Warner Bros used for Godric’s Hollow:
The potter suggested we carry on to Avebury to see a collection of druid stone “much more impressive than Stonehenge” but it didn’t fit into our schedule. He made us promise we would trust him and go before he told us what it was; I hope we aren’t cursed because we didn’t.

From Lacock we drove to Bath, where we visited Bath Cathedral and the Roman Baths. I had a hard time tapping into the historical importance of the baths because they felt so modern but I’m glad I saw them nonetheless. I thought it was interesting that the water actually made a lot of people sick because it has lead in it, but throughout history people have claimed that any illness can be cured by the baths. Maybe they thought if your illness wasn’t cured that you were just supposed to die? I’m not sure how they rationalized their way around that issue. 

I didn’t realize the baths -and Bath as a city - were a destination point in the 1700s as well. People still believed in their healing capabilities and constructed a whole social network around parties in Bath.

I have to pause here for now (because I still have Oxford obligations) but I will carry on with my travel account soon.