Light of the World

It's our last day in Oxford. The students and most of the faculty left early this morning. So we have been packing and tidying up and getting ready to come home tomorrow. A girl's gotta have some fun though, so while Colin was doing yet more grading I walked over to Keble College. It's only about 10 minutes away from the hobbit house, and in the chapel is Holman Hunt's first "Light of the World" painting. Another 70's favorite of mine.

No-one else was in the chapel so it was just me and it, all quiet and reflective on a Sunday afternoon. But here's the weird thing - I had to press the red button in order to be able to see the painting, as it's behind the side chapel altar and very poorly lit.

This evening we squeezed in our last candlelit concert at Essex College chapel. tonight, charivari agreable was comprised of Kah-Ming Ng on his chamber organ, and three male singers: a bass, a tenor, and a counter tenor. The concert was called Singing in Secret and featured, " choral music by recusant composers from the golden ages of Elizabeth I of England and Philip II of Spain." Stuff by Tallis and Byrd. It was divine.

lbw, maiden over, and a sticky wicket

Today dawned cool and rainy. Actually, I arose really late after having had such a fun time last night, so I have no idea how the morning started out. But, by late afternoon it was sunny. Colin was sat out in the garden under the pretext of grading final exams. He said he kept hearing the sound of leather on willow coming over the garden wall, and so we walked over to the college to investigate.

There's a little pavilion and if you look closely you can see that the team batting had made 40 runs for 5 batsmen. They were losing. We watched a few overs sitting on the damp grass, and all was well with the world.

final exam

This is a multiple choice question:

The Georgia Tech faculty and friends met in the Hobbit House last night for one final get together before the summer school abroad program is over. Did they -

a) drink champagne and dance all night, under electric candle light (because they're a little bit Kinky, if you see what I mean)

b) sit around the hearth discussing esoteric matters of one kind or another

c) let their hair down, metaphorically speaking, and stay up way past their bedtimes

d) enjoy a brief poetry reading about underwear

e) all of the above

f) none of the above

The flip side...

... to all this culture, wonderful walks, and whatnot is that England can be really, really frustrating. Particularly when it comes to shopping, which is not my favorite activity anyway. Earlier this morning, I ventured into Marks and Spencers  aka Marks and Sparks, purveyors of all sturdy underwear and much more besides. There I encountered the attitude sometimes known as " job's worth" as in "it's more than my job's worth to help you one bit". And also a line ten women deep just to get into the changing room. Needless to say, I didn't need the articles I had in my hand badly enough to wait that long. Hello, M&S you lost quite a bit of business there.

My foray to Sainsbury's grocery store was somewhat better, the shelf fillers there have obviously been schooled in how to notice if shoppers are looking for something, and they're very polite too. But the lines were very long and one man in the self service ( don't even get me started about that) checkout had a problem with a leaky bottle. It was dripping all over the floor, and he was asking for help. None of the check out operators paid a blind bit of notice, no -one called for someone else to come. The man was shouting by now and said,"It's your shop, don't you care if there's stuff all on the floor?" Someone eventually came, clearly rather disgruntled at being asked to do something that must not have been in his job description.

Julie and I had  a couple of similar experiences on our days out in Lincolnshire when we tried to get some food at a pub that clearly had a sign that said food would be served on Mondays. They were adamant that no food, not even a sandwich, could be served, but happily sent us to somewhere that "might" be able to feed us. At one pub, we ended up having a Kit-Kat with our afternoon coffee because the kitchen couldn't produce the desserts it was advertising it sold.

I'm not saying that Kroger and Publix are perfect, but you do at least come away with the feeling that they do want to sell things to you.

Oh, and I forgot to add that as I was leaving the Mall that Sainsbury's in in, a child in a stroller lobbed a chunk of whatever he was eating at me, hitting me full on. Delightful.

A combat of nude men

http://www.free-nature-photos.org/

There might not be many butterflies in Oxford but look what was in my garden this morning - a beautiful peacock. I couldn't get to my camera fast enough, and it had flown off to sun itself on the roof before I knew it. But here's a picture of one courtesy of the free nature photos guys.
I can't remember seeing a Peacock butterfly before, so it was pretty exciting. I'm a cheap date, really.

Really cheap as it happens. The best free date since yesterday followed hot on the heels of the butterfly sighting. I had made an appointment last week to go and see the Raphael and Michelangelo drawings at the Ashmolean. They are kept in the Print Room and it was like getting into Fort Knox even though I had the appointment. Phone calls to the Keeper, locked doors, locked drawers etc.. We, because Colin came with me, sat for two hours while the nice lady brought, three at a time, a selection of their work for us to peruse. Right there, a few inches from my face. Over five hundred years old. It was like a private audience. I was able to take photos, but I signed a form to say that they are for personal study use only, so I can't post any of them on here. Needless to say, they were beautiful, exquisite, and priceless. It made me very happy. The sign above was on the table.

But wait, there's more! Tonight, we went to a piano recital at the Town Hall which is a Victorian extravaganza of a building. We heard John Lill play some Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin and Prokofiev. How much culture can a woman take in one day???

Dinner with the Provost

You can buy postcards everywhere in Oxford, and let me tell you it is absolutely heaving with postcard buying tourists right now. Some of the postcards have a really wonderful view of the City of Dreaming Spires taken from South Park - I know, quite ironic really. Today was another glorious English summer day, and after Colin had taught his classes in the morning we walked over to South Park to see if we could find where the picture postcard view was taken from.

Here it is. It was so quiet and peaceful, with local Oxfordians lying under the shade of the trees, walking their dogs and generally going about their business. Not a group of foreign students in sight. It's been a good few years since I sat in the long grass with a member of the opposite sex, but it's still as much fun when you're an old fart as it was back then.

Then, dinner with the Provost in his lodgings. Champagne in the garden before dinner...

Menu:

Grilled Swordfish with Chilli and Herb Marinade

Lugana Superiore 2006

Magret of Duck with Olives and Orange

Parisienne Potatoes

Baby Summer Vegetables

Gigondas 2005

Summer Pudding Terrine

with Creme Fraiche

Coteaux de la Loire 2005

Coffee and Petit Fours

Did I mention that I will have to go on a diet when I get back to Atlanta next week?

It was, of course, lovely. The Provost and his wife are delightful. And there's a Jacob van Ruisdale hanging over the fireplace in the sitting room. Grain Field at the Edge of a Forest.

Champagne supernova

Back in Oxford only hours after my wonderful long weekend in Lincolnshire, and already experiencing another special event - a champagne reception hosted by Worcester College's Provost in his garden oasis.
It really was  a little chilly, but the girls all wore their party frocks anyway. We sipped our champagne, socialized with each other and with the Provost and then, because Marian had missed it when she fell and injured her hand last week, there was a rousing chorus of the Georgia Tech Fight Song, just for her. It was just a little surreal.

Everyone was having so much fun they didn't want to leave.