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. 

Which Storrs, there are two...

The weather forecasters got it all wrong again, and we had glorious sunny weather with not a cloud or raindrop in sight. Which meant that Julie and I had a lovely time stomping around the ancestral villages of my Storr family. Scothern, Welton, Normanby by Spital, Hackthorn, Holton cum Beckering and Panton - quite a day. Hackthorn is where my gggg grandfather was born. Here, I'm standing by the gravestones of his father and his brother. It's a very beautiful village, and very small. Not as small as Holton cum Beckering, where my grandfather was born in 1902. Although there were only a handful of houses, it boasts a Grade 1 listed church. A very damp church as thieves had recently stolen the lead off the roof.

There was a fine Italian mosaic and marble reredos, and a 15th century porch, covered in moss.
And, outside a spectacular collection of grotesques, the most grotesque of which was this one.

By late afternoon we were driving down narrow, deserted, country lanes on our way to The Warren Farm, Panton where my grandparents lived in the mid 1960s. It's changed quite a bit since then but I had no trouble recognizing where it was - there is no street address to give the GPS thingie, so we were relying on an old fashioned map.

About 42 years ago, I fell off the wall you can see through the gap in the Leyland cypresses into a bed of nettles. I always liked walking on walls, but it did sometimes end in tears.

We came back through Lincoln and looked around its Cathedral before having a very delicious supper at the Pie Shop on Steep Hill. It was much more glamorous than it sounds.

Bytham Girls

Alice cooked a delicious dinner for us tonight, which we ate out on her backyard patio in Stamford. Afterwards, we went to the Arts Center to see "The Edge of Love" the new movie about Dylan Thomas' women. The Arts Center is housed in a Georgian building which dates from 1768. There are gilt framed mirrors and faded banquettes in the gallery. Alice took ballet lessons here when she was a child, and performed on the stage of the theater where the movie was shown.

I studied Dylan Thomas for A level English, and Alice's grandparents knew Dylan Thomas. The movie was interesting, but I had trouble with the Welsh accents, particularly Keira Knightley's. I don't think she was very good at it. Dylan Thomas came over as the piece of work he was, and there were some lovely hand knitted cardigans and jumpers. Wales looked cold, wet, and windy. Unlike Lincolnshire today which was warm and sunny.

Gracie, the third Bytham Girl, stayed home and guarded the house.

Around the Vale of Belvoir

Today dawned warm and sunny. The stream babbled outside our bedroom window, a cockrel was crowing in the distance, and it had all the signs of being a glorious English high summer day. I ate my breakfast in the garden with Gracie for company. Later, Julie and I set off to visit some of the places my ancestors lived in over the last few hundred years. This particular branch of the family lived in the Vale of Belvoir. That's Belvoir Castle you can see in the distance, home of the Duke of Rutland. The view is from Woolsthorpe, where my g grandmother, Jane Dunsmore, was born in 1873. We poked around for a while and then ate a delicious lunch at "Chequers" a 17th Century Inn in the middle of the village.

The next stop was Redmile where my gg grandfather, Frank Dunsmore was born in 1832, Here is the very font he was baptized at. We bought some herbs and flowers that were for sale outside the church door, leaving our coins in the slot inside the church. 
At Bottesford we crossed this ford to go to the cottages where my g uncle Herbert Dunsmore lived. We also found the place where his sister, my g grandmother, and the rest of his family lived. Which was the same group of houses that her future husband, Dick Huskinson, lived in. 
Our last stop was Orston, where Dick Huskinson was born and baptized in 1863.  And my gg grandfather, William Huskinson before him in 1839. Orston church was delightful, with a drum that had been played in the Battle of Waterloo, fragments of medieval wall paintings and a pencil sundial on an exterior wall.
We drove home through some wonderful scenery - the cornfields are ready to be harvested at any time, and the fields are golden. Belvoir Castle appeared round every bend and I have a much stronger sense of how all the Huskinsons and Dunsmores fit together. It was  a lovely day out. 

A Walk with Gracie

Meet Gracie, Julie's beautiful dog. This is where she lives, in Little Bytham, right next to a little stream that you have to ford to get  to the house. Today, with the weather once again as summery as it gets here, we hung out in the garden, relaxing, enjoying the sun.

And then after dinner we all went for a walk through the fields. It was getting late, but it's still light at 10pm here in the summer, so that wasn't a problem.

I tried to get a picture of Gracie enjoying all the smells, but she is too fast, and all I could catch was her tail disappearing off the edge of the picture. 

She's a whippet/saluki cross, and quite the most graceful dog you've ever seen. Thanks for a lovely walk, girl. I know you'd just love Charlie.

something to do while doing the laundry

The Ashmolean Museum is literally round the corner from the hobbit house, and so between loads of washing, Julie and I nipped in to see some of the delights it owns. Julie likes pottery, particularly Delft ware, so we had a good look at their collections, and found this charming pair.
An invigilator ( their term not mine) approached us as we were admiring this John Singer Sargent, and at first we thought he was asking us to step back a bit, but he launched into a long spiel and then asked us if we could see the "Brigitte Bardot" figure in it. Click on the picture and see if you can ....

The Egyptian collection is always pretty cool, no matter which museum you happen to be in. The Ashmolean is no exception. Here is an appeal to the oracle from some Ancient Egyptian, asking about the man he wants his daughter to marry.

And here the artist was struggling with how to paint a palm tree, something I can relate to as I do the same thing on Ossabaw Island. I like his representation a lot.

And here is the Jewel in the Ancient English collection - King Alfred's jewel. It bears the inscription "Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan", "Alfred ordered me to be made"and dates from the reign of King Alfred the Great who ruled from 871 - 899. It's very small and very golden. And very, very old.

The weather has turned into summer, and it's glorious. Maybe about 80 degrees. Tonight, we're driving to Julie's home in Lincolnshire to spend a few days there. A weekend in the country.

Gardens, formals and candlelit singing

Julie and I walked to the Botanic Garden and enjoyed a very pleasant couple of hours. Again there are completely different flowers in bloom, and we saw only two butterflies...
... and a cannabis plant. And hordes of tourists milling around the colleges, taking pictures of each other in front of everything.

I needed a rest before Colin and I went to formal Hall at Worcester College. Everyone dressed up and we made toasts to all and sundry, but the best part was when the students sang "Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech" - it echoed from the walls like a real fight song.

Unlike the concert we ran off to attend at Exeter College straight afterwards. O Dulcis Jesu, sacred chamber music by Corelli and Vivaldi was another in the Early Music by Candlelight series. Julie was already ensconced in a pew by the time we arrived , and we had to creep in after the concert had started. It was heavenly.

No such thing as a free lunch

Today I earned my keep. I was guest speaker at Colin's 10 am class. Some of you know that one of my hats is Poll Station Manager and I talked to the class about DeKalb County Elections and how we use technology in the election process. I hope they weren't too bored...  Colin tells me it fits in with various topics they have covered in Computers and Society.

I did some investigative work of my own today and found out that the hobbit house is a Grade 2 listed building, "probably 18th century". I also found a picture of it taken in 1919. It hasn't changed at all since then.

I'm waiting for Julie to arrive from Lincolnshire - I hope the park and ride co-operates as dinner is ready!!!

Where have all the butterflies gone?

When I was a child, my best friend's grandad had a "butterfly bush" or buddleia in his garden.  It was always heaving with red admirals, tortoiseshells, brimstones and the ubiquitous cabbage white butterfly. We have a small buddleia in the hobbit house garden, and today I saw the first butterfly I've seen in the garden the whole month we've been here. It was a cabbage white. All on its own, enjoying the purple blossoms.  There are buddleias all over Oxford and none of them have any butterflies on them. What's going on?

There is a different set of flowers blooming in the hobbit house garden from when we arrived a month ago. Gone are the foxgloves, roses and poppies, and in are these purple globe thingies, delicate fuschias, and some marguerite daisies. And the buddleia waiting for its butterflies. I hope it's not in vain.

Get thee to a nunnery...

Binsey is where Henry VIII reputedly took his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to visit the fertility fountain when she failed to give him a son. A village fete was in progress when we walked past the dirt road that led from the River Thames to the village. My favorite booth was the Chicken Beauty Contest which had five or six entrants, complete with mission statements attached to their cages, vying for the title of most beautiful chicken in Binsey. I hope Brigitte won - dark, sultry, temperamental hen. Although the fluffy white silkies were cute too.
Our real destination was Wolvercote, and a nice long walk all around Port Meadow which we saw a glimpse of yesterday. The good Commoners of Wolvercote have the right, bestowed upon them by King Alfred, to graze their cows and horses, but not sheep, over the whole of Port Meadow. And they do - loose animals are everywhere. The Ladies of Ossabaw are familiar with my wild pig neurosis, but even they don't know about my cow adventures. I am exceedingly wary of them, and exhibited great bravery in not breaking out into a run when we had to pass by this and several other herds of cows.

Godstow Nunnery, founded in 1139, with the ruins of its 16th century chapel is on the Thames Path just before Wolvercote and just after Godstow Lock. It's delightfully overgrown, but it was rather disconcerting to discover a sleeping bag in one corner of the chapel. I read somewhere that wild, all night parties take place on Port Meadow during balmy summer nights, but this looked like an urban outdoorsman's camp. You wouldn't catch me out there in the dark with all those wild animals lurking about.


The last part of the five miles we walked this afternoon was through the Burgess Field Nature Park, which used to be Oxford's rubbish tip. Now it's wild and overgrown ( which seems to be the definition of Nature Park in these parts) with chest high cow parsley, stinging nettles , blackberries and different varieties of grasses. Oh, and more urban outdoorsmen hiding in the latter.
It had been cool and blustery - I needed to wear a sweater, and with all that fresh air and walking I had worked up an appetite. We got back just in time for dinner at the College:

roast turkey
roasted potatoes
cauliflower au gratin
gravy
cranberry jelly
treacle pudding
coffee in the cloisters

Whether You Like It Or Not - a load of bollocks

An old friend came over from Cheltenham to spend the day with us. We drank a lot of tea, a bottle of wine sitting out in the hobbit house garden, and then did one of the walks from the book,  "Oxford on Foot". We went up to Port Meadow which is an ancient grazing ground. There we enjoyed Constable skies, swans, dogs and kites.
The walk took us along a stretch of the Oxford Canal, and then through part of Jericho's back streets.  We saw some fine cottage gardens.
And, on the Woodstock Road, some recently graduated students from Somerville College, on their way to the nearest pub.
The walk ended at the parking lot of a doctor's surgery where these stone arches are perched on top of the wall. The guide book says that they mark the place where Beaumont Palace once stood. Richard the Lionheart was born there. 
Then, ever gluttons for punishment, we went to see yet another of Shakespeare's comedies, "As You Like It",  in Trinity College gardens. It was cold and windy - in the 50s. People were huddled in blankets. The play was awful. It was so bad that it was hilarious. The acting was over the top, and it wasn't at all funny like it should have been. Some of the relationships between the characters were down right spooky. Joy, who is studying at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford on Avon, declared that it was " a load of bollocks".  

-ini music... Consonanze Stravaganti

Another candle-lit concert at Exeter College chapel. Marini, Paquini, Frescobaldi, Ruggieri, Corelli, Rossi, Buonamente, and Vivaldi.  A pair of baroque violins and Kah-Ming Ng on harpsichord - Charivari Agreable.

Kah -Ming Ng explained a little about the various pieces, describing one as "Latino dirty dancing", which spread from the Iberian peninsula " faster than syphilis". He propped up his over sized sheet music for one piece with a padded envelope. And Bojan Cicic, a violinist, knocked his music off the stand in his exuberance. He started to read it as it lay on the floor, but an audience member who was seated in the choir stall right behind him picked it up and restored it to its rightful place - all without missing a beat.

These concerts are delightful.

Iffley

This morning, Colin and I walked the two miles along the River Thames tow path to Iffley. This village has one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in England. The parish church was built in 1170 and has wonderful beakhead carvings around some of the doors and windows. There are also dragons, mermen, and creatures eating their own tails. It's more like churches found in France and Italy than in England.

The rest of the village was interesting too, with a 17th century thatched cottage, a 15th century tithe barn, a late Elizabethan stone cottage, and a 16th -17th century long barn. All very pretty, but also a bit eerie - this is how picture postcard English villages are supposed to look.

We had lunch at the "Prince of Wales":

Cumberland sausage

mustard mashed potatoes

onion gravy

Henry's smooth bitter to wash it down

And then we walked back along the tow path to Oxford with views of water meadows full of sweet meadow and bucolic cows grazing.