Now that I’ve left England, there are some images I want to share. These images reflect the adaptability of the people in the places I visited and the beauty in everyday things.

Umbrellas and wellies are pretty much standard fashion items in the UK. Most times they are made of utilitarian materials in basic shades of black and army green. I noticed that when the rain hit, people’s wardrobes also became black and gray, as if the clouds and fog enveloped their very beings. Wouldn’t it make sense to wear cheerful clothes when the lines of the environment are smudged into a charcoal tableau of noir? After experiencing a true deluge of a day, when the umbrella cannot be big enough to protect anything but the top of your head and your shoes and pant legs are so waterlogged that they can’t absorb any more moisture, I realized black is the only choice. When that car drives through the puddle and throws more grimy water at you, you want a color that will hide the mud stains. A nice cheery red or yellow is rubbish. Those colors are lightweights in the match of man versus rain. Black is the champion.

Umbrella colors change a bit when Spring pops around. I noticed this in Bath. The owner of the French restaurant had just brought us complementary brandies when the rain started. American jazz played in the background as I watched the umbrellas pop up and people hurrying along the street. I suppose the brandy, the French dinner, and the jazz made me think of Gene Kelly. The image of him singing in the rain came and went. But it was American in Paris that I connected to the umbrellas passing by the window. The people underneath the umbrellas were hidden from me, so I thought of the music and the rush of umbrellas moving past the window, with an occasional red or flowered one breaking up the monotony of the procession. It seemed like those umbrellas moved like a scene in a movie that has been sped up to match the background music. The bright-colored umbrellas represented the change in the rain and everyone’s attitude towards it. This is one of those memories I will hold onto forever.

Bicycles are a transportation staple in England, especially in Oxford and Cambridge. There are bikes and trikes and cycles with two wheels in the front and one back. There are mountain bikes for the dirt trails around the river and canal. There are cruising bikes for getting around campus. There are commuting bikes that are sometimes left behind on weekends when the owners take out their road bikes for serious cycling. People in England are not fair-weather cyclists. They put on a slicker or rain coat and put on a hat and ride to work – every day. Women sometimes wear a helmet, but often just tie up their hair and consider that the style for the day. They ride in the ice and snow.

Mothers meet their children after school with a bike instead of a car. When school lets out, it is usual to see toddlers and young school children in contraptions attached to a bike. Many mothers and fathers have standard bike carriers attached to their bikes. Some have posh front carriers where a child is seen reading inside as his parent bikes them home. Many children have little scooters they ride alongside their biking parents. I’ve even seen old wooden-sided wagons used on the front of the bike to carry anything from dogs and children to gardening soil.

The on-the-edge teenagers lean their bikes up against fences and smoke and chat. Riding a bike is not unusual for cool guys. They take the bus or ride their bikes to the clubs. If a group wants to go outside of the parental radar, they can take a train to about anywhere and still be home by curfew. I’m sure there are plenty of younger drivers, but the price of petrol is pretty steep, so biking makes more financial sense.

There are people in Oxford who sold their cars, because they never took them out of the driveway for months at a time. There is something oddly intriguing about men who commute on bikes in their suits and ties, who stop at Tesco or Sainsbury’s to pick up dinner on their way home from work, and who sit up straight as they wind in and out of traffic. Or women decked out in heels and skirts heading to their business meeting or blind date. Or students with their black robes parachuting behind them as they race to class. There are cities in the U.S. where bikers are common and encouraged, but I’ve never lived in a place where bikes are so much a part of the everyday culture and not limited to weekend recreation.

There are six weeks out of every year devoted to summer dresses. It doesn’t matter if she’s pudgy or slim, if her skin is pale or bronzed, or if her legs are toned or flabby, every woman in the United Kingdom wears a summer dress or skirt in July. I might be exaggerating – just, but it seems true. And they all look wonderful. They refuse to give up their bare shoulders or exposed legs —  even in the most inclement conditions. If the calendar says July, one wears a light, perky dress. Even I, the ultimate cover-up queen, splurged at Primmark and paid a fiver for a summer dress. When I wear it, I get it. The only way to describe it is to imagine oneself twirling. Women aren’t worried about how they look in a summer dress like they worry when they put on a swimsuit. There is a dress out there for any body type. Even a long skirt, that flows with a woman’s shape and brushes against her ankle as she walks, makes her feel feminine. She’s put aside the business suit, the sweater set and tights, and put on a girlie outfit. Like Maria, she feels “pretty and witty and gay”.

The sad news is that the United Kingdom’s natural kingdom appears to be rushing autumn. There are signs of autumn as July begins, so by the time I get back to the UK, the carefree days of summer might be over. It will be back to black umbrellas, green wellies, and hats and tied-up hair. Summer dresses will be replaced by dark trousers and wool skirts. Summer dresses will be but a memory of something once bright and beautiful.

The white cliffs of Dover do exist. The cliffs set against the blue-green sea must be a spectacular view from any boat in the constant line of vessels entering the harbor. It’s difficult to see the full impact from the Prince of Wales Pier, though, because massive ferries block the view. There are benches and alcoves set along the beachfront where a day is easily spent watching the ferries arriving from and departing for France. There’s usually a cruise ship docked for the day and fishing boats come and go. Beachfront in Dover is pleasant and peaceful and clean. I cannot say the same for the Dover city center. It is one of the sorriest places I’ve seen in my travels. And that’s why I ended up at the Waterfront Café looking for a burger.

The budget food choices in England are pies, or baguette sandwiches loaded with bacon, or questionable fish and chips. In Dover it seems that finding a restaurant that isn’t questionable is a search. I was hungry. So I found myself sitting at a table with two eighty-something women, one who had lived in Dover her entire life, and a gang of seagulls circling the table, ready to swoop in and grab a chip. One thing that is different here is that outside tables are not a breath of fresh air. They are taken up by people wanting to smoke. My companions ordered their tea and lit up and I learned quite a bit about Dover from my pensioners.

While I ate, the women kept the seagulls away from my plate and talked about their search for the best food in Dover. They wondered why they can’t find a decent Sunday roast anymore. One described the meal she’d had recently where “the Yorkshire pudding hadn’t risen and was so spongy”, she couldn’t get a fork into it and “the gravy was absolutely inedible”. But “so and so” has the most lovely lemon tart with the lightest meringue. They knew where to find the best scones. They talked about their own cooking and how they never wanted to use a dishwasher when their children were young because of the cost of the electrics.

They waited until my mouth was clear of burger, then answered my questions. What was the story of Dover? Why is there such a vagrancy problem – especially men? Doesn’t Dover benefit from the cruise ships that stop here? Who funds the Western Docks Revival project? (I’ll talk about this in another post).

Then the life-long resident told me about her experience as a child during WWII. Just around 21 miles from France, Dover was the place where the rescue of Dunkirk was planned and executed, but as a child, she was oblivious to that particular event. Her memories came from the eyes of a child and how the war disrupted her life. Many of her family’s experiences were shared by millions of other families across Europe. Much of what she told me is epitomized in the famous Keep Calm – Carry On (which, by the way, was never used as a slogan in its entirety during the war). We didn’t exchange names, so I’ll refer to her as Mrs. P.

Dover evacuated its children, but Mrs. P’s mother would not send her children away because she wanted everyone together if the worst happened. Two of Mrs. P’s brothers served in the Royal Navy, but the rest of her siblings stayed in Dover during the war. She remembered the harbor filled with ships and boats and she remembered ships burning in the water. It’s the sirens that pierce her memory. Dover was bombed over 450 times. The Germans also launched 2300 shells across the channel from Calais. During the war 10,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged. Dover’s casualties included 216 dead and over 750 injured.

Mrs. P told me about her brother Jimmy who experienced three torpedoes to his ship. The last one sunk it and he ended up being the only survivor because he switched bunks with one of his mates. I am trying to verify this story. She said her sister had all the newspaper accounts about it. She remembered visiting her brother in the hospital and how his hands were badly burned.

It doesn’t matter if Mrs. P’s recollections are accurate. She experienced quite a bit of the war in shelters and watching her neighbors lose their homes and businesses or their lives. Her brother dealt with his injuries for the rest of his life. Mrs. P spent her life as a foster mother, fostering a dozen children. She talked about the white wool hats she knits for premature babies. “Every baby,” she said, “should wear white.”

We gazed out onto the sea as the gulls moved on. Mrs. P said her son likes to visit her in her apartment overlooking the harbor, where he drinks coffee and watches all the people training for a chance to swim the Channel. I left thinking about the history of war for ports like Dover. It is steeped in a military history of defense. This place has had to keep one eye open to the sea for centuries. On a clear day, France is visible from Dover, but now Dover doesn’t worry about shells coming over the channel. They watch for the ships and ferries carrying tourists and for swimmers, both recreational and asylum-seeking.

And on a sunny day, the pensioners dress up and take a stroll down the promenade to look at the water whilst enjoying a cigarette and a cup of tea.

It’s time to talk about gratitude. My friend repeated a comment about the world being filled with middle-class writers writing about middle-class problems. This blog falls into that category. And while I won’t try to minimize the moments of loss or serious health challenges or great disappointments that I experienced in the last two or three years, I want to give thanks for the incredible amount of abundance in my life.

It wouldn’t be truthful to say I have not or will not complain. The goal, though, is to look at life and be grateful for the joy in my life – and there is much joy. The following list contains items that are familiar to everyone reading this blog. We read or hear this list so many times in our lives that we consider it a cliché. Some things are too personal to share in a blog, so please excuse the lack of detail. But I ask you to stop and consider blessings in your own life.

First, and never to fall from the top of my list, are my family and friends. Very often, I wonder if I deserve all these people in my life, because I’m not sure I am a good sister/daughter/mother/friend. Yet they rally around me with love and help whenever I need them. There are family members and friends experiencing some terrible blows and I’m far away from them. I can’t hug them right now, but I hope they know that they are in my thoughts every day.

To say that health is a blessing is an understatement. Good health is a luxury. I say that because I have insurance and the money to pay for treatments and drugs. My allergies are managed due to years of monthly desensitization shots paid for partly with insurance. The retinal surgery that saved my eyesight racked up thousands of dollars. Even though I had to pay quite a bit, the insurance covered most of it. These are on top of the annual checkups, the physical therapy sessions for injuries, and the miracles of modern medicine that I take for granted. Without insurance or the money to cover other payments, I would not have the energy or mobility to travel.

This is an exceptional time in my life when everything came together so that I can see the world. Money, health, and time are on my side right now. I continue to feel the support of my family and friends, while I experience the generosity and kindness of new friends. My problems are minor compared to what others must endure. I do not have to worry about feeding or clothing my family. I might not have a home at the moment, but I have warm and comfortable places to stay. Health is not a worry. My country and its government are stable. I have my children in my life. My worries are the problems of someone who has her basic needs met. There are plenty of people who would be happy to have my problems.

There is a downside to writing this type of blog. It requires a first person approach. In many ways, focusing on “I” is dangerous. It becomes a habit to think only of how things affect me or how my writing and conversation reflect on me. I need to recognize this flaw so that I learn to see beyond myself. This trip is about discovery. Each leg of my journey gives me more reasons to be grateful for the things in my life.

The downside of moving from place to place is that I isolate myself from a community. I miss being involved. When I left Oxford, it felt like leaving home again. In just a few weeks, I began to feel part of the community and I cared about that community. I don’t know where I’ll live when I get back to the United States. I hope I find my Oxford there soon, because I want to belong to a community where I can get involved again. I want to make sure that others are so well off that they share my “problems’. What a great life that would be!

My hotel in Stratford-Upon-Avon is a couple of streets away from Shakespeare’s birthplace and about a quarter of a mile from his grave. This morning I walked a mile to see the cottage and gardens of his wife, Anne Hathaway. Stratford is part of the pilgrimage for English scholars who pay homage to the poet. Shakespeare is big business in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Everyone is involved, including the Trinity Church ladies who participate in the ultimate bake sale as they serve tea to tourists visiting Shakespeare’s grave. So what am I doing with my precious time here? I’m watching football.

There aren’t many obvious connections between me and football or football and Shakespeare, but if we look at it in mathematical terms, football connects me to Shakespeare. So if A(me) + B(football) = B(football) + C(Shakespeare), then A=C. And before anyone gets in a huff, I know this is not a sound application of the transitive theory of equalities. I can prove I’m a mild fan of football. I cannot prove Shakespeare loved the game. Let’s just assume here.

A+B. My sport was tennis, yet I have always had a desire to play soccer. I first learned about soccer through my cafeteria job in college. The cafeteria was the dining hall for the men’s soccer team. Both of my sons played a season or two of youth soccer, although they soon preferred other sports like baseball, biking, or golf. I admit that I have been a fickle fan through the years. Lately, I’ve followed Real Salt Lake.

A few years ago, my son gave me a University of Utah soccer ball for Christmas. It took weeks before the snow melted and I could take my ball out for its maiden voyage over the mud in our backyard. I laced up my trainers. I touched my toes to stretch my legs. I jogged a bit to warm up. I ran up to my pristine white and red ball and I kicked it along the muddy ground, experiencing the exhilaration of movement after a long winter. Then I watched as my German Shepherd stole the ball and carried it away. She loved that ball to shreds.

B+C. According to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, football was played in Shakespeare’s time and was the second deadliest sport next to archery. The game was more of a “mob football” played between villages and towns and attracted rebels who played in an “unruly” way. Football was played with a blown-up pig’s bladder in the Elizabethan era.

Shakespeare references football in King Lear, (Act I Scene IV) when Kent calls Oswald “a base football player”.

In A Comedy of Errors, Act II, Dromo of Eppheseus responds to Adriana:

Am I so round with you as you with me,

That like a football you do spurn me thus?

Henry IV is my next connection. According to Wikipedia, Henry IV issued a proclamation banning the “levying of money for ‘foteball’”. This week I will attend a performance of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

Let me take this moment to thank all those genuine football fans who bothered to scan Shakespeare’s plays for any references to football.

A=C. Therefore, watching the World Cup with Shakespeare makes perfect sense.

GO USA!

Remembering those who came before us.

A June day in Weymouth

Finding the sun on a grand summer day!

Communication between me and the pubs is a bit garbled. And it all has to do with beer. I order a half pint and they give me a full pint. This has happened on several occasions causing me to question my identity. Am I in denial? Does everyone see the full-pint girl waiting to emerge from my self-imposed half-pint persona? While I am happy to finish the pint, I wonder, “Am I suppressing the full-pint girl within?” Before I answer this question, it is necessary to look at all the possibilities for this phenomena.

It is possible that my tendency to mutter and my American accent contribute to this problem. I have changed the way I order, varying my wording or enunciating each word clearly. My friend has listened and monitored my ordering technique, but found nothing wrong with the way I order. A reasonable argument is that I’m an easy mark. It is true that I won’t make them pour a smaller glass. There is no obvious reason for giving me a larger glass of beer unless people who drink more order more food. There isn’t much of a culture for tipping bartenders here, so plying me with more alcohol doesn’t lead to a better gratuity.

Am I exploring this new identity by ordering a half pint, but projecting my wish for a full pint? My psyche says “Be a pint girl. Be bold!” I think about the ramifications of becoming a full-pint girl. A full-pint girl makes the bartender laugh and she chats easily with other customers at the bar. She knows who she is and she knows what she wants out of life. A full-pint girl puts on that old swimsuit and parades on the beach wearing her pasty skin with pride. She marches right down to the water and dips her foot into the English Channel. I’m not sure a full-pint girl gets into the cold water. She has more sense than that.

A full-pint girl doesn’t stew about or question her next move. She opens the map, closes her eyes, and points to her next destination. Okay, so she might have to hike a bit when the bus drops her at Nobody Goes Here Beach and a mile from the nearest village. That doesn’t stop the full-pint girl. She’s ready for anything.

A full-pint girl says “Bring on the chips. Reagan said if I dip them in ketchup, I can count them as two veggies.” She needs that pint to wash down four pounds of potatoes.

A full-pint girl doesn’t lug her suitcase up every stairwell. She waits for the men who will argue over who wins the privilege of throwing out his back.

She walks along The Cobb in Lyme Regis without a care. If the wind blows her off the rocks or she slips on the wet surface and slides into the rough sea below, someone will save her. A full-pint girl doesn’t rely on her over-packed backpack to keep her anchored and she certainly doesn’t sit to make her way down the narrow steps back to the beach. No way. She stands at the end, like Moses, and tempts the gods with her audacity.

The full-pint girl can find the toilets after drinking her pint.

I do see signs that I might just make that leap to a full-pint girl. When the seas are rough and the ferry rolls and stomachs churn, my stomach is iron. When I was a child, I had to ride the Tilt-o-Whirl seventeen times before I was sick. However, there were plenty of full-pint girls hanging their heads on our way to Guernsey. So if I become a full-pint girl, will I get seasick?

Naw. I’m not ready to become a full-pint girl. Would you PLEASE make that a half?

There are certain expectations when visiting a place for the first time. Many impressions are built on stock photos of architecture, antiquities, natural wonders, and festivals. All of these photos aim to entice the tourist. And all of them leave out one important detail – the actual tourists. The photos are devoid of any buses or groups of people following an umbrella. The gift shops and modern shopping centers are mentioned as an aside in brochures and on websites, just in case someone wants a day of consumerism. Most photos are aimed at the person looking to fill their bucket list. Bath’s tourism literature is no different and as hard as it is to admit, I cannot avoid the label of tourist. I came to Bath to see the sights.

The only redeeming values of our hotel here are its location and a weak Wi-fi connection available in the lobby. Otherwise, our room consists of tired furnishings surrounded by peeling wallpaper. The questionable mold spots in the shower and the worn and bubbling carpets are incentives to go anywhere else. But you get what you pay for and we paid for location. The Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths are a five-minute walk from our hotel. It sounds like we must be isolated from the center of the city, but we are indeed in the heart of Bath. The Roman Baths and the Abbey Church Yard share a space surrounded by a shopping center full of the usual suspects, like Marks & Spencer and H&M. It is a surreal experience to stand above the Baths and simultaneously peer into millenniums-old water and a modern shopping center.

Despite all of this, Bath is a picturesque city. Somehow its beauty escapes the constant reminders of modern life. A walk across Pulteney Bridge and along the Avon from the overpass reveals a hillside view reminiscent of a Mediterranean city, but lush with green from constant rainfall. There are parks and gardens hiding in the city, three within a stroll from our hotel, where we can escape for a bit of solitude and if we go on a drizzly day, the only people we see are locals walking their dogs. The architecture of John Wood and his son are reminders of the Georgian and Victorian eras when Bath was THE place to go if you were a family of means. Bath was once the gauge of one’s place in society and with its wide boulevards and buildings around the Circus and the Royal Crescent, it provided the stage for “seeing and being seen”.

None of this takes away from the experience of touring the Roman Baths. It seemed a bit of a letdown as we queued behind a large tour group to get into the baths, but once we were down to the first level, the modern infiltrated the ancient only in its dissemination of information. The curators have made the experience as meaningful and educational as possible in a place with such a high volume of tourist traffic. We followed timelines and pathways along the walls of the ruins where we were pulled into little alcoves or where we walked over windows showing ancient floors.

There are plenty of places to step aside and reflect on the wonders of the past. Little reminders of human nature are seen in the written “curses” of people accusing someone of stealing their possessions while they bathed or the elaborate hairdos of wealthy women. Touring the Roman Baths culled my limited knowledge of the Romans I’ve retained from my Modern European History curriculum.

In an earlier post I talked about my connection to the universe and how small one individual can feel in its immensity. Touring the Roman Baths contributed to those feelings of uselessness, yet it also made me aware that I am part of this universal human experience. The water I observed bubbling up from the depths of the Earth came from rains that fell 10,000 years ago, long before the Romans. And when I am long dead and barely remembered, the water bubbling from those hot springs will still be water that fell before the Romans built their baths.

We guess at the original use of artifacts found during excavations. We try to understand societies on the little bits of stuff they leave behind. I wonder what my things say about me. Will someone get it right or will they make a new life for me based on their assumptions about my possessions? We don’t know much, yet we do know that the Romans, the Victorians, the Baby Boomers, the Millennials – all of us have the desire to participate in the human experience. We come together to celebrate, to condemn, to pray, and to bathe.

In 1938, a group now known as “Captain Ridley’s Shooting Party” visited Bletchley Park. They were not just aristocratic hunters and they were not there to hunt. Captain Ridley and his companions were scoping out the place as a base for MI6 and GC&CS (Government Code and Cypher School). Bletchley was destined to become the nation’s center for hacking.

From the moment I heard about Bletchley Park and the Codebreakers, my imagination put me there as an important part of the war cog. There is something oddly romantic about a place crammed full of mathematicians, military personnel, WRENS, WAAFs, ATS, and clerks of all types and genders. I suppose my life seems a bit boring and my tendency to daydreaming puts me at risk of wishing I had made more of a difference in the world. A visit to Bletchley is a reminder of one’s inadequacies. When I sit down with the New York Times crossword, I begin knowing I most likely will not finish it on my own. I can go to a dictionary or if I’m frustrated enough, I can Google it. Someone has solved any clue I encounter and I can piggyback on his success. The amazing part of problem solving today, whether it be a crossword or a leak in the kitchen faucet, is that someone has taken the time to share the solution. There is no academic exclusivity on the Internet. Most people seem eager to share what they have learned, even if it isn’t accurate. So I can finish the crossword and leave the paper open with my effortless accomplishment on display.

But the code breakers worked to end a war. Their reasons for joining the GC&CS were varied. Some were summoned, intellectual beings who wanted nothing more than to stay secluded in their college rooms. Some volunteered and undertook a series of logic and puzzle exams. Many others worked as clerks, dispatchers, typists, and radio listeners. They knew nothing about what happened in any of the other huts or how their work related to the code breaking. They understood, though, that somehow even menial work contributed to winning the war. Ships won’t sink if I don’t finish the crossword.

There was nothing romantic about cold winters, long hours, self-induced stress to the point of nervous exhaustion or, for vulnerable individuals, complete breakdowns. They worked with incomplete data, attempting to sort through information that would later take days once they had a rudimentary computer. Suddenly mathematical geniuses worked beyond the hypothetical. Each time they failed to find the solution, they knew lives had been lost.

The Polish had the Enigma as early as 1932 and gave their findings to the British in 1939 as war broke out. With this information, the people at Bletchley soon broke “The Green” (the German Army’s Administrative codes) and “The Red” (Luftwaffe). I know I will never understand the effort it took to break codes, especially when they dealt with Enigma combinations in the “159 million million million” range. The Turing/Welchman electrical data machine (The Bombe) and the world’s first programmable computer called COLOSSUS were developed to help break the “unbreakable” codes. But even these machines and the superior intelligence of the mathematicians and logicians needed more information. Some of their biggest breakthroughs came after a human error, because the codes were unbreakable if looked at in a purely mathematical way. My favorite story from Bletchley is when someone thought about the German soldier who had to get up every morning and choose the Enigma settings for each day. The Bletchley codebreaker realized the soldier might be tired every morning and just change the last numbers of the setting. He was right. They were able to break more codes because of one man who was too tired to change all of the settings. I like this story because it shows that all sorts of people are needed to solve an unsolvable problem. Maybe a social historian like me can make a difference.

Not only did those Bletchley residents often work themselves to an inevitable breakdown, they had to sign the Official Secrets Act that held their silence until around 2000 when the secrets of Bletchley began to penetrate the public conversation. Touring the park on a fine spring day reveals nothing about the conditions they faced. I stepped off the train into the empty Bletchley station and took the walk to the park. On my way, I tried to imagine the congested trek to Bletchley Park at all hours as the shifts changed. How many trains arrived daily, crammed with Bletchley workers, who because of the Official Secrets Act could not discuss their work with anyone or with one another? Problems, so often mulled over with commuting seatmates, were forbidden. Mothers pretended to knit balaclavas for the troops, when in fact they solved cryptic puzzles. (Bletchley Circle attempts to show the full impact of those who signed the Official Secrets documents). The need to keep Bletchley secret from the enemy and the general public required the fabrication of a spy named Boniface and the creation of an imaginary network of spies.

It’s too bad that the government didn’t lift the secrecy sooner, because so many ordinary citizens died before they could tell of the incredible things they did for the war effort. Children wondered about fathers who seemingly did nothing during the war, thinking they avoided service for some selfish reason. Their mothers didn’t have factory jobs or work in canteens. Where were their parents when the war needed them? They were at Bletchley or somewhere assaulting their bodies and minds in an intellectual war that made their efforts just as essential as the soldier who protected his buddy. Yet they worked in secrecy and isolation and had to pretend they did routine clerical work. I wish we had those ordinary stories from those people who went to their graves, so patriotic that fifty years later they did not break their Official Secrets contract. As a historian, I find it such an utter waste, especially coming from America, where every obituary recounts one of the most important events in someone’s life – their war experience. How did it weigh down those who must guard their every comment and cover up something unexplainable in a moment of abandoned regard to secrecy?

The restoration of Bletchley Park isn’t just another World War II preservation story. The story of breaking codes resonates with younger generations who relate to hackers and gaining classified information to warn the public of wrongdoing. It talks to those who admire the challenge of delving into secrets or to those gamers who must solve the puzzle to gain access to the next level of their game. However one feels about hacking and whether it is an activity to encourage or punish, the people at Bletchley were the ultimate hackers. They spent their war years breaking passwords and gaining information to win a war. I visited Bletchley one week before my host’s son went there on a field trip for school. When he came back, the middle-aged woman from America and the fourteen year old boy from Oxford talked about Bletchley. And when I sat with the ninety year old woman from Woodstock in the cafe, we talked about Bletchley and the Official Secrets Act. The restoration of Bletchley opens up conversations and in its way, the story of Bletchley bridges the generation gap.

I’m a hypocrite. I talk out of both sides of my mouth. I say one thing and do another. I am two-faced. You won’t catch me sneaking into a KFC or a McDonalds (although this might depend on how much I’m craving pancakes). I must confess, though, that I spend hours at the local Starbucks.

I love so many things about Oxford, like the spires of the city and its hidden lanes that lead to unexplored treasures or just a dead-end. Church bellringers practice at set times during the week, their ringing heard at odd hours of the day. The locals I’ve met are accommodating and welcoming. There is an almost overwhelming assortment of activities to choose from each day. Oxford is a writer’s delight. Everywhere I go is too interesting. Images bombard my brain with stories and thoughts and daydreams. They scream write about me! No wait. Write that! Write everything! Notes are taken, but then something new queries for attention as a new thread begins within my brain’s comment section. I’ve never understood writer’s block. There are always words waiting to fill the blank screen. And here’s the problem. There is no place to write.

There is a particular bench at a particular turn of the Cherwell that I like to use for writing. On a lovely morning without rain or wind and when the sun finds me, I fill my notebook with prose. This perfect storm of conditions has happened almost never.

It’s a bit morbid, but I find a cemetery is a quiet place for reflection and a conduit for powerful imagery. But when my eyes focus on a tombstone, it’s over. There are so many stories told in so few words on a tombstone. Those words, scattered across hundreds of graves, have a way of putting my little life into perspective. It’s the whole “I’m just a cog in the big wheel of the universe. Actually I’m not as important as a cog. I’m that little bolt that drops onto the road and watches the wheel move on without any notice of my absence.” These thoughts, while introspective and spiritual, are pretty much a downer. So I turn to the graves and think about the Zombie thing. If the world ends soon, will I be turned into a Zombie? If it happened right this moment, how might I escape? Okay that’s pretty silly. I walk through the cemetery, making sure I don’t step on anyone, because now I’m filled with images of Stephen King’s Carrie . I look at the inscriptions. A couple is buried together and at the bottom of their stone is a memorial to their two sons who died in WWI. The first at Ypres and the second in the battle of the Somme. The silliness stops. I think, “How many tombstones are there in this country with memorials to sons buried in trenches or entombed under one hundred years of mud in how many fields? How many Oxford men lost their lives in WWI? I should look for tombstones. Maybe I can find a register in a Google search. You can see where this is going. So, I end up at Starbucks.

In the States, when important distractions like the laundry or Season 6 of Psych interrupt my writing, I head to Starbucks. For morning writing sessions, I can count on Starbucks opening hours before some of the local places. Even in Utah, there is always one coffee shop open until 10:00 pm. In Oxford, the late night coffee house doesn’t seem to exist. The latest I’ve seen is a Starbucks that closes at 8:30 PM . That is way too early if I need to reach The Zone on a rainy evening.

The Zone is a wonderful place. I am out of contact with the world when I “zone out”. My children can stand right before me and I don’t see them. My friends wonder why I look up and ignore their hellos. When I reach The Zone, I don’t see or hear anything that isn’t in my head. Eventually a voice pierces the bubble protecting my private world. “Mom, Mom, hey Mom.” A finger touches me on the shoulder and then the owner steps back quickly, because he has experienced a violent reaction to my sudden re-entry into the “real” world. I am now making a blanket apology for anyone I have dissed. I was traveling in The Zone.

I have reached The Zone in Costa Coffee or Caffe Nero, but Starbucks is the best venue for daydreaming. First, it is familiar. Once I get past ordering a bacon butty and counting out quid and pence, the basic layout is much the same in any of the stores. There is nothing new to distract me. Second, the accents in Starbucks are mostly American. I don’t have to figure out the hidden meaning of a phrase. The third reason is the most important. I don’t feel badly about taking up a table for hours in a Starbucks. There are plenty of cafes and pubs here where I can get a decent espresso and sit down with my notebook. It is a University town where people with books and computers are pretty standard, but it is also a tourist economy and tables are a valued commodity. I don’t feel comfortable taking over a table in a pub when someone else wants fish and chips. Besides that, how can I concentrate when I am writing at a table once occupied by JR Tolkien and the Inklings?

I’m not proud that I am setting aside my principles for selfish reasons or that most of this blog originated in a Starbucks. I justify this by remembering that I wasn’t actually in Starbucks. I was somewhere in The Zone.