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.

One thing on my bucket list is to take salsa dance lessons. And the reason has to do with my inability to let loose and let go and well…not be me. This image of myself as being more English than the English was pretty much reinforced when I took the opportunity to take my first lesson. It’s like when I learned to tap. I tried so hard to express myself on stage. I exaggerated every arm movement. I forced myself to emote. And when I looked at the video of those performances, I realized I am just a stiff-armed, stiff-legged, smiling stick figure! The important things, though, are that I tried salsa and that I learned something about promoting art in the community and tackling homelessness in the process.

Oxford is a fantastic place for experiencing any of the arts. Any day of the week it is easy to find some exhibit, performance, reading, or movie to attend. Last week Brasenose College hosted its annual art week. Plays at the Oxford Playhouse range from propaganda aimed at saving the NHS to the 17^th century ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. There are readings at Blackwell’s Bookshop. Any type of music performance is available daily. Visual art is widely represented. So, it makes sense that community arts have a place to flourish and that creativity isn’t just available to those with homes and stable mental health.

The city has quite a vibrant street performance culture. I have yet to see a human statue, although there is a bunny who spins on a bike filling Cornmarket with bubbles. The regulars include a fire juggler, a contortionist, and several musicians. One morning I watched a fiddler on a tightrope. On another afternoon a tyrannosaurus terrorized the crowd. The rules for buskers are strict and numerous. They must have a license to perform. They cannot stay in one place for more than an hour and there are designated places where street performers are allowed to set up. There are noise restrictions (no bagpipes, for instance) and they cannot ask for donations.

But it is impossible to navigate many of the main streets without being approached by someone asking for money. It doesn’t appear that there is much done to move these people along, because I pass the same people in the same places every day. There is a man who claims the sidewalk in front of Marks & Spencer. He is a fixture on a blanket accompanied by his dog. He might be selling the Big Issue, but most times he seems to just hang out. It is easy to give money to a performer, yet difficult when someone claims to be hungry or homeless. Is it a scam or are they truly in need? The city launched the Your Kindness Could Kill campaign, encouraging locals to give money to organizations rather than beggars, noting that it contributes to the problem of homelessness and it discourages those with addiction and mental health problems to get the help they need. It is hard to keep tourists and visitors or even students from giving money. Oxford participates in another initiative, No Second Night Out, which aims to find accommodations for rough sleepers.

Oxford, like other cities, does have a very visible homeless population. The statistics for homelessness are a bit complicated with classifications of rough sleepers, non-statutory homeless, and statutory (those people the authorities are required to help find housing for). Sometimes it is hard to tell who is actually homeless when you are in a very popular tourist destination, but they gather near St. Giles churchyard or around the monument to the martyrs as darkness falls. There’s a group of men with their dogs that hang out regularly near the Thames in Christ Church Meadow. There is a larger concern for sixteen and seventeen year old teens who have been kicked out of their family homes. This is the population the charities and city hope to get off the streets and into a stable environment.

Arts at the Old Fire Station, is an organization that promotes new works by budding performers, writers, and artists and provides space for community dance classes, as well as a gallery and a shop to sell original artwork. There’s a theater for regular performances. That’s where the salsa class is held.

The building is also occupied by Crisis, a charity that aims to help the homeless interact with the community and provides resources and job-training. It runs the Skylight Café which gives on-the-job training for people and provides another place for the homeless to participate in the community. The café also acts as a gallery to showcase artist’s work. Besides sharing the building with Crisis Skylight, the arts enterprise partners with the homeless organization by providing opportunities for ushers and backstage help. In 2013, writers and performers, including those from the homeless community, collaborated on a piece called “Hidden Spires”. I suppose the Old Fire Station is much like a YMCA, but instead of a swimming pool and karate classes, it focuses on art-based community projects. Arts at the Old Fire Station and Crisis Skylight are dedicated to:

• Great art for the public
• Professional development of artists
• Building the confidence and skills of homeless people

This enterprise is in its infant stages, but it seems to be gaining a solid hold in the area near Gloucester Green. If the attendance for the Zumba class and the Salsa class are any indication of support from the community, then Arts at the Old Fire Station will meet its mission statement.

How does this relate to the Oxford community? It was a varied group of people attending the salsa class. When asked about themselves, they seemed a bit surprised at my questions. One young man, ‘H’, stated, “I’m from Oxford.” Each time I asked, he gave me the same answer. His friend, ‘M’, said he had just joined the working professional class of Oxford. A woman came from a suburb of Oxford, because she liked the drop-in aspect of the class. The ages of the participants ranged from 20 to 65. But the language of dance united everyone. I suppose that is what brings students, immigrants, locals and even tourists together – the urge to learn something new or see what it’s about. And for people who might feel a bit isolated in their regular lives, salsa provides that human contact in an arm around the waist, holding hands, a chance to look into someone’s eyes. You learn someone’s name. The morning after my first lesson, I rode my bike up to Wolvercote Cemetery. In the middle of a busy road, on the pedestrian island, I bumped into a woman I had met the night before in the salsa class. Arts in the community makes a difference.

I plan on dropping in on another class. Even though I may never learn to swing my hips, locking eyes with my partner after a twirl…well, let’s say, it’s worth another lesson.

The great thing about the rain here is that when it stops, the sun SHINES! Nothing says Spring like a stroll along the Thames on a bright morning in May. Two of my favorite places near the river, Port Meadow and the Christ Church Meadow, are areas open to the public. They both provide those tell-tale signs of the end of winter – baby ducks, yellow and blue flowers, punters on the river, and the promise of a warm touch of the sun when the crisp breeze stills for a moment. But the one thing that can make or break the experience is an animal associated with the peaceful English landscape. I’m talking about those daft, lumbering cows we see when we are nostalgic and dreaming about the “simple” life. It turns out that I am a bit afraid of cows.

Christ Church Meadow is bounded by the River Thames (also known here as the Isis) and the River Cherwell. From the entrance off St. Aldates, a wide path takes a visitor past the Meadow Building and Merton College to the north and the meadow to the south. It is difficult to appreciate the meadow without following the wider path for a ways until it forks with one branch leading to Rose Lane via the Botanic Gardens and the other following the Cherwell until it meets the Thames. The narrow, serpentine flow of the Cherwell accommodates those wishing to meander along its waters in paddleboats and punts.

The rowers take to the Thames where they glide around tour boats, punts, houseboats, and the odd kayaker.

There is a tree-lined path where glimpses of the meadow appear between trees. It is through these windows that the full expanse of the meadow can be seen. The easy walk along the river hides the distance covered over the shady path, so when the path begins to turn to meet up with the Thames, the expanse of the meadow, at least for me, is a surprise when Christ Church Cathedral and Merton College are viewed from that point.

The meadow is fenced, and within the barrier, long horned cattle graze near the New Walk, the wooded path leading from the Meadows Building to the Thames near Folly Bridge and the place in the river where the rowers turn their boats around. The best feature of Christ Church Meadow is that fence. The herd is contained. They munch the green grasses near the walkway, doing what cows are supposed to do. A cow’s purpose is to add to the ambiance of the pastoral scene. The passersby may stop and view the scene, but there is no requirement or expectation to interact with the beasts.

This is not the case in Port Meadow, because sometime in the 10^th century, Alfred the Great rewarded the Freemen of Oxford with free grazing rights on this land and then someone wrote it down in 1086 in the Domesday Book. The Domesday Book holds the results of the land survey undertaken by William the Conqueror. To be fair, this arrangement is responsible for the preservation of Port Meadow. There are artifacts and medieval peoples buried in the soggy earth of Port Meadow where no excavation or development has disturbed them, because it has not been plowed since Alfred bequeathed the land to the Freemen.

Much of Port Meadow is a flood plain. In a cold winter, the water freezes solid enough for ice skating. Someone told me that he didn’t worry too much about breaking through the ice, because drowning is unlikely with the amount of water on the meadow. I’ve seen photos of people skating on Port Meadow and it looks awesome! But I am here in the spring, a time of intermittent flooding and rain. However, to experience a dry, sunny day on Port Meadow in early May is to experience spring at its finest. I was lucky to find such a day.

My mid-morning walk began at the entrance near The Trout, a pub on Godstow Rd. On the opposite side of the river, there is a path that winds past the ruins of the Godstow Abbey. Legend and modern accounts tell of May Day mornings when, as the sun rises, spectral singing can be heard from the abbey. Unfortunately, I had to choose between the Hymnus Eucharisticus sung from Magdalen College tower or the abbey on May Day. Since I went to Magdalen Bridge, I cannot attest to the ghostly chorus in Godstow.

After the abbey, the path leads past the lock into the fields where cows and horses graze. It is most important to remember to shut the gates along the way. This keeps the cows in their rightful place. The walk is pleasant and quite tranquil at times. About half-way from the Trout, there is a path that leads to The Perch, another oldish pub and a welcome place for lunch or a drink. This junction is where I had my encounter with the mad cows.

My walk began, as most do on a life-is-worth-living day like that, with a thoughtful gaze at the abbey. I then admired the goslings and ducklings as they ventured out onto the banks of the Thames. Rowers practiced alongside the tour boats and kayaks.                                                                                        Rabbit families hopped beside me as I walked. When I stopped they stood frozen on the meadow or scurried their young into the bushes. The grass glowed with white and purple spring flowers. Bees buzzed. Birds sang. You get the picture. On a normal day I would add the picture of cows lolling about in the field, content with their life on the meadow. Those cows have lost their status in this picture of an English countryside.

If you do an internet search with the questions “Are cows dangerous?” or “Do cows kill people?,” the answer likely will include a statistic that tells you that a cow is more dangerous than a shark. The number most often given for cow attack victims is around 100 in the U.S. every year compared to the latest, global number of fatalities from shark attacks. This claim is a bit suspect because it does not take into account the number of human to animal encounters. I imagine if the same number of people that encounter cows encountered sharks, then sharks would beat out cows in the statistics. I must say, though, that I have been in the water somewhere near-ish a Tiger shark and it did not attack me. (See this link for a scary shark photo  http://www.thomaspeschak.com/kayak-great-white-sharks-/  ) I cannot say the same for a certain cow.

The plan was to drop by The Perch for lunch. Just a few yards from the gate, a mother cow, who had been grazing near the river, charged at me as I walked past her and her calf. I retreated, waited a while and tried the long way around her, but she charged again. Other than running, I have no idea how to handle an aggressive cow. Another walker joined me (he knows about cows). While we waited to see if she might leave, the rest of the herd decided to try and escape through the closed gate. They reminded me of a Gary Larson cartoon as they bunched up against the gate to nowhere. While the others jostled for position, the mother cow took sentry duty and bleated her non-stop warning. My new friend knew enough not to challenge a mother who was much bigger and faster than us. We went back the way we came.

Port Meadow is ruined for me now. What if she is just waiting to jump out at me the next time I enter her turf? What if I now have a cow stalker? One morning I will wake to find her leaning against the lamppost with cigarette butts scattered around her hooves.

There are plenty of options for worship in Oxford, even for an apathetic Christian like me. My religious participation during Holy Week (or any other week) is sporadic at best and more often non-existent. This can become problematic at times, because my mother is the pastor of my hometown’s Presbyterian church. So, due to a vague promise made to my mother and a guilty conscience (along with a tsk-tsk from my mother’s friend) for skipping Ash Wednesday services, I decided to go to church on Easter Sunday. As it happened, my participation in Holy week was three-fold.

The first was Palm Sunday. I could say that I planned to join the procession to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Radcliffe Square. However, I must admit that I was there taking pictures and happened upon the parishioners with their palm fronds. Moved by their singing, I joined the procession. When we reached the church’s entrance, I looked upward to a cloudless sky and chose the photo session. This was not a decision made lightly – church vs sun. But this is the UK, where churches are more plentiful than sunshine on an April morning.

My second nod to Holy Week involved a performance on Maundy Thursday featuring the Oxford Philomusica and the Choir of The Queen’s College. The concert, held in the Sheldonian Theatre, featured Bach’s Christ lag in Todesbanden and James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross. The Sheldonian Theatre was the first building designed by Christopher Wren, who went on to re-build St. Paul’s Cathedral after The Great Fire of London. The Sheldonian Theatre was designed for University graduations and functions. I am not a music critic and do not claim any knowledge of the complexities of the compositions I heard that night, but I will say that the acoustics of the building are first-rate for a choral concert. Being moved by Bach in the Sheldonian was a given for me. I was surprised, though, by the depth of my response to MacMillan’s work, a modern composition I was determined to dislike. Like I said, I’m no critic, so I won’t make any attempt to describe the music. I will recommend that you find a recording and listen to it in an uninterrupted silent setting. A word to the wise here. If you can afford the chair seating in the Sheldonian, choose it over the gallery seats, unless you are at least six feet tall and have a strong back. The bench seating is uncomfortable and much of it backless. It required a lot of squirming and repositioning for me to actually get my feet to touch the floor. Also, the windows around the ceiling were propped open a bit and the street noise leaked into the gallery. Sitting up front would eliminate some of that noise.

My final and promised destination for Holy Week was Christ Church Cathedral for Easter Sunday services. Christ Church Cathedral began as a chapel for Cardinal College in the sixteenth century, an ambitious endeavor planned by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII and a man who hoped to become Pope one day. Unfortunately for Wolsey, he failed to make good on his promise to arrange an annulment of King Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. When Pope Clement refused to grant the annulment, Wolsey lost favor with the king, the Crown seized Wolsey’s vast wealth and estates, and he only escaped his execution by dying shortly after his arrest in 1530. Henry renamed the college to King Henry VIII’s College and then after naming Oxford a diocese, the king made the chapel a cathedral. The church is not cathedral-sized or even particularly grand, but its diminutive stature suited the Easter Sunday service.

Unlike large cathedrals open to the public, the secluded nature of the church within Christ College made it possible to worship without tourists and cameras. I remember visiting Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on an Easter Sunday morning. We went down to listen to the bells and be a part of the celebration. But we did not go into the church while the service was conducted. Even though it was open to tourists, it seemed too intrusive to wander around the worshipers. At Christ Church, a porter stood guard to weed out the worshipers from the curious, while still welcoming strangers into the church. The churchgoers represented countries, ethnicities, religions, and communities. I felt comfortable, even though I had no family or friends with me on a day that is traditionally spent with loved ones. It was the perfect place for me to celebrate Easter.

I don’t know why I am so reluctant to discard religion completely. My intellect overpowers my creative and spiritual tendencies when it comes to believing in God. I dislike the rules and regulations of organized religions that attempt to dictate an individual’s experience with God. Maybe my hesitation has to do with the hypnotic effect of the pageantry involved in cathedrals or the harmonious voices offering praises from the choir. Yet, because that mesmerizing pull is dangerous, I approach those feelings with caution as I remember how pageantry and words can lead the masses to tyranny, rather than spiritual awakening. Maybe I want to participate in that shared experience of being one within a group or knowing that even though I am a small part in this world, that when I join with other small parts, we make up the whole of the Universe. Perhaps, I’m just not ready to give up on God.

This morning I executed my first right-hand turn off of Banbury Road. Taking my brand-new, Robin Blue trekking bike out of the bike lane required confidence in my ability to translate American left-turn into English right-turn. I’m pretty sure I had twenty opportunities to make the turn before I felt sure enough to leap ahead onto the side street. That turn is one of the many “firsts” I am adding to my list. But let’s get back to the bike.

My bike is an Activ Fifth Avenue, a combination between a cruiser and a mountain bike. I thought it had six gears, but it has eighteen (note to self : pay attention to the bike guy as he lists the specifications). This bike is weighed down by every item necessary for a cruising bike. Its fenders shine in the daily minute of sunshine. The bike’s bell dings to warn pedestrians of my unsteady approach and it has an array of flashing lights that glow like something from Area 51.  Best of all — it has a basket on the back for carrying a picnic lunch to a spot by the river or canal. Anyone who has ever bought the bike of his/her dreams knows why I love mine.

It is possible to become childlike on a new bike. I’m not talking about reverting back to childhood or my early twenties or even my early forties. That is impossible. What I am talking about is riding a bike for the pure pleasure of pretending I am whatever I want to be when I grow up.  For some people, a bike is a means of transportation. For others it represents training and discipline and a faint hope of riding with elite bikers in the Tour de France. For me, a bike opens up possibilities.  I ride my bike through the unfamiliar neighborhood with an unguarded view of the world. I get to smile at people and nod a hello or mutter “sorry” when I veer too close. If I take enough antihistamine, I can stop and smell the roses or drop my bike in the grass, so I can lie on my back and watch the clouds move through the sky. Riding my bike reminds me that it is never too late to dream.

I know this because I am now living my childhood dream.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs in the Green Park Underground exit made my current situation absolutely clear. There was no way I was going to pull my bag up those stairs. My daughter’s advice on which stop to take for my Piccadilly hotel was spot on. Too bad I hadn’t listened to her.

It took me two weeks to pack for my trip. My possessions are scattered from Utah to Idaho to California. The only reason I didn’t leave something (like my car, for instance) in Oregon was that I went to California first and needed only a carry-on for my visit to Portland. Two hours before I drove to SFO for my Heathrow flight, I continued to waiver on the bags I would take for my six months in Europe. It occurred to me, as the commuters rushed past, that my final decision was a miserable failure. And possibly not just the suitcase. Maybe my whole trip was a mistake.

But then he appeared –- my suitcase savior, a good-natured man in a tuxedo who asked if I had my husband in the bag. He carried it up the stairs, dropped it, exclaimed to his friends about the weight, and disappeared into the crowd. So… damsel in distress meeting her knight in shining armor? Probably not.

At least the hotel was downhill and just a few blocks from the Underground. I mean literally down the street. All I had to do was walk until I ran into it. The problem, of course, was that to get in through the front entrance, I would have to climb more stairs, manage a revolving door, and drag my suitcase through the lobby/café/bar and up more stairs to the concierge. So I remembered the back way to the hotel reception and proceeded to do what I do best – get lost. I carried several maps, a mobile phone App with a map, and a GPS device. All of them nestled comfortably in my bag.

Whoever tagged the British as cold and reserved did not experience their kindness like I did that evening. These people see dumb tourists every day and must deal with stupidity often. Yet those men came out of their buildings, jumped out of their cars, and tried to direct me the best they could. Each time I got it wrong, someone was there to help me. Finally, the last person walked me to the door.
If I learn nothing else from this trip, I hope to remember that I’m never alone in this world.

Except, maybe all the nights I must face the humiliating, pathetic ritual of eating alone in a restaurant. We’ll talk about that one later.