It seems perfectly natural to me that an Englishman would write novels in which a man’s most important possession would be his towel (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, etc. and so forth). He’d need it to dry off after the sky spits ten times a day, playing peekaboo in between.
Anyway, we did some more of Oxford, the City of Dreaming Spires, beginning with Oxford Castle’s Unlocked tour. There’s no longer an actual castle there, mind you, just Hotel Malmaison, made of the 18th Century prison that was built on the site of the former castle. Still, it was interesting because the crypt dated back to 1071 (in wood) or 1074 (in the stone we saw) following the Norman invasion and may also have included part of the Saxon wall. From there we learned an awful lot about crime and punishment, complete with cartoonish illustrations of how prisoners were dissected for medical research after they’d been hanged, which I tried to stop Ty from seeing and only made him want to see all the more.
We learned more about the Civil War, since, as the city Charles I made his center, Oxford was a big part of that. Particularly, we learned about how Charles’ gaoler treated Cromwell’s men who were captured – sixty to a room the size of a closet where they were stacked on top of each other, some dying of smallpox, their corpses left to rot and stink up the place after they shuffled off the mortal coil. Yup, war – humanity at its finest.
From there we walked the Christ Church grounds and learned the “Harry Potter” dining hall would reopen at 2:15, so until then we jumped a sightseeing bus to the botanical gardens at Magdelene College. There were some really gorgeous, unusual flowers, all with names far too complicated for me to remember, except that I think my favorite was called amanthus. The water lilies – pink, magenta, white and yellow – were stunning, as were the huge swans bathing themselves and flapping their feathers back into place.
Then it was back to Christ Church. The dining hall didn’t look as impressive without the streamers, Dumbledore, the gowned students and CGI effects, but the portraits looked as if they should begin speaking and moving in and out of frame. The stone staircase and cathedral were impressive, though with a bored six-year-old who’s very happy to let you know it tugging at you, it was hard to feel the proper awe.
On to Swan House in Newnham-on-Severn. The people who ran it couldn’t have been nicer, the grounds sported a pretty garden with a fountain and, further back, a trampoline! Also, the scenery on the way was breathtaking -- stone farmhouses picturesquely crawling with ivy or coyly revealed through the greenery flanking the streets. As much as I loved all of the ornate beauty of Oxford (gargoyles and flourishes everywhere) and London’s historic sights, this was like soothing visual sorbet.
We had dinner that night at the Red Heart Inn in Awre, which made Ty happy because there were two dogs, one who seemed like he might want to play and an older cocker spaniel, Magdalene, who had belonged to a member of the royal family, who’d given her up when he found he couldn’t breed her. She was a cute little thing. She’d sit and look soulfully up at you while you ate, too polite to make a single sound. Unfortunately, we seem to be cursed when it comes to roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. So far, every place has been out! There must have been a run on them right before we arrived.
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