Shakespeare and more

Shylock should have appealed his case. At least, that is the consensus of the five of us after watching The Merchant of Venice yesterday. We took the bus to Stratford upon Avon and watched the matinee performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The performance was excellent, as you would expect, with fairly minimal staging. The costumes were contemporary, there was very little in the way of stage sets, which drew attention to the acting and the play itself. And that was great. Stratford upon Avon itself is a town devoted to the Shakespeare industry—his church and burial site, houses that he owned or that were owned by relatives, and lots of Shakespeare themed stuff. Even the row boats on the Avon were named for women in his plays. (See photo below)

River Avon

We continued to be impressed by the love of flowers here, and Stratford really showed that—lots of gardens, well-tended flower baskets everywhere.

Stratford upon Avon

The bus trip (or trips since we changed in the tiny village of Chipping Norton) was also interesting. (Deb asked, “What kind of a name is Chipping Norton?” before being reminded that three of us came from a town called Punxsutawney.) These large buses would roll along narrow rows with trees immediately next to and over the road. The buses often helped to prune the trees, scraping off any leaves and branches that had grown too close. We passed cottages with thatched roofs, over little rivers, and past more fields of sheep. The day had periods of hard rain followed by times of bright sun, which made for a spectacular rainbow on the way back. It was one of the most intensely colored rainbows we can recall, highlighted by the dark clouds behind it.

Shakespeare's church between raindrops

Happy Independence Day! It is not a holiday here—as Steve Martin said about the French, it is like this is a completely different country—so we are planning to spend it in Oxford--in museums, gardens, and possibly punting. Phil has some work to do so he headed out the door early before joining us. (He has been working and has written two work-related blogs that were axed by the editor-in-chief as not being of general interest.) (***Note from Deb: Philip wants his colleagues to know he is working very hard…)

We will try to keep up our blog over the next few days as we travel around some. We hear that we are getting a lot of hits, and we appreciate the e-mails—but not enough comments! Be sure to leave your comments. One of our favorites so far, in case you are not reading them, was Andy commenting that we should all yell “Norm” when we entered a Norman church. We have not done that yet. We are trying to be on our good behavior.

Ray, Linda, and Claire arrive, with the rain

We have visitors! Ray, Linda, and Claire (Phil’s brother, sister-in-law, and niece) arrived this morning for a week-long visit. They are staying at a bed and breakfast about two blocks from us. We walked them around the town trying to keep them awake—lunch at the Covered Market, then through Christ Church meadow, and along the Thames.

Christ Church College

It is a beautiful walk, one of our favorites of the many we have done here. It is remarkably serene for a space that is only a few hundred feet from the busy streets of downtown Oxford. (And the streets are really busy—summer tourists have arrived.) Apparently these old folks have trouble keeping up with us younger ones, and they decided to take an afternoon nap. (The fact that they had just gotten off the plane after flying all night from Nashville had nothing to do with their fatigue.) Some rain had also started so we decided to give them some time off before dinner.

Wolvercote

It's a sunny Monday morning here in Oxford and we are feeling like we need a rest from our weekend forays into the English countryside!

Yesterday we walked the Oxford Canal footpath up to the outlying northern suburb of Wolvercote from our apartment in southeast Oxford. Philip calculated that we covered about eight miles... and our feet could testify to that! But the walk was easy and the sights interesting, so we did not suffer-- it is only this morning that our weary feet are begging us for a rest.

We began at the Hythe Street Bridge in Oxford and enjoyed seeing all the barges moored to the side-- each painted uniquely and often full of pots of flowers and herbs. Some appeared to be lived in full-time, some looked to be used as weekend getaways, and others are clearly used only as party venues...


We enjoyed greeting the residents along the way, many who were using the beautiful Sunday afternoon to spruce up their boats-- painting, scrubbing, working on their engines. One barge of Sunday boaters followed us up the canal several miles, never going more than 3-4 miles per hour. We parted ways at the Wovercote lock, after watching them navigate through it. We had never seen a self-service single boat lock before, and it was fun watching them jump out and move the levers that caused the water levels to change.


We left the canal path at the Wolvercote Lock, walked past the Port Meadow into the village itself. The two notable places in Wolvercote are the ruins of the 12th century Godstow Nunnery and the Trout Inn-- a pub on the banks of the Thames.



The Trout Inn is famous in this area for having peacocks which roam the grounds and for being the place where scenes from the Inspector Morse BBC TV show were filmed. However, it was recently refurbished and locals complained that they ruined it by making it too upscale to enjoy any longer. We did not stop, but did take a photo of it from the bridge.



When we returned to the apartment (by bus, I might add), we watched the final championship game of the European Cup soccer -- with Spain beating out Germany. Philip had been watching all the matches leading up to it, so he had learned which players were the ones to watch. It was also particularly interesting to us, since they were playing in Vienna. A fine weekend, indeed.
--Deb