Cotswolds and more

It is amazing that none of us was hurt. We were standing by the side of the highway waiting for the bus to bring us back to Oxford from the village of Burford after a day of sightseeing. A car coming the other direction on the highway hit the center barriers for the pedestrian crossing, plowed through both of them (called bollards), and came straight for the group of us waiting for the bus. The driver managed to swerve away from us at the last second, careening back across the road and ending up on the opposite shoulder with his car destroyed. Meanwhile, traffic signs, car parts, and parts of the barricade were flying all around us right as our bus pulled up. So we got on and returned to Oxford from an exciting ending to an interesting day.


As Deb said, “One minute we were 'moo-ing' with the sheep, and the next we’re dodging flying road signs.” (Neither of us is good with foreign languages, as you can tell by the 'moo-ing' at sheep.) The young woman who called in the traffic accident and then boarded the bus to Oxford with us said that she had lived in Burford all of her life and it was not usually this exciting! We assured her that we believed her. So maybe we should back up and tell you how all of this excitement began.



We took a bus this morning to the village of Burford in the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds are a region just northwest of Oxford with gently rolling hills, villages next to small rivers, and the scenery we associate with “English village”. The region has been famous for its wool for centuries. Among the many little villages, we picked Burford because it is easily accessible by bus. Burford, like many of the villages in the Cotswolds, has a Sheep Street on which the sheep were herded into High Street. It is a steep walk down High Street to the Windrush River—actually a creek—with stone houses, narrow lanes, and the local church and cemetery. This particular church was begun in Norman times (like the one in nearby Iffley that we discussed two weeks ago) about 1100, with many later additions and renovations. The most recent additions were made about 500 years ago.


One of the more interesting parts of the church was the crypt of the former Lord and Lady Tanfield who had been the lord of the region in the 16th century. (Notice the skeletal figures underneath—maybe some of you will remember our classic trip to the Czech ossuary during the last sabbatical.)


Although their death figures are impressive, the more interesting part is that they were hated during their lifetime by the locals. Their ghosts reputedly ride through the streets of the village periodically—not today, however. Today the church was hosting the local Beer Festival.


The rest of the village has old shops, pubs, coffee shops, and antique places. After spending most of the day in the village itself, we walked out of town to a footpath along to the river, in the middle of pasture with dozens of sheep. As we stood there, the sheep gradually moved closer until they were nearly surrounding us. It was very peaceful. Phil was trying to remember what he knows about the inheritance of coat color in sheep—always the geneticist, even on sabbatical.



So that was our day. It has something for everyone. Sheep, stone houses right next to narrow lanes, an old church with a ghost, a lazy river—and a car crash!
--Philip

Ashmolean Museum

Our routine is getting pretty well established by now. Phil goes into the lab, a walk that takes about 30 minutes. But thanks to a Fathers Day gift subscription to Audible.com from Andy, he can “read” as he walks so he is getting well-read while he is well-walked. He is usually the first to get into the lab, and is able to complete some lab work before going to work on each day’s requests from the editors. Meanwhile, Deb does her daily errands, does laundry (which has to happen several times per week since we did not bring our complete wardrobes with us), and wanders around town. The evenings are spent watching the European Cup soccer match, reading, blogging, or occasionally heading out for a walk or a pub. It is a nice life. Not too many worries, deadlines, or other responsibilities.

This afternoon we visited the Ashmolean Museum named for Lord Ashmole who cleaned out his attic and donated a lot of the stuff. It has a very impressive collection of antiquities, so we were trying to learn about the Minoan civilization, the Egyptian dynasties, and other things that we are sure our teachers skipped over in school. (But if the British ever came to a museum on the Revolutionary War, we would show them—we studied that every year.) We are reminded that it was Oxonians who discovered and excavated these ancient civilizations, and this was the first university museum.

Ashmolean Museum

The rest of the museum is an interesting mixture of art, musical instruments, glassware, and other things. Like the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, there is a nice collection of paintings from the Italian Renaissance. (It seems like every Italian man alive during the Renaissance was an artist, in the same way that every American teen-age boy is a rock guitarist.) Also some English landscapes, including Turners and Constables, and some early 20th century ones by the Camden Town school. (Which we only had heard of because Phil read a mystery once that involved some of those artists.) When we were in Vienna, we “discovered” Gustav Klimt and ended up with a Klimt-inspired dining room. None of these artists has inspired us to re-do a room in the house yet, but we have only been here three weeks. The Ashmolean is undergoing a major expansion, so quite a few of the galleries were closed and some of the things we had heard about—such as their collection of Delft china, the Lawrence of Arabia ceremonial gown, and an Oliver Cromwell’s death mask—were not on display. (They do have a bust of Oliver Cromwell in which he looks to have a soul patch.) But it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours, and worth further exploration.

One clarification from yesterday’s blog. The rich literary tradition and the distinguished authors of Oxford DO NOT include any one in the picture.
--Philip

Photo Gallery

Today's blog entry is a small gallery of photos taken around town, so you can get a feel for everyday Oxford.


This photo was taken from the towpath along the Thames, behind our apartment. This portion of the river has quite a bit of action on it, with rowers, barges, and sightseeing boats. You don't see people punting on it-- I suspect it is too deep.

Oxford has a rich literary tradition, and Lewis Carroll is one of the distinguished authors educated here. He also went on the become a lecturer in mathematics at Oxford. This is a quaint shop is on the site of a Victorian candy store, said to have been frequented by Alice Liddell, who was the inspiration for Carroll's Alice in Wonderland adventures. It contains all things Alice!














These next two photos were taken in Oxford's Covered Market. It is reminiscent of Seattle's Pike Place Market, or Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market but on a much smaller scale. And instead of salmon or cheesesteaks, this market offers Oxford Blue Cheese and Cornish pasties!































The athletic fields next to our apartment bear historical significance in the world of track & field (and give you a clue to Philip's obscure humor section in his June 7th blog entry...)





That's all for today from Oxford-- the skies look a bit threatening and I need to go do some food shopping...
-Deb

Weekend wrap-up

I was left in charge of today's blog entry, and when I complained that he'd left me with a rather uneventful day to report on, Philip encouraged me to fill in details on Saturday's trip to Cambridge. He left out some of our excursion, having gotten caught up on the price of petrol here...

Besides taking a walking tour of Cambridge, we also spent time in Kings College chapel. Because flash photography is not allowed inside, not many of my photos turned out very well, except for this one -- one of 26 sets of stained glass windows.


At the far end of the chapel is a spectacular painting by Peter Paul Rubens (one my personal favorites) entitled "Adoration of the Magi".

The remainder of our afternoon was spent at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which has a quite nice collection of Old Masters and Impressionists, sculpture, armor, and ceramics. We lingered over the illuminated manuscripts-- they are quite something.

As for yesterday (Sunday), we returned once again to Magdalen Road Church for their worship service. Later in the afternoon we met up with our Austrian friend, Alexander Lorenz for cream tea at the Grand Cafe on "the High" (what the locals call High Street). Alex was a graduate student in Vienna in 2003, where Philip did his last sabbatical-- they shared the same lab bench. Alexander finished his PhD in 2005 and is now doing his post-doc in the Microbiology Dept here at Oxford. He chose the Grand Cafe because it reminds him of the cafes in Vienna and we quite agreed. But it was a wonderfully English way to spend a Sunday afternoon catching up with an old friend-- sipping tea and eating scones.

--Deb

To Cambridge

We spent today (Saturday) in Cambridge. On the map, Oxford and Cambridge do not appear to be that far apart—probably less than 100 miles. But there is no direct way to get from one to the other. The train goes from Oxford to London's Paddington Station, then take the tube to Kings Cross Station, then another train from Kings Cross to Cambridge. We decided against that and signed up for a tour bus instead. Most of the people on the tour were international students and we had a lot of free time to wander around in Cambridge so it worked out well. The trip there was about two hours on the freeway, which looks similar to main highways in other places. We did note a few things to comment on.

First, we saw our first gas stations (petrol in the UK) since we have been here. There are none near us or in our regular walking circuit. Petrol was listed at 1.189 so you have to do the conversion. One pound nineteen pence is about $2.30. The price is listed per liter and there are slightly less than four liters to the gallon, so the total price is about $9 per gallon. Have we mentioned how many people bicycle? Second, we saw a horse van exiting the highway and headed for Newmarket. Those of you who read Dick Francis will recognize the significance of that.

(Speaking of Dick Francis, we have not mentioned that this week is the Royal Ascot horse races. We don’t know much about horse racing, but it seems to be an occasion for people to appear on the BBC wearing silly hats. All of the men are wearing top hats—it looks like the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club only not so distinguished—and the women are wearing a diverse selection of large floppy hats, similar to the type that bridesmaids are sometimes forced to wear. No one seems to be embarrassed by their hats, so perhaps we are missing something.)

Oh, and we also went to Cambridge. We crossed the bridge over the River Cam, even seeing the mathematical bridge between the halves of Queens College. (We had never heard of the mathematical bridge, and now we have seen the original at Cambridge and a copy at Iffley on consecutive Saturdays.)

Realizing that we have some regular readers who are graduates of the University of Cambridge, we will keep all comparisons between Oxford and Cambridge to ourselves except to comment that the University was founded in 1209 so it is coming up on its nona-centennial (its millennial minus a century? Its CM?) anniversary celebration next year. Second, Cambridge has produced many more Nobel winners but Oxford has produced more prime ministers. To us as visitors, Oxford is a small city with a university—it has had industries such as Oxford University Press and the Morris Motor Car Company (makers of the MG, among others)—while Cambridge seems like a university town. Albeit an old town, founded by the Romans, and an old and distinguished university. Missoula, Montana is also a university town, but even a casual visitor could tell it from Cambridge.

Trinity College, Cambridge

This post is getting long and I have barely described what we saw. Perhaps we need another posting with the facts. One important thing is that we had lunch in the Eagle Pub, which is where Watson and Crick hung out. It is also where Crick told everyone that he and Watson should get a pint on the house since they had solved the secret of life after they figured out the structure of DNA.


So now Phil has become one of the few geneticists who has made the pilgrimage to two of the birthplaces of genetics—Mendel’s pea garden in Brno and the Eagle Pub in Cambridge. If you ask how many geneticists have been to both of those places AND to Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, well, he may be one of a kind.

Encaenia

Right about now, you are probably surfing over to Websters online dictionary to figure out what the title of this post means. No need-- just click this link: Encaenia for an explanation. In plain English, it is the presentation of honorary degrees to distinguished Oxford alums at the end of the academic year. At US colleges, it is usually a part of commencement ceremonies. There is quite a bit of pomp and circumstance associated with this event here at Oxford-- what would you expect from the oldest academic institution in the world?

I had questioned the library guide the day before about the exact route of the procession (it changes every year), and I was pleased to have gotten accurate information from her-- I had a front row space along the barricade to get pictures. When I arrived on campus, the streets were full of English bobbies, plainclothes policemen with earpieces scanning rooftops, and a noisy group of animal rights protestors. At precisely 11:30, the bells of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin began ringing and the procession started, the university chancellor and vice-chancellors in the lead as marshalls.


The remainder of the group followed through Radcliffe Square in their scarlet and blue academic regalia, depending on their degree and area of discipline. They went through the big wooden doors of Bodliean Library's quadrangle, through the Divinity School (see yesterday's entry), and entered the Sheldonian Theatre for the ceremony.


Attendance at this ceremony is by invitation only--closed to the public-- but it was fun to catch a bit of Oxford's grand academic tradition.
--Deb

Librarian's Turn

Yesterday was a typical work day for Philip-- he's making good progress on the book's glossary and should finish it in the next few days. So I took advantage of the day to re-visit the Bodleian Library for a guided tour. (Something I didn't imagine any of our future visitors would have a remote interest in seeing)

The architecture of the library is a wonderful example of English Gothic, built in 1602. Unfortunately, they don't allow photographs taken of the reading rooms, but I did get this photo of the Divinity School.




Those of you who are Harry Potter fans will recognize this as Hogwarts Infirmary and the room where Professor McGonagall taught dancing.

The Bodleian Library is strictly a reference library--no books are lent. And it is what is called "a legal deposit" library, meaning it is entitled to a free copy of every book published in Britain. As a person who spends her days cataloging books, I found that to be a bit intimidating. (I could only imagine the folks somewhere in the bowels of the library toiling away at their computers...) They have 120 miles of shelves between several buildings and have a unique pneumatic tube system (like at a drive-up bank teller) whereby you write on a piece of paper what book you want and within 3 hours it will be delivered to you! Some of the books are housed off-site... in abandoned saltmines in Cheshire-- they found the saltmines to be a perfect environment to store books! If you need one of those books, it will take 3 days. (Newtown Public Library needs its own saltmine for withdrawals...)

Later in the evening, it happened that Alison, Andy and I were all at our computers at the same time, so we had an impromptu Skype 3-way conference call. For those of you who aren't familiar with Skype, it is a program which allows you to call other computers anywhere in the world for free and you speak through your computer's microphone. Phil snapped this picture of me talking with them. Fun!


--Deb