snowdog

Bright and beautiful day. Colder too, although it's now hard to remember what it was like when it snowed before Christmas.

As a reminder, here's the dog.

first day of spring

First day of spring might be a bit of an exaggeration but last Sunday was the first time I'd felt that spring was in the air since the new year began with the Winter Solstice. (No, I'm not a Pagan but taking the solstice as the end of the old year and beginning of the new does seem good sense. Perhaps I am a Pagan.)

The sunlight on Sunday was just that bit richer than it has been and when you were out of the wind there was real warmth in the sun. Even when you were in the wind there was something not so defeating about the cold.

I went for a long cycle ride down towards the Thames, along the Great Brook (into which all the streams in the valley flow before it reaches the Thames at Shifford Lock) and round to Mount Owen (road, telegraph poles and valley, above).

The photo of the trees and water shows an unusual feature that always looks as if it's the remains of an old moat, although there is nothing to suggest it is on the OS map. I did read, though, in the Victoria County History that the Romans settled close to the Thames and not where the present village stands. Somehow moat and Roman settlements got all mixed together in my imagination and were then stirred into the little story about the Leper's Tower towards the end of Invisible. (The leper bit, incidentally came from a tale about Roche Rock in Cornwall, told to me by a family friend when I was a boy.)

The other photo shows a reed bed that the local thatcher grows. Nowadays relatively few houses in Bampton are thatched but many more used to be in previous centuries. Our little terrace replaced a row of thatched tenements, with earth floors and deep roofs that came down to a low stone wall. The rebuilding took place in the 1880s--late compared to many parts of the country. But then Bampton time does seem different to time in the rest of the world.

espresso, rain, end of first week

Nearly the end of the first week back at work. Great to see everybody and talk about the holidays.

But what a morning! The heaviest rain I've seen for ages with these huge puddles along the kerbs, which buses and drivers just thump through. When I walked along St Giles' just now this black Golf screamed down the side lane and soaked three people. Don't get me started.

Meanwhile, in Greens now, sipping a single espresso (the doubles start when the year gets really hectic--next week probably). Jazz-funk in the background, warm atmosphere...

Yeah, this week's been OK.

happy new year!

Well, according to our local MP, David Cameron, the road ahead is a tad uncertain. At least the bike's ready, even if I'm not!

Happy New Year!!!

bull

Our new friends' house was darker than expected and there was no sound of guests enjoying themselves. But then the door was thick.

We rang the bell, which mercifully didn't work. A tiptoe round the side and a peep in the kitchen confirmed that no party was being held tonight.

Back home, after wandering through the village all dressed up, we looked at the invitation. Yep, tomorrow night. I blame all these bank holidays. No idea what day of the week it is.

Meanwhile, in response to a request, here is the bull.

Hoping for my first bike ride in ages tomorrow.

kelmscott

An enjoyable late walk to the west of Kelmscott--starting and ending at the Plough; passing the manor; turning onto the Thames path; heading to Eaton weir (no sign of the old flash weir that used to be there up to the 1930s, nor of the inn that was destroyed by fire--'in tragic circumstances' according to the National Trail Guide--just some rather picturesque moorings and a warehouse); then to Buscot lock; up to the Lechlade road and back to Kelmscott for a pint of Marston spiced ale.

The light was fading, even at 3 pm, and there was a mist from the melting snow--this was yesterday. The snow, though, was still very much there, in contrast to today, when, in Bampton at least, all but the deeper traces have gone.

The roads to Kelmscott hadn't been salted and were treacherous despite winter tyres. These tyres are especially good when it's icy but the slush seems to clog them and they slip a bit. There was one abandoned car with its bonnet smashed in and at the pub people talked about other accidents over Christmas.

William Morris' manor was all shut up. I tried to take a photo over the wall but all I got were shrubs with one or two glimpses of the building behind. In the paddock before you got to the manor there was giant bull--red Devon, perhaps. It seemed placid enough.

It was when the Downton Abbey filming started that I last posted a photo of the Plough. That was over six months ago and it was spring. In a way it seems a lifetime away because it was then that I was phoned about family problems that I'd no inkling of before then. Over the summer and into autumn the news got worse and worse--unbelievably so. There was a flare-up over Christmas, as is always said to be the way at this time of year. Some people are their own worst enemies--and I suppose one will never change them, no matter how much one hopes they might change. So sad to think of someone so wilfully isolated and destructive.

Now off to drinks at a house we've always wanted to see inside. How nosy!

shifford walk

Surprisingly chipper today after long, long Christmas day.

Went to Morris Clown at lunchtime yesterday, which was, as usual, great.

Today, the temperature didn't get above freezing, although we had a wonderful walk from Tadpole Bridge to the weir to the south of Shifford Lock.

Just after the bridge (above), half-way along, we met a friend and watched a barn owl working Chimney Meadows nature reserve.

A feature of the nature reserve--and other stretches of the Thames hereabouts (frozen over in parts, incidentally)--are the World War II pillboxes. These seem so out of place now--brutal concrete polygons with mean gun-slits--but there must have been a strategic reason for them years ago.

After the walk we had a pint at the Trout at Tadpole, a pub which was immortalised by the brilliant travel writer and illustrator, Robert Gibbings. I think he would still recognise the place, though some walls have been knocked out and the intimacy he describes has gone.

Later, at home, we watched more of Downton Abbey--so gripping! It's amazing but my blog got masses of hits during the broadcast of the series, because of one or two of my photos, but I've not seen the programme because we don't have a TV. Terrific to catch up. The village streets seem really spacious--no cars parked in them.

end of the cold war, humanism, friends, happy christmas

We went on a lovely walk this afternoon in the snow.

There are a lot of green lanes near the village and it's easy to imagine you're catching glimpses of how the landscape looked in previous centuries.

There is also what remains of RAF Bampton Castle--shown in two of the above pics. Now the buildings have been turned into business units and only a couple of the installation's steel towers are left. But when we moved here ten years ago, the place was still a cold war listening station. There were armed sentries, giant pylons and porcupine fields bristling with rows of little masts. Then it was decommissioned, over night it seemed like, and diggers worked late into the evening, eerily clandestine, dismantling everything.

On the way home this afternoon, we called in at the Morris Clown and saw friends, which was lovely. Excellent Christmas Bonus on handpump too.

At home, listening to the radio, I heard a news item about the Pope's broadcast on the Today programme earlier, which I missed. David Starkey was on talking about the Rationalist Association.

I have to say that I have a lot of time for the RA and its magazine The New Humanist. I first came across it--and its fellow Humanist publication, The Freethinker--amongst the piles of magazines in the graduate common room at the Bodleian in the early nineties. Someone, I don't know who, used to put them out for people. Reading them was a life-changing event. Magazines that contained articles written from a point of view that I'd felt but not been able to express myself.

At the same time as I discovered these mags, my parents moved to a cottage not far away from my old junior school in Gloucestershire. I walked sometimes beyond the Roman Camp to the church above the school. Years before I'd played Joseph in the nativity play to Sally M's Mary. Sally's dad was Egyptian and she was dark and very pretty. She was kind too and I was in love with her, of course. I remember the evening light in the church one time in the nineties and how magical it seemed. It put me in touch with the poetry of religion and how I'd felt about it as a child.

For a time, in the nineties, there was a Humanist programme at Westminster College, Oxford, and I considered applying to do a masters in the subject. I explained that I saw myself as a Christian Humanist and the people running the programme seemed to be interested in what I wanted to research.

Despite thinking of myself as a Humanist, the Christian part mentioned above remains important to me, because, I suppose that was the tradition I was brought up with. During the difficult family times during the nineteen-nineties I prayed. And recently, when old sadnesses have resurfaced, I sometimes stop at St Barnabas on my walk into work and pray--often using a Catholic prayer book, which I bought years ago at Worth Abbey when I was visiting a friend who was part of the lay community.

Are, I wonder, my religious-humanist views confused, post-modern, dilettante or just muddled-normal?

Well, tonight, rather than midnight mass, it's off to the Horse Shoe for the bawdy christo-pagan mummers play. The Bampton mummers have been performing the same play--with topical additions--since the mid-nineteenth century. It's great!

Later, by the fire at home, I'll think of friends and wish them a very happy Christmas.

holiday

Yesterday I finished pretty much all the work I had to do before the Christmas and New Year holiday. It took less time than I expected and it was great to start the break early.

This morning I had a lie-in till 6.30 before walking round the village once it got light (see pics above). It was so strange not having to think about work. Also, I haven't done the walk I did for so long--maybe a year? Awesome.

One of the things I want to do this holiday is read--read for fun. A book I picked out was The White Peacock by DH Lawrence, which I read in about 1980, then sometime in the 90s. It feels about the right time to look at it again. It was really strange but I did notice a lot of new bits when I tried the first chapter. It was as if I'd never read it before in my life. Uh-oh. Ageing process not going quite according to plan...

Meanwhile, headed for Oxford earlier to do Christmas shopping. Roads so much better. Oxford relatively quiet, I would say.