Oxford and Stratford on Avon

Well, it has been another hectic week for us. And , unfortunately, Jackie is still fighting a nasty cough and some congestion.

Last Saturday, our big outing to Oxford turned into a quick afternoon as it took us until noon to get out of the house. We did eventually catch a very slow train from Paddington station (which took over 2 hours instead of the 1 it normally takes) and got into Oxford at a little after 2 pm. Our first stop was Carfax tower, a medievel tower that you can climb-- 99 steps on a twisting spiral staircase-- to get a view of the town. And the view was spectacular. Not only could you see the spires and domes of all the colleges in the village but you could see the edge of the town, the river and much of the surrounding country side as well. Next, we spent an hour touring Christ Church College, one of the grandest colleges in Oxford. We got to see the old and very ornate cathedral (with memorial plaques to philosophers John Locke and Bishop Berkeley and even poet W.H. Auden) and to walk around the quad. Sadly, the Great Hall-- where some of the scenes in the first two Harry Potter films were shot- was closed and our daughter Aleeza, Potter-head that she is, had a fit. Fortunately, it was possible to walk up the stairs leading up to Hall-- stairs that are also shown in the movies-- and peer into the room itself. After that Aleeza calmed down a bit. We spent the rest of time in Oxford sauntering around the streets taking in the sights (the Radcliff Camera, the 17th Century Sheldonian Theater ( designed by Christopher Wren)) and so on. I did get to duck into the massive Blackwell bookstore for a few minutes before closing time but amazingly restrained myself from making any impulse purchases. I missed the Oxford University Press bookstore.

On Sunday, Aleeza had a Birthday party to attend (at the Design Museum where the girls all made their own funky, turquoise blue, leather handbags). Jackie, as usual, got stuck helping out. While Jackie and Aleeza were off making accessories, Sebastian and I kicked the soccer ball in the park and stopped to listen to some very cool steel drum music being played by a trio of Jamacan musicians.

This week I actually had my first batch of papers to grade and quite a bit of class-related reading to do so Monday and Tuesday went by in a blur. Tuesday night we sat through a fairly excruciating and disorganized BLC lecture on the British theater (given by a very nice fellow who teaches theater in some area colleges). Then, on Wednesday we got the payoff for having to endure the Tuesday night talk: a trip to Warwick castle and Stratford-on-Avon, complete with tickets to an evening performance of Twelfth Night by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The castle was, I have to say, fairly impressive, with imposing ramparts, towers, a barbican (double gate) and a dungeon. The place is now owned by Madame Tussaud's and so many of the rooms are outfitted with wax figures depicting the Duke of Warwick and his men getting ready to go off to fight in the war of the Roses. That stuff was all fairly cheesy (as was the demonstration of 15th century archery going on outside). Much better were the state rooms brimming over with fancy armor and weapons of every description. The paintings and tapestries were worthwhile as well.

From Warwich, our bus wisked us to Anne Hathaway's (that is, Shakespeare's wife's) house in Stratford. It was a typical half-timbered, thatched roof middle class 16th century English house but it was interesting seeing the various furnishings and the Shakespeare memorabilia. Ditto for the Bard's birthplace in town (although that half-timbered, thatched-roof house was attached to a gift shop that seemed to be three times its size). After the tour of Shakespeare's birthplace we were on our own a four of us faculty stopped for coffee and scones with clotted cream before visiting Shakespeare's grave (in Trinty Church).

That night-- after a dinner of pub grub-- we attended the RCP's somewhat experiemental production of Twelfth Night. TV and film star John Lithgow played Malvolio and the male (comic) characters of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian were all played by women in drag. Even more unusual, James Clyde as the clown Feste adopted a sort of chain-smoking, hep cat, lounge-lizard persona and sang many of his lines while accompanying himself on a baby grand piano. He had a great voice. Clyde and Lithgow were the best thing about the show but some of the other actors seemed to be having off nights (particularly the woman playing Sir Andrew). Ah well, I'm going to try to get to get the entire family tickets to the reconstructed Globe Theater next week to see Merchant of Venice before its over.

That's all for now...