OXFORD IN THE SNOW

Please don't look at the "posting date". We've been home almost two weeks and I'm just getting to the blog. I needed the two weeks to recuperate from our "vacation." So, posting just like it was still December in England. Here we go =


After not being able to convince Tom to spend the night, "We don't have a change of clothes, we don't have jammies - we don't even have toothbrushes or razors." I played the feeble old man card and said, "I just can't face a two hour trip turned in to 5 hours by the snow - in the dark."

So we checked into a couple of rooms at a Holiday Inn Express, ate dinner and went to bed. The next morning we drove to Oxford. Famous for its universities and history. But we went for two reasons. Andrew wanted to see some Harry Potter sites and Emily wanted to visit the grave of C. S. Lewis. The snow still wasn't bad enough to cause major problems but enough to make Oxford a winter wonderland.





Here is the gate to Christ's College, the site of Hogwart's dining room.



Unfortunately, since the schools were on holiday, we were not allowed inside. we did take a bus tour of Oxford and saw some "Hogwart's looking" sites.





Thanks to Tom's iPod, Google and GPS, our adventure through the snow was complete with a visit to the Holy Trinity Church graveyard in Headington, Oxfordshire, England. Along with bearable weather, we were due for another inbetween. The graveyard was covered in 3 inches of snow. There was a service going on in the church and I was contemplating entering quietly and seeing if there was an usher that I might question about the location of our quest. I really didn't to disappoint Emily after we'd made it so far. But I didn't want to be rude to worshipers, either.

As I stood outside the church door pondering, two latecomers walked up. I asked them where the gravesite was and they gave us general directions to the right area. AND when we got there, we found that others just before us had cleared the stone. We never would have found it without the help of these seen and unseen strangers. Is Emily learning from these inbetweens? I hope so.



The drive home was relatively painless AND we found parking spaces for both cars. This was a major inbetween because most people had not moved their cars in three days and NO ONE plowed or even shoveled anything.

3" of snow is not terribly unusual for southern England. Several days of temperatures well below freezing is VERY unusual. Normally everybody sits still for a day and everything melts away. This time everybody sat still for 6 days and, sure enough, just like always, everything did melt away.

ONE MORE TIME - almost nothing went as planned

and we had a wonderful time anyway.

Life is so good.

WARWICK IN THE SNOW

Two small cars were much cheaper than one minivan big enough for all nine of us. So off we go - caravaning through the snow. The countryside IS beautiful and the roads aren't horrible, yet. Tom led - he had some idea where we were going, AND he had a GPS. I had a white hanky tied to his rear window wiper arm to follow.




Except for a traffic jam, due to locals trying to get up a slippery grade of about 2%, the drive was completed without incident. We dropped everyone off at the front, drove through the rest of town, parked the cars, walked back to the castle and FOUND OUR GROUP. How DID we ever live without cell phones?








The "Gypsies" were in the courtyard, complete with strongman, fortuneteller, perriot dancer, and "Brenda the Bearded Lady."

Inside, there was a roaring fire in the banquet hall - set for dinner with 100 or so of your best friends.




In the lower level, the residents were getting ready for what would become the Battle of Barnet. Lots of cooking, sewing, fixing of armor and weapons.

With wax figures





and the occasional reenactor.



This lady was sewing banners for the battle.And was willing to come out of character to answer some questions about the battle and the outcome. Seems the Duke of Warwick's force were winning handily until some of his troops got confused by the similarity in their banners and those of the opposing forces. They attacked their own troops and they lost the battle. The Duke lost his head.

The upstairs was set up as a later, slightly more gentile period around the turn of the last century with a young Winston Churchill and his contemporaries.


All we could say after our visit this summer to Biltmore was, "Mr. Vanderbilt, 'Eat your heart out.'"
This is the REAL STUFF. Well, much of it, anyway. Another of the reenactors stayed completely in character to Tom, but when he asked if there was anything he could do, I said, "Yes. Please tell me when the snow will stop." In a perfect stiff English accent he replied, "So sorry, m'Lord. I can't help you with that. Do you Google?"

There were other visitors as well, from a slightly earlier time.






The weather had taken a turn for the worse. But it certainly turned the castle into a fairyland.





So we said, "Good by" to Warwick Castle and its inhabitants. We did pause for Tom to say a special farewell to Brenda.




Life really is good.