... and a Happy New Year

Starting from where I left off in my last post, I came back to Oxford for two days before leaving again, this time to Somerset to stay with Bethany. Despite it being a longer journey overall, my trip was much less troublesome than the one to Hungerford (not having to go through Reading probably had something to do with that) and I arrived in Yeovil the afternoon of the 29th. That evening, Bethany and I watched (parts of) three films: Northanger Abbey, a recent version of A Christmas Carol, and the second half of The Duchess.

The next day Bethany had to work and her dad was out for the day. I occupied myself by watching The Fellowship of the Ring (extended version) on my own - which was quite nice because I haven't seen any of the Rings films in years and Bethany wasn't that keen on watching it again. After Bethany got back from work, we took her adorable spaniel, Ollie, for a walk (or rather romp) in a rather soggy field, which was a lot of fun. That evening, we had planned to go to church but it turned out Bethany's church wasn't running an evening service that week with it being in the middle of Christmas and New Year. So we went back home, I finished The Fellowship of the Ring and we chatted online with some other members from The Lions Call.

On the Monday, New Year's Eve, we went to Yeovil town centre. I hadn't had the chance to see much of it when I stayed with them over Easter since we spent so much time visiting other places. It was pouring with rain when we set off and too windy for umbrellas to be of much use but we bundled up in coats and made our way there. Yeovil has a rather nice town centre with many of the standard high street shops I'm becoming familiar with in the UK. Bethany had a few things on her shopping list that she needed to get, so our main goal was visiting places that had the things she needed, which was a good excuse to explore various shops. We went for a cheap option for lunch by visiting the local Burger King. It's still nowhere near as good as Steers (the South African equivalent fast food chain) but better than the MacDonalds burger I'd had a week before. After lunch, the rain had stopped making our afternoon traipsing about town much more enjoyable. I found a really nice jersey (or sweater or jumper - depending on your dialect) marked down from £14 to £5 (they have crazy mark-down sales after Christmas here which really makes you wonder about their mark-up prices).

St John's Church, Yeovil

Yeovil centre

Yeovil centre

Yeovil house on the way home

Bethany's aunt and her dad's friend, Julie, came over for New Year's Eve. We had very yummy finger snacks for supper followed by charades,  a game of Trivial Pursuit and a QI Christmas quiz. There were two questions in the quiz relating to Danish Christmas traditions which I could guess the answers to based on my limited knowledge of Danish Christmas vocabulary. I felt it necessary to clarify that I really don't know any Danish besides those and other food-related terms. At midnight, we let off a few small fireworks left over from Guy Fawkes. We also watched the London Thames fireworks display on TV which was beautiful.

On New Year's Day Bethany's dad, Simon, drove us down to the Dorset coast. They'd been thinking of taking me to Cheddar Gorge, but were worried it might be closed due to the floods and/or the holiday. We went to a small town called Abbotsbury where there is a pebble beach bank (with sea on the one side and a lagoon on the other) known as Chesil Beach. On the way, we stopped at the Hardy Monument, a structure built in 1884 in memory of Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy. He was flag captain to Lord Nelson and was with Nelson when he died. According to tradition, Nelson's dying words to him were "take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy, take care of poor Lady Hamilton. Kiss me, Hardy. God bless you, Hardy". The monument is well positioned to give a beautiful view of the Dorset countryside as far as the coast. The weather was sunny and clear though there was a freezing icy wind that made us glad to get back in the car as soon as possible.

New Year's Eve

View from Hardy's Memorial

View of coast from Memorial

Hardy's Memorial

Looking back

At Abbotsbury we went via the swannery (swan farm) but it too was closed for the public holiday. We struggled to find parking as there was a mock hunt going on and the first parking lot we went to was full of horse trailers. We found another one, slightly less full, though very muddy, which was very close to the beach. Besides also being a pebble beach, it was very different to the cove beach they took me to over Easter, as this was long and straight with small though regular waves. After sitting and enjoying the view and a lunch of leftovers from the night before, we took a walk along beach. It was a strange sight for me having beautiful rolling green hills on one side and sea on the other with a pebble beach underfoot, but was amazing none-the-less. We could see the swannery from a distance and came as far as some concrete barriers which had been used as tank barriers during World War II. After rescuing a lady whose posh car had become stuck in the muddy car park, we headed back to Abbotsbury. We had tea or hot chocolate and cake in a lovely tea place which was an old school house. We got back and after a roast dinner (or as they call it, "tea") we watched all watched Miss Potter, the biographical film about Beatrix Potter, together. It made me much more keen to visit the Lake District at some point while I'm here (probably in the summer after exams).

Chesil Beach

Chesil Beach

Naturally smiley-faced stone

Bethany and me

Abbotsbury hills

Chesil Beach

Abbotsbury swannery

World War barriers

On Wednesday, Simon was back to work and Julie went back home. Bethany and I took a bus ride to a small village not far across the county border called Sherborne. It's a small quaint village with one main street of interesting shops and an old abbey. We browsed the shops and then visited the abbey which has an interesting history. It actually has links with Winchester Cathedral, which I'd just seen a week before, since the earliest church on the site was created when the Diocese of Winchester was divided in 705 AD. After the Norman invasion, the seat of the regional bishop was moved to Salisbury, but worship continued on the site. In 998 Benedictine monks had been brought to work at the abbey. This angered the community as the monks replaced the secular canons who had been running the church before. Not only that, but the towns people were no longer allowed to meet in the abbey itself but in a smaller church attached to it.

In 1437, tensions between the townsfolk and monks grew, mainly over the baptismal font which was located in the main church and which the townsfolk had to get special permission to use. They commissioned their own font to be built but the abbot was not impressed and got a "stout butcher" to break into the church and destroy it with a hammer. After that, a riot broke out and a flaming arrow caused damage to the part of the abbey. Eventually the pope intervened and the towns people were made to pay for the damage. With the reformation, the abbey was taken away from the monks and returned to the towns people who proceeded to tear down their separate small church. The abbey still operates as a working church today.*

After a packed lunch in front of the abbey, we headed back through town, visiting some of the shops we had missed. We had tea and coffee in a quaint and unusual tea place which had long wooden tables taking up the length of a room or side tables against the walls with seating for two. We chose to sit in one of the latter.

Sherborne Abbey

West Window

Fluted Ceiling

Nave

Saxon kings burial

Oldest English gospels

Chapel next to Abbey

Sherborne high street

Sherborne town

Waiting for the bus

We headed back to the bus stop which (like the rest of the town) had an archaic flavour to it with a wooden bus shelter, and waited for the next bus. When we got back to Yeovil, we watched some TV and had dinner. I packed my stuff and we headed off to the train station for 9.00pm. I'd booked a late train because the price for the trip was about half what it was during peak hours. It was quite nice travelling by night, as the trains and stations were fairly quiet and empty. The only mishap along the way was that I left my lovely orange hat which my mum had knitted and sent for Christmas on the train when I switched at Bath. I'd been wearing the hat almost non-stop since Christmas and it matched my coat so well. I was really sorry to loose it, though apparently mom has enough wool to make another. I should have had to wait half an hour at Didcot station for my train back to Oxford but when I arrived, the previous train heading to Oxford had been delayed and arrived about 10 minutes after me, so I could take that one instead. I got back to Oxford just after midnight - tired but happy. It was a really good New Year and I'm grateful again to Bethany and Simon for being so hospitable.

*Information on the history of Sherborne Abbey from the tourist information leaflet they handed out to us

Celebrations through the bleak midwinter

The last month has been one of travels, visits, strengthening friendships and, of course, celebrations. On Thursday 20 December I headed off to Hungerford to spend a week with the Frenkels. Most of you know this but for those who don't, I know the Frenkels though Averil, whose family my mother knows from childhood. Her husband, Louis, also grew up in South Africa and his daughter, Myriam, is studying at Oxford and is the secretary of the Oxford CS Lewis Society which I attend. So in all they were a good family to spend my birthday and Christmas with. 

I took the train from Oxford to Hungerford, which turned out to be more of a chore than expected. I arrived at Oxford station just in time to get my first train, and had just gotten on board when an announcement was made that the train had been cancelled due to signal failure in Slough. The strange part was that Slough is past Reading (where I was due to change trains). The train itself was bound ultimately for London Paddington, and those going all the way would have been stuck in Reading, but I still don't know why they cancelled it in Oxford. Especially when everyone taking the train was advised to find the next service to Reading and find a train from there to London. Anyway, there was another train heading Reading-ward soon afterwards and we were told our tickets would be accepted on any service so I took that one instead. I was only about half an hour behind schedule but the second train was slower than the original as it stopped at more of the little stations along the way. That was not a problem for me, however, as I had all day. It was a rather miserable rainy day, and as we travelled I noticed the effects of the recent flooding in the countryside as many of the fields we passed had become pools of water.

When I got to Reading, I had missed my connecting train (as I suspected I would). This was not a problem as I could easily take the next one heading to Hungerford. Only I did not know what that next train was (when it was leaving or what its final destination was). After being shuffled from one platform to another and told a number of different things by different officials, I went into the station and asked at the help desk. The whole of Reading station was completely chaotic both because large-scale construction work to the station meant platform numbers had been moved around and because the signal failure at Slough resulted in a large number of trains being delayed or cancelled (Reading being the closest big station to London meant many of its trains were heading from or to London).  Eventually I found my platform and had to wait about half an hour for my train. It was particularly miserable watching the pouring rain as I sat under the shelter of the platform, but the arrived at last and the trip from there to Hungerford was relatively uneventful. Louis came to pick me up from the station and I arrived at the Frenkels house in time for a late lunch; wet and tired but otherwise happy.

The next day, 21 December, was my birthday :D (my 25th). It was about the best day in terms of weather we'd had in a long time. In recent weeks, most days had been either freezing cold and sunny or warmer and rainy. This day was both sunny and "warm" (by which I mean it was close to 10°C as opposed to the near 0° temperatures of the weeks before). I visited Hungerford town (which consists almost exclusively of the High Street) that morning and came home for lunch. My mum also phoned me to wish me happy birthday. That afternoon, Averil and Louis took me to the closest "bigger" town, Marlborough, for tea. We went to this family-run coffee shop that served the most amazing hot chocolate (it tasted like genuine liquid chocolate) and lovely fresh cakes. For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant in Hungerford. In all, I had a really lovely birthday. It is the first time in my life my birthday has fallen on mid-winter's day (last year it was on the 22nd and every year before that I have been in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer). Despite fears that the Mayans had predicted by their accurate calendar system that the world would come to an end on that day, Jesus' words "no one knows the day or hour" were proved true again and we are all here to tell the tale.

Birthday cake from Averil

Nativity display in local gift shop

Hungerford town hall

Marlborough

The next day we went to Newbury (the other bigger nearby town - slightly further away and bigger than Marlborough) and Averil did some last minute Christmas shopping. On Sunday I went with Averil and Myriam to the church which is right next door to their house (they live in what used to be the parsonage for the church). It was probably the first time I'd been in such a formal, liturgically-based Anglican service, which was kind of nice for a change though I don't think I would enjoy going to such every week. That afternoon and the next day, Christmas Eve, were fairly relaxed. 

Although it was my second year in the UK, it was strange having a Christmas Eve that did not include the big family Christmas dinner, which we usually have the night before Christmas according to my mother's family's Danish tradition. What kind of made up for that was that we went to a a Midnight Mass service, again at St Lawrence's next door - my first midnight mass ever. On Christmas Day we started the day at Church again and then went home to prepare for the big Christmas lunch. Apart from my birthday, the weekend had been very rainy and there had been more flooding around the UK. Christmas morning, however, was mild and sunny, and though it clouded over later, there wasn't much rain. For lunch we had nut roast instead of traditional British turkey, as the Frenkels are vegetarian, with all the normal trappings.

St Lawrence's, decorated by Averil

St Lawrence's interior

St Lawrence's tree

St Lawrence's Christmas Morning

Christmas Lunch with the Frenkels

That evening I went with Myriam to the Church vicar's house, a family she is very good friends with. She warned me it would be a rather crazy evening, and it was - involving a whoopee cushion, large pea shooters and balloons. At one point the vicar said something about bringing out the bagpipes and I thought he was joking until - well he went and fetched them. The two men there (his daughter's partners) both took turns trying to play them and while neither got much of a tune out of them, the mere fact they got them to make a noise was quite an accomplishment. To top that, he then brought out an accordion. Not only was that the closest I have ever been to an accordion, but he actually showed me how, and let me try to play it. I can't play much without any sheet music, so it wasn't very tuneful but it was kind of fun and seems pretty easy to learn. The only problem was that it felt like a terribly right-handed instrument (for some reason more so than the piano, although the principle is not much different and I play that right handed without much struggle).

On Boxing Day, Averil offered to take me to Winchester Cathedral which is not too far a drive from Hungerford. There has been a cathedral on the site from Saxon times and the current building dates back to the Norman period. Among its interesting features is the grave of Jane Austen. It also has a number of chests with the bones of Saxon kings such as King Cnut. Unfortunately the chests were not on display as they are currently undergoing scientific tests. The contents of the chests were mixed up at some point (I think during the reformation) and so they are now trying to see what they can find out about them. There is also a crypt which it was recommended we see as it had flooded, resulting in a beautiful reflection of the arched ceiling. The cathedral was full of other interesting bits of architecture and decorations, numerous side chapels from different periods, beautiful choir stalls, stained glass windows and other interesting bits of history. 

After visiting the Cathedral we had a quick lunch (it ended up being at a MacDonalds because it was getting late, many places were closed because it was Boxing Day, and we needed somewhere that sold vegetarian food. On the walk back to the car, we passed a statue of Aelfred the Great who is said to have been the first West Saxon king to have styled himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons" and had his capital at Winchester. That evening, Myriam and I watched the Doctor Who Christmas special together (she was the one who lent me her Doctor Who DVDs last year which got me to start watching the show).

Winchester Cathedral

Nave

Jane Austen grave

Old Chapel

Flooded Crypt

West Window

Sign for Mortuary Chests

Old Quire

Aelfred the Great

Winchester Town

The next day, I headed back to Oxford. The trip was less problematic than the ride out although it was raining again, and the first train heading from Reading to Oxford when I arrived there had been cancelled and I had to wait for the next one.

But in all I had a great birthday and Christmas week with the Frenkels. My only disappointment was not getting to see a white Christmas. Instead I got a wet Christmas (which we do pretty well in Durban anyway). But at least with it not snowing, it was relatively warm. And my next Christmas will be back home :D

The year winds down

I can't believe my first year in Oxford is over. Term officially ended on 15 June and I leave for South Afric on 1 July. The last couple weeks of term were spent finalising my topics for my thesis and syntax essay. For those interested in such things, my thesis is going to be an analysis of Hellenistic Greek word order from a Minimalist perspective and my essay on Afrikaans negation. I'll be working in particular on my thesis while I'm at home over the summer/winter.

Speaking of "summer", the beautiful week of warm and sunshine I mentioned in my previous post lasted a whole nine days. After that things turned cold and wet and have been fairly miserable since then. We've had a few bursts of excessive rain. On three separate occasions, there has been pretty bad flooding in different parts of the UK. Thankfully, Oxford has not suffered. In between, however, there have been a few warmer days and patches of sunshine, but maximum daytime temperatures have mostly stayed below 20°C, occasionally getting as low as 15°C.

The first weekend in June was quite a fun one as it marked the Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth's 60th year as Queen. It was an extra long weekend with holidays on the Monday and Tuesday but, as Oxford doesn't take holidays off, we had to continue working. I did manage to watch quite a few of the events on TV, however, which included a Flotilla Pageant of over 1 000 vessels down the Thames on the Sunday, a concert in front of Buckingham Palace on the Monday evening and a thanksgiving church service on the Tuesday morning. On the Sunday afternoon we also had an MCR (college graduate community) "garden party" to mark the end of term. Unfortunately, it was pouring with rain that day so we had to move it indoors. At one point, we did have to go out in the rain for our annual group photograph. It seemed like a typically British situation with us standing there on the photo platform in the pouring rain with our umbrellas up. We had to put down our umbrellas for the photo itself so all got quite wet. The only thing that put a damper on the Jubilee celebrations was that after spending an entire afternoon standing on the royal barge on a rainy afternoon (following the Queen's example), Prince Philip took ill and had to be taken to hospital. He missed the Jubilee concert and thanksgiving service. Thankfully, after a week in hospital, he recovered enough to spend his 91st birthday with the Queen and his family.

I've done a fair bit of "Narnian" stuff the last couple weeks. On the last Tuesday of term I went with a small group from the CS Lewis society on a walk through the Wytham Woods near Oxford. The walk took about two hours and ended at a pub where we had dinner and from which we took the bus back to Oxford. One of the fun moments was when we crossed the Swinford Bridge which is one of the last remaining private toll bridges left in England. Thankfully, they no longer charge pedestrians to cross the bridge, though it would probably have been only a couple pence considering how cheap the toll on vehicles was.

View of Oxford from Wytham Woods     

Wytham Woods     

Wytham Woods     

Swinford toll     

Swinford toll house

The highlight of the last few weeks was when I went with Bethany (my friend whom I stayed with in Sommerset) to watch a new theatre production of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in Kensington Gardens. We met in the Gardens at about midday and had lunch at a nice Italian cafe nearby. It was a moderately nice day with intermittent sun and cloud and quite a strong wind. After lunch we spent some time watching the swans swimming in the lake in the Gardens before making our way to the temporary theatre where the play was to take place. The play was quite different to what I expected, but very good and very loyal to the book. I have written a review of the play for the Narnia fan site that I belong to, The Lion's Call, which you can read a copy of on my other blog on the link below:

Narnia Show in Kensington Gardens - a review

Swan lake

Pavilion next to theatre

Bethany and me

Writing a message from TLC

Inside the pavilion

The 360° Theatre

Squirrel in Kensington

Kensington Palace

This last week, I have been making the most of my final days in Oxford by doing some of the things I've been wanting to do but hadn't gotten around to yet. On Sunday 17, I went punting with a group of guys from the Worcester CU. A punt is a small boat that sits quite low in the water and is driven by a pole (kind of like a gondola). That evening we had a Linguistics department end-of-year barbecue.

On Tuesday, one of the rare sunny days, I went to the Oxford botanic gardens with another CU friend, Catherine. They are a lot smaller than Durban's botanic gardens and don't really have a place for picnics and such (there are plenty of other places in Oxford for that). Many of the plants, especially those from more tropical climates, are grown in Green Houses. I was really exited to see a number of South African plants or plants we have in our garden back home.

On Wednesday, I spent the evening with the other linguists from my year as we got to meet Maryanna's parents, who have come over from from the USA. On Thursday morning, I met them again and went with them to Magdalen College where another linguist, Prerna, who is at that college, took us up the Magdalen Tower (the tallest tower in Oxford). The stairway up was a narrow steep spiral one with about 115 steps, but the view from the top was spectacular and made it worth it.

Magdalen Bridge

Maryanna and Prerna

Magdalen College     

       Oxford City Centre  

Tower stairs

My main plans for the coming week are to get things packed up. I will be leaving most of my things in Oxford at a friends' house and  am currently going through the arduous task of packing my things in boxes. It's a weird experience for me. I've never moved house before (except coming over here, which involved packing just one suitcase with the necessities and buying what I couldn't bring over when I got here). Now, for the first time, I'm actually having to pack things in boxes. And I need to decide carefully what I will take home because I will have no access to the things I leave for two and a half months. It's not a fun task, but it's a necessary one.

So, I now head into my final week in Oxford (for a while). I can't believe how quickly these last ten months have gone. I have seen and done and learnt so much. But I really can't wait to get home and see my family and doggies again (or in the case of Jackson, for the first time).