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

Visits to The Kilns, A baptism, Thanksgiving and Some lovely Americans

Five weeks since the last post, and term is over again - it's scary how fast these eight-week terms speed by. So much has happened since the last post, I'm going to write about it in two parts: The first will be on the second half of Michaelmas term and the second on the last week since term ended.

I was still sick with my cold and cough for much of 5th week, which wasn't a whole lot of fun. On the Monday night (not Tuesday as I said in my last post) was Guy Fawkes. I could hear fireworks all around but couldn't see any, even when I took a short walk in the freezing cold around the neighbourhood. I had, however, seen some out of my window on the Saturday, which was better than nothing. I might have mentioned last year that I'd forgotten how pretty fireworks can be since the ban in SA seems to have limited the amount and variation of fireworks that are available.

The highlight of that week was the Saturday evening when I went to the Kilns to watch a performance of An Evening with CS Lewis by David Payne. David Payne is a British Actor who started up this one-man-show after playing CS Lewis in a stage performance of Shadowlands, a dramatic biography of Lewis' life. People would come up to him and ask him questions about the life of Lewis which he couldn't answer, and he thought it would be interesting to research and come up with a performance in which he, pretending to be the man himself, could answer those questions. The show has been running for a number of years all over America and also in Canada and he has eventually decided to bring it to Britain. From 7 to 11 November, he performed it in the library at CS Lewis' old Oxford house, the Kilns. The show was free of charge and a collection was taken up to aid the running of the Kilns Centre. I had heard at least two members of TLC talking about having seen the show in America and Canada, so I was quite excited to be able to see it myself. It was also the first time I got to see the inside of the Kilns, having only seen it once from the outside when I first arrived in Oxford last year.

An Evening with CS Lewis is a one-man-show in which David Payne pretends to be CS Lewis talking to a group of American authors in the final years of his life. He sits in a chair drinking tea and tells them his life story. Usually he does the performance for large crowds in theatres and the like, but the library of the Kilns could only fit in 20 people at a time. The show was excellent, although you could tell that it was written with an American audience in mind (he made a joke about iced tea) and that he was less used to acting in such an intimate setting (sometimes he came across as a little too theatrical, which I could see as working fine on a stage, but this made it less convincing as he sat on that chair in the library not far in front of a small group). I tried to imagine that he really was Lewis and couldn't quite convince myself. I think he also missed a few opportunities to make use of the fact that he was really in Oxford, in Lewis' house. For example he would refer to Headington (the town/suburb of Oxford where the Kilns is) as "the village" rather than just "here", and when he referred to the first house Joy, who would later be his wife, lived in, he could have said "just down the road" and pointed in the appropriate direction. But in all, it was a great performance and a privilege to be there. I had the opportunity to greet and thank him after the show. I also met two old ladies who were attending the show, one of whom said she was at Oxford 60 years ago and used to attend some of Lewis' lectures. The second lady (who it turned out was a Classicist, and like me, prefers Greek over Latin) had been to some of his lectures in Cambridge when she was training to be a teacher there. Apparently earlier in the week, a man had come to a performance who was a childhood friend of Douglas Gresham (Lewis' stepson) and used to play in the woods by the Kilns with him.

The following weekend, my friend Emily's parents came to visit from America. Mary (my other friend who likes hedgehogs) and I got to meet them on Saturday evening when we went out for dinner at the Eagle and Child. I also got to see them again on Sunday evening at and after church and on Tuesday before the weekly CS Lewis Society meeting. They are a lovely couple and it was great to meet them. On Sunday evening, one of the guys from the Worcester CU, Rob, who became a Christian earlier this year, was baptised at St Aldate's Church. I went along with a number of others from Worcester. It was the first time I had been to a service at St Aldate's (the other large evangelical Anglican church in Oxford) and we were treated to testimonies from a number of people who were to be baptised. It was an amazing evening, hearing how God has worked in the lives of these various people and especially in our friend Rob's. After the service those of us from the CU went up to pray with Rob which was a really powerful experience.

On Thursday 22 November, Maryanna hosted another Thanksgiving meal to which she invited all the LingPals and a number of her friends from Wolfson college. It was a great time, especially as I don't get to see the LingPals so much this year since we have fewer lectures together.

Thanksgiving group photo

Christelle and me

The turkeys

Carving the turkey

A plate of thankfulness

That Friday afternoon, the Worcester CU held a "Text-a-Christmas-Treat" event. It was like the Text-a-Toastie sessions we have except this time college members could text in for Christmas treats (mince pies, gingerbread men or carrot sticks) along with a question about God or Christianity. We had some very interesting questions and discussions that resulted from that. That evening I went out with Emily and two of her friends that are also here for their year abroad at Worcester, Michael and Peter. It was the evening the Christmas street lights were turned on and although we missed the lantern parade and switching on ceremony, we went to the evening fair and market in St Giles Street, which was lots of fun though rather cold.

St Giles Christmas fair

Peter, Michael and Emily

St Giles fair

St Giles fair

In case you are starting to think that I didn't do any work in the second half of term, I really did. I finished my essay on Greek verb stems (mentioned in the last post) which was the last of my History and Structure of Greek tutorials. Since then, I have had three tutorials for Historical Linguistics (one of the other options for which I will be writing an exam in June). I wrote three essays on grammaticalisation (the process in which words in a language lose their lexical/word-based meanings and become grammatical forms like prepositions or prefixes and suffixes), analogy (the process in which forms change in a language based on other related forms) and the comparative method (the method historical linguists use to reconstruct the ancestors of language families based on what we know about the descendant languages)*.

In addition to the essays and tutorials, I was forced to come face-to-face with my thesis topic as I had to give a presentation on it on 27 November. It meant sitting down and working out exactly what I'm trying to do in a way that I could explain it to my course-mates, which was a good exercise. For those interested, my thesis is looking at Hellenistic/Roman Period Greek word order as used by the 2nd century Greek novelist Achilles Tatius. Greek word order is really free and I am trying to find out if there are any patterns that could help us identify a "standard" word order and am using Chomsky's syntactic framework (the Minimalist Program) to see if I can explain why we get the variation we do. (I may at some point write up a clearer explanation - "My thesis for dummies" (?) - for those for whom that makes no sense. Those who do understand what I'm talking about, I can send you the handout from my presentation if you are interested, though I don't know how much sense it makes in isolation). I was extremely nervous for the presentation, but it went pretty well in the end (though I went a bit over time).

The evening after my presentation Emily and I were treated to something I've been looking forward to since Myriam told me about it last Christmas. Every year on the last Tuesday of term, the CS Lewis Society has a Christmas party at the Kilns. There was a lovely spread of Christmas and other snacks (mince pies, cakes, cookies, Turkish Delight ;-) ) and mulled wine. Mulled wine is a Christmas phenomenon that they have here in Britain that consists of spiced heated wine. I've never tried it as I don't drink alcohol, but at the party they had alcohol-free mulled wine so I could finally try some. It tasted kind of like warmed grape juice with All-Spice added (probably not as exciting as the real thing) but at least I could get an idea of what the fuss was about. Part of the tradition of the evening is a reading from a short piece written by CS Lewis called Xmas and Christmas: A lost chapter from Herodotus. It's a piece I have loved ever since I first read it and has become even more special since I became familiar with Herodotus' actual works (and Herodotus became my favourite Greek author) and could see just how Lewis was imitating him. It's a satirical piece about this strange tribe that lives in Niatirb (Britain in reverse) and practises this strange annual festival called Exmas, which involves the stressful activity of sending Exmas cards and Exmas gifts to friends and family (a terrible task as one has to guess which of one's friends will send cards and presents and what the value of each gift will be so one can send a present of equal value to the friend). It also involves over-eating and drinking and and wearing paper crowns is on the whole a very stressful and depressing time. He goes on to talk about another festival practised by a smaller number of Niatirbians called Crissmas which takes place at the same time. Some say the two festivals are related, but he doubts this as observers of Crissmas, "doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child." The passage was read out to us by Richard, one of the older members of the Society with an amazing knowledge of all sorts of things. He was the one last year who told me, after a Tolkien-related talk at the society, about the time when, as a boy, he met Professor Tolkien.

The evening was to get even better. We had been told we would be given a tour of the Kilns. What I didn't know is that one of the tour guides would be Walter Hooper, the literary advisor of Lewis' estate, who has been responsible for publishing much of Lewis' work posthumously. Mr Hooper is often present at society meetings and I always feel slightly in awe of him since he actually knew Lewis during his lifetime. I didn't realise that the man had actually lived with Lewis and his family at the Kilns in the later years of Lewis' life. Lewis believed that once an author published a work he had written, it was his responsibility to answer every letter his readers sent him. Lewis' brother, Warnie used to help with the letters (as he could use a typewriter and Lewis could not), but Warnie suffered from alcoholism and would go off for long stretches at a time. As a result, Walter was asked by Lewis to help with the letters (making him I guess a kind of secretary). More than a tour of the house, we got a first-hand tour of Walter's memories of Lewis. We would go into one of the rooms and Walter, being old, sat on a comfy chair while we stood around (or sat on the carpet like little children) listening to the stories.

Photos of the outside of the Kilns from my trip last year - I didn't get any from my visits this time around:

Grace and I at the Kilns

The Kilns door

The Kilns

Outbuilding near the Kilns

He told us about the first time he came to visit Lewis in his house. After a few of cups of tea, he (being an American man) asked Lewis if he could use the "bathroom". Lewis proceeded to take him to the room where the bath is (the toilet being in a separate room) and gave him soap and a towel and left him there. Eventually he plucked up the courage to tell him what he had really meant and Lewis laughed saying that that would teach him to stop using American euphemisms. He also told us about the time (not long after that first meeting) when he was invited to a gathering of The Inklings at the Lamb and Flag. One of my favourite stories was about how Lewis gave away all his earnings from the initial publication of The Screwtape Letters and the radio broadcasts that would become Mere Christianity to orphans and widows in need. He then got into trouble because he was supposed to have paid tax on those earnings and didn't have the money any more. He managed to work something out with the lawyers and after that set up a charity fund where he would give (I think it was a third) of his earnings so he could still pay tax and look after himself and those he was responsible for. He also shared how Lewis lived a very simple life, despite being an Oxford fellow and successful author. Apparently years after the end of Word War II, the Kilns still had black-out curtains because Lewis couldn't be bothered spending money on having them replaced. Eventually they had to be replaced after a lady insisted they be washed and they disintegrated. Walter said they could have lived a much more comfortable life, but Lewis was happy as he was and settled for "digestives and beer" over more luxurious food and drink.

The most ironic story was from after Lewis' wife, Joy died. When people learned that he had lost his wife, they thought to encourage him by sending him copies of a recently published book on grief: A Grief Observed, by NW Clerk. The book was actually written by Lewis himself, but published under a pseudonym. To kept up the secret, he made Walter write thank you letters to those who had sent the book, the poor people oblivious that Lewis himself was the author. A fun fact we learnt from the "tour" was that Walter Hooper's cat is named "Blessed Lucy of Narnia". Apparently the Italian town of Narni, after which Lewis named Narnia (Narnia was the old Roman name for the town) really has a saint called Lucy - Blessed Lucy of Narni. I was quite excited when Mr Hooper referred to the Kiln's gardener, a man named Fred Paxford, who is said to have been the inspiration behind the beloved overly pessimistic character Puddleglum in The Silver Chair. When Lewis and Joy were about to leave for a long-planned trip to Greece, Paxford insisted that they really should not go as there had been a tragic plane crash in the last week and they were likely to die while flying over. I wish I'd been taking notes - there were so many more awesome stories. Emily and I were sitting with out mouths agape half of the time. While I really enjoyed David Payne's Evening with CS Lewis that I attended earlier in the term (listening to a man sitting in the Kiln's pretending to be Lewis tell us about Lewis' life) it paled in comparison after being in the Kilns while Walter Hooper as himself told us stories of his memories of CS Lewis. It was an evening I will not easily forget.

I spent the rest of the week, finishing off my essay on analogy. Although it was the last week of term, I had one more essay and tutorial last week, in "9th week", as I had missed a week earlier in term when I was unwell.

I'm going to end my account there for now. Last weekend (between the last two essays), Bethany (my friend from TLC whom I stayed with in Easter and who went to watch The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe stage show in London with me) came to visit. Emily and I also did some fun and touristy things around Oxford, but I'll keep those accounts (with pictures) for the next post.

Thanks again for reading my posts (apologies for the length of this one). I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the experiences from this term as much as I enjoyed experiencing them.

* These are gross simplifications of the topics. If you want to know more about them you're welcome to send me a message, email etc.

Mid-Michaelmas Update

I've been back in Oxford about a month and a half now. It's been a very busy few weeks. During the weekend 27-30 September the Christian community in Oxford ran a number of events to welcome international students to Oxford: a free diner and two paid-for cream teas with guest speakers. I volunteered to help host a table at the dinner and the Friday cream tea. It was a great opportunity to meet new students and welcome them to Oxford. It turned out that one of the girls at my table both days is a literature student at Worcester college.

The following week was "freshers" or "noughth" week at Oxford. This involved a number of social events to meet up with the new students in college. There are four new linguistics masters students at Worcester this year (which is exciting since I am the only one in my year).

On the Saturday of noughth week, one of my friends from primary school, Lauren Pearce, came to Oxford and I took her on a short tour around the city. She and her family were having a holiday in London after being at a family wedding in Ireland and they came to Oxford for the afternoon. We went up the University Church of St Mary's tower to get a bird's-eye-view of the city. If you've been following my blog since last year, you'll know that I have already been up three towers in Oxford: Carfax (the popular tourist one which I went up with my dad when we first arrived last year), The Saxon Tower (which I took Sarah Docksey up when she came to visit last year) and the Magdalen College tower which Prerna took us up when Maryanna's parents were here in June. After doing these four, I think the University Church tower wins the prize for having the best views of Oxford. Magdalen comes close, but the beauty of St Mary's is that it looks down into a number of colleges including All Souls, Brasenose and Exeter with their beautiful quads as well as the splendid Radcliffe Camera (which are on the whole prettier from above than the roofs of buildings). I think as an architect, Lauren particularly enjoyed seeing Oxford.

 

Term began officially on 8 October. I don't have a lot of lectures to attend this term, but there are a few that I missed during Michaelmas term last year because of timetable clashes. These include the Introduction to Philology lectures, a Homer and Early Greek class and a class on Greek Dialects. I'm also continuing to attend the weekly Philology (Historical Linguistics) seminars which are themed "Towards a synchronic grammar of Proto-Indo-European". In addition, I have weekly individual tutorials this term. So far I have been having tutorials for the exam paper I will be writing on The History and Structure of Greek. I have written an essay on the Greek Middle Voice and another on the Greek dialects. Currently I am looking at the tenses (in particular the different tense stems).

During second week, one of the American ladies from the Narnian web community I belong to, The Lion's Call, came to visit Oxford with her husband. We met at the Eagle and Child (the Inklings favourite pub) for dinner, and I showed them around Worcester College including our lovely chapel. We had considered going up to the Kilns, CS Lewis' home, but there wasn't enough time for that. The two of them had taken themselves on a tour of Oxford during the day while I was in lectures and were immensely pleased that they not only got to see where Tolkien's room in Exeter College had been, but the girl who is staying there now let them take a photo of the inside.

 

I've made a couple of great new friends in the Worcester CU. Emily is doing her year abroad, studying Linguistics and Philosophy. She was naturally "introduced" to me every time another CU member learnt she was studying Linguistics, until "have you met Sonja?" became something of a joke between us. It turns out and is also a fan of CS Lewis. Mary is a first year biology student and shares my fondness of hedgehogs. If you should hear us simultaneously break out in to a squeal of excitement or an "awww!", it's probably something hedgehog related. They are both in my CU small group together with Emma, another graduate student (yay!) doing Mathematics.

Last weekend, Tim from CU had a fancy dress birthday party with the theme "London Underground Stations". I had no idea how that was supposed to work until I looked at a list of the stations and saw Paddington on it, which made me think of going as Paddington Bear. I already had the right coloured blue coat and could get away with wearing my pink gum boots (wellingtons). I was looking for the right kind of hat, when I remembered that "teddy bear" hats are a phenomenon here. So I ended up buying a cheap teddy hat from Poundland (where everything costs a pound) and making him a red hat out of the socks I got for free on the Virgin Atlantic flight over. I bought some toggle buttons to add to the coat, and made a "suitcase" out of one of my boxes I'd used for storage when I went home. I was worried that my coat would be too warm to wear (since it was my really warm one), but it turned out that temperatures were down to 4°C that weekend, which was annoying in general, but handy for my costume. It did get a little warm indoors, but I could keep the coat on long enough for people to see my costume. One of the guys, David, also went as Paddington, but since we did our costumes quite differently, it didn't really matter.

Me (Paddington) and Mary (Chalk Farm)

Me and David (Paddingtons)

Me and Tim

Sometime over last weekend, I picked up my second cold of term (I had "freshers flu" during first week). Unfortunately, I haven't been able to shake it and am still feeling congested and coughing. Hopefully it won't last much longer.

And that pretty much wraps up the last few weeks. I can't believe we're half way through Michaelmas Term already. It's Guy Fawkes on Tuesday and the big bonfire and fireworks celebration is happening tonight, but I guess I won't be going with this cold. The Christmas lights have already gone up in the streets, though they won't switch them on until December. I suppose I should start thinking about putting up my Christmas tree again (yes, the one with the cheery fairy lights that I only took down in June). Clocks went back an hour last week, so it's now starting to get dark decidedly "early".

Until next time, I hope you are all doing well, and thanks for your continued support and prayers.

... And back again

South African winter's passed and it's back to the UK where wintry weather reigns (or rains) eternal. The break was really good. It was lovely to see the family again and meet Jackson (our new dog) for the first time. He's really lovely (except that his colliesh nature means he nips visitors' legs, mistaking them for sheep) and a good addition to the family. Somehow he recognised I was part of the family (from seeing and hearing me on skype - or recognising my smell from my bedroom?), and decided I didn't need herding.

Jackson

Everyone back in the UK is asking what I did over the "summer". I guess a (summery) summary  would be: hung out with family, especially mom, took part in the TLC Summer Challenge (in which we read through The Silver Chair in a week and wrote reflections on each chapter - if you're curious, you can read mine here), watched Olympics on TV (I saw all of our medal races), did some Greek text analysis for my thesis, read stuff for and tried to come to grips with my thesis and syntax essay topic, visited friends at UKZN (my old uni), finally went on the Moses Mabida stadium arch skycar (from which there's a cool view of Durban and the sea), watched Paralympics, went on a family weekend away to the KZN Midlands and tried to get as much sun as possible. I was most impressed that we had a couple days of over 30°C weather in August (which is still technically winter). One day even may have topped 40°.

Moses Mabida Stadium

View of Durban from Stadium

Family trip in the Midlands

Natal Midlands

I departed for the UK on 11 September (the safest day of the year to fly(?)). I decided to take the shorter, more direct flight this time which meant flying up to Jo'burg (my first domestic flight ever) and then heading from there to Heathrow where I arrived at about 7 the next morning. I preferred having one longer (11 hour) leg to two short ones (7 and 9 hours via Dubai), and I even got a teeny bit of sleep (maybe half an hour - an hour at the most). I flew on Virgin Atlantic. It was pretty nice - their food wasn't quite as good as Emirates but the service was good in general and there were lots of empty seats (including the one next to me).

I arrived in Oxford around midday on 12 September and got the key to my new room in Franks Building, which I'm very happy with, despite the higher rent. I only got my boxes back from Tam 'n Heather's place the next evening. This meant eating out for a day and sleeping in a sleeping bag at night, but that was okay.

On Friday 14, I left Oxford again (having hardly unpacked anything) as the Worcester Christian Union had a weekend away (called "House Party" - the official UK term for such CU events). We had an amazing time catching up and preparing for the year ahead, studying the bible and worshipping God. We stayed at a converted vicarage at Viney Hill in the Gloucestershire countryside (an extremely pretty part of England). One of my highlights was going through a walk in the Forest of Dean (which I believe is one of the oldest and largest forests in England). We were only on the outskirts and following well defined paths and roads. But it was still really amazing to think that when I read about such places as a child, I never dreamt I'd ever find myself actually walking in the English countryside. It was about as believable as finding myself in Narnia :-P.

The Vicarage

Forest of Dean

The walking party

Old church

I came back to Oxford on Sunday afternoon and spent most of last week unpacking, settling in to my new room and relaxing. This week I'm back to work on my Greek analyses and readings. There are still two weeks till term officially kicks off, but there are a lot of events for new students (some of which I'll be at to welcome them) so it will be a fairly busy two weeks.

Home for the winter

Sorry this is so very late. I started it weeks ago, but never got it finished. Here at last is my account of my last week in Oxford and my journey home.

And so my first year at Oxford has drawn to a close, and I'm back in Durban for the Summer...I mean Winter...holiday.

As I imagined, the packing wasn't fun. But somehow, I managed to get it all done. The college doesn't provide storage space, so it had been something of a challenge to get everything worked out, but thanks to friends and people from church it all came together. I was kindly given boxes by a girl from church who works at a chemistry lab and another lady from church offered to help with transport. Originally a guy from church had offered me space in his loft to store my boxes, but he lives in Didccot, which is something of a drive from Oxford. So instead I asked Heather and Tam if I could store my boxes at their house in Oxford. (Tam's doing Linguistics with me and Heather is his girlfriend, who counts as an honorary member of the "LingPals"; especially after organising our Linguists' Christmas dinner last year and an end-of-year barbecue - which was unfortunately rained out and turned into a pub lunch). I owe all these people a great thanks for their generosity in helping me out.

The lady helping transport was free on the Thursday before I left (28 June), which meant taking my boxes to be stored a few days early. This was challenging as I still needed things to eat out of and with, as well as bedding, for three more days. I eventually bought some cheap things from Poundland (the shop where everything costs only one Pound) which I didn't mind leaving behind. My bedding (that which didn't belong to college) went into a backpack which I took to church on my last Sunday and left with one of the ladies there.

On my last Friday in Oxford (29 June), I had a pub lunch with the Ling-Pals (one of the final ones with most of us there together). Sadly we had to do it without Maryanna who was travelling with her parents, but thankfully I'd been out with her and her parents the the week before. Christelle didn't make it to the lunch either, but some of us saw her later and she's still with us next year. I had to say my last good bye to some of the one-year master's students (especially Xavier, Camille and Patrick - although none of them will be too far away for an occasional visit to Oxford next year).

The Sunday I was due to fly (1 July), I went to the "early" (9.45) church service at St Ebbe's. Unfortunately most of my friends are from the 7 pm service so I didn't see too many of them, but I did get a pleasant surprise anyway. There was a notice on the bulletin saying that there was to be a barbecue after the service for those who wanted to stay for lunch. With all my stuff packed, I didn't have much exciting planned for lunch so I thought I would stay. Then, during the announcements they told us that it actually wasn't a barbecue but a South African-style braai with real boerewors (South African spicy sausage) on the menu. There are a few South African families at the church who had arranged it. I was in hysterics that the day I was due to fly back to SA, I would be treated to a braai. In typical English style, it rained a little, but it was still very enjoyable.

After that I headed back to my house finalise my packing and get my bags ready. I was to take a special coach (bus) service that goes straight from Oxford to Heathrow. I planned to get to Heathrow in advance of three hours early - in case anything went wrong - so I caught the coach at around 3.00pm. The trip was pleasant but uneventful. I got to the airport really early, as expected. But that gave me time to find my terminal, and then go hunting for a lock for my bag (my original lock I came over with was a combination lock that's mechanism somehow failed and I had to have cut off when I arrived in Oxford). I had a spare lock, but forgot that my case has two zips which need locking. It turned out to be handy though because, in looking for a lock place, I also found the place that wraps your bag in plastic to it doesn't get torn while it's roughly handled by the luggage packers.

I was slightly worried when I was packing that my hand-luggage was overweight. While Emirates allows up to 30 kg of checked baggage allowance, we are not allowed more than 7 kgs of hand-luggage. I wanted to bring both my netbook and new laptop home and had to have those in hand-luggage so they didn't get damaged. Without a scale I had no idea what it all weighed. When I got to the check-in counter, they told me I was way over the limit, and asked me to repack some things into the main luggage. Unfortunately, I'd already had my big case plastic-wrapped. So the lady suggested that I repack what I really needed into my laptop bag and check in my wheelie hand-luggage case (my check in luggage was under the limit). This worked out fairly well in the end, although it meant I had to carry my laptop bag with laptop and netbook as well as other stuff in it around Dubai airport, instead of having the wheelie bag to drag around (the checked luggage goes straight through so you don't have to worry about those bags at the lay-over).

My first flight, on board one of the big multi-level Airbuses, left at about 8.30pm. We saw a bit of the start of the Euro Soccer final on the big screen in the waiting area. In between that, I had a lovely view of planes taking off into the lowering late summer sun, which was beautiful. The flights were okay. Unfortunately, I was again unable to sleep, which made the second flight in particular drawn-out. The air-conditioning makes my nose really dry which is also annoying. But the Emirates food and service is good. I managed to get a window seat on my first flight as I had a couple with seats booked on either side of me who asked to swap. That was fun as I got to watch the late sunset over Britain and Europe and the rising moon. I also got to see the early-morning sunrise over the Arabian gulf approaching Dubai. 

Approaching Heathrow

Leaving England

Sunset

Moonrise

Sunrise over Arabian Gulf

I spent four hours in Dubai. Waiting to get on the plane was quite exciting because I was suddenly surrounded by people with South African accents for the first time in 10 months. Our plane was a bit late arriving and then even later taking off as we had to fly over Omani air space, and the window period in which they were allowed to fly over it wasn't open yet. About half an hour into the flight, the entertainment and television systems all went down and we were without any of that for almost an hour. I thought to myself "as long as that's the only type of technical problem they have". Thankfully it was. We arrived in Durban as the sun was setting (my third sunrise/set from the air in two days).

Approaching Dubai

Over Dubai

Over Dubai

Sunset over Durban

It took a very long time for my baggage to arrive, but at last it did. Weary from about 34 hours without sleep, I made my way to the arrivals. Hilda-May was waiting for me, ready to run past the barrier to say hello. My parents were a little further behind. I was home.

It's been a really good year. A lot has happened, but I'm glad to be home for a spell. I'm really enjoying the Durban sunshine. Thanks again for everyone that has supported me and especially to the Lord for keeping me safe and helping me settle in well; for giving me great friends and for helping me deal with the various challenges I've faced, both big and small. I'm in awe of just how much I've been blessed in this past year and look forward to what the year ahead had to offer.