Wednesday, August 21

Our train south to Oxford was due to leave York at around 11. We walked with our rolling luggage from the B&B to the train station. We were early enough to watch the arrival of a train coming north from London. A few miles outside York is a racetrack, and this was racing day. There must have been a couple hundred people who got off the train to attend the races. The men were dressed in formal wear, and the women wore summer dresses and a great variety of large, elaborate hats. It looked like a costume party. I recall a scene in “My Fair Lady” where Eliza and Henry Higgins go to the races so he can teach her the manners of the well born. The York train station looked just like that scene. What a surprise to see racecourse finery in the real world! I hoped no one noticed me in my convertible pants and size extra large wicking T-shirt.

The final train travel leg was uneventful. As we pulled into Oxford, the sights out the window were familiar to me. They looked like home! We recognized the streets, we were familiar with the route to take to the bus station, we knew which bus bay the local Woodstock bus would pull into. First, however, we had to get through security. For the first time on this trip, we had to show our train tickets before we could go through a turnstile. The lines moved slowly. Someone was arguing with security. Art looked ready to join the turmoil. I hustled us through the station.

We had been gone 10 days to points north. We were very glad to unlock the door to our place on Plane Tree Lane. After a shower and a short nap, we ventured into Woodstock for a pizza. We were both relaxed and hoped for a good pizza. The restaurant was pleasant and attractive, and the service was good, but the pizza bore no resemblance to what we call by that name at home. A circle of dough was topped by tomato sauce and a few olives. Fortunately, the accompanying soft drink was cold and just what we needed.

Thursday, August 22

This was one of the days we’d set aside as a possibility for a daytrip to London. But thinking about a bus, to a train, to the underground, to the crowds of the city, was too much to contemplate. So instead, we entered the Blenheim Palace grounds through a side gate and took a 10-mile walk that crossed the grounds, wound through woods and across wheat fields, doubled back through a tiny village just outside the walls, and returned back along fields where game birds roosted. I was again struck by the size of this gift of a queen to a battlefield hero. I wondered what it would be like to inherit such a place, and to have my life work be the stewardship of the national landmark.

Friday, August 23

This was our last full day in England. Our final chance to see London. But we didn’t go. We stayed in today, resting, reading, doing laundry, sorting through the maps and souvenirs we’d collected. Three weeks in the United Kingdom, and not a single day in one of the great cities of the world. I had been there for a week, 30 years ago, and I said I’d be glad to go with Art if he wanted to spend the day. He said no, thanks, we really aren’t city travelers.

I figure we can do London some week in winter. In the darkest days of the year, airfares to London are dirt cheap from Seattle, and there are some excellent hotel deals. In December or January it will be raining, but it won’t matter. For the most part, we’ll be indoors or heading for indoors. As Rick Steves says, “Assume you will return.”

Saturday, August 24

We have the public transportation down now. Rather than being our master, it has become our tool. We walked from the house on Plane Tree to the bus stop in the center of Woodstock, took the bus into Oxford and transferred easily onto the bus to London Healthrow. We were ready to go home. In the last few days I’d grown weary of British accents! And my longing for a really good dinner had grown stronger. Heading south toward London, the scenery outside and the voices inside the bus seemed familiar and ordinary to us. We didn’t feel like tourists any longer.

The long flight home was entirely in daylight. We watched movies - “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “A Beautiful Mind”. Art’s son Jason picked us up at the airport. We stayed awake as long as we could – 7:30 pm, Pacific time, and headed for bed, hoping that we’d wake the next morning back in sync with home time. That didn’t happen, of course. But within three or four days, we were home in body and spirit.