Snapshots

Next to the last day and there are lots of things from here that I will take with me when I leave. Best of all will be the images that will pop into my head from time to time. They will be things that, as of now, I don’t of their importance. This is the fun of having fun.

Meadows:
Each morning for the last three weeks, I have been doing a morning walk in Christ Church Meadows. I have spent an hour each morning just clearing my head and enjoying the paths by the river. Look at “Travelling with Kenn” and check the walkabout page and you’ll see what I‘ve seen.

Each day I see an older man who walks his dogs through the paths on their morning constitutional. He looks like a farmer from one of the Turners or Constonables that you see at the Tate. He is a short squat man with a long black bushy beard that comes down to his chest. He is accompanied each morning with, what I can only think of as “hounds.” They also look like the English country dogs you see in the paintings. They are about knee high and jet-black. From the way they move I would think that they are about two years old, and they love their morning walk.

Each morning as I pass they greet me with a wag, and one always turns and follows me a little way down the path. Each morning after a few steps he turns back and rejoins his master and his friend. This morning he followed me a few step farther than he had before. His master called out, “You want to go with him, then you have to stay with him.” The dog quickly left me. Didn’t think twice about it.

Runners:
I have discovered something about runners and walkers. Turns out I find the same behaviour in Southern California, Atlanta, and Oxford. Walkers always say good morning to each other. Sometime verbally, and sometime only with a nod, but there is always acknowledgement of each other. Even the Japanese who are here to learn English and the Germans who are here for God knows why, nod and say “Good Morning.”

The runners, on the other hand, never even pretend that walkers exist. I had always thought it was a status thing. But, I’m becoming to believe there is something else happening here. I see in runner something that I have come to call the 50-foot stare. They, slack jawed, gaze about 50 feet in front and always look like if they can just go another 50 feet they will have had a good run. It doesn’t seem to matter if they have just started or have been running for an your, always the same slack jawed stare. They don’t seem to say hi to each other. Walkers are a happier lot.

Master’s Garden:
Today at lunch the writers group took boxed lunches from the Hall and with bottles of wine sat out on the grass in the most wonderful garden. It looks like the garden that you see in all the Merchant-Ivory movies.

We understand that it wasn’t part of Christ Church at first, but was acquired latter. The college next door had the garden but several hundred years ago it had a Dean that was a bit of a gambler. One night, thinking that he had an unbeatable hand, he put the gardens up as collateral when playing with the Dean of Christ Church. Christ Church has had these garden ever since.

The lunch, the group and the gardens were terrific.