Olde Goode Things

Despite the summer school being one big lesson in all things Victorian, we did manage to absorb some ye Olde English ambiance during our two weeks. The place we visited that felt most "medieval" to me was Oxford, where the oldest building in town (according to my uncle Taylor and his wife Diana, who lived in Oxford during the 1980s)is a three-tiered, half-timbered structure that reminds one of an old man leaning on a cane. I had never seen such emphatic cantilevering in any half-timbered structure-in any wood structure at all, for that matter-and this little building had not one, but two floors thrusting out over the street beyond the footprint of its foundation; I guess this was the simplest way to maximize space for the inhabitants of an island nation. The day before at the V&A I had seen the salvaged wooden frame of a half-timbered structure mounted on a wall, also with cantilevered upper floors, and it suddenly made sense as I stood in the middle of Oxford's busy high street musing on the wonderful slumping crookedness of the real thing.

Walking around Oxford was quaint and charming, and almost gave me the urge to be a student again, holed up in some library or sitting in a cafe with a coffee in one hand and a highlighter in the other (emphasis on "almost"!). Of course we toured some of the colleges of Oxford, and at Worcester College we had the privilege of visiting one of the communal dining rooms where students dine seated at long tables (with real silverware and crested dinner plates) set perpendicular to a table reserved for the "dons," which is raised on a dais; there, the rarefied atmosphere of formality and scholarly Tradition was really quite awesome. Once I got over the impossible stuffiness of it all, however, the image that came to mind was, and I'll admit it, the refectory at Hogwart's! I'm not even a Harry Potter fan.

Speaking of supper, one of my fondest memories of the trip is the lunch we had in Oxford. It had been threatening rain all day, and just as soon as we ducked into the Nosebag for lunch (see the wonderful painted sign next to me in the photo if you need a hint as to what a nosebag is), the skies opened up and we had a heaping downpour punctuated by flashes of lightening and great claps of thunder. The storm gathered force as I tucked into my apple and persimmon soup, accompanied by a hunk of farmer's bread and a generous slab of butter (I love the English sense of proportion when it comes to butter!). The storm cleared and the sun came out just as we prepared to continue our tour of Oxford.

Stay tuned for a post on REALLY ancient things...