strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Apr 19 03: excellent friday
We’re in England now, avoiding talk of war and despair and instead spending quality time with the extraordinarily charming Peter and Robin. Greetings from Oxford. I don’t have long, so I’ll have to gloat quickly about our yesterday. Our plane got in at about 7am, and we took a bus west to Oxford. It broke down about two blocks from our intended destination. In the morning we walked into town and then along the Thames, where we enjoyed the sunshine and ogled the rowers as they sculled past. Lunch was at a picnic table overlooking the river at a local pub. Yes, Guinness is better in England than in the States—you know that steel-wool-and-copper-pennies taste it always has? you wouldn’t if you were English—and I am assured that it’s even better in Ireland. After lunch we allowed ourselves a nap of about an hour, because Paul and I couldn’t keep our eyes open, let alone converse coherently. Neither of us can sleep on planes: the best you can really do is this dreamy meditative state that can be entertaining but is never restful.
And then? Punting.
Indeed. Punting on the Cherwell. The late afternoon was golden; the birds sang in the sunshine; the grass was green on the banks; other boats full of laughing punters young and old drifted by. Most of them seemed to be bound for a pub upstream, or returning therefrom. When we passed the pub’s landing everything grew more tranquil. I got a turn at the pole. Fun fun fun, and the physical exercise woke me back up.
This may well be my last report from this trip: we don’t intend to take a laptop to the rental in Exmoor. I hereby avow that if the rest of the trip is as pleasant as the last 36 hours have been, I will be very sad to go home.