A week in November
(This is about the week before last - forgot to post it before going to Switzerland!)
Monday: Steve finished work at four, and we drove with some friends to Stratford-on-Avon to see Twelfth Night. I had the muddled impression that it was hours away, but we got there in just over an hour. We saw Twelfth Night only a few months ago here in Oxford, but it was like a totally different play - it was so interesting how a different actor's interpretation of a part can change it completely.
Here's us walking through the main street of S-o-A with heaps of original Tudor buildings all around.
On the way to meet the others before we left though, Steve and I were nearing the John Radcliffe Hospital and there was heaps of traffic and flashing lights on the turn to the JR, with lots of people standing around.
"Accident," I said.
"No, bodies are coming in." said Steve. And he was right - because any military death is a coroner's case, all the deceased from Afghanistan are flown to the Brize Norton airforce base (just outside Oxford) and the bodies are driven in state to the JR for autopsy. I can't tell you how moving it was - there were groups of old men in military dress, no doubt veterans from Vietnam, lining the route with flags to honour the dead. It brought home to me that although it's not as in-your-face as it is in America, Britain is still at war, and Britons are still dying. I was glad there were people to honour them, whether they knew them or not.
Then on Wednesday Zoe, a friend from NZ, came to stay and investigate Oxford. We had a lovely raucous dinner party with Lloyd and Karina, and on Thursday Zoe, Karina and I went to the Sheldonian to hear Amartya Sen, Harvard professor and Nobel Prize-winner, speak on his new book, The Idea of Justice.
The line to get in was seemingly endless, curving right around the Sheldonian, and if Karina hadn't let us in we may not have made it. As it was, we were right up in the gods, higher than I've been before, packed in like sardines.
The chancellor of Oxford was starting his intro, then asked the people on the door how many people were still outside waiting to get in.
"A hundred or so," came the reply.
"Shall we let them in?"
Everyone clapped and cheered, so in came over a hundred people, sitting on stairs, down aisles, packing in around the rostrum. Totally flouting health and safety and fire regulations, which I LOVED.
Sen's talk was as you'd expect from a Harvard professor with freaky brain-power used to changing the world - hard to follow. Until he started taking questions, which is when his ideas came across more simply. He was asked all kinds of curly questions about perfect justice and international human rights, and the gist of his answers was don't wait until things are perfect, act now. Do anything, even a small thing, but act now to make things better. It was very inspiring, but would have been more so with a properly working sound system!
Because we were so high up, there was a fantastic view of the Sheldonian court through the wavy old glass.
Then the next day Zoe and I went for the loveliest winter walk imaginable, round the Christ Church meadow and down to the Isis. Utterly beautiful. I can't wait to see it frozen! Fingers crossed!
Monday: Steve finished work at four, and we drove with some friends to Stratford-on-Avon to see Twelfth Night. I had the muddled impression that it was hours away, but we got there in just over an hour. We saw Twelfth Night only a few months ago here in Oxford, but it was like a totally different play - it was so interesting how a different actor's interpretation of a part can change it completely.
Here's us walking through the main street of S-o-A with heaps of original Tudor buildings all around.
On the way to meet the others before we left though, Steve and I were nearing the John Radcliffe Hospital and there was heaps of traffic and flashing lights on the turn to the JR, with lots of people standing around.
"Accident," I said.
"No, bodies are coming in." said Steve. And he was right - because any military death is a coroner's case, all the deceased from Afghanistan are flown to the Brize Norton airforce base (just outside Oxford) and the bodies are driven in state to the JR for autopsy. I can't tell you how moving it was - there were groups of old men in military dress, no doubt veterans from Vietnam, lining the route with flags to honour the dead. It brought home to me that although it's not as in-your-face as it is in America, Britain is still at war, and Britons are still dying. I was glad there were people to honour them, whether they knew them or not.
Then on Wednesday Zoe, a friend from NZ, came to stay and investigate Oxford. We had a lovely raucous dinner party with Lloyd and Karina, and on Thursday Zoe, Karina and I went to the Sheldonian to hear Amartya Sen, Harvard professor and Nobel Prize-winner, speak on his new book, The Idea of Justice.
The line to get in was seemingly endless, curving right around the Sheldonian, and if Karina hadn't let us in we may not have made it. As it was, we were right up in the gods, higher than I've been before, packed in like sardines.
The chancellor of Oxford was starting his intro, then asked the people on the door how many people were still outside waiting to get in.
"A hundred or so," came the reply.
"Shall we let them in?"
Everyone clapped and cheered, so in came over a hundred people, sitting on stairs, down aisles, packing in around the rostrum. Totally flouting health and safety and fire regulations, which I LOVED.
Sen's talk was as you'd expect from a Harvard professor with freaky brain-power used to changing the world - hard to follow. Until he started taking questions, which is when his ideas came across more simply. He was asked all kinds of curly questions about perfect justice and international human rights, and the gist of his answers was don't wait until things are perfect, act now. Do anything, even a small thing, but act now to make things better. It was very inspiring, but would have been more so with a properly working sound system!
Because we were so high up, there was a fantastic view of the Sheldonian court through the wavy old glass.
Then the next day Zoe and I went for the loveliest winter walk imaginable, round the Christ Church meadow and down to the Isis. Utterly beautiful. I can't wait to see it frozen! Fingers crossed!