Day 16

I have a soft spot for the Tavistock Hotel. It's huge by London standards: 300 rooms. With an unremarkable brick facade and indifferent art deco entry, you'd think it wouldn't have much to offer. However, the travertine stairwells with hall doors of heavy wood brightened by numerous mullions are one of several aspects of the building's graceful aging process .

We got up early on this last day in England. After breakfast with 100s of other Tavistock guests, we strode off to Regent Park, a testimony to all the park and countryside walking we had done on the trip. A cab trip with the famed chatty cabbie, a last glance at Paddington Station's overhead ironwork, train to Heathrow, hugs bye-bye on the train and, eventually, home to a smiling face at the airport.

Lucky me.

Day 15

Paula and Jayme moved into a

different B&B last night and Jenna and I stayed put. They finally got the better deal as they stayed in a detached cabin in the back yard of a home in Wilmcote. Lined entirely with pine, it came with a full kitchen, big bed, and a hot breakfast delivered to the door.

Today we leave the countryside and return to London. We were advised on a sensible route back to Oxford - through the country, avoiding triple lane roundabouts and high speed. Another death and dismemberment-free ride interrupted only by a stop at a stone circle in Rollright -

Stonehenge on a smaller, much more private scale. Stunning to think people made the arrangement 5000 years ago and imbued it with spiritual importance.

No problems dropping off the rental car (YES!), Paula and Jenna arranged for the train tickets,

we jumped on the next train for London and, poof!, back in the city full of hustle and bustle. We stay in Tavistock Square at the Tavistock Hotel, sited on Virginia Woolf's former home and sharing the square with the British Medical Association. Russell Square is the closest tube station and is a lovely example of tube tile work.

Paula et al relaxed in the hotel while I went off to the London Library. Plan: become a member

for the day - a few hours actually - and call as my colleagues and fellow library members Woolf, George Eliot, TS Eliot, Charles Dickens, Aldous Huxley and other English literary luminaries. After a bit of a song and dance to get the day pass (a call to to the hotel, request made for an email confirming my residency), in I went and commenced a sublime experience! I browsed and scanned architecture books in the beautifully renovated, two story art room, used the bathroom tiled by noted artist whose name I forget, sat in the Lightwell Reading Room and read Origins of Architectural Pleasure, and wandered in the various wings and 6 levels of stacks housing over 1 million books. The LL does not weed their collection and acquires about 8000 volumes per year. The focus is literature and art, lighter on social sciences and very tangentially on science. They have a created their own classification system, which arranges by very broad subject (e.g., architecture) and, within that, by author or editor. It makes for completely haphazard browsing but fascinating serendipity. A few hours of elegant quiet in the hurly-burly of busy London: what a deep pleasure.

Ran off to Harrods for an entirely different experience - crass consumerism and status mongering. Bought chocolates for some special folks back home and for Paula and Jayme's colleagues and friends.

After a walk in Regent Park (another big and beautiful park!), we watched Merlin - Jenna's call and, after 2 weeks of Jenna gamely doing anything imposed upon her, we were only too thrilled to watch it. Had supper downstairs and off to bed.

Day 14

Having already trotted around Stratford, we decided a more focused event was need today. We did what all travellers to England need to do at least once: visit a castle. Warwick Castle was just 15 minutes by car (drat, by car!) so off we went. No life or limb was lost en route - a good start to the day. Warwick Castle is ancient, built by William the
Conqueror just after the Battle of Hastings and modified over the years. It's the quintessential castle with fortified walls, towers, a moat (minus water), dungeon (now that was really chilling), and a grand, elaborate manor home. Madame Tussaud's owns it apparently and there is a bit of a touristy feel to it but you can still roam about and have your own experience there. The electrical generator at the mill on the Avon along one side of the castle was especially interesting.

After lunch at Thomas Oken tea house built in the 1500s, we went back to Wilmcote for a nap and, before supper, a lovely walk trough the pastures around the village. I convince

d some horses to let me pet them and managed to dissuade one of the foals from eat

ing my sleeve.

At supper in the local pub, Paula recounted a cooking TV show in which she misunderstood the chef to say "balls" instead of "bowls", leading her and me to shriek with laughter till we cried - you had to be there.

Day 13

Another sumptuous breakfast in Bisley at Nation House. We set off on a touristy, travel day to see the nearby, larger town of Cirencester and to make our way north to Stratford-on-Avon. Of course, this involved driving. Actually, the roundabouts were making more sense and staying on the other side of the road, while not natural, was at least more frequent.

Cirencester is one of the oldest Roman towns in England and was one of the biggest and most prosperous. Today, townsfolk have built a lovely museum of p

re-Roman, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon history of the town and area. That made for an interesting hour (I especially liked the Roman tile work extracted from ancient local homes) and afterwards we dawdled in the little stores in town of which there are many. Rather than tolerating generic, multinational stores like the Gap, etc,. Cirencester nurtures little craft shops owned and operated locally, many selling objects made from local materials. I thought it had similarities to Granville Island. After a light lunch it was back on the road.

Feeling more confident that loss of life was diminishing as a risk, the trip to Stratford was pleasantly uneventful. The landscape became flatter and a little less quaint. After finding our B&B, Larkrise Cottage, in Wilmcote, we walked the 3 mile tow path along the Avon canal into town. Canal boats ply this canal carrying travellers on slow and relaxed vacations.

We met a couple who had to retrace their canal journey back to the Avon River as they found their boat was too wide for one of the locks. They got stuck and narrowly avoided an elaborate extraction of their 1 day old boat. Stratford itself is obsessed with Shakespeare, leading to painful shop names like Much Ado About Toys. We know now that we're not really thrilled about wandering around towns without an aim. Had supper at a very nice restaurant and discovered the joys of Pimm's. Long walk back home and to sleep. Overall, as Jayme said of Stratford, "it's not Bisley but it's very nice." The south Cotswolds have set a very high standard for us.

Day 12

Breakfasted on an immense meal of eggs, sausage, poached tomatoes and portobello mushrooms with cereal, yogurt, and the fixings. That stood us in good stead because we did a very big walk, about 8 hours. The public pathways are quite incredible: hidden valleys, dark woods, fields of horses, cows, or sheep; vistas of distant church spires and villages. Absolutely charming and completely "English". We walked west from Bisley, through the dew damp fields and drier woods to Slad, then north to Painswick for lunch in a courtyard at a pub. After that spent ages crisscrossing the same field to find our way to Sheepscombe. Funny thing about the English: they refuse to look at your map so you'll know where you are. Instead they point and say "just go down here a while, cross the stream, take the second path to woods, and, once the pasture gets a bit scruffy, go to the left and [on and on...]". Friendly but maddening.

We did make it to Sheepscombe and eventually back to Bisely. It was somewhat arduous but a real joy. One special moment was watching racehorses being exercised as a group by running up a steep hill across a small valley from us. Others: the sunshine, the yew trees in Painswick, almost bonking Jayme with a surprisingly well thrown crab apple, so many partridge in the brush that it sounded like the noise of rushing creeks on either side of us in the woods.

Home to supper at the Stirrup Cup pub and a deep sleep under soft quilts.

Day 11

Ever driven in England? Well, I hadn't until today. Mother of god, what an experience! We made it to the wee village of Bisley in the Cotswolds in spite of stalling a few times, various wrong turns, rubbing the curb are a good clip (a bit of cash there, I figure), turning onto roads into the wrong lane... whew, what a trip. Jayme was a stellar navigator. Paula and Jenna politely white knuckled in silence.

Bisley is lovely with its stone houses, narrow streets and friendly townsfolk. We're at a very comfortable, quaint, and cosy B&B called Nation House described as "three cottages were knocked together to create this wisteria-clad, listed village house, now a terrific B&B. Beams are exposed, walls are pale and hung with prints, floors are close-carpeted, the sitting room is formally cosy and quiet. Smart, comfortable bedrooms have patchwork quilts, low beams and padded seats at lattice windows." We tramped through open fields, small roads, and wooded paths in the hills and dales around the village in the afternoon, supper at The Bear Pub built in the 1600s. Tomorrow - a big, big walk!! Lovely weather and more sun for tomorrow.

Day 10

Left London by train (cheap! 10 GBP each) and passed by Erno Goldfinger's Trellick Tower. I missed a tour of it during Open House but, really, a glimpse via a speeding train is probably plenty... and safer - that harsh degree of Brutalism could hurt.

Landed in Oxford noonish. B&B was OK - nothing over the top but functional with kind proprietors. Walked into the town via a walkway in the Thames, passing house barges and rowing boats. Lunch at a Lebanese place on the river. A walk through Oxford was not especially thrilling and we were pretty aimless. Walking seemed more directed so we headed to the Thames again. After an hour of Karen misdirecting the troops, Paula et al headed back to the B&B. I continued for a while further. We suppered at a place I had scoped out along my walk, The Punter. Excellent, sophisticated menu with heavenly desserts (Eton mess). Jenna and I had great sleeps and nice showers. Paula and Jayme had a lumpy bed and an uncomfortable shower. That was Oxford.