A plan is something you deviate from. Every day so far has not gone as planned – and every deviation has led to something better (dinged car mirror not withstanding). Today was no different.
I had a sleeping mask on (daylight comes at 4:20 AM) and so I overslept until 8:30 AM. By the time we were ready to get going, we realized that All Saints church would be open at 10 AM, so we hiked up the hill to see the insides. All Saints may be smaller than the Stump, but its sanctuary holds its own quite well. The fire in 1675 that destroyed the church also destroyed a significant portion of Northampton.
We were on our way by 10:30 heading for Oxford, home of the famous university but also home to Oxford Brooks University, a school of interest to grandson Carter. He and his dad are on a whirlwind tour of England this week looking at schools Carter might attend in a year (he’ll be a senior this fall). He’s interested in mechanical engineering and especially automotive engineering, something a number of UK schools excel at. Oxford Brooks has close ties with several Formula 1 teams so it’s on his list of possibilities.
Less than an hour after our departure Jeff calls us on my cell phone. He and Carter will be passing near Oxford. Could we hook up? Hook up we did, first for lunch and then for a walking tour of the campus and buildings. We could see why Carter and Jeff were impressed on their first visit. It’s a modern and beautiful campus with great academic programs and a reputation to match.
We didn’t leave Oxford much before 2 PM for the hour’s drive to Stratford-Upon-Avon. We fed a two-hour meter at 3:25 and hit the tourist trail. Turns out Stratford-Upon-Avon is a huge complex of shopping and dining opportunities. There are three Shakespeare attractions, Shakespeare’s birth house, the New House and Ann Hathaway’s house. We did the first two in an hour-thirty, leaving time for an ice cream before hitting the road again for our Airbnb in Snowshill, 30 minutes south.
Shakespeare’s story, told in the two houses, is more-or-less as follows. William, the would-be playwright, married Ann Hathaway. Being poor with a pregnant wife, William parked his family at his dad’s house, the place where he was born. He left for London to stake his claim to fame and, 18 years later came home a wealthy and famous man. He bought the New House, fixed it up and moved his family there. Years, later, when the last Shakespeare heir died and the house went up for sale in 1850, a group of English authors and poets raised enough money to buy the Old House, beating out P. T. Barnum who wanted to move it to America. Today they’re open with audio-visuals and beautiful gardens. Kinda pricey but worth it ($40 per person for two houses).
Both houses are nice to visit, with many docents present to tell the story. We probably didn’t do it justice by running through them but we at least have bragging rights.
The trip to Snowshill, a small village in the Cotswolds, involved our usual batch of narrow roads like we’ve been experiencing all week. Jeff and Carter have been traveling the M40 and similar motorways. Seventy mph and wide as a barn door, relatively speaking. We had a 45-mile sample of the M40 ourselves today, but the rest was on A- and B-level roads and a number they don’t even bother to number. Several one-lainers. But we made it.
The Oathill Cottage is quaint and old in a quaint and picturesque village. The best feature so far is the quaint, picturesque pub a few hundred yards down the road that served great fish and a rhubarb crumble and a strawberry trifle. A pint of bitters and a Coke Zero and we no longer felt the pain of the English footpaths that serve as highways.
Tomorrow is our day off, so we’ve hired a guide to show us around the Cotswolds. Quaint, picturesque villages and scenic overviews of farmlands is in store. Maybe I’ll stop saying “quaint, picturesque,” but don’t count on it.
