fill­ing up January

Why do I feel it’s been a grey two weeks since we returned from our Christ­mas hol­i­day?  I said so to myself this morn­ing, adding some­thing moany­ish like, “Grey, as usu­al,” and then when I began gath­er­ing pho­tographs to illus­trate my point, the sky is actu­al­ly blue much of the time!  What gives?

Jan­u­ary for me is always char­ac­terised by the reluc­tance to say good­bye to Christ­mas, fam­i­ly, friends, Amer­i­ca, exhaus­tion from all of the above, and a vague sense that I ought to have a pur­pose, now the New Year has begun.  Dai­ly life, with all its atten­dant joys and sor­rows, does­n’t seem quite enough to be going on with, in January.

Keechie, on the oth­er hand, is just glad to have us back, AND she notices the sunshine.

 

Tacy, too, seeks a bit of warmth.  I think they real­ly missed us while we were away.

When I’m feel­ing a bit blue, the best thing to do is to think about some­one besides myself.  So when my friend Nora said she thought she might pack up her three boys and bring them for a vis­it to SE1, noth­ing could have been more welcome.

Aged five, three and sev­er­al months, the boys cheered me up with their enthu­si­asm for our exot­ic, glassy home, so dif­fer­ent from their cosy West Lon­don three-sto­ry house.  They shout­ed down to the passers­by on the side­walk, delight­ed when they were able to get their attention.

“Hel­lo down there!”

Otis sub­mit­ted will­ing­ly to John’s min­is­tra­tions with pack­ing tape.  “I bet you I can eat lunch with­out my arms, Mummy!”

We ate our mac­a­roni and cheese, sausages and rasp­ber­ries, and then decid­ed to go for a walk.  On the way out, noth­ing could be more fas­ci­nat­ing than the con­struc­tion site next door.

And then it was onto the Mil­len­ni­um Bridge.  Now, I don’t ever take this mag­nif­i­cent view for grant­ed, but even I could not match the boys’ enthu­si­asm for such a thrill.  A bridge, a riv­er!  “Look, that boat is stop­ping and peo­ple are get­ting OFF AND ON!  And there are seagulls!”

 

That evening, I made my way to my first ring­ing prac­tice since before Christ­mas, feel­ing jus­ti­fi­ably ner­vous.  We rang some­thing mad­den­ing (every­thing at my new tow­er is mad­den­ing!) called Bas­tow, or Lit­tle Bob Min­imus.  As I left in the frosty air, to lock the church door behind me, I was intro­duced to the tow­er’s adorable sys­tem of get­ting the keys back up to the ringers.  A Toto bas­ket, to be sure!

 And Eliz­a­beth came with her girls!  They, too, were cap­ti­vat­ed by the views.  We went all the way up to the 22nd Floor to get the true, rather sick­en­ing (for me) impres­sion of the height and grandeur of this building.

The post has yield­ed a bit of excite­ment, this Jan­u­ary.  Next month will see us gain­ing our dual citizenship!

No more stand­ing in the longest queue at Immi­gra­tion, look­ing long­ing­ly at the OTH­ER queue.  This is actu­al­ly a bit of a metaphor, isn’t it?  The grass being always green­er, I mean.  It’s not pre­dictable, whether the Amer­i­can or the Euro­pean line will be longer, so it will be inter­est­ing how it all appears when we’re clutch­ing both pass­ports in our hands and can make our own deci­sion.  Avery is already mut­ter­ing about hav­ing to swear alle­giance to the Queen.  She will be the only one of us, how­ev­er, ful­ly pre­pared to sing “God Save the Queen” when the time comes, so I’d bet­ter hit the books.

Speak­ing of books, and hit­ting them, obvi­ous­ly the big event for us this month was tak­ing Avery back to Oxford, for her sec­ond term.  And far from being sad, as I’d antic­i­pat­ed (after a won­drous five-week hol­i­day with her), the trip was actu­al­ly an absolute joy.  What a won­der­ful place Oxford is, to be sure!  This is her quad.

This trip was a mas­sive improve­ment on all oth­ers.  When we first vis­it­ed 18 months ago, we were like chil­dren on the wrong side of a can­dy shop win­dow, only allowed to LOOK at all the sweet treats to be had.

Then, when we dropped her off in Octo­ber, I was far too over­whelmed by emo­tion and sig­nif­i­cance to enjoy the sights.  The day was a blur.  And for her birth­day, we’d planned to spend the night, but there was no room at the Inn (real­ly).  And it poured with cold rain, cut­ting short what might have been a touristy after­noon.  And Avery was ill. Again.

So this week was our first chance real­ly to rev­el in her hap­pi­ness at being back, to set­tle her in her rooms, dash­ing to the Porters’ Lodge try­ing to find the three (“or were there four?  I think there were four”) box­es of her belong­ings she’d stashed away in stor­age at Christ­mas.  Yes, these poor kids are made to move OUT every sin­gle term, bring­ing lots of things home but also stor­ing some away.  Final­ly all was set­tled and she was cosy.

We were hap­py tourists!  John’s mom had giv­en me a night at the famous Ran­dolph Hotel for my birth­day present last year, and only now were we able to take advan­tage of it.

Now, look at that sky!  Gloomy moods be gone.

We met up with my great friend JoAnn for her tour of the Bodleian Library, where she is a guide.  Oh, the mag­nif­i­cence of the Divin­i­ty Room, with its 600-year-old ceil­ing.  This will be where Avery gets dressed, JoAnn says, for her grad­u­a­tion ceremony.

In the 17th cen­tu­ry, Christo­pher Wren designed the mag­nif­i­cent Shel­don­ian Build­ing just oppo­site, to pro­vide an unfor­get­table loca­tion for all the big cer­e­monies, includ­ing Avery’s matric­u­la­tion in Octo­ber.  The view of the Shel­don­ian through the glass of the Divin­i­ty remind­ed me, inevitably, of the view of St Paul’s Cathe­dral from my new ring­ing tow­er.  Wren is very consistent.

Did you know that in the 17th cen­tu­ry, archi­tec­ture was not even con­sid­ered a pro­fes­sion?  Jo explained that until Wren came along, build­ings were designed by sci­en­tists and math­e­mati­cians.  And how beau­ti­ful­ly they did it, to be sure.

After our tour, we treat­ed Jo to a well-deserved cof­fee at Black­well’s book­shop.  If I lived in Oxford, I would sim­ply walk into Black­well’s every morn­ing and not leave until they closed.  Avery joined us for con­ver­sa­tion and a bit of choco­late pud­ding.  We said good­bye to Jo and made the rounds of every use­ful shop in Oxford, kit­ting out Avery’s room a bit fur­ther with a print­er, a mir­ror, some new dish­es.  Just walk­ing along the street is a com­plete pleasure!

And then it was back to the Ran­dolph to put our feet up, enjoy a cock­tail, and rev­el in the per­fec­tion of the day.  What a relief to see her set­tled, and to explore the town she loves and feels so com­fort­able in.

The Ran­dolph is under­go­ing a ren­o­va­tion, in addi­tion to recov­er­ing from a fire last year.  If you decide to go, and you should, I’d wait until March when the staff say the project will be fin­ished.  For one thing, you’ll be able to enjoy the gor­geous facade cur­rent­ly under scaf­fold­ing, and they’ll have sort­ed out fun­ny details like the music in the din­ing room — Ken­ny G on an I‑Pod dock!  But even now, it was charm­ing.  The staff are sim­ply delight­ful, and the food at din­ner unex­pect­ed­ly gut­sy and deli­cious — ox cheek of the ten­der­est, and just the right amount of horse­rad­ish in the mashed pota­toes.  We were happy.

In the morn­ing we ambled back to Avery to work on her rooms a bit more, and then left her to her work while we played at being tourists a bit more.  John dis­cov­ered Uni­ver­si­ty Church.

We suc­cumbed hap­pi­ly to a walk up the bel­fry stairs to sim­ply the most beau­ti­ful views of all Oxford.

“It’s a very nar­row stair­case,” warned a tourist before us.  “Very nar­row indeed.”  He can­not pos­si­bly imag­ine how many sets of bel­fry stairs I have tra­versed in my time!  A hun­dred?  But these views were some­thing out of a dream.

There was a map in the ring­ing cham­ber to show us what we were see­ing, but I was per­fect­ly hap­py just to walk around and gaze.

We peered down the High Street to see Avery’s col­lege tucked away.

What a joy to look around and know that this is Avery’s home, and she is hap­py.  We felt so pleased.

We popped in to see the new­ly-refur­bished West­on wing of the Bodleian Library, and its fab­u­lous shop, where I want­ed one of every­thing.  And then on to Jo’s to pick up our car, thank her, and head home, thor­ough­ly happy.

I bare­ly had time to draw breath before it was time for my much-antic­i­pat­ed reunion with my Barnes band of ringers!  Ring­ing for a wed­ding, which is always a spe­cial joy.   I packed up a nice warm apple and banana cake and made my way west.  How won­der­ful to pop in for tea with Trisha and a thor­ough chat, then over to St Mary’s in the chilly after­noon air, through the fes­tive wed­ding door.

Hugs from Eddie and Col­in and Andrew.  We rang suc­cess­ful­ly before the cer­e­mo­ny, then my dear Michael turned up just to spend the inter­val with me!  To see Michael and Bar­bara, how wonderful.

My twins, my beloved boys Angus and Fred­die turned up with their beau­ti­ful mum Claire, to give me a Christ­mas present and to accept theirs.  Sud­den­ly they can TALK!  “Kris­ten, we have present for you.”  They clutched at their presents with chilly hands in the dusk.

Michael took time to ring with us, after the wed­ding was fin­ished, and the posh guests were spilling out with their hats and heels and morn­ing coats.  We were so hap­py to be togeth­er once again.

I walked home from Black­fri­ars, then, last night, feel­ing a sense of relief that I CAN go home again.  Barnes and its won­der­ful friend­ships are still there, to be picked up again when­ev­er I like.

This morn­ing’s ring­ing at Fos­ter Lane was as chal­leng­ing as ever, for Sun­day ser­vices.  I thought about the con­trasts between the two tow­ers — Barnes busy, cosy, con­vivial, on the ground floor where we can be part of the con­gre­ga­tion, the wed­ding guests, the sense of com­mu­ni­ty.  Fos­ter Lane high above the street on the first floor, an aus­tere white cham­ber, just a few ringers deeply intent on absolute per­fec­tion, then walk­ing quick­ly through the scholas­tic pews sparse­ly filled with just a few parish­ioners.  There is room in my life for both places.

Tomor­row is Mon­day.  A fresh start to the week, with Avery gone once again, halfway through this chal­leng­ing month of Jan­u­ary, ready to see what Lon­don life in the New Year will bring.