Have you ever had a hug so good it made you cry? I had a couple of those yesterday and today!
We are currently in London, England, on the way to South
Africa for our big trip. We are staying
in a house in Ealing that John found on the Internet. The street outside is
still decked out with lots of Union Jacks in celebration of the Queen’s
Jubilee.
John and I both went to Oxford, and we got married there, almost
25 years ago, and we lived in London for two years after that. So, in some
ways, this feels like going home. We’ve spent the last two days seeing dear
friends who I haven’t seen since before I got sick. I guess it was frustrating
for them to be on the other side of the ocean from me while I was so
ill; they have certainly made it clear to me the last two days that I am loved
and they are glad I’m still here. It has been an incredible couple of days.
We saw John’s old flatmate from Oxford, David, who also ran
cross-country with him, and his wife, Annabel, and their kids. We took over their house and ate and laughed and napped and strolled around Kew Gardens.
We saw our dear
friends from Oxford, Alice and Stewart, who served us an amazing meal. Homemade
baguettes. Homemade lemon tart. Homemade chocolate cake. We talked for hours.
We saw my old colleagues from work, Fran and Keith, and
their daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte was celebrating her first Communion this morning
at Blackfriars in Oxford, where I used to occasionally worship, 25 years ago,
with my friends, Peter and Marg. It was extra special because so many people I
used to work with at the British Council of Churches came in for the service,
including my friend, Elisabeth, who flew in from Jersey for the occasion, and
whom I hadn’t seen in maybe 20 years!
After church, but before the Communion luncheon, we made a
brief stop at our old college, Lady Margaret Hall, and showed our children the
highlights: Here is what an English dorm
looks like. Here is the college bar, where
I met your father. Here is the chapel where we got married. There, under that
tree, is where your father first kissed me. (“Eww!” “Gross!”
“Too much information!”)
The Communion luncheon was only about a mile away from
there, at a place on the river called the Cherwell Boathouse, which serves a
couple of unrelated functions. It hosts
lovely fancy luncheons, for occasions such as First Communions. And it rents rowboats and punts (which are a
lot like gondolas in Venice; you push them along with a long pole).
The rain held off, so after lunch, we rented a punt. John
and Sean and I and even Matt took turns with the pole. Predictably, near the end
of the hour, Matt slipped and fell in the river. The mighty Cherwell is slow;
John fished him out right away. But it is cold, and it is stinky. Now, I was not particularly surprised to see
him go in the drink. Not only is this the sort of thing Matt does, but also
this apple did not fall very far from the tree. He fell in mere yards from the same spot where
I myself once fell in that same smelly river, maybe 27 years ago, one night
when I was sneaking back into college after getting locked in the University
Parks after hours, following a glass of wine or two with some of my naughtier
friends…
We dried him off, got him a hot chocolate, tried to clean
him up, and when he settled down we took the kids into town to show them some
of the cooler places in Oxford. Look, this is a pub which includes part of the
ancient city wall. Over here is a church tower that’s nearly 1,000 years old.
Down this way there is a bookstore that goes on and on underground, in a warren
of rooms under one of Oxford’s main streets.
Later, we met my dear friend, Tracey, for dinner at The
Trout, a beautiful pub in Wolvercote. Tracey was maid of honor at our wedding.
I hadn’t seen her for about ten years. That’s a whole child ago for me and two
children ago for her! We had a lot of catching up to do.
It was a great weekend.
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