In Oxfordshire - 19 July 2008
Sometimes it’s very hard to connect with the most important people and so it’s proved with my brother and me. But we managed to change a few arrangements and make it possible to get together. Tony and Janet live in a delightful little village called Little Compton, close to Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. Bub very kindly drove me half way there and we met up outside Abingdon.
The three of us had a lovely short weekend together and the weather was (finally) kind, so we sat out in their garden which is (obviously) at the back of their cottage (this is a photo of the front!).
It was only to be a very short visit but, unknown to any of us at the time, I was going to turn up again and our days together were very special.
On this visit, Tony took me to visit Chastleton House, the place where the original rules of croquet were written. It’s a Jacobean residence and its entrance is quite unique in that the front entrance doesn’t show a door!
Chastleton House was built as a lavish status symbol for a wealthy wool merchant in the early 1600’s. It remained within the same family for almost four hundred years until it came to the National Trust in the 1990’s.
It was a Sunday so the House was closed to visitors but Tony was determined to do his best to take a photo of me on the croquet lawns, wielding my mallet – even to the point of seeing if we could get in through the back gate! No such luck unfortunately!
On the left of the photo you can see the Church and a bit of the Manor on the right. You might be able to see enough to notice that the architectural detail at the top of both buildings is identical.
In the late afternoon, Tony kindly drove me to Cheltenham, about 20 miles away, for the start of my first croquet tournament in England. Here I met up with Pauline who’d also come over from New Zealand on a walking holiday and we’d arranged to play at three tournaments together. More of that later!
After two days of play in the tournament, playing in my trainers (sneakers) for 12 hours a day, I developed dreadful blisters underneath every toe nail. I hadn’t worn them for 10 weeks and either they’d shrunk or my feet had grown! In any event, it was very, very sore. On the third day, hoping it wasn’t against tournament protocol, I played in my Birkenstock sandals which stopped things getting any worse but which didn’t, unfortunately, halt the infection which had set in. By Thursday I consulted a fellow competitor who was a doctor and he recommended a visit to A&E at Cheltenham Hospital. A two hour wait isn’t bad for the NHS I’m told and they were very good to me and prescribed penicillin which had the desired effect. But on Thursday evening when Tony and Janet drove into Cheltenham to see Mamma Mia with Pauline and me, they decided that a weekend of tender loving care might be the order of the day and on Friday evening, Tony drove all the way back (for the third time!) and took me back to their home!
We had a second lovely weekend – this time a bit longer, and managed to fit in some special moments. We went into Stratford upon Avon (home of the famous bard)
and marvelled at the hanging baskets everywhere.
which I thought might match my purple top!
We meandered through the busy streets among the beautiful old buildings, looking for such trivia as old fashioned English potato peelers (you can’t get them anywhere else!) and bean slicers! We had a lovely lunch at a typical English pub with a back garden and then spent an idyllic afternoon in the truly hot sunshine, idly chatting and enjoying the sights and sounds of an English summer. And were able to have dinner al fresco and enjoy a stunning sunset. A truly lovely interlude.
Off again on a National Express coach the next morning for London with one change at Heathrow airport. My lovely Suzi met me at Victoria bus station to help me cross London with all my luggage. Not only did she help me to get to Ealing on the tube, and safely to Jules and Clive's home, but she also insisted on going with me to the supermarket to stock up for a two week siege – so that I didn’t have to carry the shopping all the way home by myself. What a star!