Wytham Wood

... is 'Oxfordshire's newest folk duo' and comprises me and my friend Jules, an extraordinary singer/songwriter/guitarist who I've been privileged to sing a number of gigs with.

A patch of remnant Oxfordshire forest might seem a strange choice of name for a Cornishman and an Australian, but Jules has lived hereabouts for nearly 20 years, attending Cornburys and Cropredys (both folk festivals held locally) and beer festivals in every pub he can find. As for me, Oxford has been my teacher and inspiration in more ways than I can count,and I'm proud to now call the shire home.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Jules was recently invited to sing at Adderbury Folk Club's christmas fundraiser, and asked me to join him. I was in the midst of the flu, but three large glasses of mulled wine proved an effective throat relaxant, and we made it through. The Adderbury crew are a great mix of age and experience and seem to have a strong culture of fostering new folkies, and so a week later we went back to their session.

In between times, we recorded our first demo CD: 3 tracks, that I hope sound okay, cos I was still reliant on port to turn by croaky throat into anything remotely melodic. We'll know soon enough: we're hoping to try to score a few festival gigs this summer.
Our first official outing with the new name, however, was the Folly's annual Christmas bash. It's a bit of a mutual thankyou session really: to Guy and Sal of Pont Music who run the weekly open mike gigs every week, to the musicians who support them, and the landlords, Roger and Margaret, who give us a space in which to play, even though some weeks are pretty quiet. Most of all, it's a cracking night, always good for a laught. It's finally beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...

One final Warsaw moment

I made one last venture out before we headed home. Khrystene took me to the Jewish Cemetary, which has been used continuously for several centuries and contains the tombs of more than 150,000 people. It borders the area that once held the Jewish Ghetto, which was bulldozed after the Nazis had herded Warsaw's 400,000 Jewish people in early in the war, ultimately murdering or transporting every last one. There are some breathtaking memorials, including one that remembers the one million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust.

The world has seen many human rights abuses in my lifetime, and there have been other genocides. But not one on this scale.

We must never forget it; in case, by our silence and inaction, we somehow allow another such dictator to rise up and take power and then stay there.

A proud military history

I've heard a lot of English folk knock Poland and her people, for being an economic backwater nation with no prosperity of her own. Then in the same breath, those same English people whine about how Poles come to the UK and 'steal' jobs (research shows they work bloody hard, often in low skilled jobs that a lot of English folk are too stuck up to take on) and then send money out of the country.

I remember being amazed on learning, in Lithuania back in June, that there was a time (before hapsburgs or Valoises, and long before Britannia ruled the waves), when Poland and Lithuania were centres of culture, famed for their wealth and sophistication, at a time when England was struggling to hang on to any kind of nation in the face of repeated civil unrest and weak kings who lost the lands they'd once held in France. Only a handful of relics from that glorious heyday have survived - although given the ravages of WWII, the greatest miracle is that any of it still exists at all. But their 'east-meets-west' style and sophisticated kit still recalls vividly an era of military might, which protected a political system, culture and heritage of which all Polish people should be proud.

Ciemny piwo in Warszawa!

Ladies and gentlemen, hot on the heels of our adventures in Warsaw, allow me to introduce to you... Anthony's beer face!

Here it is below, even before he started drinking, but the sign above says he's standing in Beer Street, so perhaps he was just imagining the shape of things to come...
The photograph at the top of this page comes from Saturday night, where after watching a re-enactment of a 19th century running street battle against the Russians (the November Uprising), and getting covered in rain that froze on our hats and coats, we found a bar that servied hot wine with massive wedges of orange and beer in every shade of amber you could imagine. We got through the first round faster than you could say Ciemny piwo (dark ale)!

The photo below comes from very late on Sunday night, after I went to bed (for the first of 9 days - eugh) with a respiratory nasty, and Khrystene took Anthony to the pub. For the record, even after seeing this photo, he has NO recollection of this hat. Clearly the lads (below) did a pretty impressive job of plying him with vodka and dark beer. He was so full that he had to pull into an alleyway on the way home to answer a call of nature... and was promptly pulled over by the police, screaming in Polish until K explained he only spoke English. The Polish coppers replied that he could go home, but that he shouldn't come back until he has more culture! *Giggle*But I'm digressing already, and I haven't even told you about how it all started.

Gentle readers you may remember Khrystene's visit to Oxford back in June: well, it was our turn to return the favour, and the occasion was Khrystene's birthday. We took a long weekend and flew over on Friday, arriving just in time to drop our bags at Khrystene's o-so-funky flat in the 'real' old part of town (the bit that wasn't destroyed by the Germans, because it was filled with Russians waiting for the Germans to finish their devastation before coming in to 'liberate' the city... but more on that later), then eat something, and head out to a pub nearby to meet her friends. The place was gorgeous - high ceilings, crowded, quirky, and thick with cigarette smoke - bless those crazy non-PC European types! Khrystene had spent a small fortune (no kidding - about 35 quid!) on a cake - but WHAT a cake... you can't tell from this picture, but it was layers of gingerbread cake and nutmeggy cream, slathered in a slightly liquoricey dense black icing and 70s hotrod flamin' paint job... mmmazing!

Saturday in Poland

Perhaps not surprisingly, Saturday started late. We headed into town and Khrystene showed us round the rebuilt medieval Old Town, faithfully recreated in every detail from photographs and paintings.As this photo from Khrystene shows, the Germans quite literally left almost nothing standing when they left. Why? For the final 2 months of the war the men, women and children of Warsaw rose up against the Germans. More than 200,000 people died in 60 days, in a city with a pre-war population of 1 million (400,000 of whom were Jews, long since deported or killed in the liquidation of the Ghetto, by the time fighting broke out). Our walks took us past the memorials to the children of the uprising (above), killed carrying messages, and running errands, for the resistance, and the courtyard plaza Memorial (below). There's also an award winning museum, which we didn't make it to, although I will next time.But for me, the greatest tribute the Polish people could pay to their freedom fighters was to rebuild - and given that they were doing it in a communist state, under wary Soviet eyes and with limited finances, the fact that this city is so beautiful is perhaps nothing short of a miracle.

The Westerners who said to me that Warsaw was 'nothing much to look at' are so wrong: this place has Polish grit and determination built into every brick and slap of mortar. See, and try not to weep, as you imagine all this being built, destroyed, and built again...

My gallant soldier

The final re-enactment event of the season is the Company of Chivalry's banquet. This year was extra special because it also marked the club's 20th anniversary. There was a special award for Gary, who founded the group and has, until last night, headed up the company as well. He's now handed over to Malcolm, formerly our victualler, but not before securing new gigs for next year: it seems that CADW (Welsh Heritage) are very pleased with the job we do. Yay! That means more trips to Caerphilly and her seige engines next year.Best of all from our point of view, though, was that Anthony not only made 'Yeoman' (the next level up after 'Villein', the lowest rank)...he was also voted 'soldier of the year'. Judging by the cheers he was a popular choice: it seems my man has earned a lot of respect in the group for being not just a huge presence on the field, but also for his commitment to helping out around the club.I am so proud of him.

I'm also pleased because part of his prize was a 1.5 litre bottle of champagne - and he HATES champagne!. (So I might get SOME return for all those costumes I was up late sewing by hand!). He also has custody for one year of the club's 'relic', an original 14th century badge of office.

I'd best get sewing then... and keep practicing at swinging a bill and playing my new psaltery (lap harp). Thanks Hannah!

Rod and Lissy's grand UK adventure

We've been counting down for weeks and Lissy (of my Danish adventures in July) and I were beside ourselves with anticipation - although it was Rod who was on his first adventures beyond his native shore.

But eventually the day came where I had to bolt up to Birmingham after work to collect them from the plane from Oslo, and we have had the loveliest time!
So lovely to be able to put them up in a proper home, not shared with anyone else, to wander over to the local pub and start them on the first of many English ciders. Brekkie the next morning (eggs from Paula's chooks, bacon, sausages and toast - a full English except for stinky ol' beans!) proved well necessary. Then we packed up pork pies and scotch eggs and headed up to the medieval markets in Warwickshire, calling in at Kenilworth castle on the way home, where new Elizabethan gardens are nearly finished. I didn't realise until that afternoon that Lissy, in all her European travels, had never been to England either. So it was SO COOL watching them go gaga over their first English castle: Lissy's face when she realised the extent of the massive kitchens was pure impish chefly grin. Rod was gawping from ear to ear by the time we left - although what really seemed to amaze him most was how GREEN everything is, after Melbourne's parched gardens and lawns.

Next day we started by fortifying ourselves with a proper stodgy Sunday roast, at the 'Tolkien Pub', the Eagle and Child in Oxford: the place JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and their brothers and friends used to gather to (according to local lore) take the piss out of elf stories and drink the health of the landlord. Emerging back into gathering dusk (it was nearly 4pm, after all!) we found the French market (sausage, cheese, mmmm), and wandered past the Bodleian, the Sheldonian and some of Oxford's grand ol' dames of architecture. After stocking up on stinky goodness we hit the Ashmolean - another place I can't believe I still hadn't visited.




Come Monday, the one place Rod really wants to go was Stonehenge. We drove south through soggy rain and nearly got blown off Uffington Hill looking for the white horse (Britain's oldest), then stopped in at the pub in the middle of the stone circle at Avebury so Rod could satisfy his craving for bangers and mash. Then suddenly, high on Salisbury plain, just as the sun broke though clouds (it really was like a moment in a movie!) there it was. Squat bluestone beside a motorway. An icon of Britain . My third visit, and it's still quite magic every time - solid and understated in a way that is somehow totally British.

It was getting dark, but Salisbury cathedral was open 'til 5.3o, so (just for kicks) we nonchalantly wandered in to see the magna carta. And 1200 year old books, and all the other cool stuff that lives in the Salisbury chapter house. You can't take photos in there, but even the outside is pretty impressive.... see?Re-enactors all - we were agog, and I couldn't help bragging on facebook. It's days like these that remind me how sodding blessed Ants and I are to have this amazing home (however temporarily), good work, great friends, and access to incredible history, music and even decent food (we stocked Lissy up on crumpets, vintage cheddar and sweetie goodness in Sainsbury's). All on the doorstep of the stuff from which legends have been made.

They headed off Tuesday, leaving me feeling more in touch with the stuff that matters than I have in some time. I feel a bit like I've been allowed to make other people's dreams come true, and at the risk of sounding conceited, that feels a bit special.

And so it rolls around again

This November 11, my friend Lizzie's sister is about to have a baby. Khrystene and several million other Polish people are celebrating 90 years of independence as a nation. Nicola-from-work is having the day off to celebrate turning 'one more', and marking the occasion with a bottle of Moet. Rob on our team finishes up with us, and I will have to decide which stories (from quite a long list of possible embarrassing anecdotes) can be safely told in the office at his leaving speech.

And it will be one more year - 4 in all, stretching sometimes a lifetime and other days barely a raw, short moment - since the world changed shape forever. The part that went missing is still much missed.

Bonfire night!

Today, I did two things that, had I done them in Melbourne, would have been completely illegal. First, when I drove to the shop, I parked on the wrong side of the street. It does't make sense that you can do that here, and it buggers up traffic flows no end, but so many of the streets are dead narrow, so you can, and people do.

Second, when I went into the shops, I BOUGHT FIREWORKS. And we let them off in Shep's backyard, with a massive bonfire, and rockets and catherine wheels and sparkly coloured showery things going up everywhere. And we ate baked potatoes with chilli and game pie and sophies-first-effort-at-grahams-bonfirenight-toffee. We roasted chestnuts and drank mulled wine and cider and all but drained Shep's kegs of Hook Norton beer.

And a lovely time was had by all and I can't wait for next bonfire night, now that I know what it's all about!

More about the Bodleian - the really geeky bit

I wanted to say more about Bodley's bit, the massive quadrangle, or Arts school, which is laden with more academic symbolism than a cathedral has cherubs. Its hallowed doorways bear the names of the names of the Liberal Arts (broken up, apparently, into the Trivium - logic, grammar and rhetoric - and the Quadrivium- arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, music. Plus philosophies and music. All in Latin. Of course.

Then there's the 'tower of the five orders, which displays the five classical orders of architecture, working up from the oldest: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite.

It's just so nerdy, I can't help loving it!

Georgi is now an 'Honourable Friend' of the Bodleian Library

I have three major things still on my list of 'stuff I can do as an Oxford resident' : to use my postcode to get in free to look around some of the colleges; to go iceskating in winter; and to spend some serious time in the Bodleian library.

The thing is, just living in Oxford still isn't enough to get you into the third. So today I went back to my tourist roots and signed on for a guided tour.

The Bodleian Library is the official library of Oxford University, the largest university library in Europe and second largest behind only the British Library in the UK.

The tour takes in row upon row of ancient books in the section (still open to Readers, although under careful supervision) of ancient books: here a collection of Shakespeare, there an ancient Euclid, in the timber roofed, ornately painted section known as Duke Humfrey's Library. Back before anyone had even heard of XX Bodley, in 1320, Oxford University's first library was housed beside the Church of St Mary the virgin, right next to where the library's main buildings now stand. In the 15th Century, Duke Humfrey of Gloucester (whose older brother was better known as King Henry V) donated a princely gift indeed: 281 manuscripts and assorted papers and a new building - the one that still stands - was needed. The place was stripped bare during the reformation, but restored in the 1590s by a farsighted chappy with a passion not just for books, but also for finances and fundraising. Enter Sir Thomas Bodley. He not only paid for the refurbishment of the library but also a massive extension and tons of books (courtesy of having been a diplomat for Queen Elizabeth I and duly rewarded with marriage to a rich widow). Oh, and he left some top-notch plans to finance the upper storeys of the building his own fortune had started.

The library lends to no man (or woman, for that matter), even Charles I was refused permission to take out a loan. As a consequence (okay, and also because Bodley's other stroke of genius was to score a deal from the Stationers' Company of London, which ensures that one of every book ever published in England gets lodged at the library), the library has some amazing old stuff - and not just books.

A free exhibition of 'cool stuff donated by loaded old boys' includes a 12th century copy of Bede's "Life of St Cuthbert", William of Malmesbury's "Gesta Pontificium Anglorum", written in 1125. There's also a copy of Boccaccio's first Biography, written in 1362 and previously owned by pope Pius V. Okay, some of these are actually owned by some of Oxford's college library's (Magdalen mostly) - somehow, although Bodley won't lent stuff out, they can borrow stuff IN!

Then there's a 500 year old set of embroidered gloves from a Tudor benefactor, and a priceless bishops mitre with countless seed pearls, and John Betjemen's stuffed teddybear (not on show, I saw it last time I was here).

I can't believe I've waited nearly 3 years to come here. And I know now I just HAVE to come up with a suitable line of study that would enable me to pick up a Reader's ticket. Becoming a friend of the Library is a poor first step in the right direction - but it's a start.

What's the difference between 'friend' and 'Honourable friend'? An extra £15 a year. I couldn't resist.