Oxford

While I had been to the Law Library, Keith had spent a profitable morning in the Bodleian library. After lunch, I headed off to visit the Christ Church College and the Ashmolean Art Gallery while Keith returned to the library. He was in his element, being able to sit and read the resources there.

Christ Church College is enormous and spectacularly beautiful. The cathedral is the largest in Oxford and dates back to the 1600s.





The dining hall is where the filmed Harry Potter. It had the aromas of a cooked lunch while I strolled up and down beside its long tables. I wondered if it had included mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage.

I then discovered some Condie history. I found a list of those who died while serving with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light infantry between 1939 and 1945. It just happened to be opened at the Co page and there listed was a Private Gordon Donald McKenzie Condie with the date 11 November 1943 next to it. My Father-in Law Alan has researched much family history. I am curious if there is any link with this Condie.



My head had not been fantastic these last few days, so I decided to retire to a cafe with my book and sit quietly. There is a lovely cafe in the Ashmolean Art Gallery, so I spent the remainder of the afternoon happily engrossed in my book. I am reading my third Margaret Forster book in a row - "Shadow Baby". I had finished reading "Hidden Lives"earlier that week and had enjoyed that enormously. Keith and I met up again in the late afternoon and had a quick browse of the gallery before returning to Morton in Marsh by train.

Oxford is where my father grew up and there is so much more I would like to see and discover. I can only imagine what it was like for him there growing up. I know that he went to the Dragon School, which is now one of the most expensive schools in Oxford, but it wasn't then. He loved riding his bike and walking. I can imagine that he enjoyed cycling out into the countryside and around the town exploring.

Church in Churchill

Ursula is very involved with her local church which was built in 1180. It is a beautiful and old church with a sad history. The village of Churchill was a plague village during the fourteenth century, so most of the village probably died and they moved away from the church, so it is now located beside a field. We went to church with Ursula to a service celebrating harvest festival. The church was filled with autumn flowers and vegetables. During the service, members of the congregation took food to the front of the church and then lit a candle and placed it on a map of the world on the place the food had come from.

One of the most remarkable features of this church is the Latch Memorial dedicated to Thomas and Sarah Latch and dated 1644. Sarah died in childbirth with her twelfth child and this baby is depicted wrapped in a black shawl. Their other eleven sons and daughters are kneeling and four of them are carrying skulls, to indicate that they had died before their mother. Sarah is wrapped in a shroud and her face peeks through. It is detailed and filled with the emotion capturing the sorrow of her husband and children. I can't imagine having that many children - she must have spent most of her married life being pregnant or caring for a baby. The exhaustion she must have endured. It is a tribute though to a woman at a time when women were not often recognised in their role as mother, wife and nurturer. She was going to be sorely missed and not easily replaced.





There were other sad stories depicted on the walls. There was a memorial plaque dating from the 1840s. The minister of the church at this time, Rev Bellew-Archer and his wife Marian, lost their daughters Elissa, Ioanna, Ada and Mariana and son Basil within four years, the youngest being six months, the eldest nineteen. The verse is particularly poignant to this couple: "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." I can't imagine the tears this couple must have shed.

There were also two boys aged thirteen, who in 1944, towards the end of the war were up exploring on the hill that we had wandered over with Ursula the day before. A german bomber was returning to cross the channel after bombing Bristol who decided to drop his remaining bomb onto the hillside, hitting and killing these boys who were innocently doing the sort of thing that boys do at that age - exploring and enjoying the outdoors. A memorial has been erected in their memory.

Each of these events have happened during very different centuries, but the walls of this church contains all of these memories - many happy while others more happy - such as the marriages of both my cousins Elizabeth and Susannah.

Ursula and a few of the women in the congregation have been making kneelers for the church. They fill the church with colour, vibrancy and the opportunity to remember events in the lives of the members of the congregation. Ursula made the first two cushions for my cousin Lizzy's marriage to William. She used the picture of a lily from one of the stained glass windows as her motive. It took her two months to complete them both.





There is the cushion marking Ursula's marriage to my uncle John - which has a peacock and orange flowers. Ursula uses this cushion each week. There are also cushions made for Susannah and Alex and for each of her six grand daughters.





The service was very simple but a meaningful time of remembering to give thanks to God for the provision of food in the crops that are harvested, and the animals who are raised. It was wonderful to come out to a day filled with sunshine and vibrancy.

We returned to Dove Cottage for a delicious lunch of roast lamb and apple and blackberry pie which we ate sitting out in the garden. Keith and I take full credit for bringing this spate of wonderful weather. After a wet summer, they were relishing the opportunity to be outside and making the most of the sunshine.





It was a wonderful day spent with family who I have enjoyed meeting and getting to know a little. Susannah and her husband Alex are delightful - as are their girls. We had fun over lunch sharing jokes - Sophia at five has a wonderful sense of humour while Florence reminds me of myself - she doesn't always get the joke and needs to have it explained. My family often accuse me of being exceedingly dense. It was great to have so many conversations with Ursula and find out all sorts of things about my family and her life.

Looking Through the Window

I was inspired by my friend Jess, who is living in Edinburgh and took photos of views through windows to do the same. At home, we don't really look out at anything I would think of photographing. Here it is a little different. From one of our upstairs windows, you can look out at the neighbours houses and gardens - they are amazingly quaint to our eyes. If I sit in the bath, I look out at this very young church.

It is so different to Sydney in so many ways. This morning we went up to a tiny village called Snowshill where my aunt and uncle used to own a sheep farm. My uncle had retired at the age of 50 and took up sheep farming. The next eight years were the happiest of his life. He replaced a busy high powered and high paying life with much travel and time away from his family for something completely different. Their house was bought by the National Trust about fifteen years ago and turned into a restaurant as it is next door to the Snowshill Manor.

This Manor had been bought in 1919 by a man who spent his life collecting things of beauty and filling this house with them. Just before his death he bequeathed the house and its contents to the National Trust. It is an amazingly quirky collection of all sorts of things - bicycles, samurai armour, swords, dolls houses, musical instruments, spinning wheels and books, fabric and lots of bits and pieces. It is like walking through a treasure trove. We wandered around the Manor and had a coffee in Margaret's old house which now looks very different. She must find it odd visiting her old home and it looks completely different.
This used to be Piper's Grove - owned by my aunt and uncle.