You won't believe what we have done in the last three days!

It is now Monday evening.  My last post ended Friday night as we were preparing to get up the next morning for May Day celebration.  It's amazing what we have seen and done since then.  We did get up the next morning at 4:45 and left the B&B at 5, walked into town and literally followed the crowds of people who were assembling at the base of this church tower at Magdelin (pronounced Maudlin) Bridge.  You need to realize that in England this time of year, it's very light out at this time.  We're on a latitude with Nova Scotia and the sun is up a lot earlier here - 4:30 or so - so it was quite light out. 

We were shoulder to shoulder with students dressed in evening wear, others dressed in hippy wear with wreaths of flowers on their heads, other civvies like us bundled up in winter coats and scarfs while the girls in evening wear were half naked (well, not really) in their party clothes.  There were thousands of us there waiting with excitement for the tradition to begin.  As we got closer and closer to 6AM, we could begin to hear "shhh, shhh, shhh, shhh" repeated around the crowd until the thousands of us were silent as the bells began to peal their 6 gongs, the crowd took a hushed breath and then the choir of sopranic boys began to sing.  It was almost mystical.  When they finished, a voice came over the loud speaker in prayer and the crowd chorused an "amen" and then as the choir broke into their second selection, we became a little less spiritual and a little more restless and soon the murmurs of the crowd as we talked to each other began to drown out the choir and the aura was broken. 

The choir finished its selections and the students began dancing in the streets.  Some began jumping off the bridge!  Into the shallow waters below!  Again, another long standing tradition, one much more dangerous than singing from a church tower and as engaging for the crowd.  Especially when one fellow suddenly stood up on the bridge railing stark naked and flew off!  Later, we realized he was the only one off the bridge who later had dry clothes - maybe the smartest of the crazies! 

Lots of other fun things were happening around town by this time.  As we walked through the crowds, we began to locate pockets of crowds surrounding entertainers such as the Morris Men, men dressed in white with bands of jingle bells around their calves and flowers around the brims of their straw hats, sticks in hand that they use in their dances representing swords used in previous times.  

Then I finally saw a group with a May Pole, a tradition I had wanted to see for years.  A May Pole is a pole with many colorful ribbons tied on the top and each ribbon is held by a person who dances in a circle with others holding the ribbons, all going around the pole in the same direction.  Then a leader instructs the dancers in different configurations, up and over each other, in different directions, etc. and eventually the ribbons form a colorful weave on the pole that can either be undone by reversing the participants or accepted as a finished "product" and the dance is done.  It was a joy to watch and another checkoff on my bucket list.

We then followed the instructions given to us the previous evening at Old Tom by some students as to how to get to The Turf Tavern, a very famous 13th century pub hidden down an alley way.  Mind you, it was now only 7AM and we found ourselves in a pub with hundreds of Oxford students who had probably been up all night long and the beer was still flowing!  In fact, I don't know when I've ever seen so much beer, much less at 7AM!   We ordered coffee!!  Word came that the bar was closing at 8AM - only to be opened again at 11.  The staff that had been there since 2 AM deserved the break.  If you would like to know more about this wonderful old place, try http://gouk.about.com/od/foodanddrink/fr/oxfordturf.htm   or just google The Turf Tavern, Oxford. 

While we were back in that labyrinth of rooms, I noticed that across this narrow alley there was a 17th century hotel called The Bath Place.  I wanted to know more about it so we went in to inquire.  As a result, we four have made reservations for May 17th to stay in this old place as we go on our way from a week of canal boating on to Bath.  I asked for a "higgledy piggledy" room but I don't think we'll get one.  The fun, however, will be to enjoy ourselves at the Turf for dinner and ale and then walk a few steps away (or swagger!) to go to bed.  Maybe we'll get the room that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton rendezvoused in years ago, who knows?

Now we needed to head back to the B&B before they stopped serving breakfast.  Mind you, it was only 9Am and we had been walking for FOUR hours.  Each of us felt we deserved the full English breakfast - eggs, English bacon, sausage, hash brown potato, cooked tomato and toast.  (Some breakfasts include mushrooms and baked beans!) 

And we were just getting started for the day!  Oxford is on the Thames and I had noticed on our walk back to breakfast that there was a company on the river near the B&B that offered boat trips down the river.  So we decided that right after our meal we would go back and see if there was room on the 11:00 "flight".  Well, yes.... we were the only ones on the boat.  We took a peaceful, lovely (as the English would say) ride up and down the river for about 45 minutes.  We watched some of the Oxford teams practice sculling, the ducks doing their own form of sculling and the lucky residents of Oxford picnicking along the riverside. 

After the boatride we walked back into town to go our separate ways on the tours we had chosen - Bill and Ginger on the Inspector Morris tour and we on the city tour bus.   On our tour, we were told about a pub called The Eagle and Child.  I don't know the story behind that name but the guide said that the pub was frequented by JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis and they nicknamed it the Bird and Baby.  So John and I went there after our tour for a snack and to scope it out.  Again, it was several hundred years old and its claim to fame was a framed "thank you note"signed by those two illustrious authors and several others complimenting and thanking the publican for his kindnesses to them. 

After that we all needed a nap!!  A couple of hours of napping and we went on to dinner to a pub recommended to Ginger and Bill - The Bear.  It's walls and ceilings are covered with men's ties - well, parts of them.  It seems that years ago the publican began cutting off the ends of the students ties as they entered the pub in exchange for a pint.  He noted the name of the student or customer and where they went to school and tacked them to the wall.  Eventually, he framed them by the hundreds and displayed them in the frames on the walls and ceilings.  We also got to talking to a young lady from a table of students behind us who turned around to join in our conversation.  Another delightful moment in a historic pub.  You can see the frames of ties on the walls behind Bill and our newest friend.

We also met an American there, Thomas, who had moved to England three years ago when he married an English woman.  His experience in being an ex-pat has not been that positive.  He had a good job with Telecom when he married but couldn't find work in Britain and so works now at Starbucks.  His wife has an excellent job - I can't remember what it is - and he feels, we all believed, a bit of out of the community.  We had a great discussion with him about the National Health Service and other things.  He is very happy with the NHS and says it has worked wonderfully for him and his family.  He is concerned about how it will operate for more elderly population, but for him it's been a great positive.  We all agreed that he needs to form a support group for himself and other ex-pats so he won't feel so lonely.  Unfortunately, we all decided that after he left us!

We had walked the walk from town to BB so many times in the last one and a half days from that we decided to forsake the stoicism and take the bus.  What a great respite for our aching feet!