With a 10:15 flight, we were able to leave at a reasonable hour. And parking at the airport makes things even easier. We were at the gate very early and able to have a coffee and pastry before boarding.
Flight on United was neither bad nor good. The usual cramped seat, but the free movies over wifi on the iPad worked pretty well. And dinner was an oddity: sitting toward the back, all the meat dishes were gone (god help them if some vegetarian has to eat meat). One of the options left was a tharka dhal!
We landed for the first time ever at Heathrow Terminal Two. Damned British engineers: we walked for more than a mile and a half from the gate, though customs, and on to the Heathrow Express. and this was in a redesigned terminal! The wheelless thing proved hard for sue, since her day pack was heavy with presents.
The express was on time, and before we knew it we were looking for the new cab rank at Paddington, which had been moved to the other side of the station. Our black cab driver knew the way to Kildare Gardens, and we were knocking on Andrew and Lucy’s door by 10:30.
Andrew stayed up with us until midnight, with a nice bottle of red wine. We were asleep by 1 and slept very well indeed!
We woke feeling very refreshed. Of course, with a small child, the whole house was up before us. We met Susie, the new housekeeper, and were delighted to see Cora and Elsa again, who were over to help with the preparations for the big party that afternoon. The whole downstairs was bright with colored flags, banners, and balloons.
Breakfast brought the big announcement: baby Dechet #2 is on the way! We already had strong suspicions, since they had left a baby names book out on the counter the night before. Obviously all they have to do to get pregnant is plan a trip with us.
We got out of the way by going walking…what else do we do in London? It was chillier than we’d hoped, and nature wasn’t as far along as we’d like, but it was all better than snowy Princeton. We walked through Kensington Gardens, stopping for a cup of tea and the obligatory (but mediocre) scone with cream and jam at the Cafe on the Serpentine. We then cut diagonally down and emerged at Hyde Park Corner, crossing to Green Park, where we found a large bank of daffodils in bloom, just as Andrew had described. Then on through St. James, thick with Londoners pretending it was warm, and into Trafalgar Square. We visited our friends in the Italian Wing of the National Gallery and then dashed through the rooms with the beloved Veroneses, Turners, and Poussins.
Rather than hopping a bus here, as we’d at first thought, Sue wanted to look for wrapping paper for Evie’s present, so we walked up Haymarket to Piccadilly and found a Waterston’s. Then to our usual bus stop in Regency Street and home to Kildare.
The party was a bit much for Evie, with lots of older, bigger kids. The guests were mixture of nannies and a few women Lucy has met through Evie. But very nice for all that!
We didn’t have long to recover, because Lucy had a table for us at Assaggi, their local Italian. Pretty pricey, but beautifully done, with a simple but gracious interior, charming and very friendly service,and very good, if not world shaking food. We drank a 2012 Langhe Nebbiolo from the Produttori,which was beautiful with the food.
We had a leisurely breakfast and then finished packing for Oxford. We took the 7 bus to Oxford Circus, the walked to Bloomsbury. Quick lunch at Pret, then popped around the corner to Royal Mile Whisky, where the friendly guy suggested a Ben Riach 10, which proved to be a nice Speysider. We walked a bit in the rain, but it stopped soon. Usual route: British Museum, Russell Square, SOAS. Sue stocked up on British gardening mags while I called our very first uber! Very nice Romanian woman in a new Passat, and only 13 quid from Bloomsbury to Kildare and then Paddington.
The first great western train was the usual zoo. Sue got a seat at Slough, and I found something behind her at Reading.
\We got out at Gloucester Green bus station and walked into town, where we ran into two prospective grad students, Sebastian Klinger and Dibi Shokri, both Germans doing an MA at Oxford. Having dumped our bags at Wadham College, where we were staying, we did a quick stroll through the center of the university. The usual: Radcliffe Camera, St. Mary’s, Queen’s, and back to Badham.
Weimar Photography at Wadham College, Oxford, March 25-26
Breakfast in the hall, where we greeted Dan Magilow, Andres Zergovan, Peter Zusi, Jonathan Long, Bernd Stiegler, and the Princeton grads. Decent buffet, rotten coffee.
First session, with Andres and Dan, was OK. At least both of them had arguments. I got into it with Andres over his very traditional understanding of Benjamin on the subject. Second session went downhill fast. Tim Sarrerthwaite, an older grad student at the Courtauld gave a potentially interesting talk on nudes in journals, but it was largely descriptive. The next talk, by a young Swiss woman, was a train wreck.
Lunch was bizarre, with fatty, gristly lamb.
The afternoon sessions were uneven. Peter gave a decent talk on a Teige image; this was followed by a poorly delivered but potentially interesting talk by Barbara Jenner, a very nice Berlin artist. The final session was terrible. Absolute idiocy by a woman from Bristol, then a pretentious Jünger hodgepodge by Silke Horstkutte, the co-organizer. Her voice alone, with a harsh accent and mannered pronunciation, was enough to drive one mad.
Dinner in the hall was forgettable. Sue had had a busy day at gardens, so had a bowl of pasta at a joint on George Street.
Weimar Photo Conference Day Two
The day started better: Jonathan Long brought an interesting anthropological concept to bear on a series of physiognomic images, and Carolin Duttlinger gave a decent talk on Lerski. The second session started badly. Wim Peeters, who had worked with Joseph and is clearly a bright guy, gave a dull talk on proletarian photo. I missed the next talk because Sue and I took Tony Phelan to lunch.
Very nice meal at a new, casual place on Turl Street, the Turl Street Kitchen. Tony was in good form, and we had a really nice time with him.
My talk was first up in the afternoon, and it went very well. It was especially nice since my friend Philipp Eckart came down from London!
The talk after mine was perplexing. Wolfgang Brückle, who is clearly smart and well read, gave another dull, descriptive talk. The trend continued in the last session. Tom Wilkinson, who is working with Fred Schwarz at UCL, gave an idea-free talk on photographic representation of cathedrals, then Bernd Stiegler gave a very disappointing talk on the photography of technology.
At the end of the conference, I had a last talk with the two prospectives, Diba Shokri and Sebastian Klinger; they were both leaning away, and I left thinking we had lost them.
Tom Wilkinson then led us to a pub I didn’t know. Tom has an interesting background: his parents had been the publicans at the King’s Arms, and Tom had then worked for his uncle when he had bought it from Tom’s parents. The pub, down New Lane, was small and hidden and full of character. We were out with Tom, Philipp, Barbara Jenner, the artist from Berlin, and Anton and Daniela. Lots of fun, but Barbara and I had to cut it short to get back to the conference dinner. This was actually nice, in a private dining room at Wadham, with good food and decent wine.
Sue had met Andrew D. for dinner, and they had gone to Quod for the usual unremarkable fare. We then met them, as well as Anton and Daniela, at the King’s Arms, where we played humiliation until closing at midnight.
Interesting experience at the Oxford train station: we asked for tickets to Chipping Campen and the window clerk acted like we wanted to go to Tanzania. We finally helped him put together our connections. An early train brought us to Moreton in Marsh by 9 AM, where we had a wait for the bus to Chipping Campden. We walked around the little town, or at least down the High Street. Rather nice little place, probably at the edge of the tourist area to judge by the shops.
The bus took us by roundabout ways to Chipping Campden, passing through Broadway, so we kind of had that surprise taken away.
Chipping Campden is a lovely little market town, with the glowing honey limestone buildings that are typical of this end of the Cotswolds. So of the buildings date to the 12th century, and the whole place has an 18th century feel. We walked up to the extraordinary parish church, St. James, with its beautiful interior chapels and tombs for the local gentry.
The churchyard is lovely, with views to the ruins of Campden House, once the manor house for the region (now only a banqueting hall and a monumental gate are left standing).
The center of town is dominated by the old market hall.
It was miserably cold and damp. I had neglected to bring hat and gloves, and Sue badly needed tights. She found some nice ones in a ladies store, but there was no outdoor store in Chipping Campden, so I was out of luck.
We called a car service and a very nice older gentleman drove us to Hidcote Manor so that Sue could see a famous garden.
The place was created by an “American,” or rather the child of American parents, since he never lived in America. He took an old major house and turned the gardens into arts and crafts “rooms” that spread down a hill with broad vistas onto the Cotswold escarpment.
Spring was late in England, and not much was out, but Sue enjoyed seeing the garden’s “bones.”
Back in Chipping Campden, it was already after 2, and we needed to get walking so that we could meet Andrew in Broadway, six miles away. That didn’t stop us from warding off the cold with a cream tea at the Badger Tea Room. This was the best scone of the trip, and the cream and jam were quite nice as well.
Thus fortified, we set off, first through the streets of the town and then uphill into the open countryside. We were soon on the broad, flat top of Drover’s Hill, a National Trust property with beautiful views out and along the escarpment.
We had been following an English couple who were also doing part of the Cotswold Way, but, at the end of Drover’s Hill they plunged down a grassy slope. We followed and caught a last glimpse of them as they climbed over a gate. The gate was locked, and I knew that we were off trail.
Unlike the info on the West Highland Way, you really need the narrative description here: we were soon back up the hill, across a car park, and paralleling a road running east. We never saw the couple again!
The seclusion of Drover’s Hill gave way to a broad, grassy path called the Mile Drive; at its end we crossed two large fields and encountered a bench on a viewpoint with a topograph.
After walking around a quarry, we were in some really gorgeous fields set on high rolling hills; we were surrounded by sheep as we walked along enjoying the expansive views to the north. Broadway Tower, an eighteenth century folly conceived by Capability Brown, soon came into view; it is the highest point on the Cotswolds Way.
The trail then turned steeply downhill, passing through terraced pastures owned by the Broadway Trust. The views down to Broadway village and beyond were very nice.
We spoke with a very nice English couple who had a lovely young cocker spaniel, the made our way down and into the village. It really is a beautiful place, with the same honey stone that we had seen in Chipping Campden.
The well-stocked outdoor store yielded Icebreaker lightweight merino gloves and hat for me…thank god, since i really used them in the days to come.
Andrew pulled up in the X3 right on time, and we were soon making our way back across the escarpment and south west toward the cottage Lucy had rented in a hamlet called Calcot (near Northleach). This was a really beautiful, comfortable place, with a huge eat-in kitchen, a living room with wood burning stove, a playroom for Evie, and lots of bedrooms (which we needed, since Cora had come along for the weekend to help).
We ate in the first night, feasting on Cora’s Thai green curry and lots of beer. A really nice, if chilly first day!
The day started with even more threatening weather than what we had encountered so far. Lucy, Cora, and Evie had the good sense to start the day in the cottage!
From Stanton, the path rises back steeply onto the escarpment; the views were probably lovely, but we couldn’t see a thing through the mist. We also had a bit of trouble navigating…
The walking was actually very easy, and we covered the five miles to Winchecombe faster than we had planned.
The whole gang reunited here, and we walked back up onto the escarpment one more time…only to encounter a real gale coming off the gulf of Bristol.
As we came over the edge of the escarpment, we were almost blown straight back by wind and driving rain. If Evie ever takes up hiking, it will be a miracle!
The worst of it let up as we walked down, and we were soon slurping some delicious, much needed soup at Sudeley Hill Farm.
Andrew, Sue, and I walked on to retrieve the car not far along the path.
The path stays high as you pass across Clever Common, with views down to the largest city in these parts, Cheltenham. As you can see, the bright blue with which we started soon gave way to something just a bit murkier.
It didn’t feel much like a walking day. We headed back for the car and a really nice lunch at Daylesford, the famous organic farm in Moreton-in-Marsh.
We explored a bit, then spent the late afternoon relaxing at the cottage before the four of us driving into Cheltenham for a splendid meal at the oddly named Le Champignon Sauvage. This was a quirky mom and pop place, with rather odd decor, somewhat cramped quarters, but wonderful food!
Andrew had returned to Oxford to exercise his horses, so Lucy, Sue, and I struck out on our own for a short piece of the path, walking from Birdlip up onto Cooper’s Hill for the view. The Air Balloon was certainly an enticing pub, but it was a bit early for us!
We did encounter just about the furriest cows we’d ever seen!
This shot gives a sense of how the escarpment is punctuated by sharp outcroppings hereabouts.
We were soon atop Cooper’s Hill with fine views over Gloucester.
We decided to call it a morning, and drove to see the gardens at Barnsley House in the village of Barnsley.
Although the house dates from the 18th century, the gardens are the product of the 20th century garden designer Rosemary Very.
The three of us had an early dinner at Barnsley House.
Our day started in the charming town of Painswick, which sits atop a hill with views into what are called the “five valleys.” The town is noted for its parish church, St. Mary’s; the parish precinct is dominated by a splendid set of yew trees.
The path leads down and over a brook and then rises to Edge Common, with views back to Painswick and St. Mary’s.
The escarpment rolls rather gently in this section, giving way gradually to the broad plain to the north.
I imagine that the Cotswolds really have a bucolic beauty…in better weather!
The trail led on to a high point called the Stroud Beacon, once the site of an Iron Age fortress. Here are Lucy and Andrew, back from the horsies, descending from the Beacon.
Near the end of our walk, we found ourselves at the stone that marks the halfway point on the Way. The womenfolk were clearly protesting…something.
We had dinner at the Village Pub across the road from (and affiliated with) Barnsley House. We all liked it so much we returned the next night!
