A country walk in Oxfordshire

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

With Steven in San Francisco for the 15-year WIRED reunion, Chris and I decided it would be nice to head out of London for a lovely day in the country. After turning the house upside down I found our copy of “Country Walks Near London” (since I didn't want to fork out £13 for another one).

Yesterday we took a train from Paddington to Henley-on-Thames, switching at Twyford. Setting out on the abridged 8.8 mile route (as opposed to the full-on 13.7 mile, ten and a half hour one) we walked over the hill and through the woods... and over the hill and through the woods... and over the hill... well, you get the idea. I think in this part of the world they call the hills escarpments, but that’s probably just because they like using words with more letters.

Among the notable fauna we observed were some old horses wearing blankets, several kites (a kind of bird), and a few teenage girls hopping around the train platform wearing nothing but sleeping bags and knickers (the British kind). There were also a couple of planes doing aerobatics above the fields all afternoon (not exactly fauna, I know).

We had lunch at the Rainbow Pub in Lower Assenden and tea at the Henley Tea Rooms, which is run by Spaniards and staffed by Vietnamese.

TreeQuest ‘07

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Any of you (Maggie, Suzette, Lauren?) who’ve experienced the joys of prior TreeQuests will appreciate what a special experience the first reconnaissance outing in a foreign country must have been... I won’t go into too much detail here...
Suffice to say that this picture is false advertising. Sure, it’s charming as heck, but this was just the first stop, and, well, let’s just say that the gloom and cold rain matched the mood of certain members of our party (ok, member). Chris, our driver, had mistakenly passed the closer place (the one that didn’t pre-net their trees) - but we tried to put on a good face and say we really wanted to see the reindeer, the bull, the pigs, the chickens, the medieval abbey ruin, the pretty Gothic farm buildings, and stuff.
Since we had already traveled so far, we decided that instead of dropping Steven at the Farnham train station (at his request, don’t ask), we would proceed to Alice Holt Woodland Park (under darkening skies). WHEW! Thank goodness! Supposedly it’s a very pleasant park with scenic walks and things, but most importantly, we found ourselves deciding between three equally lovely specimens, any of which would have made the perfect Christmas tree.
Note to expats: bring your own rope or bungee cord - they don’t help you here.
Or get your friend to borrow the scuba school Jeep (another disaster narrowly averted - thanks again, Chris!).
After that it was pretty much smooth sailing. We stopped for a lovely cuppa with Jane, David and Charlie. Much to David’s chagrin, Chris mesmerized Charlie by getting 99 points playing Bopit (Chris also happens to know that Bopit only counts up to 250).
The tree is now up and mostly trimmed. Stay tuned for pics.

Another lovely London weekend

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Properly gray and rainy, yet thought provoking and full of beauty. We had a wonderful dinner at the Fat Badger, were chased by an adorable rat along the Thames, wandered among Henry Moore sculptures and gorgeous foliage at Kew Gardens, went out in Soho - twice, saw the Crack and a Louise Bourgeois retrospective at Tate Modern... We laughed, we cried, it were better than Cats!

Why London doesn’t suck:

Originally uploaded by sf2london.

Reason 437: Steven & I tossed a frisbee around this Hampstead Heath field with our friend Chris yesterday.