Dog Days Are Over

I've returned home to sweet Montreal and hit the ground running. But I get ahead of myself.

My last few days in England were magical. I had a lovely easyjet flight from Nice to London and made my way back to Oxford from Gatwick, which isn't the quickest route. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned ahead and was ill informed about buses. Instead of a direct bus from the airport to Oxford centre, I was sold a ticket from Gatwick to London to Oxford. Not quick. Not direct. But, at least I saw London!

It turned out to be well timed. The entire bus ride back, I was texting J to figure out who was going to get to Oxford first. She was taking the train from Brizzle and I was old-school bus-ing it. The race was on! I went black ops on the texting when she wrote that her train was pulling into the station. My bus ended up stopping at every possible stop to let people off. When the bus finally pulled up to Gloucester Green, I hopped off and made my way back through the familiar town that I had grown to love to the home that I had become attached to. Along Jericho St, within my first few minutes of being in Oxford, I ran into people that I knew. Love that town.

I of course stopped in at the grog shop to pick up some vino to celebrate my return and as I exited, I saw a tall, leggy platinum blonde girl walking along the other side of the road. I of course cat-called to her. It's times like that I wish I were able to whistle. It turns out that J and I had planned our arrival perfectly! After many hugs, we strolled along to our home away from home and walked in to the cozy Oxford nest. It was a really great night with lots of catching up and wine. Once we finally both admitted that we were knackered, we settled into the Canadian room and had a lovely sleep over.


The next day, we had a really slow start to the day and the finally got ourselves sorted out and headed to Portmeadow to enjoy the sun and warmth. We brought our poi and our books and had a perfect afternoon. The only thing that could have made it a little better would have been a little less goose and duck poo all over the grass. Damn foul fowl. Who do they think they are?


The rest of the day was more of the same. When we felt appropriately sunned, we headed back home and timed it with the arrival of A, N and R, just back from a friend's birthday party in London. After a brief family meeting, we decided that we were going to make a break for it and head to the country.

J and I were incredibly excited to get back to the Cotswolds. A quick 40 minute drive later, we pulled up to Calcot and settled in for a few days of lovely British countryside.

I was shocked by how much the garden had changed from when I was there a month earlier.

In just a few short weeks, there seemed to be an explosion of colours and shapes in her backyard. I could almost imagine the three fairy godmothers from Sleeping Beauty flitting around the garden and pointing their wands at the different flowers to add a splash of colour. Or... I could picture the cards from Alice in Wonderland propping up a ladder against different plants and painting the roses red. Except in this case, the roses were tulips and the red was more of a palette of colours.

Things had bloomed and grown and greened. It was GORGEOUS! That garden is A's pride and glory. I can't imagine how much work it must take to make it so beautiful. In one spot in the kitchen, you can stand and see through the four sections of the garden, all the way to the pasture in the background.

Her garden is an incredible work of art, like a living painting.

There was a great moment when we arrived. The drive to the cottage had involved a 30 minute talk about colours, during which A spent a long eloquent time telling us how much she loathed orange and yellow flowers.

This wasn't new to me. I have heard her say this before. She seems to take their colour as a personal offense. So, we get to the cottage and my first stop is the garden. I walk out and my eye is instantly drawn to a beautiful patch of orange and yellow tulips that are in direct view of the kitchen. Obviously J and I spent the next few days teasing A about this.

The garden really did blow me away.



We went on a long walk through the countryside. When we left, it was warm and sunny, by the time we returned, we had seen sun, rain, rainbows, hail and then more sun.

At the beginning of the walk, I saw an old tire swing by a pond and managed to bully a little kid off of it so that J and I could play on it! After my bullying instincts were satisfied, we continued the walk and passed by old mills, beautiful streams, lovely countryside...

LAMBS! It was lambing season. At one point, J just said "LAMBS" and started running toward a fence. Before I realized what she was talking about, I found myself running to see the absolute overwhelming cuteness of fluffy white lambs.

Newbie

Can you see the umbilical cord?

The best part is that we saw lambs that had JUST been born. One lamb and it's mom had been fenced off. Another mother and baby were in the corner of the field and as we walked up, we saw the lamb take its first few wobbly steps. The mom still had traces of the birthing sack (or whatever that bloody mess is called) on her backside and the baby still had a yellow sack covering its back. The lamb had an umbilical cord trailing from its tummy as it ran after its mom, trying to gain access to some yummy sheep's milk.

The rest of the walk was nice, except that at one point, we noticed that the cloud cover was getting quite dense. Sure enough, ten minutes later, it started raining. Then hailing. Being the troopers that we are, we kept walking. A kept telling us that there a pub just over the next hill. She was lying most of those times. By the time we got over the last hill, there was a pub. For some reason, on top of closing early, pubs also close in the afternoon. A noticed that I hadn't planned my wardrobe for rain and that my previously white shirt was no longer very opaque... Cunning woman that she is, she sent me ahead of the group to talk our way in to the pub for a drink. One round of drinks later, we had the very nice bartender call us a taxi to take us home to warm up in front of the Aga.

The next two days were spent playing Blokus, Charades and reading in the garden. The first of my tearful goodbyes happened at the train station when we dropped J off for her train back to Brizzle.

The night before my flight home, I said another tearful goodbye to A and R. (Something tells me that I'll be having a lot of these over the next two weeks.)

N drove me back to Oxford so that I could pack and get ready for my long flight. I didn't end up sleeping and got to the airport at 4:30am, 4 hours before my flight. It was wayyyy too early, but the advantage was that I was able to upgrade to first class... meaning that I got drunk the entire flight.

The stewardess came by my big comfy seat as everyone was boarding...
"Hello Miss, would you like orange juice or sparkling wine to start?"
My answer: "Yes!"

Needless to say, the 7 and a half hour flight passed by in a daze and I was the first one off, the first one through the doors where I ran to my mommy who was waiting patiently!
Home sweet home!