May 17
Today is a bit of a treat with a visit to Cambridge and Oxford. I’m going to pass a little judgment, which is – ‘Wow, the English just love a roundabout’. I don’t think I’ve ever driven through so many roundabouts; huge 4-lane motorways with 70mph/120kph limits rush straight into roundabout after roundabout, even roundabouts with traffic lights, and, at every one, all I can think of is, ‘there’s Big Ben kids’ from National Lampoon’s Vacation when they got stuck in a roundabout in London for about 12 hours going around and around. I’ve got a tip for road planners: they’re called overpasses.
On the topic of tips, I’ve got one for building planners also: it’s illegal, by building code, to have a power point in the bathroom, so women can’t dry their hair in the bathroom in the UK. I assume this is so they don’t throw the hairdryer into the bath and die, BUT there is a 240v shaver point for men at every sink in every bathroom. This is going to be my lasting impact on the UK; I’m going to campaign to get power points allowed in bathrooms, at a safe distance from the bath, so girls can dry their hair!
Today I did lots of touristy things. Ed punted me along the river Cam (two Eds is better than one) and I saw the first bridge over the river Cam – Cam Bridge – get it? I didn’t know that. It was a spectacular warm morning with blue sky and the river was empty; it was fun to see the other Ed so excited about what he was doing, as we both enjoyed the peace on the river and the weather as he told me all about this most amazing town, its history and buildings.
Driving to Oxford I stopped at The Royal Oak in Tingewick, the simplest of pubs, where there was a group of girls enjoying a 70th birthday lunch. The bar was being held up at 2pm by two retired farmers, and by the door, in her bed, was Star, the friendliest rescue Staffy I’ve ever met, who jumped up on my bench and sat with me wiggling with excitement. A choice of steak or chicken pie, no menu and great chat with the farmers.
Across to Oxford, another touristy treat, as I visited some of the colleges. What I noticed here was how easy it was to talk to people. University towns are full of interested and interesting people who don’t think it’s odd at all for a random person to just want to talk, very unlike the busy and suspicious people I tried to talk to in Maidstone.
Everything is in full bloom; it’s almost intoxicating on a warm afternoon walking down a narrow stone lane with wisteria, lilac and these trees covered in white flowers that look like cherry blossom but smell like orange blossom. I stopped for a moment smell the trees and met Robin, a composer from Yorkshire who was also admiring the incredible perfume of this lane, we walked and talked about his time as a student in Oxford and his life in Yorkshire.
I had dinner in a little bistro and, after dinner, met one of the chefs; he was from Spain. Joining him in the kitchen was a guy from Timor, a Dutch guy, a Spanish girl, and an Indian guy. He works at least 70 hours a week, every week from 9-5 with a break of an hour or so, and then on to midnight, and clears about £1,700 a month. I work that out to be less than £6 an hour after tax. Then he pays £550 for his room, but doesn’t have many other expenses as he eats at work. He misses Spain and is here to work hard and save money so he can open his own tapas restaurant in his home town. He thinks he needs about 2 years.
talledsmith 