Wednesday, January
25, 2017
Oxford-Essex
I had my
last breakfast with Susan (toast with Tony’s orange marmalade, Lurpak butter
and decaff coffee) while overlooking the meadow outside her kitchen—almost
completely shrouded by thick swirls of fog on this chilly morning. It is not a
great day to be traveling but I will spend most of it in a coach anyway.
Departure from
Oxford:
At 8. 15
am, I say goodbye and thanks to my generous friends, Sue and Tony, and dragging
my backpack behind me, I set off for the bus stop that will take me to The High
for my 9. 15 am coach to Stanstead Airport where my friend Rosa will pick me up
and drive me the ten minutes over to her home in Essex. I am deeply sorry to
leave my friends and the Oxford I so adore behind me and as I nurse these
thoughts, Tony comes running after me with my black jacket—which, somehow, I
have left behind on my bed! Thankfully, I was still only a few meters away from
their front door.
I had
decided to take the bus from Abingdon Road, but since I am so early, I walk
instead to the Tesco Express opposite Christ Church College to buy some
chocolates for my friends’ Rosa and Matt’s two little boys. I have small wooden
toys for them from India, but I know that the way to every little kid’s heart
is through a box of chocolates. I pick up Celebrations and Quality Street from
Tesco and armed with my goodies, I walk to the High Street. Visibility is very
poor and Old Tom Tower has all but disappeared. It is also dreadfully
cold—there is the foggy wet dampness that seems to penetrate every layer you
are wearing and settle in your bones. Ugggh!
At the coach
stop, I make conversation with a man from Bombay who is waiting for the coach
to London where he works—yes, he lives in Oxford, he says, and does the commute
three times a week. He is from Juhu and, within seconds, we feel like old
friends. He hops in when his coach arrives and, five minutes later, I follow
suit when mine trundles along. Meanwhile, I have read tourist signposts that
inform me that I am standing between two of the oldest coffee shops in
Oxford—the Queens Lane Coffee House where I have often sipped coffee and wolfed
down scones slathered with clotted cream and strawberry jam and, across the
road, The Grand Café—where I have never been! On its rather grand shop windows,
it advertises Afternoon Tea all day!!! How come I have missed this place? It is
something to do for when I am next in the city of dreaming spires—that truly
look as if they are well-tucked away in Dreamland today since it is so foggy.
That, and Oli’s Thai, the renowned Thai place on Magdalen Road in Cowley. One
must always leave behind something to be done the next time round. And I hope
there will be many next times yet…
On the Coach to
Essex:
It is a
long journey to Stanstead from Oxford. We go through Headington and make a
stops at High Wycombe, Hemel Hempstead, Luton (airport), Hatfield and finally
Stanstead. The early part of the ride is uncomfortably chilly but the driver
assures me that the heating is on—it just takes long to heat up a huge coach
when there are only five persons on board.
When I
arrive at Stanstead, I go through the airport and climb up one level to the
Arrivals area where Rosa is supposed to pick me up. I call her to tell her that
I have reached and then wait for her in the freezing cold. I am not looking
forward to getting home to Southport for this one reason—the dead of winter is
not the best time for a homecoming on the East Atlantic coast! Still…I am sure
that the warmth of the welcome I will receive will compensate for the weather.
Rosa did
arrive about ten minutes later and we did drive to her place—only ten minutes
away. Since she has moved to this place only two years ago, I am coming here
for the first time. It is one of those brand-new estate developments similar to
America’s gated communities with cookie-cutter homes, small patches of personal
back gardens and attached garages. Rosa’s previous home in Bishop’s Storford
(where we will spend tomorrow) was smaller. I had stayed there before she had
her two sons during her work stint with Matt, her husband, in Singapore. The
expanded family necessitated a larger home—hence this lovely one. As soon as I
enter, I am grateful for the warmth of a cozy living room and attached kitchen
with huge dining table. Rosa can only stay with me ten minutes as she has an
appointment to keep at her boys’ school where she does Reading as a volunteer
parent who happens to work from home. She warms up a pot of roast chicken soup
for me and I eat it with a buttered slice of tiger bread—tiger bread is peculiar
to Britain and involves a brown checkered crusted top. She leaves me with the
remote, tells me she will be back in about an hour and a half and goes.
Getting to Know My
Littlest Hosts:
I spend
most of the afternoon watching TV (one of the last episodes of As Time Goes By is on Gold, the channel
I had sorely missed when I lived in London). Just fifteen minutes before she
can arrive with the boys, sleep insistently washes over me and I simply must go
and take a nap. I awake at 4.00 pm and spend the next hour getting to know the
delightful Jacob and Daniel who are at lovely ages—five and three. Rosa enjoys
playing with them: mini table tennis, some kind of game on the floor with what
appear to be jigsaw puzzle bits. They run around like lightning between their
two rooms while showing off their toys to ‘Aunty Rochelle’. I am enchanted by
how cute, lively, energetic and well-behaved they are.
An hour
later, after Rosa brews me a cup of lemony tea, the boys are served their
‘tea’—which is actually their dinner: ham and cheese omelettes with boiled
sweet corn, bread and butter. There is my chocolate to follow for dessert—for
they have been told, as my mother and Rosa’s mother had once told us: No
chocolate until you finish everything on your plate. They are good and obedient
eaters. They do not leave the table, once seated. There is no fighting, no
fussing, no shoving or pushing. I am amazed by the discipline of kids still
under six years old. When they have finished, they start the complicated
process of choosing what they term ‘grown-up chocolate’, i.e. chocolate that
isn’t Smarties! It is pure fun watching them taste each caramel or coconut center
and decide whether or not they like it (they mostly don’t…so Rosa ends up
eating a good half dozen!)
They are
allowed an hour of telly because Aunty Rochelle is staying with them. This
allows Rosa and me to chat about all sorts of things. There is so much to catch
up on as we have not seen each other for about eight years! We have had email
contact, of course, but that is hardly enough. Then, Rosa excuses herself to
start the ‘evening routine’—baths, a story, bedtime. I watch Only Fools and Horses on Gold—it is
hilarious! But when she returns, we get to the kitchen to eat our own dinner.
Matt, a high school teacher of Physics, is detained as it happens to be
parent-teacher night. We miss him, but Rosa puts out almost an entire deli of
cold foods and salad: plates of cold cuts (salami and prosciutto), smoked
salmon, babaganoush, taramasalata, crackers of every sort, Double
Gloucestershire cheese and Camembert, a bag of salad leaves and a case of
cherry tomatoes. There is so much to nibble on with the tiger bread. When we
have had our fill, Matt arrives and join us in a bit of open sandwich with
smoked salmon. He also makes himself a sandwich for the next day as we chat
nineteen to the dozen and Rosa takes a lateish work conference call. I am
absolutely charmed by the company of my friends and truly delighted to be with
them again.
About 10.
15 pm, however, we decide to call it a day. I excuse myself after giving a hand
clearing and putting food away and I go up to my pretty room where I snuggle
into bed after brushing and flossing my teeth in the upstairs bathroom.
It has been
a grand day and I feel deeply happy that I am ending my days in the UK in such
a serene, peaceful and very leisurely sort of way.
Until
tomorrow, cheerio…
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