Oxford Bags

Sorry to have been off piste for a while, but at least I've been to Oxford on a bright warm April day, the streets awash with cycling professors and neo-punk girls. Unsuccessfully avoiding one of my favourite bookshops- Blackwell Art & Architecture, I then started to loiter with intent along unfamiliar streets, particularly in North Oxford with its detached houses of red brick and tiles forming the backdrops to billowing pink and white blossomings. Perhaps many are now divided up into flats, but it's still perfectly possible to imagine dons bent over Heroditus in their studies, dutiful wives out on the terraces with Bombay Sapphires, and the ghost of John Betjeman in the evening- "Oh! Fuller's angel-cake, Robertson's marmalade / Liberty lampshade, come shine on us all". And then St.Aldates and a wonderful timber survivor that embellishes the pavement outside the post office. Don't you just love that 'Newspapers and packets"? Only one sight caused me a little grief, as I ranged up my camera in The Broad to snap this row of gabled cottages with their warm stone roof tiles and coloured renders. Visitors to Unmitigated England know of my distaste for the current fad of over decorating buses, but how can the city live with this playschool crayoning? So come on Oxford, this isn't Blackpool; rise up from your sofas and re-runs of Morse and Lewis and demand something that better reflects and complements the beautiful and absorbing sights to be seen from the top deck.

Accidental Art 1

I don't know how big, or little, this series might be,or indeed how soon the next one will appear. But this is the first, a remarkable find pointed out to me on the 30mph sign painted last year on an approach road into Hallaton in Leicestershire. A stray leaf from a nearby ash tree had obviously landed on the road, and the sign maker just covered it over with his thick white paint. Rain, salt and tyre scuffing did the rest, until the leaf finally disappeared, leaving its ghost made from the tarred surface. So of course I'm now out there seeing if it's happened elsewhere, dodging the traffic and not for the first time on my hands and knees in the middle of the road.

Creature Feature No 9

Just a quickie here. We went up to Lyveden New Bield on Sunday, and ended-up having teas and hot chocolates out on a lawn. They gave us wooden sticks as stirrers, and a kind lady came out with a tin of sweets. Which was very nice. The Boys soon ran off to continue a sword fight on one of garden mounts, leaving this behind on the iron table. I thought: how good is that, even down to the mop of hair made by a piece of uneaten (strangely) chocolate.

Unexpected Alphabets No 15

Wandering around Islington on Wednesday evening I chanced upon this cafe in Essex Road. I am now relieved to know that 'S&M' stands for 'Sausage & Mash', having initially thought that a cappacino might be accompanied by a good thrashing. Or, tantalisingly withheld. But what of course really took my attention was that lovely panel advertising ices at post war (or even pre war) prices. And that marvellous mosaic entrance with 'refreshments' underfoot. I'd bring all my luncheon vouchers here.

Major Minor

On our way down to Bigbury and Burgh Island on Sunday, in the glorious county of Devon, we came across a row of cars and vans incongruously parked in a field. " Hare coursing" I said immediately, but on drawing nearer we saw figures in the wide landscape hoovering the soil with metal detectors. But on the way back, (after malty Pilchard Bitter and cold Sauvignon on the island), all the vehicles had gone except this lonely Morris Minor. We drove slowly by, and of course two miles further on I said "I really should have photographed that Morris in the field". A turn at a crossroads, a drive back up the winding narrow South Hams lane, a very uncoordinated vault over a farm gate, and here it is.

Loneliness of the Cross Country Runner

At last, a messenger arrives hotfoot from Bloomsbury with an advance copy of Cross Country. This is the latest from the typing room at Ashley Towers, and so celebrations are in order for the next few weeks. I shall now be locking myself away with the book, my only company twenty Capstan Full Strength and a bottle of Baillie Nicholl Jarvie. I shall be like a dog with a new bone, growling when anybody comes up the spiral staircase to the turret room.

The areas covered in my Cross Country ramblings are: Southwest Cumbria, Herefordshire & Shropshire, North Norfolk, Romney Marsh & Dungeness, North Cotswolds, Essex Estuaries, Wiltshire-Dorset Borders, North Cornwall Coast and High Leicestershire (of course).

Melancholy Talk

This week I've been photographing the remarkable stone-built town of Stamford in Lincolnshire, for a project I'll talk more about later in the spring. In the remains of the day I found myself at the west end of the town, and in particular on this pathway that runs between a stream and the water meadows that stretch out to the River Welland. It's called Melancholy Walk, and is in fact a raised causeway that ends at a few acres of allotments and an isolated cottage. Standing there I was taken back to a spring evening long ago, when aged about three I was taken down here by my two older girl cousins who lived nearby on Tinwell Road. They held my hands and patiently let me toddle on between them until we reached a gateway that's just out of sight to the left of this photograph. We tried to traverse an area of deep black mud churned up by cattle, in an attempt to cross the meadows, but I got stuck fast, my little wellington boots slowly sinking into the ooze. They pulled and pulled, to no avail. And then a man in a raincoat and flat cap appeared, cycling slowly down the causeway either to the allotments or the cottage. "Excuse me mister", the elder girl called out, "But our cousin has got stuck in the mud". He didn't even turn and look, but just shouted over his shoulder "Bugger off".