Goring-on-Thames

Goring - our destination

On Monday, Doco and I took our first train ride, from Oxford south to Goring – half an hour straight down the Thames – for a visit with my Watney second-cousin, Fiona Sutcliffe, and her Irish hydrologist husband John (twinkly, like Seamus Smyth).  Fiona is the cousin who began Celtic harp shortly before I did!  Until this fall, she and I had only met twice, decades ago.  But in October, on a  visit to her grand-daughter Rachel (doing a MSc in Zoology at UBC), she came to Wiltshire Street for a harping lunch.  And now (after an historic "field trip" around Goring, a delicious lunch and much conversation) a brief taste of harp in her home.  I wish we were closer!

Doco and "field-trip" leader, Fiona, on the Thames footpath at Goring Gap,

where the ancient west-to-east "Ridgeway" crossed the Thames

great blue heron on the Thames

Goring lock, quiet in December

over the mill-race

15th(?) century flint barn (most of the village is post-railway, 1880s)

      

a Gillison cousin day in Oxford

Ellen, Angus, Molly, Ben

A Sunday afternoon gathering of all the Gillison tribe at Douglas and Candy's in Oxford.  Nineteen of us to a pulled-pork lunch (Nicola's pig).  Harris cousins: Walford - Cole's second cousin - and wife Sue (from the edge of Exmoor), Jenny with husband James and sons William and Ben (from London), Fiona (from Bath), Nicola with husband Tony and sons Matthew and Angus (from Cheddar), and Fran Clemmow (Walford's sister, from near Cambridge).  LOTS of talk - and food.  Amazing to have had everyone able to come.

As the lid was lifting off the house, Fiona took the sprouts to the park near Ellen's school for chilly but lively football.

William, Molly, Matthew, Ellen

 Fiona (with the fancy footwork) and Molly

the gang

Douglas on Oxford Hawks 5

… and was voted Most Valuable Player for two games in a row (the MVP gets to write up the game report!)

like son like father - see harristhomson.blogspot.ca for Oct 6

Thomson on Oxford Hawks 2

Lots of running!  The coach seems to have Thomson charging up and down the field for much of the game (sometimes with the ball).  So, what with the Oxford Hawks 2 (men), the Oxford Hawks Under 18, and now the Oxfordshire County Under 17, not to mention the almost-daily 8 km bike ride to the field (there and back) and to school (same part of town), Thomson is fit and, I would say, happy!

to "the Perch" at Binsey

Molly stayed home from school with a bad cold.  Candy decided that the best "cure" was a 3-km walk north along the Thames Footpath to Binsey and the Perch for a pub lunch - Doco, Candy, Molly and I -(and 3 km back).  Turns out it was (except for a sharp rain-shower about 2 km along).  Birds for Meo and goats for Molly, and a yummy lunch in a wood-fired pub for us all.

Molly and St. Margaret of Antioch.  Turns out the "treacle well" from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party is in the churchyard - we didn't know - but we did enjoy the goats.

a gaggle of sillies

I think even Colin and Douglas
 can see my bird in this photo ...

… but, then, English robins are obligingly tame

Pitt Rivers Museum

Haida raven transformer mask, carved by Charles Edenshaw in about 1880 - a valued part of the BC West Coast Native collection in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford

human face seen when raven's head is open

raven's head seen from the outside

Not great photos, but when Doco and I were in the National Gallery in Ottawa last Easter we saw a photo of this mask, alongside a recent copy by Haida carver Robert Davidson.  The copy lacked the wistful expression of the Edenshaw mask, and we were keen to see the original when here.  It happened that my cousin Fiona arranged for the Canadian curator of the Americas aboriginal collection, Laura Peers, to meet us and talk to us about the mask and the interactions between the Pitt Rivers Museum and the present-day Haida.  Lots to think about.  

Iffley-on-Thames

On our fifth morning, Doco and I headed south along the Thames footpath, starting from  the Folly Bridge (near "home"), with Iffley as our destination.  Douglas and Candy biked along the footpath to join us at the church and for a pub lunch at the "Prince of Wales".

First sight - the Oxford colleges' boat-houses, home of the rowing crews.  Before 8am each morning, as I returned from walking with Molly to her bus in the early dawn, this patch of river was full of "fours" and "eights", with lights on bow and stern.  Now, at 10am, the rowers were presumably all at their studies - the river was empty, but for one solitary rower.

Second sight - a colourful canal boat  

Third sight (as we neared Iffley Lock) - a parade of defending geese ...  

… but not much canal-boat traffic through the Lock in December

Iffley on a hill - a picturesque village, known for its Norman church (1170 AD) ...

… not only a church but also a fortress - see the slits

round window, rounded arches ...

… with bird beaks surrounding

Romanesque (Norman) interior

"Tree of Life" by John Piper (1995)

then, lovely colours in a tiled village roof

and another running of the "goose-gauntlet" on the return walk