We have just passed the halfway point of our British portion of Roger’s sabbatical. Suddenly, we both have the sense of the time flying by and the intensity of our schedule increasing tremendously. We realize that we are double-timing—trying to fit in all the university/consulting options for Rog and to see all the family and friends as well. So far, so great! But there are days when one or the other of us feels completely out of breath.

This past weekend was spent (well spent!) with our Simpson family relatives. Gillian, Roger’s little sister, is a teacher and this week is half-term holiday. So we joined her and her husband Dominic and her younger son, Matt (also a teacher on half-term) in visiting her older son, Ed, and his wife Claire in their new house just outside of Oxford.

It was such a warm, comfortable visit, with the leisure to sit and talk for hours. I’ve never had the luxury of such long, in depth conversations with my nephews, now grown to be these wonderful young men, so full of ideas and exciting futures. It is a delight to get to know Claire better. She is one of a very few women engineers working on the aerodynamics of Formula-One cars, presently working for Mercedes Benz. The men watched both British football and American.

We wandered around Oxford to see Said Business School, where Edward works, and also the old beautiful colleges of the university. Said is especially interesting in a place like Oxford. The story is that Said, the donor, wanted to give mega-megabucks to Oxford to found a business school and they turned him down! It was felt that “business” wasn’t the right fit with Oxford’s esteemed intellectual identity. When at last Mr. Said’s munificence was accepted, they insisted that the school be built across the canal from the original colleges. I don’t know if this is an urban legend or at least partly true. I’ve heard it from several sources, so there might be some substance to it! At any rate, the school is hugely successful, very contemporary, and very impressive. It is so new that rooms still smell of new wood.

We wandered the town, in and out of buildings out of history and legend and went out to a great pub in the evening. Sunday we visited Blenheim Palace, the seat of the Spencer-Churchills, the Dukes of Marlborough. Blenheim was a reward to John Churchill for winning the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 and is one of the grandest palaces in England. The 11^th Duke had died about 10 days before and our visit day was, fortunately, the first day that the palace had been reopened to the public after the funeral and mourning period. Blenheim, as all Newporters know, was restored in the late 1890s and at the turn of the 20^th century, with the $10 million dowry of Consuelo Vanderbilt when she was married off to the 9^th Duke of Marlborough in one of the biggest “cash for title” deals in Gilded Age history. It was not a happy match. But I enjoyed the three lovely portraits of Consuelo as the 9^th Duchess that hang in the house.

At the other end of the art scale, there was an exhibition of installations inside Blenheim by Ai Weiwei, the dissident Chinese artist. The exhibits were startling and certainly kept one’s attention. Sea crabs scuttled around in apartments elegantly furnished with 18^th century chairs and portraits. Gilded beasts leered at the formal dining table settings. Photographs of every iconic site for global tourists were hung askew and punctuated down the center with a FU middle finger. It was all deeply, and obviously, subversive of everything Blenheim stood for—of the “meaning” of Blenheim Palace. What astounded me wasn’t the installations themselves—it was trying to figure out who on staff at this monster 18^th century monument to power and aristocracy would give permission? invite? an artist like Weiwei to create tableaus that undercut the Blenheim experience in such an amazing way. We kept saying to each other: “Don’t they get it?”

We feasted that evening back at the house on the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, possibly the very best part of a great day.

Our journey back took us the long way through London to Greenwich, and we were very glad we had Matt in the car with us to navigate! While he took off to his college to catch up on classroom work, we were able to see our niece Charlotte and her little son, Oscar, who comes up in a few days on his first birthday.

By the time we got back to Cranleigh, we were in need of laundry and sleep. But we are off again tomorrow . . .