So...I just finished 3 weeks at Oxford. I touched greatness in every sense of the word: Christmas concert at Christchurch, a tour of the Bodleian, and a host who just got knighted (Darcey Bussell, 20-year principal dancer at the Royal Ballet). Daily walks down the Thames path. etc etc. I loved it, but was disconcerted by the amount of trash and graffiti EVERYWHERE. Now I'm in Macclesfield, which Wikipedia says is both the least cultured and the happiest town in the UK. I wonder if there's a correlation?
Here I am agreeably surprised to not see garbage or graffiti: Oxford was ridiculously trashed, pretty much everywhere. I understood the bridges and side paths, but even in the heart of the University there were bottles in window wells, gloves perched on railing spikes, and crisp bags in the gutters.
Macclesfield, on the other hand, is clean and organized. The outdoor mall is clear of bums and trash, full of people going about their business. When I stopped in at the Quilt Box to look at yarn, I met a dark-skinned young man with a leather bag full of quilting supplies and a swatch of Tunisian-style knitting hanging from a crochet hook. He was voluble about the store and his new skill, and altogether unexpected. I can't think when I ever saw a young man in a knitting store. Or an old one for that matter, other than the town drunk coming in for a candy bar in Los Ojos.
On the other hand, there is so much to do in Oxford, and all in walking distance. I'm in Macclesfield until Jan 14 and plan to take the bus to Manchester and to Buxton. Probably not Liverpool. I see listings for many P&P sites, but most are closed for the winter and not really accessible by public transport anyway. Dammit. And I'll miss the snowdrop season. Still, it's a pretty town, and there's a canal to walk along. I may sneak up to Alan Garner's house and look wistfully at it. I had no idea he lived here. I read The Owl Service when I was in junior high, and here my host has a signed copy of a Garner book with a 2012 first publishing date. So, he's still writing! I devoured it (it's only 149 pages, but very a very complicated read), and I would love to explore the places he mentions, not least Jodrell Bank telescope.
Actually, I might not want to see this area through Garner's eyes. When I was in Oxford I was exploring Gaudy Night locations (and re-reading it at the same time). Somehow the previous expectations both enhanced and detracted from the experience. It was great to put a face on it, as it were, but that was then and this is now. One must either experience the past or the present, and really the present is all that's possible. One cannot have nostalgia for a time that was only experienced fictionally, can one? Instead, I felt wistful that I could not see scholars in their gowns, bicycle up the high, climb Magdalen tower on May Day, punt along the Cherwell, listen to the University Sermon, and overlook the spires from the roof of the Bodleian. The museums and streets were lovely to explore, and the Thames path was endlessly fascinating, but they were less about the University and more about England and winter. The feelings did not meet in any real way.
Here I have Jane Austen and Alan Garner as my guides, and that may be equally distracting. I won't be feeling the depth of the mythology or experiencing the country community of Georgian England. I'll just be rambling on the surface. I wonder why Bath didn't strike me that way? Perhaps because Bath caters to the Jane-ites and presents itself almost as a living museum. Also, it too is walk-able. I just don't want to drive anywhere. I am becoming a recluse, I think.
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