What Do Spires Dream Of Anyway?

 We're at a Thornhill Park and Ride outside of Oxford, and there's an incredible 1950's blue tile, open plan petrol station, immaculate and still in use. The locals are obviously used to it - they see it every day - but I'm just staring at it's neglected beauty, against a back-drop of an autumnal forest and, necessarily, a motorway. We're going home, and I've never been more raw, hungry homesick for England. 

Yesterday we went to an organ recital at Brasenose College, the sort of thing that goes on somewhere in Oxford most lunchtimes, and for free. Sitting in the old chapel, in the pews, I'm looking up at 500 year old stained glass, breathing in the dust of ages. There are hand-painted flowers on the vaulted ceiling, drawn by some unknown artisan whose fingers have not moved for half a millennium. I was here, is all any artist ever wants to say, and he is still here, if you care to look. I'm listening to Bach while I'm musing on this, and it's enough to make you want to believe in God. And that's how they get you, isn't it? "Yes, religion has been responsible for wars and pogroms and crusades and millions of innocent dead, but without the glorification of God we would lose the major masterpieces of Western art." But that's not really true, is it? I've just come from an exhibition of exquisite Dutch still-life paintings at the Ashmolean and God didn't show up once, unless you can see God in a bowl of fruit scattered with prawns which seems to have been the snack du jour, and I bet some people can. 

The Programme, played by Angela Eade, was as follows: Pange lingua, three versets from Hymnes de l'Eglise by Jean Titelouze, Piece d'Orgue by Hohann Sebastian Bach and, best of all, I know, sacrilege, Toccata from Pieces de Fantaisie Suite No. 2 by Louis Vierne. 

Lovely stuff.  

Last night we went to our favourite Oxford restaurant, No.1 Ship Street, situated at...well, you can work it out. The food was absolutely incredible. The service...less so. The table wasn't ready when we got there, on time, so we were left standing in the doorway for ten minutes. I'd booked the restaurant two weeks earlier, and they'd asked me to confirm we were going to show up the day before, and because the signal was spotty in the the hotel, I'd confirmed we were still intending to come two hours earlier, in person, and they still hadn't put any cutlery on the table. When we were shown to our table, no. 12, our favourite, we had to wait again while while a bloke in jeans and trainers went through a sideboard looking for napkins, blocking the way. This proved to be our waiter. He would later forget Susan's potatoes, making out that because I didn't want any potatoes that somehow overruled her previous order. He then pointed to her duck fritter and said "there's potato in that". There was no potato in the duck fritter. He didn't bring any bread to the table, something he pointed out by saying, "I forgot to bring any bread to your table." He didn't take our coats, something he pointed out by saying, at the end of the meal, "Did I take your coats?" only to find we both still had them. He brought us our wine but then took the wine glasses away "to allow for more space on the table". He was mildly chippy from the moment he appeared. This was a shame, because the last time we were here the waiter was an absolute joy. Just, you know, pleasant. That's all it takes, really. We're not monsters crazed with power. We just want an "bon appetite", which we never got. Regardless of this, the food was absolutely stunning. Here, in boring detail, is what we ate: 

Susan: 

A glass of Classic Cuvee. 

Burrata, roast pumpkin, honey and sage. 

Aylesbury duck, black cabbage, parsnip, duck fritter, green peppercorns and hazelnut

Chocolate Delice

John: 

A glass of Classic Cuvee. 

Potted Brixham crab with Bloody Mary jelly

Pork, pigeon and fois gras pithivier, roast shallot, confit carrot, Madeira jus

The wine was a Lirac, Cotes du Rhone, Moulin Des Clenes, 2021. 

It was delicious. All of it. Beautifully cooked. And, I mean, we had duck and a pie. It was a sort of modern European take on the classic British stodge that Rules serves up on 200 year old silverware for Rumpole of the Bailey. But it was also very cool and very sexy. And very filling. I was satisfied by the delicious meal. I just wish the plates could have been brought from the kitchen to the table by someone who could be arsed to do it. And no, we don't want bants, I don't need people to indulge my shitty dad jokes. Just smile. "Enjoy your meal." "Here are the things you ordered". That would have been nice. 

There were loud posh people at the table next to us. They talked for about two hours about Marti Pellow and Wet Wet Wet. Who needs a floorshow? 

Also, when you have a section on your booking site that's mandatory, and asks "Your reason for booking" and I write "Anniversary", maybe mention it, or don't fucking ask. Because what's the point? Next time I book I'll be writing my reason for celebrating is "Finally getting out of prison! (It was a fit up!)

Returning from Oxford. It's not raining. There are huge blue skies and great smears of white cloud, offsetting the blackened winter trees like splayed, arthritic hands. It's all autumnal magnificence. To the left are chalk hills, dusted with perfect white sheep. The bridges look like trolls hang out under them. The bus shelters are quaint stone grottoes. This is England trying to win me back, digging deep into its slumber-filled romance. Crows fly across the fields, briefly parallel to the coach, as the hills ripple, undulate. Some look unreal, the mammillary crests of iron age forts, long rusted away, the fabricated hilltops Arthur sleeps beneath, pledged to return only when Nigel Farage attempts to dismantle the NHS. This is seductive England, England with its lucky knickers on, dazzling me with don't-wait-up daring. It's the England I love. Green, empty, fringed with yellow/red trees, bumpy dual-carriageways, bracketed by sudden dense woods and, here and there, a rogue office building, just to remind you that people do live here, that they have jobs, they have lives, they do things, unspecified things. 

Green? Roads? Sky? Trees? How is this any different from Ireland? Sheep. Bridges. We have those. It's just different. I'm not sure why. As we circumnavigate yet another roundabout next to a thatched cottage that looks like a Victorian etching, it's just different. I miss it. And I'm here, in it, now. But not for long. 

The coach driver is really nice. 

Distressing to see a union flag on a lamppost. Even here. Even here.