We’re Back!

Our nomadic lifestyle seems to be back. As dictated by the Schengen visa rules, we are balancing our time between the Schengen Countries and not. So a trip to the UK was in order. 

We wound down our stay in Monção and bid a temporary farewell to some new friends. We vow to be back and as proof, I am still maintaining my streak of Portuguese lessons on Duolingo. Living on the border of two European countries is just ideal in my opinion: Portuguese lunch and Spanish dinner.

We have reconnected with our Oxfordshire friends and their pets that we think of as our own. We have the run of the 3600 sf half timber and thatched roof house while they are in Bonaire. This is our third time at this same house. We have three cats to care for. We had three before, but a different three. And two large dogs: one elderly chocolate labrador – Tommy,  and one exquisite bull mastiff – Peggy. 

If you think “equisite” is an odd adjective for a bull mastiff, you are in for more surprise. This dog is a feast of the paradoxical. I mean she is a bull mastiff, an intimidating dog. But she is a scaredy cat. The slightest oddity or loud noise scares her frozen. And there is nothing that can move a bull mastiff that doesn’t want to move. She digs in like an elephant. Her head is the size, shape, and roughly color of a basketball, with the neck necessary to hold it up. Peggy has the muzzle of a walrus: dark, thick, and rough. But in all that head, and giant mouth, she cannot store her tongue. Her long pink tongue is ever escaping those thick lips. It whips back behind her when she runs (seldom, but she does run). For all her largeness and miss-sizing, she has a femininity about her that is undeniable. She walks like a swimsuit model. Yes, she does – you will just have to trust me on that. Her feet are delicate for her size, and she treats them delicately. Peggy has a litany of noises in her repertoire, most of them disgusting. She thoroughly utilizes every noise maker she has. But there is no better cuddly companion than peggy. She loves attention and is very generous with her affection. 

My going on makes it seem as though Peggy is my favorite. Well maybe she is, but not be that far; I love all the dogs we have cared for. Tommy is everything you would expect from a labrador, and they are some of everyone’s favorites. Peggy is just easy to write about. 

UK is almost back to normal post pandemic. Testing is abundant, covid is still everywhere; but nearly everyone is vaccinated, so bad covid is nearly non-existent. Covid here is now managed like the flu or a winter cold. Portugal was largely the same. Both these countries have a high vaccination rate. Portugal has the second highest rate of any country in the world; only the UAE is higher. Spain is in the top four. Why does the US have a travel advisory to Spain and Portugal? I have no idea. Going to the USA from New Zealand was so much scarier for us than coming to Portugal and the UK. 

The other day we spent time in Oxford. You know how towns have a vibe? Oxford’s vibe is exactly like you would expect. Centuries of scholars have trod those lanes. The first vaccines (and the latest) developed here. Some great stories by authors including J.R.R. Tolkien, Oscar Wilde, Levis Carrol. The architecture is fantastic: even Hitler thought so, he directed bombers to avoid it during the war. So the yellow stone buildings still exist as they did for centuries. There is a great collection of eclectic museums. A really good natural history museum. The Pitt Rivers museum is a collection of Victorian era interests, including a collection of shrunken heads. A museum of history of science that houses early astrolabes and microscopes, fascinating to anyone with a science bend. And of note, it has one of Einstein’s chalk boards, still with his calculation for the density of the earth. The Ashmoldeum of course is a standard museum with everything from the earliest art to modern pictures. And the Bodleian Library. For some reason this library has the right to one copy of every book published since 1662. 

We capped our day with lunch at the Turf Tavern. This centuries-old pub used to be a shack outside the city walls. This would have been the haunt of the folks not really welcome inside those walls: outlaws and the really poor. The shack still exists against the city walls, it is now the ladies room. The pub now sprawls over countless rooms and a few scattered patios.It is a famous place for a lot of visitors, but my favorite story is this is where, while at Oxford studying as a Rhodes Scholar, Bill Clinton reputedly did not inhale. The Turf Tavern is now a Greene King pub, which we usually skip. 

You have probably heard that the English and Irish pub culture is under threat. Between drunk driving laws discouraging this culture and just the nature of economics, the quintessential pub is going the way of the dinosaur. There are a few large corporations buying up the pubs and operating them largely as usual, but with the markings of a large corporation: uniformity in menus for example. Greene King is the largest of these. Nothing wrong with a Greene King pub, we would just prefer to visit the few independent pubs still around. 

A look back to our first time here in the Thatched Barn see Oxford for a Stint. And our second stay, Is the Kite named after the Kite