MicahJohn

Wow! summarizing Ron or the tour he gives is hard.
Ron greeted us at the start of the tour and set about learning all of our names. He seemed a very amiable sort of chap. We started off by getting the history (and pre-history) of the tour. This part of the tour never really ended. Throughout the day we continued to get filled in on the various difficulties he and the tour have faced over the years. Some very interesting and informative historical anecdotes centered around Ron’s childhood experiences with C. S. Lewis’ step son Doug Gresham. Ron clearly had a childhood connection with Lewis, and particularly with Lewis’ property.

The first stop on the tour was the Eagle and Child (Bird and Baby) pub where the Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, etc) met. Next we stopped at the college where C. S. Lewis had trained after enlisting for WWI. Across the way where castings of dinosaur tracks laid across a lawn.

Next we went past Lewis’ first residence in Oxford en route to Magdalen College where Lewis was granted a Fellowship teaching English Literature. Right next door was Magdalen College School, the school attended by Lewis’ step sons.

Heading out to Headington we saw Tolkien’s old home, Joy Gresham’s first house in the Oxford area, the hospital where Joy died, and a shark.

Also in Headington was Holy Trinity church. There we saw the pew where the Lewis brothers sat, the plot where they were buried, the signatures of Third Day in the guest book, and the grave of Janie King Moore (the mother of Lewis’ close friend during the war; Lewis cared for her until her death).

We wrapped up our tour by checking out the outside of the Kilns (the Lewis home) and the reserve that used to be Lewis backyard. The little woodland, with the little pond was very peaceful.

While retrieving our vehicles after the tour we saw two tractors driving up the street in Oxford. Amazing!

Yesterday we went to Salisbury and saw the Cathedral, the majority of which was built between 1220 and 1258. It is really hard to imagine how something so large, something so tall could be built in such a short time without the heavy machinery used today.

Just in case that was not enough to marvel at for one day, we drove a short way North to Stonehenge. I had not realized that the stones were carved to lock together. The large upright stones had bumps carved in the top of them and the lintels had pockets carved into them. On the outer ring, the sides of the lintels were also carved to lock into each other.

Slightly less impressive than the building of the Salisbury Cathedral or of Stonehenge, was my driving without accident on the left side of the road while changing gears with my left hand.

This morning Nathanael and I went for another run. The one footpath we took proved to be nothing more than a pair of gates at either end of a field. There wasn’t any worn down dirt path connecting the two gates. All this to say that I got stung by a stinging nettle. Prior to Nathanael pointing them out to me I had no idea what they look like. They are basically fuzzy mint with an attitude. Fortunately, by the end of the run the plant’s attitude had more or less given up its claim to my leg.

After breakfast we drove into London to see Valerie Strite. Getting into London on a Monday morning is a bit more of a challenge than getting into London on a Sunday morning.

Valerie took us by the Trinity Center (Operation Mobilization’s London headquarters). Mom, Nathanael, and I have all spent time there in Muslim evangelism training. It was fun to see the progress they are making on their building. After a PB&J lunch we headed over to the British Library.

The British Library currently has a special display of a collection of some of the very oldest manuscripts of the Torah, the New Testament, and the Koran. Obviously the British Library was very politically correct in their presentation. Still, the manuscripts were . . . were . . . what’s a good word? were fascinating, haunting, brilliant. There is something deep about seeing something that has existed since the fourth century, something that represents hours upon hours of time invested copying a text by hand in beautiful script. The entire text of a Koran belonging to a Sultan was done in gold leaf. The large shining script filled seven volumes.

The British Library also had a copy of the Magna Carta. and some of the writings of Handel, Da Vinci, Lewis Carrol, and The Beatles, (too name a few) on display. It is hard to explain what seeing a piece of paper written on by one of these people is like.

At the British Library we noticed that one of our vehicles had something of a tumor in it. There was a golf ball sized bump on the side of the front left wheel. After driving from the Library to an Arab part of London for dinner, we noticed the blister on the tire had grown. While Dad was on the phone with AA (the Brits only have double A), the tire popped. Tires popping are loud.

While waiting for triple double A to show up, we had an amazing dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. Double AA timed their arrival very nicely with the end of dinner. Dad and Judah hurried over to the car. By the time the rest of the mob finished our meandering, the whole thing was getting close to finished.

We’re now on our drive home. I’m tired. This post is done.

Dear Reader

Sorry for neglecting you. I have had limited internet time and have made updating the church site my priority. I am working on setting up a way to post to both blogs simultaneously.  We’ll see what happens. Below you should find some fresh postings of back articles.

This morning Nathanael and I went for a run. It was beautiful. Morning mist, new flowers, rabbits, deer. The dirt path was nice for running.

We drove into London this morning for church. The bad news was Asher was pretty sick so we left him and Nathanael out at our place of lodging. The good news was the larger of the two rented cars had fold out seats in the hatchback so the seven of us were able to ride in one vehicle. This made parking easier.

I enjoyed the first sermon. The worship was good considering I didn’t know most of the songs and the musical accompaniment was of the canned variety. The second sermon took me by surprise, though by the time it actually started I had realized that the first sermon had been Sunday School. There just hadn’t been any pause or change of scenery to separate the two.

A lot of the congregation was from Africa. There were people there from Eritrea and Nigeria. I don’t know where else.

This week we are staying in the Mapledurham Almshouse. This afternoon we went and looked at the Mapledurham House and Waterwheel.

The waterwheel, which I am told is the last operational one on the Thames, was really cool. The water diverted from the river was then further divided to flow on both sides of the mill house. The one side had the mill wheel in it. The other side could be blocked up varying amounts to adjust the flow to the wheel.


The Mapledurham House was HUGE! Add to the adjoining stables and chapel and you’ve got a lot of brick.


Also near the house was a walled in vegetable garden. The brick wall was at least eight feet tall and enclosed over half an acre.