What follows is a series of journal entries based upon my ten-day experience in Oxford and beyond. I trust it is not boring – that it entertains, amuses, and perhaps discourages travelling abroad, which has made me vulgar. But I don’t mind that since I’m no saint and feel deliciously ‘worldly’ about it all. England’s not so bad. If it not for the intense home-longing, I would stay on indefinitely. But since that is not possible, and Amsterdam awaits (with all it’s weed smokers and brothels), I comfort myself with the knowing that I can still write despite all that’s wrong with the world. And so, dear reader, please enjoy these ridiculous sentiments and comical assertions contained herein.   

Yours Truly,

An Australian in Oxford        

20 November 2022 – Sloten, Amsterdam

Leaving for England tomorrow morning. Am quite nervous and can already see myself sitting in that plane a total wreck and anxious as all get-out. Don’t know why everything like this has to be so hard. However, I am determined to be sane, calm, and legendary. I didn’t come all this way to be a loser.

21 November 2022, 12pm – Luton Airport, London

Left Amsterdam at 10:30 this morning. After fifty mins of anxiety, I arrived in Luton. Felt better and had a coffee. Spoke to my brother over the phone – felt very conscious of my Australian accent and didn’t want to talk too loudly. Noticed Christmas carols playing over the speakers. Thought about buying a newspaper but didn’t.       

Overseas travel is a weird experience. One doesn’t have a place, so to speak, and it’s a strange feeling. Being outside one’s own country is a little like being out of themselves, completely in the rough. Overseas travel is difficult, and I comfort myself with the knowing that the difficult things are often worth the most in life. Like the poet Rilke says: ‘Always hold to what is difficult.’ Also comforting myself with thoughts of William Hatfield, the Englishman who came to Australia with next to nothing; any of the wandering cowboys I’ve met in the books; and, of course, my stalwart bookfriends – always dignified, collected, and very, very smooth. These people (indeed they are people to me) are coming with me to Oxford, to England, and across the world. It’s in times like these when I’m glad I have an imagination – would be lonely and frightening without one. Still, am looking forward to the day when I can get off the plane in Adelaide and walk through the arrival gate to family, friends, and familiarity.

6:00pm – Oxford  

So, here I am – after much waiting at airports, walking through the rain, and bus rides. The satisfaction of being out on my own is somewhat dampened by my reliance on Dad’s financial support. I foolishly left Australia with not enough money in the bank. Oh well, the parents are so forgiving and gracious that they’ve gifted me with travel funds. I don’t even have to pay interest. Will pay it back as soon as I can – namely, when I’m older, wiser, and (preferably) richer.

Passing the misty landscape on the bus to Oxford, something struck me as familiar about it, about the feeling of the place. I wondered if it was long memory. So wonderfully strange and unexpected – similar to déjà vu, only more homey and not a repeat of anything. It was like I belonged here and always had. The feeling disappeared by the time I got to Oxford. At the bus station, the radio was playing ‘Valerie’ (a song I can’t stand) and there was nothing at all familiar about anything. After much deliberation about where to go, etc. I left the bus station and walked towards High Street. It was raining and I had to buy an umbrella at a chemist. Glad I did because I would’ve been absolutely soaked otherwise. Can’t believe this is where so many of the Greats studied and wrote and thought great thoughts. But I’m only a little Australian girl with a tiny mind and a tiny personality – is it normal for the world to make one feel so small?    

22 November 2022

Walked into Oxford today. Went to the site of the first coffee house in England (apparently) and ordered an expensive coffee thinking it was going to be something fancy and that I should ‘treat myself’. Was just an ordinary coffee (in a plunger at that!), though advertised as ‘full-bodied and deep, laced with a nutty flavour’. Had an unpleasant sensation that I’d fallen for some clever marketing. Tried to adopt the aura of a coffee connoisseur to make up for this and failed miserably. Felt self-conscious. Sat there for a while and felt very alone. Went into a couple of bookshops and went to see Christ Church. The sun sets at 3:30 up here, so watched it from my bedroom window after buying biscuits and a can of baked beans to have for dinner.    

23 November 2022

Great lift in spirits today. I think it’s partly to do with reading A Greif Observed last night (which seems to cure loneliness very well), and partly to do with the fact that a big black cloud came and dumped a heap of rain just before sunset this afternoon. I think England’s best when it’s raining. And today something has changed in me, so that nearly all my fear is gone, and I feel strangely comforted. Perhaps it’s something in the air, or maybe something in myself? In A Greif Observed Lewis described an experience he had that was close to a visit from his late wife. It made me wonder if death is actually quite different to what I’ve thought it was all along. Lewis mentioned the ‘business-like manner and cheerful intimacy’ of his experience – a strength of will, a pure intellect coming to meet his own. What if dying was a greater freedom than we’ve previously thought?      

Lunched at a café where half the menu was unavailable. After a soggy haloumi wrap and a weak coffee, walked to a nearby park. Watched dogs chase squirrels; found delight in the squirrels; felt the wind brushing the old leaves away and calling in the rain; got caught in the rain going home, which, of all the beauty I experienced today, was my favourite. Before the rain though, there came a gentle hush (the sort that always precedes a heavy shower) and I felt my loneliness grow sharp – then came an assurance that ‘everything would be alright’ and a rush of independence so that the terror of loneliness shrunk into something smaller than it had ever been, shrunk behind the sheer bigness of the world. It was almost like my experiences so far was saying, ‘And what of Loneliness? Perhaps Loneliness was never as terrifying a thing as you thought it was. Maybe all it wanted of you was friendship?’      

24 November 2022

Ashmolean Museum today where I went to an exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite sketches. I think artists had more of a relationship with literature back ‘in the day’. They seemed to. Also think they had more respect (and every other virtue under the sun). The Pre-Raphaelite’s captured the female essence beautifully – their works have refreshed my mental image of womanhood. Wonderful to see some of Ruskin’s work. Bought a postcard for 75p with one of Ruskin’s sketches on it – the Apse of the Duomo.  

27 November 2022

Drove out to the Cotswolds on Friday. Hired a stupid little Fiat 500 – absolutely awful to drive. Putting the thing in reverse required lifting a latch under the gear knob. Took me ages to figure this out. Googled it eventually and thought how unnecessary it was to design such an idiotic contraption. Unless I’m missing something, it seems a complete waste of time. The electric window button was on the dashboard (nowhere near the door like it’s supposed to be!). This obviously made toll gates tricky. Came up to a toll gate and, not knowing how to put the window down, was about to open my door when the man at the gate started saying something and indicating his head up the road. He had a menacing moustache and bright grey eyes.  

“One in front paid for you.”

“Sorry?” I said loudly through the window, feeling ridiculous.

“One in front…”

I got the idea and thanked him.

“Put your window down, luv,” I heard him yell as I drove off.  

Cotswolds were lovely though – and just that. Lovely. Not wild, simmering, majestic, or transcendently beautiful. Just pleasant, lovely, pretty. I can see how the British are shaped by their landscape, indeed, how any people are shaped by the physical aspects of the country where they live. Take Australia for example: one can’t adhere to convention for long when the sun and the breeze and the dusk drown it out. You can see it in Americans – I think maybe that’s one thing America and Australia has in common. I’m sure the Scots have it too, and some of the Irish. An unconventional side that comes from living and building against wild nature. Maybe the English had it once upon a time… But back to the Cotswolds. Started in Great Rissington where I walked through farmland and woods, over muddy fields, across meadows, and along a stream. Despite the prettiness it didn’t quite feel ‘wild’ enough for me. It was too tame. There was the constant sound of traffic, one could see the cars on the horizon; planes overhead; footprints in the mud; something banging not too far away. Of course, all this is still present when I walk at home but maybe it’s something in the breeze, in the air, in the way the hills lie that makes it all feel distant and other-worldly. On to Bibury where I stopped for lunch. Suddenly felt aimless. Had soup with bread and a coffee. Headed out on my walk, which had more of the ‘wild’ in it than the first – enough to really enjoy it and breath deep and imagine things. After coming out of the woods along a narrow path, I crossed a valley and walked up a big hill into a gathering of trees where autumn leaves floundered about and covered the ground with red. That was very beautiful. I stopped at the wooden gate, turned around, and leaned on it like I’d been doing it every day for years. On the way back followed a windy desolate track (or what felt like a desolate track), and hints of wildness played around with me there too. But then came the houses, the people with their dogs, more planes, etc. Drove back as the sun lay pinky gold on the gentle hills and the bare, misty trees. By the time I got to Oxford it was dark. Filled up with petrol, then drove through the city during peak hour to drop the car back, nearly cleaning up a cyclist and two pedestrians in the process (not too bad an effort if I do say so myself). Was glad to get on the bus for home after that.