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yesterday near Dartmeet, the hills were much more golden, the color of the gorse, as there was more of it there admixed with the heather. Drive to Mortonhampstead, passing the pony center again, then up the A382 to the B3219, up the A3072 to Coppelstone, then home on the A377 and along the network of back roads past Morchard Bishop to Wigham.
    It’s still quite hot and bright, drought weather instead of the more usual English weather, and so we take a swim, joined by the new guests, the promised-to-be “quiet” English couple, who turn out to be a pleasant middle-aged English couple called Eva and Bill (he somewhat older than her; he remembers being wakened as a small child in the middle of the night when the news of VJ Day came in, and hearing all the boats in the harbor sounding their whistles—he was a retail buyer of china, who had bought plates for the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth; she was an English teacher until her recent retirement, blonde, still pretty), and later by Steve and Dawn (Steve obviously somewhat apprehensive about the upcoming birth; talks uneasily about the birthing classes they are taking, hoping that the baby doesn’t come until they graduate), and then by Zulu, who splashes into the pool, swims around for awhile, and then tries to get out by the pool ladder, slipping and scrambling and whining, but finally clawing her way out (amusing to me that Dawn is concerned about the legal consequences of the French smoking, but doesn’t seem to care about the dog swimming in the pool with the guests, which in the States would almost certainly be enough of a Board of Health violation to shut them down). Zulu shakes herself dry, and then pounces on the cat when it comes wandering by, biting it ferociously—not really hurting it, but obviously annoying it. The cat makes protesting noises, and then finally gets fed up when Zulu won’t stop and starts to fight back; they disappear into the distance, still fighting and barking and spitting.
    Dinner is again served at the big wooden table that night, but this time with just us and the English couple: chicken in a brownish sauce with bits of mushroom and bacon, red cabbage with juniper berries, roasted potatoes, squash (or marrows, as they’re called here) in tomato sauce—not tremendously good, but there’s lots of it, served family style in big bowls, and it’s considerably better than the night before; you get the feeling that they’re trying a bit harder now that the French, who they obviously didn’t much like, are gone. Pleasant dinner conversation with Eva and Bill during dinner and in the sitting room afterward, mostly about the inadequacies of various educational systems. Then to bed.

    Wednesday, August 16 th — Kelmscot Manor, Fallowfields & Kingston Bagpuise
    Up about 7:20. When I go down to the gravel terrace before breakfast to write up these notes, Zulu comes prancing up with her food bowl in her jaws and thrusts it into my lap; do you think she’s trying to tell me something? A pleasant breakfast with Bill and Eva, over which we linger too long—we’re getting a late start today, and it’s a bad time for it, since today we also face the longest uninterrupted drive of the trip, from Devon almost to Oxford.
    Drag our suitcases down to the car, pack up, and set off, on the road about 10:40. Take the A377 to Credition, then the A3072 to the M5. Take the M5 to the M4. It’s amazing how much quicker travel is on the M roads than it is on even the A roads in rural areas like Cornwall and Devon—it only takes us a bit more than two hours to get up near the Oxford area once we hit the M roads, and it takes us an hour just to get to where we pick up the M5 in the first place from Morchard Bishop; some of our journeys around Cornwall and Devon actually took as long or longer than it takes us to get from Exeter to Oxford.
    Get off the main road a few miles from Kingston Bagpuise, about ten miles from Oxford, and, after some difficulty,