Privileges

Took our son, Paul, to Oxford for a week's course he's doing. It's being held at Wolfson College, which is right beside the River Cherwell. 

We walked to the Cherwell Boathouse, where they hire out punts, and then found out that if we wanted to walk on the footpath, we needed to go back to Wolfson and use their bridge (pictured) to cross to the other side, which we duly did, and had a quintessentially English walk down to the University Parks and back - swans and coots and long-tailed tits, and water meadows and beeches and ashes, and colourful hanging baskets and Pimms for your picnic basket, and private schools and rugger pitches and a bench dedicated to Tolkein (1892-1973), everything just oozing privilege and seclusion.

And we wondered at what all this has produced in our public, communal life as a nation...

Gratefuls:
- the privilege of being here to help Paul with transport and chat over a little of the required reading for the course on the way
- the privilege of having Zion and Allegra after school till Deb got home from her MA course, high adventure was had
- including the privilege of making a delicious pie with the blackberries we picked yesterday, using the Very Easy One-Crust recipe from Delia Smith's Summer Collection, ideal when you have a 5 and 3 yr old making the pastry!

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more responsibility you have." ~ Noam Chomsky