Holiday Weekend in the UK

This Monday is the annual "May Bank Holiday" which means that David has a three-day weekend. The holiday doesn't celebrate anything, but is just a spring holiday on which the banks - and most everything else - close. There is also one in September, so they end up being British equivalents of Memorial Day and Labor Day.

So we are going to take a mini-break, as Bridget Jones would say! Since most everyone else is going south to Brighton or Cornwall, we are probably going to head in a general northwesterly direction towards Hereford and central Wales.

We are also happy to leave for the weekend because our building has had no hot water since Wednesday. There is apparently a leak in the hot water pipe. Yesterday they dug a hole and today a bunch of men stared down it all day, but this evening they said there will still be no hot water until Tuesday at the earliest.

This has been very lame. We have been showering in the squash courts next door and having difficulty getting dishes properly clean. Of course we still have it better than millions of people in the world, so we can't complain too much. But we will be very glad to enjoy hot showers in a hotel or B&B for the weekend!

David left work early yesterday to avoid the pre-3-day-weekend traffic horribleness, and we decided to go for an evening walk. We took a cab into town, then walked 2-3 miles south along the Thames River to the village of Iffley. There is a very nice path along this section of the Thames, in large part because it's near the college boathouses for the famous Oxford rowing. The coaches ride bikes alongside the boats on the path, shouting instructions to the rowers. Lucky for us, all this was happening as we walked by and we got to see several men and women's college teams in action.



We crossed the river at Iffley Lock, and then it was just a few tree-lined winding lanes to the village.



Iffley village is home to what my Oxford guidebook describes as being "one of the finest Romanesque churches in England." It was built in 1170, is very well-preserved, and is covered in fantastic carvings and sculptures. I really like Romanesque, and the Iffley Church was indeed one of the best I've seen. And we even had nice evening light for our pictures. Here's just a couple:


View of the west front, which is very unique and is the best part of the church.


Detail of the carvings around the west door, which are great! We've never seen those "beakheads" before but apparently they can be found elsewhere.

See 'em all in my Iffley Church Photo Gallery.

In academic news, my supervisor did not make her Friday goal of reading my dissertation. She is going to take it with her on her weekend getaway and promised to have feedback for me on Tuesday or Wednesday. She said the fact she didn't get it done must be a sign from the Virgin Mary (who is one of the subjects of my paper) that I should have a relaxing weekend. She's pretty funny and also a bit of a slacker. Takes one to know one.

Have a good weekend!