Free Sisterchicks Go Brit! by Robin Jones Gunn Page B

difficult to find the Rabbit Room. It was directly in the back of the pub. A small, black sign hung crookedly over the entrance to the separate back room. In the cab our guide had rattled off facts about Tolkien and Lewis being only two of the regular members of the Inklings who met here to discuss their writing between the 1930s and 1950s. A picture of Lewis hung on the back wall above the dark wood paneling. I couldn’t imagine comfortably fitting more than eight people in this room. The Inklings must have been a close-knit group when they met here!
    Kellie and I snapped a few pictures and slipped out the front door where our carriage awaited us. Next on the circuit was Tolkien’s home. To our surprise the street we drove down was a normal residential street with homes that looked as if they were no more than eighty years old. They were nice homes but not fancy or impressive. I made a comment about the ordinariness of the neighborhood, and our driver reminded me that Tolkien receivedan average college professor’s wage until he retired in 1959. He passed away in 1973.
    “The room you will see above the garage was Tolkien’s study. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was published while he lived in this house with his wife and four children. He had to move, though, due to a rash of hobbit fans who kept showing up on his doorstep.”
    “I wonder how he would feel about the success of The Lord of the Rings if he were still alive,” Kellie said.
    Before we could enter into a discussion of the topic, we were in front of the house on Sandfield Road. Our driver didn’t park the car in front of the house, even though a wide space was available beside the curb. Instead, he double-parked two doors down. “If you would like to take a quick hop out and stand under the sign over the garage, it makes for a good photo.”
    Kellie and I scooted up the road and followed his instructions while he sat in the cab with the engine idling. We took turns striking poses next to a trash can in front of the garage. Our conduct on such an unpretentious street in front of such an ordinary garage would have seemed ridiculous if it weren’t for the sign affixed to the front of the garage. The commemorative inscription stated, “J. R. R. Tolkien lived here 1953–1968.”
    “On we go,” the driver called to us.
    I started for the street, feeling awkward about having just taken pictures in the driveway of what was a private residence. What did the people who lived here think of our trespassing on their property?
    “Lizzie, look.” Kellie paused by the small front yard. The space was more like an overgrown garden with several trees and ivy climbing up the trunk of the largest one. “Lawn gnomes. Do you see them?”
    Kellie was right. Tucked in and under the spreading greenery were several antique-looking lawn gnomes. The chipped paint on their once-red hats and fixed grins made it clear these camouflaged fellows were victims of time and the elements.
    Kellie snapped a picture of the garden and the concealed gnomes. Just then we heard a window opening upstairs. Our driver called out, “Come along!”
    Hurrying to the cab and sliding into the backseat, I felt the same sort of stealthy rush I had as a teenager when my girlfriends and I would go out at night and string toilet paper in the trees in front of the homes of guys we liked. Then we would run off before getting caught.
    “I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Kellie’s cheeks looked as rosy as mine felt after the dash.
    “I know. None of the tour books promote this sort of snap-and-dash tour.”
    “There’s a reason for that.” The cabby caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “None of them is under a court order to keep a twenty-meter radius away from the place of interest.”
    Kellie and I laughed uproariously at his joke. Off we drove past Magdalen College.
    All the way the cab driver kept glancing at us in the mirror.

W here to next” Kellie asked.
    “We’re off to the Kilns