Free Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys With Gardner Dozois by Gardner R. Dozois

full of Steak & Kidney Pie mix and french fries (sorry, chips)), we walk back along the river to the car, passing a clever duck who is hanging in the water downstream, comfortably out-of-sight from the main mass of tourists, and eating all the goodies that those tourists have let fall into the water, and which the current is now bringing to him: pieces of bread, bits of cake and cookies, ice-cream cones, etc. He can afford to be choosey, and he is only selecting the very choicest delicacies, which the current delivers almost right into his beak, with very little effort needed on his part except to open his beak at the right time. Smart duck.
    Drive through Lower Slaughter, can’t find anyplace to park, drive on up to Upper Slaughter, on the hill above, park there. In contrast to Bourton-on-the-Water, there are almost no tourists at all in the Slaughters, particularly Upper Slaughter, although they are at least as lovely as Bourton-on-the-Water, and perhaps even more so. We have the whole village nearly to ourselves; the place is as deserted as a Hollywood back lot after working hours. We walk around looking at the fine old Cotswald stone buildings, walk down the hill to a ford over a small stream (a car conveniently fording it just as we arrive, splashing through water about a third of the way up its wheels, as if it is demonstrating the ford for us), then back up and around on the other side of town, back to the tiny square where we are parked. It’s getting late by now, so, reluctantly, we head back to Fallowfields.
    Back at the inn, we go down to the pool for a swim, joining an English couple from Yorkshire named Sid and Kate, who are already down by the poolside. The inn cat, Healy, crouches nearby throughout, staring at us in amazement and some alarm as we actually put ourselves into the water. Willingly! (Strange, inscrutable creatures, these humans . . .) He is careful not to get too near, in case we should drag him in, too. We have a swim and a nice chat with Sid and Kate, then sit out by the pool and have drinks, very civilized. At dusk, the house martins dart about, gobbling up bugs, and then swoop up under the eaves, seeming to be about to fly right in our open bedroom window. They look like little jet fighters silhouetted against the darkening sky.
    Rack of lamb for dinner. Afterward, sat outside on the rear lawn, watching the stars; you can see an amazing number of stars from here, for someplace so close to the light-pollution of Oxford, and I see something describing a perfectly circular path across the night sky at a fast but steady pace that I’m sure is a satellite in earth orbit. Anthony, who was a Navigator in the RAF, tells a story about being in a plane packed solid with soldiers inside all the way to the tail, and needing to go to the loo, which was in the back of the plane, and the sergeant gruffly ordering his men to bend over, so that Anthony could walk over their backs, literally stepping on them, to the rear of the plane to reach the loo. As an old enlisted man myself, this sounds like perfectly normal officer behavior to me, but I refrain from telling Anthony so.

    Friday, August 18 th — Oxford, London, Train to Inverness
    A day mostly spent dealing with major and minor hassles, and more packed with frustrations than sightseeing. Check out of the inn, drive into Oxford, get lost, and spend a half-hour or so driving around before finally finding the train station. We offload the luggage, then find that none of the lockers at the station are even remotely large enough to check our suitcases in, thus ending our plan to leave the luggage there and go to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford this morning before taking the train for London. Reload the luggage into the car, and then spend almost two hours of escalating annoyance driving back and forth through the streets of Oxford trying to locate the car rental company, at one point missing a turn and driving a good deal of the distance out to Blenheim