Will Vaus

I began my last day in Oxford with a visit to The Victoria Arms Pub in Marston. You may ask: "Why?" The answer is: simply because it is mentioned in Sheldon Vanauken's "A Severe Mercy" and figures in some of the Inspector Morse stories by Colin Dexter. The heavy frost that morning was especially enchanting. C. S. Lewis wrote to a young correspondent in 1955, "We had our first frost last night--this morning the lawns are all grey, with a pale, bright sunshine on them: wonderfully beautiful. And somehow exciting. The first beginning of winter always excites me: it makes me want adventures." Oxford was replete that morning with that quality which Reginald Fanshawe once called "grey magic". "Calm, cold, and sad, the soft mists brooding bathe In ghostlier glamour chapel, tower, and hall, Dome, pinnacle, spire; they clasp and subtly swathe Oxford's grey magic. Cold and calm the pall On blade and branch, as for life'...

The big event today was a tour of Sheldon Vanauken's Oxford with my new friend, Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church . We began the day with a visit to the minute village of Binsey which Vanauken mentions numerous times in his bestselling book, A Severe Mercy . One of our first stops was St. Margaret's Church where Van and Davy's ashes were scattered. Our walk in Binsey was a misty one and therefore all the more memorable. We stopped at The Perch for lunch. Where Jim consented to pose with my son Joshua's handmade "Aslan". For more about Aslan you may view the other blog I have been doing during this trip. http://aslantoengland.blogspot.com . We crossed over the "humpbacked" bridge which Vanauken mentions in the book I am holding. Then it was on to the center of Oxford where Jim introduced me to the most spectacular view of The Radcliffe Camera and The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin. This view can only be seen from The Fello...