About-face

So we were settling into our temporary lodgings, preparing for another move in November to our permanent home.  But on his first trip to his college last Monday Sydney was given keys to “his house.”  When he asked for a bit more explanation he learned that someone failed to mention that he had a family and thus would not be living in the college–and so they set him up with a small house that belongs to the college.  Ahh, gotta love administrative confusion.  When he corrected them, they told Sydney he should check out the house anyway, as it might just be big enough for a small family.  We took at a look at it the next day, and then spent the rest of the week reconsidering the housing plan we spent all summer setting up.  In the end, we decided to take the college housing, since it’s right downtown, just a couple of blocks from the library and Sydney’s college, and it will be less of a financial leap of faith.  We’re still extricating ourselves from the other tenancy agreement, so all is still a bit of a muddle, but we think we are now finally settled into what will be our Oxford home (for the near future, anyway).

So, for those of you who have pledged to come visit us, this is what you’ll now be visiting:

– It’s a small row house on Holywell Street, just three minutes’ walk from all the downtown Oxford sights.  We’re just a couple of minutes’ walk from two large department stores, as well as three grocery stores, so we’ve been busy settling in and equipping our kitchen and the like.

– It’s three floors, but the square footage is roughly that of the apartment we had in Ithaca.  So, quite small.  The first floor contains a living room and the kitchen, the second floor the bathroom and main bedroom, and the third floor is a small study.  The last is key, since the one thing we really needed was some space separate from Katherine’s play space, so that we could work when we’re at home.  So far, so good: she loves the climb to the first floor, but she hasn’t yet discovered the steep, winding steps to the third floor.  We’re planning to keep it that way.  I, meanwhile, have fallen in love with the third floor, reminded of Woolf’s assertions that a woman (and, in this case, a man) need a room of one’s own in order to write.  I didn’t understand that until I had children 🙂

– We’ve been told the house dates back to the civil war (as in the English, rather than the American, Civil War), so it’s quite old on the outside, with remodeling on the inside (as much as such a house permits).  Former tenants of the place warned us that we would get a lot of picture-takers outside our place, since it has the old English stone house look.  And sure enough, by our first full day there I found myself sitting in the windowsill, watching people stop and take pictures of our “picturesque” house.

– The ceilings are somewhat low, so it has a cozy, rather than an airy, feel to it.  If I stand up in the bathtub to take a shower my head just misses the ceiling–as long as I also situate myself between cross beams!

– There is a small backyard, which we share with the tenants of the other half of the house (currently there are none).

The college has nicely outfitted the place with towels and bedding and curtains, so we’re going to focus our energies on getting the necessities (bank accounts, doctors) set up, rather than decorating.  And we’ll take pictures, but it’s going to be awhile.

We’re glad to be home.

Erin