Today, the road trip reaches the heart of Oxfordshire, where tense political times provide the spark for hijinks and tomfoolery
Midsummer Bath is gold in early sun and rain, as we climb aboard the minibus for the drive to Oxford. Edward Thomas insists that I say through Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, but it is, of course, the other way round on this road, with flowers, flowers all the way – dog roses, campion, buttercups, mallow, cowparsley and Jack-by-the-Hedge, blood-splashes of poppies.
Two down, 14 to go. This will, indeed, be the longest day. We relish each other’s company in anxious political times, but all took heart from Wales’s 3-0 win in France. Minibus games yesterday grew loud and raucous. Today we compared poetry and prose, the fine line with the elegant sentence, talked of how a line of prose can have a “tune”. I supplied “a short while ago in New York”, from Radio 4’s financial news. “A dance to the music of time”, “A Portrait of Dorian Grey”, “The Ballad of Bobby MacGee”, my fellow poets add, after minutes of silent thought.
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