Yesterday in Conversations with My Doctor:

Him: I see you saw my colleague for a UTI a few days ago. She sent me a message afterwards, actually. I’m trying to remember what it said.

Me: Was it about how I wouldn’t go through my medication list with her because I knew you would go through it with me today?

Him: Yes–that’s it. Is that what you told her?

Me: I said, “Paul is very thorough.”

Him: And she let it go? She’s a . . . very strong woman.

Me: So am I.

Even though I was sad to leave Oxford and everything and everyone I love there, I was excited about finally going to Ireland.

There were several misadventures, though.

I have to use Uber in the UK, since they don’t have Lyft. I had a ride scheduled to pick me up at 8:30 a.m. for a 9:01 train. Uber didn’t actually schedule it. At 8:42, they were still thinking about it, and there was an incredible wait for customer service. And I couldn’t schedule a different ride while they were thinking about it.

Finally, I called a cab.

When I got to the train station, there was an enormous line–the entry doors into the station weren’t working.

I got through at 9.

And then the train came.

A man offered to help me with my bags, though he was carrying four coffee cups in a cardboard container.

My heaviest bag fell backwards, and the coffee fell onto him.

(He wouldn’t let me give him money for a new shirt.)

I made my way to my seat, which was a window seat. The main in the aisle seat said to the stranger across the aisle (not to me): “there’s no assigned seating on this train.”

“I can sit somewhere else if you like, but my ticket has a seat number.”

I showed him the ticket.

He let me sit down, but explained that I was wrong because the reservation lights weren’t lit.

So I offered to move.

“No, no. It’s no bother.”

So I was stuck with him.

All of that made the traffic jam I hit taking a cab from the train station to the London City Airport seem much less stressful.

However, at one point in the cab, a guy tried to hail my cab when we were stopped. The driver told him he had a passenger.

The man walked to my window and said, “And what do you think you’re doing here?”

“Ummm . . . sitting in a taxi?”

The man mumbled things about us as he walked away.

My driver said that although he’d been a London cabbie for years, he had never had something like that happen before.

Yesterday, I sat with a few other lovely people in the gorgeous gardens of Wadham College, watching Wuthering Heights, adapted by April de Angelis and directed by Michael Oakley.

It was glorious.

The story about two difficult people in love is a classic, but the writer, director, and players made the play enormously entertaining, both funny and heart-wrenching in turn.

I spent a lot of the time trying to figure out where I’d seen Nelly (Helen Belbin) before. I bought a program just so I could ease my mind. (Call the Midwife!) I wanted to know about all of the actors, though, since they were all so good.

The set was simple, and there was no backstage. Instead, the costumes flanked the set, making it easier for the actors to change, to provide musical accompaniment and sound effects. It’s a wonderful lesson in how good theatre really is all about the script and the performances.

Get thee to the garden: fall in love.

As I mentioned in my last post, I toyed with the idea of using online dating platforms to find a playmate in Oxford.

Bachelor Number 1. This was our entire conversation:

Bachelor Number 2. This guy said he was a wine geek and invited me to his house for some, but I met him at a rooftop bar instead (I always feel safer in the UK, but not that safe). He spent the whole time insulting the view, British women, England, and Oxford. I had a glass of wine. He had nothing. He apparently never drinks wine in England unless it’s from his massive collection.

Which I am determined to never see.

Bachelor number 3. The profile picture was with a cool carved tree. When I asked about it, I got a Labyrinth reference, which was enough to set up a date. After talking about our shared geeky stuff for a while, we decided to get some dinner. We walked around the Westgate, which had quite a few options. I deliberately didn’t lobby for my favorite, even though I had just gotten a loyalty card for it.

Him: This may sound boring, but out of all of these, I want to go to Nando’s most.

Reader, I’m dating him.

Visiting Sally Lunn‘s is a must on a trip to Bath. The restaurant is in one of of the oldest buildings in London. Sally Lunn, an immigrant to England, worked and lived there in the 1600s. She made a famous bun, which became the base for sweet and savory dishes. The legend is that her recipe was found in the wall years later and that it is passed down with the lease to each new owner.

I made sure I was hungry when I went–I definitely wanted to try the bun. For 17.58, I got a chicken and ham trencher plate, a pot of the incredible house tea, and a big slice of apple cake. I hadn’t had a trencher before. Here, half a bun is used as the base for a stew–this is how it was done in the old days, before plates were common and cheap. (They still put a plate under their bread plate, though.)

If you get something to eat or drink, you are allowed into the museum. That word is pretty strong, considering I’m about to show you everything in two pictures.

Before leaving, I bought a bun (for about two British pounds) and took it with me to Oxford. It happily gave me breakfast for my first two mornings there.

I usually love exhibitions at the V&A in London, so I headed there my first morning in London a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve participated in food studies conferences and presented on food for the campus book project, so I was interested in what they were going to do.

I was unprepared to walk into a room with curtains the colors of what a healthy intestine might be imagined to look like and a toilet.

They were starting with refuse and recycling. But the exhibit was sparse–I would have loved to know how other cultures and times have recycled, how that word has changed meanings and politics over time, etc. There was none of that.

A little bit on, there was a display about chickens, which didn’t say much about chickens except for that there were different kinds.

There was a film playing about foragers in London and a sampling of foraged juice.

And a table set with objects without too much context.

My favorite:

The best part was the wallpaper in the beginning and the end.

All in all, FOOD left me hungry for a lot more.

So I went to one of my favorite Indian places, Dishoom, for lamb samosas and okra.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a city wherein a famous author has lived, must be in want of a museum.

I dropped in to the Jane Austen Centre earlier this week in the morning. While we waited for the tour to start, we watched a video on a loop. Having to wait made me think the tour would be more tour-ish. Instead, we were in one room for a while while Jane’s family life was explained entertainingly and then in another room to look at a few verified portraits of Jane and a few pictures that might be her. Then we were on our own.

Although Austen is a writer, the museum was a lot heavier in terms of reading than I wanted. That is, her history was on the walls, but it might as well have been in a book or on a website. I like it more when there’s a lot to look at and then the reading complements it.

One of my favorite things was a painting done of Jane by a police artist, Melissa Dring–using the descriptions of her by people who knew her.

I got my picture with Jane.

And with Darcy.

And since I hadn’t had breakfast, I had a savory tea in the beautiful upper-floor teahouse.

Am considering using bumble to find a playmate or five whilst abroad. They have questions, with sample answers (pictured), for me to answer.

I would, in fact, love to be a part of The Handmaid’s Tale, but it sounds weird to say so on a dating app.