We went on a historical bike ride today as part of Bike Week.

We visited The Abbey Gateway, St Helen’s Wharf, remains of the Canal, the new Jubilee Junction, Sutton Courtney, Culham Lock, and Old Culham Bridge (where there was a Civil War battle).

In Sutton Courtney we visited the churchyard where Eric Blair is buried (aka George Orwell – the author of Down and Out in Paris and London). Somebody had left three Canadian flags, a note that read “Nothing had changed, and a poem by Orwell …

“Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over
The bending poplars, newly bare,
And the dark ribbons of the chimneys
Veer downward; flicked by whips of air,

Torn posters flutter; coldly sound
The boom of trains and the rattle of hooves,
And the clerks who hurry to the station
Look, shuddering, over the eastern rooves,

Thinking, each one, ‘Here comes the winter!
Please God I keep my job this year!’
And bleakly, as the cold strikes through
Their entrails like an icy spear,

They think of rent, rates, season tickets,
Insurance, coal, the skivvy’s wages,
Boots, school-bills, and the next instalment
Upon the two twin beds from Drage’s….

It was unusual to find a country church open in this day and age, when nothing was apparently going on inside. I looked inside but didn’t go too far – so as not to disturb the man asleep on the pew.