Bus Class

 A few months ago I applied for and won a scholarship to a Governance course at Oxford so here I am back in the UK. The course does great things for my board director CV and Oxford is a safe bet to deliver a high quality course, but…. Governance. I’m not quite really sure how many posts there will be this week! 

Although it’s a familiar trip by now, the transit is still brutal. A train to Sydney, a plane to Singapore, then London, then an hour by road to Oxford. My flights were in the good seats, but thirty five hours door-to-door takes the glamour out of drinking champagne while flying over Venice. Still, there were some nice moments- a hot stone day spa treat in the First lounge, delicious prawn wontons in Singapore, with silky casings and crunchy chilli oil dressing, and a handwritten welcome note from the customer service manager on both flights. 

In a moment of frugality, clearly reflecting the hazy decision making that comes with exhaustion and minimal sleep, I elected to catch the bus from Heathrow to Oxford. This is not a mistake I will repeat. The bus station was not salubrious and it was a 45 minute wait for the bus.  Quite a contrast to go from my lux plane nest to a tatty bus smelling faintly of chips, vinegar and unwashed socks.  To add insult to injury, the cost saving wasn’t even material. Damn. I did get 2000 steps in walking from the terminal to the bus station, so there’s that. 

QF1 gets in at 6.30 in the morning, so I had tried by a series of emails and phone calls to secure a room at my Oxford hotel either the night before or via early check in, so I could shower and rest once I arrived. After five “Not possibles” I gave up, sweet talked the last person into leaving a note at reception about it and entrusted it to the universe.

The universe smiled on me, and the delightful man at reception called housekeeping and asked for a rush job. I was a bit teary with gratitude and then somehow was telling him about my wedding anniversary (today/yesterday depending on where in the world you are ) and Jason and he came around the counter and gave me a big hug.  

 Within half an hour I was in my room for a shower and a little nap. I’ve had a good wander around the town and am out for dinner tonight with my course cohort. More about that tomorrow. 

Sing-Star(rett)

This year has been pretty wild so I deliberately booked a few days of decompression for time in Singapore on the way home. Raffles Sentosa looked good online - and really, who can say no to a private villa with a pool? The reality is even more spectacular. 

A butler escorts you to your villa and mixes up a fresh Sentosa sling (their twist on a Singapore Sling) while he finalises the check in process and shows you around. Two separate beautifully appointed glass and timber pavilions - a living room and a bedroom, with the pool between them, all surrounded by high walls. Inside my little oasis I have fresh flowers, lush greenery, a 24 hour butler, and complete silence except for the peacocks and the parrots. I want to bring everyone I know here to experience it with me, and I equally want to shut out the world and just sink into the privacy and the stillness. 

Breakfast can be served at your villa, but I’ve chosen to eat both days by the main pool. They wheel over little carts of fresh juices, then cereal and fruit, then a bread and pastry basket before handing you a menu to order the main event. Kind of a buffet that comes to you. I tried a delicious “ green fritter” made with zucchini, carrots (not green) and ginger, served with a slightly bitter lime zest ricotta. One evening I was driven in a Rolls Royce buggy (yes really!) to the Sofitel property next door for a nice dinner at the bar). It was less flash than Raffles but I had excellent service from my waitress and good food. Two days of swimming and reading has given me a reset, ready for reentry to my normal life. I know I’ve missed a chance to explore Singapore, however I’ve spent time in Singapore before and this relaxation time is precious. 

On the last day, I checked out late and spent time with a very dear friend and his hosts for a walk and then lunch. We wandered through little India and tried Appam - a lacy pancake made with ground rice and coconut milk. It’s fried in a wok into a little basket shape and then dipped in coconut milk and sugar. Delicious. Lunch was at a restaurant on the water and we tried Chilli Crab, with golden fried Mantou buns. Also delicious. The poor crab was live before we ate him for lunch, and I was just glad I didn’t have to choose him specifically from the tank. This day out was an unexpected bonus of stopping in Singapore and made for a lovely social finale before flying home. The Singapore stopover was a wonderful chance to eschew any decision making, logistics planning, and indeed any effort at all. A few quiet days to let the noise fade and the tempo slow. A few perfect rests before the rhythm of normal life returns. 

Thistle-stop tour.

My final stop in the UK is Edinburgh. The train from York, efficient but expensive,  was packed and it was a struggle to find space for the luggage. Although I haven’t done a lot of shopping, I seem to have acquired a surprising number of bits and pieces along the way and my two bags are both full and heavy. Luckily the hotel is right outside the train station, another ex railway building - Victorian, Grade 5 listed, and beautiful. I’ve included a photo of the outside. Inside, the Scottish theme is strong with all the staff in “costume” and a bright tartan carpet throughout. Jason bought me a Scottish title some years ago and I AM in Scotland, so…. in a moment of whimsy I MAY have signed up to the hotel loyalty programme as Lady Anna Starrett. Anyway, the front desk and the breakfast check in team addressed me as Lady Anna and it’s on my invoice too.

My days here have comprised two separate walking tours, a few fabulous meals and a good deal of wandering. I feel like I’m in a beautiful sandstone storybook - the architecture, the accents, even the inescapable sound of bagpipes from the buskers. I had a good look through St Giles, the church where Queen Elizabeth lay in state (picture of the floor tile included). The gift shop carries themed religious socks called Faith on your Feet. Think loaves and fishes, Jonah and the whale, seven fat cows and seven thin. You name a bible story, it’s on a sock. I also went to the “Georgian House”, a restored period house, run by the National Trust. It’s in the New Town, which is actually old, but not as old as the Old Town.

I’m frustrated by the lack of time to do everything I want. The more I see, the more I want to explore. I wish I had the luxury of long blocks of time to wander. I’m also still juggling work and study commitments. Numerous work emails where people are actually expecting a reply, a 5.30 am meeting that needed an hour of prep prior, a dissertation proposal for Oxford due early next week (which I haven’t started yet!)- I can’t quite escape and it’s impacting my ability to completely relax. People are always saying to me that they don’t know how I fit it all in. Right now I’m not sure! 

Leaving Edinburgh was sad but I have booked a few final days in Singapore on the way home. When I arrived at the Qantas lounge in Heathrow, I was escorted to a reserved table for dinner. All this travel has landed me at Qantas Platinum One level, leading to some special treatment. Fancy! 

In true team Starrett style, I’ve taken advantage of the proximity of my birthday and mentioned it when booking meals and hotels all week. This is a family tradition, started by Flynn, age five, to get a free birthday sombrero at a Mexican restaurant in New York. That success was followed by Starrett boy birthday claims (both accurate and spurious) during our trips to Walt Disney World. On this trip three free desserts have appeared at last count. My birthday itself is a casualty of time zones — the 14-hour flight and the calendar flip wipe out the 31st — so I’m happily taking the wins now. 

Layers

My final Master’s class featured a thought provoking one man rendition of Henry 5th - part script, part story, with side discussions about leadership resilience throughout. I didn’t really know the history or the play, but it was a compelling session and a good soft landing for our last day. The after class activities included a scavenger hunt (21,000 steps!), a dinner, and many, many hugs. I’m not a hugger so this was challenging, but it was sad to say goodbye as we won’t see each other in person till July next year. A few last Oxford pictures- Balliol seen from my hotel window, Christchurch seen from my College. 

One of our cohort gifted a beautifully embroidered piece of fabric to some of the women. I had wanted to wear it as a wrap at the formal dinner on Thursday night but was worried about showing up in homewares. Fortunately one of the ladies wore it to class on Saturday, helping me determine the appropriate use - #NOTatablerunner. The colours are lovely and it’s very warm and goes perfectly with the clothing I brought. Picture below. 

I’m spending time in York and Edinburgh before leaving the UK. This is my second trip to York having visited once before while I was living in Leeds for work. I chose to stay at same hotel as last trip, a beautiful building which was originally the railway company’s headquarters - loads of history and charm. Think sweeping staircases, high ceilings and beautiful old details everywhere you look. It’s lux and cosy and relaxing. Last time I stayed, the restaurant was booked out (see the 2021 blog for the dramatic tale) and I made sure to book in advance for this visit. It’s a big call, but the lasagne was the best I’ve had in my whole life. The description on the menu is “ fifty layers of pasta, rich bolognaise sauce, aged cheddar bechamel, grated parmesan and pecorino, smoked tomato sauce and basil oil”. Nothing here sounds unique, but wow. Just wow. Somehow I have a photo of the carrot and apple soup, not the lasagne. I was probably too busy eating it. 

A walking tour of York (I love these things) proved insight into the history of the place, with evidence all round of the five invasions, from the Romans to the Tourists. It’s a beautiful city, and the weather was uncharacteristically sunny. There are so many places that are familiar from historical books and shows, for example the house where Henry VIII stayed with Catherine Howard while on the King’s Progress, apparently the place where she started secret assignations which eventually culminated in her beheading. York Minster is spectacular from the outside although I am yet to make it inside. A lovely tea stop at Betty’s,complete with Wedgewood and silver plate, capped off the York experience. 

I’m thinking a lot about layers — of time, of place, of self. Life, like history, isn’t one clean story — it’s a collection of layers, stitched together over time. Some are hidden, some fray at the edges, and some — like my beautifully embroidered wrap — are meant to be worn and shared, warmth and meaning intertwined. 

Awash

The rain is continuing, making some of our planned activities unappealing. A sizeable group had planned to attend a rugby match, but freezing temperatures and heavy rain drove the less stoic of us to a cosy dinner at the Permit Room. At my end of the table, a few of the cohort with Indian and Pakistani heritage launched into an affectionate (and competitive) critique of the restaurant’s dishes compared to their mothers’ versions. That flowed into a discussion of the appropriate chai to serve when your parents come to visit, including cost, ease of brewing and sugar content. I couldn’t contribute but it made for fun listening. 

As always, the excitement of travel is dragged back to earth by one basic need - laundry. Having been away for over a week I had a backpack of washing to do.  This required a small logistical campaign—complete with supply runs for detergent, a search for a laundromat (Oxford boasts only one, astonishingly), and a scheduling puzzle worthy of military strategy. The lone laundromat was a half-hour walk away, with hours that seemed deliberately inconvenient. For a university town, this  seemed wrong, until it dawned on me that the colleges must have their own laundry rooms. A complex planning exercise to followed to secure laundry powder, and find time (35 minutes for a wash, an hour for a dry). A 5am trip to my college, complete with a backpack of clothing confirmed that Pembroke does in fact have a laundry. 

I felt like a proper student using my access card to let me in the smaller door in the giant wooden one at the wicket gate. Card swipe, quiet creak, a brief sense of trespass. Inside, the porter, cheerful and unflappable, directed me down what must be the most picturesque path to a laundry room ever - photos below. 

The days are fantastic however they are long - crammed with content and conversation - and I’m struggling  with the lack of downtime. My head is soooo full of intriguing ideas and information but there is just no space to process it. In the normal world, I’m extroverted and I like interacting with people, but right now I’m feeling overwhelmed and I want MY people, not these people. I do have a few special friends here that I know will be lifelong connections but in the midst of the this crowd of people I’m feeling alone. We’ve been provided with a ton of content in this session on resilience, living with ambiguity, being comfortable with paradox - handily all the things I appear to need this week. I’m getting ample opportunity to practice the theory- who needs case studies when you’ve got real life handing out assignments?

Common Room

Oxford is cold, rainy, and despite this, delightful. The city centre is compact and it’s easy to run into friends just by walking down the street or looking through the window of a pub. On Monday night a number of us attended a debate on Cancel Culture. From outside, the Sheldonian Theatre glows like a lantern. Inside, the timber-tiered seats creak with history. There is a very fancy painted ceiling and the whole experience is somewhat overwhelming and an incredible venue for a debate. Oxford, it seems, loves to make even disagreement look majestic. 

The debate itself wasn’t fantastic- lots of squabbling and not enough listening and responding, but I loved the experience. We had dinner afterwards and dissected the whole thing, caught up on life in between modules, and generally reconnected. Inspired by the debate, I signed up for a life membership of the Oxford Union and hope to get to some of the debates in the future. There is a who’s-who of names that show up to debate and the buildings and grounds themselves have a private club vibe. Here’s a photo of the library in the Union. The wifi password made me laugh - Bhutto1977. Very Oxford. 

The first day of class was tiring but high quality and culminated in a guest spot by one of our cohort, Tim, who coaches the Australian Women’s rugby 7’s. His explanation of the game to the group was hilarious and involved live participants (I was a hooker) and we received merch for participation. Group drinks were followed by dinner (and then more drinks for the hardy). I’m exhausted but loving it. It’s a wildly diverse group of people but we all share an interest in questioning and understanding and growing that creates a strong connection.

I have written this post while sitting in the middle common room of my college, Pembroke. It’s quiet and comfortable, although littered with empty coffee cups and half a nutmeg cake on the sideboard. The cake looked good but I have no idea how long it’s been sitting out and whether there are mice, so I refrained. 

Plane Daze

The trip from home to Oxford has become somewhat surreal. This is my fifth trip in a year - each one a 24-hour transit that feels more like a Narnian wardrobe passage: I step in on one side of the world and emerge, disoriented but somehow unchanged, at Heathrow at 6 a.m. 

This other world is strange but familiar, exciting but exhausting. It greets me with grey skies and brisk air. I’m travelling for my last scheduled face to face session of my Masters. I didn’t blog the other trips as I figured the education part is a bit dull for everyone, but will try and put up a few posts this time as there is extra travel before and after Oxford. I finally managed to extend my trip to fit in a few extra days in London, spending quality time with a very dear friend from high school. We drank coffee, walked, talked, ate, laughed and did a modicum of sightseeing in the process. The sightseeing was secondary to our time together, but of particular note was a trip to the Victoria and Albert Warehouse. It’s their storage facility for things not on display, packed on pallets but visible. Think downstairs at IKEA, but with art, collectables, furniture and fragments of other cultural memories. Amazing. Photos include David Bowie’s boot, and a whole Frank Lloyd Wright room. 

We also handed over 25 pounds for a one year pass to the Transport Museum in Covent Garden. You can pay for one day, or one year - same price, so….. Once inside, we quickly realised that it was unlikely we would ever use the other 364 days of access, but there were some interesting things and we chatted away and enjoyed ourselves. Some inspired soul included realistic accessories in the horse drawn bus display. See photo for details. 

Of course there is no rest for the wicked, so I was up at 3am on Monday to do prep work for a work meeting at 6. I haven’t managed to sleep well yet and was feeling a bit stressed and wobbly. The meeting ran overtime so it was a scramble to get from London to Oxford in time for 9.30 meeting at the Business School about my educational goals. There is drenching rain and it’s colder than expected, but Oxford is beautiful in any weather and I’m glad to be back.