Port Meadow is a large open area in north Oxford. According to Wikipedia, no plow has ever been used on this portion of land. People from Oxford still graze cattle and horses on it.
The meadow is bordered on the north by the
village of Wolvercote
On the west by the Wolvercote Millstream
On the east by a British Railway track
And on the south by the spires of Oxford
Andy Griffith has a monolog about the game of American football in which he concludes that the object of the game is to carry a pumpkin from one end of a cow pasture to the other without getting knocked down or stepping in something. A walk in Port Meadow has similar cautions with the added hazard of bogs.
One day I turned off the beaten path to look more closely at a stone monument. All of a sudden I was up to my knees in a muddy bog. The first thought through my mind was how to get out and what would happen if I couldn't. The meadow is well used, but not highly populated, and I was off the beaten path, which tends to avoid bogs. My second thought was sadness that there was no one around to take a picture, to memorialize my experience in the bog.
I was soon able to pull my right leg out, nearly losing my shoe in the process. When I extricated my left leg, I crawled on my hands and knees for several yards to solid land. By then I was muddied up to my waist and I still had to walk about a half mile home through the streets of Wolvercote. When I arrived, my landlady was helpful, but had a good laugh at the bedraggled foreigner who happened upon her doorstep.
I have learned to avoid the bogs and have not yet seen what is inscribed on the stone marker at that end of the meadow.
