From: Katherine Delany Date: Wed Aug 18, 2004 Subject: Bablock Hythe [Duncton Found] In _The Sunday Times_ of August 15, 2004, the backpage of the Travel section (6.14) includes "My Hols", an interview with Jane Goodall. She says: "One of the best [holidays] ever was when I was about 27 and went with a friend to a place called Bablock Hythe, near Oxford. We borrowed a tent and found a farmer who let us put it in his field. It was the most glorious autumn, the hedges were filled with blackberries, and the trees were laden with hazelnuts. Every day we'd go walking or borrow a boat to explore the river. It was perfect, just idling and being close to nature." That's a familiar place-name, I thought, and located the mention in _Duncton Found_. Bablock Hythe is where, as Tubney of that place tells, "Mayweed turned up, took a look about, said our system was exactly what he had been looking for all his life and did we mind if one or two moles dropped in". The above is in Chapter Twenty-Two; Chapter Twenty-Four opens with lyrical description, leading to: "some places--a very, very few--have about them a harmony of parts that makes others rememder them with special fondness. Happy the mole who falls in love in such a place, or having found their love renews it there. Such a magic place was, and is, Bablock, along the River Thames. Quiet, modest, secret as a sunlit vale deep in a wood is secret, and with that extra quality which nomole can arrange or pre-ordain: surprise. One moment a mole is trekking on a way along a riverbank, the next he is in Bablock Hythe."