“It Doesn’t Matter Which Way You Go.” Lewis Carroll

Happy coincidences are my favourite kind!  Today I was planning to share photos and stories from one of my most favourite working trips to Oxford England. Ten years ago I had the good fortune to be the publisher for an atlas that more than likely graced your bookshelf at one point in your life, The Canadian Oxford School Atlas. Do you remember it? If you are my age (very, very young!), you may remember the black, gold and white cover with an inside chock-a-block full of maps, latitudes, longitudes and statistics. There are now 9 editions of this Canadian geography standard, and I was the proud publisher of the 8th Edition, published in 2003. I took the photos above while on a working trip to Oxford University Press where series Editor Quentin Stanford and I worked with the cartography department for a fascinating, educational, inspiring week in June. I took them with a (gasp) film camera and as you can see, I was on a black and white kick at the time. But let me climb out of this rabbit hole of memories for a second to bring us back to the “happy coincidence” bit.

Yesterday I was looking for an old photograph for a work colleague and at long last located my old box of photographs that has travelled with me over many moves. I haven’t looked in this box for years. But what did I find? A handful of photos that I took on my Oxford trip, now curled with age and covered in dust. They immediately brought back memories of that wonderful week at The Press (the austere building in the bottom left corner of the photo collage above). During that week I stayed at a lovely old townhouse to the north of the city in a village called Lower Wolvercote. Each day I would walk into the city via the famous, ancient Port Meadow. I walked along the Thames on an old cow path that took me through stiles, across bridges and past ancient country pubs (more about that later…). During the day, Quentin and I would meet with the press’ cartographers to “map out” the atlas’ new digital, purely Canadian path. Every element on each page was carefully deliberated over and decided upon. Each evening I would walk back through the meadow, exhausted but elated. Quentin and I would then meet up for a barley sandwich or two in the famous Lower Wolvercote riverside pub, The Trout. The Trout is famous as a setting for Inspector Morse, but also as a former meeting place for Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis and the final resting place for J.R.R. Tolkien. You can imagine I was in my element! I have to thank Quentin as he taught me so much about the history of The Press, and the fascinating history behind the making of prior editions of the atlas. He was excellent company and remains a great friend till this day!!

Right. Back to that “happy coincidence.” I awoke today ready to write a post about Oxford and as it turns out, today is Lewis Carroll’s birthday!  The origins of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland lay in a June picnic with friends in the same area that I walked on my way to Oxford each day. If you are a Carroll fan, or are curious about the origins of Alice, please check out this article in my favourite Sunday blog, Brain Pickings. Carroll is one of my favourites because he could combine the practical with the absurd so very well. One of the best examples of this “practical absurdity” is the quote in my blog title above, which suits this geography-related post to a T. Here it is in full:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” 
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

For those who are interested in my “digital workflow” for turning my dusty, slightly worn photos into the collage above, I cannot say enough about my most used iPad app, ScannerPro. With my iPad 3, I scanned each image, easily cropping worn edges. I saved each photo to my iPad’s camera roll. From there I used my favourite go-to photo editing app, Snapseed, to fix contrast and sharpness. I then used the easy-to-use photo app called Picframe to create the collage you see above. Lastly, I used my favourite free web photo editor, PicMonkey, to re-size and watermark the collage. A fun project for a cold Saturday afternoon in Toronto!