2 October 2016 (Sunday) - Sighs and Sharks

I slept reasonably well, and after a spot of brekkie I took "Furry Face ^TM" round the block; he was getting rather fractious. And with him walked we packed the car and set off on a long weekend. We’ve taken to having an October holiday over the last few years, and this year we thought we’d try Oxford.

We’d heard various theories about how long it would take to get to Oxford; we left shortly before 9.30am, and it took us a shade over two hours.

We were soon at the Pear Tree park and ride. We were charged two pounds; I thought that was too good to be true. It was. Two quid was just for the “park” We had to pay for the “ride” separately. But the “ride” was less than three quid.

"er indoors ^TM" had found out about tours of Oxford; we found them totally by chance; and after a quick KFC lunch we set off on a guided tour. The chap running the tour was really good. He was a PhD student who brought the town to life. We went to the Sheldonian Theatre, the Bodlean library; even under the Bridge of Sighs. We found why Oxford didn’t get bombed during the Second World war (Hitler wanted it as his capital if he won the war). We learned about the Oxford Martyrs; the tour lasted two hours and the time rushed away.

At the end of the talk the chap leading the tour was rather embarrassed as he explained how he doesn’t get a wage; his only income is what people give him for the tour. I gave him a tenner; as did the other thirty people on the tour. That was three hundred quid cash in hand (quite literally). If he does two of those on a Sunday that isn’t a bad income…

We then popped into the Museum of the History of Science. It sounded as though it would be interesting. It was… I can only liken it to something I once read in Viz magazine when Gilbert Ratchet went to the Museum of Dull Bits of Broken Pots.

It was crap.

Its “lame to fame” is that it has a blackboard on which Albert Einstein once wrote.

We then went up to the Oxford Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaur footprints, and then made our way back to the bus and so back to the car.

Pausing only briefly to see a shark sticking out of the roof of a terraced house we went on to our home for tonight. For tonight only we’d booked into the Swan in Islip.

I must admit I could hear the banjos when we arrived. The place was once a pub. Now it is very obviously a closed pub. It still functions as a guest house, and for somewhere to doss down for the night I suppose it isn’t bad. We unloaded our gear, had a little walk round the village and then drove into nearby Kidlington where Google had suggested we might like to have dinner in the Jolly Boatman.

Google had made a good choice…

I took some photos whilst we were out and about today. Amazingly the wi-fi at our B&B was up to posting them.

I wonder what the breakfast will be like in the morning...