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...
No comments:
Post a Comment