Faye and I had a day out in the centre of the city on Tuesday. We went on a walking tour of the colleges and a whirl on the open-top bus (hilariously awful -- we couldn't understand anything the guide was saying, apart from his crap jokes), had lunch in a church cafe and took in the view from the tower.
Pictures:
The walking tour -- we only went into one college, Keble, one of the younger ones. It dates from the 19th century, the first to be built in brick. The guide was very good and the group wasn't too big.
The bus tour -- what's that you said?
View from the tower of St Mary the Virgin.
Detail on the church -- Oxford has some wonderful gargoyles, but you need a telephoto lens to get pictures of them.
Faye overcomes her fear of heights, but keeps a good grip on the railing.
Halfway up the spiral staircase a pigeon has chosen an unfortunate site for her nest.
One of the statues outside the Radcliffe Camera.
Wednesday was Faye's main day off, so we went to Blenheim Palace first, very interesting monster stately home. I especially liked the story of Consuelo Vanderbilt, the American heiress whose mother was determined to marry her off to an English dook. She interviewed several, but plumped for the Dook of Marlboro, who was on the bones of his arse but had Blenheim Palace and a whole bunch of titles. Consuelo, age 19, was horrified and balked, so Mommy Dearest locked her in her room for five days on bread and water till she gave in. The Dook was only 5'4", Consuelo was 6'1". She gave him "an heir and a spare" before divorcing him. He went on to marry someone called Gladys, who communed with spirits and eventually went mad.
Blenheim's other delights include a cafe (lunch), a miniature steam train that takes you to the butterfly house and herb gardens, and lovely walks in the aboretum, around the lake and in the formal gardens. Whew.
From Blenheim's butterfly house. Photography was banned inside the palace, sadly, and my photos of the outside aren't marvellous. See here for info and galleries. It was impressive but OTT -- at least I learned that when I gild the ceilings 24 carat gold ages better than 18 carat.
After Blenheim we wended our way randomly through the Cotswolds, marvelling at the beautiful little villages -- the houses are all built of the local golden yellow stone, with slate roofs, and most are dripping with wisteria. We had dinner at the Trout, a nice ye olde pub on the Thames (oops, sorry, the Isis, as they call it in Oxford) complete with peacocks. We had trout -- delicious.
Thursday I went into Oxford for a solo visit, tromped around the Ashmoleon museum and did some shopping. In the afternoon I gave Faye some computer lessons and we got her hooked up to the internet.
Friday we went on a pilgrimage to Tolkien's grave (just down the road from Faye) and a walk in the local park. It has an aviary that has rabbits and guinea pigs rushing around in all the cages. Bertie would have loved that -- a little Jack Russell had to be dragged away, he couldn't believe his eyes! Lemme in! Then we had lunch at a local garden centre before I headed off at 1pm.
The Tolkien grave. Fans have left little tokens of their regard -- pixie and fairy necklaces, a couple of rings, some notes (bleached by the rain) and a tiny Australian flag.
The trip back was dreadful, I didn't get home until nearly midnight. The Midlands was just one big traffic jam -- stopstartstopstart for hundreds of miles! Crawling along at 20mph. Then up through the hills by the Lakes District it was hosing down with rain so heavy the wipers nearly didn't cope, ditto the Borders. I took a wrong turn near Glasgow & ended up in Stirling! Look it up on the map! Finally I got to Dunfermline and phoned for directions to the friends' place where Bertie was staying -- had to phone twice because I got lost again. I was exhausted. Bertie was quite pleased to see me but I think he's really missing his new "owners" now, he's been quite mopey.
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