The Oxford Adventure

“There behind me, far away, never more beautiful since, was the fabled cluster of spires and towers.”
From Surprised by Joy – C S Lewis.

On Saturday we spent the day in Oxford with my blogging friend, Sallyann from Photographic Memories.  Sallyann lives in Oxford so we were lucky in having our own private tour guide.

I have been to Oxford several times before but have never seen many of the places Sallyann showed us.  Sallyann is the intrepid photographer but for this day, I took the shots.We went on a bus from London – 3.5 hours ride from London to Oxford.  Sallyann met us at the bus terminal and we decided to start our afternoon with lunch.  Had we ever been to the pie shop?  No so let’s all go there.  The Pieminster is one of a chain of pie shops and this one is set in the Covered Market in Oxford.

Covered market, Oxford

Sallyann hadn’t been there either; her daughters had suggested that she take us there. Sallyann and my sister each had Kate and Sydney (steak and kidney) and I had Chicken of Arragon pie (chicken, smoked bacon and tarragon) all served with mashed potatoes and gravy.  We all declared them very good and ate up every last bit.  This was different to the pie shops that abounded when I grew up in the east end of London.  These pies there were beef, served with mashed  potatoes and liquor – a gravy made primarily of parsley and a taste unlike any other I have ever had.  But back to Saturday and our pies and the rest of the afternoon.We started in the castle precinct.  Oxford Castle is a large, partly ruined Norman medieval castle.  We didn’t go inside but we went to the prison (part of the castle precinct) that has now been turned into a high class hotel. – Malmaison, Oxford Castle.  We are told that the rooms are made from joining two cells. Unfortunately we were too late in the day to see the rooms opened as they were being cleaned.We wandered around with our own personal tour guide, down alleys  and little streets that one would hardly think could have traffic going in both directions – many looked too narrow for cars to pass each other.

Hidden-away squares adorned with Victorian style lampposts made us feel as though we’d  stumbled out of the wardrobe and into Narnia.  We saw the Brasenose College Door said to be the inspiration for C S Lewis’ “The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe”  with the close by,  Radcliffe Camera.  C.S. Lewis, creator of the Narnia stories, created them right here in Oxford when he was a professor at Magdalen College.

We were taken to a 13th century  pub – no we didn’t go in.  It was full of students and visitors on a busy Saturday afternoon.  But without our guide we would never have stumbled upon this gem.

We all agreed it was a great afternoon.  It ended with coffee, laughter and promises to keep in touch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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..Related articles

• Oxford’s doors open to the public for second day (oxfordmail.co.uk)
• Oxford the birthplace of Narnia and Lord of the Rings (joeandmarymoore.wordpress.com)

The Adventure Begins

Well, I have now been in London for 14 days.  I arrived after two very long flights from New Zealand exacerbated by a mix up in bookings. But the frustration was quickly forgotten when I eventually arrived at my sister’s house.

Since then the time has been spent mostly in catching up on each other’s news and meeting family.  And I am part of a very large family.  Father was one of 13 and each of the siblings had a couple of children, with the exception of one sister and one brother who had none.  So while there are only two surviving siblings of Father’s there are plenty of cousins.  And my sister has three children and six grandchildren so life has been rather busy.

One highlight was a visit to a retirement home where one of the surviving sisters lives.  She is suffering a form of dementia.  She was perfectly lucid for most of the time we were there but then she couldn’t remember any of us, not even her son, his wife and their two little girls.  How very sad.  She also became very tearful when she was told that her brothers had died.  Very sad and scary because she is only 8 years older than I am.

Today we have been to NZ House to have a copy of my passport certified.  Somehow I have mislaid my driver’s licence so I had to apply for a replacement.  Have you travelled on public transport in London?  One bus ride, three tube trains and one hour and forty-five minutes later we arrived at the Haymarket and NZ House.  I had quite forgotten how big, noisy and crowded London is.  It is a shock to a “colonial” even a “colonial” who was born and brought up in London.

And how strange it is that when I am in NZ I call England “home” and when I am here I call NZ “home”  Today I felt quite at home in New Zealand House.

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.
Maya Angelou, American author and poet 1928 –

And London has of course changed since I was last here.  The changes to the East End are amazing –  this is because the Olympics were mainly staged in this area last year.  More on these changes shortly.