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Arrived at Heathrow an hour late but happy. Disembarked and freshened up,changing clothes etc and headed for passport control to find the other teachers had ignored my instructions and so we weren't fast tracked through immigration . It cost us 30 minutes in a queue but I was unphased and chatted to a lovely American woman ahead of me. She is a Christian and used to run student exchange programmes before she retired and had done a mission trip in Africa.
The naughty teachers were sorry and have been more careful since then!
We set off for Oxford at 8:30am, caught
some heavy traffic and reached the city atxx and met Emma in the carpark. It was wonderful to see her and she was delighted with her gift and the letters.
We all walked in to the city and at Cardax Tower we made sure the students recognised some landmarks and then we gave them two hours to explore the area and stretch their legs. Emma and I headed straight for a Costas for morning coffee and a good chat. The students' brief was to get breakfast buy sim cards if necessary and use an ATM. We all met up without incident and in our groups we set out to explore the sights in our booklets. My group started out by going to Martyrs' memorial and on past the Sheldonian and to the bridge of sighs where w took photos. We then managed an adaptation of a walk among some
Colleges, past Christ Church College meadow and back up to Carfax Tower. It was the prettiest walk and. We took lots of photos of the spring blossoms and bulbs along the way. We returned to the coach and drove on to Warwick where we entered the castle after an interesting talk about the castle defence. The students were left to explore and most of them
Managed very well. I went unit the dungeon, the Great Hall where I enjoyed the Kenilworth buffet all over again. The detail in the carving of the Queen's gown and the Cromwell exhibits were of particular interest to me. I watched part of a film about Cromwell (starring Richard Harris) shortly before we left on the trip so it was great to see these artifacts. Emma, Tennille and I watched the trebuchet shoot a fire ball and laughed about how that would spark a horrendous bush fire in Perth!
We then went through the other exhibits thoroughly enjoying the way they have been set out. It is a much more interactive and interesting experience they way they now have it set out.
We did the obligatory rampart climb and my calf muscles are still aching two days later!!! I loved the views and the entire day was just magical.
Happy, but very tired, the students all went to bed without incident.
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