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OOOOO! I'm in Oxford! We spent a lovely morning walking around Kensington Park in London, smelling the roses along the Princess of Wales path (they really are scented in a most delicate aroma) and perambulating around the Serpent lake. Kensington Palace itself is being transformed (no kidding - the sign said so!) but I was able to examine the gates closely - they are beautiful; apparently all that remains of the Crystal Palace designed by a gardener for the World Fair back in 1890ish. Thanks for the tip Nadine - they were well worth checking out!
We hightailed it back to the coach depot to retrieve our luggage (and I really understand now why it is called luggage - it's a true work out lugging that thing up the streets of London ... and I thought I had packed light!) We hopped on the bus off to Oxford, munching a snack lunch & resting for the afternoon ahead.
Once we had booked into the delightful B&B, "the Pickwicks", we reveled in the amount of space this charming room afforded us! It is a pretty room in a large home on a main road in Headington - a small hop up the hill from Oxford proper. After a reprieve of tea in the room ( I love being in a place where a cup of tea is so readily available - anywhere we've been, folks know exactly what to serve up!) we caught a bus into town & poked around. I had never known that at one point, Oxford was a rival for capital of England (during the reign of Charles 1) nor did I know that Kris Kristofferson is a Rhodes scholar. We toured Oxford Castle, which up until 1996 was a functioning prison. Again, another fascinating historic site as it dates back to pre-Norman invasion (about 1,000 years) and has many layers of cultures built one on top of the other. It has the oldest non-religious, anglo-saxon structure still standing. It is a square tower that seems to have no obvious church or attachments to it - it's just a tower. Then the invasion of the Normans came, and it was deemed a very fortuitous base for further additions of a confining nature, and hence it became a prison for a few centuries. We were treated to a wonderful run down on its history by a knowledgeable & animated costumed docent, who's grandfather was a jailor in the early 1900's and is the character whom he portrays as part of his presentation- this is by a strange coincidence and was a fact unbeknownst to him at the time of his application to the job. He said it certainly enhanced his love of being "Daniel Harris" - a forward thinking and rather fair jailor.
Having worked up an appetite with all this exertion, we supped at the "Eagle & Child" pub - the very meeting place of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Dyson, sometimes Dorothy Sayer, and their Oxford chums. As we came in to the pub & ordered our food, a group was gathering in the hallowed back room and were engaged in animated discussion by the time we were eating. Couldn't hear what they were saying, but maybe it was just a little reminiscent of the group of 60 years ago - who knows what new classics or refreshing insights are being developed? What a heritage to build on though!
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