Tuesday 14/12/12

Breakfast in the dining room consisted of continental-style with toast and spreads; cereal; fruit; juice; tea and coffee, or full English which is egg, bacon tomato and toast.                                               The full English breakfast was very nice to see us off on our first day of exploring. We started by looking around our own building, out onto the roof to look out at some of the shapes we’d seen looming in the night. I had the camera out and working overtime.                                                          We eventually rugged up and set off. In the entry of St Stephens we met a man named Riley, who was down with his daughter for her interview at Merton College. Riley had never been to Oxford before despite living not too far away. He gave us a few hints about pleasant walks and we set off together for Cowley Road snapping photos of our streetscape and houses as we went. To catch a bus or walk into the city centre? We opted to walk with Riley for a short way, he left us window shopping in lots of little interesting places along the way. We found a phone shop and I ought a USB that I can charge up to get internet access. We kept along Crowley Road to Magdalene Bridge where Crowley Road merges with Iffley Road (which runs past the other end of our street) and St Clement’s Street to become High Street as it crosses Magdalene Bridge. I was almost delirious with the sights, ancient stonework reeking with history at every step. My poor little camera was really earning its keep as I snapped every gargoyle and weird little carved face that looked down from Magdalene College and any other building that we passed along that stretch. We passed the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, where university entrance interviews were taking place, snap, snap, snap. Along the way we did some shopping for gifts to take home. Every so often we would wander down a little cobbled side street to check out something that had caught our eye. In one of these we found a pub called The Bear, Oxford’s oldest pub, famous for its cut tie collection. We went in for lunch. The inside was two tiny rooms around a bar, the walls and ceiling were adorned with framed tie ends from Universities and Colleges from all over the place. Apparently if you wear a tie into this pub, they cut it off for their souvenir walls!!! Lunch was superb, Michael had Fish in Beer Batter with faggots and mushy peas and I had the most delicious Beef in Ale pie with Culconnan mash and turnip (swede). It was absolutely fantastic, very rich in flavour and hearty, the potato was a little mound of mash with cabbage layered into it, Yum!! We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering , trying to orientate ourselves, shopping and snapping photos. We eventually decided to head towards the train station for some information on getting around and to make sure we knew how to get to London at the end of our stay here. We bought some provisions at a small supermarket at the station, picked up some train and bus timetables and headed for home. It had started to drizzle a little and the light was fading as we boarded a bus outside the station that took us around the city and finally back onto Cowley Road and home.  It was dark by 5pm, inside was cosy and we relaxed a little not yet hungry after our pub lunch we started planning for tomorrow and going over the days events. I was unable to download the internet connection so that will be the first port of call tomorrow.