Oxford

Greetings fans

Friday

No national holiday on 25 April for us. However, Megan did attend a dawn service (Tim decided to commemorate the fallen with an extra few hours of silence in bed). The service was the first to be held at the recently built NZ memorial in London and had a great turnout, despite beginning at 5am (!). The Australian and NZ memorials are conveniently located opposite each other nearHyde Park Corner and the service is planned to alternate between the two. This year, the service was lead by NZ servicemen and choirs from NZ and Australian high schools performed. Needless to say, was an emotional experience and well worth doing, even though we didn't manage to track down the promised ANZAC biscuits.

Megan was back home again by 6:15am and managed to get in another two hours sleep before getting up all over again to start a rather unproductive day...

Saturday

We decided it was about time we explored England beyond the edge of London so on Saturday we took a day trip up to Oxford. The train from London to Oxford took only a touch over an hour and passed through such wondrous places as Slough, Reading and Didcot!

It was a warm sunny day on Saturday and Oxford was buzzing with students and tourists. We wandered down the high street checking out a few shops and eventually found the covered market. The market was great; there were loads of all kinds of shops, although we wisely managed to steer clear of the chocolate and milkshake shops.

We tried and failed to go up the tower of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin for the spectacular views of the town it promised, as the queue was long and did not appear to be moving. After a quick look around the Bodleian Library and surrounding buildings, we stumbled across the oldest pub in Oxford, The Bear! Apparently there has been a pub on that site since 1242 and is famous for having the largest collection of men's ties in the world or something equally impressive. Nice. We had a drink in there before the extremely low ceilings made us feel a little claustrophobic and we continued on our merry way.

The largest and most famous of Oxford's colleges is Christ Church. The College was built by Cardinal Wolsey and founded by Henry VIII. It is the home of Oxford's cathedral, houses the tomb of Oxford's patron saint, St Frideswide, was where 13 of Britain's prime ministers were educated and was also the College that inspired Alice's adventures in Wonderland. The enormous Dining Hall contains several famous original paintings, including the portrait of Henry VIII.

We had a very enjoyable tour of Christ Church, which began with the Great Quadrangle, the largest of many blocks of grass in Oxford upon which it is forbidden to walk, sit or maybe set one's eyes... Christ Church includes Oxford's cathedral, a beautiful church full of amazing stained glass windows and decorated ceilings.

The Great Tudor Dining Hall was built for the College's foundation in 1529. Charles I held his parliament there, Elizabeth I watched a play there, Charlie Chaplin had dinner there and every table that has ever been there is still there today. Lewis Carroll, whose famous Alice in Wonderland books were inspired by the College (where he taught mathematics), ate over 8,000 meals there. The Dining Hall was the inspiration for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films and the Grand Staircase leading to the Tudor Dining Hall also featured in the films.

After wandering back through the cobbled streets of Oxford, we climbed the very narrow spiral staircase to the top of the Carfax Tower, and enjoyed the views over the pretty town centre below. We then had a drink and some Spanish tapas at La Tasca before catching the train back to London.

Sunday

Sunday was a crappy drizzly day in London, so after doing some chores in the morning, we hung out at our new local, the Compton Arms (on Compton Avenue) and had a couple of beers and a brilliant Sunday roast. Definitely a quality local pub!






Church of
St Mary
the Virgin












Funny















Carfax
Tower













The Bear
Pub













Christ
Church
Quad-
rangle









College
Cathedral

















Tudor
Dining
Hall














Grand
Staircase














View from
Carfax
Tower













Our new
local