Oxford Revisited

Yesterday we took a day off from sight-seeing and lazed around most of the day. Late in the afternoon we took a drive down the A40 to see what we could see. On the way back Ally and I pressured Jeff into stopping at a little pub called the Boot Inn that had been recommended for dinner. He wanted to go to "Little Chef," the British equivalent of "Bob Evans," but Ally and I stuck to our guns. It was very "pub-ish" looking inside and the food was excellent. I had monkfish with a lemon ginger sauce and they served a huge platter of vegetables for us to share. The Boot's claim to fame (other than the food) is that it collects shoes from famous people and mounts them on the walls. Unfortunately, most of these famous people are soccer players, so I didn't know many of them -- but they did have the shoes of the BeeGees!
Today, we took the bus into Oxford and had lunch at the Eagle & Child (known to the cognoscenti as the Bird and Baby), the pub where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and the other Inklings met each week for twenty or more years. Ally was a little disappointed I think because, as an aspiring writer, she hoped that just walking in the door she would be struck with inspiration. Instead, it just looked like a quaint pub. However, the food was good. I had bangers and mash and I think everyone agreed mine was the best dish we ordered. I was tacky and took a picture of the table where the Inklings met right next to the fire.
Next, we walked down to Christ Church College. Kate was excited about this because they filmed parts of the Harry Potter movies there. She's watched those movies so many times that she felt quite at home at Christ Church. She kept recognizing things from the movies.
In Christ Church Cathedral, a very sweet guide took an interest in us and led us out a side door and told us the story of Alice Liddel, who was the real Alice in Wonderland. He showed us the garden where she played and the tree that her cat, Dinah, used to climb. In the cathedral there's a stained glass window of St. Catherine where the face of St. Catherine was based on Alice's sister, Edith.
After we left Christ Church we walked down High Street to University College, where I attended a summer program way back in 1978. The sign said the college was closed to visitors, but Ally and I stepped in anyway and I introduced myself to the porter and he let us take a few pictures. Ally couldn't resist his dog, Maggie, and, as the porter said, Maggie was an attention whore. She just lay down and loved being petted and fussed over.
Kate started to feel sick soon after we left Christ Church and we stopped at The Queen's Lane Coffee Shop to get her a drink of water. All the pastries and things looked so tempting that we had to sit down and have something to eat. I ordered cream tea (well, actually, coffee) and shared it with Ally and Kate. Jeff ordered apple pie and custard but when he wasn't looking Ally and Kate stole bites of it from him and he ended up only getting one bite!
After that, Jeff took Kate home where she fell asleep immediately and seemed to feel better afterward. Ally and I stayed to look around Blackwells but, as it was closing in ten minutes, we didn't look around much. The knitting section was particularly disappointing ... only five books. I thought this was freaking Blackwell's -- one of the best bookstores in the world?! I was hoping to find Alice Starmore and an out of print book called Knitted Lace. No such luck.
We're having a great time. Tomorrow I'm planning to do wash during the day and look for yarn shops, then, in the evening we have tickets for the Scottish play at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The picture shows Kate, Jeff and Ally after a long walk in Oxford.