So my folks arrived here safe and sound on Friday afternoon. We spent much of Friday in my cousin T’s pub and woke up late on Saturday. In the end, they arrived at the pub before I did, and had worked their way through all of the ales and were starting to tackle the lagers. Which, obviously, is the only valid approach to your first time in an English pub. (although it’s not likely their first time… and it definitely won’t be their last)
Saturday, we did a bunch of walking. If you can look past the crowds, this is an incredibly pretty place.
Oh, geez, just noticed the clock. Need to be back at T’s pub in about a half hour… I’ll finish this post later!
So yeah, Saturday, we wandered around the city for some time. I mean, actually not the city. We went into the city centre, and then left it almost immediately. There are a lot of people around on a Saturday. Anyway, so it was a walk around the Christ Church Meadow, where we skipped going into the college. The college dining hall, one of the best reasons to go into the college, was closed. It’s something special – the stained glass windows and the fireplaces inspired Alice in Wonderland, so all the characters are up there. There are a bunch of creepy portraits where the eyes follow you around. And it’s where the dining hall scenes from Harry Potter were filmed. So yeah, we skipped the college, and walked the meadow, and then down the river to my place. From there, we walked back into town (I think this only takes about an hour for the round trip) and hit up The Whisky Shop. Pa was really excited about the Whisky Shop.
Then: pub, pub, pub! We spent about an hour in The Mitre on the High Street. The idea had been to have a cream tea (with scones and jam and clotted cream) but they were out of something, so we had ale and potato skins instead. From there, we went right back up to T’s pub, to meet Auntie J and listen to the band. A few pints in, I abandoned them all to meet some friends in yet another pub. I don’t actually recall when it was that my life started to revolve solely around booze… shrug.
