And on to Bicester

We had five days in Manchester between sits and I spent all of them holed up in the Airbnb with bronchitis. Guess my diet didn't stave off the annual "barking festival." We took the Transpenine Express train from Glasgow and for the first part of the trip were seated with a very interesting older Glaswegian couple. When I say older, I mean my age. Damn! He was very talkative and fun and she was like a dark cloud that hung over the proceedings. I asked where they were off to. She replied that they were off to celebrate the birthday of a mother & daughter, friends of theirs. "How lovely," I said. "No," she said, "The mother just had a stroke and can no longer talk." Okay. We had a lovely chat with him, anyway. Every time he'd say something to her she'd manage to put a dark spin on it. Oh, well. They got off after two stops and the lovely train attendant kept the refreshments coming all the way to Manchester. I loved the placemats on the train - great graphic representation of the north.

We changed trains at Manchester, though we had missed our original connection due to a stalled train on the tracks ahead of us. The hosts for our sit picked us up at the station, gave us a quick tour of the town, dropped us off to buy supplies at the grocery store and brought us to the house. We met the kitties and shortly after, our hosts were off on their Moroccan holiday. They were the loveliest couple, Paul and Lou. They bought a huge selection of local goodies for us to try: local biscuits, cheese, the best apple juice I've ever had and a bottle of wine made by a local collective to which they contributed grapes from their back yard. Oh, and Paul baked us a fruitcake. So sweet!

Bicester is a lovely town famous for its upmarket designer outlet mall. Its draw for us, however, was its proximity to Oxford, so on our first full day there we trained into Oxford for a tour of the city and university. I had visited Oxford many years ago when I was an employee of Ocean Cruise Lines. My then-boyfriend, Eric, had made friends with a couple from Oxford, Chiz and Maggie. Chiz taught at Oxford and he and Maggie took me on a wonderful tour around the campus including student-only places that I would never have seen otherwise. We also drove around the Cotswolds and had a wonderful pub lunch at the Swan at Swindon. (Eric had too much to drink the night before, was sick the next morning, and missed the whole thing.) Anyway, I had seen some of Oxford, but it was 35 years ago, so this tour might as well have been an introduction to the city and university. The tour left from the center of the city where the Christmas market is set up.

Our tour leader was a fellow named Jonathan who was an Oxford graduate. He had had a career in publishing, part of it spent in the US. He's now a photographer with a side hustle as a tour guide, and he's really terrific. We started our tour at Baliol College. I guess that I should explain that unlike US universities, Oxford's colleges are actually more like dormitories. Your college has nothing to do with the subject you are studying, though some colleges are associated with specific subjects. And unlike American universities, when you are a student you don't take courses in many different subjects, you focus on your one chosen subject in depth. Jonathan explained that students have tutorials with a professor and there are usually only about three students in the tutorial. The professor will ask you a question, you answer it, then the professor will tell you why your answer is wrong. Your job is then to defend your answer. The prof may, in fact, completely agree with you, but it's his job to play devil's advocate to get you to really think things through. Jonathan said that it's a wonderful way to get students using their brains, but that it can be hell on self esteem since you're always being challenged. It used to be worse years ago, he said, when the professors were apt to say things like, "You're a complete idiot. Get out of my room until you can form a coherent argument."

After Jonathan checked in with the office, we walked into the yard of Baliol college, which is the 4th oldest college in Oxford. Maybe. Apparently there is a dispute about that (and virtually everything else to do with Oxford's history.) The only thing everyone at Oxford agrees upon is that Cambridge is a horrible university.

There is historical evidence that suggests that some sort of teaching was done at Oxford in 1096, which would make it the oldest university in the English-speaking world, but historians now estimate its actual founding as 1130, making it the 4th oldest university in the world. In 1167, King Henry VIII forbade English students to study at the University of Paris, at which time Oxford grew rapidly. Education in the earliest days was only for the clergy. Consequently, every college has its own chapel.

Baliol College chapel:

One of the halls at Baliol dates to 1577. In this photo it's the one with the shorter walls and crenelated roof.

Another way in which Oxford is different from many American universities is that money, apparently, doesn't influence its admissions. Case in point: David Reuben wanted his sons to go to Oxford, so he made a gift to the university of $80 million. Oxford said, "Thanks for the money, but your sons didn't pass the entrance exams, so sorry, they can't study here." That was how Reuben College came to be founded. They'll name a college after you, but they won't lower their standards of admission.

Jonathan showed us the dining hall though we couldn't enter because it was lunchtime for the students. Dining is a serious affair. Every morning, breakfast is served to the students by waiters. Lunch is a casual buffet but dinner is a very special affair. Male students must wear suits or tuxedos, female students must wear dresses or suits. They are served dinner in courses by waiters, and wine is served with dinner. On special occasions, academic gowns are also worn. Each student at Oxford gets a private room so that they can concentrate on their studies and not be sidetracked or distracted by a roommate.

Students from 161 countries attend Oxford. In the last few classes, women outnumber men in admissions. The powers that be are very concerned about that and look at that as a crisis. All hail the patriarchy.

We left Balliol and walked down Broad Street to Blackwell's Bookshop. If you're a Dr. Who fan, it's quite like the Tardis: bigger on the inside. The relatively small storefront gives way to room after room of books. They stock everything from the latest best-sellers to academic research books and even first editions. The booksellers are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. I could live there. There's even a cafe so you can, in fact, spend the day there browsing and buying. After a quick walk around the store we went a bit further down Broad street to the Weston Library which is modern and wonderful and has a bathroom that's open to the public. (Something of great value to an old lady.) On display there is the Sheldon Tapestry Map of Oxfordshire, which was woven during Elizabethan times. At some point it was folded up and stored and when it was rediscovered, moths had eaten a large percentage of it. What remains is quite interesting and features the original spellings of the towns outside of London and Oxford. (that's Jonathan in front of the tapestry.

From there we passed the Sheldonian theatre, built in 1669 and designed by Christopher Wren, the architect who designed St. Paul's Cathedral in London. It was commissioned by Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of the university.

We passed The King's Arms, one of the oldest pubs in Oxford. There's a back room called The Don's Bar where Oxford dons used to hold their tutorials. That ended in the 1970s, as did the policy of forbidding entrance to women.

We stopped at The Turf Tavern, a very old and very famous pub. The Turf is quite proud of its history and its famous clientele.

Another claim to fame:

The turf is located just outside the city walls.

In days gone by, there was a curfew for the city. The bells would ring at nine o'clock and the gates would be closed. If you found yourself outside the city walls at night, you were either a thief or a prostitute, or about to be a victim (or customer) of one. Either that, or you were one of the downtrodden poor. Such was the case of Jane Burden, an embroiderer who married William Morris. They lived, for a time, in a cottage outside the city walls.

It's funny how so many of my travels this fall and winter have been connected. We visited an exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelites in Birmingham and an exhibition of William Morris wallpapers in York.

Jonathan led us to the "Bridge of Sighs"

which was used by students trying to return to college after curfew. Bridge of Sighs is actually a misnomer because it doesn't resemble Venice's Bridge of Sighs at all; in fact its design is based upon the Rialto Bridge.

Jonathan then took us into the wonderful courtyard of the Bodleian Library, which is said to own a copy of every book ever published in England.

It's a research library, so no books can be taken out. The library, in its current form, dates back to 1602 though there was a library in the vicinity as early as 1327. (Think of that - almost 300 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock.) The library went through a period of decline in the late 16th century. During the reign of Edward VI, there was a purge of "superstitious" (Catholic-related) manuscripts. It was not until 1598 that the library began to thrive once more, when Thomas Bodley wrote to the Vice Chancellor of the university offering to support the development of the library. Until the establishment of the British Museum in 1753, the Bodleian was effectively the national library of England.

We then walked a bit further down the street to a couple of iconic scenes. This first one, through the gates of All Souls College, is said to be the twin towers from "The Lord of the Rings."

J.R.R. Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College at Oxford. His close friend, C. S. Lewis also taught at Oxford. Lewis had been an atheist while Tolkien was a devout Catholic. On September 19, 1931, Lewis finally "saw the light" during what is referred to as "the night talk" between Tolkien, Hugo Dyson and Lewis. Tolkien was thrilled that Lewis embraced Christianity until Lewis chose Evangelism over Catholicism. Their friendship slowly soured after that.

Also through that gate is a sundial which seems to reveal the face of a cat. That was allegedly A.A. Milne's inspiration for the Cheshire cat, though Milne attended Cambridge, not Oxford. Makes a good story, anyway.

Around the corner is a door that is reputed to be the door to Narnia from C.S. Lewis' novels.

Jonathan led us to the back of the Sheldonian Theatre and urged us to book tickets to hear Handel's "The Messiah" which is performed frequently during the Michaelmas term. Sadly for us, it wasn't on offer during our time in Bicester. Oh well, another reason to return. There we bade goodbye to Jonathan, who was really sensational.

Bruce and I walked to The Turf for lunch. It was packed the entire time we were there.

The ceiling is so low, you have to duck to get under virtually every beam.

The clientele is a mix of tourists, students and misc. locals. The food was pretty good but, like a lot of pubs these days, there's a QR code on the table and you order your food and drink that way. It's pretty efficient, but it really takes a lot of the feel of an old pub away because you don't have any contact with the staff.

Bruce set off for pubs unknown & I headed into the center of town where I passed the carousel at the Christmas market.

I found an old covered market which was buzzing with business. Lots of places to eat and a number of little shops.

I love the fact that modern shops are in a place with such atmosphere. It must be very popular with tourists, too. This was my favorite shop, a combination of bookstore & cafe:

It was such an interesting day.