Oxenford

We went to Oxford yesterday, to meet some friends from those old happy days in the City of Libraries. I think this may be one of the best places to be a librarian anywhere - apart from the rubbish pay of course. We had a great time when we lived there - it is where I met Mr C, so lots of happy memories. It was a bit of a flying visit - quite a lot of travelling in one day. I went from Victoria on the Oxford Tube, which is a bus (confusing for tourists I've always thought). I've travelled the other way before, but not from London to Oxford. Anyway, it was quite an ok journey - not too long, despite delays due to roadworks. I'd forgotten Mr C had a driving lesson when we arranged the meet-up, so he wasn't able to get there until later (about 3pm).

Met up with Friend A and we ate lunch, which is always our priority whenver we meet. Went to Harvey's sandwich place and had nice sandwiches but very bad service. I don't know what it is about me, but servers, whether it is people at counters or waiters in restaurants, often just don't seem to notice me. People got served in front of me who hadn't been there as long as I had. Why is this? Maybe it is my unassertive nature or maybe they just don't like the look of me! It's like I'm not there! Maybe I become invisible the minute I want to order something. I was wearing a white top, so perhaps they thought I was a ghost and were trying to pretend they hadn't seen me because they were afraid.

Anyway, we eventually had lunch. Actually most of the day was taken up with eating and drinking (non-alcoholic), as it often is when we go to Oxford. All those beautiful buildings and all we want to do is eat ice cream and fish pie (not at the same time). We had a wander round the shops and then went for ice cream at G&D's. No turkish delight flavour yesterday, alas, but I had a lovely coffee one. They now weigh the servings of ice cream, which is a bit odd. Perhaps they had complaints about discrepancies in portion size. They used to have moo-ing competitions in there on a Tuesday night. I have lost my moo recently for some reason, but when I lived there I was quite tempted to enter. [Don't even think about making any offensive comments about my similarity to our bovine friends!]

After this, Friend A wanted to go to the pub to watch the football. I told her I thought this was a bad idea, but because I have no free will (not in a theological sense, only in a low-assertiveness sense) I went along with her plan. We were there for about half an hour before the noise became intolerable and we went out into the garden and she admitted I had been right. Hooray! Much nicer. Mr C turned up, and then Friend B. It was good to see Friends A and B again, as it had been a while. We tried to work out what was going on with the football by the sound and type of cheering (and other noise) we could hear. Due to lots of people being in the pub, food was off, so we went to the fish place next door for tea. Fish pie! We always have fish pie when we go there, mainly because it's the cheapest thing on the menu!

After that, it was time to go home. Back on the bus, which was faster on the way home and we got back earlier than we thought we would, which was good. There were a couple of interesting people on the bus. They are both involved in Egyptian archaeology, and have led really interesting lives, which they were discussing, and I was eavesdropping on their conversation. They were quite old and very Nice Oxford English, which I like (as opposed to Snobby Oxford English, which I dislike, being well brought up by a Liberal Democrat and a conservative (?) [note small c] would-be communist. (Don't ask!)). Sorry about my bizarre use of brackets in this paragraph!