16. Looking Out From The Inside

 We loved our Thursday evening in Oxford. The restaurant we went to, well Gee, it was just so lovely. It was a former conservatory and during restaurant renovations they maintained most of the structure so you entered through a very quaint greenhouse (where if it was warmer one would sit and dine). So we opted for the inside which was equally beautiful and comfortable. 

It was fun to observe a family gathering beside us. There was a little boy about Livee and Lucas’s age with an older sister about Amelia’s age. The older sister sat quietly reading a book through the whole dinner but the young boy made himself very comfortable. The kids got fed first and after he finished his main course, the boy went out into the bar area where his parents could still see him, and he climbed up onto a bar stool and asked the waiter for something special. His parents were ever-curious when he came back to his seat but the boy just grinned from ear to ear. The waiter appeared with a sundae for the young girl and then an ice- cream cone for the little boy. But the ice-cream cone was in a wooden holder which perfectly held the cone and the ice cream. It was really neat. I’ve never seen anything like it. Mes quatre petits enfants— you would have really liked this restaurant. 

This one’s for you, Diana. 

After dinner we went for a walk in the centre of Oxford where our hotel was located. There were so many students out. Several of them were wearing convocation gowns, some were wearing unusual hats associated with graduation ceremonies, and some were all dressed up in formal clothing. I can confirm the fact that the most popular pub on campus in the area we were in was the “Lamb & Flag.” Most of the others were empty and this one had the kids flowing out the doors. 

It was also quite entertaining to see three students crawling through a closed door cutout at Trinity College where the sign specifically said, “Do Not Enter.” They were just grinning away as they scampered through the hole. 

The architecture in Oxford is so interesting. We love the old buildings with each one different from the other and to see how they have been remodeled from the outside to modernize them a little, but not too much. 

“We really liked Oxford and it is a place we’d love to come back to and spend more time. It seems a very friendly town and it was great being surrounded by so much activity and so many young people. We think there’s lots to explore in this city. 

On Friday morning we got our rental car for the rest of our rural touring. We’re driving a VW that seems to be handling all of the roads well. Today’s adventure was driving to Saint Austell in Cornwall. We drove through some pretty areas with lots of rolling hills and as we got closer to Cornwall, the declines kept getting steeper and steeper. We decided to go via the town of Bodmin so we could stop at a Sainsbury grocery store and pick up some gluten and dairy-free foods. It’s amazing what I was able to find there that they don’t carry in Canada . Our place in Charlestown near Saint Austell has a kitchen so I am able to cook for the next few days which will be an enjoyable treat. It was entertaining trying to figure out how exactly to get to the sea cabin we are staying in. I can’t quite say all of us were feeling entertained at the time but as we look back now, we can laugh. The navigation system pretty much got us here to the town but it was a bit of a puzzle to find exactly where this mysterious cabin was located. 

And we really like it. It’s a nature-lover’s paradise here and we are fortunate to have a glassed-in greenhouse between our kitchen and the rest of the cabin. Considering the massive down-pour in rain that has been happening almost all day, it’s nice we can still enjoy the outside by being inside. 

No pictures of Cornwall today. There would have been too many raindrops on the camera lens. Oh and I am correcting the post’s spelling of the of the town Ypres (which is the French name). It’s Ieper (in Dutch), not leper. (The capital “I” and the lower case “l” look the same— causing confusion amongst some of our travelling party.)