UK: 2007

Mums, Dads and Friends: We've made it to Oxford

We can only imagine the tears of joy and bottles of champagne/booze if we've told our parents and friends with shaky hands holding a letter 15-20 years ago of the news.

But hey better late than never!

But we did learn some valuable lessons in Oxford.

Lesson number 1 from Oxford: Never mess with these black hat, black coat figures especially when the sun is going down. They are a grumpy bunch.

Lesson no.2: Reading in Oxfordshire where the hotel we stayed in is 22 miles away from the Oxford city itself.

Lesson no.3: Do not attempt to drive in Oxford City without Tom-tom, and following the 'Parking' signs is an art form.

The reason we chose Oxford as our next weekend getaway spot is because I wanted to capture the autumn colour. The colour of anticipation of the mother nature. I wanted to go to a beautiful park and just enjoy the crisp of the air and have a visual feast of the live vibrant display that is often depicted in paintings. Windsor Park is what I originally decided to be the prefect spot for the purpose, but alas, the park is closed due to the foot and mouth disease.

I chose a 3 star hotel with description on the net indicates:

Located deep within the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside, The Springs Hotel is a fine example of a Victorian Tudor-style country house. In the oak-panelled reception halls you will find a uniquely English atmosphere, with crackling log fires in open hearths and comfy chairs to relax in.

The hotel was constructed in 1874. The room is comfortable and spacious and has amazing views outside the balcony.

As expected of any old building, the hotel does have lots of creeking and banging noises especially if you have inconsiderate guests. Now... guests.. in a building that is more than 130 years old cover a wide range of species.

While Matt and I were in the hotel, we pretended everything was honky dory. Then I started to mention about this strange occurence, when I was woken up by this bunch of noisy guests who came through in the middle of the night like a bunch of disgruntled rhinos looking for a place to mate. I felt a pressure suddenly came on top of me and I was pinned down on the bed, I was conscious but couldn't move any part of my body. I'm sure I'd prayed to all Gods and deities, reciting every curse I can recall for the next what felt like an eternity of 10 minutes. I finally was able to wriggle my fingers, then moved my arm across to look for Matt's hand. We held hands for a good hour before drifting back to sleep. The strange thing is Matt said he felt he was being dragged down from the bed around the same time and that the bed was vibrating like it was filled with energizer bunnies.

Needless to say we both had puffy eyes the next morning. But it wasn't all bad news. The room was decidedly lovely and the next morning right after breakfast Matt rekindled an old love. Pictured left he is holding a small conker and with great ceremony he relates in Richard Attenborough fashion his early history with this small brown nut like looking object. Yes, the elegant art of drilling a hole through the conker, feeding through a piece of string with a knot at the end, and then swinging at the conker of someone who has done likewise. History is richer for tales such as these.

Oxford, the city of "Dreaming Spires" is exquisitely beautiful.

The city is a mix of ancient and modern. The vibrance of the occupants emanates an fascinating aura and we were happy to be swept up in it.

There are 39 independent and self-governing colleges at the University of Oxford. Each college has its own Governing Body, comprising the Head of House and a number of Fellows, most of whom also hold University posts. There are also seven Permanent Private Halls which were founded by different Christian denominations, and which still retain their religious character.

With a very limited amount of time and lack of sleep, we only able to choose a few interesting sites to visit.

We began the Sunday with going to a building that tells the Oxford Story to gain a bit of insight of this ancient university city. Founded on all forms of fragile beginnings, the history of this place is simply humbling.

But onward and upward....

We stumbled across St. Michael's Church, the oldest building in Oxford (built in 1040) and we of course just had to mount it's Saxon built tower. And took some photo from the roof of the building (in fact the first photo in this blog was taken from here).

For more pretty pics and info. you can visit the site below.

(http://www.sacred-destinations.com/england/oxford-st-michael-at-north-gate-church.htm)

Then we went back to Christ Church where we were told the night before that we couldn't go in by those black hat, black coat figures being past the visiting hours.

Our stubborness paid off and were rewarded with a feast to medieval collections to appease our tourists' inquisitiveness.

why is Matt just about always looking up in photos? I think he just likes to draw attention to his long neck.

In such a place, I couldn't resist taking a moment to reaffirm my prayers from the night before - I'm sure if they are going to be answered it's going to be here.

After almost killing myself scanning for the past 3 weeks in the hospital, I requested for a couple days off this week and dragged Matt kicking and screaming to Bath; the ANCIENT HEALING AND THERAPEUTIC SPA city. The place is prehistoric ancient, even stone-age ancient. Of course I am referring to the Roman Baths:
I figure, if the place is good for Kings

Queens , rich,

poor and lepers

then it will be good for me and Matt too.

Interestingly, Britain has a "Britain in Bloom" competition which as the name suggests, awards a price to the prettiest town during spring. Bath has been banned from this competition because it has won it so many times that the competition was becoming a formality :).

It did take a bit of effort to convince Matt to go to the Spa with me, a good nag at breakfast each morning and more nagging at night finally won him over.

The current operating spa is a 4 level modern building built (as are many business in Bath) within an historic building.

The spa still uses the same natural thermal water used by the Roman Baths. The theory is that rainfall around 10,000 years ago sank to a depth of about 2km below the earth's surface and was there heated by high temperature rocks in the earth before rising back up through a break in the limestone that lies beneath the city of Bath. It must have been a very very heavy rain, coz over 1 million litres of mineral-rich 45°C water flows from the thermal springs each day, and there is no sign of it subsiding. (http://www.thermaebathspa.com/index.html)

We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly in the spa center running up and down the building sampling different saunas (Lavender, Jasmine and Eucalyptus scented) and the two spa pools like little kids. Perhaps the highlight is the awesome shower which is positioned in the centre of the saunas which threatens to turn you into pulp (well, slight exaggeration, but what a shower).

Abbey Church opens onto the same square as the Roman Baths.

I especially liked the two ladders on either side of the entrance. If you look closely you can see angels climbing towards the Lord - well all angels but one - Lucifer who is climbing down.

The marvelous windows inside the church earned it the title 'Lantern of the West'.

We managed to squeeze a short tour into our break to visit the Stonehenge - look, non-matching beanies!!!

Now this place used to be quite forrested, but when the early settlers moved in, those darned annoying trees were removed. A consequence of this is there is nothing to alleviate the bone-chilling wind that threatens to ice your very soul. Look, even the rocks are huddling together for warmth...

While on this tour we were treated with a few little stories

but unfortunately were unable to get as many photos as we'd have liked for illustration. However, one little snippet was the how the phrase "blind drunk" came about. Through a number of the villages we passed through during the tour, there were these single-room huts with not even a slit as a window so were pitch black when shut up. The room comprised of a bed and a privy as shown right. The town sherif would throw a waylaid drunk in these huts overnight to sober up. Of course, when the drunk was let out in the morning, the sunlight was blinding.

The tour also brought to a village called LACOCK. I'm sure the French will chuckle over the name. But then, perhaps they named it given the village was founded around the time of the Norman invasion. The town experienced an economical boom through the wool trade for about 4 centuries from the 1300's but then was largely left behind and consequently became a lovely snapshot of bygone eras.

The village was donated to the National Trust and all but a few tenants rent. Because of it's historical significance, there are restrictions in place to what tenants can do. You'll not see a TV antenna here. But you will see important pieces of information such as the words towards the bottom of this sign: