Oxford.

I went to see my friend Alice this weekend.

I arrived in Oxford a mere two hours later than I'd originally intended due to sleeping in (which was probably good for me. I know this really)

Alice suggested we walked down the river to a nice pub. Now this really is a plan that I can't fault. We weren't really expecting the walk to be a beautiful as it was. And then at the pub I learnt how to use the camera on my phone. Downloading the photos was another matter entirely. I bluetoothed them to Alice's Mac as my home PC is too antiquated to let me install the phone connection software onto. I suspect this means that I NEED a new PC so we spent a happy half hour later that evening comparing laptops on the web.

But anyway, the pub was gorgeous. I remember being there years ago with my grandparents. You might think that this weekend with its freezing temperatures is a little too cold to be sitting outside. Let me tell you that with a good glass of mulled wine (or maybe two) that is really not the case.

So here are some pictures of the walk. As we walked back the fog was rolling in beneath a lovely sunset. Would have been quite romantic if Alice hadn't developed an evil cackle laugh half way home. ah well.

I can't help it, I spent the time Alice was at the bar working out the discontinuity losses of this. I am VERY VERY sad. For the non-engineer that's the energy loss factors of the water)

oh look, I've learnt how to do panoramic photos. This is the Trout pub in Oxford. A really nice pub.

The view from the path we took.

There be dragons.. err.. I mean ducks. Ducks can be quite dragon like though.

Cows in the mist. According to Alice this is far preferable to cows on the footpath as we'd previously encountered. Apparently I didn't help with my comment "ooh, look, small cows". I am informed that they were enormous and scary. Maybe the cows are the dragons.


We got back to Alice's and watched CSI, drank beer, and Alice cooked the most amazing food. Mmmm. She is such a good cook. I can't remember the name of the dish but it was a typical Malaysian breakfast dish. A little too spicy and complex for breakfast I think, but that's just my opinion. When I was over there we did have curry and that early morning too. Guess it's the culture difference thing.

But anyway, the food: noodles, with chicken bits, egg, beansprouts, and seafood (prawns, muscles and squid) in a soup of chilli and stuff. Absolutely great. Apparently Alice is happy to feed me weird food as she knows I'll give it a try. This is good. All I need to do now is learn how to cook so that I can return the favour when she comes over here. It's my new aim. Eating and cooking properly (as in preparing interesting dishes, and enjoying eating them) How hard can it be..?

After dinner we went to a 'bop' at one of the colleges because 'someone' was DJing there and Alice had us on the guest list. I've remembered why college parties are things you stop doing. If you want to dance to M C Hammer in no space at all and spend half the night queuing for drinks then it's great. Actually I did have fun even though I made Alice go home early. I just can't cope with staying out till 2am. I'm getting old.

The journey home is was beset by a question. To summarise the answer which I repeated often in the half hour walk; 'Yes, he seemed to like you. No I couldn't see his face; you were in the way' (That should suitably embarrass Alice.)

Sunday morning involved getting up, having a full fry up (mmm) and pottering along to the Oxford Chaplaincy for mass. Didn't really know what to expect as Oxford seems to be full of quite high churches. The mass was really good though. Perhaps a little too much incense, but to be fair to them they were in a big hall with a high ceiling so it wasn't too bad. There was a really nice feel to the mass and the preacher had some interesting things to say. The bit that caught my attention was the phrase 'The kingdom can be found in the heart of a devout believer'. That's not the whole statement, but it's an image I like. The whole talk was about the way in which the kingdom is proclaimed and visualised today, in 2005. I'd expected to be blinded by Academics. Instead, I was challenged to think, and actually spend a little more time being aware of the religious politics type things. If I'm not careful I'm going to have to subscribe to the tablet. Maybe I should do that anyway. Although, it's a little heavy

So anyway, on the way back from mass we accidentally went shopping. But I need NEED clothes so that's all right.

All in all a great weekend. I should do relaxing stuff more often.