England and Ireland 2024

We managed some sleep on the London to Singapore leg, but I stayed up watching all three Lord of the Rings movies between Singapore and Sydney and hadn't quite finished when we landed at 5 am Sydney time. I slept for ten hours last night, best sleep ever, and now it's back to the old routine and catching up. What have we learned? June: Read the fine print on everything  and especially, pay with a credit card not a debit card when paying the security deposit on a hire car. Ask the waiter for an explanation  when ordering obscure dishes like Cockle Popcorn. If you need to make phone calls, eSims (data only) are no help.  Most help lines are a phone number. If you don't understand the accent, ask them to repeat, to avoid misunderstandings. Deborah: If you wash your undies every night, you can wear everything else for several days and take less luggage (thanks, June). You do a lot more walking when you are on holiday ... now I understand how Pete feels. I wish I had take...

This is our last day in Oxford. It is 1st May, May Day.  There were students celebrating noisily and drunkenly on the steps of the Bodlian Library when we arrived at 9 am for our guided tour, and others in formal dress who looked as if they were just heading home to bed.  We also saw a group of Morris dancers performing.  Sometimes the best parts of a trip are unplanned. It was fascinating to see the original library buildings and hear their history, and to know that the library is still in use today.  We went through an underground tunnel from one part of the library to another. Then we walked up to the Natural History Museum, where June coveted a bird skeleton as a training aid for our WIRES carers.   We collected our luggage and caught a bus to Heathrow, and are just about to board our flight to Singapore.

We were very sad to say goodbye to our lovely B&B host, Suzanne, this morning, but we had  an early start to return our car to Eurocar in Oxford. Finding a petrol station to fill up the car was challenging and so were the last few roundabouts, but we made it. After we dropped our luggage off we visited Balliol College (where my favourite detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, was educated). We walked down to the Botanic Gardens to fill in time until it was time to check into our accommodation at Rewley College.  There are lots of impressive old buildings  and lots of towers and spires, but most of the colleges are not open to visitors so we could only imagine what is hidden behind their high stone walls.  The Bridge of Sighs is a covered walkway  between two college buildings. I liked this tree which was espaliered against another building. June and I went our separate ways in the afternoon.  I visited the Ashmolean Museum (relics from Stone Age thro...