Vaulted Halls and Bauhaus Tattoos

We've just returned from a brief trip to Bruges, via Oxford (to see Matthew) and the great Wen ( to see Sarah).  Luckily we chose a moment of respite from the recent period of Autumn monsoon, and given that the clocks changed last night, the last few days have been unexpectedly bright and unseasonably mild, though dire warnings of impending hurricane strength winds winds accompanied our drive up the M1 yesterday. Given that Maisy seems to get  become a trifle unsteady in anything stronger than a breeze, I don't fancy her chances in a full-on gale.

The Oxford city campsite is right next to the Park and Ride, so it was easy to get into the centre of the city and mooch about until Matthew finished work. Between staring at 'jeggings' in M&S (not designed for a middle aged bum!) and staring at greeting cards in Waterstones, we managed to wile away quite a chunk of the afternoon.

Matthew took us to a really interesting coffee shop right next to the Radcliffe Camera. The room was the original University Council chamber and dated from the mid- fourteenth century. Great coffee, yummy cakes, awesome quadripartite vaulting, hardly your average Starbucks.

The Radcliffe Camera in the evening sunlight.

An inevitable dreaming spire

Coffee and cake in the Congregation House

Byron Burger, where we ate later that evening, was one of those high end chains where anything from a humble burger to a self effacing lettuce is prone to adjectival beatification by having the term 'artisan' or 'signature' stuck in front of it. However the food was pretty good, and the hardworking young waitresses from Poland served up our meals with a friendly smile and a bit of panache despite being rushed off their feet.

Gill, looking slightly startled in Byron Burger!

Glancing around the restaurant I reflected on a comment Gill had made while wandering around central Oxford earlier. She observed, 'why do I feel older in England than I do when I'm abroad?' It's true, I thought, I feel that too. Maybe it's because youth culture is so highly developed here. Certainly, just glancing around the buzzing restaurant we appeared to be among the oldest customers; most of the clientele were super-sociable twenty-somethings alternating chatting to each other with texting and tweeting more remote 'friends'. Amongst the young men, 'geek chic' seemed to be the preferred look, with many sporting black- framed , Buddy Holly styled specs, though the odd Mumford and Son memorial beard was also in evidence.

The girl's fashions were more eclectic. I particularly liked the style of the tall young lady sitting on the table just opposite. Her look was based on a variant of 'the little black dress', but the garment has been given a goth make-over with the addition of silver studs around the scoop neckline and a flared black mesh outer skirt. All of this had clearly been designed to showcase her interesting collection of tattoos. Along the length of her left forearm, in a large wispy font redolent of fin de siècle Vienna, was the word 'Bau'- in a matching font on her right, the word 'haus'.  The back of her hand and the nape of her neck were  inscribed with other phrases in Gothic script too small to read with a mere casual glance. This, coupled with a spiky punk hairdo and dark purple eye-shadow made her appearance striking to say the least. Many of the bright young things around us looked well read, but nobody else had taken this quite so literally as Ms. Manuscript.

After we'd eaten we dashed for the bus as a sudden thunderstorm crackled around the spires and sheets of rain swept across the swiftly emptying streets. Exactly the same thing happened to us the last time we went out with Matthew for a meal in Oxford back in August. Maybe the place is going to take on the same reputation as Rome has in family lore; we've never managed to see the Eternal City without getting soaked to the skin. Is Oxford going to become the same? 

Matthew came back with us and we sat in the van talking about this and that - late Nineteenth Century French politics (Gill's reading the latest Robert Harris novel about the Dreyfus Affair), and the Belgian football team. According to Matthew, who does know about these things, the Belgian national team are the dark horses of next Summer's shenanigans in Rio. It would be quite funny if they beat Brazil in a penalty shoot-out. Would they get out of the country alive?

Matthew looking shadowy in the cab

Next morning, sunshine after the rain...

Next day we trundled down the M40 around M25 and down to Folkestone to catch le Shuttle. I was a bit apprehensive about maneuvering  Maisy into the carriage, but in the end it was a breeze. During the 35 minutes it took to cross  to France we sat at our table and had a very civilised lunch of bread, cheese and salad. Much nicer than queuing for chips in a ferry cafeteria. We decided that all future Tesco points would go into Channel Tunnel tickets;  it's the way to go, we agreed.

In 'le Shuttle'