I bin dreaming

That is to say I've been to Oxford to take photos of the dreaming spires. And other stuff.
Spent two days staying with Frangelita and HF, (whose feet, I have to say, do not resemble Hobbits' feet at all IMHO), and have trudged the length and breadth* of the dreaming city in search of suitably dreamy images with which to woo the market goers of Oxford.
Fran and HF met me on Monday afternoon (nobly abandoning a Pimms and sunshine session in a pub) and took me to many lovely and interesting places in the city. Thing is, in a city like Oxford which is crammed with loveliness, you need a local guide to show you the best and most charming secrets. It helps if the guide comes in a pair and one can carry your bag for you (for which eternal thanks to HF) and the other can steer you around lamp posts and cars. It also helps if your pair of guides are happy to stop and consume cream tea and flapjacks at a moment's notice as well as directing you to a good source of such delights. It helps a lot if your pair of guides are relaxed about stopping every five (or two) minutes while you burble and snap and wander around backwards pointing a camera.
So that was all good. Followed up with a delicious Chinese and a good night's sleep,and I was ready to do some more trudging. Solo this time, as my guides were at work, but armed with a nice map and lots of detailed directions, I ambled along the Thames Towpath and viewed the city from on high and strolled through the gorgeousness of Christchurch College and its environs. When my back gave out (I really missed HF's bag carrying) and my feet burned I stopped and sat down to admire the views. And consumed copious amounts of tea and coffee. (they have some good loos in Oxford).
I never cease to be amazed and delighted by the number of buses available in Oxford. Sort of what you expect in a city I suppose but not at all what you get used to in the country! It does slightly compensate for the astonishing prices of parking! So anyway I adventurously caught a bus back to where I'd left my car and went back to Fran and HF's for some lovely pasta and a few drinks at a local bar. I also never cease to be amazed at the number of bars, caffs, restaurants and takeaways which seem, like gold, to line the city's streets.

So today's** wanderings included a lot of opportunist ambling down side streets and the discovery of St Edmund's College which is a gem and then the main event which was climbing the tower of St Mary's church, a magnificent and slightly scary edifice. Involves a corkscrewy and steep and narrow staircase and a lot of tourists going in both directions (in spite of having to wait at the bottom because "the tower was full"). After a good deal of pressing myself against window embrasures and just plain walls while poised above a corkscrewy descent in order to wriggle cosily past a number of assorted foreign bodies, I took to shouting "COMING DOWN" or "UP" as the case may have been, to stop another wave of assorted tourists beginning their ascent or descent while the stair was still "full"!
Still, we a were a very polite and considerate crowd of tourists and gave each other plenty of time to get the shots we were all after. Such as Christchurch and other spires and towers and generally lots of stuff.
After which my legs, feet and back (and also most of the camera batteries) gave out and I declined any further trudging. In fact I went back to collect my belongings and go home!

Tomorrow, I may make a folder of doors and windows. Oxford has the most wonderful collection of doors and windows imaginable :)

*This is patently nonsense. It's not a huge city but it's much too big to be length and breadth wise trudging in a mere two days. But my feet are still tired.
** That's yesterday now.