Another early morning run to Victoria to catch the bus for our next tour.This time its educational,so we set off and are out of London(by now we know the route rather well,thanks to endless trips on the tube) and the landscape changes at once.Lush green meadows,dotted with dark green trees,some with red leaves and miles and miles of green of every hue.The sky is clear blue and the sun shines on yet another summers day in England.Our first stop is the small town of oxford and its many universities.We arrive at Christ college and are truly impressed.Its a religious experience(the college looks like a church)and the corridors are cool and shady.The few students around whizz past us on cycles and don't look at all the kind that are the brainy kind,but i guess they are.The dining room at Christ church is set for lunch and this is the hall that inspired the setting of Hogwarts school in the harry potter series and one can almost see the sorting hat doing its rounds.But the significant part is that Alice in wonderland was thought up here.The many greens in the campus almost makes one want to get at studies again.In a class of five or less students and in an environment of such peace,its not surprising that some of the best known scholars were from here.Our guide recites T S Eliot's poems on cats and i am charmed as it all comes back to me.The college next door produced this great writer and some chubby cat on campus was the inspiration behind cats.
We visit the many shops around the place and set off to the Cotswold,the most charming part of England.With its biscuit box houses,little gardens and rolling hills dotted with lazy cows grazing on the fresh green grass,the little woolly sheep also sunning themselves in the sun,all adds to that feeling of being in a green country unspoilt by the hustle and bustle of London.We stop at the Cotswold's arms,a pub where we are to have lunch but we skip to another place.Local oldies are having their many afternoon drinks and are chatting about the latest village gossip so we sit down to eat yet another mountain of potatoes(i am baning this vegetable from my house for a long time to come).
Stuffed to the gills,we wind our way over to Ann Hathaway's cottage a few miles down the road.This is a place i have been waiting for.Charming would be an understatement.This thatched roof cottage has an amazing garden and the sent of sweet peas are so heady that I stop to sniff at all of them.The variety is mind boggling.The vegetable garden is equally amazing as the cabbages and cauliflowers are so different.Purple cauliflower and with individual florets,this is interesting.The trees all have little quotes from Shakespeare plays and the artichokes are large and purple.
Our bus packs up thanks to the heat so i go back to the cottage and lounge on the lawns(this being my favourite pass time in England).
We arrive at Standford on Avon and are greeted by the fool(a large statue of one of the most essential characters in Shakespeare plays).We walk into the house where Shakespeare was born,marvel at the furniture and the house itself and then meet characters from his plays,who actually lapse into some lines from the plays themselves.The town is all about Shakespeare so every shop is full of him.But my favourite is the Christmas shop which is almost like Santa's workshop with a chubby little man who is more than ready to talk.We also go to the witches shop and there like in Macbeth there is the cauldron which is doubling and troubling for all its worth.The shop is full of spells that one can buy but with my watchdog around its impossible to buy any spell(there are quiet a few i would have liked to buy and some people that i would like to cast them on).
We are by now having withdrawal symptoms on tea so we stop for cream tea(scones with clotted cream,jam and a pot of tea).There are enough dogs around for me to play with and i meet spaniels,terriers and all kinds of English dogs.Finally our day is over and we drive back through the country side and back to London.We get off at notting hill gate and walk through the lovely houses and then get swallowed up by the tube on our way back home.
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