Shelby decided to do her own thing today, but the rest of us got a leisurely start to the day, eating breakfast at Covent Garden before heading to Paddington Station, from which we took the one-hour train ride to Oxford, home to the oldest university in England. Meredith had lived a summer there with her parents when she was seven (almost forty years ago), and had not been back since a brief visit when she was fourteen and on a tour that stopped in Oxford for a couple hours. The other three of us had never been, so it seemed like a great getaway from the bustle of London. And so it was.

We got there about noon and walked about a mile from the train station to the university area. The university is broken up into thirty-eight separate colleges, and we were hoping to see the ones with which the authors C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and Lewis Carroll were associated. Since that represents three different colleges, that was an ambitious plan. We got to Carroll’s college, Christchurch, which is tourable by the public, but for some reason, the main hall was closed until 2:30, so we kept walking along a small river (the Cherwell) to the local botanic gardens.

I like botanic gardens, and it was a beautiful day, so we paid the reasonable six pounds and spent a happy hour there, wandering around and looking at flowers and trees. We were probably about two or three weeks early for maximum early blooms, but it was a soothing place, even with many small school children running around near the entrance. We found that Carroll used to walk with the young Alice in the gardens, so we even had our Carroll tie-in.

We then decided we should get lunch, and the plan for that was another mile walk across town to the pub favored by Lewis, Tolkien, and the other Inklings – The Eagle and Child. Once we were most of the way there, I discovered I had left my glasses back in the gardens (I was wearing my sunglasses), so I walked back by myself to get them. I met the others near the pub; they had been window shopping, so had not yet reached it.

The front section of The Eagle and Child is crammed with nooks and is interesting and inviting. As such, there were no tables there. The back half is more modern – not bad, but not so interesting. We sat there and had an unhurried lunch. Meredith had been denied admission to the pub thirty-nine years ago, for being too young, so the lunch date had been postponed for some time.

What to do after lunch? When you don’t know what to do, punt. We walked a mile back across town, to the River Cherwell, where we rented a punt – a shallow boat that is propelled by a pole by someone (me) standing in the back of the boat. I had seen it on TV, and was reassured by the man collecting the money that it was very easy. It was not, at least not for the first fifteen minutes, during which time I ran into a bridge support and the shore, had to have a boat coming at me go around me because I could not get on the correct side, and got so close to a footbridge I had to stop the punt by reaching up with my hand and grabbing the bridge. I also almost fell in four times. Happily, I more or less got the hang of it for the final forty-five minutes, which was good, since that was a much busier section of river, which included three not-well-controlled punters and a very erratic rowboat using the novel method of rowing with the prow facing the wrong direction. Overall, the punting was a good experience, and the others said they liked it, but I was tired and my feet were sore, so I was happy to be back on land, dry.

As we walked back along the street, we saw that Magdalen College was open, so we paid for admission there. It was quite lovely. It was very quiet and had a wonderful path along some wooded areas near the river. The flowers were out back there too, and it was peaceful. We had to be back through the main gate to the college by 6:00 or risk getting locked out in the paths, so we made sure not to be out too long, but we got to walk around the quads of the college, and spent some time watching the deer in the deer paddock, because what is a college without its own deer population?

We stopped at a coffee and pastry shop after I was seduced by the display in the window. That worked out okay since we then walked back to the train, took the train back to Paddington, and took the Tube home. We got back to the apartment around 9:00, so the pastries inadvertently turned out to be supper.

As for Shelby, she made the most of the day, going to Westminster Abbey (and stumbling into an anti-Brexit rally), the Foundling Museum, the Sir John Soanes Museum (it was open this time), and riding the London Eye. And she still beat us home.