Thank goodness that’s out of the way! We’ve both been busy working and getting used to new working practices, Dean with new managers and Angela at Go Outdoors working most evenings and every weekend.
What a busy shop! Due to the amount of promotions they have there’s always new customers coming through. It’s been good fun though as you get to meet a wide variety of people with different hobbies, so you get excited for them when they tell you where their next adventure is going to be. That has also been a downside as it has made us have itchy feet again and we’re now chomping at the bit to escape.
We’ve also taken the opportunity to update our ‘walking’ wardrobe…after all, you can never have too many fleeces!
During February, apart from working we’ve managed to get into Oxford a couple of times but it no longer holds any interest for us. We met Dean’s mum for lunch one day in The Mitre, High Street (Beefeater, reasonable prices and a lovely cream tea) but for the most part we’ve gone in on our own. At the end of February we did the ‘tourist’ trail and walked along Broad Street, round to the Radcliffe Camera and Sheldonian Theatre.
The Covered Market (entry via High Street) is a real gem of independent butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and florists. The other retailers range from Fair Trade clothing shops to cafes, jewellers and cake makers who you can watch from outside. In other words, an ideal wet weather experience especially leading up to Christmas time.
When we’ve gone into Oxford we usually visit George & Danver for breakfast. They make (amongst other things) wonderful bagels with different fillings and excellent ice cream! It’s a great place to ‘people watch’, especially sat in the window in the picture. We also went to the cinema to watch the film Paul, about an alien and an RV…well worth watching. One of the things we missed in Scotland was the cinema so we treated ourselves to the best seats in the house, a sofa!
There’s not really much more to add to February so we’ll pick up the blog again in March. We’re looking forward to March as apart from leaving, the weather’s improving, we’re getting our hair done and we’re going to have afternoon tea at The Randolph Hotel…as featured in Morse, courtesy of our friends Malc & Ali who used to manage the Oxford campsite.
The ongoing bridge replacement is moving on apace, and it is very impressive how it is all being lifted into place by the Baldwins 1000T crane. A real feat of engineering.
