UK trip 2018 Oxfordshire

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Monday 18 June.

We picked up a car today after taking the tube back to Heathrow. It is a Citroen C3, bright orange with a white roof and black stripes so we should be able to find it in the carparks. Great little car to drive. It was rather nerve racking getting out of the airport, but I settled down fairly quickly. There are slight differences in the give way rules here, as I quickly discovered, and signs and traffic lights are not quite where I expect them to be, but at least they mostly drive on the correct side of the road.

We are staying at Stretton on Fosse, in the Cotswolds, about 1 hr out of Oxford. A residential village with just a pub (The Plough), a church and a post office. The Fosse refers to the ancient Roman road, the Fosse Way.

On the way up from London we stopped at Oxford and did another free walking tour of several of the colleges. Parking is a nightmare in many of the more substantial towns, so we were pleased to stop at a “park and ride” on the outskirts and get a bus in to town.

Tuesday.

A great day today. We drove into Moreton in Marsh for the Tuesday market. We like markets and this was a great little market. We bought some beautiful little Spanish marinated olives and serious marinated garlic cloves. Sea bass for tea tonight and a substantial Steak and Stilton pie for tomorrow night. The cheeses were really good. I have always held out great hope for many of the English cheeses and been so often disappointed BUT these today were seriously good. We had our fresh bread rolls for lunch with a really good Cheddar and a MAGnificent Stilton.

Alison had some forebears in Woodstock nearby, so we visited the church and the admirable Oxfordshire museum before getting down to the serious business of preparing for dinner. We have not had a really good enjoyable meal yet here in UK but tonight was the night. Just to get in the mood we walked down to the local pub, The Plough for a pint of the local tipple before lightly frying the Sea Bass with baked potatoes, salad, including the marinated garlics, and a bottle of Bordeaux, Sauvignon Blanc. Our cottage has a very steep and narrow set of stairs up to the loft bedroom and they seemed rather wobbly tonight.

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