My week in Chinnor

I had a nice relaxing week in Chinnor with the Schwarzes. I pulled the broken string off my guitar... and then pulled off all the others and replaced them with brand-new strings. Nice.

Last Thursday, I borrowed Tom's bicycle and rode in to Oxford along various roads through the countryside.

There are quite a few species of wildlife in Oxfordshire. On my ride, I saw...

1 muntjac deer
1 fox
1 squirrel
2 rabbits
1 mole (they are smaller than I thought)

Unfortunately they were all roadkill so not very exciting really. Hmm...

While in Oxford I only really had time for 2 places. One was The Eagle And Child, the preferred pub of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis and Charles Williams. So I stopped there for a lunch of fish and chips, washed down with a cold pint of Guinness. :) After that, my second stop was just down the road - the Oxfam bookshop, where I picked up a copy of "Beowulf" translated into "modern" verse for 1.99, and a copy of CS Lewis' "Mere Christianity" for 99p.

Then I cycled back to Oxford, by a completely different route. Luckily Tom had scanned the relevant section of the AA road atlas and printed off a clear b&w map for me to follow... even when I took "wrong" turns, I still knew where I was and which way to go next. One place I passed was BMW's factory, where they make Minis. The only time I got lost was back in Chinnor... took a wrong turn two streets to early, and then eventually found the Schwarzes' house again.

On Friday evening we had a barbecue, and as the resident Aussie I was put in charge of the culinary duties. I cooked ribs, lamb chops, sausages, onion, sliced potato, cocoyam, plantain, and corn on the cob (smear with butter, wrap in foil, chuck on the grill - don't forget to keep turning it over every few minutes or one side will burn...). Delish.

Then Saturday morning the Schwarzes left for a week's holiday in Devon (it being a bank holiday weekend and the start of the mid-term school hols) and I caught a bus to London. More on my bank holiday weekend in the next post, folks!

Glennjamin