Day 9/58 - You lucky sod Inspector Morse

When I was young I sat the Junior Oxford exam and passed. I can't remember exactly what its importance was but I do know it meant I could go to Oxford University without waiting to pass my A levels.

I never went...instead I went to Australia during the Equity strike in England which meant my dad couldn't sign his new television contract. I stayed - and all I saw of Oxford was in countless British films and the Inspector Morse series. I never regretted it - until today.

WEdnesday June 23rd. More magic villages and winding English lanes contrasting with the overcrowded and sluggish motorways. England has this magic thing called Park and Ride. You park for free on the outskirts of a city and then pay a nominal return fare on a bus to the centre of the town. Brilliant.

I don't need to describe Oxford...we've all seen it. Aaaaah, but we haven't all FELT it.....that strange combination of vibrance and history, the old and the new, the past and the future. Just walking the town's length, taking pics of anything and everything ( Oxford was surely created to be photographed long before the camera was invented) was a wondrous experience. It was graduation day at some of the colleges..... kids in their velvet trimmed gowns, overblown Chan cellors and their svelte, chic wives, all mingled with the great unwashed of a dozen countries, carefully avoiding the Goths with cigarettes hanging from their mouths and beer bottles in their hands. The architecture is astonishingly beautiful - but it's the quaintness of the side streets that charms you.

We had a ploughmans lunch in a tiny inn, lost in an alleyway, called The Chequers. The building has been there since 1206 and originally belonged to a money lender. It has operated as a public house since the 1600s and some of the decor looked as though it had always been there: Not so the giant Plasma Screen on the wall....well It was England's last chance in the world cup after all and Tony accompanied the match with many toasts of Brakspeare beer.

A lovely afternoon....the weather is beautiful, and even though I preferred light blue as a colour in my youth and thus supported Cambridge in the annual boat race, I could imagine the coxed eights in their dark blue singlets, rowing steadily under the watchful eyes of 500 year old buildings.

I even managed to get some shopping done at Bhs ( Sounds much more chic than British Home Stores). EVERYTHING is on sale over here, and the economy is bleeding, but amidst the air of pessimism the sun is still shining and all is right in MY world.

Tonight we took Margaret to a little French restaurant L'Auberge in Hartley Wintney. The food wasn't spectacular but they did do scrumptious escargots and the pale and subtle grenache voignier wine came from near Niems...where we'll be spending our time.

To cap it off we arrived home to discover our PM had been deposed. Arrogance and idealism don't make comfortable bedfellows.... and now we have Julia....whose greatest claim to fame in Britain is that she was born in Wales.

The Times is a Tabloid - surely a sign of the end of civilisation as we know it. If The Age goes the same way I shall DEFINITELY stop reading the news forever.