Around Oxford

I had to move out my apartment on Saturday (I was not sad to leave there!). I got kicked out at 9.30am and wasn't allowed into the next until 3pm. But it worked out. Thankfully they took my bags and suitcase to the second place so I could spend Saturday wandering around Oxford. 

So I spent the day slowly making my way across town to my new place, starting with the castle, which I seemed to have missed only previous visits. It didn't open until 10am but I could not find anywhere to get a cup of tea before 10am! I ended up sitting on some steps near the castle ignoring the very rude waiter who was opening the castle cafe. He slammed down the outside chairs and tables right in front of me. I wasn't doing anything wrong so I just continued to smile sweetly and read my book. (Which no doubt annoyed him further.)

Oxford castle tower.

I got on the first tour of the day so it was a small group. Afterwards I saw the people flooding in and was very happy I got there early. The tour is lead by prison guard, as  the castle was actually a prison from 1785 until 1996.

Opening the tower

The old St. George tower is still standing (built in ~1074AD) and you can climb up the top, with a thankful stop part way up to look at a cell. The castle and likely the tower was also where Empress Matilda was trapped by her cousin Stephen in her fight for her crown in 1141AD. (She snuck out in a snow storm and walked straight past Stephen troops who weren't the brightest.)

Stocks.

 The view from the top is worth the climb (up extremely steep steps).

View across oxford

The sun was still attempting to come out

Archery window  

 Coming down was more nerve wracking than going up. Suddenly you realize how steep the steps are and how small they are. My boot was bigger than some. I was very relieved to reach the bottom safely.

door heading down.

After the tower, they take you to the basement part of the old normal church (built 1072AD). It was used as their morgue and is now where, unsurprisingly, they do the ghost tours. Though as they require you to be there in the early hours of the morning, I will not be doing. I like my sleep too much.

Norma church

One of the prison wings is sill left. They converted the others into restaurants and a hotel. (Because nothing says a romantic evening more than staying in an old prison cell. Or if you are lucky where they used to do the hangings!)

Cell 

Wardens office.

 They only closed the prison in 1996, and that was because it was the worst prison in the country. Apparently they defied a few human rights (though personally I think for some they should reopen it). There was no glass in the windows so it was freezing in the winter. And there were 3 men to a room about the size of the average American walk-in closest.
The museum upstairs was interesting telling the lives of some of the prisoners and the escapees. Though at one point you had to choice to enter one of 2 doors.

Death's door. 

Or the alternative.

The ticket also includes entrance to the mound. After a tea (finally) and piece of cake, I headed up there. You have to buzz to get through the gate and are supposed to have a ticket but I think anyone who buzzed was going up.
The mound is where the oldest part of the castle used to be. It was the safest part of the original castle and the most heavily defended. It was torn down in the Civil War so King Charles II could use it as his headquarters again. It took them 5 yrs to pull down, starting 1652. Only the mound (which was man-made for the tower) and the well are left.

View from the mound

Castle court yard.

After the castle I wandered around and did some window shopping. The indoor covered markets are interesting and I'll be headed back as the food looked very nice. I did however treat myself to some Hotel Chocolat. I have missed really good chocolate. 

Treats.

I still had a few hours to kill so after lunch went to the botanical gardens, conveniently on my way and reasonably cheap to get in. I have been there before but it was in february so not as pretty.

By the river.

The green houses were very pretty.

Orchids

 And they had tones of these bug eating plants. I spent a happy few minutes looking inside them. And found one with its dinner.

Bug eating

Wasp dinner.

 They have a pretty lily pond inside one of the greenhouses.

Giant lily pads.

Reminds me of Tenerife.

 I decided not to go to the Palm room as frankly I am a little sick of Palm trees after the Palmetum visit a few months ago. (They really aren't the prettiest or most interesting of plants.) So I focused on the pretty flowers instead.

After the greenhouses, being outside was very nice. The weather wasn't great on Saturday (though it was a lot better than it is right now!). 

Gardens

Woodland

My favorite part was the Morton seed gardens at the back. Basically they threw a bunch of seeds around and left it. It looked like large patches of wild flowers, and I personally much prefer that to the throughout rigid gardens.

Walk way through the seed gardens.

The paths meander around nicely and there are plenty of tucked away benches to sit and relax in good weather. 

Having killed enough hours, I walked the rest of the way to my new apartment. It is so cute! I think it is someone's basement (though the houses here seem to have a lower level in general). But it is very nice and reminds me of a little Hobbit hole. It's small  - 2 people would have to get on very well and do some interesting choreography when both are moving around the bedroom at the same time as there isn't enough room to fully open any of the doors. 

But it is perfect for one and everything works! No more blowing down a pipe to flush the toilet. Luxury! Plus the shower is amazing. And there is a little patio and rock garden off the bedroom. Given Oxford in October, I doubt I will be using it but still it's cute. There's a note saying to keep the door shut as little frogs come to visit. I am definably going frog hunting at some point. :)

I am also conveniently right next door to a Chinese takeaway. So Saturday night was happily spent with takeaway, a bottle of wine and TV. And I spent Sunday being lazy. It has been a long time since I had a lazy day. So I managed to get all my washing done and make enough food to last for most of the week. Which is going to be needed as my commute is over 3 hrs a day. I really don't want to cook when I get back. 

Trip back to England

The past 2 weeks have been really busy at work and with travel. Friday I came back to the UK for a while. I managed to spend the weekend at home but didn't take any photos. We ended up doing shopping, most of which was unsuccessful. (I brought a new sim for my phone and after 2 days of it not working had to get a new one.) Still I had a nice time with my parents though we probably all had a bit too much to drink.

Sunday I came to Oxford where I'll be working for the next month. (And got my first experience with the replacement train buses.)
My apartment here is ... interesting. Thankfully I move to a new one on Saturday for the final 3 weeks! I am hoping it's better.

Still its good points are it is very pretty outside and in a nice part of Oxford, near the shops and some good restaurants and pubs.

View out my window 

Near the river.

The bad points are it seems to be falling apart. The water heater is in the bedroom and makes really loud noises throughout the night that have me jumping out of bed. (Now I have ear plugs so fingers crossed.) The TV and DVD player don't work. I can not figure out how to get the shower how to work. And last night the toilet stopped flushing. The letting agency got someone out to look at it today while as I was work. And I came home to this.

Missing a handle. 

The pipe seems to have replaced the handle.
And I am hoping (and a bit worried if) the plumber just has a twisted sense of humor.

"You can blow down pipe to flush". 

 I am not exactly sure what to do about this yet. :/

Updated: It does work but you feel like an idiot doing it. 

Los Abrigos

For the last day of my trip, I had seen a lot of adverts for a restaurant in Los Abrigos, along the coast on the southern most edge of the island. So I booked a table. It may seem odd to spend an entire day around going to a restaurant but why not? 

And it turned out great. Once I got there. Sunday buses are always an issues and my first bus never showed. So I scrambled to get another (I love mobile data) and caught the second one on time. And the nice bus driver (I had many lovely bus drivers that day actually) let me know when I needed to get off.

Los Abrigos

The town, well village really, reminded me of Padstow in Cornwall. And Sunday was the last day in their week long festival. Which was a bit like May Day but more religious.

Celebrations.

Service.

The gathering turned out to be a service of some sort. I took a few photos and people watched. I felt really sorry for the priest and was amazed he carried in for so long. It must be a really important service because it was another super hot day. He must have been melting.

Giving service

They love having these statues and carrying them out for festivals, which they also love.

Idols.

Virgin Mary (who later on nearly took a header)

Not everyone was interested in the service. This guy was determined to keep fishing, no matter what. Though I doubt he caught anything, given the number of people jumping into the water and the number of boats.

I will fish!

There were lots of flowers around and it was all very colorful. And from what I can tell, alcohol soaked.

flowers

Part way through the service, a group of boats showed up, loudly hitting their horns and yelling on the loud speakers. They were part of the parade but the timing wasn't the best. The poor priest had a hard time competing.

Boats arrival.

Religion meets carnival.

Decked out.

The sign helped informed me that this was for San Blas and the Virgin Carmen. Which honestly didn't help at all. I later found out it is to bless the fisherman and their boats.

San Blas

After the service finished, they took the statues to the boats. One was on wheels. The others were carried by pole bearers.

Sailing to the boat.

Virgin off for her trip.

The little guy tried to help. So sweet.

They put the statues on the boats. Which were docked 2 deep. This seemed like a very tense time.

Off to the boat.

nearly...

They then proceeded to stuff as many people onto the boats as possible. Which did not seem like a great idea. I had a table booked and decided that was probably for the best. Though I was curious how many people it would take. Frankly it was chaos. But everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Everyone on board. 

There were also lots of smaller boats joining in. Again with no regard for the maximum limit of the boat. (My favorite was the moored little dingy. I thought it was so cute that some one had gone to the effort of mooring it.)

Moored dingy.

Precarious.

Nothing say festival like a flashing virgin Mary

After some confusion and interesting maneuvering, the boats set off to visit one other sea ports and fishermen.

Ready. 

Briefly going in very much the wrong direction.

And they are off.

And peace reined once more for a while. So (after changing as I was super hot - no one paid any attention), I headed to lunch. :) My restaurant was very nice and had a lovely view.

Great view for lunch

The food and wine was great and I ended up chatting to the Irish couple sitting next to me who explained the festival and some more cool places to visit while I am here. We had just finished when the boats came back. They love the loud speakers and once they returned it was basically time to start partying.

And they are back

They had to get the idols off the boats again and back up the hill. It was at this point we heard loud yells and I saw the Virgin Mary nearly meet her end which would have been a very bad omen I am guessing. (Never trust very drunk pole bearers. It is unlikely to end well.) They managed to save her and get them all safely up the hill. Though how is a mystery since some of them coming back down were having great difficulty walking in a straight line.

Up the hill

I felt sorry for the priest. The poor guy look exhausted and over boiled.

Preist just wants to go home.

The music then started. And I decided it was time to go home. The buses once again took their time, but thankfully my second bus driver was as sweet as the first, told me where I needed to get off and even drew me a map of how to get to the next bus stop. Which I would never have found without the map as it required some death defying trips across a motorway roundabout to get to. It took about 3.5 hrs to get home and I was exhausted when I made finally it. You save money on the buses but not time.
Monday was a bank holiday here so I could sleep in (Yippee!) and Skype friends, before spending the afternoon working. (Well you can't have too much fun after all!)