Family Ties - The Oxford Edition

Today we headed across to for the famous University town of Oxford to catch up with nephew Shaun and his partner Mya. When we were in Europe last year, we did the same and they gave us an amazing tour around the university colleges. Shaun was doing post graduate work and Mya was a Rhode Scholar so we were able to access areas that would normally be well out of bounds to your average tourist. Shaun (in particular) has an incredible knowledge of the colleges architecturally and historically, our day in Oxford was one of the highlights of last year's trip.

Interesting fun fact before we continue. Shaun and Mya were at the South Africa v Australia cricket test at Lords on the same day - although we didn't see each other. Mya is Botswanan. Botswana is located next to South African and because they are terrible at sport generally many Botswanans - including Mya - support South Africa on the international stage. To be fair to Botswana they did have a gold medalist in the last Olympics - 200 metres I think - which is a pretty spectacular success.

There is a direct train from Paddington to Oxford which took about an hour. Shaun had organised for us to go to a dinner at his college the oddly named Kellog College. So many opportunities for puns and jokes which I will do my very best to avoid. Many colleges are named after their biggest doner and in this case it wasn't actually the cornflake guy - it was his equally wealthy brother who was the main benefactor. Because we were going to dinner, we decided to stay the night and checked into our tiny but very comfortable accommodation around midday. We then headed to the Turf Tavern for lunch - it's such an awesome spot and one of those quirky pubs that looks like every time they got busy, they added a room! Heaps of nooks and crannies and fantastic ambience. Part of the original city wall also runs through the pub.

We then met up with Shaun late afternoon and he took us to a couple of colleges that weren't open on our last visit. The New College - ironically founded in 1379 and Trinity College. We mainly viewed the very impressive Chapel's and dining halls. Shaun was at pains to tell us that the grandeur of the dining halls we had seen wouldn't be replicated at our dinner at the Kellog this evening. This proved to be an accurate assessment but not necessarily in a bad way.

We met Mya in the city center and walked up to the College together. It was a beautiful evening and a very pleasant walk. The college was founded in 1990 so lacks the grandeur and history of the old tractional colleges - however it does have part of the original city wall on its grounds which at least puts it on a par prestige wise with the Turf Tavern which I can confirm is a very fine establishment indeed.

We enjoyed a pre-dinner drink sitting in the early evening sun in the quad area before heading into the dining hall. The dining hall itself was actually really nice and bright, lots of light coloured timber gave it a Scandinavian(ish) look/feel. More casual than the traditional colleges but I suspect a great deal more comfortable.

It was great to catch up with Shaun and Mya and to finally give then the bottle of Highland Park (Orkney Island) whisky as a thank you for looking after us so well on our last visit. We had quite a debate as to which whiskey we would buy but in the end Jeanette decided on the one with the prettiest bottle. Which actually turned out to be a very good choice.

On the train trip back to Paddington we got the bad news that Masoun had just missed out on qualifying for his race at Royal Ascot. His rating was 93 and, in the end, the cut off was 95. Gutting to be so close and not make it, but we'll still enjoy a great day with Go Racing and the group of owners who have made the trip. There is a Go Racing horse Mojave River racing on the day so we'll cheer him on like he was ours. While Masoun missed out here he is racing in good form and looks like a horse with reasonable ability. At the end of the summer/autumn here he will relocate to Chris Waller's Sydney barn where I'm sure he'll provide us with a lot of fun.

After arriving back in London it was off to pick up my Top Hat and tails then watch a bit of Ascot Racing build up, before wandering around to our local, the Mitre and catching

up with Andy and his crew who were constructing a stage at Hyde Park for a big upcoming concert. We first met Andy in the Mitre last year and he organsied us tickets to watch his home team Bradford City playing Carlislie in League 2 football. We had a couple of beers beforehand and got the lull game day experience in which was a lot of fun. the Bantam's winning 2-1 was the icing on the cake. It was great to catch up, have a few beers and plenty of laughs at end the day.