An evening walk to the pub

After raining most of the day, yesterday evening turned out to be sunny and lovely. So we decided to walk to the pub for dinner! David had recently spotted a nice-looking pub that can be reached by a footpath along the river behind Wolfson, and we've been meaning to check it out for awhile.

I'm so glad we finally did - it was such fun. It will certainly become a regular tradition! And since David is doing lots of photography experimentation lately, our little camera came along for the walk. (Click on the little photos to enlarge them.)

The walk itself was so pleasant. It was a very English experience of following a footpath through countryside, using handy wooden steps to climb over fences. They are so good about footpaths here. You could walk from one coast to the other if you felt like it.



Our path took us along the River Cherwell, which runs behind Wolfson and also forms a pond-like thing in our backyard. We saw several sets of punters and two kayaks go by along the way. Wolfson has its own "fleet" of punts, and we plan to rent one ourselves sometime soon - should be quite an adventure. The only downside to our walk was that we were plagued the entire way by swarms of those tiny bugs that love the water. Argh, I hate those.



The pub is called The Victoria Arms, and it was old (heavy wood beams and low ceilings) and lovely. Its grassy outdoor area slopes down to the river and there is a place to park your punt while you come in for a pint.



The pub has pretty flowers in several flowerboxes (nice macro photo by David), and is next to a field with horses, one of which was very friendly and let us pet him.




Inside, we sat in the "Cromwell Room," where a plaque claims that he sat in 1646 waiting to liberate the city. The room is decorated with lots of pictures relating to Cromwell and the civil war between the king and parliamentary forces. It was quite interesting. More importantly, dinner was very tasty! David got fish and chips and I got grilled "gammon" (ham) with pineapple and chips. Of course both came with peas, and they were much better than the usual mushy peas that come with pub meals.



The walk back home was also quite pleasant, except the bugs were still in full force. The bridge leads to the other side of the river and home sweet Wolfson.



After we got home, David's photo experimentation continued. At one point I looked up from my computer to find that he had carefully arranged all the stuff I had strewn across the table into quite a colorful setup! It turned out to be quite a nice snapshot of my daily life. (In the background is the bookshelf, with an odd mix of books for the website and for school.)