Friday night I spent at GR, watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Ian's shiny new computer/DVD drive, and watching the others eat pizza. The former was entertaining (Ian's understatement at the end "It's not as coherent as Life of Brian") and the latter not too bad since I had nice food too, just different. And cheese on toast can become almost pizza with the addition of a little tomato pesto and garlic purée - yum! Almost decided to stay in bed in the morning when it was hailing horizonatally at 9:30am but by 10 it was blue skies and sunshine again, so I went, for a lovely weekend in Oxford with rjk (
ewx :-).Well, I say weekend, but it was actually about 26 hours in Oxford itself, plus around 6 hours travelling, but well worth it (though we're not so sure about the 30 quid each train fare, and it would have been even worse without a railcard). Bumped into Colin Batchelor (no LJ) at Paddington, and also at Oxford station, much to his and our surprise and amusement. Arrived at the Turf around 1:45pm to meet Art (
brmm) and Faye (ms_saffie) and discovered that Chris Joseph (no LJ) had arrived before us too (well, we had said 1:30 - I blame the trains). A pint of old rosie was duly ordered for me, and lasted me most of the afternoon, while rjk started on the mulled wine. Over the course of the next couple of hours we were joined by rejs (rejs), aef (no LJ), Ian Snell (truecatachresis) and Christi (sesquipedality), and much pleasant conversation ensued, and some rather good food too. It was an interesting group, since while rjk and I knew everyone the rest all only knew subsets of each other, despite all being locals. Faye and I had a rather excellent expedition in search of sweets from Wendy's news which included a detour via Bravissimo where we accidentally bought pretty undies. Mmm, nice bras which fit. And we bumped into Henry Braun (no LJ) in the street too, which was nice.We moved off to the Radcliffe once we were getting far too cold to stay out of doors any more, and this was coincidentally around dinner time, so we had a second pub meal at the Radcliffe Arms and very nice it was too. Apparently they're related to the Burleigh Arms in Cambridge. Might have to pop in - the food was good and plentiful and varied and had reasonably diet friendly options! Eventually we began to tire, and it was time for rjk and I to head back to The Paddox with Faye and Art. And on the bus we met perfdave, with whom we'd been conversing at New Year at the oxparty, and who recognised me from having seen pics of my cleavage, which was impressive given it was blatantly not on view on this occasion. He was with a rather lovely lady called Eve (
goodqueenmolly) and a couple of friends, and it made the short bus ride more amusing anyway. Small world. And now I've got home I realise he's diffrentcolours who I've seen around on LJ for ages but never really known. And of course aef knows him too, although Faye and Art hadn't met aef before. Not just small but miniscule.Anyway, back at their place we cracked open a couple or three bottles of wine, and cracked up ourselves over Clueless, which is still a fabulously funny film. And then we listened to random music and talked about odds and ends including this summer's festivals and plans for next summer, which was cool, before heading to bed. Mmm, comfy bed. And cuddly stuffed cat. And Larkin poetry on the back of the bedroom door. Luxury. And even more luxury was being woken for a nice brunch, and a sit around and gossip for a while, before heading back into town again to George and Danvers (not having been to their newer branch before we thought we'd give it a try). And for the first time in probably 3 years or so I had a brownie sundae, and can confirm they're still wonderful. Mmm dime bar crunch icecream is still pretty damned good too. It's probably just as well there isn't a G&D's in Cambridge really, but it was a lovely way to round off a really pleasant visit. Will have to go back sooner next time, and both Chris and Art/Faye have promised to get round to visiting Cambridge in the not too distant future too, which is good.
Nice straightforward trip back, and I've been spending this evening quietly geeking and catching up. Definitely need an early night tonight though.
