Friday in Oxford

From the Bodlean Chuck and I went to the next stop on the walkabout proposed by our dining companions from the previous evening, namely The Turf Pub.  Just after you pass under the Bridge of Sighs is a tiny walkway, no more than three feet wide, that meanders around two corners and for about 200 feet, and there it is.  Famous for 1) being open every day since 1310 save one, the day the bartender died, 2) for being mentioned in Thomas Hardy's "Jude The Obscure", 3) being the Oxford set for the Inspector Morse BBC series.  (Colin Dexter, the author of the Inspector Morse sagas is a diabetic patient of the people K & B were converting. Professor Matthews of the group is a character in Dexter's book "Death Is My Neighbor".)  This pub is so old that the ceiling joists hang at about 5'8".  On the first joist inside the entry, in big beautiful olde english script is the cautionary menu "Duck or Grouse."  I saw two hapless patrons avail themselves of the latter.

A pint and a potty break - make that a languish in the loo - and we're off to the Pitt Rivers Museum founded in 1884, not near the Pitt River but by General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers.  Thoughtful of the bloke to truncate his euphonious appellation and thus save acres of marble.  A real dodo bird, lots of dinosaurs, some very unpleasant shrunken heads.

Down Keble Road onto St Giles, turn left (I'm reading now) and pop into the Lamb & Flag.  This place was a smokey dump whose ATM wouldn't accept my now flattened and battered card.  Across St Giles, a surprisingly wide street for Oxford -vrrrrroooooooooom - still looking the wrong way before stepping into the street - More Ale!! And Fresh Horses For My Men!!.  The Vauxhalls and Peugots get a good run at you if you don't step nimbly, and by this time I ain't.

Into the Eagle and Child, where Lewis Carrol, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien liked to hang.  The non-smoking section was clear in the back in the recently converted pony stall from which not all the air of authenticity had been removed.  Chuck's beginning to roll his eyes when I shout Pip Pip at the waitress.  She's charmed in that "I already have a grandfather, thank you" sort of way.  We left right after I ordered the barkeep to "Have that wench washed and brought to my tent."  Seemed a good idea, especially to Chuck who all of a sudden has work to do back in the room.