Google maps had said that the M40 was closed at the junction with the A43, but this certainly wasn't the case. The traffic was heavy (it was a Bank Holiday) but we made it to the Park and Ride easily and were sitting on the bus at 11.30am.
First stop was a coffee and a small slice of cake at the Black Sheep café, and I took a photo of Sophie in front of a funky wall mural:
Thus refreshed, we made our way to the Ashmolean museum and managed to move our booking at the restaurant by an hour, to give us plenty of time to look around. We stumbled across a whole room of statues from Rome, some of which were a bit creepy. This part of the museum was very quiet - in fact, the whole museum wasn't busy, which was a bonus! I think all the statues were casts but it was a bit disquieting being in among all the white figures!
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| The stuff of nightmares! |
We headed for European art next which was a much more enjoyable experience.
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| Constable, I think. He loved clouds too! |
It was lovely to wander about and we had enough time to see all that we wanted to see today, including a moving exhibition about partition in India called Postcards from Home. We also had a look at some modern art and spotted two paintings by Ben Nicholson, who had been the subject of Fake or Fortune last week. I have no idea what all the fuss is about with this kind of art as it was just geometric shapes! Not my kind of thing at all!
We finished up in the shop and Sophie bought a pretty little bag and a gift for Laura. I craved some gorgeous notebooks, but wasn't sure what I would write in them seeing as I do all my notes on the computer!
We left the museum and had a leisurely walk to the restaurant, No1 Ship Street, where we'd eaten before. The restaurant was busy, with a lovely atmosphere, and we took our seats in a dimly lit corner right underneath the fish specials board. I would love to have tried the whole lobster and the oysters, but we stuck to the set lunch menu, choosing mackerel paté with horseradish and toasts to start, followed by pork belly on top of delicious lentils. We ordered extra bread and butter and a bowl of chips, and the meal was divine, with excellent, friendly service.
We even managed to share a dessert of creme bruleé, which was truly scrumptious, and the bill came to a reasonable £66, including service, which was well-deserved today!
We waddled off back to the bus stop, took the short journey back to the park and ride, and headed home, well pleased after such a delightful day. Needless to say, we didn't have anything to eat in the evening! We were still full!
Keith and I watched University Challenge in the evening, the last series with grumpy Jeremy Paxman. The questions seemed harder tonight although we did get a few and I had some lucky guesses! Afterwards, there was a documentary on the programme as it celebrates 60 years, which was very interesting. One thing I didn't realise is that the teams practise a lot! So maybe Keith and I don't do too badly when there's just two of us and we don't have a buzzer!
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