A Very Special Post For Our Very Special Friend Dianne In Florida

WE LOVE DIANNE IN FLORIDA!!!  She leaves a comment on our blog EVERY day without fail ….. and never forgets us on special occasions …. so this post is especially for her as she loves everything  that is English ….. and we wanted to show her a little bit of Oxford …. even if our big heads do occasionally obscure the view in a few of the shots ….. so Dianne,  this is JUST for you …….

As you know we stayed in a student room at Keble College in the ARCO Building – which was very modern, http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/

But, The Equally Lovely Denise and The Ever Patient Ken had a room in the old part of the College that was just too robustly romantic for words …. with its bed under a gothic arch, graced by light shining through a gothic window of which we were a tiny bit jealous.However, we had an ample sufficiency of complementary toiletries, including two bonnet de douches, which always goes down very well with Darrell.

…… plus a burgeoning tray of complimentary hot beverages including what to we tend to call camomile and caterpillar pee teabags, which we believe are very popular ….. but we, personally, do not have an affinity for  …. and, posh biscuits, not a common custard cream or bourbon to be found. 

The grounds were stunning, just like something out of Harry Potter ….
….. and we felt very special to be staying there.

But …..  it was the Dining Hall, where we had breakfast, that blew our socks off!

It was very hard not to come over all awe and wonder and get the goosebumps, such was its breath-taking beauty, splendour and ambience …… we just had to stare a while to drink it all in.

We sat at the longest tables, lit with lamps, that we have ever seen, on long benches that we had only seen in films. And once composed, we found breakfast most palatable, we opted for the  FULL English on both mornings and, it passed our test of a good breakfast because there was Marmite, our savoury spread of choice in amongst  the preserve baskets ….. along with honey, marmalade and an assortment of fine jams.

They even had their own special tableware ……

…… which took all our willpower and restraint not to pop under our t-shirts as we left, as souvenirs ….. but that would have only made us look common, so we just discretely trousered a couple of paper napkins instead!

We don’t ever think we shall ever eat breakfast in such a wonderful “theatre” again ….. and we feel very, very humble that we did.

Outside the dining hall, at the top of the stairs,  they even had an indoor street light, just like in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which was too posh for words ….

….. and as for the dinner bell ……. it was mahoooooosive.

We didn’t have a great deal of time to do a lot of sightseeing, because of a certain prior pressing engagement of a matrimonial type nature ….. but what we saw was all breathtakingly beautiful.

But we all agreed without debate, heated or otherwise that if ever we won  the Lottery or Euro Millions we would book plane tickets and a room at Keble College for Dianne and Doug to come over and experience Oxford for themselves, to stay for as long as they wanted and then see if they fancied a trip to Wolverhampton afterwards !!!!