Category Archives: Oxfordshire

Tesco Vegan Breakfast

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The cafe in the Tesco at Bicester is so much better than the cafe in the Aylesbury Tesco. The Bicester Tesco has cooked breakfast, ideal for morning sustenance while Rosemary is doing the weekly shop. They recently launched their vegan breakfast which comprises two vegetarian sausages, half an avocado, baked-beans, mushroom, tomato, toast and some steamed green leaves (spinach??).

The breakfast took a long time arriving, much longer than a traditional breakfast. I assume this was because the food had to be prepared fresh, and not from a range of food already prepared, or at least cooking on already hot griddles.

So what did it taste like?

The sausages were fine, avocado was good, spiced with some black pepper. Beans, can’t go wrong. The mushroom and tomato could have booked cooked longer with more oil. The toast was OK. The steamed green leaves were bitter and not at all nice.

Would I have this again? No, the cooked standard breakfast was so much nicer than this. I don’t have an issue with vegan foods, just I don’t think you should try and make a pretend English breakfast from vegetable ingredients. Some hummus and toast would have been so much better.

(In case anyone is thinking what a swine I am to be eating while R is food shopping, I should say I go with her blessing. In fact, she positively herds me towards the cafe. Apparently, I become irritating if I walk around with her. (So you know what to do, chaps…..)

Some Sadgits Get Together in Oxford

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We met Andrea, Richard and Jon at Claydon House. After we arrived, we all walked to the cafe and had a quick meal, before having a tour of the house. Much of the house was under repair because of serious cracks in the ceilings. Furniture had been removed and stored in other rooms. It was likely to become worse before getting better. After the tour, we went home for supper and copious amounts of whisky.

Saturday we met up with Ravi and Simon, plus his daughter & her family. We found Ravi, Simon and family in the Peoples Vote March. I heard Caroline Lucas giving a supportive Remain talk. There were a few leave people giving the Remainers a hard time.

Afterwards, we went to the Branca Restaurant for a good lunch and then a walk around University Park.

RSPB Otmoor

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Today was a lovely bright and not overly cold day, so off we set to RSPB Otmoor to check out the Starlings. Would we recognise our local Starlings as they came in to roost in the reed bed! We arrived at around 2.45, the car park was already full, bar one space for us. We headed out slowly looking for birds. To be honest, there were not many around, the scrapes were empty. The walk to the reed bed is around 1500-2000 meters. There are several viewing points, we chose one a little bit further on, where there should be a few fewer people.

Shortly after sunset the Starlings started to arrive and did their murmuration bit. Interesting how small groups of birds had to join in with the big group before going in to roost. Once roosted there were large waves of starlings flying over the tops of the reeds as they moved around to other locations.

As we were leaving we saw a green flash in the sky, fairly low down and travelling North. The trail was very short, and it seemed to travel slower than a meteor, and faster than a sattelite. The short trail was also quite wide. It was visible for a couple of seconds. No idea what it was.

Starling murmuration, watch in 1080HD

The Bodlein Library and Erotic Literature

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Rosemary and I had a trip to Oxford today. Parking virtually impossible in Oxford, so you have to use the Park and Ride. Being retired, the cheapest and easiest way into Oxford is to park at the Bicester Park and Ride which is free. Then catch the S5 into Oxford, yet again free with your bus pass, and they supposedly run every 15 minutes. The website shows you live arrival times of buses, ours was a tad late.

In the city of Oxford, we went straight to the Library where there was an exhibition of books and magazines. The Bodleian is a copyright library so receives most publications from the UK. These included erotic publications, some of which were subsequently banned. The access to these publications was restricted and categorised as Phi. Students could see them for research purposes only with a written note from the Director of Studies. Most of the books displayed in the very public area were very tame, you could hardly believe any of them would have been banned in the UK.

Once Banned Books

Next was the business of the day shopping, clothes shopping. Having spectacularly failed at this, it was time for lunch at the Cinnamon Kitchen, an upmarket Indian Restaurant on the upper floor of the Westgate shopping centre. There are several restaurants up on the roof. Many with outside seating for warm days. A token gave us a free glass of bubbly and we had a fine meal.

After lunch we had a look around John Lewis. They were still doing their Black Friday sale, and all the Google Equipment was matching the online Google prices. So tempted to load up with a few more Google Home Speakers. I was also looking for active noise cancelling headphones for travel. I did learn a couple of things though. Noise cancelling means two things, Noise cancelling can apply to microphones in the headphones enabling the other party to hear you above background noises, or it can be to remove the noise of the environment from the music you are listening to. Be warned, it’s not obvious when you look at the devices. Most of the headphones on display were not working (battery flat), and to pair your Bluetooth phone to the device was nigh impossible, you had to find the device, and I have never seen so many Bluetooth devices available for paring on my phone.

Well after this, it was home time, but we had to go to the sweet shop for some aniseed balls. These were purchased at Hardys Sweet Shop on the High Street. It is so much further down the road than we ever imagine. We always believe we have gone past, and the shop has closed. Aniseed balls purchased for Rosemary. I won’t touch them now after a large dentist bill to replace a cracked tooth; I tended to crunch them up with my teeth.

Culham Centre for Nuclear Fusion

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Another trip organised by the Berkshire branch of the Cambridge Society was a visit to the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. This was not exclusive to the Cambridge Society, we populated two groups of around 10 people for the tour. There were several other groups visiting.

We arrived in bright sunshine, checked in at the gatehouse and drove to the visitor car-park. We started off with a short talk and then we were on the way to see MAST. This was a British device looking at new ways to contain the hot plasma. It was undergoing an upgrade, adding new containment electromagnets, and a redesigned device to remove the gas and debris from the fusion reaction. It was not operational and was being dismantled to fix a leak which was letting in air. Hopefully, it would be up and running in a couple of years.

After MAST we saw JET, which is still at the forefront of Nuclear Fusion research. It still holds the record for generating the most power. It also had recently been upgraded and was building up to break new power records. It is funded by a collaboration of European countries and was testing out manufacturing ideas to go into the ITER reactor in France. For instance, the robotics required to perform maintenance tasks, such as replacing the Beryllium lining tiles. When a test is run on JET, it can consume 2% of the UK national electricity supply.

I find it amazing how old these devices are, and they are continually being upgraded as the science improves. ITER  will be the first Nuclear Fusion reactor which will run and test out a commercial reactor engineering build. After it has been built and tested, the first fusion reactors may enter service. This is still 30 years away so it is likely I won’t be around.

After the tour, we left in the torrential rain for the pub, The Swan in Sutton Courtney. Nice meal, and the company of some Cambridge alumni for interesting conversation.

 

Lord of the Rings Day Out

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Andrea and Richard visited us for Friday and Saturday. We had an enjoyable afternoon in Oxford visiting the Bodleian library to see the exhibition of Tolkien’s work. Our journey to Oxford was interesting. Due to an accident or road works, the A34 looked rather busy, so car and bus were ruled out. Instead we opted for a return ticket to Oxford from Bicester Village. This is the first time I have used the new line. The cost of the ticket off-peak was very reasonable, and we were also given a group discount.

The exhibition was well worth visiting, especially as these exhibitions are free, It featured Tolkien’s books, his original art work, manuscripts and maps used in his books. There was fascinating stories of how originally he wrote his short stories for bed time telling to his children.  When he came to write the Lord of the Rings, he  plotted out the journeys on a map of Middle Earth. Tolkien was also a linguist and created his own language for the elves. One book, which defeats most who have bought it, is the Silmarillion.  I have yet to find anyone who has completed reading it.  I keep seeing the book on friends’ bookshelves, but when I ask,, they’ve never finished reading it.

Afterwards we headed to the Eagle and Child for a drink before heading back home on the train.

Hurry, you can still see the exhibition, it is on until the end of October.

Oxford with the Sadgits

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Rosemary and I met up with Simon, Ravi and Maggie in Oxford one Sunday morning. We were not able to park in the usual Pear Tree park and ride, it had been taken over by gypsies who have now moved on to the Bicester park and ride.  First we had English breakfast with beer at the Jam Factory. Then we worked off the excess calories with a walk to see where Simon used to live with his parents. After visiting the house  we walked through the university park and along the river Cherwell, stopping for refreshments at the Angel and Greyhound pub.

Bicester Village

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Bicester Village, the outlet retail park, has expanded. Tesco was demolished, and rebuilt on the other side of the road. The land where Tesco was became an extension to Bicester Village. This extension opened in October, We visited the village for the first time in ages. We went in the evening to see the Christmas lights, and not to buy. Was easy to park, being a Tuesday. It was bitterly cold. There were some new shops, and some disappearances. We were intrigued by the only electrical shop which sold wifi/bluetooth speakers for more than a grand: the Devialet Phantom range.

Rosemary said she liked the lights and planting, but rather preferred it when Tesco was there.

The Jam Factory

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We went into Oxford with Valerie and Norman. Norman went his own way to see an exhibition at the Ashmolean, while Rosemary, Valerie and I walked on to the Jam Factory. It’s near to the rail station, and is a café/bar /restaurant /exhibition space /entertainment space built from a converted, yes, Jam Factory. We went to see a set of post card sized art works produced by numerous artists which were being auctioned to raise funds for Sobel House. We all selected a few, and started to bid on them over the next few days. Only my bid was successful for an evil looking cat which I bid £5.01 for. I say successful, because no one out bid me. I still did not receive it, it was lost or sent off to someone else. I did receive a replacement card, a Lion, on whom no one bid, but it was not my evil looking cat. Yes, a tad disappointed.

We drank coffee and chocolate while we perused the cards, and looked at some of the other paintings. The men’s loo was decorated in old Beanos. The place was quite pleasant and had some interesting food on the menu. Probably worth while returning to, instead of eating in the usual Vaults and Gardens where we now headed off to.

We passed through the covered market which was semi open on a Sunday. There was an excellent Halloween cake sculptured into the shape of a hacked off leg in the cake shop.

On the junction of Turl Street and Market Street, outside Norah’s Antiques was a production team filming a scene from an episode of Endeavour. We waited and watched them film a street scene with Roger Allam (Inspector Thursday) considering the shop window. There were also quite a few old 60s cars parked in the surrounding streets, so I expect there was quite a bit more filming about to be done.

We walked on to the Vaults and Gardens for lunch, where we were quite quickly served and found somewhere to sit.

After lunch we visited All Souls Collage and took walk around their quads and the chapel.  There is a magnificent screen with niches containing statues of saints, bishops, and monarchs, arranged in rows on either side of a Crucifixion scene, just above the altar, and a Last Judgement, high up under the roof. The original statues, destroyed in the sixteenth century Reformation, were not replaced with the present Gothic imitations until the nineteenth century.

After All Souls, we split, Norman and I took a quick walk around the university parks, while Rosemary and Valerie headed to the new Bodlein library to see the latest Treasures and Jane Austin.exhibitions. We all met up at the library and then went for a beer at the Lamb and Flag before going home.

The James Figg in Thame and the Trials of Monkfish

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Met up with Valerie and Norman, their daughter & her fiancé, for lunch at the James Figg pub in Thame. They had been attending a wedding at Notley Abbey nearby. We had never been to the James Figg, and to be honest we have not been to most of the pubs and restaurants in Thame.  Steve frequents Costa when Rosemary is doing her round of charity shops.

The James Figg is themed on boxing, named after James Figg an English bare-knuckle boxer. He is widely recognized as the first English bare-knuckle boxing champion, reigning from 1719 to 1730.  He was born in Thame. It’s a good pub, with a good choice or real ales, or is that cask ale, or the new trendy phrase of craft ale. In any case, it caters well for beers. Extensive menu, though we wanted to eat relatively lightly, so we all went for starters, each choosing three starters for £10.  This was a kind of tapas meal.

Yes, I can quite recommend the James Figg, maybe Costa is going to see a lot less of me.

We departed for home, Norm and Vallerie driving over to our house for the weekend, while Rosemary and I quickly dropped into Waitrose to buy some more Monkfish. We had decided tonight’s menu was Monkfish. I was looking for a Kilo for the four of us. My first shop the previous day was Tesco in Bicester where they had one filet, just under 350 grams. I bought this, at the same time phoning Sainsburys in Bicester. They too had one small fillet in stock, so I reserved that and walked over there to buy their’s. Good thing I had reserved it because someone else wanted it. It was small, 250 grams.

Waitrose had masses of Monkfish, and large fillets. I bought 400 grams to make up my dish. So, Waitrose came up trumps, but a high premium. Sainsbury was £16 a kilo, Tesco was £20 a kilo and Waitrose £26. Quite a difference in price