Tag Archives: Bodleian

Lord of the Rings Day Out

Blasdale Home Posted on by

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.

The Jam Factory

Blasdale Home Posted on by

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.