Boy, Sharyn can both talk and smoke for her country; I was having a good stab at doing my share of the former, and although I don't do the latter, I did take her to the smoking shop on the High St (well, we were passing by, and it seemed only sensible -- plus I've never been in before meself).

Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself...

Thursday was a meal at the Oxford Thai; I was expecting 7 in total but it turned out I had been less than perfect in the communication and one person (bopeepsheep) had no idea she was expected... but a nice mellow meal was had. mr_snips made an error in figuring out how much money we all needed to put in, and the net result was that we were a tenner over the required amount. Rather than try to split that up among 6, we decided to use that as the base for wine-buying and take said wine back to my place.

Said and done -- my lights were admired, house explored by Sharyn and Stuart who hadn't visited before, and we chatted until the cows came home (or, more exactly, till those who were working the next day had to go -- Sharyn & I stayed up till about 2, chatting about relationships and comics and Jinty and books and being an editor and all sorts).



Friday started slowly, and although we were ready to go out by about 11:30, we were stymied by the arrival of my builder guy who had come to give me a green door (as opposed to the greyish undercoat that he'd left it with a couple of days previously). Course, once you paint a door, you have to actually leave it open while it dries... so we stayed in for a bit longer while I ironed, Sharyn & I talked about even more stuff, and Sharyn decamped outside every so often to smoke another of her long thin cigarettes.

By the time we actually made it out, hunger was starting to hit, but I was still taking us relatively slowly down the Oxford streets at a meandering pace -- suited the weather and allowed me to do the tourist guide thing ('and here is Magdalen Bridge, were sill students jump off on May Morning; here is Magdalen College, which Oscar Wilde went to', etc etc). By the time we made it past the comic shop and to The Rose tea shop we were practically empty; luckily this meant not feeling any reticence about ordering the Cream Tea Special (little finger sandwiches in three flavours, a good wedge of cake, a delicious scone, fantastic clotted cream, and of course a pot of tea).

We were thus fortified to continue onwards, to Queen's College where I got us past the porters and able to pop our heads round the door of the Dining Hall, Chapel, and Nun's Garden (which you can simulate by following this rather good link to a Virtual Tour of Queen's). (The porters seem relatively fierce and security conscious today -- it used to be that all you had to do was say you were an old member, then you used to be asked your old tutor's name, and now I also had to leave a form of ID at the lodge. Still not going to prevent anyone hell-bent on blowing up the Library, I shouldn't think, but better'n nowt.)

The smoking shop is pretty much right next to Queen's and so was an obvious stopping point -- I was amused that the guy behind the counter lived up to all sorts of stereotypes, including being such a fervent pipe smoker that his teeth were misshapen and discoloured. Lovely shop though, and the smell of the loose tobacco was tasty. There are some fantastic cigar boxes in burled knarled and then smoothed wood that I could quite fancy if they weren't in the £60 - £100 region, and the meerschaum pipes were worth the visit alone. Must go in there and see if I can get a photo sometime...

Bodleian Shop, bypassing the Radcliffe Camera, and despite much ooh-ing and aah-ing we both resisted temptation. Sadly you can't see the full range of gift shop items online, otherwise I would point out the items with the library declaration on them ("I shall not kindle fire nor flame in the precincts of the library; and I promise to obey the rules of the library"). There's a huge amount of tat, and some really beautiful and fine/fun items as well (I love the wrapping paper with images of beautiful bindings from Victorian and Edwardian children's books, for instance).

Last stop was the QI bookshop, whose selection of graphic novels is rather better than I'd ever given it credit for; plus I knew Sharyn would love the shelf organization (Harry Potter is filed under Revenge, and the assistant, Thomasz, spoke interestingly of how one particular book had been placed by him under one category -- let's say Desire -- but then consistently moved by someone else to another category -- let's assume Ha Ha. In the end Thomasz moved it to Turbulence). (Found some photos on Flickr, if you want to see further.)

Only scratching the surface, of course -- we missed out the Pitt-Rivers Museum that was our stated target for the day, let alone all the other museums and galleries we could have gone to. Come back soon, Sharyn! I had a great time.