Tag Archives: Queen Elizabeth II

Woodstock

On Wednesday morning September 21st, 2022 we checked out of our apartment in Oxford.

We had a taxi booked to drive us to Woodstock which was under ten miles from our location. We decided on a taxi instead of the buses that run regularly from Oxford to Woodstock because we didn’t want to shlep our luggage to a bus stop and onto the bus.

Goodbye Oxford, hello Woodstock.

Since our checkout was at 10am we arrived in Woodstock before our check in time of 4pm.

We booked 2 nights at the Feathers Hotel. We left our luggage at the hotel and took a stroll around the small town.

Woodstock Town Hall, a beautiful Grade II listed building which was built in 1766 and is now a major landmark in the town.

We were looking for a good spot to have a lite lunch during our stroll around the town.

The War Memorial next to the church. “To The Memory of The Fallen 1914-1918 1939-1945”.  War Memorials are easy to find in most villages, towns, and cities. There are over 68,000 war memorials in the UK.

We would return to the church after lunch since it was occupied for a service when we walked by.

We found a cozy spot at the Back Lane for a refreshment but they weren’t serving lunch until noon. We would be seeing a lot of Winston Churchill in Woodstock.

THIS STONE WAS RAISED BY THE PEOPLE OF WOODSTOCK TO CELEBRATE THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM.

There were many tributes to the late Queen around town. (Remember we were in England during the mourning period for the Queen)

The Kings Arms looked welcoming for our lunch spot.

We enjoyed their lunch special beef sandwich and chips.

After our nice lunch we walked back to St. Mary Magdalene Church to see if it was possible to get a look inside. It was open and we were welcomed in.  We were still early for our hotel check-in time.

It’s a challenge to get the old brain back to Oxfordshire to remember some details of our last few days there. As challenging as it is the posts will be good to look back on.

Back to the present: We have a relatively quiet week and our temps have been above freezing so there is a lot of melting happening. Plants are emerging that have been covered in snow since November.

Quotes of the weekend:

“Sin is always a big deal.” ~ Dennis Wilkening

“If you want to be a wise person, you need a Bible.” ~ Alistair Begg

Have a good week everyone! If you need a Bible, I could send you one. 🙂

Two for One

My return to our Oxford travels post today is a two for one. It will cover Sunday and Monday in Oxford, September 18th and 19th of 2022.

On Sunday morning we had some breakfast in the apartment before we walked a little under a mile to St. Luke’s Chapel where we would attend church. We researched churches before we left home and emailed a couple pastors. Andrew Young emailed us back and after further research we decided to worship at his church, the Oxford Evangelical Presbyterian Church. They meet on Sunday mornings at St. Luke’s Chapel, 10:30 a.m. On our way we passed the Oxford University Press Building and this next building.

The Radcliffe Observatory, which is now part of Green Templeton College. This is the back of the building. A statue of Atlas is on top of the tower.

I did not take this photo of Atlas. This is the author of the photo.

As we walked up to the door of St. Luke’s we saw two of the people from Florida that we met at the C.S. Lewis Kilns tour. The Father/daughter duo were in Oxford because the daughter took a job in Oxford. Her dad was helping her get settled. She chose this church to attend while she lives in Oxford. That was a fun 2nd encounter.

We also met a young family who are in Oxford for the husband to earn his doctorate. This family was from Southern California and are part of Grace Community Church, Dear and my first church after we were married.

Pastor Andrew spoke on The Source of Christ’s Authority using Mathew 7:28-29 as part of his text. Part of his outline; 1. Who Jesus Was, 2. What Jesus Taught, 3. How Jesus Lived. What stood out to me; Jesus has permanent authority because of who He is. Jesus is true to the Word of God. Jesus was the obedient Son of God. We live under Christ’s authority. We need to be obedient. Believe, worship, follow Jesus.

After the service we talked with a few more of the folks before we walked back to The Turf Tavern to try to get a seat for a Sunday Roast.

The streets were a little more crowded than usual.

The only seat we could find was in this outdoor section of the Turf. We kept our eyes peeled for a table to open up inside.

This part of The Turf shares a wall with New College. The tower behind and the gargoyles are part of New College.

When our food arrived a table opened up inside and our server delivered the food to our new location. Hooray.

I had the lamb roast and Dear enjoyed the Fish and Chips.

After our meal we decided to shop at the Sainsbury Market on the edge of the Westgate shopping center. We wanted to have food for our meals on Monday since it was the day of Queen Elizabeth the II’s funeral and we knew a lot of places could be closed.

Back to our apartment above the never closed cheap pub, The Swan and Castle. We did not choose to have any meals there but a lot of other people did.

Into the building and that was almost the end of the day.

After unpacking our groceries we decided we needed to add a couple items but our local Sainsbury closed early on Sunday so after looking online we found a Tesco Express that stayed open late on Sunday. Got our walking shoes back on and made the evening trek, a half mile away. Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Now we were equipped for a day at home on Monday.

We woke up on Monday and watched the coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.

We enjoyed a charcuterie while watching.

We were in awe of these young men who carried the coffin up and down stairs and down long aisles. It was a wonderful memorial tribute to the Queen.

After the coverage ended we saw that the Slug and Lettuce, a restaurant in the complex was open so we walked down and had a hot meal. We wouldn’t recommend the restaurant, though. Slug was appropriate in their title.

We had big plans for Tuesday our last full day in the apartment before we moved out to Woodstock for a couple nights.

Cheers!

The Cotswolds 2022

It’s been a while since my last post on our trip to England in September of this year. I have a goal to finish my posts before the end of the year. Our tour with Go Cotswolds, a small family owned touring company, was called Cotswolds in a Day.

On Thursday September 15th (two months ago!) we walked to the Oxford Train Station to be picked up for our day in the Cotswolds. At the station while waiting for the tour van we met another couple waiting for the tour. We enjoyed getting to know them and connecting some dots in our backgrounds that intersected. The rest of the tour group arrived and we hit the road for our first stop which was Chipping Campden. We had a set amount of time to enjoy the village. We chose to spend our time at St. James Church. That will be a separate post.

In 2013 and in 2014 we visited Chipping Campden and my posts are here in 2013 and here in 2014.

From Chipping Campden we stopped at Dover’s Hill for some panoramic views.

It was breezy!

On the way to Snowshill we passed The Broadway Tower.

St. Barnabas Church in Snowshill

Snowshill village sits on the top of the escarpment above the villages of Broadway, Buckland, and Laverton. It is a secluded village where ancient pretty cottages and a 19th century church cluster around a small green. As its name implies – if there is any snow about then you will find it here first.

This was our tour group on this day.

In 2014 Dear and I enjoyed this little village and my post is here.

The weather was good with beautiful skies. Our next stop was Moreton in Marsh where we would enjoy some lunch which left little time to explore.

I hurried from our lunch table at the Talbot Inn so I could get some photos of the wonderful door on the back side of St. Edward’s Church.

If you walk around the churchyard towards the north porch, you will stumble upon what’s known locally as ‘The Yew Tree door’ or ‘The Hobbit door’.

“Speak friend and enter”

In 2014 we had more time in Stow on the Wold and my posts with more information are here and here.

Next time the villages of Bourton on the Water and Bibury.

 

Quiet Today…

Today Monday September 19th should be a quieter day here because of the Queen’s funeral and it being a bank holiday here in the United Kingdom.

We stocked up on picnic supplies to enjoy in our apartment today during the funeral televised on the major channels here.

Grocery stores are closed today. Some of the other businesses will have open hours today. We are going to have an off day today just relaxing in our apartment, eating up what we have on hand. Curious as to what we purchased? Well let me tell you anyway. We have a beautiful loaf of Rosemary Sour Dough bread we purchased at the amazing Gail’s Bakery. We have a lovely Pear tartlet and Strawberry tart with custard we purchased at Paul Bakery. We have salami, cheese, olives & feta combo, avocado, grapes, tomatoes purchased at Sainsbury. We won’t starve.

Later I’ll share about the nice Sunday we had worshipping at a church service here in Oxford and our other Sunday experiences.

In Honor of the Queen

In many store windows in Oxford and in chapels of the Oxford colleges and other churches there are tributes like these to the beloved Queen Elizabeth II.

On Wednesday afternoon we watched the processional from Buckingham Palace to the Westminster Hall from our apartment in Oxford. Many businesses are short staffed this day so we are enjoying food in our apartment. We overdid it on Tuesday so we scaled back on our activities and stayed in to watch.

Lying in State now as her people file past to honor her.