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| big thank you malcolm and amanda! |
As nice as going to pick blackberries in the evening with good friends is, our excitment doubled with the knowledge that there was a possibilty that we might see a fox. We tipped toed through the allotments down to the end where there was a reservation to enhance native wildlife habitat's. Really it looks like a whole lot of trees with patches of weeds. Malcolm explained that the native plants appear to be weeds - as in nz they are considered weeds. A bit to get your head around. Anyway, no fox. We swallowed our disappointment and picked delicious berries instead. Most of them made it to the containers. As we went to leave the berry patch Malcolm called out shhh, we stopped, oh joy of joys there was the elusive fox across a clearing. We quietly walked around the clearing but sadness of sadness... he was gone. Feeling like we had achieved much by our outing we returned to MAR's home and ate fresh picked berries with icing sugar and organic double cream (amazing the difference in the cream!! so tasty)
To bed we headed. As MAR technically live in a small but cosy cabin at the end of the garden the girls were split up. Two inside the main house on couch cushions and two in the "two person" tent in the garden.
Abby and Jess were the lucky ones to share a night in the tent. The tent looked not too bad until bedding was put in and then two people top and tailed in it - this is not an easy process for all involved, mainly Abby had her face in the tent roof and Jess was jammed up against the wall. There was some sleeping done i think.
In the early hours of the morning when the sleep was as elusive as a fox Abby thought to her self " man my ears are hurting" her left ear was clearing up but she had developed the same in her right ear. "man it sucks not being able to hear" she also discovered that after a couple weeks of deafness that she had been whispering for the entire time and noboby had pointed this out. As talking normally sounded like she was shouting in her head. Then it occured to her " I'm flying to greece tomorrow, can I fly? will my ears explode?" These thoughts occupied her for sometime that and the roof of the tent was very close to her face.
So the next morning While the others explored oxford Abby set out to the Doctors again. 50 pounds for a consultation this time and waiting for way too long she discovered that it wasn't boil but a very bad infection that had her ears canals so swollen up that it was making her deaf, not to mention all the goo coming out, yuck. This Dr prescribed ear spray with anti biotics in it this time. (Much more effective within two days she had gone off the painkillers and hearing has returned significantly)
Meanwhile..... the remaining 'hearing' (though they thought they too were starting to go deaf as they couldn't hear Abby speaking the last few weeks!) members of the Pack headed into Oxford for the morning to see what there was to see! With Kath happily settled in Starbucks with all the luggage, Harry Potter and a big cup of coffee (what more could a girl want) Whitey and Jess tried to conquer as much of Oxford as they could in 2 hours with a 'must do' list from MAR.
We wandered through the covered markets and marvelled at the cake decorating stall.
We had a deja vu moment when we found Lincoln College...
... and also poked our heads inside Jesus College.
Just as an explanation Oxford University is different to what we know of a university set up in NZ - the university comprises of various colleges where the students live and tutors conduct lessons. So as a general rule different colleges would specialise in different subjects, or your choice of college would depend on its history/status.
We also wandered through the Bodleian Library thanks wikipedia for the following info...
The Bodleian Library (pronounced /ˈbɒdliən, bɒdˈliːən/), the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest librariesin Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library. Known to Oxford scholars as “Bodley” or simply “the Bod”, under theLegal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 it is one of six legal deposit libraries for works published in the United Kingdom[2][3] and under Irish Law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland.[4] Though University members may borrow some books from dependent libraries (such as the Radcliffe Science Library),[5] the Bodleian operates principally as a reference library and in general documents may not be removed from the reading rooms.
Then it was a stroll to the train station and once again we found ourselves London bound.
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