I decided to take a quick afternoon jaunt, camera in hand, to illustrate why Woodstock is the Most Wonderful & Picturesque Village in Oxfordshire and Would be Perfect if Only it Had a Bookstore and a Wool Shop. And a Japanese Restaurant. And a Library with Better Hours (Honestly, open from 9-1 on a Saturday?) and a DVD Rental Shop.
One of many Woodstock churches. This church is especially notable for the long and involved bell ringing practice they host every Tuesday night where, for the next eighteen hours, the discordant sound of bells can be heard throughout the land by anyone who is trying to get some sleep.
In Old Woodstock, all the houses are charming and covered in ivy.
The ugliest tree in England. Second runner up for the ugliest tree in Oxfordshire county. It was beat out by an upstart, carbuncle-covered spruce in Blackbird Leys.
Alas, this is as far as I got because it started to pour rain and I had to duck inside the nearest tea shop and eat cake.
One of the reasons I love England.
I found these at the Oxford Market for ₤20. A complete 1897 set of Addison and Steele's Spectator nicely bound with little blue ribbon bookmarks. Worth every pence. Also worth the mental anguish of running through Oxford Conrmarket Street, dodging shopping mums with mega-strollers and uniformed youths while stopping to glare at the man butchering "Summertime" on his saxophone all at the same time trying to catch the bus back to Woodstock and shield the books with my jacket from the sopping rain.
Equally as fun as owning them was snatching them from under the nose of the robe-wearing, bespeckled Oxford don who was too weighed down by his own brilliance to chase me once he'd noticed that I'd already gathered them up and paid for them by the time he ended his lecture.
Oh the upstart classes!
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