Monday, July 20, 2009

Oxford

We had a busy family day on Saturday. A trip to the theatre in Oxford proved to be an interesting experience. Knowing how bad traffic congestion and parking can be we took the Park & Ride, leaving the car on the outskirts and catching the bus into the city. The city centre was absolutely rammed with people. There were the usual beggars, buskers and other street sellers but the worst thing was, as my wife put it, "it's like walking through a landfill site". She was referring to the bins, they were all full to overflowing and were overflowing. Mainly with fast food packaging, it was quite disgusting. We had an hour to spend before the show, I suggested a small restaurant I knew down a side street. My wife didn't think there would be any seats at Saturday lunchtime but we tried and were very pleased to find that despite the main thoroughfare being crowded to bursting that the Thai restaurant was not particularly busy. We got seats without waiting and were served with excellent food very quickly. The theatre production wasn't so great, it was a kids show and my son enjoyed it but my daughter wasn't at all bothered. There were quite a few adults asleep around us, so that gives you some idea how bad it was. I took some photographs, so here they are - they are all looking up because the ground level view was so disgusting.