“Oxford” – Day 2 of 2025 England Pilgrimage

Saturday, September 20, 2025

We flew out of Dulles Airport (Washington, DC area) last night and arrived in London just before 6am local time. Planes are not allowed to land at Heathrow Airport before 6:00 a.m. so we had to circle the airport a few times until the runways were opened and the early birds ahead of us landed.

The Virgin Atlantic staff were very nice. As with all planes these days, the seating room isn’t generous and we both had difficulty “stowing” our backpacks under the seats in front of us. Such is life. I slept on and off. I don’t think Gregg got many winks at all.

We did take No-Jet-Lag throughout the trip (every 2 hours) so we’ll see how that worked. It doesn’t help with sleep deprivation, but can help the body catch up with the time zone change.

Passport control was a pleasant surprise – absolutely no waiting at all. We walked right up to a machine, put our passport in it, it took our picture, we retrieve our passport, the gates opened, and we were officially in England! No muss, no fuss. Last year, the machine didn’t like the looks of me so I had to get into another long line to have a real person verify I matched my passport. This year I have a new passport so maybe that helped.

Since we didn’t check any bags, we went straight to the (bathroom, then…) car rental. We upgraded from a stick shift to an automatic for 10 pounds/day but passed on the additional insurance for 50 pounds a day. (1,000 pounds = $1,350 additional!) We pray we don’t have any damage to the vehicle. Last year they didn’t try to sell us any additional so it makes me wonder if the sales people are incentivized to sell it.

Driving on the lefthand side of the road is always an adjustment, especially when you leave the airport and get onto their equivalent to an “interstate” highway. Gregg did awesome! We only missed one exit (I’ll take the blame) but Google Maps rerouted us and we made it to Jennie and Steve’s in KIdlington (north of Oxford) around 8:30 a.m.

We enjoyed catching up with each other over a cup of tea, coffee, or water. Then headed out to get a few things at the grocery store. The plan was to go to the quaint town of Woodstock. Once we got close, we saw that they were having “Horse Trials” (Steve declared them all innocent) and the traffic was at a stand-still.

We enjoyed Plan B which was another small, quaint town, Witney. We ate brunch first at a delightful cafe. I had Welsh Rarebit with poached eggs which is like a cheese toast. The bread was first spread with a black olive tampenade (YUM!) before adding the cheese. The toast was laid on a bed of leeks. We all had lovely forms of coffee, too. Oh, my! A wonderful first meal! Gregg had a delicious Reuben which is not a common menu item in England.

As always, Gregg and I enjoyed browsing the grocery store. We bought some necessities like toothpaste, deodorant, and mouthwash. And we couldn’t leave without some cheese, crackers, and dark chocolate “digestive biscuits.” (Don’t you just love that healthy-sounding name for cookies?!)

We came home and had a little rest.

I believe we’ll eat dinner here at their home tonight.

Tomorrow will be church and early afternoon we will head north east so that we will be at Lindesfarne on Monday in time to drive to the Island during low tide.

I write a post last night before leaving Dulles. I’ve tried to figure out why the email didn’t send this morning. I redated it and hope it will send with this one on Sunday morning. Cross paws (as they say in Cats the Musical.)

Well, tea is on so I’ll post this and go join the crew for afternoon tea (it is 3:15.)

Kristin