Oxford – Day 8 of 2025 England Pilgrimage

Friday, 9/26/2025

Today we slept in. It was much needed and appreciated.

We took the day slowly while Jennie worked from home and Steve went to Christ Church Cathedral to Guide.

They have a (smaller than USA appliances) washer/dryer combo in the kitchen. A wash and dry cycle, which Jennie warned us would not actually produce completely dry clothes, took four and a half hours (yes, I double checked – 4.5 hours.) Her motto is, wash a little and often. So we started a small load of clothes to wash and dry while we went about our day.

After lentil soup and crumpet lunch, Gregg and I walked to the nearby bus stop and took the bus into Oxford. It was quite busy and full of people and we enjoyed walking around. We had two destinations in particular, one was the famous Bodleian Library with shelves of books floor-to-ceiling. That tour usually comes with a Divinity School tour but it is closed to the public for graduations while we are here. No matter, the Bodleian Library tickets where sold out for the day.

The Blackwell Hall, Weston Library is free to visit. The exhibit on ancient books was fascinating.

Catty-corner across the street was another small museum, The History of Science Museum, which we enjoyed.

Exiting that building, we wondered what to do next. Across the street was the Blackwell Bookshop – famous and huge and absolutely delightful! They have books of all kinds, games, puzzles, journals, a whole music department including sheet music and LP records. We could spend hours there! As we left, we both decided that was better than the Bodleian Library for us and we no longer plan to try to visit the Bodleian.

We had planned to meet Jennie at Magdalen College Chapel for Evensong. Unfortunately, the college is closed for a 2 week break and so there was no Evensong service. Thankfully, we had arrived a bit early so we quickly walked a fair distance and just made it in time for Evensong at Christ Church. It was absolutely lovely!

Jennie drove us home where Steve had cooked a delicious meal of gnocchi and sausage over greens. Sooo good!

We don’t have Saturday plans worked out yet. That will be decided after another good night’s rest.