Blistering in Bicester

We have made our way to Bicester, which is south of Banbury and 1 hour north of London. It is a lovely little town, with its main attraction being a shopping village of up market goods that attracts travellers from all over world. It is not a mall, but a well laid out village.

Accommodation was in short supply so we decided to stay at the Kings Arms Pub, which was close to the office Michael was working at. As with most places it had no air conditioning so with all windows open it was still warm. This was fine until Thursday night when it was karaoke night till 12 pm and we learned that most people can’t sing.

 

It was a friendly little pub, although they seemed to be out of most things including cask ale and crisps, which reminded me of The Vicar of Dibley episode where one of the characters went on about the time that the pub ran out of cheese and onion crisps.

Enjoyed a good chippy meal watching the patrons debating over which was the best battered jumbo sausage. The discussion continued on for quite a while. I suppose you don’t wish to get a low fat one.

We dined at a nice Thai restaurant called Cabbage and Condoms. Upon speaking to the owner, we discovered that it is a not for profit venture that provides sexual consulting services for the poor in Thailand and has a number of restaurants throughout the world.

After the heat and excitement of Bicester, we decided to go to another country so headed off to Wales. Three trains from Bicester to Cardiff which was very pleasant and the high speed trains can move.

Booked to stay at the Royal Cardiff Hotel, which is in the centre of town and on St Mary’s St. The room had fans and air-conditioning going full bore with little result, but a nice hotel.

 

The city is lovely with all the old buildings and arcades that have been kept to a high standard. Most of the inner city has been closed off to traffic so walking around is very easy.

Decided to go for a walk around and Cardiff Castle is at the end of the street. Noticed a few zombies lurching around the main centre complete with make up.  They actually gave me the creeps. The local beer is brewed by Brains, and all the hotels are tied to the brand, so I guess you could expect no less.

 

Michael was reading all about Welsh cheese and wine and was really looking forward to sampling some however the hotel ran out of cheese for the weekend and did not sell Welsh wine. Even the bottle shop only had a sparkling wine and the shop assistant said you would get better value drinking French wine than Welsh. We will still keep our eye out for some. Michael is enjoying the cask ales, even the celebratory one to the new Prince George.

Dragons for everyone in Cardiff

One thing we have noticed is the well-organized hen and bucks parties, to the extent that they have matching shirts made up and/or themes. We have seen bumble bees and ladybirds, Where’s Wally, sashes with the bride’s name on it and obligatory blow up doll, t-shirts with the buck’s picture on it. Some of the bucks have been wearing pink tutus and/or large inflatable rubber ducks around them. We even saw one wearing a wedding dress however, we were not sure if he was a buck or celebrating a divorce.  Size does not matter with the outfit as we saw one large girl dressed as snow white with the shortest skirt. The English do like to get dressed up for these events and the doormen must shake their heads.

how do you get to this Tardis?

As a treat I took Michael to the Dr Who Experience, which we enjoyed and I thought there was a lot of nerds in attendance, just like at the Lord of the Rings. There were people of all ages with Dr Who paraphernalia, and the show and displays were pretty good. The weather had turned with lots of rain so we did not get to check out the docklands area much, which would have been the reclaimed industrial area and the BBC has moved into part of it. Michael behaved so he was allowed to have a T-Shirt with K9 on it.

 

The night of his last episode