A day trip to Oxford.

Saturday usually means a little trip out for Mark and I, and today was no exception.

For some time now we had wanted to see the film 'The Impossible' but it only seemed to be showing in Reading at the ridiculous time of 10.30 pm. Having checked various cinema listings,  I saw that it was showing at the Odeon in Magdalen Street,  Oxford.  As both of us are fond of Oxford,  and have long associations with the town, we thought a trip there would be a good idea.

From Reading a half hour train trip to Oxford costs just under £6 return.
We arrived at around 12.30 and headed towards the Oxford prison area in search of lunch.  Now, for those of you who don't know, the prison is now a chic Malmaison hotel surrounded by various eateries.  We chose to visit Prezzo and had a fairly uneventful meal.

The time was approaching 2 pm by the time we finished,  and we quickly headed to the cinema.  The Odeon is a shadow of it's former self, as the powers that be have decided to sublet space in the foyer to Costa coffee.  The box office no longer exists and even the automatic ticket machines were not working! We had to buy our tickets from the sweet counter.  They cost the absolutely exorbitant price of £9.95 each, an absolute con.

We went into screen 2, and were very disappointed to see that there were approximately 6 rows of seats and the screen was tiny. Both of us decided we could not sit through 2 hours of discomfort in what was also a very hot room. I got up to enquire about a refund, which we were fortunately able to get.

We then moved on to look at the shops, ending up in our favourite place - the Covered Market.  I absolutely adore this place for all its quirky shops which sell everything from food to clothes.  David John butchers produce delicious sausages and we bought their Sicilian sausage and their pork and leek.

They also make wonderful pies, and tonight I shall be enjoying their chicken and ham variety.

Outside we wandered around Turl Street, the winter sun in full force. I considered doing some clothes shopping,  but could'nt face carrying it all on the train.

Oxford is a very lovely place to visit and does live up to all your expectations.

My score out of 5

Would be 5, worth visiting for the day or maybe even longer.