Carrot Batons

In truth, I have very little to say about carrot batons, but it is a curious turn of phrase, right? Any guesses? Carrot batons are English-ese for carrot sticks. But for me it did conjure up images of drum majors wielding small orange batons. You run into this kind of thing all the time at grocery stores and hardware stores (which, by the way, are called ironmongers). Have you heard the musing that England and the United States are two countries divided by a common language? True that.

Here are some recent pictures . . .

Above, this was today, after doing some food shopping. It's amazing how quickly a couple of tote bags filled with groceries get heavy, so one of these rolling shopping bags is money well-spent. In the background there is another view of the lovely and iconic Bridge of Sighs, which was featured a couple of days ago.

If you were standing where we were in that picture, this is what you'd be seeing. Another iconic building of Oxford, the Sheldonian Theatre, with these really interesting heads punctuating the surrounding gate at intervals. Here are more of them:

I never get tired of looking up at these guys. They're probably about 10-12 feet up in the air. One thing that intrigues me about Oxford is that for all the formality and just-so-ness about how things are done, there is this strong whimsical streak that shows itself in places all over town. I guess after so much of hitting the books, people just have to cut loose. Maybe the architect of this building wasn't a fun-starved student, but he sure tapped into something . . .

And speaking of whimsy, how about young men in tuxedos playing croquet? If any of you readers are Brideshead Revisited fans, you'd half expect one of these guys to have a teddy bear named Aloysius. The gate behind which they played was quite something in its own right, as you get a little glimpse of. (Sometimes dangling participles at the end of a sentence just make it sound right!)

Finally, below is a view just outside our front door - the hyacinths in the big pot are a very dark fuschia, unlike any I've seen back home. And so wonderfully fragrant! It is really neat to be here in the spring time, as the English are just a bit proud of their gardens.

Tomorrow: a bus trip into London to visit some older relatives of mine, the Plowden brothers. Buses leave Oxford to go into London every 10-15 minutes! Imagine if we had that option going into New York City!