Oxford without Morse

When we got to Oxford it was wet, cold and just generally miserable. And whereas I'd been a camera totin' fool for most of the trip, I also know that my camera (Canon 30D) is NOT weatherproof and I wasn't inclined to test the fates, if you will. So I took few pictures - mostly in one of the colleges we were allowed to go into (testing was in progress and we were commanded to silence) and, although not enough for two whole posts, I did take too many for one. So I'm jammin' a bit much into this post - but I won't do that tomorrow. It was just as miserable at Stratford, later that day, and I took even fewer pictures there, because I was so limited in what I was allowed to take pictures of.

Anyway, we went into one chapel (one of the colleges - I really don't remember which one) where we saw this over the entrance to the chapel:



Boy, I wish I had an organ like that! (Get your MIND out of the gutter.) Sticking our collective heads into the chapel proper we saw this:



Notice the doorway on the left here - that's how people enter the stalls:



And looking up, we saw this:



which is very reminiscent of the ceiling of St. George's Chapel at Windsor. But how very cool it must be to matriculate in such an environment.

Lastly, I took this picture because I recognized the landmark:



It is the oldest structure in Oxford and one I had seen several times while watching one of my favorite English TV series, Inspector Morse. In this series, John Thaw played Morse, a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) with Thames Valley Police, in Oxford. He is, in fact, an 'Oxford Man' himself, and much of the appeal of this series was the play of Morse against his Sergeant, 'Lewis', who is a blue collar product of the streets. Two years ago, at the end of the season, John Thaw retired from the show. He died shortly thereafter, of a heart attack. While we were in Oxford, I learned that there is a 'spinoff' series of Morse, called 'Lewis', in which Morse's Sergeant is now a DCI himself and his Sergeant (Name unknown by me, at the moment) is an Oxford Man. Apparently, poor, long suffering Lewis is not done suffering, yet.