Indolence

Sunday 19th August; Oxford

As it’s Sunday we knew we wouldn’t be woken unduly early by the trains.  We had a very relaxed breakfast, then walked over to the Botanic Gardens before the main streets started to swarm with tourists.  It was very pleasant strolling through the quiet streets as the ringers of Christ Church Cathedral called the faithful to prayer.  We spent a couple of hours enjoying the planting at the Botanic Gardens. We started in some glasshouses.  You may well be aware that the pineapple came from South America, and was grown in hothouses in the UK for rich people in the nineteenth century;  but did you know that its current shape was developed by breeders so that it would fit in tins?  the long thin leaves in the picture belong to the pineapple plant; the leaves with the white central rib belong to something else.

Glasshouses are always fascinating.  As well as a banana whose flower spike was turning into little bananas …..

there was the amazing Amazon waterlily, Victoria amazonica.  The largest leaf here was about 4 feet across; the plant was grown from seed this spring.  Eventually the leaves can reach 2.5m across and can bear the weight of a small child.

And the wonderful carnivorous plants.  I love them.  We knew that sundews and pitcher plants need extra nutrients because their normal growing conditions don’t have sufficient for them, and they trap insects to supplement their diet – like this one, clearly needing similar temperature and humidity as the water-lily.  We could just see into one of the pitchers; there was a dead wasp in it.

But shrew poo?

Outside in the gardens, we had a view of Christ Church cathedral as we strolled past vibrant borders of late summer flowers.

Then it was cake and hot chocolate as we watched the punts calmly glide by ….

though it wasn’t calm for long, with a pedalo in the mix!

We went back to the boat for lunch, as we’d had to leave Meg behind this morning, then spent a lazy afternoon with the Sunday paper in the shade of a tree on Christ Church meadows.  Meg was happy, she found a tennis ball lost by some other dog.

We managed to avoid most of the crowds by taking a back alley, Bulwarks Lane, which leaves George Street beside the Four Candles.

A pleasantly lazy day before we start the journey north.