Goodbye Cotswolds--Day nine of the London Adventure 2018

Ellenborough Park

We left Chetleham and the Ellenborough Park spa/lodge a little after nine AM. I was sad to leave behind the Cotswolds as I so enjoyed seeing the small villages tucked along small roadways as we motored towards London.

Our first stop was Oxford. I didn't realize that Oxford University is really made up of 28 smaller colleges. We saw the bookstore that was the inspiration to the Harry Potter books. The shop had Harry's broom in the window! The shop did look like I thought it would from reading the description about it!

We checked out the Modern Art Gallery, the covered market and saw the castle. Then it was time to head to the outlet mall at Bicester Village.

The soap assortment at The Close Inn was wonderful. It was a brand that Nicole recognized and she suggested checking the outlet mall on the way back to pick up some of that product. We arrived about 2PM. I was shocked at how large the mall was.

Oxford Castle

I was more shocked to learn that there are 1,750 parking spacings in one area and another 1000 in another! I was gobsmacked to see the parking lot almost full to capacity.  When we walked to the shops, I was surprised to find that the shopping was high end! Think Prada, Burberry, Michael Kors, Coach. . .well, you get my drift! I couldn't believe how many people were shopping there mid-week!

Unfortunately, the exact product I wanted wasn't available. Turns out the product I liked was the number one seller and rarely comes to the outlet mall! I made do with a substitute. Maybe later in the trip I'll happen by a store. If so, I might purchase the products I used at The Close Inn.

Lunch at the outlet mall

We had lunch at the mall and then we headed back to London. The lunch place we chose served coffee in cups that were really the size of a bowl. Perhaps, this is done to make it easier to dip your pastry or in my case, toast, in the coffee! The salad I ordered was delicious!

After lunch, we continued toward London. Nicole is great at driving on the left hand side of the road. My navigation skills aren't that great even with GPS.  There were times when I would think it was the correct part of the round about to take only to find out that it wasn't and we got to either turn around or we got to find a different route. We did return to the car rental place with about an hour to spare before closing time so that was great.

Dinner made after a rummage through the freezer and refrigerator

Unfortunately, we
arrived during the evening rush hour. Riding the tube at that time of the day was an experience. People were jumping over our suitcases as we were pulling them! I am fortunate that I don't have the need in my life to have to hurry like those people were hurrying!

Once back at Nicole's flat, she started a load of wash and showed me what ingredients were available to make dinner. Nicole said that if it were up to her, we would have peanut butter on some toasted bread! This would have been fine with me; but, I had the sense that she really wanted something else.

She had pasta in the cupboard and shrimp in the freezer. She had a little coconut milk, a lemon, an onion, garlic and 2 sun dried tomatoes in oil in her refrigerator.  I made a pasta dish with shrimp in a lemon coconut sauce that tasted darn good! While I liked the color the tomato added, the flavor fought a bit with the other ingredients. Another time, I would save the tomato for another dish.

I walked 5 miles today. Some days on the trip, my knees have swollen so much that it is challenging to stretch my pants over them! This day was one of those days. I hope tomorrow will be better!