l'Angleterre

The day a good friend from Paris was over (the first time I'd seen him for 5 years, no less) was one of the few in a London year that the city woke up to a blanket of soft white snow. There is nothing snow cannot beautify, and this city is no exception. Regardless of this, our plan had been to escape London, and escape we did in a car borrowed just for the occasion.

Our target was fairly vague - west somewhere, maybe as far as Bath - but by the time we got had stopepd at Windsor to wander through the town and around the castle, marveling at the how the place looked in the snow (particularly with the trees in blossom), it was already looking like this was not going to be a day of long voyages, but rather something of an evolving ramble.

We were, soon enough, back in the car and heading further into the countryside; through Eton and past the lovely old buildings of the school, and onwards. The further we went, the thicker the snow lay; but the brighter the weather became, and, on the road to Oxford, we were treated to a an opening up of the sky, and the arrival of brilliant sunshine. This called for only one thing - lunch at a country pub. On a friend's recommendation, we made for The Trout, a riverside pub just outside the old university town.

It couldn't have been more perfect - great food and a few drinks with old friends, while we received alternating bouts of snow and sunshine over the garden of a lovely old pub; exactly what England is all about.