My son has been determined to go to university since he was a little boy and I first began taking him for walks at University Park, Nottingham. In his early teens, he became interested in applying to Oxford University, although he’d never seen the city. When he was sixteen, I decided to remedy that, with a trip to show him the kinds of sights that I knew would feed his passion.
I grew up not far from Oxford, and have visited it a good number of times over the years. I love it there. The history, the university, the people, the vibe… they feed the muse in me and make me dream.
But this trip, seeing the city through my son’s eager eyes… I’ve never loved Oxford more. It truly is, as poet Matthew Arnold wrote in ‘Thyrsis’ (1865), ‘the city of dreaming spires’.
The weather was glorious, and we walked and walked and sat in cafes and sat on benches and walked some more. Here’s a little tour of just some of the places we visited; we packed a LOT into our 24 hours!
(If you’re a Harry Potter fan, look out for the photos marked with an asterisk [*]. These are filming locations or inspirations for sets from the Harry Potter movies.)
Beautiful, don’t you think? As WB Yeats wrote:
I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.
A place to dream and think and read and study… and write. Is there a novel set in Oxford somewhere in my imagination? Quite possibly.
