Out and about again. Annie's and Woodstock

 So what's a girl to do when she's left unsupervised and on her own for a few days? One answer is she starts checking her bucket list of Things To Do, dons a pair of (suitably padded) Big Girl Pants and goes into Dora the Explorer mode. (The other is that she leaves the bedroom in a state of complete chaos by pulling everything out of the wardrobe at once.)

One of those items was to have tea (or coffee) in a nice tea room. There's Costa's in the High Street, but it's hardly a scenic view staring at the Co-op across the road. And then there's Annie's Tea Rooms, by the canal lock and mooring in Thrupp, a mile or so up the canal. (Although by the time I got there, in this heat, it felt a lot longer.)

Which is possibly where I may have been read for the second (and possibly not the last) time that day, having already come face to face with a neighbour from across the road just moments after leaving the house. (And me in a nice new frock.)

After giving my order (and blanching a bit at the price list - four quid for a coffee?) I went to sit outside in the garden, and after a few minutes the lady who took my order came straight to my table saying "It's OK, I recognised you straight away"). Or maybe it was just that I was the only person wearing a dress - every other woman seemed to have opted for more sensible shorts or cut-offs and t-shirts in the summer heat. 

canal side library, with an 'honesty  box' in the middle between the shelves.

After which I decided I might walk back down the footpath along the Cherwell towards home. It was at this point Dora the Explorer took over when I saw a side path I hadn't ever been down and decided to follow it and see where it went. Which turned out to be not very far before I lost the trail (although when I emerged into a field I could see the spire of St Mary's in the distance.) There was also this curious little structure off to one side of the path. I've no idea what it was. It looks too solidly build for a birder's hide, and a bit out the way as a lone defence against the Germans invading Thrupp by sailing up the Oxford canal.

This was where things started to get strange. I had just backtracked to where I diverted off the path when a bloke with a dog asked if I was lost. I explained I had been but wasn't now since I knew where I was. And then he started asking me more questions, about who I was, where I'd come from where I lived and where I was going. This was starting to get a bit weird and uncomfortable, when two more women came along the path from Annie's, followed by another man and a dog. The first bloke then told me he was a policeman (as was other bloke who'd just arrived) and they'd had reports of a man exposing himself to people somewhere along the footpath. In the end I agreed it might be safer it I went back the way I came rather than carry on down the path, so I went back towards Annie's and the canal and rather than face the long walk back I hopped a bus home. I didn't wait to see what the other two women decided but as far as I could tell they didn't seem to come in for the same load of questions I did. So again, maybe it was just that I was coming from an odd direction off the main path. But you can get a little paranoid when you're standing there in a new frock being subjected to Twenty Questions by a bloke you never seen before.

No such problems the next day (Wednesday) when I decided on a whim to take a bus into Woodstock and explore the town and the grounds of Blenheim Palace. I knew there was a 'free gate' into the grounds just opposite the Black Prince. Despite the fact that the bus to work takes me though Woodstock every morning, I think I've only been there twice before, the last time when we went for a curry with friends. And this would be the first time as Susie.

 

Blenheim Place, showing all the modesty you might expect from someone who has erected a giant phallic symbol where he can gaze at it from his breakfast table.

After a couple of hours of wandering around it was starting to get a bit too hot, so I went back out to explore a bit of the town.

Opposite the free gate is Woodstock Water Meadows (more than slightly overgrown). And of course, she almost immediately finds another bridge to pose against.

Then a steep climb back into Woodstock proper, and a look around a couple of charity shops, a nice dress shop with a sale, and the Oxford Museum where I coveted a lovely Victorian dress (sadly behind glass) and had a far more reasonably priced coffee in the cafe garden.

And home again on the bus (although I do wish the lady I was chatting to at the bus stop had discreetly pointed out my eyeliner had run giving me a pair of noticeable panda eyes. I need to pack a small mirror next time.)

Quick fashion update. I saw these leggings (actually jogging bottoms) a couple of weeks back and couldn't resist.

Book sales, Bucket Lists, Bunnies and unicorns

 It's been another year so it's probably time for the obligatory 'girl on a bridge' shot. I took the first of these pictures on the same bridge back in 2021 (A Bridge Too Far - 4 July 2021)  and have kept it up on a semi-regular basis ever since, although the bridges sometimes change almost as often as the hairstyle.

(Also, who am I kidding with the 'girl' bit. I never got to experience being a girl, except in the confines of my own head, as Susie arrived - after a lot of missteps, denials, recriminations, purges and inevitable relapses - in 2015, when I was already in my late 50s. (Susie, of course, has shaved a few years off this, though it hasn't stopped her taking advantage of my bus pass.)

Another weekend to myself at the end of June while my partner is away, which means Susie can come out to play (this side of me is not something we can discuss, let alone share). 

Unfortunately, I had already committed to helping out at behind the book sale table at the village church sale on Saturday morning, so that put paid to spending time as Susie. While the local church is LGBT friendly, they don't know about Susie, and it might have come as a bit of an eye opener. (Being able to do one of these events as Susie is still on my bucket-list of wishes, though if it ever happens it'll need some delicate prep  and sounding out in advance, along the same lines as arranging to take part in this year's Witney Pride parade with my workplace colleagues as Susie.)

However I did get a couple of hours to get ready and go out for an early walk before I had to return home  and change back into male drab to help with the sale, although I offset the drab somewhat by wearing a Pride t-shirt. (A couple of customers had Pride pins or stickers on their coats or bags, so that was nice to see.)

By the time the sale had finished and we'd packed everything up and cleared it away, followed by a quick weekend shop, it was well into mid afternoon and getting a bit late to get ready and go out again, so I spent the rest of the day indoors or pottering round in the back garden as Susie. 

Another morning walk next day, back though the nature reserve at the bottom of the village and back up along the canal, in the course of which I encountered a couple of lost and bedraggled animals.

      

The poor sad-looking bunny looked like it had been fished out of the canal and sat there to dry off in the hope it might be reclaimed, though if it had fallen off a boat it might be some time before they come back. 

I have no idea what the fluffy moomin unicorn is supposed to be but I hope it gets reunited with whoever lost it.

I had hoped to put another dent in Susie's bucket list by visiting Annie's Tea Room at the top of the canal in the afternoon, but after the warm sunshine of the day before, Sunday afternoon's weather turned out to be more typical of a British summer in that it was dull, overcast and chilly. And then the neighbours across the road decided to spend the afternoon doing up their garage door, which made leaving the house en-femme a bit problematic, so I had to put off that idea for another time when the prospect of sitting outside with a book, coffee and cake might be more attractive. 

 

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