House-Elf Doings 

Let me take you up river and into Oxford where the river is called The Isis.

Student accomodation -the new

and then there is the old in St Clements, to the east of the city centre. In the Civil War there were projected Royalist defenses between Jeune Street and Rectory Road. A lot of St Clements was damaged in the fight. You can read more about the sieges of Oxford here. It briefly became the capital of England. There is a cute cartoon here.

This was the Danish settlement area until 13th November 1002AD when there was the St Brice’s Day Massacre. The king, Aethelred the Unready ordered that all Danes who had settled in England should be killed as their fellow Danes had been raiding English land.

The old church of St Clemnents stood where the roundabout is now at The Plain. It was demolished in 1829 when a new church was built on the Marston Road. There are pics here of the area. We turn our back on St Clements and go over Magdalen Bridge. I’ve taken you here before for May Morning.

Look to your right and you can see the Angel and Greyhound Meadow.  I grew up with the idea that this is where the undergraduates raced hounds and placed bets on them. One year it flooded in Winter and froze over. It was good fun for kids to slide on and safer than using the river which is to the left of this pic.

And here is the river from Magdalen Bridge (1772-1790AD).

Opposite it is the Botanic Gardens.

Gargoyles and Grotesques adorn Magdalen College walls.

They are old friends- guardians of the building too.

But we go down to the river and hire a punt.

Magdalen Bridge carvings. There is a huge saga about the building of the bridge and the demolition of the buildings mainly on the St Clements side. There are interesting pics at the bottom of the link showing how the bridge used to look- very Mediecal and similar to Abingdon’s stone bridge.

The money to pay for these sculptures was raised through subscription with college staff being the main contributers. There were to be Sphinxes adorning the bridge originally, but plans changed.

These images are typical of the time.

But  let us put the ancient squabbling behind us.

And enjoy the peace of the riverbank.

We all had a go at punting- not always successfully.

Initially we punted around the island to the north towards St Catherine’s College.

Coming back along the side of Magdalen College.

Details of the above view.

Under the little bridge

Then under Magdalen Bridge -Botanic Garden greenhouses ahead.

More punts are stored this side of the bridge.

Looking back you can see Magdalen Tower.

We go round the island to the south of Magdalen Bridge. These are the backs of the buildings on Cowley Place. St Hilda’s College.

Gorgeous wraparound balcony.

There was possibly an Anglo Saxon bridge in this area as things like spurs were found when this area was dredged in the 1880s.

Under we go

and back under Magdalen Bridge to return the punt.

I thought I would share some sawtooth stars from the Kaffe Fassett book I bought at the quilt show.

I used all Kaffe fabrics for the centre.

 I love how they all work together.

 It is edged in a plain lime green non Kaffe border and will be the picnic cloth for the pink hamper I shared before on here.

I don’t have enough green fabric to be a backing, so I will check what these batiks look like in daylight as a pieced back. I may also check my stash for pinks big enough.

This is another make from the Kaffe book- African Huts design. I didn’t have enough of some shades so I pieced until they made up the right size for the block. I also changed the arrangement of the blocks so that they resembled huts along the River Nile. The fabric for the huts came from Egypt, so the colours were inspired by that country. 

So at long last I have used the bits I kept for myself. People who sent me their hand outlines each got a sample bag to play with too.  I still have enough for another project, but not an idea just yet.

Sorry this is incredibly long. At least I stay in more in Winter.