September 9-10, 2015 - Oxford, England

Today I took a walk to see the next door neighbors, St. Sepulchre's Cemetery!

I walked through the tombstones which date from 1848 when the cemetery opened. The cemetery closed to burials in 1945.


It was interesting to see not just one or two names on some of the stones, but this one had an entire family listed – from 1864 to 1913!

I continued on into the City Center before stopping at the Farmers market in Gloucester Green. Since it was late afternoon, several of the booths were selling produce at a discount. One had two bags of bananas for $1GBP, but I only wanted one bag, so I found another woman who also wanted just one and we split the sale. It was the good deal of a day – 7 bananas for 50 pence (about 75 cents USD)!

Tobey rode along with Tyler to Barnstable today and they got home close to midnight – needless to say, they were exhausted!

Thursday – September 10, 2015

This morning Tobey and I walked to City Center and had lunch at a fish and chips shop next to the market. It was not very good – I am glad we split a meal! We went on to the Museum of the History of Science. What an interesting, free museum!

The museum houses a huge collection of scientific instruments in what is the world’s oldest surviving purpose-built museum, the Old Ashmolean Museum.

The top gallery had displays of mathematical instruments including astrolabes, sundials, spheres and quadrants. They even had one complete astrolabe dating back to 1088!


I was really fascinated by all of the “pocket watches” – pocket sundials – that are at the museum. Some of them date back to the early 1700s, like the one in the picture below.
The museum also had a medieval stone sundial on display in the Basement Gallery, along with clocks, globes, slide rules, and photography equipment.

Tomorrow we head to London where three of our former exchange students will join us for the weekend.