Out to play

You know how it takes visitors to get you to do things on your own patch? Well, this morning I went to one of Oxford’s Sunday morning concerts in the Holywell Music Room with my French friends. Been meaning to go for years. For the first time ever I heard all 24 of Chopin’s preludes together, live and superbly played. A real treat.
 
We came out into sunshine and a text message from my friend J, on whose narrow-boat I taught English a few weeks ago, to say that the boat was just arriving in Oxford. So, off to the canal to say hello, join in some singing and show my French friends how a bedroom sleeping eight becomes a living room, dining room or classroom, depending on which hinges, chains, metal posts or slabs of plywood are brought into use.
 
We walked on to Port Meadow, where the locals had come out to play in the sun, and spent the afternoon in the garden of a pub so stereotypically English that they even had a wood fire roaring inside.