The non-Potter Shambles

There are actually only a few Harry Potter-oriented businesses on the street, and it is authentically medieval, with some of the buildings dating from the 14th century. It was once known as the Great Flesh Shambles (shambles meaning stall or bench) because it was where all the butchers had their businesses. The jettied floors overhanging the street kept it cool and shady, better for keeping the meat fresh.

The Society of Alchemists

I avoided The Shop That Must Not Be Named and The Potions Cauldron, but did go into this shop, thinking I might find a suitably New Age-y gift for a friend of mine. It seemed more Halloween than New Age, with skull candles and jars of sweets with ghoulish names, but I did like the giant dragon guarding the door.

More Shambles reflections

Just because there isn't any real connection between the Shambles and Diagon Alley is no reason not to sell all the Harry Potter merchandise you can. There are at least two Harry Potter stores in Oxford and tourists can't even visit most of the locations where scenes were filmed.

Saturday reflections

A shop window in the Shambles, a medieval street in York that was reportedly the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, although J.K. Rowling said she'd never been there.

Anyway, it looks like it could have been.

Stonehenge in black and white, plus clouds

Last year's sky with all those clouds works much better in black and white than this year's cloudless blue skies.

Stonehenge in black and white

The Heel Stone

Most of the pictures I took at Stonehenge are unsurprisingly very similar to the pictures I took last year, but I didn't get close enough to the Heel Stone last year to get a good picture. This one is much, much better.

Avebury sheep

More Avebury

The UK is having their fifth heat wave of the summer, and I wish this kind of summer day for all of them, with cool breezes and maybe some much-needed rain. (It was actually quite warm the day I took this picture but it looks more like a classically English summer day than it actually was.)

I love Oxford but I am happy to be back in the land of strong coffee and air-conditioning any time I want it.

Back to Avebury

I was having a bad knee day and walking on the uneven ground was difficult, though I stuck it out for as long as I could. I was just happy to see these remarkable stones again, and this time on a bright sunny (though uncomfortably warm) day.

Pink sky at night

One of the few pictures I took at Merton this summer. I had skipped dinner because I was sick to my stomach, but this sky, after the only rain we'd had, distracted me enough to grab the camera.

The RAF Bar

The ceiling of the rear bar at the Eagle is covered with graffiti. RAF and USAF airmen stood on the tables and used candles, lighters and lipstick to write their names and squadron numbers on the ceiling.

Since we'd been to the cemetery earlier, I couldn't help wondering if some of the Americans who wrote their names on that ceiling may have ended up buried far from home only a few miles away.