Another magical experience

Another academic year has begun, and so have our road trips again! However, this time we decided, rather then risk guessing our way around Oxfordshire, we would invest in a very large road map of the UK (just incase we did end up in a completely different county - which was not at all impossible :P), and so with Sarah masterfully driving, and Ellie map reading (although not always a wise decision - but through lack of anyone else in the car, and although Sarah is very skilled at most things, driving and reading a map was not in her repertoire, Ellie had to direct!), and with sweeties readily available, we ventured off towards Gagingwell (and yes, we did laugh hysterically for a good few minutes).

As we were trundling along a big road, with a fair few cars, (not quite a motorway, but something like that) Sarah started to laugh hysterically again as she had caught sight of a sign pointing to Glympton - and of course we had to make a detour! And so we drove down the little country lanes towards Glympton, very slowly, to save traumatising ourselves with a pheasant massacre (they were everywhere - not all were alive however, but luckily none squashed by us), passing many walkers, and an interesting looking man with his dog, and quickly came to a junction in the road. At this point, Ellie was forced to make a quick decision about which way to turn, left or right...ignoring the map in front of her, and with Sarah pressing her for a decision, she chose left...we so wanted to go right! A quick u-turn later, we were heading down Glympton way - a really pretty village, with the biggest houses, and a little waterfall - what more could you want! More pheasants later, and a bit of guess-map reading, we found ourselves on a road, and thinking we were in the right place, carried along that for a good while, before realising that we were not so much heading towards Gagingwell as away from it! Another random left turning later, and we found ourselves on a quaint, very steep country road, heading back in the right direction!

Gagingwell was in our sights, however we had to turn down the right road first - which sounds easier then it is...with Ellie engrossed in conversation - and hoping a sign to Gagingwell would jump out at her, she completely forgot that the one job she had been trusted with was to find the right road, and we went straight passed it...onto a road that had no turn offs for atleast 10 miles. Sarah was forced to do a bit of an interesting manoeuvre - which if gone wrong...we would have ended up like the pheasants - a little squahsed! But luckily it was pulled off with such skill, and Ellie, now aware of her job again made sure we reached Gagingwell safely.

Gagingwell - what a place, a bit like Narnia and Ginge - you aren't sure it really exists unless you've been there to see it for yourself - and even then, you aren't sure you'd ever be able to find it again. There were approximately 5 houses in Gagingwell - almost as if a group of friends got together and said - lets live together, but lets not do it in a ready made village, lets create our own, and give it a name that will make people laugh...and thus Gagingwell was born! And as quickly as we'd entered Gagingwell, we left it again, definitely worth it though!

Our desired destination had been reached, and so we decided to head back in the direction of Oxford, (Sarah having a moment of panic that a land rover had been following us for a while - Ellie not helping matters by taking a picture of the land rover - which did not in any way actually pose a threat to us) knowing full well that we'd get distracted...and we so did. We came across the village of Thrupp - a tiny village on the A road going into Oxford...like a little hamster - so small, but o so precious, and if you get too excited...you're likely to squash it. We entered the dead-end road, with very little knowledge of whether we'd be able to get out again, and turned a corner, and the most magical sight greeted us - a river, but not just any river - for today was Banbury Canal Day...there were laods of Barge Boats - it was the prettiest place ever...and at this point Ellie decided she was going to live on a barge, and just go where the river takes her...a bit like in 'James and the Giant Peach' where the peach gets into the sea, and they float all the way to New York - it could be like that for Ellie - although not so much New York as Reading...anyway I digress! What a wonderful way to end our new semester of road trips!

Check out some photos below:

Our new road map! And some sweeties - yummy!

The man and his dog. And a pheasant - if you can see it...

Yay - Glympton! A Glymptonites house - posh aye!

Going slow so no pheasants got squished. A big country hill we stopped on coz it was pretty!

Woop - Gagingwell! That's pretty much it...

The Land Rover Sarah was convinced was following us. Thrupp!!

Barges in Thrupp! The Thrupp houses by the river...it was really pretty!

Thanks for reading our blog, we hope you've enjoyed it!

Peace out,

Ellie and Sarah!

xxx

There should have been a white horse...there wasn't!

This morning we embarked on our final road tripping adventure before the summer - this time to the village of UFFINGTON! Although the skies were grey and the world was a little damp, we knew this was never going to stop us - mainly 'coz we were in a car and we weren't gonna get wet!

So we left Oxford, with Chocolate Eclairs to hand - that's right, we know the importance of having good sweets to hand when you are in search of a village - if you end up in a ditch somewhere (which was a real possibility :P) it is important to be well sugared up! Having been to the area around Uffington before as we had previously been very lost there as we searched for Ginge once upon a time, we knew, more or less how to get there, and soon we saw signs to Uffington.

Uffington itself was a fairly pleasant village, not remarkable in itself, it had the standard villagey items (as remembered from GCSE geography...so maybe not 100% accurate) such as a church, and a school, and a pub, and not much else, however, rumour has it, on the hills around Uffington is a White horse cut into the hillside, this massive 374feet long (according to wikipedia) figure is fairly famous, and some would say obvious to see, but could we find it? Not even a smidgen of the white chalk used to create it, not even a stray neigh carried on the wind...all we could find were 2 signs pointing in opposite directions - whose bright idea was that! So we blindly followed one of these signs, and found a hill, which we felt would have been the perfect location for this horse, if only they had thought to ask us where to put it (ignore the fact that it was constructed in the prehistoric ages). As we wound our way up the smallest of country lanes, avoiding hitting any grazing sheep and feeling as though we were on the mountains of Nepal...and not in Uffington, we found some people doing, what only environment lovers would think to do on a rainy day, inserting new posts, i assume where some poor, unsuspecting driver had come off the hill path, crushing the posts in the process and hurtled into the valley below, either that or the old ones had rotted away - seems more plausible somehow. As the roads got narrower, we both decided, lets not push our luck (learning from experience), and turned around, receiving some odd looks from the post planters, as if to say, 'you think you can just come up here, and disturb our roads and our environmental auras.' So we went back down off the mountain, and journeyed around the bottom of the hill - not a horse to be found! I think people have been lying to us :P

So we journeyed out of Uffington, and into Ashbury, now we had definitely been here before, and knew that if we journeyed any further in the wrong direction we would no longer be in Oxfordshire, and although this has been a recurring theme in our road tripping adventures, it was not always intentional, and more hassle then its worth, so we journeyed back along to Oxford, via Abingdon, as Sarah's love for this town was so intense, and she felt the need to share it with Ellie, and what a privilege it was...

And so that was it, we had returned to Oxford, after our final road trip of the summer...but not our final road trip altogether...we will be back in September, to explore the exciting world of places such as Ducklington and Goosey, as we have only made a small dent in the ever exciting world of Oxfordshire villages!

Check out our journey in picture form:

So very very important.

It was very wet.

That is what we like to see!

Twinned with Le Chevain...incase u were wondering.

What a quaint village Uffington was :)

On the hill road - the sheep were watching...

Gotta love a bit of Abingdon.

Thanks for reading, have a happy summer!

Love,

Ellie and Sarah

xxxxx

We went to Brill, on the Hill with the WINDMILL!!!

Our second road tripping adventure was to Brill after a suggestion from a friend that it is a village full of incest and it has a windmill! Now Ellie, being from Guernsey, was not interested in the incest part of it, that was every day kinda stuff, but the windmill, how exciting! And so off we went, with the excitement of Brill lingering over us, and the knowledge that it couldn't possibly be more disappointing then Ginge!

Today we were joined by Emily, a friend of Sarah, who felt she needed to venture to Brill to truly get the Oxfordshire experience, except of course it was in Buckinghamshire, but that is besides the point! At least this time we left the county on purpose! Along the M40 we drove, with images of windmills in our heads, and pick-n-mix in our hands, keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of Brill.

Sarah, having previously had the pleasure of journeying to Brill, confidently new the way, however, after getting so unbelievably lost on our last adventure, we knew never to have that much belief in Sarah's navigational skills.

After driving through Bicester, excited by the roundabout with little metal lambs on it...metal animals seem to play a big part in Oxfordshire life...we found ourselves driving through Ludgershall. Now I know what you are thinking...so far so good...we were thinking the same, but we were far to optomistic. Now Ludgershall was the only route to Brill that Sarah knew, as well as being the easiest route to take, and yet somehow we managed to choose the one night of the whole year that they held BIKE NIGHT! We realised that this explained the huge number of motorbikes that passed us, and on seeing the sign, Sarah felt it was needed, no, she felt it was her duty to shout BIKE NIGHT loudly at every single one of them...o how we laughed! :P However, we carried on driving, and came across approximatley 250 bikers - quite an intimidating sight by anyone's standards, and a man trying to get us to park, he must of thought, 'why on Earth would you have any other need to pass through Ludgershall other then BIKE NIGHT', he simply couldn't understand our need to go to Brill and see the Windmill!!

And so we turned around - maybe mounting a grassy verge in the process, and tried to guess our way to Brill, seeing huge numbers of bikers, by this stage they were very late for BIKE NIGHT, and a few of them gave us odd looks as Sarah still insisted on shouting BIKE NIGHT at them! Following various signs to Brill, and Ellie and Emily preventing Sarah from going the opposite way to an arrow which said Advised Alternative Route, we saw, in all its glory on the hill, like we had heard in the rumours - BRILL!

And what a Brilliant feeling it was, and now the search was on to find the windmill (quickly stopping to take a picture of the Brill sign). Passing an old fire station, advertising for part-time firefighters, we've got the number if anyone is interested :P we followed the road aptly named Windmill Road - common sense dictates that it was the most logical road to try first, and we soon found it - the windmill! It was like something out of Trumpton (you so must have watched it, with 'Pugh! Pugh! Barney McGrew! Cuthbert! Dibble! and Grub!' and Windy Miller), it was just a world none of us really realised existed anymore. We had truly found Brill on the Hill with the Windmill!

And so our Brill adventure was over, but we weren't back in Oxford yet - we were not even back in Oxfordshire! Avoiding Ludgershall altogether, we found our way back to Oxford through a series of humorously named villages, first being Oakley, and then Worminghall, where Sarah got so distracted by a gate with a hole in it she didn't watch the road, and soon we found ourselves in the centre of the road, thank goodness for quiet country roads, is all I can say, otherwise the gate would probably have a hole and bits of car in it! And then came Ickford and Shabbington, little villages which were stuck a few hundred years back, with thatched roofs, and due to the lack of part-time firefighters in the area, no one had told them the fire risk that comes with thatched roofs, one stray spark, and the village of Shabbington would be no more! Anyway, enough of this slightly morbid corner that's been turned! Whilst driving through Ickford, Sarah got very excited by a horse being ridden on the road, and let us give you a little advice, if you take a really obvious photo of a lady on a horse, she will give you a dirty look!

We soon manoeuvred over the bridges of Shabbington, having completed our run of funny villages, and soon found ourselves, much to everyone's surprise, back on the M40. And with the smell of triumph (and cow manure) in the air, Sarah felt she would hedge her bets with a sour strawberry lace, not a thing anyone should really do when driving, resulting in her unable to deal with the level of sourness it had, clutching her neck and driving with her little finger. The fear this bought to both Ellie and Emily was extreme, pleading with her to eat it quickly and maintain composure so that we did not crash!

As we entered Oxford, we were amazed that we had managed to survive this road trip, and felt our lives were now completely satisfied as we had seen BIKE NIGHT and Brill on the Hill with the WINDMILL!!

Check out some photos:

Pick n Mix, what more could you want!

Coz it's safe to eat sweets and drive!

Ludgershall and BIKE NIGHT!!!

We found Brill! And a fire station!

Look at the Windmill!! Look how little we are!

Worminghall...Ickford...

Shabbington and the lady on the horse!

Driving with one finger, coz she couldn't deal with the sourness!

Thanks for reading,

Love Sarah, Ellie and Emily :)

xxx

We think we went to Ginge...

Bright and early this morning we set off on our adventure in a bid to find the village of Ginge and as a bonus thought we'd have a look for Uffington in the process...sounds easy, right?...wrong :) With Sarah as driver and Ellie as (a very unskilled) photographer we thought we'd give it our best shot.

So with Sainsbury's own boiled sweets to hand (what a mistake, the lemon tasted like cough sweets, the blackcurrant like sawdust) and the Glee soundtrack motivating us, we swiftly headed out of Oxford, and randomly southwards, with Sarah convinced she knew the way, and Ellie innocently believing her! All was going swimmingly, until we appeared to have momentarily misplaced ourselves, and with Sarah guessing confidently at crossroads which way to go, we were soon heading away from Ginge, a quick U-turn later, we found ourselves at a roundabout which looked very familiar, the same one we had been at 15 minutes earlier! However this time round Sarah decided it would make more sense to follow the signs to villages near Ginge, such as Wantage, and not her intuition. As we drove in what was now the right direction, we were just hoping for a road sign pointing to Ginge...and soon Sarah saw it with her eagle eyes and a very dramatic gasp, there it was in all its glory...but that is where the glory ended.

There was no 'Welcome to Ginge' sign (just poles upon which they once stood), no posing opportunity, and not a single Ginger from Ginge with whom we could say a chirpy hello to (you'd think they'd have atleast one token Ginge!) Infact the only indication that we were in Ginge was a sign on the main road pointing to a few houses and the fact that Sarah had previously ventured to this almost mythical place (back when the elusive Welcome to Ginge signs had existed), in fact it was almost as if we had just ventured through the magical land of Narnia, we were sure we'd been there, but we weren't really sure how we got there, or whether it really existed. We came to the conclusion that they are in the process of changing the name...possibly to Brunette...or maybe even Blonde. :) Ginge hadn't lived up to our expectations...and lets face it, they were high to begin with!

However, our spirits were soon lifted as we drove into the village of Lockinge (not quite as weird a name as Ginge, but really quite enjoyable to say...go on...say it!). As we were driving through, for a brief moment we felt very sophisticated, and as we peered through the gates to massive houses, we quickly decided we could quite happily live in them (if anyone fancies getting us one...we wouldn't complain :P) Let me just paint a picture of the wealth in this village, not only were the hedges perfectly trimmed and they had an Orangery (not entirely sure what it is, but fairly certain it isn't where they keep Oranges), but there were real-sized metal horses on a random patch of grass, and even a bronze rhinoceros. Only the super rich can afford the luxury of having a bronze rhinoceros! We were followed the length of the village by a man in a BMW, who we decided was trying to chase us out of his village, because, lets face it, we didn't really belong there (when in actuality, he probably didn't live there and was just driving through like us, but you have to be cautious), and with 'Private property/road' signs everywhere, we decided we had outstayed our time in Lockinge, and with a swift turn around (where a grassy verge may have been mounted), we started our journey to Uffington...or so we thought.

Again, we drove in a random direction, hoping we would come across Uffington, instead we may have inadvertently left Oxfordshire, and entered West Berkshire, although lovely, it wasn't quite where we wanted to be, and so we thought the easy option would be to go through the village of Fawley, which we hoped would take us back to Oxfordshire, but that just seemed too simple...we ended up at the end of a very dusty bridle road, so again, we turned around, and got stuck behind a rubbish lorry which turns out was going the same way as us, and as soon as we could, we overtook it. However, this new road we took was also a dead end, and so another turn around was needed, we decided enough of short-cuts, lets just go back the way we came. However, we had to make the decision of whether to wait for the rubbish lorry to pass or go and hope for the best, Sarah said wait, Ellie said go, we went, Ellie was wrong. Some very impressive reversing later, and we were taking a picture of a field to make it seem as though we weren't lost but that we were meant to be there. We finally managed to get back into Oxfordshire, and now felt confident we knew the way to Uffington, and with Didcot Power Station on the horizon, we had a new spurt of confidence...

We saw some signs for Uffington, so headed that way, via Wantage, and ended up on a half completed road, with huge hedges on either side completely lost (we had lost sight of Didcot Power Station as well), and so there was only one thing to do...ring PJ (Sarah's Brother) to help us, where he gave us directions on how to get back on the motorway, back to Oxford, from Ashbury (he practically saved our lives). We decided to leave Uffington for another day. And so we were coasting along nicely singing along to a bit of Glee and then a red car came out of no where, very fast along this narrow road, much swerving and slight hysterics later, Sarah had beautifully avoided a car crash, although was in a mild state of shock, which later turned into laughter...and as we came over the hill, Ellie saw a very exciting sight, a Wind Farm! (Sarah still reeling from her brush with death, didn't care so much for the wind farm, and it just seemed to clarify Ellie's geekiness).

Soon we were in Ashbury, on the home straight, and just to bring the whole adventure to a close...we nearly ran out of petrol! Our first road trip was complete, not hugely successful, but certainly an adventure, and we learnt a few lessons in the process:

1. Invest in a map.

2. Spend a little bit more on better quality sweets.

3. Use road signs, not intuition.

4. When you leave the county, you're a little bit lost.

5. Make sure you have enough petrol before you set off.

Photos:

What a disappointment!

This is Ginge..

The only sign for Ginge..

The disappointment of Ginge.

The gates of Lockinge.

The metal horse.

Being followed by the BMW man.

The rubbish lorry in West Berkshire.

Back on home-turf.

PJ to the rescue.

Heading in the right direction...atlast.

Thanks for reading! Peace out,

Love Bramley - Apple and Gallienniii

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Summer Road Trips 2010

Hello and welcome to Ellie & Sarah's blog!
This blog will follow our summer 2010 which will hopefully be filled with road trips around Oxfordshire attempting to visit villages with funny names :D

Sarah, as an Oxfordshire native, has already visited some of these villages and will serve partly as a guide for the adventure (and driver too!)...however Oxfordshire is full of funnily name villages and there are more to discover!

Ellie, as the resident 'international student', is less familiar with the villages and is very excited to venture outside of the city and see the beautiful names that Oxfordshire has to offer!

Both of our intrepid adventurers will document their quest to find the funniest name...whether this is together or apart (as Sarah is in the USA for 3 weeks soon...) and there might just be a running list of 'top names' and pictures and we hope that people enjoy our adventure!

Tomorrow is the first trip...
Peace out!
Sarah (aka Bramley Apple) & Ellie (aka Gallienniii)