Random scenes

As Robin and I walked to our residence hall from her night class, we passed a dance class in progress.


As I waited for Robin to get out of class, I started seeing double. I'm OK now.


An iconic UK symbol strolls through the Uxbridge town center. The iconic symbol on the left, not the right.


Reading a historic marker.


If you're gonna try this, at least come at it straight on, not at an angle. Oops. they've spotted me videotaping them.


The Uxbridge Town Pump. In 1800 it was installed to replace the old wood timber pipes that brought water to town. The pump is located on Windsor Street (the Uxbridge main drag for many centuries), next to St. Margaret's Church.

The Metropolitan pub, Magners Irish Cider, and Texas BBQ Chicken Burger

We walked to downtown Uxbridge today to (all together now) buy some items and look around a bit. Robin's new classmate, Amy, said her favorite pub in Uxbridge is The Metropolitan, so we decided to try it. It's one of the first places you pass on the way into town, just half a block past the spot where three men were burned at the stake in 1555 (I'm going to have a hard time forgetting that).


Nice typography is always a good sign (hmmm, is that a pun?).

This was a great tip from Amy. Amy, by the way, has never met an American before. Robin asked her "Do you like Americans?" Amy thought for a second, then said "I don't know, I never met one, but I like you." Fair enough. I said, "Don't worry, there's plenty of 'em I don't like." Lucky kid, we get to set the bar for what she thinks is American. Bwahahahaha.

Back to the pub: Friendly place, good food, lots of good sounding stuff on the menu. I had a Texas BBQ Chicken Burger. Really tasty. We both had Cider. Robin had a pint of Magners Irish cider (pronounced "Mahgners"), I had a Strongbow cider. The Magners is a little sweeter, so it's served to sweeter people I guess.


Enjoying that last sip of Magners. I might turn this image into a canvas, titled "Glass, Pearls, & Cider."


The Metropolitan entrance.


Patrons enjoy an afternoon in the Metropolitan. Maybe the evening too.

Movie Premiere - Uxbridge and Beyond

I've hastily thrown together a 3-minute movie of the past 10 days. You'll recognize a lot of the scenes from the blog. I've found that it's fast and convenient to shot most of the time with the Flip video camera, then make screen shots of single video frames to use for photos. That way, I'm actually shooting 30 photos per second and usually can find plenty of useable shots of a scene.

Uxbridge and Beyond: the movie

Foxes on campus

Jonas, our Shoreditch flat neighbor from Taiwan, told us as we were standing around outside during a fire alarm incident, that you'll see foxes on the grounds around the residence halls early in the morning.

We haven't been outside early in the morning, but tonight, around 9:30pm, Robin and I were returning from the nearby convenience store, and a fox was right outside our residence building entrance. He disappeared into the darkness before I could grab my Flip video.

More Bonus Photos

The walk from Brunel campus to downtown Uxbridge takes you through a redidential section of apartments and townhomes. One of the houses has an aviary on the outside wall. We usually stop and say hi. And shoot photos.


We had lunch today at Bar Zest, a small cafe on campus in the Sports Center building. It's quieter here than most places on campus, and the customers seem older. Probably a faculty hangout.


View of the campus from the Bar Zest patio.


While shopping in Uxbridge, we had lunch at Slug and Lettuce. Probably the best place we've eaten so far.


The U3 bus makes a stop right in the middle of the campus, headed to Uxbridge (ten minutes, max). It's always full. If you decide to walk (20 - 30 minutes), there's always a steady stream of students walking both directions. The students heading toward the Brunel campus are always carrying shopping bags of stuff for their rooms. And, of course, there's always a couple of guys carrying several 12-packs of beer back to the dorm. Fosters seems to be the most popular. Probably the cheapest.

Uxbridge discoveries

While Robin was in class, I walked to downtown Uxbridge to get a few items and look around a bit.


St. Margaret's Church.


St. Margaret's Church is right on the town center. Windsor Street, which used to be called Lynch Street ("lynch" means "slope") runs downhill from the church to a small park one block away, Lynch Park. The church is the oldest building in town, with most of its architecture surviving from the 14th and 15th centuries.


This is Lynch Park. Small, pretty, serene. It wasn't so serene back in 1555 when three men were burned at the stake here for their protestant beliefs. The weathered stone monument in the foreground marks the spot, and includes the names of the men.


A stone memorial, placed here in 1933.


The Queen's Head, also on Windsor Street (formerly Lynch Street), dates from 1544, but is thought to be older, was originally known as The Axe. It's a former public house (pub) and coaching inn. It's said to have a tunnel from it to the church.


Another Windsor Steet establishment, The Fig Tree, was constructed in 1871 as a police station. It became a pub in 1988.


Finally, in the Windsor Street category, a local hairdressing shop. I'm not sure what this graphic has to do with hairdressing, or why, for God's sake, the horse looks like it has been run over, but I might have to go ask.

Side Note: I shot the "horsepower" photo above with my iPhone. I obviously must have moved the camera while shooting, and it warped the image instead of blurring it. The iPhone is the only camera I've ever used that distorted an image instead of blurring it. Just in case you thought the building was curvy.

They grow up so fast

I walked Robin to her first class. It was sad watching her enter that big building all by herself - wait, I think I'm confusing today with when my son started the first grade. Today's entrance was all good, and best of all, she loved the three hour class (something about researching, I'll have to get a description from her), and she thought her teacher was fabulous.