England!

So our trip to England, we knew, would start with a train to Oxford to meet up with some friends that I knew via Tolkien nerdiness.  We met up at the Eagle and the Child where C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and other Inklings met up to read, eat, drink, and discuss (most often) each others yet unpublished works.  The second and third pictures in this post are from the room within that they always sat in.  From there we walked and drove around Oxford.  The fourth picture from the top is of the Blue Plaque saying that Tolkien had lived in that house.  He lived at 20 Northmoor Road from 1930 to 1947.  The Hobbit and the majority of the Lord of the Rings were written while he lived here.  After that we visited Tolkien and his wife Edith's grave.  The final stop on the Tolkien tour through Oxford was the Botanical Gardens run by the university.  When Tolkien lived on Merton Road (right behind the the gardens, where he could see them from his window) during the last few years of his life he had a key to the gardens, and go enter when he wanted.  My last picture here is of his favorite tree, and the site of the last picture that we have of him.  The tree is a Pinus Nigra, the Austrian Pine.  This was a fantastic day, one of the best this year.