Oxford

We stopped in Oxford for lunch and a quick look around. A lot of students were dressed in white shirts, black suits, and sported a carnation. Something was going on.

You don't get to see much if you walk off the streets because most of the colleges have a the quad type architecture with a secure entrance. Tourists were grouped around the entrances gawking at the quads, especially the famous Christ Church College quad where Harry Potter learned to fly his first broom!

Walking by a fountain pen store, I saw an ad for the Parker '51 on the window - " the world's most wanted pen". A lot of memories came rushing back from when I was Vivian's age. My dad and mom had matching pairs, in burgundy and blue, from their time as students in London. Each set contained  a fountain pen with a 14 carat nib, and a ball point, both with rolled gold caps and the telltale Parker arrow pocket clip, in their leather cases with satin insides. But my dad's fountain pen almost always was in his shirt pocket. The pen and his Rolex were the last things he picked up from the dresser in the morning and he carried them through the day. My mother was less picky and often wrote with any old ball point. Just as my dad's penmanship was perfect, my mother's was unreadable. She joked that at medical school they taught you how to make your handwriting unreadable. My own Pelikan was one of my prized possessions when I started writing with a pen. So, we walked in to the store.

The lady behind the counter knew a thing or two about fountain pens and selling, and showed the kids how to hold the pens and had them try out medium and fine points and eventually we walked out with a Lamy pen for each. Great pens they can use till college, she said. The next day were were back in Austin and Evan wrote his first note with his new fountain pen. Grandpa and grandma would be pretty tickled.

We stopped at a used book store to browse and half an hour later we staggered out under the weight of several books. Feeling secure that we had enough reading material for the airplane ride back, we headed off towards Gatwick airport.