An Oxford Adventure

On the 1st May Fra, Tara and I went to Oxford to hear VE Schwab give the Tolkien Lecture on fantasy. A bit of background here - we met on Goodreads/ Twitter and bonded over books and some questionable taste in people we supported. We've met up many times now - usually with Aleks, and talk probably every day.
This trip was a little special, the first time we've met outside Dublin or London, and the planning level was epic, by me. All of this went out of the window after the first glass of wine though I think the only thing that adhered to the original was listening to VE Schwab's lecture!
On a week where it rained a lot we were so lucky, the weather was glorious and Oxford was so photogenic, the pictures here are courtesy of Tara, who also writes an eclectic book blog, and she can be found  here.

Although we were only in Oxford for a couple of days, we crammed a lot in, including a lot of talking and maybe some drinking.

The theme of the Lecture was doors, and you can see/ hear it here on YouTube, it's the second time we've heard her speak, and I will freely admit that I'm in awe of her writing and the way she conducts herself, and she has been one of  my own doors into reading fantasy. There was so much to treasure, but the things I took away, that I think are true of all the writers whose work I really love is that they were bored of the same construct and also that they write for themselves, and not some imaginary reader.

Fra and Tara brought VE a present :

A bottle of Irish whiskey called Writers Tears, and it's also featured on VE's Instagram !
Books were signed, and wine was drunk at Pembroke College, where we saw students playing croquet, which kind of blew my mind !

I felt like I'd crammed a week into two days at the end of this, and I know I'm lucky  but it was an experience that I will treasure.

Plus Oxford