What I hadn’t fully understood was this was to be an immersive Christmas experience. For Cordelia doesn’t do this season by halves. First, I am treated to a tour of her Christmas crib collection. She has 74 of them.
There’s a real physicality to Catherine’s work, all that lifting, and mixing, rolling and cutting alongside the heat of the oven; there’s a dexterity of hand that’s needed and an understanding of the inherent quality and character of the ingredients she is shaping.
Oxford is a city of doors. Big doors, tiny doors, doors within doors. There are grand fortified gateways to colleges built to keep the townsfolk out, and plain doors with…
I’m standing in front of the huge window at the east end of Balliol College dining hall. There in prime position, right at the top is a burning wheel. It…
I’m attempting to climb all the towers in Oxford. The body being willing. And so, as the festival of Michaelmas approaches (29 September, traditionally one of the four quarter days…
The weather has perked up, the sun is out, and so what better than to take a walk along the river for a drink at the Perch Inn on Port…
I was delighted to be invited to meet Chris Raworth at his workshop in Middle Barton, catching him just after he had assembled his set of gallopers for the last…
We are standing alongside two large green industrial wheelie bins in the delivery area for The Covered Market in the heart of Oxford. It’s not the most salubrious of places,…
I am standing at the scene of a crime. Not far from The Oxford Sausage headquarters in front of the side entrance to The Ashmolean Museum on St Giles. It…
It is Thursday morning so I head to the open-air market on Gloucester Green. At the heart of today’s city this is a square of flats and shops sandwiched between…