Khrystene's passion for Oxford bookstores

Ms Special K Dalecki has been living in Poland since way before I left Melbourne. We've been emailing for ages saying 'we must catch up'... and finally, amid the chaos of getting ready to move house, we has swung it!

She jetted in to Stansted and braved the 3 hour bus trip from airport to Oxford (if only I had paid attention before booking my tickets to Denmark... sigh!), hitting town just as I lobbed in from work. Hurrah!

Crazy girl had brought us food from all the four corners of her adopted country: smoked cheese, polish sausage, mulled wine and sweety goodness... which we just had to taste before heading in to town to the Kaz Bar. Red wine, sherry, too much food, lashings of conversation.

I realised, not for the first time, what an unbelievable luxury it is to natter about the present with someone to whom you don't have to explain the past - they already know most of it. And to be with a fellow expat again, where we can both get all agog at the amazing stuff in our new home towns, and laugh at the crazy English, and those wacky Polish folk.

And I got to show of my turf again. We raided the covered market for good quality cheddar (from Cheddar gorge, no less!), and sainsbury's for random groceries requested by friends back in Warsaw. We scored a rare seat at in the snug at the Eagle and Child and scoffed down masses of foodie goodness. We wandered down the high street and along the Thames and back up to the centre of town, stopping at random pubs along the way. Sunday found us at the Falkland Arms, which my pal Dan so brilliantly introduced me to back in May, with Dan and his new lass Katie and a friend of theirs from Vienna.

We wondered later about the wisdom of putting an Austrian (their countryman started WWI) and a Pole at the same table (the Poles, lets face it, were well shafted during that one), but after a couple of 'don't mention the war' jokes, it all went swimmingly.

We hand't meant this weekend to co-incide with Mikko's birthday when we booked it, but it was nice to have someone else to raise a glass to him with this year.

Next: I really need to get myself to Warsaw!!