Ye olde village of Eynsham

I started my new job last week. My new employer is based 6 miles outside Oxford, on the outskirts of a little village called Eynsham. This is Eynsham.

You'd never guess it, but Eynsham was, in centuries gone by, bigger than Oxford. Before Henry VIII built the cathedral at Christ Church, St Frideswide's church in Oxford was just a humble local parish. The bishopric resided in Eynsham, and thus, so did all the power, the trade and the big boys with money.

Today, Eynsham boasts a fine church and a paved market square, that would be just about the same floor area as my house...

Yes, that's a thatched cottage in the foreground. The pub in the background (the Swan) is where the work crew winds down after a day's work, usually in a stone walled, grassy little groto that we've dubbed 'the secret garden'.

And oh yes, this is the main street. No, two cars cannot pass one another in opposite directions without one of them pulling in to give way. Rumour has it that Stagecoach, the local bus company, would dearly love to introduce new, lower floor buses on the route through town and out to Carterton, but the new buses are 4 inches wider than the old buses.... and they wouldn't fit down the road without clipping cars or stone houses.

My office? My office is my daily irony. You see, Eynsham is surrounded by modern industrial parks. I work not in a diamond paned cottage, but a black glass megalith just outside town. But the walk from there to the bus is lovely...