The Oxford University Museum of Natural History is an astonishing mix of weird and wonderful things. I suppose it was slightly off-track for a literary pilgrimage . . . but not really, because we immediately came across Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) among the exhibits. His dodo character in Alice in Wonderland was apparently inspired by Carroll's long-ago visits to this museum.
Just down the street is a sweets shop where the real Alice shopped for her sugar hits. We quickly followed suit.
The candy was dandy. But as American poet Ogden Nash once observed, "liquor is quicker." So when we spotted the Eagle & Child Pub, we stopped in our tracks.
Here is where the famous Inklings met for their evenings of literary-discussion-and-carousing — the most famous of them being C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Amongst themselves, they shortened the pub's name to "the Bird and Baby" or just "the Bird."
Ellen and I were happy to follow their example, quickly ushering ourselves into the Bird for some literary-discussion-and-carousing of our own.
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