Happy Birthday Helen.

As normal I got up to make us a cup of tea, but this was no normal day as it was my beautiful wife's birthday. Before breakfast she had had flowers (£4 from Morrison's), chocolates 8 Mars bars for £2), books ( Helen chose them her self), cards (one of them from me) and jewelry (she had bought her self a good while ago) and a cruise (20 mins down the cut), not necessarily all from me though. After making the tea I moved us further down the cut to a spot that was in the sun all day for the solar panels. Meanwhile Helen was inundated by texts and was reading her book. We were soon up and I then left to find the Sunday paper. We then listened to the Archers and then, after a phone call from Mother in Law we headed into town.

Castle Shopping Centre was much bigger than we thought it would be. This entrance was once the Corn Exchange that was built in 1857. The statue on the top is Ceres, the God of Agriculture. I wonder how easy it was to carve the name in the stone. Was the old name removed first,or was it carved incorporating the old letters, or was it blank previously? The shopping centre was built on the site of the old Banbury Castle that was pulled down after the Civil War. The castle was held by a Garrison of Royalist troops but the town was pro Parliamentary.

The town has lots of shops, many more than the centre of Oxford, with a good mix of anchor stores and more individual ones. Helen enjoyed wandering around the shops and we picked up a few things that we had been looking for. The town has several shopping streets and with little snickets off leading through to other streets and squares. It all has a quaint touch about it and is very individual. Another feature of the town is the unusual Hornton stone that many of the buildings are made of. Hornton where it was quarried is about 3 miles from Banbury. It was laid down about 160 million years ago and is actually a limestone. It however contains so iron and the oxidising of this gives it it distinctive colour.

 This statue of a 'fine lady on a white horse' was unveiled by Princess Ann in 2005 and is on a plinth of Hornton stone.

The Banbury Cross referred to in the nursery rhyme above would have been one of the three that exsisted in the past. However those fun loving Puritans pulled them down in 1600 as an offence. The current one above was erected in 1859 to celebrate the marriage of Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, Victoria to Prince Frederick of Prussia. In 1914 Edward VII and George V were added to celebrate the later's coronation.

St Mary's Churc is very distinctive with the colour of the Hornton stone. It was built in 1797 to replace the medieval one pulled down after it partly fell down due to disrepair in 1790. The pepper pot tower was not completed until 1822 due to financial problems.

We found a coffee and some lunch and managed to buy some Banbury cakes. Apparently they are like Eccles cakes but have them warm with custard or ice cream etc. That a pudding for later in the week. There were a few charity shops to search for books on her list and a couple of purcahes from Wilko etc.

Near the Market Place is this shop with it's days of your advertising. Helen thought the hanging baskets and tubs were the best she had seen for a long time.

By now it was getting very warm and we decided to head back to the boat for a cup of tea and to soak up the sun. Well Helen did some sitting and soaking up the sun. I made tea and cut the cake. Mind you she had made the cake! I then did a couple of little jobs before getting the tea ready. It was an M&S meal deal so didn't over tax my culinary skills. Mind you it was very tasty.

As the museum was closed on Sunday we will pop into town tomorrow to have a look around before moving on a bit.