I have been utterly lame of late and blog posts have been horribly sporadic…I am, however, in possession of rather a good excuse. Namely that I am ‘book pregnant’. Stay tuned for more details. I am about 6 months away from publishing.

In the meantime, I have sloped off to the UK and France for the summer and am currently kicking up my heels in one of my favourite places: Oxford. This bastion of Britishness is on most peoples’ hit lists so I thought a quick shout out on two of the quirkiest places I have encountered in this historic, university dominated town might just be in order.

1/ A board game cafe – going under the esoteric name of Thirsty Meeples:

I love the concept of drinking coffee whilst building a Jenga tower (it could end painfully) and these chaps have a whopping 2,000 board games to choose from, and counting.

You can even buy games off them – new ones, don’t worry, they aren’t in the business of wiping them down and selling them on. Meeples is open daily from 11am until midnight. They have a cover charge of £4.50 per person. My top game? It has to be Guess Who.

2/A liquid deli – Demi John is a golden liquid filled treasure trove on North Parade.

Come here to buy truffle infused oils, olive oil, whisky, vinegar and more – most of which are sourced from small regional suppliers. The gin they used to stock here has recently won a contract with Tesco. Pick your bottle size from their stock of refillable empties, fill it up and off you go.

More information on Demi John is available here.