"She led him past a pool with a fountain under a wide-spreading tree, and then struck off to the left between beds of plants toward a huge many-trunked pine. There was a massive stone wall with a doorway in it, and in the farthest part of the garden, the trees were younger and the planting less formal. Lyra led him almost to the end of the garden, over a little bridge, to a wooden seat under a spreading low-branched tree." - The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman



Pullman's trilogy have been some of my favorite books for a very long time. When I found out that the story was largely set in Oxford, I decided to visit the places the book had written about so well. Particularly the bench in the Botanic Gardens where Lyra and Will say goodbye.

After an interview in which four grave professors listened to my presentation and then hurled questions at me, rather like being in the mosh pit in duck duck goose -, I was abruptly relieved of any responsibility and suddenly, gloriously, loose in Oxford, and knew exactly where I wanted to go.