Swimming and Cake in Oxford, with Susanna Bowers and Stanley Ulijaszek

17/11/2025 22 min

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Episode Synopsis

Swimming and cake is a natural combination for many outdoor swimmers. In this episode of Swimmingpod, food expert Susanna Bowers joins Stanley Ulijaszek in Oxford to explore both. They swim at Port Meadow from the Dodo Tree; and later from the Tolkien Bench in the University Park, close by Parsons Pleasure and what was once Dames Delight. Cake is eaten before swimming, then at St Cross College after the first swim, and at the Randolph Hotel after the second swim. Water and food in the fiction works of University of Oxford Professors Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) and J.R.R. Tolkien – Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lord of the Rings – come to the surface repeatedly.