We had a whole day "off" in Oxford today. One of the things we did was to walk round Christ Church Meadow in the sunshine. On the east side of the meadow the River Cherwell joins the Thames in a meandering way. The river splits into several channels and is popular with punts and other human-powered craft.
Some punts were expertly guided along the channels. Other vessels had less experienced crew and zigzagged along crashing gently into the banks each side. When a pedalo appeared on the scene - a pedalo which spent most of the time spinning round and going nowhere - an oncoming punt had nowhere to go.
The brakes are even less effective than those on a narrowboat. Judging from the amount of laughter everyone involved was having a great time.
The longhorn cattle in the meadow were not interested.
The students we met at Thrupp didn't tell us about something we witnessed later. In Merton Street behind the university's examinations centre a group of students gathered behind a barricade. They were armed with shaving foam and flowers, with champagne and powdered paint, and were waiting for their friends who had just finished their exams.
The "victims", still wearing the gowns they took their exams in, seemed to be enjoying being covered in foam, paint and glitter.
The practice is known as "trashing" and is apparently not condoned by the university authorities, but seemingly tolerated.
After watching for a few minutes we walked a short distance along the road to Merton College, and Choral Evensong in the chapel.
Oh yes, earlier in the day we had walked along the Thames and saw two familiar boats pass downstream. The Jules Fuels pair are usually found in the
Stoke Bruerne Weedon area on the GU. Perhaps they are on holiday.
Tomorrow I'm going by Megabus and bike to pick up the car from near Coventry.
2 comments:
That’s Ryan’s pair from up past Weedon rather than Jules’ and Richard’s.
Thanks Adam, duly corrected.
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