New Year in Oxford

No sooner than my Christmas guests departed than I was off off to Oxford to see in the New Year with friends down there. They have two younger children, 10 and 8, who are simply adorable beyond words.

New Years Eve evening we started in a local pub in Jericho, Bookbinders. I would heartily recommend this. Small local venue with a little band playing covers. the place was packed and just bursting with good will.

Obviously the kids weren't going to make it to New Year even fortified with crisps, so we went home, put them to bed and settled in to watch the fireworks on TV with cheese and biscuits and bubbly. Nice. And I don't care how much they spend on fireworks on the Thames, it is always worth it.

Original plan for New Years day was a walk along the river to a pub for lunch, followed by a football match in the afternoon. Well Plan A disappeared under water as this part of the Thames floodplain was indeed flooded. So we needed to take a less scenic walk to the pub, which was nonetheless well worth it. This is the more rural side to Oxford, away from the dreaming spires. But lovely, and the food was excellent as was the beer.

The football at least survived waterlogged pitches, and indeed the pitch at Oxford was in remarkably good condition given the amount of water that had descended on it, and the fact that the football club now share the Kassam Stadium with London Welsh rugby club. So there was no real excuse for the game being as poor as it was for most of the time. For the record, Oxford beat Cheltenham by a single goal, a penalty which I managed to capture on film.

Father and son watching the game with rapt attention



The only goal of the game, from the penalty spot



To be fair, the main problem was just how cold it felt sitting there when the sun had gone down. Alas I had left my thermal underwear at home.

The most amusing part however was my friend Ruth trying to explain to her curious 10 year old daughter the various chants that rang around the ground, in as euphemistic way as possible, as football chants are rarely all that clean. But then half way through the 2nd half one bloke, exasperated at a refereeing decision, just screamed at the top of his voice, "You prick" at the poor official. A wag in front then turned to Ruth and said "Like to hear you explain that one!"