The Best Experience in the UK (so far)

So, having established that the website does still work, prepare for a torrent of posts.

Also in November Krystle and I went to our first Premier League game. Football is about the only thing that people in England really care about. Now that religion is dead, people worship at the alter of football and it is fairly much a 24hr a day, 7 days a week, media driven phenomenon. Everything is news and there is little that people talk about other than football. Tickets go for upwards of 150 pounds, so I was pleasantly suprised when Hamish, who I work with, found tickets for Fulham v Blackburn for 32 pounds.
Fulham are the club owned by the man who would have been Diana's father-in-law (if not for the French, or the Queen or whoever you blame). They're not a team doing particularly well but Blackburn are certainly a good team consistently in the top 6. We made our way to the ground for a 4.00 Sunday afternoon start. The ground is set in parklands on the Thames and is certainly a very nice spot to watch sport. Our seats were excellent, about 10 rows back behind the goal (in the picture just in front of the bottom of the letter L). The game was nil - nil at half time but really came alive in the second half. Both sides scored 2 goals, so it finished as a draw, but it was really enjoyable, and hopefully not the last game I see!

This picture is of the Fulham FC ground looking towards the cottage in the left hand corner.

On the road again

With winter rapidly arriving we took the opportunity to take the mini on another road trip before the snow set in and buried in the car in massive drifts. Having spent 12 months in the area in 1993, I was keen to revisit Oxford and so Krystle and I set off on a mild Saturday morning. Spring was holding in there, but not enough to take the roof off the mini. I had booked a pub room at a place in the little town of Dorchester-on-Thames, about 9 miles away from Oxford. First though we went to Oxford and took a trip down memory lane, visiting Cothill where the school I worked at is, and the surrounding area. We had lunch at a pub near the school that I used to visit and then drove back through Abingdon which Krystle liked and wants to go back to.

The pub was very nice, warm and welcoming. Our room was large and comfy and we decided just to have dinner at the pub as nights were now becoming less welcoming for travel. Dorchester-on-Thames is a tiny little town with a population of only a couple of hundred. It is really only a street, but has a large church, post office and no less than 3 places to drink. Always get their priorites right.

On the Sunday we went into Oxford and had a look round the centre of town. Everything looked much smaller than I remembered it. We took an historical visit to Oxford castle, parts of which are almost 1000 years old and was until recently used as a prison, one of its many functions over the past millennium. You actually climbed the tower, the oldest standing part of the building and got a really good view of Oxford and the surrounding area. We also ate donuts at Krispy Kreme which I'm led to believe has been part of the complex for most of the past 1000 years. So its traditional!

We headed back having decided to steer clear of the freeways, giving the little car a break. It cruises along at 100-105 km/hr but because its only a 4 speed manual starts to struggle above these speeds. That and most other cars are doing 125km/h +.