A punting we shall go!

So when my new flatmate Mike (there are two: this one goes by many other suitably Aussie names, including Colesy, MC, and Spoony) said casually to me one night last week that he was going punting in Oxford on Saturday and would I like to come, I pretty much just took in the "Oxford"and "bunch of people" parts of the conversation, and figured it sounded like a fun day out, and the reason I'd moved across the world. My lack of understanding as to what was actually involved was probably helped by my serious lack of comprehension as to what "punting" actually is. I think if I'd stopped to think about it I might have thought it had something to do with horse races, but as I said, I didn't actually stop to think about it, I just signed up.
So this is how I found myself up at 7am on Saturday morning, after quite a big night out on Friday, heading towards a fun-filled day of sun, sans a hat or any sunscreen. I did, however, have my umbrella. I learn quickly, me ;-)
Unfortunately - well, fortunately really because it was a beautiful day - England decided it wasn't feeling very British on the weekend, and decided to emulate, as much as it possibly could with such poor resources, Queensland in about October. Therefore, it was an absolutely perfect day - sun shining, hardly a cloud in the sky, and oh, did I mention we were punting in Oxford?
I understand if you don't quite get the significance of this - I certainly didn't until I arrived - but punting (as explained here by the wiki - there's a nice picture of a guy celebrating his graduation with a bit of heave-ho there too) is quite the English tradition, especially in well-to-do places like Oxford and Cambridge where they have nice little creeks. Basically, a bunch of people (I saw entire families in the one punt) cram into a flat-bottomed boat and alternately relax (the lucky passengers) or struggle (the designated punter) with a most unusual method of transportation whereby the chump with the pole propels the boat along by stabbing the creek bed with said pole. If you do it right, you can get to the pub down the way in about 15 minutes. If you're a bunch of Aussies who've forgotten hats, coordination and (egads!) beer, you will probably take over an hour. (We did manage to get some sunscreen as some of our party - girls, of course - had backpacks filled with useful stuff - including changes of clothes. They obviously had a vague notion of what punting involves!)
Once you get to the pub, however, the pain of punting is all worth it (or the joy is increased if you've been lucky enough to be a passenger) as you're presented with Pimm's; a modern take on traditional pub fare (my steak sandwich came in flatbread); and a massive lawn where the boys can enjoy kicking the footy around and throwing frisbees at girls in bikinis, and the girls can enjoy watching the boys get drunk and make idiots of themselves. Once the revelling ceased (we spent about four glorious hours at The Victoria Arms), it was the girls' turns to punt down the river (the boys were a tiny bit pissed). Luckily for us, the current was now in our favour, however unluckily for this girl (and her boy passengers), I am terrified of
a) falling in the water
b) losing my punting pole
c) looking like a complete girl by doing either a) or b)
and therefore
d) scream like a girl a lot, and although I avoided both a) and b) I still managed to do c). *sigh* Once I'd taken us around in circles and through a number of seriously aggressive bushes, Spoony took over, and his practice earlier, coupled with 3 pints of lager, got us back to the docks in record time. Obviously I didn't have enough practice or enough to drink to perfect my punting style, but I'll be planning a similar outing to Cambridge where I will attempt to rectify both of the identified shortages (and take a change of clothes just in case).
After the punting (I don't think I've described how wonderful it really was - a perfect day - I really need to figure out where and how to load my pictures so you can see just how pretty), the gang went, quite uncharacteristically, to a pub. As pretty much the only sober member of the party, and feeling like it might be a bit of a waste of such a beautiful day in England in a situation that I could experience back at the RE (they're a lovely bunch of folks they all went to Uni in Brisbane, so there was a nice feeling of familiarity there), I took myself on a self-guided walking tour of the Oxford colleges. As any one who has met me knows, my sense of direction is only hampered by maps (pesky things, they're never going in the direction I am), so I randomly walked, and I must say, if I followed my gut (even if it told me to walk down a dodgy looking alley) it got me where I wanted to go (the Bodleian Library), whereas when I tried to follow the maps kindly placed about by the Oxford tourist haters, I ended up in a cow paddock (click on the Christ Church Meadow link on the left - for some reason it refuses to stay stable although you don't need authorisation).
After a couple of hours of trudging around in my thongs truly living up to the Library Nerd title my new friends had firmly crowned me with during my obligatory "defend the profession" conversation at lunch (hey, they asked), I made it back to the pub, where I amused myself watching the plastered guys around me say and do hilarious things, and chatted to the girls about life in the UK, and started to feel like maybe I'd get the hang of it here after all. Just give me a few more perfect days punting in Oxford, and next time I want cucumber and mint in my Pimm's. (BTW, for you apostrophe Nazi's out there, and you know who you are KATE, it's correct because it was Pimm's recipe, so therefore he owns it, and all of that associated malarkey.)
Librarian out.