Jam In It

This weekend we went on a barge trip in Oxfordshire on the river Thames with our friends Martin and Caroline. It was so much fun! Martin, Caroline, and John had all been before for Martin’s 30th a couple of summers ago. I couldn’t make that trip in the end because it was when Abbey had her broken pelvis and someone needed to stay home with her. They had so much fun that time that they wanted to do it again, and I was keen to see what I had missed out on.

We met up at the dock after work on Friday evening. Someone showed us around and got us acquainted with how everything works. It’s a really cool boat, sort of like camping on the water. It had a little kitchenette (sink, stove, oven and grill), toilet, shower, running water, room for four to sleep. The table and booth seat thing turned into a double bed. Then you drive the boat from the back and there is an area in the front where you can sit outside and enjoy the ride.

When we got there we only had time to go a little ways and then bank up for the night. We walked to a pub to have dinner and a few drinks, then came back and played a few card drinking games.

On day two we were on our way! The boys set us off while Caroline and I prepared breakfast. Our plan was to have a huge full English breakfast so we wouldn’t need lunch and we’d go out for dinner. So we spent probably over an hour preparing everything – scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage (nice veggie sausages for me!), baked beans, toasted (made manually with the grill!). It was delicious and very filling. I wasn’t even that hungry by the time dinner came around!

We went through lots of different areas, from countryside to big towns (Oxford for example). There was lots of rowing going on and we got yelled at by one boat cox for taking up too much room and coming out of Oxford we had to moor up because there was a rowing race coming our way.

Driving the boat was fun, and even funnier to watch when thing went slightly wrong! In particular, we were approaching a lock and Caroline was at the helm. Martin jumped off the boat to work the lock, and the boat was slowly moving in the direction of a Danger sign. Caroline got a little overwhelmed between controlling the speed and direction and kind of panicked. John went to the back to help her and I didn’t see what happened but apparently in her panic she lost her balance a bit and nearly pushed John into the water! Makes me laugh just picturing it. She got some stick for that the rest of the weekend!

When we got to Oxford we had made good time so we got out and walked around until we found a pub. It was a beautiful day and it was great to stretch our legs and try to work off some of that breakfast!

We moored up for the night around 6:30 or so in a town where Caroline lived briefly. We had a lovely meal in a pub and went back to the boat to play a board game they’d brought that is sort of like Taboo but there are no restrictions on how you can describe the words. It was very funny when Martin and Caroline were a team and it was their turn. Martin was describing the words and they were on a bit of a roll. I think he had started to get cocky, because towards the end of their round his clue was simply ‘Jam in it’. We all sort of had blank expressions like ‘is he saying “Jammin’ it” and it’s some sort of slang (he’s a teacher so maybe it’s something the kids are saying these days?) or “Jam in it” and if so Jam like the conservative or like a verb or what?’ Then he said ‘you put jam in it’. So he was describing a jar, but he had just gotten carried away like Caroline could read his mind and he didn’t have to give complete clues or something. For some reason we all found this extremely funny (you also have to imagine that Martin is a pretty deliberate and careful person which might have added to the humor of it because you expect his clues to make complete sense), and even now I am fighting a fit of laughter (as I’m at work I’m having to fight laughing out loud), but I don’t know how well it translates when written.

The next morning we got off to an early start. We had at lot of river to cover and had to have the barge back by 4 or 5 or something. It was a pretty miserable day, so we lucked out that our only full day on the boat was so nice. Again Caroline and I made a big breakfast (although we tried our hands at fried eggs this time – not bad, not bad!). We only stopped once, at a beautiful pub that had a few peacocks and a lovely area outside to take in the views of the river and trees.

A little while later we had returned the boats and were on our way home! It was such a lovely weekend; Monday always comes around much too quickly!

CLICK ON THE FIRST PICTURE OF ME AND CAROLINE COOKING BREAKFAST TO SEE ALL THE PICTURES FROM THE TRIP.