not the one who went head first into the river Cherwell. No, my long-suffering sandals were spared river water this time. Oxford by day (especially Saturday) is a bustling city, some streets nearly impossible to walk along at anything resembling efficient pace, and the hordes of tourists along with the plethora of shops suggest a big city. That, of course, in conjunction with the comparatively heavy traffic which has had me cursing on more than one occasion – daily during the floods. One Friday night the bus, which had had to take an interesting detour to even get into the city, took two hours. As we entered Oxford, we not only found that all traffic, from three directions, was diverted onto the narrow High Street, but that two buses had broken down at the worst possible strategic points, hence necessitating police officers who diverted the already slow moving traffic around them. I got out among the fumes and walked. Straight to the pub. There are times when nothing but whisky will do.
However, whereas big cities tend to never sleep, and to have a fairly steady flow of traffic – be it of cars or humans – Oxford demonstrably is a small city after all. Oxford by night is practically devoid of traffic, pleasant to cycle in and smells of summer sun and, in places, of chipper vans – the politics of which my housemate S is trying to introduce me to. On a particularly late cycle home, in the wee hours of the morning, I only met one living creature on the Iffley road. The fox was probably as surprised as I was at our brief encounter and rapidly disappeared down Stockmore street, heading for Cowley Road – possibly in search of something exotic in what
must be the most varied collections of bins in town.
I noted before that city and country collide and converge in Oxford; my new home is, furthermore, at equal distance from the various kinds of city and country on offer. A ten-minute walk in either direction takes us to completely different places, a fact that my housemates and I made full use of on a Friday night outing. We started with an evening stroll along the river, which took us to the village and a pleasant country pub. The sun was setting and all we could see were fields (no longer flooded) and trees. Realising
that crisps do not actually constitute dinner, we went back home, collected our bikes and went to Cowley Road. The distance is negligible, but bikes are more fun. Considering, however, that we had had more beer than dinner, were better at laughing than steering and that we only had two sets of lights and one helmet between us, it is, in some ways, a small miracle that we survived and were able to 
debate whether to eat Indian, Bangladeshi, Thai, Japanese, Italian or simply have a kebab. Japanese was finally settled on – those in the know proclaimed the superiority of the restaurant in question, which served its food in boxes. After having sufficiently “done” Cowley road we went into town, swishing past the old colleges, making full use of the broadness (and, at night, emptiness) of Broad street and ended up sampling the nightlife on “that” side of town. An interesting sociological experiment if ever there was one. Hot pants. I shall say no more.
I have been subjected to watching rugby, been cautioned by a police officer on a bike about cycling on the sidewalk, visited IKEA ... and today I found a whole new park, very close to the house. But I already have a favourite reading tree.
