Sandals of a certain quality

My sandals, of solid Ecco quality, did actually, to my great astonishment, survive the mud excursion and have been on new adventures since. They have even been punting. On a glorious Saturday afternoon I boarded my first ever punt. And despite proving myself to be a spectacularly incompetent driver (is that even the term?) of the punt, my strength lying more in the general area of decoratively sitting in it and singing songs, I was 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.

Life in Oxford is full of joy. There is also the mundane to be dealt with, however, and my adventures have not only taken me to exotic places like rooms in Lincoln college (Descartes in the loo, I expected nothing less), but also into close encounters of the ninth degree with the National Health Service. My first attempts at registering with a GP led me straight into the clutches of what must surely be one of the worst incarnations of the NHS. The woman so utterly devoid of people skills that someone, for reasons beyond human comprehension, had put in the reception, had a personality capable of sending people made of sterner stuff than me into rehab. I kept wondering (hoping, in fact) whether I was on a hidden camera show; as time and the filling out of forms continued it seemed less and less likely. My exasperation must have been visible, because the kind doctor who came into the reception to collect a paper smiled, slightly concerned, and asked me whether he could help. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and beg him to take me far, far away … but the woman replied in my place and said, in her slow drawl, “we are just filling out some registration forms”. He nodded and left. I was on my own. Being used to the concept of standardised institutions in Sweden I was now convinced that this was it, this was what the NHS was like. I also realised that the only way forward was to just not get sick. Ever. Thankfully, a friend suggested that I simply go somewhere else. I did, and ended up in a sunny office, where a lovely woman provided me with information, helped me with my forms, gave me an appointment with an even more lovely nurse and in general took me in with open arms. Needless to say, I called the other practice and told them to burn my forms…

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.