Archive for the ‘Eynsham’ Tag
It pissed down rain all the way back from Cassington and I entered the Swan drenched, much to the amusement of a couple of hoodlums that I watched checking out the bankroll of the guy (in the picture below) that appeared very interested in the days racing from Cheltenham, on telly.
I ordered a Landlord and an old guy that may-or-may-not be the landlord came around and pulled it then refilled his pint, downed half of it, and topped it off again before taking payment. On returning with change, he repeated the ritual and I was left to wonder what proportion of this is OCD and how much was rampant alcoholism.
But, not for very long as another guy came in saying he just got popped by a speed camera, on his way back to the MOT place having just fitted two tires replacing bald ones that made his motor fail the MOT in the first place. This was great, and the hoodlums enjoyed the craic at his expense: not only was he going to get the speed points and fine, it would turn up he went without a valid MOT and was speeding on bad tires (time stamps on his receipts notwithstanding, he will have some ‘splaining to do).
I thought I would snap the photo of the Swan as I left but spotted my bus hurtling toward Oxford and made the executive decision that I would steal one online (hence the Google street views stitched together, above).
It was raining and I had neither a map nor a compass to direct me to Cassington or, for that matter, out of Eynsham; dead reckoning took me down a narrow footpath and then out to a street a few doors down from the White Hart which I remembered was on a road I considered using for this run. Perfect.
Inside, there were diners, a few blokes crowded around the bar, a friendly barmaid, and some wildly pissed old farts sitting by the window. I was right: this was a more perfect starting point. I ordered a very tasty beer, which I called Rock Biter (I really am blind when the glasses fog over even slightly) and settled in to eavesdrop.
One of the old guys got up to leave and the other offered to buy him another round (they were on whiskeys) but when he returned with the two glasses his compadre had already vamoosed; “oh deary dear,” I could almost hear echoing in his head, “whatever shall I do with this pesky extra whiskey?” Two of the bar props stepped out for a smoke and on returning one asked the now drinkless old guy if he could buy him another. “I wouldn’t mind,” he most honestly admitted.
There were a few runs of note this week. One was from Witney to Eynsham via South Leigh, and it took me along a nice dismantled railbed; however, the fuckers that should do some minimum amount of trail maintenance to keep trekkers from walking OFF the right-of-way had, in addition to pulling down all the trail marks, also piled up all the slag and concrete that originally had made up the dismantled railway and piled it on the old path. Made it a lot less of a moral dilema to trespass, though, so bless ’em.
Got a few choice bleeders along the way, as well, shown below. There is going to be a great crop of blackberries this year as far as I can tell.
The other kind of cool path was a loop from Ludgershall to Brill and back. This route requires a 140 meter climb as you approach Brill just after passing the Vale Brewery, but yields some choice views of the countryside (there should be a few pictures in the Pheasant pub review soon to follow).
The way back also resulted in some confusion, but this was mostly my fault and the trespassing I did was entirely malicious but it did take me past some fine horses. After the trails were once again found, I spotted some good nature reserve trails and a nice old railway bridge and tunnel.
This part of England is much more interesting than East Anglia, for a runner, anyways. The topography isn’t breathtaking, but it is loads better than the flat coastal plains out east. We are planning a trip to Shropshire in a couple of weeks, though, and I really think that is going to yield some prime new territory for the run notebook and some pretty new scenery.
Are these where they farm strippers?
It was windy so the sign moved during the picture...and I might not have been at my most steady, either.
The Jolly Sportsman was populated by a grumpy bar man (these are the best) and a guy intently enjoying a compilation of Meat Loaf videos (y’know, Paradise By the Dashboard Light and Bat Out Of Hell). I was well past it by this point, but the chat was on a level that I could manage…Meat Loaf connected us to Ellen Foley from one of the videos, from her to the Clash via Mick Jones (with an ugly but minimal side trip to Big Audio Dynamite territory), from the Clash to a really bad western I once saw called Straight To Hell (because Joe Strummer was in it, along with Shane MacGowan and Courtney Love) and then my last beer was finished and the barman was ready to leave. Actually, he seemed, when I had entered the place, to have been ready to leave some hours before I arrived, but at this point he was authorised to kick us to the kerb and did so without ceremony.
I truly love a bar like this.
"K A R L S Disco Wiener Haven." --from one of the musical numbers in Straight to Hell...do try to catch it
We made our way from the Queens Head back out to the High Street and down to the Red Lion, a pub with a layout that wraps around the bar and features quiet seating by the car park windows (for the old folks) and darts, tele, and a snooker table toward the back half (y’know, for the kids). The seating at the bar itself, on the old guy side of the pub, seemed to suit and I settled in to enjoy my Guinness and some continued harassment from my guides.
I was beginning to wish I had stuck to session ales and lost the thread of the conversations instead focusing on the rest of the bar, most of the denizens of which were tossing darts or watching the world series of darts on television.
There was signage everywhere informing that 3 shots of Sambuca or Jagermeister would only cost you a fiver, and that bringing discredit to the pub would get you barred all over the greater Witney metroplex.
I was thinking of such discredit and pub sports when I tried to completely dampen the olympic sized urinal some time later in the evening (while also remembering the late George Carlin’s bit about how important it is to wet down the entire urinal before turning your firepower on the bits of garbage collected in the drains). Practice makes perfect, but I find that training is an ongoing endeavour and later that night I returned to the outdoor sporting fields of this type slightly down the alley across from the, by then closed, Red Lion:
Less than a half mile north of the Talbot Inn, the Queen’s Head appears on a side street. I t is an old, stone building with two bars and the one I walk into is lit but empty. I hear a conversation in the other bar but before I move over the bartender shows up and I order a pint of the Village Idiot as it seems very appropriate. Turns out, it is yummy, as well.
In the other bar I meet a retired german physicist and a bloke that may simply be unemployable. The german, Bernard, seems to be the most depressed man in all of England but when he wasn’t holding forth on the sad state of life and humanity in general he was taking mild potshots at America apparently assuming I would be a big defender of the States. Typical exchange:
“Zo, ees it true your country has no history?”
“Yeah, ha ha, none at all. You see, it is still an empire and we are still killing dark people all over the globe for our own ends. History is for the impotent countries, like Germany for instance, the ones that can’t really do it anymore…y’know, a story they roll out for the cheap floozies they are relegated to having angry sex with and to explain why they can’t get it up.”
We also got into a pissing contest over which of our three nations is the most hated at holiday sites. The Germans won hands down at the beach, the English and Americans tied for worst to hang out with in Arab countries. Oh, and everyone at the bar (which slowly filled as we tried to drain the pumps) made rude comments about Princess Diana. Great place.
a talbot is a hunting dog of yore
I was in Oxford for a couple of days to attend a couple of research group functions, and they were actually pretty informative and (surprisingly) fun. But, I waited until the last minute to book lodging and allowed the space in the colleges to fill; feeling guilty about the extra expense, I found something fairly cheap in a pub (wow, how many times have I said I found something cheap in a pub and meant something entirely different) not too far away and found my way to the Talbot Inn.
The Talbot is an 18th century house on the Thames River wharf at Eynsham, and when I walked in at 7 pm it was packed with both diners and drinkers. I was shown my room and it was really nice…in fact, it was the nicest room I’ve rented in about two years and at £35 including an obscenely large breakfast). After a quick check in with the wife I retired to the bar which had 5 casks on gravity feed–I had something from Arkell’s but I don’t remember the details except that it was, like most of the Arkell’s brews, a taste sensation.
The night degenerated into a pub crawl through Eynsham after that (details to follow) so the giant and very tasty breakfast was a big help, as was the 8 mile run down the Thames tow path and looping around the University of Oxford the next morning (the Thames is a few hundred yards south of the Inn).
The landlord is quite friendly, though, and offered to introduce me to the rest of the local running club, but I already had plans to meet up with the Oxford Hash the next night. This pub is high on my list for future visits, though.
The Endless British Pub Crawl 