Summer Eights

Summer Eights weren't exactly a triumph for my crew this year: Wednesday we seemed close to catching the crew ahead of us, but then the race was klaxoned before we could either bump or be bumped; Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we were bumped.


Being bumped by Corpus Christi on Thursday …

… and our cox concedes the race.

It wasn't a very good week for racing either: generally windy, rainy, grey, and the stream was strong, which, along with the winds, made steering tricky. Still, the boathouse island was fairly crowded Saturday afternoon when the higher divisions were competing in their final races:



My crew boating Saturday morning:


Thursday afternoon the weather was pleasant however. This is the women's second division racing (and some scenery shots).







Closing the gap …

… and a bump.

*The pictures stamped with "www.bigblade.net" were obviously not taken by me, but are taken from this website.

Kidneys Nature Park and Aston's Eyot

Since it was a sunny morning, I took my camera along on my morning jog today. I go running down in a little conservation area along the edge of the Isis.


You can't see the river in most of these photos because of all the shubbery, but in this shot you can see some of the boathouses that are on the opposite side of the river from Kidneys Nature Park.

Balliol Summer Event

Dodgems:

Radcliffe Camera Square and environs

This isn't an especially great photo, but what makes it interesting is the cobbled stripe you can see running down the middle of the street. This is a medieval sewage drain, and Brasenose Lane is one of the only streets in Oxford where you can still find one. I suppose the way it worked was that you tossed your sewage into the street, where it ran into the drainage channel and subsequently into … well, in this case, right into the Radcliffe Camera Square, which doesn't seem like somewhere you'd want a lot of sewage accumulating. There's a well-worn Oxford anecdote that has numerous eighteenth-century residents coming across Dr Johnson relieving himself in this drain, unconcerned with hygiene or passersby.

4 May

A couple of shots from around the neighbourhood.