|
Rain stopped play in the inaugural South Australia v Ridgeway 11 Test Match. SA Skipper Steve "Sausage" McKenzie was dismissed early by an extremely soggy delivery from a passing lorry, and the umpires stepped in. Two of the three sessions available were lost to the early downpour.
Seeing that the forecast had not improved overnight, I jumped on a bus from Wantage Grove to Oxford at about 9am. The famed city was only half an hour away. I started out around the castle, and got numerous glimpses of the huge mound on which the original Norman Mott and Bailey stood before the later castle was built a bit lower down. There was a town around here in Saxon times too, but I'm not sure if the giant mound predates them and goes back to Celtic times. I was amused to learn that the castle prison was originally built to house unruly university students, who must have been a real problem back in the day, because it's a pretty large prison. After that, I stomped in and out of tiny boutique shops on the High Street, with my enormous backpack on, buying rare whisky and tobacco (gifts, you understand), and getting some cheap undies at UniQlo. This whole process took about 5 hours, with a lot of dawdling involved. Oxford on a summer Saturday is a strange place - the malls and shopping centres are heaving with tourists (me and my giant pack included), but the cobbled side streets, where most of the university colleges are to be found, are almost empty. It's a bit like going to Rome to play Bingo, really. A longer bus ride took me to Didcot, which seems like the dullest place in the region unless you really, really like train-spotting, and I assure you that I only went there because it was within Taxi range of my real destination, the sleepy town of East Ilsley in Berkshire. I'm here now. This is the place where Alfred beat the Danes in 871, but there is no giant statue of him here, unlike in Wantage, where he was born. At about 4pm, the final session of play began. The light was good, the rain clouds had cleared (...cough...) and I thought I'd get in a three-hour walk back along the Ridgeway, westward, so I could at least tell myself I had done some of the walk I should have had today. Well, about an hour into my catch-up walk, the rain returned with its heaviest spell of the day. I was glad my pack was back at The Swan in East Ilsley, so it was only me and my Dad's old raincoat that needed to survive the onslaught. Myself, a Kiwi walker and couple of British cyclists ended up huddled under a bridge where the Ridgeway goes under the A34. We stayed for about half an hour, chatting. It wasn't all bad. SA had a good first three days of the match, but the Ridgeway 11 struck back hard today and won all three sessions. More rain scheduled for the following days so plucky Ridgeway still in with a chance to beat the cocky Aussies. In other news - I have added on a 3-day stint in Chester in late July, so I check out Liverpool, or maybe Alderley Edge. Then, onto Wales. Signing off at 10pm, Steve. Photos to follow when I get a chance to upload them - most were taken on my phone, today. Comments are closed.
|
Categories
All
|
