7.
Four go pear-shaped in Tackley,
The first cycle-pub crawl of the summer
featured me, Dave Wacey, Lisa Hall and a later
appearance by Simon Gough. The day had been looked forward to keenly, and we
had decided, after much research, to visit some pubs north of Kidlington. It ended up as a farce.
We set off from Chez Gough/Wacey at approximately
We cycled on across the main road and down
a private looking lane to Heathfield Village to what
looked like a golfing centre. There was a freehouse
there that was originally called The Crumpled Horn, but now goes under the name
of The Oxfordshire Inn. It's like a hotel bar, though
it did have most comfortable chairs, and the radio was tuned to Fox FM.
Pressing on we came to a proper pub at Bletchingdon,
the Black's Head, which did about 5 real ales [Pedigree, Theakstones
XB, Adnams, Greene King, Batemans,
Old Speckled Hen, oh that's 6]. The garden was OK, but there were a few wankers watching the Grand National. Lisa liked the
toilets.
We then razzed down some obscure roads
feeling a little tipsy, to find a most localy pub,
the Bell at Hampton Poyle, which has decent
south-facing seatage out the front allowing views of
passing buses on the 25 and 25A. The Bombardier was OK although it took us a
while to be noticed through a sea of locals at the bar. Watch out for the very
low beams and the manky toilets. Eagle IPA was
available too [it's a Charles Wells hostelry], but we avoided that after
recalling some bad experiences with that previously.
The last pub that we could drink outside
at was the Boat at Thrupp, which manages to
disappoint on two levels. (1) Although there is a canal next door, the garden
does not afford views to said watercourse (2) It's a
bit foody. Having said that, it was
pleasant enough. We then had a gentle cycle along the towpath to Enslow, where we found the jingoistically named 'Rock at Gibraltar' [I suppose
it's at Gibraltar then...], where there seemed to be a lot of unsavoury punters and no real ale. However, we made the
best of the situation by finding some supremely comfortable sofas in a nice
westward facing conservatory, perfect for drinking Guinness and watching the
sun set. Dave telephoned Simon Gough at from here to try and drag him to Kirtlington.
Kirtlington is a bit of an awkward and arduous cycle away
along some rather hilly bits of road which are not much fun in the twilight
when you are pissed. We got to the Oxford Arms, shortly afterwards to be joined
by Simon Gough who had razzed up there from the geology department in 40
minutes flat, and were pleasantly surprised by what we found. This pub is quite
trendy, but not in an arsey fashion. Pub grub is nice
too, especially pizzas, about 7 quid a go. They had Archers Golden and London
Pride on at about 2.10 a pint, and very nice too it was. We thought that we had
given it a record mark of 20½, but in fact I was too pissed to perform
accurate arithmetic at this stage. In hindsight, this was probably just as well
as our judgment had been swayed by the plethora of barmaids on display. Lisa
also enquired [again] about bar snacks, but did not buy any [again]. Oh yes,
and the Red Bull ice bucket appears to have been turned into a fish tank.
After this, the day went tits-up. We were
trying to get to Tackley for the last train at 10.45,
which should have been easy. After dicking around in Kirtlington and nearly gate crashing a wedding, we decided
to go via Pigeon Lock to Tackley. Unfortunately it
was pitch black at this stage and we elected to use the tow path and not the obvious
sign marked 'footpath'. This resulted in a long and dark cycle along a narrow
strip of land separated by the river and canal. On three occasions Victorian navvies had provided a bridge over one waterway but not the
other [WHY???]. Finally, after having overshot Tackley
by a considerable distance, we found a structure that spanned both waterways,
but we could not access it from our isthmus. By backtracking and tip-toeing
over a lock, we managed to cross.
Time had run out as we crossed some random
fields in the dark as we saw our train pass, under a bridge below us.
Undeterred, we decided to get a beer in before last orders and then cycle home.
Unfortunately the pear-shaped-ness was complete when me
and Simon got punctures as we rolled down the hill to the village. The evening
was nearly complete with the stupid scene of us fixing bike punctures in the
toilets of the Gardiner Arms in Tackley whilst
drinking London Pride [or was it Pedigree, I'd given up on by this stage of the
farce]. According to Dave Wacey's notes 'Simon and
Dan have punctures. We are lost and have missed the last train home. All in all
quite pissed off but nice beer anyway’.
Postscript: we left the pub at about 11.30
thinking everything was OK. Sadly, our puncture fixing skills were not so good
[I blame the quality of the patch pack] so they had gone flat about 2 miles
later. Dave and Lisa managed to get home, whilst me and Simon left our bikes,
minus rear wheels, in Kidlington and got the 1.20am
bus back to Oxenford, looking like a pair of tits.
Not going to be attempting that again...
Dan
Lovegrove
dan@doctor-lovegrove.com
Last updated 26th July 2002.