Richard Aceves: I committed a Major Social Faux-Pas when I asked Jimmy, our studly Scotsman, to pick out the best whisky they had and serve it to me OVER ICE. Needless to say, I now drink it sans rocks.
Well, I'll forgive you if it's some strange misture of wierd petroleum oild such as Teachers. But you did want ice in Glenfiddich, which is normally paramount to declaring war.
I ordered the Bat some mango juice -- it was basically sugar water) and then had dinner.
I made the mistake (in some peoples eyes) of ordering the same. It was very odd as it had an un-taste. No matter what you ate before, after a drink of this, you'd assume that your taste buds had died and the last taste just vanished. Good news for the hot pepper eaters.
After this debauchery, some of us ended up at Martin's house in Abingdon for coffee and lively discussion. Some twink from Oxford appeared at this point, but other than remembering that he was picked up at the Jolly Farmer, I can't remember who brought him. This boy, who we'll call John and may in fact be named John, started playing with another flatmate's balls -- juggling balls. Innuendos flew everywhere. This continued until the early morning.
Cough, cough. Interjection here. I cannot tell a lie, it was I. Steve May/Will (Steve_The_bear) and I left the HiLo early to try to get back to the Jolly Farmers in time for a last drink or ten. The first person I met when I walked in was Paul (not John) who was rather drunk and passing out tickets to anyone who was upright to a disco thing the next evening. I him before and as he recognised a familiar face, thrust the pieces of paper into my hand. He then escaped out into the fresh air where it was a little cooler while we ordered our drinks. (The place seemed to have retained some of the smoke from the never ending candles that we had lit 5 hours previous)
Paul returned and started talking to us when Steve suggested that he jump up and down on his leather jacket as it wasn't worn enough. (He had taken it off by this time and it was lying in a lttle heap on the floor). Paul was somehwat taken aback by the forward suggestion, but eventually succummed to peer pressure. He also asked Steve to give one of the invitations out to a certain person that he'd been looking at all evening. In a typically bear-friendly fasion, Steve agreed and went over to pass out the relevant bit of paper. On his return he mentioned that the bloke already had one of these and told him so in no uncertain terms. I believe his exacts words to Steve were "Piss off, I've already got one of these." The friendly Oxford natives at play...
It was at this time that last orders were called and we were asked to leave after out 10/20 minutes drinking up time. We were under the impression that the rest of the party were going up to a wine bar that was open until midnight and so we would meet them there. It was at this point I invited Paul along as he was just going to go back to his college rooms. However, no sooner had we crossed the road to start the journey up to the HiLo and beyond, then we bumped into the halt/two thirds of our party bemonaing the fact that the place was shut and there was nowhere else to go. Those of us with cars, drove those of them without back to Abbo to Martin's flat. [ we now return you to the orginal story ]
We all had tea at the abbey: the village women, all apparently in their fifties and beyond, bake treats such as scones, cakes, etc. All proceeds from the sales benefit the abbey. Of course, there is the wonderful (note to the Bat: "cute") village society that goes with all this. We had tea indoors at a large table with some non-motss friends of Martin as well as some other locals.
Here's a brief description of the Abbey Tea Rooms as lifted from someone who wrote a book about sculling up the Thames with his dog, Boogie. It doesn't do it justice but will give some flavour of the place. There aren't many cafes that have water for your pet animals as you enter.
[Boogie up the River, by Mark Wallingford, page 114]
| We found the Abbey Tea Room in the old cloisters that
ran up the driveway to the abbey. Jeff lead us to where the
proprietress stood on the front step. He nodded to her and
she completely ignored him. There was a Moris 1000 parked
outside and I knew it was hers.
In keeping with the Dorchester allure there was an element of surrealism about the Abbey tea Rooms. We were sat at a big round table in the middle of the room. On the wall a sign said: "The taking of too much jam and butter will render the management violent." The proprietress spoke with assertion. She said: "Your first time?" "I've been here before,' said Jeff and she ignored him. "If it's your first time I'd better explain. My ladies and I run this tea room to raise funds for the church. The system we operate is as follows: we supply the cakes and biscuits. You eat them and tell us what you've had and we charge you a price slightly in excess of what it costs us to bake them, thus reaping a profit. It's a system that works quite well, we find." Then she turned and walked into the kitchen and immediately a troop of women bound in aprons descended upon us. They ran round with teapots saying: "The first cup of tea is twenty pence, the next ten, the rest five." Then they pointed their spouts of each of us in turn and said: "Strong, weak or normal?" The tea room filled up, but nothing was too much trouble for this noble collection of tea-ladies, they glided around the room as though they were on castors: "Part of twenty-nine? Certainly, how many with milk and how many without?" |
