Picking up where I left off (too many weeks ago) March started with the afternoon of the 1st at my Brother and Sister in law’s house, not only to celebrate her Dad’s birthday but to discuss all things wedding with Nephew Number One and his fiancée (plus meet her parents for the first time.) It was a lovely somewhat chaotic time with some of my brother’s friends and my Mum there too and all of us crammed into the kitchen because the weather turned and it was freezing and pouring with rain.
Saturday 7th we headed out to meet Soo and Gav who had invited us to join them for dinner at the delightful Talbot Inn. They had a voucher to spend there and asked us along, we were delighted to accept.
We headed over at midday and took a long walk through Wytham Woods. The walk was lovely, but sadly the day was not and by the end of it we were all feeling the cold.
Very Uncanny-esque shelter in Wytham Woods!
Due to all the recent rain, we were quite muddy and I felt terrible for leaving a trail in my wake, but as Soo pointed out this is a pub in the countryside so they are more than used to walkers!
We all ended up eating homemade burgers, mine came with mushroom and stilton and was delicious. As was the passion fruit posset I had for pudding, I’ve never had posset before so it had to be done. Suitably replete we rolled outside, said our goodbyes and caught the bus back into Oxford, then the train home.
The next week was full on for work, so it was nice to have something fun to end the week with. A play at The Old Fire Station in Oxford. I was rather shocked to realise I actually hadn’t been to the venue since the 1990’s when I used to go there to see bands!
It was interesting to see what they have done with the place since as it is now a local arts venue and café. I was pointing out to Himself where the old bar and stage used to be, less nice was the fact the toilets have not really improved since I last used them all those years ago, let’s just say tired and leave it at that.
We decided to buy a drink to take in with us which was became whole drama in itself. I can only assume there had been had some sort of staffing crisis that night, and a desperate call had gone out for reinforcements, it was all slightly chaotic. Judging by his stunning make-up and jewellery, the poor guy roped into manning the bar had been halfway through getting ready for an incredible night out before being thrust behind the drinks counter.
He gamely did his best bless him, but this was clearly his first time serving drinks to the paying public. It was all very slow with lots of rushing round trying to find things or asking for help. He didn’t seem to have a clue when it can to bottles of beer, just handing them over straight from the shelf and then looking perplexed when asked if they could please be opened first. It took a good 5 minutes to locate the bottle opener and after a very cackhanded attempt with the first bottle the people in the (now huge) queue started opening their own bottles for speed, and to make sure the full contents made it into their plastic cup!
The plus side for the people buying wine was a huge glassful, as those were poured by eye and not by measure, though the people looking for soft drinks ended up having to nip behind the café counter and retrieve them themselves from the fridge!
I’m glad to say everyone in the queue took it in great spirit (no pun intended) and with some audience participation everyone had their drink in hand when we were called to take our seats.
Having never been to a play here before, I didn’t realise there isn’t a stage as such, you literally sit right in amongst the actors. The differing heights of the seating coming from the leg length of the seats themselves. Thankfully, we didn’t end up in the front row where the very short leg length of the chairs would have proved a challenge to someone who is tall and long legged!
The play we had come to see was Black Coffee by Agatha Christie; a Poirot play that was never made into a book in her lifetime. It was performed by a local theatre group, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the production. In particular the actor playing Poirot was excellent.
It felt like a stark contrast to the disappointing show we had seen at the New Theatre the previous week.
Having said that I did have a beef, and it was a pretty big one, the costumes….
At first, I did charitably wonder if perhaps the cast had dressed themselves in that way someone who finds themselves in a period piece might take themselves to the local charity shop and think this is on the vintage rail so it must be right. But no, on leaving the venue we saw there was actually someone named on the programme as the wardrobe mistress!
There were two big issues for me, the first I will admit is niche and only bugged me because I love vintage. I knew the clothing was for the most part, from completely the wrong eras. The play was set in the early 1930’s so pre-WW2 and unfortunately you had anything but the 1930s on the stage.
Admittedly, most people probably wouldn’t have even noticed so they could have got away with it, except some of the clothing was so spectacularly wrong EVERYONE noticed. When one character walked on the whole audience actually laughed, which I really felt for him. His 1970’s suit was absolutely bloody magnificent, a real thing of glory, but with its huge lapels and insanely mahoosive flares he looked like he should have been playing a pimp in Starsky and Hutch, or some other 1970’s American cop show. I gather from friends who went on different nights his suit got the same reaction every time.
The glaring period error that really bothered me though, was the heroine’s handbag, and would you believe it I actually unwittingly contributed to that error!?!
Now the handbag is actually pivotal to the plot and I think the wardrobe person must have thought ok it’s a plot device so let’s make sure it’s nice big noticeable bag, but really, what young, glamourous 1930’s newly wed would take a huge cream Margaret Thatcher-esque ‘handbagger’ bag to dinner with her? I mean seriously.
Colour-wise it clashed with her outfit, it was the wrong style, the wrong era, the wrong everything. I wanted to jump out of my seat and hurl it across the stage!
And you know what made it worse? It was once my bloody bag; I recognised it immediately! It was one of the ones I had donated to Oxfam’s vintage shop when we moved house and I was in the throes of panicky packing and decluttering.
The second big wardrobe issue Himself commented on immediately as we left, as did my friends who went on other nights. This was the actual state the clothes the actors were wearing. All the men’s suits had been altered by letting the trouser hems down, and in the case of Poirot the cuffs of his suit jacket as well, but none of them had been pressed or steamed. Such a simple thing to do and it would have made such an incredible difference, the creases were so noticeable, and to have Poirot who is famous for his fastidious dressing, with old hem creases and even a cuff hanging out on one side but not the other, well it really jarred. Another character was trailing threads as he walked, the work of a moment to snip them off, it was all the more noticeable because we were right there up close and personal with the cast.
Anyway, rant over and other than that it was a lovely night out.
I finished off the month with a day out with Soo. I took a Friday off work and headed over to her house for a visit to a lovely garden centre near Charlbury as Soo has a voucher to spend. It was a real test of strength for me because I am banned from buying any more plants by Soo and god, I could have bought many, so so many. The prices were good and so was the range, in the end I was given permission to buy one lovely pale blue primula because it was reduced to 50p. Weeps.
Soo thought it was going to be a challenge to spend her voucher as she doesn’t garden but she found a lovely wall plaque and even bought some reduced cut and come again herbs which she has since planted in a trough just outside her back door.
There was also a mad moment where we coincided in a doorway with an elderly lady, she coming from the right and we from the left, it was big enough for us to walk through side by side so I smiled politely at her and we all moved forward. This was just as a member of staff walked towards us to go out through the said doorway. She and the elderly lady clearly knew each other, so she said a cheery hello and asked ‘How’s George’ ‘He died last week’ was the reply from the elderly lady and just like that we were suddenly both trapped in this very awkward conversation! We put on suitably I’m so sorry to hear that faces and sort of slowly edged away…
We decided to eat lunch at the garden centre in their little restaurant, and the food was so delicious. I had a cauliflower and broccoli cheese bake thing that literally gave me the cheese sweats there was so much on there! It was bliss.
From there we drove into Charlbury itself. Soo calls it her nemesis because she always gets lost when she walks round the village. She says it’s roughly based on a star shape and she finds it confusing. Anyway other than visiting the annual beer festival I have never looked round and it was stunning; no wonder it has become THE Cotswold holiday spot for the rich and famous. Of course I had forgotten my camera! and was cursing myself because I could have taken so many gorgeous pictures.
I did take one picture with my phone (which has a rubbish camera) of the two goats who tried to eat my bag!
.jpg)
Luckily, I have a pretty good sense of direction, and even though we just wondered all over following random footpaths, I managed to get us back to the car. We did dive into the Co-op for a cold drink which we sat and drank on a bench on the village green.
Soo got the best look ever off two ladies who walked past just as she said “ and that taught me to never, ever, put a dead body in a wheelie bin again” I about died laughing at their horrified faces (for the record she was talking about a pigeon that sadly flown into her patio window and broken it’s neck.)
We also bought pizza for tea as I was staying the night, and we had a fab evening drinking wine and watching TOTP2 and Gogglebox before falling down the rabbit hole of videos on YouTube. I had been suffering from insomnia at the time so felt a bit bad that So ended up sitting up with me until 3.30am before we finally called it a night.
The next day was another gorgeous sunny day so we caught the bus into Oxford, getting off at Osney and taking a lovely walk down the tow path into the city centre. We mooched the shops before buying a sandwich for lunch and meeting Soo’s other half Gav for his lunch break. Soo was meeting her friend Chris and Himself was at a leaving drinks for a work colleague, so we decamped to The Grapes and they both met us there. It got silly busy with the football on, so we headed over to White Rabbit for another drink before Soo and Chris headed off to their comedy show and Himself and I caught the train home.
And that was March.
I know I definitely bought some things in March, if nothing else my Erstwilder collecting goes on expanding with their monthly releases.
I finally got round to labelling the draws I store them in, as you can see I am rapidly running out of space…
I’m going through a bit of a green phase at the moment and bought these two dresses from Finery
and this lovely blouse from Sugarhill.
I ’m going to try and get April and May typed up and out before too much longer, but given the way I’ve been going so far this year, don’t hold your breath.
