THE Cotswold Wildlife Park has many attractions for young and old, but it is hardly the place to be when the Almighty is doing his best to prevent a hose pipe ban come late July.
But there I was last weekend, cold and drenched, with the pungent pong of rhino poo invading my nostrils.
I was with the Eynsham Friends of Helen and Douglas House, manning (or more to the point, dripping over) a staging post for the youngsters’ Walk and Whizz event.
On this day children and young people who use the two respite centres do their bit to raise money themselves through a sponsored walk.
After half an hour no-one had come by and I was beginning to think the walkers and whizzers were showing more sense than I. Pneumonia seemed a certainty. At my age I should know better.
But then they came: bright-faced children waving their quiz and check-in sheets, smiles from ear to ear; parents and siblings pushing the pushchairs of those for whom even the shortest walk was impossible.
This was a real family occasion with brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents lending their support – rain or not.
Wider family members were not left out. Seven-year-old Albert Lindley, from Olney, in Buckinghamshire, was there to support his cousin Aislin Briggs, who is 10, and lives in Wheatley. He proudly announced he had raised over £100 in sponsorship. This was the first of similar stories. Now I felt privileged to be there. If they could do it, who was I to complain about a drop of rain?
“WHY do more women drive horse transporters than men?” The out-of-the-blue question was posed by the man in the deerstalker hat sitting next to me on the park-and-ride bus from Pear Tree.
“I’ve just come from Bicester and at least a dozen horsey vehicles passed heading north and all but one was driven by a woman,” he added.
Later in the day I returned home along the A34 and M40 and the man’s findings appeared to be right. Clearly there had been some meeting that attracted horses by the herdful and most of the vehicles were driven by a woman with a man riding ‘shotgun’ alongside.
Once home, I telephoned Cassie, who is no stranger to the trials and eventing world. She was swift to reply.
“If it was the event I’m thinking about, you’ll find many of the horses were owned or being ridden by women, so who of these would trust her precious animal to a man who thinks every motorway is a race track?” she said. That from a woman with six points on her driving licence!
WITH so many pubs closing each week, to celebrate the pending reopening of one is like finding a single edible apple in a whole barrel of rancid russets.
But to see the steel shutters removed from the White House near Oxford Station and workmen getting the place ready for a July reopening was heart-warming. Nostalgia plays its part, for it was here that I said farewell to many colleagues who were leaving the Oxford Mail for pastures new and here that my goodbye party took place in the 1970s and my return celebrations almost 20 years later.
Maybe this is only one in thousands – but one resurrection is better than none.
A FINAL reminder that next Monday is the 120th anniversary of the death of Edgar George Wilson, who drowned in the Thames after rescuing two boys. A few of us are hoping to meet at 1pm at his memorial on the bank near the railway bridge, including Mrs Barbara Cox, the niece of one of the boys, Christopher Green.
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