A STAYCATION IN OXFORDSHIRE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey boo’s, how’s your Tuesday going? Mine is consumed by the fear that it’s torrential raining outside and I’ve worn a slightly flimsy, see through shirt to work. And I have no jacket.

Folks on the journey home are totally gonna get an eyeful.

I’m back at work after a blissful few days camping in Oxfordshire, where it didn’t rain and I didn’t have to wear a shirt at all if I didn’t wanna. The past four days have been a prime, super-duper example of why you absolutely do not need to go abroad to holiday. Staycations are your number one pal if you’re skint and lacking in time, but still wanna gain some head space.

If you follow me on Insta then you’ll already have been bamboozled with my holiday spam. Soz not soz. Here’s some more spam for ya.

On Thursday we made the 1 hour and 45 minute trip to Wallingford in Oxfordshire. A teeny, tiny historical town with cobbled streets and a river that runs adjacent, littered with humongous flashy houses with private moorings and cutesy houseboats filled with pretty, potted plants. Long sentence, I know. This is my heaven. This is where I get downtime.

It’s a tradition. Not my tradition, per say. As in, it’s Max’s family tradition. So I guess come the wedding next year when I officially become a ‘Field’, it’ll be my tradition too. They visit this cute, little campsite along the river every year. They’ve been doing this since waaaaaay before the swimming pool was around or the sweet shop in town or even the crappy pub across the way. They’ve been doing this since the parents came as young teens. Over 30 years. Pretty impressive.

First to arrive to the campsite (keen beans, we are), we were met by scorching heat. 31 degrees to be exact. We were like ‘MATE what’s going on?’ as we’re normally turning up in drizzly showers, putting on our best British smiles. But nah ah, the sun had his hat on. Within the hour we had our camp set up and enough sweat running down our backs to fill a small paddling pool (IKR, sexy).

It wasn’t long before our patch of campsite looked like a Bedouin village. Tents and set-ups sprawling out everywhere, buckets of beer on ice awaiting.

We spent the next three days boating, beer-ing, BBQ-ing & burning.

The first morning was taken up with the use of our brand new, inflatable kayak. Basically, a sporty lilo with paddles; cue alllll the relaxation. I went on a lovely little adventure down the river with my better half on Friday morning. He paddled, I sunbathed across the front with my toe just dipping in the water. We visited the cows drinking upriver and oogled the uber expensive houses on the banks. Living the river dream.

Do you know the best thing about the river? Everyone is 120% more friendly than on land. I waved and said ‘top of the morning t’ya’ more times than I ever would on a busy London street. What’s that about, eh?

On the first night we had an epic BBQ which took 28420 hours to get lit. We then played some classic camping games (Pass the Pig YAAAAS) and some not so classic ones (Cards Against Humanity). Kinda savage when you’re playing it with your in laws-to-be. They got into the swing of it though and were saying despicable things like and HARRY POTTER EROTICA and DANIEL RADCLIFFE’S DELICIOUS ARSEHOLE before they knew it. Troopers.

On Saturday morning we visited my fave brunch spot; The Old Post Office. It’s the type of place that serves avocado with everything and vegan/gluten free alternatives all over the place. Some might call it pretentious, I call it brunch heaven. It’s gives ultimate balance to the camping trip; staying in a tent like a heathen but imma gonna sip champagne for brekky. The champagne and strawberries were followed by a sweet potato, avocado and feta hash, topped with poached eggs and pumpkin seeds. Come to mumma.

On Saturday afternoon, we momentarily left the riverside to go to a nearby field to partake in the Wallingford Olympics. An epic hour of classic team games to entertain the kids (and all the big kids within us). Competitiveness reached new heights. We didn’t win because I dropped the egg in the egg and spoon race. Oh the shame.

Spare moments were spent whizzing up and down on the river like boy racers on boats. Boozing on tinnies & feasting on the many flavours of crisps from Waitrose.

And this whole time, the sun shone and dazzled, flitting between 25 degrees to 31. There was not one drop of rain and I wore sandals waaaay into the night with no sign of cold toes or nothing. I didn’t have to wear my snazzy Fatface rain jacket or any of my bulky layers. All I had to wear was sun-cream (which I kinda failed at a bit because hello lobster arms).

A staycation has the power to be just as fruitful as a vacation if you pick the right place and the right pals. And the true sign that it’s had the same power as a holiday is that I checked my emails zero times and read one whole book from cover to cover.

I hope you’ve all got your staycations and vacations booked up for this Summer. And if you haven’t because you’re bank balance is telling you otherwise, how about a good old camping trip? We paid just £45 for four nights. Boom.

Now I’m gonna go moisterise some more before my skin falls off. Happy Tuesday everyone.