River gods exact their pound of flesh

Saturday 25th April saw the New Sheridan Club’s annual jaunt to Oxford, where we hire a small flotilla of punts and navigate our way upriver to a picnic spot. It’s actually been going on for longer than the NSC has formally existed, traditionally on or near to St George’s Day. In the early year we would punt up to the point where metal rollers connect the lower river with a higher section: punters must alight and haul their boats over the rollers. Beyond that we punted a little further to the High Bridge. However, it has been years since we have attempted this, as we found increasingly that the rollers were underwater and inaccessible. Or maybe we just got too lazy and unkeen on slipping around in goose excrement. In any case, our picnic spot these days is closer, in what I believe is called the Music Meadow.

The actual punting is harder than it looks, especially when going upstream, and nowadays the river is frequently choked by overhanging trees—this year there was one point where boaters had to lie flat to pass under a branch, while last year I think we had to force the boats over a submerged bough. Being swept off the vessel by foliage is one of the hazards of doing the actual punting and the river usually claims someone: this year it was newcomer John Jeffreys-Daw, who had only just joined the club. Fortunately it was a gloriously sunny day and he dried out in no time. (The weather is extremely variable and we regularly tackle rain and even hail one year.) In fact we all agreed that everything remarkably well this year.

After a picnic lunch we punted back the way we had come to return the punts to the boatyard, then headed off to the Turf Tavern to sup pints of ale and tell tall tales of mastering the briny deep.

You can see more photos from the day at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720333452004.