Dinosaurs

After a comfortably early start, we abandonned the kids to my parents' care (or the other way round, I'm not sure really) and headed off for our flight to Gatwick. It's the first time in ages we've flown without the kids, so it was quite a luxury to be able to just sit and read a book, rather than having to provide an endless stream of snacks and arbitrate in 'who got the most fruit pastilles' disputes. Much running in the aiport had us just catching the bus to Oxford, which took us to the door of a cafe that had just one table left so we could enjoy a late, but delicious lunch.

After an afternoon of shopping and - as you can see - a trip to the Pitt Rivers museum to look (in my case) mainly at the gorgeous roof, we had an early dinner with our friends before heading back to our room to get dolled up for the night out. There was much discussion on wearing warm tights etc (the ball is mostly outdoors) but I poohpoohed all this... until I felt the icy blast of wind on Broad Street - which sent us scurrying into Debenhams for tights and thermal leggings (for me). And they were much needed.

This is the fourth time I've been to a ball at Keble College, but the first at this time of year - usually they are in June, despite being called 'May Balls'. I'm not sure any of the lovely young things were wearing thermals - poor souls - but we managed not too feel too much like dinosaurs: no-one pointed and stared and no-one got up to offer us OAPs a seat (more's the pity). There was some comedy, much food, some nice booze (and some vile stuff too - the advantage of age in my case is that I feel able to just throw it away) and much dancing. When the booze ran out, we headed home and were safely snoring away by about 4.30am. Not sure my feet will ever forgive me. My shoes may have been super-bling, but they were not made to have feet in them.