Punting!

so back in oxford england. our nice days are few and far between so when we had a nice day last thrusday we took it and went with it! punting is boating basically. it is a popular past time especaily here in oxford. you take this board kinda like a gondola (but is flater on the ends) and use a long rod to push your self along. well we had our nice day and a group of 10 of us decied that we wanted to try this whole punting business out. well everything here has something else involved...can you guess what that is....yep drinking. we stoppped by the store first picked up a few bottles of wine and beer and headed towards the river. now you wouldnt think that drinking and water craft are a good combination...you are right but we didnt care (besides the deepest part of the river is only 6 feet so it wouldnt be that bad...except for the nastiness of the river!) the boats can only hold 5 people each so we split up into 2 groups. carissa, anna, kaite, tim and i in one boat then hope, sam, brian, john and ashely in another. after a 30 second tutorial we jump on take our seats and punt our way down the river. Tim was our guy. he rocked that boat out! after mere seconds he had that beast figured out! we were enjoying the river and the surroundings....and the wine. sadly anna's bottle we couldnt get open becuase it needed a cork screw while the others were rahter classy ones that just had a twist top. tim wanted to take a seat and have a beer so i ballsed up and took the pole. yeah not very well and as we were trying to make a trun around a corner to head back to the docks i couldnt get it to go in the direction i wanted and started to send us down the Thames towards London. no big deal right...um no bid deal. well carissa having drank half a bottle of really gross wine thought that she was invincible thought she could do. well i hadnt had anything to drink so i had no excuse but she did as about as good as i did in just making us go in circles over and over again getting us no where. Tim, not able to get his beer open becuase again needing a opener gave up on his beer after all of our efforsts to bang, hit and pry his top open. all we where able to do is break the seal and spill some bubbling beer out but not get the lid off. so to failed openings later, Tim took control of the pole nad got us going in the right direction. well we got caught in this little current and after some rude biker going down the path told us that tim was on the wrong end of the boat we streeed her to the river bank where tim preceded to jump for the river bank......yeah tim didnt quite make it and his whole left leg landed in the river...sucky i know but lucky not the whole body right?... we laughed and laughed and just couldnt get over the whole situation. my make up was running..the whole works. well we finally composed ourselves, although giggles were coming us every now again about the whole thing. so we are getting back to the dock area. Tim has done a brillant job of staying on (for the most part which the leap was purposeful), well not for long. we are gliding under the last bridge and are about to dock when Tim gets the punting pole stuck in the mud and instead of letting it go he holds on. so there is tim holding on to the pole with is arms while his legs continue to float away with the boat.....i think you know where i am going with this right? yeah tim tries to regain balance...he's on and it seemed like he got it when SPLASH! there time goes into the nasty dirty filthy river thames! we explode into laughter! i was beyond words. i was crying i was laughing so hard! tim immdeatly hopped back on, but was dripping wet. and how i was explaining the nastiness of the river i forgot to talk about how cold it was and is. yeah it is march and it is enland and the water is COLD! so there he was standing on the punting boart dripping wet and freezing....but somehow we couldnt stop laughing! the whole slight was somethimg to behold. and the fact that he didnt do it in just front of us 4 oh know he did in by the docks which meant that the 3 helpers were there plus the other group who had past us sometime before and where waiting. we got to shore and one guy handed him a towel and her preceded to dry off with us laughing and replaying the whole incident again and again. we settled the bill with the punters and headed off to a pub to buy tim a couple pints for beig such a trouper. he was fabulous on the punt until the end when he fell off! well he had his couple then ran back to Wycliffe ot change and shoer cause he was soo cold. we had a few more then followed him home for, getting back in time for dinner where we told everyone our story! we plan on going punting again soon, when the day is nice enough but this time i think tim has gotten falling out of his system and will stay on the entire time!