{"id":1982,"date":"2009-09-12T23:38:19","date_gmt":"2009-09-12T22:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=1982"},"modified":"2009-09-13T05:50:27","modified_gmt":"2009-09-13T04:50:27","slug":"el-fin-de-semana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=1982","title":{"rendered":"El fin de semana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here we are, halfway through the weekend (because you knew what el fin de semana<\/em> meant, right?) and it’s already time to sit down and take stock.<\/p>\n

Today’s been cool, hot, interesting and a number of other descriptives.<\/p>\n

This morning I drove in to Oxford to meet half of inLight<\/a> – the Oxford-based Indie band of musical goodness.<\/p>\n

Because I’m a little OCD about time-keeping and travel-planning I arrived an hour and a half early.<\/p>\n

So that’s just a little OCD then.<\/p>\n

I parked in the underground car park in Gloucester Green and made a mortgage payment on a three turret castle, this being the fee to leave my car there for three hours.<\/p>\n

As it was lunchtime I thought I’d pass some time by having a sandwich. Cheese and Pickle. And a Latt\u00c3\u00a9.<\/p>\n

The first place I tried in St Giles was a little caf\u00c3\u00a9.<\/p>\n

‘I’ll have a cheese and pickle sandwich please’.<\/p>\n

‘We don’t have any pickle’, said the dull woman behind the counter, in the most unhelpful manner possible.<\/p>\n

‘OK, I’ll just have a Latt\u00c3\u00a9’.<\/p>\n

‘We don’t serve just drinks during lunchtime’.<\/p>\n

I gave a little ironic laugh and walked out.<\/p>\n

The second place was just a couple of doors up.<\/p>\n

They didn’t have pickle either.<\/p>\n

WTF is this? Is there some kind of pickle conspiracy going on? Do the good people of Oxford consider themselves too posh for the humble pickle?<\/p>\n

Or have the good people of Oxford not yet been introduced to the wondrous properties of said pickle?<\/p>\n

‘But we can make you,’ said the woman from the kitchen of the second shop, fetched out by the mere stripling of a boy behind the counter, in response to my quest for the Holy Pickle. ‘A cheese and caramelised [something] sandwich’.<\/p>\n

Where [something] is a thing that I didn’t quite catch.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it had cheese and a pickle substitute so I said yes please, took my seat and waited for my sandwich and Latt\u00c3\u00a9 to be delivered.<\/p>\n

The cheese and caramelised [something] sandwich was Ambrosia; food fit for the Gods. If the Gods have a taste for cheese and pickle, for that is what it tasted almost but not quite entirely like.<\/p>\n

I sat, ate, read, drank, read some more and then left.<\/p>\n

Still having 30 minutes to kill, I sat out on a bench and read some more, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine as I worked through American Gods – an interesting piece of fiction from the very readable Neil Gaiman.<\/p>\n

Five minutes before the appointment I sauntered in to the pub where we’d agreed to meet, got my book out and read some more. This rock’n’roll lifestyle is just so exciting!<\/p>\n

About fifteen minutes later Charlie and Mike strolled in; they’d been waiting outside, I’d chosen to wait inside.<\/p>\n

Oh well.<\/p>\n

We sat and talked, like the Walrus and the Carpenter, about many things. But not about ships and shoes and sealing wax, obv.<\/p>\n

I hope the meeting was helpful to them, it was to me.<\/p>\n

Then K, the American D.Phil student who occasionally rides Vin arrived – I’d arranged to meet her there.<\/p>\n

Charlie almost drooled over her.<\/p>\n

The four of us chatted for a while and then she and I said goodbye, we walked to the car and drove to the yard where I did much gossiping with various girls whilst K groomed, tacked up and rode.<\/p>\n

I watched her and Vin in the arena.<\/p>\n

Vin looks more relaxed since his visit to the physio on Monday. Max had diagnosed a tightness in Vin’s point of near shoulder which he corrected; there was nothing else that needed attention. In fact Max was very complimentary about the general state of Vin’s physical health.<\/p>\n

Anyway.<\/p>\n

It was interesting watching K ride him, he stretches easier now and is far more relaxed on the right rein.<\/p>\n

Afterwards I drove K back to Oxford, then came home.<\/p>\n

Being the complete pair of total culinary experts that we are, Soph and I instantly decided on a Chinese takeaway.<\/p>\n

Woo yeah, go us!<\/p>\n

Not long afterwards we sat, ate, watched X-Fuctup and followed that with a triple set of Angel episodes.<\/p>\n

While we were watching Angel I managed to type up the notes of the meeting with inLight, and emailed them out to the band. I seem to have some actions against me. How did that happen?<\/p>\n

And now it’s bed, at 23.30.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I’m off to watch the third and final day of Blenheim Horse Trials; I’ve blagged myself a pair of VIP tickets.<\/p>\n

Soph is off to the Christening of a friend’s offspring and, faced with such a difficult choice, it was only after a long and fierce internal debate that I decided the Christening would have to give way to the VIP tickets for Blenheim.<\/p>\n

As Soph will be out of the county for the day I’m taking K. It’s very exciting, the horse owned by the woman who owns the yard where Vin lives (if you see what I mean) is currently sixth after the dressage and cross-country phases.<\/p>\n

Under those circs, to have a VIP ticket for the show-jumping is a very special opportunity.<\/p>\n

And so that’s it.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I will walk the cross-country course, watch a bit of CIC *** dressage and some CIC *** cross-country, and then watch the CCI*** show-jumping.<\/p>\n

All very exciting.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, and eat much bad food – that’s a given at a horse trials.<\/p>\n

So how’s your weekend going? And what do you have planned for Sunday?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here we are, halfway through the weekend (because you knew what el fin de semana meant, right?) and it’s already time to sit down and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}