A very English day out

While some boat race or other (the toffs' Cup Final?) was taking place further down the Thames yesterday, a far more noble sporting contest was being held in Little Wittenham: the World Pooh Sticks Championships. Oh yes.

We parked on the side of the road and strolled into the village - the sort of place that would be rejected as a possible location for 'Midsomer Murders' on the grounds that it's too quaint and has too many mansions. As well as being a fundraiser for the local Rotary Club, the event also benefits the church roof restoration fund. Of course it does. How very English.

We made our way to the heart of the action, down at Days Lock, only to find that registration had just closed. Arses. A plague upon our tardiness.

Still, there was plenty to do and see - not least the contest itself. It was a serious business, with each person in each heat assigned a different specially coloured stick, starters announcing "Ready! Steady! Go!" with a megaphone, adjudicators calling out the results and clean-up teams in motorised dinghies collecting up the sticks once they'd crossed the finishing line. We witnessed one disqualification for early release, and no doubt there were rigorous doping tests too.

After a while the lure of the burger tent proved too great, and we mooched about looking at the various stalls (including one selling a book called 'Wacky Nation', which perhaps unsurprisingly features the Championships). There were kids everywhere, one plastic-knife-wielding little mite given his mum's weary admonishment "No stabbing". As Jen said, if only more parents brought their kids up like that...

Leaving the village behind, a walk up Round Hill in the sunshine gave a great vantage point on the Thames and Dorchester Abbey in one direction, and the dreaming spires of Didcot Power Station in another. By the time we were back down at the bottom - after witnessing some huge bird of prey carelessly dropping its dinner, a rabbit, to the ground - everything was winding down for another year.

Mark my words: I'll be back in 2010, in time to register, and the title of World Pooh Sticks Champion will be mine...