Little Englanders

If there was one thing that came out of our fortnight in the Loire last month, it would be that we suddenly felt the need to use any available free weekends to do more exploring of the sights on our very doorstep at home.

And so it was that we found ourselves in Dorchester-upon-Thames on Saturday enjoying an excellent pub lunch before being given an informative and free guided tour of the impressive abbey by an archetypal retired army colonel (you know the sort - tweed blazer with handkerchief poking deliberately out of pocket, combover, ruddy face, tufty ear plumage, vocabulary which includes the words "oppo" and "jolly"). If there was a reason that the whole place felt like something from Midsomer Murders, that would be because the village has been used as a setting in filming several times before.

We arrived back in Abingdon just in time to see a friend complete his half-century for Abingdon Vale 2nd XI with a couple of well-judged thwacks to the boundary. Really, we could only have had a more quintessentially English day if we'd had time to call in at the John Masefield Summer Fete on the way back from Dorchester - and believe me, with the promise of a hog roast and some ferret racing I was disappointed we couldn't fit it in.

And all Sunday afternoon was spent comparing the meerkats at Cotswold Wildlife Park (future subject for the long-neglected Oxfordshire Reasons To Be Cheerful series, methinks).

To be honest, though, I'm getting a bit worried that Jen's getting too caught up in all this sensible, English, middle-class behaviour (let's call it Abingdonitis): I got back from seeing Dinosaur Jr tonight (keeping it real, you see - review to follow) to discover she'd been along to a meeting of the new Abingdon Women's Institute. Admittedly this was under the impression it might have a few young members and be a stimulating hotbed of local activism (incidentally, it was probably mean of me to suggest that the prime motivation behind the WI's current "SOS for honeybees" campaign might be concern about a honey shortage for crumpets...). As it happened, she found herself in the company of mostly older ladies, returned home with a box of chocolates she'd won, ate far more than she should have in one sitting, and then retired to bed feeling dizzy from the sugar rush...