No fish!

So, another weekend has passed and now its already mid-week. Last weekend was pretty fun (except for certain bits of it). First, we went outlet shopping at Bicester Village. Shopping at Bicester Village has really changed recently. In the past, it was a nice a chill out little shopping area that had good bargains. Sales people were nice and patient and the whole atmostphere was relaxed. Nowadays, it seems that tour coaches regularly bring tourists (mostly Chinese nationals) and it's like the hordes have descended. It's crowded and bargains are snapped up almost immediately, sales people seem overworked and are grumpy. It hasn't gotten to pushing and shoving yet but it's no more fun shopping there. We bought a couple of items (YL got a windbreaker for the cruise this weekend) and that's about it. After that, we decided to scoot off to our favourite part of the country, the Cotswolds! This time we hit jackpot and found ourselves a nice bed and breakfast near Burford (www.caswell-house.co.uk). It was a quiet farmhouse manor that is recently refurbished. There's a moat around the manor (which to my disappointment, was not teeming with trouts as the Alistair Sawday guidebook described – apparently, they lost a few dozen of trouts in the floods last year). We had dinner at this place called the boot inn – had a nice yummy dinner. I had grilled goats cheese and belly pork while YL had squid ink spaghetti and roasted chicken breast.

The next day was fishing day – this is where the weekend took a turn for the worse. All was well until we realised that it was darn difficult to row the boat against the wind (and amazingly current) in the lake. We kept drifting to places that we didn't want to go. Anyway, in the process of trying to get to where we wanted, YL and I almost (and I really mean almost) capsized the stupid boat in the middle of the lake!!! We didn't get our balance right and the boat tipped over its side and water gushed into it. Its not that either of us don't know how to swim (ahem – I was a school swimmer ok, in the relay team somemore… but erm, long long time ago la), but all out things, blackberry, handphone, rod, books, etc. would have been wet! Fortunately, we managed to tip the boat back and our things were in bags (so they only got a bit wet). The only thing was our shoes and clothing were all drenched – completely drenched cos of the water. Oh – and on top of this, we dropped our oars in the commotion so we couldn't row back to the bank. We just drifted. Once we drifted back to the bank, we had to clean up etc. Anyway, we didn't catch any fish that day. I was casting for 8 ½ hours all over the lake and I didn't even get a single bite! Oh well, that's fishing – you win some you lose some.

This coming weekend will be swell – it'll be the start of our 12 night cruise. We're going with Alfred and Sally and we managed to get our rooms next to each other! YL is also thinking of getting spa treatments onboard!