Overall, the weather in Oxford has been beautiful. However, sometimes it rains. Sometimes it even pours. Yesterday... it poured. Thankfully, in the late afternoon when Megan & I were walking back to the Vines from city centre, the rain had lessened drastically. The walk back takes approximately half an hour, and we had been walking for about 20 minutes, painstakingly avoiding puddles and mud and the like. As we were laughing and stepping gingerly around a fairly deep puddle at the bottom of a bridge, a gentleman on a bike rode by and called out a warning. We didn't hear him very clearly, but we thought he said something about water being so deep that it wasn't worth it to try to avoid. However, we managed to stay relatively dry, except for Megan's cute little flats, which were sufficiently wet. Luckily, she was wearing a skirt, so she didn't need to worry about wet cuffs or pantlegs. I, however, was using a little more caution, as I was wearing my suede (it's true) Puma sneakers and jeans. We successfully made our way around the puddle and laughed about the man who had ridden past...

But then we came to the flooded street. Think: Venice. One of the streets that we needed to take to get back was completely flooded - the street, the sidewalk - there was no getting through. Megan, being a sport (and having already completely soaked shoes), decided to simply wade on through. I, however, was not about to submit myself to such atrocity. I had devised a brilliant plan of shimmying along a fence in the front yard of an unsuspecting house. The water was just barely over the bottom rung of the fence, so I rolled up my cuffs and began executing my ingenious scheme. Meanwhile, Megan and I were in hysterics because of how ridiculous we looked & how preposterous the whole situation was. I caught my breath and said to her, "I hope this family doesn't mind that I am using their fence as a bridge!"

I had spoken too soon.

Not 10 seconds after this hasty comment, a face appeared at the open window of the house, and a woman called out, "Excuse me... excuse me - please, could you get off the fence? It will break."

I glanced at the woman, stared in horror at the lake surrounding me, glanced back at the woman and sighed. "Okay... sorry," I replied. I gazed forlornly at the fence, then begrudgingly resigned myself to my aquatic demise. Megan and I slogged through the urban lagoon for about half a block, until it finally receded and dumped us out onto the street - tattered, drenched & a little more worldwise, but still in good spirits.

I only wish that I had pictures so everyone could have enjoyed pictures of the fiasco, but the mere tale must suffice, as a camera was not at hand.

My love to all,
Rachel