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It was that time of year again, Hermione’s birthday. Like last year and the year before that, it was an outdoor event. Although this time she had stepped it up a notch, and instead of a picnic in the park, we were going punting.
The annual no-nonsense birthday invitation was sent in a WhatsApp group appropriately named ‘Birthday Punting.”
Please meet at the boathouse at 1230 with picnic lunch bits. I’ll be bringing hummus, strawberries and champagne. We will punt up the river to The Victoria for a drink and then back to the boathouse. Then cross over into Jericho for a pub crawl, starting at Rose and Crown around 4:30/5ish if you’d like to continue the party. Please emoji this post to confirm attendance at punting so I can work out what to book. Smiley wavey face. Upside-down smiley face.
One by one the guests sent their emojis.
1 rowing boat 🚣♀️
1 trophy 🏆
4 thumbs up 👍
1 bunny 🐰
1 love heart made out of hands 🫶
1 canoe 🛶
1 high five 🙌
It’s an odd thing to do for fun – pushing a boat up a river with a pole, but it’s one of the popular activities you can do in Oxford, along with reading and creating vaccines. Since 1860, historical figures have enjoyed a punt down the river Cherwell including Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, and Oscar Wilde. And now on the last day of May in 2025, there was us.
We gathered, as ordered, at The Cherwell Boathouse at 12:30 with our snacks and drinks. Hermione had her big voice on, separating us into boats 5 and 21.
“Which one do you want to go in, Mary?” Hermione asked.
I looked at 5 and looked at 21. “Um…um…”
“PICK ONE!”
“Oh, um, which one are you going in?”
“5!”
“…I’ll go in 21 then.”
If you live in Surfers Paradise, you are meant to be able to surf. If you live in Saint Moritz, you should be able to ski. And if you live in Oxford, you should be able to punt. I, however, cannot. (This is probably no surprise to readers who are aware of my lack of sporting ability).
The last time I went in a punt, I was 14, had a MySpace page, and was with a bunch of my hormonal friends who were dressed head to toe in Jack Wills. I didn’t offer my help then, and I wasn’t going to offer it now. It’s not laziness; I just know what my strengths and weaknesses are. My brain is too consumed with remembering lyrics from 90s Britpop songs to think about things like left and right, steering, measurements, and angles.
Thankfully, Hermione’s friendship group is a very practical bunch and can be divided into three categories: teachers, sailors, and farmers. I assumed out of that lot, there would be a capable punter, so all I needed to do was relax and enjoy the ride.
I settled in Boat 21, poured myself a soda and lime in my plastic wine glass, and soaked in the sun. Perfect.
We pushed off from the bank. Hermione’s boyfriend Sam was our punter, and Camilla was on steering. We (they) got the boat to the middle of the river, and we were off.
Just as we went under our first bridge, Frank shouted, “STOP! I LEFT THE CHEESE!” We twisted around and punted back to the boathouse to collect the cheese.
Despite our false start, our boat made a swift recovery and we flowed right past Boat 5. I knew I had made the right decision because whenever I looked back at Boat 5, it was either horizontal, colliding with another boat, or stuck in a bush.
The thing about punting is it’s a lot harder than it seems. It’s one of those activities that appears to be romantic from a distance, but the reality is not quite that. We went past a boat with a young woman sitting adorably, while her partner, sweating buckets, tried to navigate the boat around the river bends.
“This is nice, isn’t it Stephen?”
“Uhuh….”
Eventually, we had to stop to wait for Boat 5, because we could no longer see them. Ten minutes later, they came around the bend and we reunited to have our picnic.
I thought I would make up for my lack of punting skills with food. I came with the most pompous snacks I could find: an olive and rosemary sourdough loaf, Mr. Filbet’s dry roasted nuts, vegan gummy bears, and basil breadsticks. I thought I would be applauded for being the snazziest food provider, but then Frank announced that his cheese was homemade using the milk from the cows on his farm. Yeah, alright.
As the birthday manual promised, we next went to The Victoria for a drink. It wasn’t long until Hermione was using her big voice again because we needed to “CHOP CHOP, GUYS!” since the punts were being charged by the hour.
Due to a chain of events, I ended up not in my peaceful Boat 21 but in Boat 5 for the return journey.
Hermione was the punter, and I was landed with the responsibility of steering, which involved me ferociously pushing water with a tiny paddle, desperately trying to avoid hitting other punts and the riverbank.
“Which way should I push!?” I panicked. Mikey didn’t have the same urgency as me.
“On the left, Mary. No the left…”
We zigzagged across the river, water splashing everywhere, getting tangled up in the willow trees, having near misses with other boats, one of which had a bride in it. And there was an incident involving a mallard duck.
I stared longingly at Boat 21 which was ahead of us, of course. It was peacefully skimming the river, everyone having pleasant conversations beneath the sun.
“MARY PADDLE!” Mikey said, snapping me back to my new reality. “NO, TO THE LEFT! TO THE LEFT! TO THE RIGHT! TO THE RIGHT!”
Too late, we ended up tangled in another willow.
The experience gave me flashbacks to a traumatic event when I rode a donkey up a hill in Rhodes. The man walking the donkey wasn’t paying attention, and so didn’t see me face-planting branch after branch. Never again.
When we finally arrived back at Cherwell Boat House, I checked that all my limbs were intact before moving on to the Rose and Crown; it was 4:30 after all, and despite my traumatic voyage, I was keen to continue the party.
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