The final night

After punting we... would you believe... headed for another pub? Kate, our local pub expert directed us back down High Street (essentially THE street in Oxford, for our purposes at least) a few blocks, and then directed those of us in front to turn right. And we zig zagged back down alleys and streets for quite awhile - I was amazed how far we went without ever having to make a decision about what way to go - it was a single, yet very windy, path. Finally she did shout out to tell us we had missed a turn.

THIS turn, amazingly, down "St. Helen's Passage"




Down around another turn and you came out to this:



Then this:


Then this!


And this lovely outdoor deck wasn't all either -- there was yet another covered deck around the corner.


Now, wait a minute - I don't recall Dave ever sneaking off to sit with the inside group! Lucky I saw this pic on the forum. ;-)

As we were a large group we did split into two - the sun lovers in us drove us to the outdoor deck.




What an amazing pub. I noticed it's on our tourist map of Oxford. Should you go it's well worth hunting it out just for the experience of finding such a gem sandwiched inbetween buildings.

--

Sunday evening we had the (essentially obligatory) movie viewing. Chris had arranged for an independant movie theater in town to do a private showing for us. Exorbitantly expensive, from our frame of reference, but it ended up being a wonderful venue. They had a small bar upstairs where folks gathered prior to the movie, and then we all trouped out into the street for the group photo. This image was actually taken by a passing bicyclist who offered to let our then-photographer get back in the photo. He ended up taking quite a few shots. He was a great sport.



(Click for BIG version)

There were two theaters there, the small one that sits about 90 folks is the one we'd reserved. Very intimate, and yet still a big screen. I was amazed to find out that this was several people's first opportunity to see it on a big screen!



On a side note - a popular feature on the forum is the photo captions thread, where people put new captions to stills from the movie, or about any other picture for that matter. This one was featured recently:



(click to see more photo caps)

(If you are a Brokie who went to Oxford, this is hysterically funny. If not... then lets move on, shall we? ;-) )

Actually, this is funny because of extenuating circumstances the night we watched the movie. One member in our group won an auction some time ago to have lunch with Jake. He did so - in April. And just how he manage to survive the weekend in Oxford with all the Jake fans clamoring over him for intimate details of the experience is something I can't quite account for. In any case, the pertinent information is that he has an email address for Jake. One of many, I'm sure, but one that can get through to him. *faints*

We learned at the beginning of the gathering, that Jake was, in fact, in London preparing for his next movie, the Prince Of Persia. (WHICH, by the way, has WHOLE NEW INTEREST for me since these pictures came out!!! Jake, Horses, AND Mounted Sword Fighting??!! But I digress...)

Anywhoo - our friend very thoughtfully sent a message to said email address, informing Jake that "60 or so BBM fans were in Oxford, a mere hour away, and scheduled to watch BBM on Sunday evening, would he be interested in making an appearance??" LOL - the guts that it takes to do that! Course, this is a man who dared to bid on, win and HAVE lunch with Jake. Jake, via his assitant, of course politely declined. But never the less it was a spine chilling feeling to know he knew who we were and why we were gathered!

The movie, as I've noticed the last several times I've watched it, hit me in a whole new and unique way. In no small part because it was my first full viewing since Heath died. But it fascinates me that I can and do react so very differently each time.

At some point in the evening, the manager of the theater approached Chris to tell her how extraordinary was the impact this movie has had upon all of us. He said he'd never seen any other movie do that. Well, she could have told him to join the club.

Down the street was a large pub, Freuds. Unfortunately some folks were already heading off, back to their real lives. A handfull took off from the movie to catch the Tube Bus back to London. The rest of us walked down to Freuds and proceeded to make the staff there scratch their heads with what just hit them. It was not your typical heavy beam and low ceilinged pub in the least. No it was a large open room with a stage area at the end under a half dome overhead. Rather romanesque. They use the space for live music frequently I guess. Well, it was simplest to just shove our whole group up onto the stage, and then they brought out an assortment of pizzas and finger foods. I kept expecting the rest of the pub to clear out. Maybe we presented a fair amount of entertainment, rightly deserving our position on stage, because the 'regular' customers stuck it out for the most part.





As it was the last night photos were going like crazy. And now I'm going to bore you with a bunch of portraits with some of our favorite brokies...


Me n Chris


Me, Uli, Andy, Steffi


Dave n Julia


Kate n me


Jari n me


Dave n Helen


MiniMe n Me (hee - I've forgotten Janis' hubby's name!)


Michael and Dave modeling their Rockmount shirts. :-)


Antonella, Dave, Me, Ted, Sonja


Clare n Me