Oxford bags…

Remember the summer of 2020?

Yes, most things were closed and the opportunities to get out/away were minimal until after 4th July here in the UK.

We left it a week before pointing the Skoda southwards for three days to the Cotswolds and then onwards to Oxford.

As it was summer and temperatures were rising, clothing was dead easy to choose, even though we were staying in Hampton by Hilton on the edge of Oxford. Other items had to be added into the equation though as we needed to take a few things that we hadn’t before – like face masks, pocket size high strength hand gels and pocket packs of paper tissues.

As we were taking the car rather than throwing bags on and off trains or buses as we usually do, we could also stash a couple of multi packs of bottles of mineral water from Lidl rather than shelling out for bottles from cafes etc in tourist honeypots in the Cotswolds and in Oxford itself.

Clothing choices were dead easy to make though – one pair of trousers for daytime use and a pair of travel jeans for evenings in the hotel or a nearby restaurant. Daytime t-shirts were from the Uber Moose range whilst the couple of Travel Linen polo shirts were from then employer’s Rohan summer 2020 collection.

A long sleeved Rohan Sentry shirt was used as an over-shirt when needed and a Patagonia lightly padded gilet almost completed the clothing selection. Silver content sock and standard trunks came from Marks & Spencer whilst shoes were the latest pair of supremely comfortable Merrell Jungle Mocs.

As no rain was forecast, a rain jacket wasn’t packed, but an umbrella was shoved into the Healthy Back Bag that I was using as both the packed bag and the day bag over the course of the weekend.

Anything else? A stainless steel coffee press each plus a bag of Taylor’s Italian coffee for a brew first thing in the morning, a couple of picnic plates and tumblers for eating in the room or en-route plus a bottle opener to access the contents of any beer or cider consumed over the weekend.

Usual phone and iPad made the trip along with one charger that tops up both bits of tech and the Nikon digital compact camera that I picked up for a song in Lisbon back in 2013.

And the trip itself? More on that on Wednesday…