"And this also," said Marlowe suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth."

Oh, the Thames, that "interminable waterway" stretching it's length across England to "the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth." Great it may be, but muddy and swollen and angry it also is a large majority of the time. Or so trusty sources (me that is) will tell you.

Despite my previous poor experience with mud and running and England all mixed together, I managed to convince D to follow the Thames path with me from Oxford to Abingdon, a good eight mile run that winds along the side of the river. Picturesque? Quite. Gorgeous? Nothing less. A good pub meal in Abingdon and a bus ride later and we are back in Oxytown, plastered in mud up to our knees (the nice older couple sitting next to us at the pub looked as if they were torn between being overwhelmingly impressed with our athletic feat and absolutely horrified at our barbaric mud sliding conquests- ultimately hard to tell because we couldn't understand anything they said to us) and maybe just a bit more capable of understanding this river than before.