The best May Day party in Oxford

Or, how to scare yourself senseless and convince yourself you are in a scene from trashy teen-flick Urban Legend.

I have just returned (well, it was actually about four hours ago but you know what I mean) from a birthday-cum-may day weekend in Oxford.

Now they go a bit mad for May Day in Oxford (am currently undecided whether or not that should be capitalised, so shall change it each time), last year to such an extent that a number of fool-hardy youngsters ended up in hospital after jumping from a high bridge into inch-deep water. Yep, we are talking about the cream of British undergraduates here.

Anyway, it was our intention to become one of these universally derided idiots although preferably in a slightly less painful fashion.

There are a number of different may day events going on in the town, starting on the Sunday night, ranging from posh balls with ticket prices fairly similar to my current monthly rental on my flat, to skanky dos in pubs down the Cowley Road and everything in between. Oh yeah, and there's also always a number of twats who jump into the river at 5am.

E, whose 25th birthday we were also celebrating, had heard about this big do out at Port Meadow. No-one we had spoken to had actually heard about it, but when we looked on t'internet we found several references, one suggesting it was *the* hangout for beautiful people and dogs on strings. Definitely the one for us, then.

Most of the party had dispersed by then as we had a special party for E on Saturday (report may follow if I can remember what happened) so it was just me, HF and E, who said she wouldn't mind driving up as we were all pretty hungover from 48 solid hours of boozing.

On arrival at Port Meadow, we saw a number of cars parked at the side of the road. But, err, nothing else. 'Not to worry!' said E, 'It would make more sense if it was at the other side of the meadow (pretty damn big meadow, this one) cos then everyone could walk into town afterwards'.

After another 10, 15 minute drive, we followed a deserted country track up a hill. It was about midnight at this point, raining a bit, and really quite isolated. We got to the end of the road and looked at the meadow. It was completely deserted. No lights. No music. No beautiful people other than the three of us, and definitely no dogs on strings.

We couldn't quite believe there was nothing there, so we switched off the lights and the engine and attempted to listen for a thumping bass line. There wasn't one, so HF got out of the car and had a bit of a wonder.

After he left, it was just me and E in the car and we were in relatively high spirits so the conversation quickly turned to how 'funny' it would be if HF didn't return. Or, worse, if he did return but it wasn't him, it was a crazed axe murderer. I don't know if it was the rain, the dark or the surrealness of the situation but within a couple of minutes we were quite freaked out. When HF started walking back to the car, we decided it might be wise to lock it, you know, just in case it wasn't him after all. Matters were made somewhat worse when he decided it would be 'hilarious' to start stroking the window in a weird fashion.

We let him in, after some shouting at him NOT TO SCARE THE HELL OUT OF US and we were soon happy as Larry again once the lights were back on and the engine was humming away underneath us. E said it would be quite a scary place to live, as it was indeed very dark and isolated. To prove just how spooky it would be, she decided to switch the lights off. While still driving. Again, this was virtually a single track road in the middle of nowhere, no houses, no streetlamps, no bobbies walking the beat. In fact, E thought it would be a great idea to continue switching the lights off for a few seconds before putting them on again for quite some time. I may have been shouting at her a little bit (she never saw Urban Legend so can be excused slightly for her thoughtless actions) and eventually she decided it might be best for all concerned if she left them on.

Oh yeah, we passed this tiny car park area on the way back near the meadow and she wanted to stop the car and get out, just in case we'd missed a massive piss up somehow. I soon got rid of that suggestion and we went back home.

It was all actually quite entertaining. We thought we might tell everyone that the Port Meadow party was absolutely amazing and try and generate a bit of traffic for next year's event, so there might be six people in a field instead of just three. Who knows, the year after there might even be 12.

So that was May Day. Apart from a brief flirtation with a party further up the road (we thought we would try and entice party goers in to our place by turning up the music really loud but E got scared they would trash her house) we went to bed and set the alarm for 4.20am so we could walk down to the bridge. When it went off, we made an executive decision to stay in bed (it was still dark and everything), so we actually managed to miss the entire may day event.

Although we did see a man (read immature 18-year-old student) nearly shoot out his own eye in the park this afternoon with a make-shift cannon he was attempting to fire into the river.

More on that story later.