We went – in our lovely minibus – to the Milton Keynes International Festival to see the Graeae Theatre Company performance of Reasons to be Cheerful.
This is a selection of hits by Ian Dury, arranged and performed by Graeae, with British Sign Language interpretation, and captioning and images related to the lyrics, all woven into a rocking performance.
Here we are arriving at the festival.
And seated in the Spiegeltent before the performance
All good things come to an end and finally we had to leave, getting the minibus home about 1am.
Category: Activities
Things we do in the club
Wesley Memorial Church Garden Party in aid of Phab
After some rather mixed weather over the past month the sun shone on the Wesley Memorial Church annual garden party, with proceeds donated to Oxford Phab.
Members of the church, and of Oxford Phab swum and played games, and ate delicious cakes and scones, and drank many cups of tea and coffee. A beautiful summer day, and we are very grateful to our hosts, and to those who baked cakes, and helped with serving.
Tom's Quiz
As well as a normal club night Tom had prepared a quiz. There was a Wordsearch, for everyone to do individually.
Then we divided up into teams, one on the south side of the room and two on the north.
There was a picture themed section on identifying television programmes,
The programmes were from a range of eras, and covered a range of interests.
There was also a general knowledge quiz, and a musical section where we were asked to identify films or television programmes from their theme tunes.
We enjoyed the evening, and many thanks to Tom for the work he put in to prepare the quiz.
Evening Activities at Hinksey Heights Golf Club
We had an exciting evening of Footgolf at Hinksey Heights Golf Club, enjoying the fantastic view over Oxford and having a tasty meal. We are very grateful to the staff for looking after us so well.
Heading for the Footgolf
The view from the course is amazing, as you can see below:
We make up our own bonus activities !
Here we are out on the course !
and here is our PeerTube playlist for the event
Treasure Hunt
Oxford is full of places to eat, with food from all over the world. We did a Treasure Hunt based on the world cuisines which could be found in a small area.
Mexican Evening
We had delicious Tacos, and beef and vegetarian chilli, with rice, and tortilla chips.
Chicken Fajita, in a corn tortilla.
Some of us had the various combinations of chilli and tacos – there were plenty of tasty choices.
Danny's 30th Birthday Party
Danny kindly invited Oxford Phab to his 30th Birthday Party at The Gladiator Club
Phab members clubbed together to get him a voucher towards a Fitbit.
We bought him some other goodies as well.
Which he put with his other presents from friends and relatives.
Phab members at the party
There was good food, and a really good disco, which got us up on the floor (but was not good for pictures !)
Film Night – The Town That Sang – with Pizza
We ate pizza, and were then treated to a showing of The Town That Sang, a short musical film. Jack, who is a member of Wesley Memorial Church, wrote the music for the film – and gave us a short talk about it and answered our questions.
The film was funded by a Kickstarter campaign and some of the funders are also Phab members, who had seen it already, but were quite happy to see it again.
Oriental Buffet at Oxy at the Kassam Stadium
Oxy Oriental do a very varied buffet at the Kassam, and had reserved a large area near the buffet for us, which we needed as there were about 30 of us there. Unfortunately I was too busy chatting and eating to take a picture until very near the end. Since not all of our group had been able to go to Avon Tyrrell there was a lot of catching up to do.
Replete after our meals !
Swimming at Avon Tyrrell
Avon Tyrrell had (in 2016 when this was posted) a swimming pool, which although it is outdoor, is heated to be comfortably warm – which is great for those of us who lose heat easily.
Unfortunately the swimming pool is no longer in use, possibly due to a combination of rising energy costs and the need to make best use of their trained staff.
They had a hoist, which can be used with a chair or a sling.
https://vimeo.com/167105277
The hoist in action !
This page was updated in November 2021 to reflect that the pool is no longer available. We enjoyed using it, and are grateful to the support we received from the staff. We still look forward to our next Phab holiday at Avon Tyrrell to enjoy the other activities on their site.