1. Peace, quiet and the beauty of the Oxfordshire countryside – just minutes from the bustle of the city and all it offers
  2. Watch the seasons – glorious days of sunshine and swimming in the summer, atmospheric misty autumn mornings, crisp frost of winter and the rebirth of spring
  3. Breakfast on Port Meadow with the sun coming up
  4. The cosiness of a roaring stove on a cold winter day
  5. Living Green – minimise your impact through a more sustainable way of life
  6. Kingfishers and otters, grebes and water voles – live with nature all around you
  7. Waking up somewhere different each morning, whenever you fancy it
  8. Three steps to moving house: Start engine, cast off, get cruising....
  9. Our own little community, quick to help each other
  10. Some of the best Oxfordshire pubs are riverside

 

And the alternative list:

  1. Shaking the poo-box out. Or forgetting to.
  2. Using river water to wash up with ‘cos the tap has frozen again
  3. Rats eating one’s shoelaces
  4. Neighbour’s bagpipes
  5. Borrowing Barry’s post-box key (which is stored on a chain, tucked into his underpants on warm days)
  6. Floods, floods, floods and retrieving one’s possessions from the mire
  7. Having to tell people we still have to pay Council Tax
  8. Rowers. God I hate rowers, with their megaphones and shouty “we own the river” attitudes.
  9. Mould
  10. Running out of gas mid-shower/mid-roast chicken