The festive spirit

Even though Winchester is only ten minutes away by train from Southampton, I realised that in my two and a half years at the University I had never actually been.

So deciding to ditch the revision, assignments and dissertation worries, and to celebrate the end of term, I finally went up to Winchester to see the famous Christmas market and to get me well and truly in the festive spirit. As I mentioned it’s surprisingly easy to get there; in fact with a rail card the train was cheaper than the bus I took to the station!

There were a whole array of stalls, selling a smorgasbord of everything from chocolate and cheese (the free samples of which I took full advantage of) to jewellery and paintings, as well as the ice rink and food outlets, all in the grounds of the beautiful Winchester Cathedral. After going round the market twice and picking up the odd gift and cup of mulled wine along the way, we went back into the centre to find a restaurant, before heading back home to Southampton.

The winter wonderland of Winchester

The last couple of weeks of term have been a thoroughly festive affair. It all began with the annual Christmas light turn on event on campus, which included a live band and the University’s very own mini Christmas market. Soon afterwards my house mates and I also celebrated the start of the festive season, via the much less glamorous task of putting up our own (student budget) Christmas tree and decorations.

The holiday cheer continued on through the fortnight with several glasses of mulled cider and an equal number of Christmas meals at one of our favourite student pubs. It’s this time of the year that you realise how many things you are involved with and just how many people you know, as you start to receive festive invitations left, right and centre. It’s for this reason that the last few weeks of the winter term are usually my favourite out of the whole year.

The Leaning Tower of ‘Treesa’

The festive spirit also spread across to my Physoc intramural badminton team. We held a Christmas tournament, comprising of twelve teams, all playing for a small bottle of wine and a bag of chocolate coins – the stakes couldn’t have been higher! The teams were split into two leagues of six and we each played each other once with the first and second best placed teams heading off into the semi-finals.

Serving for the title of 2013 Physoc Christmas Champions

My team, who were creatively titled ‘Team 12’, got off to a great start by winning our first game. Unfortunately it went downhill from there; we managed to lose our next four group matches, narrowly missing out on a couple more victories by being on the wrong side of very tight score lines. In the end it came down to point difference, leaving us bottom of our group, but if we had one more win we could have been as high as second!

In order to retain some dignity and avoid the ‘wooden spoon’ prize, we were put into the play-off match against the team that finished last in the other league. After one of the hardest fought matches, with both teams desperate not to fall to the embarrassment of last place, we continued our losing streak and were subsequently awarded the twelfth place prize consisting of paracetamol for the pain of defeat and a little robin decoration which has taken pride of place on top of the house tree.

Overall the last few weeks of term were a brilliant way to end what has been a fantastic year and I look forward to what 2014 brings.

Have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

James