The most wonderful thing about Hog Roasting is that it takes you to such a wonderful range of places and you get to meet a very broad spectrum of people. A hog Roast near Iffley at the Oxford Union is one where you know that there have been many many celebrities from Michael Jackson to Professor Stephen Hawkins to numerous politicians from this side of the ocean to the other. I was therefore slightly expectant that this might be an occasion to meet President Obama or just someone equally as famous. We had decided that because of the lack of parking that we would cook back at the yard. This would mean a half hour journey to Frewin Court where we could off load and park the van. The parking of the van we knew was going to be a problem, since Oxford is very keen on park and rides and not so keen on parking – let alone a van.
Fortunately like any event all you have to do is ask. So often the problem has been encountered before and so it is always worth asking. This time it was security who held the answer. He also was proud to tell me of some of the more famous people he had met and looked after. After a quick natter it was decided to park in a delivery bay and take a chance for the serve period. After a while it also became clear that we not serving any celebrities but the female debating society who were doing some sort of competition. Two days earlier they had done Question Time doing a live broadcast. Soon it was time to serve the hog roast Iffley. We had about a hundred people to serve, of which there were 30 vegetarians for which we had done a delicious vegetable Lasagne. There were also numerous gluten frees, although as usual many don’t appear. The service was amazingly quick and we had done everyone in about 15 minutes. Thank goodness, I thought. Since this would limit our chance of getting a ticket. All was good and we were soon loading back up and within an hour we were nearly done. For the first time one of the students took the initiative to make up some rolls and took them round Oxford offering them to the homeless. Soon we were on the road and back at base within 40 minutes.