It is probably that Oxford is in my mind, since we were there at the weekend. We went down for a brilliant wedding - and if you know us, and how we usually feel about weddings, you'll be surprised to hear me say that. It was Polly and Steve's, and the theme was village fête - they had the service in a tiny, beautiful English country church, then the reception was in Polly's parents' garden, or rather in the field behind it, which had this amazing view down into the valley and the 'dreaming spires' of Oxford. The village fête theme manifested itself in the form of all the silly games you usually find at such things - welly wanging (!), coconut shy, skittles, treasure map... There were genuinely amusing speeches (including a singalong element to the best men double-act) and after dinner highly amusing barn dancing - you could hardly hold K back, and normally he's the last person to get up on the dance floor! It was all just joyous and great fun, and Polly and Steve seemed to be having a brilliant time, and that's the main thing.
Unfortunately, having finally got my hands on the camera to download the pictures of the day, it seems as if it had accidentally set itself to film rather than photo, and there are now lots of brief moments when I thought I was taking a snap, followed by lots of footage of the ground, as I held the camera in front of me ready for the next photo opportunity. It makes you rather sick watching it through actually! There is the occasional good capture - like this one, the first of the barn dances, based on a Central European wedding dance apparently...
I don't think I'd been to Oxford since February last year, when we went down for K's PhD viva. After 10 years of living there, it is so utterly familiar, that is never weird going back - it just feels like you've only been up to London for a day or so, though maybe some of the shops or cafes are different. There's a Costa cafe on Cowley Road for god's sake! Talk about gentrification. Still, I don't miss living there - I enjoy London too much now. But it was so so wonderful to catch up with old friends - Bob and Bev, who we stayed with, squeezing ourselves into their front room as Bev's brother was already staying; and Nigel and Ginny, who are back in Oxford now, living in an entire corner tower of Christ Church's Tom Quad! We had a wonderful lunch with them and an idyllic few hours sitting out in the Sunday afternoon sun in their garden, surrounded by medieval Oxford walls and the large fig trees which are the offspring of the seedlings which Edward Pococke - first chair of Arabic at the University of Oxford, in 1636, and who used to live in Nigel and Ginny's very corner tower - brought back with him from the Middle East!
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I am now on leave from work for two weeks, trying to shift gears in my brain and start thinking about our Scottish holiday... It's been an utterly crazy time at work since getting back from my Research leave - not just trying to get on with the remaining work on my book, but also getting sucked in to work on the Jameel Prize, which has been interesting but unexpected - it was never something on my work plan for this year. And the second round of comments and edits came back from the copy editor on Friday, leaving me no choice but to spend the first two mornings of my holiday working on those files, so they could be delivered to the designer today. The next time I see my text it will be starting to look like a book!
The weekend in Oxford felt like the start of the holiday, though K has the big academic conference on Henry VIII this week, so I have hardly seen anything of him! I have been enjoying being out and about - on Monday afternoon I went to visit Moya, and went with her to collect her kids from nursery, and played Lego with them while she prepared the supper. I even got to read Sam a bedtime story (actually 3!) - which was fun for being something I don't do every day! Yesterday I went to see the J.W.Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy - as you may know, I have a soft spot for the Pre-Raphaelites, and though he was not really one of the Brotherhood, he worked in their mode, and created powerful visions of the classical world, especially of Homeric myths, or moments of tension from episodes in Ovid's Metamorphoses, just before a captivated all-too-human (usually) man falls prey to divine vengeance. His powerful, magical women fill the canvas and conjure long-forgotten stories from the Odyssey, or the Morte d'Arthur... I'd forgotten how these were the images that first inspired my interest in classical myths and legends. I love his painting St Eulalia (1885), and the striking contrast of the martyred virgin's unclothed body against the falling snow.
Today I have been pre-holiday shopping - how is it that that always entails spending about £50 in Boots?! On this occasion, I was investing in insect repellant, since everyone I have told that we are going to the Outer Hebrides has warned me about midges - and I am someone who usually receives a lot of attention from biting insects! I got 3 for 2 of a spray called Jungle Formula, the ‘Extra Strength’ variety for ‘Tropical Use’ - hopefully that will keep off the little devils!!!
It's time to think about cooking dinner - I'm doing Valentine Warner's 'spring chicken salad'. I really like his recipes - he does a series in the food magazine we get, Olive, about 'What to Eat Now', so it's always seasonal ingredients but I think he makes really imaginative and fresh combinations. It's also a specially nice meal, as tonight's our last night together until Sunday and holiday: tomorrow I'm going to my parents' and my sister and I then fly to Edinburgh on Friday morning, for a couple of days of girly together time, then we meet K at the airport on Sunday to fly to the edge of the world - Stornoway. I wanted to check in with the blog before disappearing again, so you knew I was still here! I am sure when we're back from our chilled-out week in our Hebridean cottage there will be lots of pictures to post and lots of seal- and dolphin- and whale- and puffin-watching to update you on... Speak to you then!
