Typical...

Only on a French website, could you search for a casserole dish and be offered the DVD of 'Chicken Run'.

Shock horror!

A very satisfactory weekend.

Rather unexpectedly, I think this has been one of the nicest weekends I've ever spent in Oxford. Aside, of course, from feeling like I'm coming down with a nasty cold (TIMING! immune system, what were you thinking??!!!), this morning, for the first time in days, I got out of bed feeling like I'd had enough sleep! What wonder is this?!

I've mostly been pottering. Have done a little light work, mostly re-reading notes for Wednesday and cribbing parts of Holly's gender essay (thank you!), but otherwise I have read the paper, faffed about on the internet, been to the covered market and M&S Food, had a proper chat with Livvy, been to a pub with real people, made myself a massive lasagne and risotto so I can eat proper, nutritious food throughout the week without expending any more effort than popping a plate in the microwave, finished a cross stitch bookmark and gone on a lovely walk.

It's my favourite Oxford walk, but I was feeling especially attentive and thoughtful today. I went down past the station and walked up the Thames Path from Botley Road to Portmeadow. As I joined the path a canal barge went under the bridge, and I walked past all the little terraced cottages that back onto the river, and the allotments on the other side, with the sound of strimming and the glint of greenhouses.


As I crossed the next bridge, a train went past nearby. It was like a walking history tour of Industrial Britain. I carried on up the path, picking wild flowers and taking pictures of ducks. I even heard a cuckoo! I've always wondered why cuckoos are associated with springlike, cheerful things when they're nasty, sneaky, vicious birds. Ah well.

I crossed Portmeadow, and came back along the towpath from Jericho, peering nosily into the barges that were moored, thinking how homely they looked, with the plants growing on the roofs, Radio 4 playing, little models in the windows, a letterbox with a number on it, a woman standing on the deck doing her make-up in a hand mirror...

Also, the gardens of the houses alongside the canal, with dinghies tied up at the bottom of the lawn, cast iron tables and chairs under the willow trees. The graffiti on the barrier around where the boatyard used to be: GIVE IT BACK.

And, more faintly, ETHNIC CLEANSING. (Or, maybe, CLEANING. It was hard to read.)

I came back via a different route. A very Roberson walk.


Solitude, sometimes, is bliss.

Hmm

I must be getting old. On the way to college the other day, I was waiting to cross the road, when a bus went past and I looked at the driver and thought: 'He looks far too young to be driving a bus!'

Hehehehe

She wants to have my babies!!

Just got this email, which amused me no end!


Hello, gentleman

I want you to know that I had different relations with different men. I have
not got married one time, I decided that it was true love, but it was fatal
mistake of my life.
You may imagine how my heart is broken and it has painful scars. But
nevertheless I don't give up and I  continue looking for my love, happiness.
I understood that I could not find it there, in my native country, in
Ukraine. I had too much disappointments here. That is why I put a full stop
at the attempts to build love  in Ukraine. I feel lonely among thousands of
people.
I don't have native soul which would want to create family with me, give
birth to children, to build our home. So, I can't be happy in Ukraine,
although it is my native land.
I think that happiness will present me its smile abroad where I will find a
good, descent man who will share my interests and desire to create family.
You do were the first who attracted my attention and rose my interest. You
have something special if I decided to write you.
I hope that after reading my letter, you will be interested to get
acquainted with me too and write me  here http://inetfeelings.com/shy

Looking forward to get a letter from you

Olenka

BRING BACK PRELIMS

ALL IS FORGIVEN.

Madness!

Yesterday, in M&S food, I saw somebody with one of these:

















using it as a handbag and putting her shopping in one of these:











No, really.

Crazy finalist alert!

So, there I was, obscenely early for my tute as per usual and sitting by the water cooler in the linguistics faculty, listening to these two Chinese students talking. (As in students of Chinese, rather than students of Chinese nationality, but that's a different crazy finalist story.) I could tell they were first years because they both looked very clean. And because they were so idealistic and enthusiastic. They were talking about how many Chinese characters they had (about 1000) and about a book one of them had ordered to read over the summer. Then a girl walked in, who looked about 15, with an immaculate tan and a short white skirt, followed by her friend, who then bragged about how she'd only had 2 hours' sleep. The girl in the white skirt said something like, 'Yeah, I was going to go clubbing, but I was too drunk to walk' and the boys said they'd gone to Portmeadow 'but it was full of drunk hippies sitting round a bonfire'.

'Wow,' I thought, 'what interesting lives they must all lead.'

Then I remembered it was May Day.