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.