2024 Weeknote 44

I spent most of this week away from home. I was in Oxford Sun-Wed and then caught the train to London Marylebone (a new experience) and then on to Kingston to see the smalls. We went trick or treating - a new experience for me - and I took Lara to the park for a bit to give SIB in law some time for a rehearsal she needed to go to. The nephew is getting lots of words now he is nearly 2 and, at one point, when Lara was counting up all her sweets after the trick or treating, she said 12 and he said 13. SIL and I looked at each other in surprise, I gather being able to count that high when one is not quite 2 is quite an achievement. 

In Oxford, I spent most of my time in the education library, on Tuesday pulling a 9-6 stint in there with just a brief break for lunch. I got quite a lot of reading done but, wow, some of those chapters are long. I spent most of Monday ploughing through one and even took the book away with me to my college library (open 24 hours, dreamy) so I could finish it. I had to skip about 10 pages in the middle that were full of the kinds of theoretical statistical equations I neither understand nor care to, but I got it done. I returned the book to its shelf happily the next morning, got myself settled and then checked the next book on my reading list. It was...the same book. Sigh. Happily the second chapter was less boring, though no shorter. 

On Wednesday, I ventured into the famous divinity library, part of which starred as the library in the Harry Potter films. I went and had a quick wander but there's no water allowed in that section and all the books are alarmed, so I gave it a swerve and settled for a view of the Radcliffe Camera (the iconic round one) instead. 

I took myself to a nice lunch at the Opera Cafe (site of the cardamom bun I enjoyed so much last time), to Barefoot bakery for coffee (also purveyors of cardamom buns though not quite as good; their pumpkin cupcake was top notch, though) and a couple of very nice early walks, once around University Parks and along the river Cherwell, the other to Port Meadow to see the river Thames. Autumn is really beautifully dressed around there and I enjoyed being near the water and having a tramp around. I had dinner at my college twice and even, the second time, spoke to some other people dining there. It was nice to feel part of Oxford, briefly, and I'm looking forward to returning in a couple of weeks. 

Unfortunately, the end of the week was marred by a toothache, a cough and some really aggressive histamines that kept me sneezing and miserable so constantly that I rebelled and bought an air purifier. Whether it's dust, cat fur or leaf mould, it is really quite severe, but the gadget seems to have helped. The toothache was so bad on Friday that I thought I'd never sleep, but happily I did and it has eased off to the occasional dull rumble. Still, I will be ringing for an emergency appointment tomorrow morning. It's a big filling replacement I had done in August and it just never really settled properly. Toothache is the worst. 

Some autumn niceness to distract me.