edinburgh, jisc digital leaders, cox apple, delicious

Spent a couple of days in Edinburgh a fortnight ago and again this week.

I was part of the JISC Digital Leaders programme, which I really enjoyed. Learned so much and met great people.

Not much time to enjoy the city but some terrific circuits of Carlton Hill after breakfast each day. And just looking out of the windows upon this glorious city was a treat.

Brought a Cox apple with me to remind me of home. Delicious!

winter veg, bumper apple crop

Looking back at the spring and summer, conditions on the allotment were difficult, and yet it has been a rewarding year. Better winter veg - apart from parsnips (it's always, apart from parsnips, it seems...) - than ever. I think this results from being able to get started in good time, before the weather changed, giving rain when it was needed. So, great carrots, beetroot, spuds, onions, leeks and chard. Not a huge range but plenty to enjoy and keep us in touch with the land during autumn and winter.

Bumper Cox apple crop still going strong.

moonbeams, week's holiday, step by small step, best things, friendships, apples

More moonbeams. Full, this time.

More moonshine? That would be cruel.

A week's holiday (amongst other things) since this photo was taken. Wonderful. Relaxing.

Not so, the political events, though no one can predict what will happen next, I don't think, and maybe it is best to take things step by small step, trying to hold on to values and friendships and the best things in one's life in the midst of the storm.

A time for putting much of the allotment to bed for the winter, of lifting the remaining potatoes, of enjoying picking and eating apples.

fab moon, david cameron's memoirs, heatherdown, i remember, i remember, stowe, sorry mess

Although the full moon isn't until tonight, the almost full moon last night was pretty fab!

I was intrigued to read in the Times that David Cameron had been to the same prep school that I attended, Heatherdown. His account of the bath line ups, complete with the headmaster wreathed in pipe smoke, resonated, although I thought his recollections did sound a little worse than I remembered. Surprising, given that he was there a few years after me - one would have hoped that things had improved by then. Though from what he says, I must have overlapped with his elder brother for a term.

I've not written much about Heatherdown in this blog - just one post, if I remember rightly, called... i remember, i remember, which focuses on arriving at the school on the same day as Prince Andrew. In the light of later events in his life, such far off and innocent days.

I take the point that Cameron makes about going away to boarding school aged seven (eight in my case) seeming 'brutal' and 'bizarre'. But prep school, just like Stowe, was at times for me a refuge from what was happening at home. I remember walking round and round the boundaries of the sports fields trying to make sense of all the things that had been said during the rows between my parents. Things I've only really been able to understand fully by reading the family papers after their deaths.

Will I read more of Cameron's memoirs? I dare say I will - they are living history, after all. Though I can only share his regrets about the sorry mess we are in now.

tomatoes!, mellow, moon watching

J's cherry tomatoes! They and the beefsteak variety have done amazingly well this year. Often they succumb to blight quite early - the blight here being much worse than it was in Oxford, for some reason - and we ripen them in a drawer with an apple. But this time, it's great to be able to pick them and enjoy them fresh as we pass by.

Some lovely mellow September days this week.

The other evening we sat at the top of the garden in the twilight and watched the moon.

working in oxford, walks, cox's orange pippin, sparrow hawk

Worked in Oxford yesterday. Had a lovely walk beforehand, along the Oxford canal, across Port Meadow and beside the Thames. It's over eighteen years since we moved from Osney. The time has flashed by but it's great to still have the opportunity of doing the walks I loved from those fourteen years spent on the Island.

Ate our first Cox apple yesterday. Gorgeously rich sweetness. It went well with the Abondance goat's and cow's cheese we brought back from our holiday in the Alps.

Coming downstairs this morning, I was surprised to see the sunflower hearts bird feeder on the lawn. I couldn't think what had brought it down - a cat or a squirrel, perhaps. Then I found four great tit tail feathers on the patio below where it had been hanging. Later J said there had been a hawk about yesterday and she had chased it away from the bird table. The culprit, I reckon. Sparrow hawk.

la chapelle-d'abondance, montreux, the late breakfasters by robert aickman

Superb short holiday, staying with friends in La Chapelle-d'Abondance in the Haute-Savoie! Preceded by a fabulously delicious and convivial lunch in Montreux, with gorgeous views of Lake Geneva.

Holiday reading was The Late Breakfasters by Robert Aickman (a Faber Finds reprint from the author of MR James-quality ghost stories who also happened to be one of the co-founders of the Inland Waterways Association - and who had many other talents and claims to fame). The author was suggested by an MSt student - a recommendation for which I am extremely grateful.

first james grieve, scrummy veg

...Meanwhile, we harvested our first James Grieve the other day. More since.

And the allotment is coming into its own. Scrummy veg!

summer dredging, erosion?, summer school - wonderful!, oxford never sleeps!

After I saw the old laptop that had been dredged from the Oxford canal back in June, the dredging continued for several weeks and then moved on to the Thames nearby. A few of the items recovered shown above. One wonders how long it would have taken for the waters to erode the bikes.

When I last posted, I was about to start teaching my summer school course. Lots of work but what a fabulous experience. Plenty of wonderful writing from the students and such inspiring discussions!

Much happening at the libraries also. Oxford never sleeps these days!