2nd anniversary and counting!

Hello from a chillier Oxford. I have included pics from a sunset we enjoyed last week in the hope that it won't be long before we see the sun again over the dreaming spires.

Yes, we have reached another milestone. 2 years of marriage seems long and short. Amazing to look back to our wedding day and know how we've been blessed right through our cotton socks over and over. We are galloping on to try and catch up with my grandparents who've been married 65 years (more or less). Now that is amazing!

The glorious daffodils that you see in the pics were photographed in the gardens of Hampton Court Palace on Sunday afternoon. Oh Wordsworth, you knew what you were talking about: "fluttering and dancing in the breeze". We spent a very cozy weekend with Nicci and Lyons. It's so wonderful being near enough to them to pop in.

This weekend we are celebrating our anni in Paris. Bring it on. Un petite romance never hurt any married couple.

R

On the hill in Oxford

So many advancements in the cause of a life more fulfilling in the UK - where to begin? We now have: jobs, 2, tick; flat, 1, tick; elderly new friends, 2, tick and breadmaker, 1, tick. We are feeling rather chuffed.

Mark has been putting his body and mind on the line every night this week at the John Radcliffe Hospital's children's emergency area. Mostly, it seems he is dodging vomit from alcohol-poisoned 15 year-old girls - but you'll have to check that with him. A far cry from Somerset by all accounts. He's had shifts from 2pm-10pm each night except Wednesday, which he had off to source the afore-mentioned breadmaker, amongst other less important items such as sheets. This device is the first foray we've made into British cooking. The things are as ubiquitous as dassie droppings on Table Mountain over here. (I love having an excuse to whip out the "u" word.) We used Lin Lawrenson's machine whilst in Jersey and fell in love. Oh that smell that weedles its way into your nostrils as you try to hide under the duvet for one more minute. Some of you know what I mean.

So the pics attached this time are of Jersey (oysters by the fire, Mark shopping at the covered market, friends and the beach)

and of our new flat and neighbourhood on the hill in the suburb of Headington.

Note the paddle stairs at a rakish angle of must-be-more-than-45. The studio flat is attached to a big countryish house. (That's us huddling behind the green bins.) There are no street lights at night, so we will be using our bicycle lights plus the reflection off our high-vis clothing which we are purchasing tomorrow. Seems construction workers have lost the monopoly on the loudest clothing in the world. Oxford cyclists are now donning it too (I'm sorry, was that a pun?).

I acquired an English teaching job until the summer today at The Cherwell School, which does not have six permanent security guards dressed in black with walkie-talkies (to protect the staff from the children), unlike another school I taught at this week. Got to be a good sign. I start on Monday.

If you're wondering about our new elderly friends, they are Wendy and Jim Evans who hosted us in their home on a B n B basis for four nights until we could move into our flat. We are going to curry night at their favourite pub with them at the end of the month. When you're in a new town, what's wrong with buying your friends, hey?

R

Long live life-long learning!

Being gainfully unemployed can be a challenge. But I've met it headlong with a challenge of my own. I have decided to catch up on my classics reading. This came about chiefly when I risked my English degree being revoked by unmasking my horrifying total of Jane Austen books read (viz. zero, wince) to some of my learned friends and my hubs. So I have begun to make amends. My first port of call has been Thomas Hardy. Much to Mark's surprise I have loved "Far from the madding crowd" because of his gorgeous takes on the foibles of human nature. Check it out:

"He wished she knew his impressions; but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent." (pg.20)

Delicious, hey?

But life-long learning doesn't stop at books. Oh no. Living with my tannie and oom has been an education in itself. They are seriously into sustainable eating and living. We went to hear a talk by Rob Hopkins called, "From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience". Very inspiring. The UK feels light-years ahead of South Africa in terms of the transition we have to make due to peak oil and climate change.

And lastly, to convince you that I am aspiring to the upper echelons of educated society (ahem), I include an extract from the job description for the Saturday Invigilator job I have applied for at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Yes, THE Bodleian Library:

"Sensory and physical demands:
1. Fetch manuscripts, rare books and archival objects (some extremely heavy) from locations around the building, including areas accessible only by stairs.
2. Handle rare and fragile objects with care.
3. Operate specialist equipment (e.g. stairwalkers) in order to move manuscripts, rare books and archival objects from delivery points."

Can anybody out there stand as a referee of my ability to operate a stairwalker? If you could just let me know what it is, that would be appreciated.

R

When it snows, find a steely grey lough

Taking Africa with me

In a wood panelled pub whose walls have known countless evenings of sheep farmers, pipe smoke and ribaldry, I sat and read my book. A few locals at the counter nursing quiet conversation and their beers. Me drinking the finest pint of Guinness that ever did grace the green isle- snow outside- could almost hear the angels. Welcome to Ireland- I’ll forgo the Northern Ireland bit, but that is where I am.
Conscripted by myself away from the loving arms of my dearest who has remained in Bristol, to the strange little town of Enniskillen in Co. Fermanagh. I have been engaged with a two week locum in the hospital here. A 16 year old with Anorexia, a 12 year old with too much Vodka and a few wee wheezy ones. Good, kindly nurses and doctors. Myself, Raj and Sree shoot the breeze most evenings. It seems that most Indian doctors do the forced separation from wives and family to get that coveted Fellowship of the Royal what-not College.
The full force of British paranoia descended upon my disease burdened body as that blemish on my Chest x-ray performed at Heathrow finally caught up with me. Public health folk here in a tizz as I was barred from having patient contact until I had had a full once over by a pulmonologist (seems like I did have TB once upon a time). Wrought unexpected opportunity to have my lovely fly over to Emerald Land and gambol about a now snow covered Isle. More Guinness (she always leads me astray), folk music into the wee hours, chips and blood sausages, tea in Donegal and more gambolling in the heather in the far reaches of Ireland- and then that swim…

One more night and then back to my hearth and then onto Jersey ...