Sunday, August 30, 2020

holiday harvest, truly delicious maris peer!, allotment-cation

 

Allotment harvest for our holiday Sunday lunch. J doing roast beef.

Curious shapes and some crops not doing as well as they might due to the high winds during the week. Bean poles at crazy angles.

Maris Peer spuds, though, are amazing. You could eat a saucepan full on their own - that good. Can't take any credit for this - must have hit the season right. Just as other years I hit it completely wrong.

Have over a week off now, which is terrific. Need a bit of a break.

Staycation? Of course. Allotment-cation, as well!

Friday, August 28, 2020

st mary's bampton, north view, high moor, holidays, vc's day off!

 

St Mary's, Bampton, photographed from the north this time (previous view was from the west), from the start of the high moor - if I have interpreted the location of that geographical feature correctly.

Have some time off now - hooray! Starting with today's Vice Chancellor's holiday - a day off for the whole university in recognition of all the work that has been done during the pandemic, thus far.

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

fiery, st mary's bampton, downton abbey church





 

A fiery start earlier this week.

St Mary's Bampton - the Downton Abbey church - from the Ham Court track.

Sunday, August 16, 2020

purple loosestrife, heatwave, mirage, joyous, or invader?

 

Purple loosestrife, early morning, during the heatwave.

Something slightly strange about the depth of field - making the plant look like a mirage, almost. Appropriate, though.

If it captures just a little of the joyously refreshing sight that the flower was, it will have done well!

Fascinated to find that in Oregon purple loosestrife is seen as an invader that needs to be controlled in order to protect local species.

Sunday, August 9, 2020

happy memories, fonthill, work

 

Happy memories of walking round the Fonthill estate in Wiltshire last month. It had been raining before we set off but fortunately it held off while we were out.

Seems such a long time ago that we were there. There's been so much to do at work!

Sunday, August 2, 2020

recovering, walking, poplars, runners, the virus in the age of madness


Leg recovering well, although I decided not to cycle for a week, just taking walks.

On Thursday J gave me a lift to the top of the Woodstock Road and I did the Wolvercote, Godstow Nunnery, Thames, Binsey route, then cut across Port Meadow to the Oxford canal and in to work. Can't remember the last time I did this. At Binsey the breeze gently rattled the leaves of the poplars. How French that sound was, somehow, yet how English too.

Other days I walked from the village - across Roy's meadow (pictured - with the Highmoor brook in the forground) to the Plantation and Ham Court. 

This morning I worked on the allotment. Good to be there after a week of being kept away by work. Runner beans have started - couldn't believe how many there were until I parted the leaves and found where they were hidden.

Been reading The Virus in the Age of Madness by Bernard-Henri Lévy (Yale University Press, 2020). I'll say more about this when I've finished it but for now, reading this ebook pamphlet on the subject of the virus in the midst of the pandemic has a curiously fascinating immediacy.