Martin Society reading party

What is a reading society I hear you ask? (I have supersonic hearing obviously). Well, because when you go to uni here you ‘read’ Geography (or whatever else it is that you study), when you go out in the field you go on reading parties (because we’re in groups and because it’s all a whole lot of fun). The geography society at St John’s is called the Martin Society and this year’s reading party was to Norfolk. We stayed in the most charming hotel in King’s Lynn’s industrial estate, just on the edge of the motorway. Very conducive towards convening with nature I’m sure. ..

The group consisted of 9 undergrads, 5 of us postgrads and 3 staff. We spent the first half day hearing about everyone’s research (mine is currently tentatively titled ‘Biofuels backlash? Evidence, politics and the EU Renewable Energy Directive’ - catchy eh...) and continued it on the morning of the third day. But, on the far more interesting second day we went out exploring and managed to cover most of Norfolk, as well as taking a look at parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. Our two main destinations were the north Norfolk coast (with some incredibly (read, aggressive) ducks who ate biscuits out of my hand) and Wicken Fen. The fens are drained marshlands which contain 50% of the grade A1 soil in the UK over a comparatively pretty small area. Wicken Fen is a nature reserve that preserves the fens as they would have looked in medieval times, replete with reeds, lots of mud, and all sorts of birds. Having gone to an extra special effort to make sure I remembered to get my gumboots (or wellingtons as I should call them here) up to Norfolk, the joy in being able to sink down into all the lovely squelchy mud was brilliant!


Overall a very successful trip, particularly considering I could pack two visits to London around it (all the trains and motorway systems here fan out from London as a central radius, there’s pretty much no way to easily go across the country). I’ve got more photos here.

Springy spring spring spring!

From snow to sunshine! We've had the most glorious weather here over the last week, although it's starting to get a bit cloudier and cooler again now - it doesn't want to trick us into thinking that we'll actually get a summer... But, while all the blossoms started appearing it was absolutely magnificent. I can't get over how it all suddenly bursts into life at exactly the same time! The clumps of daffodils everywhere are stunning, as are all the trees completely covered in flowers. We just don't have anything like it at home!

We finally discovered University Parks the other day too, making the most of the sunshine. It's a big sports fields/park/river area really close to the science part of the university where I spend my days. Here are the rest of the photos.

(Finally!) some photos of the snow

Having not yet managed to transport all my files over from my nearly dead old laptop to my bright, spanking, amazing, lovely, so fast I can't believe it, incredible in every way new laptop, I realised that I forgot to put up the photos from February online.

We had a HUGE dump of snow here in Oxford in February and I went a bit crazy taking photos of everything I could see! We made a fantastic snowman in Port Meadow, but those photos are still on Adrian's camera (which he has taken away with him on holiday obviously so I'll have to add them to the album at a later date).

The other photos are of Duncan's visit to Oxford and our excursion to Christ Church college.

Enjoy!

The Bathers come to visit

The other weekend we had Henry and Sonja come and visit us from Bath. Oxford was gracious enough to put on a good show and we were able to spend most of the weekend out and about enjoying the lovely spring weather. We’ve also been rather sneaky in attempting to spread out all the touristy things in Oxford so that we always have something new to do when visitors come. Our evil master plan has been working out just fine so this time Sonja got to go up to the top of St Mary’s Church with me and Henry got to watch the SJC MCR football team in their victorious final league-winning match (well, it was a draw but they ended up winning the league anyway...). St Mary’s is a stunning gothic church in the middle of town and it was great to head up and see the views over lots of the colleges. I had no idea that sundials were such a predominant feature so I think I will have to make a comparative study so I can actually work out how to read them all!

I took them on a tour of St John’s as well (once all the kerfuffle over the Thai Prime Minister’s visit died down – we’re in pretty good company of some illustrious personages here!). Sonja pointed out to me in the little garden to the side of the library that there was some flax, a kowhai and even a feijoa tree!! There must be a New Zealander on the gardening staff... I was very excited about the whole feijoa thing until Sonja told me that you need a boy and a girl plant to have fruit. I think I’ll have to find that NZer and see if there are any extra stocks they can plant somewhere! Henry, as a good architecture student, also pointed out all sorts of interesting architectural elements in college that I would never have noticed before, and I now know the difference between all the brick types (just don’t quiz me on it!).



Lisa’s flat had an early St Patrick’s day party which was great fun on Saturday night and we managed to find some interesting beer from the Grog Shop down the road (I kid you not, that is it’s actual name) to celebrate with. Not exactly Irish, but I think the chilli beer with a massive whole chilli inside it was my definite favourite.


The following day we met up with two of Sonja’s friends from Wellington (one of whom is in some of my classes! Small world...) and went for a big long walk in Port Meadow. I’ve talked about that before, but it’s a big common area of mainly pasture near to our house. We walked along the Thames path up to the pub at the other end and joined the throngs of Oxfordonians (or Oxfordites? I will have to find that one out) who were out enjoying the spring weather. It was even warm enough for shorts and t-shirts!


I took lots of photos, so check them out.