Category: The Oxford Correspondent

Blackwells must be the world’s best bookshop, surely? I know that lots of people have favourite bookshops but I feel pretty lucky that Blackwells mother ship in Oxford is my local. I go there to soothe my soul. It’s a Russian doll of a shop – eccentric at first sight because the shop front has…

I’ve always been very fond of ducks. They’re essentially rather jolly creatures I always think and I like that slightly aggrieved brurk brurk noise they make. The ducklings are essence of cute, the males are blokey in a duck sort of a way and the females always seem busy and slightly cross. When I was…

A young colleague of mine arrived at work on May morning and told me that she’d just been assaulted by a Morris dancer! I think she was more surprised than upset at having been slapped on the bottom by a man with flowers in his hat, bells on at his knees and smile on his…

Ah here comes summer. And here come the summer visitors – huge groups of teenagers from all over the world who take over the streets of Oxford. I swear there are more this year than ever before. I hate to be someone who moans about tourists – I’m planning on being one myself shortly –…

I went to look up my quote from The First Post a few days after posting and hey – it had disappeared. So, as I am reminded by my publisher husband, I should have added that it was downloaded on Sunday 8 June. I didn’t make it up – really.

A few weeks ago I was a little concerned when a creature dressed in the distinctive plumage of his class passed me on my way back from work to my south of the river home. I was pretty certain I’d spotted a member of the Bullingdon Club, a notorious group which has had more publicity…

So, thank goodness, we didn’t get flooded although number 2 son did manage to get himself electrocuted wading through water and treading on a live wire, exposed when a traffic bollard had become dislodged. Happily, when I found him in the emergency room at the hospital he was vying with his chum to make ‘this…

I’m often told that I live in a beautiful place and it is true. One of the most attractive things about Grandpont is the proximity to the river which is about three minutes walk from where I live. Every morning I walk over Folly Bridge by Salter’s Yard from where ‘on a golden afternoon’Alice and…

I have an ambiguous relationship with Oxford, where I live but today it was unequivocally beautiful. I walked back from work along one of the loveliest parts of the university city, along a gravel path which runs from a cobbled street between two ancient colleges. From one college I could hear someone playing gentle jazz…