Backyard ('garden') bonfire

We had to make a great big illegal fire in the back to burn all the nastiness various historical Carr-place renters had tucked away behind bushes whenever the sudden urge to 'tend' to the garden took place.

Princess Madison, Tibetan Terrier

This is Jeremy's parents' pooch, whom we've been tending for a couple of weeks while they're away. We away on Wednesday for Uganda as well, and leave the dog to some other folk.

Bike.

Sweetie bought me a new bicycle last week, student sale week, and isn't it a BEAUTY. One of those hybrid specials, comfy in town, sit-up like, and good skinny tires for the road. Feel the free air blowing through your hair. My hair. Feels goooood.

inside the house

This is the ground floor of 16 Heather Place, clean as it's been so far.

Still working on the upstairs but when it's presentable I'll photograph it as well.

Heather Place is a cul-du-sac'd grouping of houses that are more or less attached to one another. There is a path just around the corner from us which will take you almost all the way into the center of Oxford, over several bridges and the Cherwell, before you have to walk on a street - South Parks St, to be precise, normally cluttered with animal-rights protesters and an unusually large number of cops presumably there to make sure these vicious animal lovers don't um, get violent, you know. You should be able to make out on the map I put up generally how I get into town - a south westerly direction (through the University) and a 20-25 minute journey. Or like, 10 on my new bike.
Get ready, here it comes.

the lady in Rosebys

Rosebys is a shop in Oxford that sells bedding and all things materially, including shower curtains, and as I've been keeping a grim eye on the one we discovered in the bathroom when we moved in, presumably decades old and coated with heavens knows what and I don't want to, I decided to go find a fresh one. It was then that I discovered Rosebys.
I in fact went looking a couple of weeks ago and bought two to try out, expecting to return the reject, and yesterday I went to do it.
When I walked in there were two salespeople behind the counter in front of my face, a youngish girl, and a lady I'd say in her early 70s late 60s maybe, with bleached, quaffed and cemented-in-place hair. She didn't look up as I approached the counter, and after my greeting and my explanation of why I was there and what I'd like to do, she continued not to look at me, snatched my Roseby's bag from the counter where I'd laid it, and began tittering away on the register. She also began to hum. Or sing. Couldn't really tell which. There was some pop-techno song playing from the store's system which I'd never heard but expect I will not stop hearing everywhere I go for the next month or so until it and the band singing it will disappear completely from the face of the earth to be replaced by more fresh monotony. The sales "assistant" (BIT of a stretch in my mind, let's face it) was WELL into it, and even had her little harmonies all worked out. Thoughts of waking Ned Divine spring to mind ("did you think Mrs. Kennedy would cash 6 million pounds at the post office?"). Anyways, I've been warned by my husband that customer service is not what it could be here in the UK. Thus far I've found this generally but not always to be true.

Something New

...to go with my already thoroughly altered life. After 4 months of exciting but admittedly exhausting organizational flurry, terminating in a definitive departure from my former life, blessed as it was, I am in need of some thoughtful and creative moments.
No promises.

Geography - first, a map.