Two miles, fruit breakfast, Morning Prayer, coffee in town (at Throwing Buns — gluten-free scones for Margaret), chemist’s, library for some books about the history of Abingdon, then into Oxford for the New Testament Seminar. It’s a long, long bus ride home at rush hour on Friday … | Continue reading
Big teaching day in the family: Margaret had her two-hour lecture in East Oxford, and I had two tutorials at Oriel. Add in the to-ing and fro-ing of getting to town, and we’re well tired. I did run my miles this morning, and of course said Morning Prayer and finished marking the … | Continue reading
The weather was warmer this morning (9°), as the third blustery, rainy storm to cross Great Britain in the last few weeks passed through. I had a wee bit of a lie-in, ran my two miles, had some coffee and fruit, said Morning Prayer and consulted with my colleagues, picked up some … | Continue reading
Two miles in the morning, coffee and fruit, Morning Prayer, then coffee with MArgaret in town, a wee trip to W. B. Smith and Waitrose, home for lunch and an academic meeting, by then some odds and ends relative to my project toward articulating a chantry list for St Helen’s. Busy … | Continue reading
Ran my two miles, fruit and coffee, and off to the church for Morning Prayer. Should pick up some groceries, and then home to read and study, and I have a student thesis to peer into. | Continue reading
I set out on my run this morning. It was a balmy 6° (after a spell of subzero temps), though the air was lightly seasoned with drizzle. I figured that a mist was easy enough to negotiate granted the appeal of a warmer atmosphere. The mist, however, turned out to be more like driz … | Continue reading
Sermon done, just before dinner. This is the first time two of the parish’s congregations will hear me preach, so the stakes are different from what they’d be if everyone already knew to expect to be bored. | Continue reading
…so I did run my short (~1.5 mi) route, short cause of my knee, then came home for coffee and hot breakfast. Since then I’ve been doing online errands to avoid finishing tomorrow’s sermon. That looks like the shoape of my whole day, unless I finish my sermon in a rush this aftern … | Continue reading
Not really limping, nor really a circle, but I did make a very unambitious, very gentle jog along my short route. My knee is still feeling wobbly; the temperature was -4°; but I get uneasy if I skip two days in a row, lest I start getting lazy. Coffee and easy peelers, tea in bed … | Continue reading
I didn’t run this morning, partly because the temperature at running time was -5°, and partly because my knee situation got more wobbly and painful as the day wore on. I did walk to Morning Prayer, though, and into town with Margaret for coffee and pain au raisin. This afternoon … | Continue reading
I ran my short route again today on account of the -1° temperature, but the whole experience was coloured by my tweaked left knee. I didn’t notice an uneven step, a skid or a wobble — just, about a quarter mile into my run I felt my knee twinging with each step. I slowed down… | Continue reading
-3°, so I ran my shorter route, but I did run anyway. My fingers got a bit numb; no, they got prickly and painful, so I doubt I will run two days in a row at subzero temperatures. It’s only Celsius, so USians can look smug and point to Iowa temperatures, but I wouldn’t run… | Continue reading
I ran my two yesterday and today.Yesterday I then rushed to St Nicolas’s to observe the 8:00 service (that I’ll be celebrating next week), hurried home to have breakfast before arriving early for the 10:30 (I walked along but didn’t do anything importantly liturgical, but had tim … | Continue reading
I slept late this morning — all the way to quarter after seven! — and when I woke up I was aghast, because I had planned to go to the 8:00 service at Nicolas this week, to watch the way it goes, since I’m saying the 8:00 Mass next week. I was almost completely dressed… | Continue reading
Ran two miles (the Ock River was back down to recognisable channels, thank heaven) in 5°, up from -1°; fruit and coffee, Morning Prayer, and now settling in to do some reading. Dave, that sounds like my scintillating scotomas, and my doctors haven’t been worried by them. They are … | Continue reading
Dave Rogers appositely points to our family favourite film Mystery Men, and adds a link to an enthusiastic critical assessment of what I am accustomed to treating as yet another idiosyncratic feature of life with the Adams. Hail, the Mystery Men! Remember, ‘When you can balance a … | Continue reading
I had forgotten how early in the year the anniversary of Aaron Swartz‘s death comes. As we begin to lose the elders of the earliest Web, I can’t forget the cruelty with which overambitious politically-motivated prosecutors crushed his spirit; his voice and insight would be a prec … | Continue reading
Run two miles, coffee and fruit, Morning Prayer, home, meeting at church, now home again, and working on church projects. Good thing I’m only part-time. | Continue reading
It’s only 0°, but it felt colder on my morning run, and even more so as I walked to church this morning. Then time spent preparing for a Faith Forum next month, then lunch. | Continue reading
Yesterday I ran, joined Morning Prayer with my colleagues, had a meeting with the Rector, had a cup of coffee in town at Java, did some grocery shopping, made it home at about lunch time, worked on the bulletin for my licensing service, reconstructed the prompt for the first tuto … | Continue reading
What to say? Saturday we stayed indoors, at home, in deference to the flood waters. I didn’t run (though of course I could have taken a different route that stayed clear of the rivers; it just seemed more sensible to stay at home, indoors, while I hammered out a sermon and Margar … | Continue reading
Guess I’m not going to run this morning… Yes, yes, I understand that I could run in the opposite direction, but I’m a creature of habit. | Continue reading
I’ve been in a grouchy mood all day because I went for a haircut yesterday, and despite my having said explicitly (and repeatedly) that I wanted my hair tidier not shorter, not shorter, the barber trimmed away a year’s growth of hair. Once I sit down in the chair and take my glas … | Continue reading
I don’t usually read Matt Mullenweg’s blog — to be honest, I didn’t even remember that he had one, though I remembered his tagline — but Dave Rogers pointed me to it, and more specifically to Matt’s request that people blog, and that they link their posts to his birthday blog whe … | Continue reading
The ladies, Minke and Flora, that is. I’ll add photo evidence as soon as I can. Ran my two miles this morning, against objections from my quadriceps, coffee and fruit breakfast, shower, Morning Prayer, and back home to help Margaret with her tea and breakfast, as she slipped on t … | Continue reading
I woke up in my (our) own bed this morning after nine or ten hours’ sleep — aaahhhh! Got up, ran my shorter route (to warm my legs up to the idea of daily running again), coffee, shower, dressed in clericals since from today on, I’m more-or-less engaged as one of the clergy at Ab … | Continue reading
Margaret and I landed at Heathrow this morning, walked a half mile or so through the entrails of Terminal 3, and breezed through passport control in a flash (honestly, could not have been any faster, amazingly). We meandered to the Central Bus Station and went directly to the Oxf … | Continue reading
With a few hours left in the United States, if there are any last-minute errands I can accomplish for you, please let me know. It’s been a lovely visit to see our grandchildren, and children, and long-years friends; I was balked in two efforts to see my sister, with whom I very m … | Continue reading
Ahoy, friends — we’ve been bouncing back and forth from place to place, with dear ones from among our friends and family, catching up with lives from which time has kept us apart. Some joys, some deep frustrations, on the verge of resuming Abingdon days. | Continue reading
I’ve reached that point in travel and time zones, intensified by last week’s illness and subsequent exhaustion followed by a Sunday IV Advent/Christmas Eve, where I no longer really know when I am. On the positive side, seeing Laura, Si, Thomas, and Lydia (in Indy) and Nate (in N … | Continue reading
Last night/yesterday afternoon, a pernicious bug or a source of food poisoning afflicted some in the Adam and Harris-Adam families. First Si, then Margaret, then I succumbed and purged violently. We slept poorly and arrived at the airport at 4:45 or so exhausted, nauseous, achey, … | Continue reading
After running, breakfast, reading, and various other grandchild-oriented activities, we went to pre-school to watch the Christmas Program (not a pageant). Grandson and granddaughter excelled in their respective roles: Grandson performed the Reindeer Pokey (Hokey Pokey, but dresse … | Continue reading
Two miles (1.8 miles) in the morning, fruit and bagel breakfast, my introduction to my granddaughter Lydia, reading and talking and doing French homework with Thomas, and relaxing start of day with Si and Laura and Margaret. | Continue reading
A long time ago, I was invited to write a review of the NRSVue of the Bible, in exchange for a copy. I reasoned that as I own many copies of the NRSV in varying bindings with varying annotations and varying bonus features, I was unlikely to buy a copy of the ue (the Updated… | Continue reading
Can’t get much more ordinary than me running my two miles, making hot breakfast, feeding and walking the dogs, going to church, home to feed and walk the dogs… It’s ordinary in Advent. | Continue reading
That’s what I always say when Minke and Flora and I are passing other pedestrians, or dogs — though to be sure, Minke is usually so apocalyptically dramatic when she notices another dog that there’s hardly any point to trying to dissuade her. I had a busy day yesterday with some … | Continue reading
Yesterday I spent the late morning and the whole afternoon cleaning the flat in Headington that we recently vacated, and preparing it for incoming guests of our hosts. After a busy start to the morning, I was quite weary and not a little hungry by the time I got back to Abingdon … | Continue reading
Wednesday night I gave a talk to the Abingdon Rotary Club. I was assigned the title ‘A Christmas Message’, so I was constrained not to bang on about fountain pens or deconstruction or how proud I am of Margaret and our children; instead, I talked about A Christmas Carol and | Continue reading
Ran my miles, fruit breakfast, on my way to Morning Prayer, thence to Headington where I’ll give a once-over to the now-vacated flat. If I can get that done promptly, I’ll get back here with a view to (a) relaxing (b) reading (c) further working on the house. Margaret and I need … | Continue reading
Running (2 mi.), less concern about my right foot/ordinary plantar pain in my left, fruit breakfast, Morning Prayer, rain (the rivers are higher than I’ve seen them before here in Abingdon); but this morning I had a planning meeting with my boss, so we’re well on our way forward … | Continue reading
I think that like Rapunzel spinning straw into gold (supposedly), Señora Flora Dora Dinosaura, tribe of Zora, Food Adorer, Doesn’t Like Quora, must generate poop out of thin air. She just doesn’t eat that much, and evey time I take her for a walk she… requires a great deal of cle … | Continue reading
Yesterday’s activities may have pushed my healing foot a little too far — a run in the morning, two walks with the dogs, a walk to (and at*) St Helen’s in the morning, and another to (and at*) St Nicolas’s in the evening. By the end of the day, my foot was a bit impatient… | Continue reading
What do you know? It turns out that resting my foot, elevsating it, and tasking anti-inflammatories actually helps remedy a sudden flare-up of irritation to a once-broken (or otherwise damaged) bone and tissue in my foot! I’ll have to patent that and se if I can get johnson & Joh … | Continue reading
I did not run this morning. Indeed, I’m not sure I could have run. This is not due to the cold, steady rain falling during my running-time of the morning; the principal cause for my morning’s immobility lies in my right foot, the old war wound from the notorious Battle of Nassau … | Continue reading
This morning I ran a bit out of my way to go past St Nicolas’s, winding up with a run of 2.2 miles. The weather was dry (unlike yesterday morning, when it started to rain on me when I was halfway home). I spent intervals of the morning and afternoon hauling book boxes up to… | Continue reading
Abingdon has a plentiude of cafés, so I’m using Margaret’s absence to check out the atmosphere and offerings at several local establishments. This morning I’m at Java & Co., which serves a satisfactory Americano and has a plate of gluten-free brownies for Margaret, if she were he … | Continue reading
Yesterday was a marathon. I know it must be hard for the applicants, having just a few minutes to make a positive impression on interviewers for admission to your top-choice university. We interview two orn thee times as many students as we can offer admission, and we take applic … | Continue reading
Last night’s Advent Carols service went beautifully. It was my first ‘on’ service at St Helen’s (I read a lesson, led some responses and said the Advent Collect) — nothing complicated, but it gave me a chance to walk around the platform of the nave altar, turn my lavalier mic on … | Continue reading