Oxford, how I love thee...

...let me count the ways.

First, a preface. I mentally wrote this post while at the DMLBS conference in Oxford early Dec., about a month ago. I even got as far as jotting down notes so that I didn't forget any of the ways. But either I was at the conference, or going out eat with Joel, or sleeping, and then there were other things to write about here, and time passed, and I forgot about it, and only just now going through my stack of papers from the conference found my notes:

• British pubs, British ales, British pub food. We love it all. Our first night there we went to a place on the west bank of the Thames suggested by Mark and Rachel, and it was great. West of the train station Oxford is very different from the down-town university area, but we actually enjoyed staying there quite a bit. There was a park nearby where Joel and Gwen played, and a community center which on Fridays (the day we were there) had kids' morning with singing and games, so they spent a few hours there and everyone had fun. This pub was also clearly a locals-only or locals-primarily; we certainly stuck out due to being unfamiliar and due to our accents---even though non-British accents are common in Oxford, they aren't on that side of the river. We ordered Gwen a salad of poached pears, goat's cheese, walnuts, and argula, which she loved, I got some mixed game and Joel got a pie, and we both had good minerally delicious local British ales. Sitting there, we both agreed that if we had a pub like that nearby, we'd probably eat there once a week.


• Blackwell's, OUP, Oxbow books. 'Nuff said.


• The Bodley. Cutest moment while we were walking around together before I went off to the opening lecture of the conference: We're walking along the side of the New Bodley and I pointed it out to her, that it was a library, with lots and lots of books, and aren't libraries a wonderful concept? Her reply was "Gwennie's library". Oh, my wonderful child, someday I hope that will be your library!


• Brown sugar: Neither the Dutch nor the German quite do it right. We ended up bringing home about 2kg from Sainsbury's.


• More ephemeral: Joel and I have worked really hard to build our threesome into the sort of family life that we want to have, to maintain the same sort of large-scale rhythms and routines as we had before Gwen came along, and for the most part we've succeeded. But it's been both work and hard. It's worth it to us to do the traveling that we do, but it's definitely not the relaxing easy pleasant vacation that it used to be. Everything is a lot more complicated, no matter how worth it it is. But for some reason Oxford is...easier. There was an ease and comfort and relaxation during our few days there that we hadn't had in a long time, even when we're at home. We got to sit and linger, to walk together and talk, to share good food. Because we were staying in a room we'd rented via AirBnB, all three of us were in the same room which meant that when Gwen went to sleep, the lights went off, and even though we continued to work on our computers for awhile, we were both in bed together, and that too was relaxing in itself.

I've actually got two more items on the list, but both of them are related more to the topic of "yes, we really do think that England is probably our long-term ultimate goal, not Germany, and here's why for reasons other than We Love Pub Food". I think I'll save them for another post.