Back from Oxfordshire

[qatarperegrine]

I'm back in Doha after two weeks visiting my family in Oxfordshire.

Realizatons made on this trip:

• babies are cute
  
• childbirth is not cute, but anyone who has gone through it has my undying respect and awe [Edit: gone through it on the birthing side, that is. Obviously we've all been through childbirth on the being-birthed side.]
  
• I desperately desire to live in a city that is not just walkable but walking-centric, like English towns with a medieval city center tend to be
  
• Britain is full of these brown, fibrous upright cylinders with little green wavy bits at the top; Doha should look into acquiring some:
  

The original plan had been to go hike the Ridgeway Trail for a week, but for various health reasons I had to scrap that plan. In the end I managed a 1.5-day, 29-mile hike from my sister's house in Abingdon down the Thames Path for a day, and then east on the Ridgeway following a prehistoric earthwork called Grim's Ditch (pictured above). It covered some really beautiful scenery, and hiking is always good for my overall serenity. I wish I could do more of it.

Pictures of the trip are here.

And in case anyone is jealous of my jet-setting ways, I also spent three days in bed with a migraine and a new medical condition that you don't want to hear about. I like to travel, but my body sure does not. Dear roboticist friends: please to make me a cyborg body to transfer my brain into, for I am royally sick of this one, kthxbye.

Comments

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

"It" was pretty? The park, or the raccoon?

:-)

o/` But I'm sorry to say that we must leave too soon
'Cos we lost all our food to them thieving raccoons...

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I meant the park. The raccoon may well have been pretty, but I was too busy shrieking and waving my arms at it to notice.