Slow Life | 25 July 2009

First day of the holidays and I’d promised the kids I’d take them to Oxford. As I reflect on this fatherly gesture of kindness, I realise it was for my benefit more than theirs. Specifically, they wanted to go to the toyshop on the ring road. That was all they wanted to do. Centuries of history and the aura of the gentle dignity of learning can’t compete with a pop-up shed full of brightly coloured plastic things when you’re five.

I wanted to go to Oxford itself, to feel Oxford, to be a part of that silently whirring occult machinery. There are many things I always feel I should be doing more of: going for long walks, writing to my granny, taking photographs, braising, learning the names of birds and their tunes. Going to Oxford is always right at the top of the list but I’m still a stranger in that city, even though I’ve lived nearby for six or seven years.