I’ve been giving cryptic hints of me doing something quizzy in London for a while – well it finally happened this week! I went down to London on a warm Wednesday evening to take part in BBC Radio 4’s long-running quiz show Brain of Britain. What an experience! I had auditioned last year and didn’t Read More
Category: Been or going to
Mid-week Catch-up…
An afternoon in Oxford with Rebecca I had a lovely lightly bookish afternoon in Oxford yesterday with Rebecca (aka Bookish Beck). We met at Blackwell’s – where better in Oxford, and both being on a budget headed upstairs to the sale/second hand section on the top floor of the main shop – where we spent Read More
Burne-Jones at Tate Britain
A quick trip to London yesterday to catch the last week of the Edward Burne-Jones exhibition at Tate Britain. (It finishes on 24th – so go now!) Beyond the best-known paintings such as The Golden Stairs and Laus Veneris (above), there was much to take in and admire in the seven rooms of paintings. Here’s a Read More
A Trip to the Ashmolean…
The other day, daughter and I went to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to catch the last day of the Michelangelo drawings, and the first week of the new “America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper” exhibitions, using our new Art Fund cards to get half price entry. Michelangelo Drawings A single room full of drawings, Read More
A Grand Day Out: Art & Shakespeare
A diversion from literary fare today. My daughter and I went to London yesterday for a day of art and Shakespeare. It was a long day – we got home at 1am, but it was rather brilliant. Our first stop was: The House of Illustration This gallery nestles beside Central St Martin’s school of art Read More
Midweek Miscellany
A rainy Wednesday seems the ideal time to catch up on many little things with you all… FIRSTLY BLOG MAINTENANCE I must apologise to those of you whose readers have been filling up with my old posts from 2010 that I’d reposted here, after they got lost in my web-host transfer. I’d gaily thought that if Read More
A Musical Interlude
McBusted’s Most Excellent Adventure Last night I took my daughter (and one of her bezzies) to her first pop concert – McBusted at what was the N.I.A. in Birmingham (now the Barclaycard Arena!). It was my first music night for about 15 years too and this morning my ears are still a bit affected. Our Read More
A Miscellany led by more marginalia …
Having dipped into this book often and read all the interviews I wanted to, this tome which I’d got from the charity shop was destined to go back there. Brief Encounters, subtitled ‘meetings with remarkable people’ is a collection of Gyles Brandreth’s interviews carried out for the Sunday Telegraph – he’s an engaging interviewer and Read More
Now you see it …
My daughter and I got up at 2.15am for the scheduled demolition of the three cooling towers of Didcot A power station sometime between 3 and 5am this morning. We, along with hundreds of others parked in Milton village nearby and had a vantage point across the fields from about 1km away as the crow Read More
A's HoB Q&A – The Answers – Part one!
Thank you for asking some great questions – some of which required a lot of thought to answer! I’m splitting my answers into two posts – the specific science questions will get their own treatment in a day or two, but here are my answers to all the rest – and do feel free to Read More
What on earth is ‘Quantum Biology’?
It was the second night of ATOM! Abingdon’s new science and technology festival last night, and off to Abingdon School for a lecture by renowned scientist Jim Al Khalili, who will be familiar to many for his programmes on BBC2/4 and his Radio 4 series The Life Scientific. Jim’s day job is as Professor of Read More
ATOM! Abingdon Festival of Science & Technology
Our town of Abingdon-on-Thames is situated in one of the real science hubs of the UK. Apart from all the science faculties in Oxford to the north, just south of the town is the Harwell campus – home of the Diamond Light Source and the Rutherford Appleton Lab. To the SE is the Culham Centre Read More
Wendy takes the lead …
Wendy & Peter Pan by Ella Hickson, RSC at the RST, Stratford What a treat! Juliet and I went to the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday night to see their new family production Wendy & Peter Pan. Yes, you read it right – Wendy comes first in Ella Hickson’s re-telling of J M Read More
Books in Bath and a French Farce
Yesterday my daughter and I went to Bath, it’s only an hour and a half from us, and the delights of the city are many. Yesterday was all about shopping, dining and theatre – we’ve done the heritage bit on previous visits. We arrived in time for lunch (Nandos), then got stuck into shopping… One Read More
Oxford Bookbloggers meet
A group of eight bookbloggers met last night at an Oxford pub – appropriately named ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’. (Good ale, no big screens, decent standard pub food). It was a shame more couldn’t come, the date ended up clashing for few, but those of us there had a lovely evening of mainly (ahem!) Read More
What we did on our holiday
I went AWOL in Cornwall this week. I did take my laptop, and did plan to blog of an evening – but all that fresh air, and all the up and down steps and hills took it’s toll, and it was a case of collapsing in front of the telly.We stayed in Fowey (pronounced Foy to Read More
A marvellous birthday weekend…
This post was republished into its original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive I’ve not been very active on the blogging front the past week – but I have had other things on my mind. I had a one of those big birthdays with a zero on the end this weekend, Read More
A London Day Out
A day off today and up to London. We don’t go very often at all these days – £44 for a family train ticket isn’t too expensive but by the time you’ve factored in £30 minimum for lunch, it adds up. Anyway this time we played tourist and my daughter got to see (at a Read More
Here are my snowy pictures …
It was glorious sunshine in Abingdon today. We’re lucky to live on the doorstep of a lovely park and I took the camera with me today when my daughter and I went for a wander. Many of yesterday’s snowmen had been cannibalised to make launch ramps for sledging. With all the local schools being closed Read More
In praise of secondhand bookshops
I’ve just come back from a week in Northumbria. It is a lovely county, full of outstanding castles, glorious beaches, fantastic fish, wonderful gardens, pretty villages, rolling hills and beautiful countryside. It wasn’t overcrowded either, and you are within easy driving distance of both Newcastle and Edinburgh for rainy day entertainment. In Northumbria, the town Read More
The Meme of 4
I haven’t done a meme for ages, so this one from Margaret at Booksplease seems fun. It’s an adaptable meme as long you do it all in fours … 4 Places I’ve lived in:1. Purley, Surrey – Prime suburbia where I was born. 2. South Kensington, London – I went to Imperial College, part of Read More
My best bits of Paris
We’ve just come back from a few days in Paris – after a gap of ten years for me and Peter, and the first time with daughter Juliet. We did the obligatory pilgrimage to Eurodisney – Juliet enjoyed it – we just felt totally ripped off! But, it was lovely to be able to show Read More
