Oxford has two seasons ...

... winter and French schoolchildren!

I remember from our last trip around Europe in '98 that many places in England were overrun with French, Italian or Spanish schoolchildren. At the time I never really bothered to think why that could be, other than the proximity of those countries. But now I've figured out that they're all at that age where nobody likes them, including their parents. So they have been sent to England on English-language summer courses. In '98 group leaders spray-painted the kids' heads different colours to know which ones were in which group. Now they just give them all matching backpacks. Backpacks which, being at THAT age, they fail to remove when on crowded public transit and whack you with repeatedly. They stand around in self-absorbed groups, blocking sidewalks, doorways, store aisles, train platforms, basically anywhere you need to be. We biked into town to do errands this afternoon, and it reminded me of Toronto during Canada World Youth. Shudder. We usually spend weekends biking out of town, away from the tourists, visiting outlying villages and their 'gastro-pubs'. (A trend I highly approve of, which makes me a total yuppie.) Or visiting places like Winchester or Bath, both of which I'd recommend.

I'm finding I don't have much energy for writing, though. The past few weeks I've either been at work or been worrying about work, and I can't really write about that. I considered the much-used 'humorous list' format for a cheap and cheerful entry about things that have happened lately: Maybe 'Ten things it is hard to do in a wrap skirt on a windy day' (nah, guys couldn't relate). Or 'Physical manifestations of my advancing age' (but why ruin the illusion of perfection?). How about 'Things that have given me acid reflux lately'? (No, because that would be everything, and it's too big a list.) Or 'Cultural references I have made at work that have merited only blank stares' (Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and Tofurky aren't, apparently, on peoples' radars here, and are therefore decidedly Unfunny).

Anyway, I don't have a lot of material. Or I didn't, until Jeff unexpectedly completed his latest quixotic mission. See, I am an over-thinker. I weigh all the options, consider the consequences, plan for all eventualities, and as a result rarely accomplish anything. He is an under-thinker. He decides something would be cool, and goes out and does it with unseemly haste. Usually we balance each other out, but I thought he'd gotten away from me on this one. After he unsuccessfully bid on about thirty dishwashers on e-Bay, to my horror he actually won one. I had no idea how he would ever fit a dishwasher into our teeny tiny Euro kitchen, and envisioned the thing becoming an impromptu end table. It arrived, sat on our living room floor for a week, and seemed to fulfill my fears. But Jeff figured out how to hook it up, and it works. In a mere three hours (about as long as one of the wash cycles in our teeny tiny Euro washing machine) we can now wash approximately two glasses, two plates, and four forks, ALL AT THE SAME TIME!


Okay, so it takes a few more dishes than that, but you can see for yourself how ridiculously small it is. I had no idea such a thing even existed until I moved here!


Europeans love their teeny tiny appliances. Here, in only about four square feet of space, is our fridge, washing machine, furnace, and dishwasher. Not pictured: diminuitive microwave and lethargic stove.

(I'm going on holiday! In only three days!)

Through the looking-glass

Today began with both of us being too ill to get out of bed. Why were we under the weather? That would be the surreal Alice-in-Wonderland experience that was last night. The company I work for held a summer party. And while you might think 'work party, ugh,' as I did at first mention, it was mind-blowingly awesome. When I saw my coworkers taking entire bottles of wine away from the (free!) bar rather than messing about with mere glassfuls, and singing, air-guitaring and making the 'rock on' sign along to 'Living on a Prayer' and 'Summer of '69' just as enthusiastically as any red-blooded North American, I fell in love with them all over again. Work hard, play hard!

Buses picked us up and took us out to a country manor, where we were met with glasses of champagne at the door.

There was dinner and schmoozing:

And croquet:

And lots and lots of wine:

Which made me think this was a hallucination:

Later in the evening there were more stiltwalkers, feathers, maracas, whistles, glow-in-the-dark toys, fire-throwing acts, and a packed dance tent. There were rumours of indiscretions in the manicured topiary shrubs. Jeff spotted a man on the dancefloor wearing women's underwear on his head (not someone I know, sadly, because imagine the mileage you could get out of that back at the office on Monday!).

In other words, this crushing hangover? Well worth it, a thousand times over!

Heat makes me slothful, so this is a lazy post

I thought that the Tour de France would help to ease the pain of England's heartbreaking exit from the World Cup (I drew Brazil in the office sweepstakes much to everyone's envy, and even that didn't pan out!). But then Jan Ullrich, the cyclist I hoped to see win this year (and with whom I have felt kinship ever since the press started making fun of him for his struggle to keep his weight down in the off-season), was removed from the race due to a blood doping enquiry. Sigh.

It has been 30 degrees here for the past few days, and the sound of the fan ineffectually blowing stale air around the bedroom brings back memories of childhood, back in the dark ages before my parents realized that humidity makes teenagers even more unpleasant than usual. I've never liked sleeping with a fan ... the wind and the dull roar make me feel like I'm trying to catch forty winks in an airplane hangar. But we don't want to leave screenless ground-floor windows open overnight. I am already compiling a list of strange places I've found spiders, for example, inside my bag of cotton face wipes when I went to pull one out tonight. I'd prefer not to add my nostrils to that list by inviting insects in while I slumber. (A coworker just told me a truly horrifying story about staying in a squat in Australia and stuffing her ears and nostrils with tissue before going to sleep every night to keep the cockroaches out. I now console myself with the thought that it can, indeed, get worse.)

As you can tell, I haven't done anything out of the ordinary lately. But one lovely lady has ... Jessica has her first, but most certainly not last, book out. If any of you are in Toronto, her readings are also fantastic.
Those Girls