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| Abingdon. There are a surprising amount of seagulls here. |
We arrived in Abingdon a month ago. It doesn’t feel like a month ago, because the learning curve has been so steep, and I have done so many things in that time. I remember the yellow moon rising full as we drove into Abingdon with the final load of possessions stuffed into a aging blue transit van, which I took to be an omen of sorts; here we are at the full moon* again, and if the moon says it has been a month, who am I to argue?
I wanted to tell my swimming friends back in Southampton that I enjoy swimming at the leisure centre here, where they have extra wide lanes and much better changing rooms than Shirley pool. I’ve been going to the leisure centre pool rather than the one at Radley college because they are the same distance to my new house, and the leisure centre is cheaper, has lane swimming most of the day, and a free sauna, and I’m not allergic to the water. They’ll find it hilarious that I was greeted last week by a notice warning me of cold shower temperatures (it was nothing compared to Shirley pool, where there were only freezing showers for months after the boiler was replaced and then kept breaking in various ways. They fixed it, just before I left)
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| The child enjoying Natural History Museum |
I’ve done a bit of exploring, which is much easier than last time I moved because now my telephone can tell me where to go. I have discovered that when google maps says ‘Head NORTH along Northcote road’ what it actually means is ‘Turn around, idiot woman, you are actually walking in completely the opposite direction’. I would like to respectfully point out to google maps that if I instinctively knew what direction north was, I wouldn't need google maps to tell me where I was. It's still much easier than getting lost the old fashioned way.
We got a new mattress when we moved, a handmade orthopedic one from John Lewis. When they say hand made they meant it was carved from granite, with particular attention to sculpting painful little buttons that lie in deep dimples on the surface. I bought a memory foam mattress topper for it after I putted a sword embedded in it and accidentally became king of England. Turns out, if you feel tired all the time, it might be because you are getting no sleep. Especially if your bed is a rock.
Now I have mastered the art of finding the swimming pool, the post office and delivering my son to school, as well as the advanced achievement of catching the bus into Oxford (they don't tell you the upcoming stops here, and the windows are heavily stained with countryside, so you can’t see where you are, either), and am finally getting a decent night's sleep, I have enough energy to get back to drawing. I’ve been learning to use Affinity Designer on my new Ipad so that I can make up my acetates and start printing again, which I am looking forward to. I’m mostly drawing crows, which I mostly see bickering with red kites in the skies outside my bedroom window, plus some plants I've found.
So, there you have it. We're Settling in OK and good things should be happening soon. Watch this space!
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| Some Oxfordshire Crows |
*I'm posting this a few days after writing it due to disorganisation and computer issues.
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