We’re in the middle of packing up our Oxford home, to start the short trip back. We land in Melbourne on New Year’s Eve, after some stops in Köln (for the Christmas Markets), Augsburg (for Christmas with friends), Frankfurt Airport (to get on the plane), Singapore (to break the journey, and give us some summer in close proximity to air conditioning before landing in the Melbourne summer heat).
There’s too much to say in the limited time I’ve got online here, but here’s just a taste of what’s been going on. Academic highlights in the last few weeks have involved:
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Cambridge. I zipped over to Cambridge on the bus (though Milton Keynes, which is a very strange city, at least when viewed from the window of a bus) for a CAMELEON workshop organised by Tom Forster. It was great to meet Tom, and also Randall Holmes, Michael Rathjen, Allen Mann (who all presented papers), and Martin Hyland, who gave me useful feedback on the paper I presented.
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Paris. My visit there was wonderful. The IHSPT is a wonderful place, with lots of nice people (a fantastic bunch of students who managed to make me eat my lunch or dinner very slowly by asking Interesting Questions and making me think Very Hard), together with a gorgeous city.
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Utrecht. Where I enjoyed long conversations with Albert Visser, Michael Moortgat and some of their students.
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Christine’s promotion (she’s now an Assoc. Prof. and Reader, woohoo!) and her research fellowship (she now has five years of only as much undergraduate teaching as she wants to do). Super!
And non-academically:
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Maddy Prior & the Carnival Band: On Tuesday night, we managed to get some babysitting so Christine and I could hear Maddy Prior & the Carnival Band’s Oxford Christmas concert. (Have you ever heard shawms playing reggae? I hadn’t.)
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Walking the streets of Paris, and spending an afternoon at the Museé D’Orsay. There’s something humbling about wandering through an art gallery and seeing a masterpiece at every second step.
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Seeing Zachary thrive: He’s had a great time at the day nursery at Wolfson, and despite a recent bout of sickness (a cold when I was away in Utrecht last week), he’s been doing really well. Once he got used to the cold weather, he’s adapted nicely, though like us, he’s keen to get back to Melbourne.
There’s lots more to say, but I’m going to let it digest and post more comments on my thoughts when I’ve got more regular internet access (i.e., I’m at home) and I’ve given the thoughts time to settle.
