1. Today was our departmental Christmas lunch, and an altogether different affair to the ones that I have been used to. In the past we have decamped work at midday for some city-centre restaurant, and there remained until the early evening at which point we would move onto some other watering hole, and the conversation would altogether more surreal. This year, the lunch took place in OUPâs Printerâs House – in effect a mini-stately home overlooking the main quad and in the middle of your regular office. In slightly surreal surroundings, the conversation tended to revolve more around work, and everyone went back to work, if after three hours. Still, at least the afternoon was short.
2. On getting home in the evening, I had a bit of a whistle-stop change around, incorporating cleaning my house in readiness for the weekend, putting together the smallest of overnight bags and heading back onto the road to Emmaâs to help her clean her house before our busiest of the weekend of the year, involving lunch with my parents, a Christmas concert, a visit by Emmaâs friend, and a Christmas party. And each of those things is happening in a different part of the country! Talk about a busy social life suddenly…
