All posts in February 2021

This afternoon I’m going to Blackburn [digitally, alas] to give a talk on Mark’s Gospel (the gospel for Year B, apart from all the Sundays John elbows in) for a clergy teaching day. That circumstance engenders in me a rueful recollection of taking the bus to the train, the train to Blackburn (change at Birmingham…

Before so much of the data bearing on site visits, links in and out, analytics, and so on were locked away from curious civilians and reserved to Facebook and various advertising companies, I would peruse my referrer logs from time to time, and learn of new friends taking interest in what I wrote, or discover…

I’ve been running daily, conducting my classes, tutorials, and meetings (all on Zoom) (not running on Zoom, I mean, but the rest of my work), and it entirely wipes me out. My eye is twitchy, the one that was clubbed when I was fag-bashed in high school, and my right foot has sundry aches and…

The weather has warmed, and I’ve been running my full distance. Teaching has resumed, though this is the last week of teaching for assessed Common Awards classes here at St Stephen’s House; on the other hand, my share in Oriel teaching kicks into gear for the next four weeks. Days are getting noticeably longer. Our…

-4° again this morning, so I took a short run. The muscles over my cheekbones — especially the left side, the side of my face that was smashed when I was beaten up in secondary school — are twitchy, which I ordinarily associate with weariness and stress. This morning, though, begins three days free from…

St Stephen’s House observes a long weekend between Fourth and Fifth Weeks, with no college obligations from Thursday to Tuesday. I have a tutorial today, and a rescheduled staff meeting, but as of this afternoon I will be caught up and I will run no risk of falling behind again for a few days. It’s…

Down to -4° this morning, making this (I think) the longest consistently cold stretch I remember in our winters here. Yes, I’ve lived in Maine and Chicago and Connecticut, where 25° is no big deal, but I’ve also lived in Florida where it would have been near to the end of the world. The UK…

-3° and a light breeze, but I went ahead and set out for my run. I cut it short at a mile, though, because I’m not crazy.

So, I did run this morning, though it’s -2°. I intended just to run my mile, taking a short cut to avoid some less-travelled pavements, but I felt good enough and the pavements seemed clear enough that I went for the whole mile-and-a-half. (I know this is nowt to you real runners out there, but…

I ran yesterday morning at 0°, but this morning it’s -2° and the pavements are crusted with occasionally-slippery frozen precipitation, and I am not so crazy as to risk falling, so it’s back to a new streak tomorrow (assuming).

The weekend, I mean. I have work to do, but since I can’t get done as much work effectively during the week as the regular term requires, I will spend part of my Saturday and Sunday on business. Naetheless, the pace and feeling-tone of the weekend are different, innit, and hardly anything is strictly timetabled,…

And pandemanxiety. I’ve just felt entirely stretched thin over the past weeks — my various basic responsibilities have taken all the concentration and determination I can muster. At any given moment, I feel as though I might just plop down and fall sleep on the spot. Not so much while I’m running, though, which I…