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 New, of course), seeing old friends and meeting new, doing my teaching in actual physical space. Reviewing my notes on the train, which almost always improves these presentations. Getting out of Oxford for a few hours. Having an Egg mayo sandwich from M&S for lunch, unless they have the falafel wrap.
The government seems disposed to allow us in-person teaching next term; I’ll probably have the jab by then, which will be good, though I’m a bit restlessly impatient. It’s sixth week; well more than halfway through Hilary Term, more indeed than halfway through the academic year (and my Trinity is scheduled to be much less ardduous than the past two terms).
I’ve run for about two weeks in a row; I last skipped a day on a Saturday, I think, during the frigid snap, then ran every day in the cold, and every day last week when the weather was more clement.