Care to join us for a walk?

While Sydney and Katherine were away, Nathaniel and I had a chance to spend whole mornings out for walks on our favorite routes.  So that I can remember them in future years, and so that you can see some of our daily life here, I took pictures along the way.  I spared you the city-street stuff, though even that’s not bad: three or four blocks on a quiet street before we turn onto this cycle track.

Then we turn off onto a path that goes down Mesopotamia.  Yes, it gets its name because it, like the real Mesopotamia, has a river on either side.  There is water five feet from the path on both sides, a fact that once again seems lovely now that Nathaniel’s old enough not to run straight toward the water.

The path continues to an old mill, where a short track pours you out at the doorstep of another lovely, ancient park.  But we usually turn around at the mill and return up this path (which means I sometimes barrel past the same people twice in one walk).  Both kids love this little bridge off the path:

And back up the path:

Then we take the cycle track out over the fields and pastures of a farm that is so wonderfully English, tucked right in the middle of a town.  Am I the only one who thinks of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I see these lamp posts out in the middle of green space?

We usually see cows, horses, and birds at the farm.  Now that I’ve discovered a playground just behind it, this area really does seem perfect for two country kids raising a family in town.

Then down a hedge-lined path and up and over the “Rainbow Bridge” that you see at the far end here, half-obscured by the willows (yes, there is a river here, too).  The bridge is quite steep, so you get a great view of the surrounding area.

And then you’re back in the University Parks, which is the site for most of the pictures we post from Oxford.  After you leave the bridge, you are welcomed back to the parks by the shade of this gigantic beech tree (with an umbrella maybe 40 feet across?).

Erin