Walking: Abingdon, Sutton Courtney and Culham

The weather is still a bit dismal and overcast, but it's dry so we decided to go to Abingdon and do the seven and a half mile circuit we didn't do last weekend anyway.



The walk starts in Abingdon and follows the Thames Path round to just before Culham Lock, where it cuts across the main channel of the river into Sutton Courtney, loops round the village and then back over the river just below Culham Lock before heading up through Culham to rejoin the river a couple of miles upstream of Abingdon. The first part, along the river, was lovely; the walk from Culham to rejoin the river was duller, though we did spot a yellowhammer, and the latter part of that section and the start of the walk back along the river were somewhat marred by the fact that the route went right past the Culham motocross track where there was an event in full swing, which was annoyingly audible from quite a distance away and Very Loud Indeed as we passed by it. If we do this walk again I will try to check that there's nothing going on there first, but otherwise it was very pleasant (and nicer than the walk we've done before which included the same bits of the Thames Path, but more dull walking through streets and overgrown fields).

Linkspam

Enchanted forests: the women shaking up nature writing - I enjoy reading about nature and landscape but struggle to find diverse voices in the genre, so it's good to read about how the Forestry Commission's 2019 writers in residence are bringing some welcome diversity to a genre that is overwhelmingly white and male.

The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power, by Karen Osbourne - a fabulous story about entrenched inequality and having the courage to change things.

White Hart, Black Knight, by Alex Bledsoe - I clicked through to read this because of the name, but really enjoyed its noirish take on Arthurian fantasy, with better gender politics.

Confronting racism is not about the needs and feelings of white people - this is a really good article about anti-racism and why it needs to be centred on the voices and experiences of people of colour, not white allies.

The Day the Dinosaurs Died - a fascinating piece about the asteroid strike that marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene eras, and an paleontological find so extraordinary I find it hard to believe it can really be true.

Deborah Cameron on women and humour and prejudice against women who use humour in the workplace - I found this particularly interesting as humour is an absolutely integral part of how I communicate, and I find it almost impossible not to try to be funny, whether or not that makes people view me more negatively.

Opening the Edgeworth Papers - a year-long project looking at correspondence and other material from 200 years ago begins with Maria Edgeworth's attitudes to love and marriage, which may be of particular interest to admirers of the_comfortable_courtesan.

Reclaiming the Manic Pixie Dream Girl - as someone who always identified much more with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl characters than with the more traditional female love interests, I was interested in this look at how the MPDG could be reframed in a more positive light.

I am not always very attached to being alive - on living with passive suicidal ideation.

...for me, and I suspect for countless others like me, the threat of suicide isn't like being carried over a waterfall — it is like living in the ocean. Not as sea creatures do, native and equipped with feathery gills to dissolve oxygen for my bloodstream, but alone, with an expanse of water at all sides. Some days are unremarkable, floating under clear skies and smooth waters; other days are tumultuous storms you don’t know you’ll survive, but you’re always, always in the ocean.

This is the ocean I live in, too.

'Underwear dates well': how fashion forensics are helping solve crimes - I was hugely impressed with Amber Butchart's TV series A Stitch in Time last year, and loved this piece on how she is using her knowledge of fashion history to help crime scene investigators to date bodies.

'It is a religion': how the world went mad for Moomins - a lovely article about Tove Jansson's Moomin series and the forthcoming TV series (which I will definitely be watching!).