oxford – Dan Q

Note #28940

Pub lunch by the river in the Spring sunshine. ☀️

F-Day plus 12

It’s now twelve days since a flood struck my house, causing the ground floor to be submerged under a couple of feet of water and ultimately leading us to kick off an insurance claim process.

A home office with its floor stripped down to poured concrete and an industrial dehumidifier running. — My regular home office of the last six years sits stripped-down, with no flooring, skirting boards, or power (with the exception of the specialised circuit powering an industrial dehumidifier).

And man, a home insurance claim seems to be… slow. For instance, we originally couldn’t even get anybody out to visit us until F-day plus 10 (later improved to F-day plus 7). The insurance company can’t promise that they’ll confirm that they’ll “accept liability” (agree to start paying for anything) until possibly as late as F-day plus 17. Nobody will check for structural damage until F-day plus 19¹.

Oh, and the insurance company have advised us to look for something like a “12 month let with a 6 month break clause”, which is horrifying. We could be out of our home for up to a year.

Dan, a white man, stands with his arms raised outside a nicely-decorated converted barn. — Right now, though, we’re spending two weeks in this holiday let about half an hour’s drive from our house. It’s pretty nice, except that we have to commute over the ever-congested single-lane Burford Bridge to get the kids to and from school every day².

Some days it feels like being stuck in a nowhere-place… but simultaneously still having to make the regular everyday stuff keep ticking over. Visiting the house- currently stripped of anything damp and full of drying equipment – feels like stepping onto another planet… or like one of those dreams where you’re somewhere familiar except it’s wrong somehow.

But spending time away from it, “as if” on holiday except-not, is weird too: like we’re accepting the ambiguity; leaning-in to limbo. Especially while we’re waiting for the insurance company to do their initial things, it feels like life is both on hold, and not-allowed to be on hold.

A nervous-looking French Bulldog in a teal jumper looks up from under a desk. — The dog gets it. I had to take her to the house for a while on Monday³ and she spent the whole time leaning against my feet for reassurance.

And I worry that by the time they’re committed to paying for us to stay somewhere else for at least half a year, they lose any incentive they might have to contract for speed. There’s no hurry any more. We’re expected to just press pause on our home, but carry on with our lives regardless, pretending that everything’s normal.

So yeah, it’s a weird time.

Footnotes

¹ I’m totally committed to this way of counting the progress, which I started on F-day plus 3. I get the feeling like it might be a worthwhile way of keeping track of how long all of this takes.

² Normally, the younger and older child are able to get to school on foot or via a bus that stops virtually outside our house, each day, so an hour-plus round-trip to their schools and back up to twice a day is a bit of a drag! We’re managing to make it work with a little creativity, but I wouldn’t want to make it a long-term plan!

³ And do some work from there, amidst the jet engine-like noise of the dehumidifiers!

Note #27940

Bitterly cold and starkly beautiful, this morning: West Oxfordshire is blanketed in an impenetrably thick freezing fog.

It’s quite pretty, though I’m regretting not bringing my gloves out with me!

Note #27761

A few pockets of the morning’s freezing fog still cling to the hedgerows as the dog and I set out on a chilly West Oxfordshire morning walk.

30 Years Of Notices

This telegraph pole in the centre of Eynsham carries the scars of hosting countless community announcements, notices, and flyers over the last 30 years.

#ShowYourStripes #Oxford

Not just a global issue but a local one too. A local one… almost everywhere.

#ShowYourStripes

Three Rings ❤️ NLA

Oxford Station. Catching a train to Manchester for a get-together in memory of the Nightline Association, which will sadly be closing this year (although individual Nightlines will doubtless soldier on just as they did before the Association).

Carrying a big ol’ bag of Three Rings swag to give to basically anybody who expresses even the slightest interest. 😅

Three Rings has been supporting Nightlines since before the Nightline Association and nowadays underpins voluntary work by hundreds of other charities including helplines like Samaritans and Childline. Feeling sad that the Nightline Association is going away and looking for a new and rewarding way to volunteer? Come chat to me!

Note #26129

Good morning, Oxfordshire! A freezing-fog farewell for me, this morning, as I get up early to catch a series of buses to the airport.

Spring is coming

A lunchtime dog walk was made especially delightful by the growing warmth of the approaching British springtime. It’s really bright and pretty out, this afternoon!

Note #25369

Here in Oxfordshire we’re nowhere near the epicentre of Storm Darragh, but we’re still feeling the effects. A huge tree came down and blocked the Thorney Leys road in Witney near Burwell Meadow and the kids and I needed to take an ad-hoc diversion.

🤞 Fingers crossed for all my friends and family in worse-hit places!

Morning, Sheep

Not quite ready for wintering indoors, our village’s hardy sheep are enjoying pasturing in the large field near the school this beautiful but chilly morning.

Snow Cause for Confusion

Snuffles in the Snow. This morning’s freak snowfall in Oxfordshire is a source of some confusion on this pupper’s morning walk.

Underprepared?

Me? Underprepared? (He says, literally writing his presentation in the bar at the event…)

The Right Prop

Sometimes you just gotta have exactly the right prop for a presentation…

Oxford’s Area Code at OGN 57

Ever wondered why Oxford’s area code is 01865? The story is more-complicated than you’d think.

Modern desk telephone with an 01865 number (masked) and a keypad with letters on the buttons, 2=ABC through 9=WXYZ, with superimposed question marks between the two. — As a child, I was told that city STD codes were usually associated to the letters that appear on some telephones… but that wouldn’t make any sense for Oxford’s code!

I’ll share the story on my blog, of course. But before then, I’ll be telling it from the stage of the Jericho Tavern at 21:15 on Wednesday 17 April as my third(?) appearance at Oxford Geek Nights! So if you’re interested in learning about some of the quirks of UK telephone numbering history, I can guarantee that this party’s the only one to be at that Wednesday night!

Not your jam? That’s okay: there’s plenty of more-talented people than I who’ll be speaking, about subjects as diverse as quantum computing with QATboxen, bringing your D&D experience to stakeholder management (!), video games without screens, learnings from the Horizon scandal, and whatever Freyja Domville means by The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Scientific Method (but I’m seriously excited by that title).

Anyway: I hope you’ll be coming along to Oxford Geek Nights 57 next month, if not to hear me witter on about the fossils in our telecommunications networks then to enjoy a beer and hear from the amazing speakers I’ll be sharing the stage with. The event’s always a blast, and I’m looking forward to seeing you there!