Sunday 9 June 2013

Walking to Oxford

Last week I walked from London to Oxford. Sue and I started at our old front door in Tottenham, had breakfast and a cup of tea with our old tenants, then walked west and south through various London parks (Alexandra, Highgate, Hampstead, Primrose Hill, Regents, Hyde), joining the Thames Path at Battersea and following it until we reached our new front door in Oxford. It's a journey that takes an hour on the train – it took us 9 days on foot. This journey was a way of marking our transition from our life in London to our new life in Oxford, a transition that began with a 10 week placement in a fantastic neuroscience lab in the Dept of Pharmacology at Oxford. This temporary stay here has morphed, quite unexpectedly, into a 2-year postdoc position in the same lab, preceded by me (hopefully) finishing my PhD here instead of at UCL (although I am still officially a UCL student). Very exciting for me – I love the city, I love the lab, and I love the work this lab does – but a big step for Sue, poor thing, who has had to give up her job as a church leader and move with me to Oxford where she must start again with house, work, church, and networks of friends. She's been courageous and cheerful through the whole process so far – her supportive attitude has made my whole neuroscience adventure possible, from the tentative beginning to where I am now.