Oxford - my favourite city

I’ve got a serious moving house habit. One that dates back to my childhood, when my father was in the RAF and we moved houses (sometimes countries) every year. I was always the new girl at school – the Billy No Mates who didn’t have a clue who to give my dinner money to or where to hang my PE bag.

It's a habit that's stuck. We’ve moved house an embarrassing 12 times in the last 25 years, and just like me, my children have been to a ridiculous number of schools. Friends who still use antiquated address books grumble that our page is a mess of crossings-out and ask why we can’t stay in one place for a while.

But now we live in Oxford, we might just do that. Samuel Johnson wrote that “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” and I feel the same about Oxford. One of the most beguiling cities in the world, it’s got everything – fine architecture, breathtaking views and a reputation for academic excellence second to none.

It’s a city that’s always been associated with creativity, ideas and innovation. The best-known architects of their age designed some of the country’s most inspiring buildings here – from Sir Christopher Wren’s magnificent Sheldonian Theatre (above) to James Gibbs’s Radcliffe Camera, a domed library built to house medical and scientific books. Oxford has also inspired some of our greatest writers. Lewis Carroll, creator of Alice in Wonderland, was a mathematics don at Christ Church, the Inklings, a group of writers that included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein, used to discuss their work in the Eagle and Child pub in St Giles and Matthew Arnold immortalised the city’s “dreaming spires.”

Oxford is renowned for doing things first. It boasts the UK’s oldest botanic garden, as well as the exquisitely-restored Ashmolean, the first public museum in the world. William Morris launched the UK’s first mass-produced car here in the 1920s and it was at Oxford’s Radcliffe Infirmary in 1941 that penicillin was first used on a patient, founding the science of antibiotics.

The city’s moved with the times too. Once renowned for its Brideshead Revisited image, it’s probably just as famous these days for Inspector Morse and BMW’s stylish Mini, which is manufactured at the company’s Cowley plant.

Perhaps the best thing about Oxford is the passion it inspires in tourists and residents alike. Crime doyenne PD James said that “the air buzzes with intellectual argument and laughter.” What more could you ask of a city?

My favourite restaurant - Quod, 92-94 High Street, Oxford.
My favourite cinema - Phoenix Picturehouse, 57 Walton Street, Oxford.
My favourite pub - The Trout, Godstow Road, Wolvercote, Oxford.
My favourite bookshop - Blackwell's, 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford.
My favourite place for coffee - The Grand Cafe, 84 High Street, Oxford.
My favourite walk - A stroll through University Parks or across Port Meadow.

Baking, learning Welsh and hill-walking - the Duchess of Cambridge's new life

“Lonely Kate moves Pippa in.” That’s the headline emblazoned in pink and white lettering across the cover of this week’s Grazia magazine. The story inside claims that while Prince William works all hours as an RAF search and rescue pilot, his bride is becoming “increasingly isolated and bored” at home in remote North Wales.

I’ve no idea how accurate the report is but if it’s true then I’m not surprised she’s fed up. Apparently she fills the lonely hours by baking, learning Welsh and hill-walking. Not the most scintillating pastimes for a 49-year-old, let alone a young woman of 29.

Palace aides are reportedly so concerned that Kate’s lifestyle is too middle-aged that the magazine says the royal couple have decided she’ll spend every other week in London – with her sister Pippa by her side.

Marrying into the Royal Family can’t be easy but since Kate is talented, clever (she’s got a 2:1 art history degree from St Andrew’s University) and personable I don’t understand why she doesn’t work. As Noel Coward once said, work is “more fun than fun,” and if Kate had more to occupy her days I bet she’d be more fulfilled.

Seasoned royal watchers often remark that it’s impossible to combine a royal role with a career, but William and Harry seem to manage just fine. And Princess Anne’s children, Peter and Zara Phillips, too. But if Kate really can’t find a career that uses her skills, then why doesn’t she roll up her sleeves and throw herself into full-time charity work? She wouldn’t have time to be bored.

PS: The new film of Jane Eyre (above) is a triumph from start to finish. Australian actress Mia Wasikowska is brilliant as Charlotte Bronte’s eponymous heroine, plain and mouse-like one minute, passionate and brave the next, while Michael Fassbender is the best Mr Rochester I’ve seen in years. The real star of the show, however, is the wild, windswept Derbyshire landscape. Gazing at the majestic moors and high stone crags made me want to move north on the spot.

Life and Fate on Radio 4's Start the Week - and bumping into an old friend

Another upside of working from home (see previous blog), is that every now and again you can escape from work without a grumpy boss raising an eyebrow.

So yesterday I walked to St Peter’s College in Oxford to listen to a special recording of Andrew Marr’s Start the Week. The beautiful Victorian chapel was packed to the gunnels for the event, one of a series of discussions to mark Radio 4’s forthcoming dramatisation of Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman. It promises to be one of the must-listens of the year, with Kenneth Branagh and David Tennant starring, yet I’m ashamed to admit that until this week I barely knew anything about Grossman.

But as Marr (shorter and more dapper in real life than I’d expected) and his guests – historian Antony Beevor and writers Linda Grant and Andrey Kurkov – revealed, Grossman’s story is a tragic, but fascinating one.

Scientist turned writer Grossman was a formidable journalist. Writing for Red Star, the Red Army’s newspaper, he wrote eyewitness accounts of the Soviet retreat, the defence of Stalingrad and the fall of Berlin. He was also the first journalist to reach the hideous Nazi concentration camp of Treblinka.

After the Second World War, he became increasingly critical of the Stalinist regime. In the early 1960s, after he submitted Life and Fate for publication, Politburo ideology chief Mikhail Suslov decided it could be published – but not for 200 years. KGB officers raided Grossman’s flat and seized the manuscript, copying paper and even his typewriter ribbons. Grossman died in 1964 assuming that nobody would ever read his novel. Actually, it turned out later that he’d given a copy to a friend and a network of dissidents managed to smuggle it out of the country.

Many critics now compare Life and Fate, the history of a nation told through one family’s eyes, to War and Peace. In fact Linda Grant told the Oxford audience that she’d not only failed to finish War and Peace but that she reckons Life and Fate is a better novel. That was enough for me. After the talk I dashed straight round to Blackwell’s in Broad Street to buy a copy. Not only that, when the Radio 4 dramatisation starts on September 18 I’m going to be glued to the radio. Meanwhile you can hear the Start the Week debate on Monday at 9am.

PS: “That’s funny,” I thought as I headed home along a packed Cornmarket. “From the back that man walks just like my old friend Pete Davies. He’s got exactly the same long stride and laid-back manner.” Pete and I were at school together but he lives 200 miles away in Yorkshire and I haven’t seen him for 15 years. The closer I got the more extraordinary the likeness of his walk seemed. I shouted “Pete” in a discreet way, just in case the man turned out to be a complete stranger. And guess what? The man turned round in puzzlement, glanced at me and glanced again. Slowly recognition dawned on his face. It was Pete!

Working from home, Brora and memories of Lancashire

Sitting in my study watching the Oxford traffic trundle past my window (above), I yearn to work in a sleek sky-scraper, with a state-of-the-art coffee machine, decent photocopier and the buzz of working alongside other people. There are lots of brilliant things about working from home – no commuting, no boss breathing down my neck and, until my children turned into ultra-independent teenagers, no last-minute panics when they were off school.

But I hate the solitude, the people who assume that just because you’re at home you’re lolling around doing nothing all day and in the winter months, the cold. Even though it’s only September, I’ve been so freezing this week that I’ve already started wearing my cosy Brora fingerless gloves in my office every day.

Even so, it’s nothing compared to the three years we spent living in a draughty farmhouse in the wilds of Lancashire. Our north-facing house was perched on the side of a hill and all we could see were fields and sheep. It was stunning but even in summer the temperature was always a few degrees lower than anywhere else. I frequently set off to collect my daughter from school wrapped in a thick coat and scarf to find everyone else basking in bright sunshine. The gales that whistled round the side of the house sounded like someone was being murdered and had to be heard to be believed. The sheep had to be stark, raving desperate to venture as far as the field next to us.

The house, which we rented from an aristocratic landowner, didn’t have any central heating at all so we had to light open fires all year round. We got through so much coal that Mr Wilkinson, the tough, no-nonsense driver who battled the wind, rain and snow to deliver our fuel, declared we were his very best customers. When I rang one Christmas to order yet more coal, I asked his wife how much we’d need to see us through until the New Year. “Tell her a wagon-load,” chuckled Mr Wilkinson from the background.

Sam Cam's shoes

Samantha Cameron always looks stylish, even when she’s watching the Highland Games at Braemar. She has glossy hair that’s never out of place, a high-flying career at Smythson and has transformed Number Ten into a house that looks straight out of The World of Interiors.

Now, if that wasn’t enough, she’s proved she really is Superwoman. Striding along the pavement on a mile-long walk from Downing Street in aid of Save the Children yesterday, she sported a pair of Topshop stilettos. Stilettos. With four and a half inch heels. On a walk. My admiration shows no bounds. In her shoes (no pun intended), I would have ditched the heels and plucked a pair of Converse or ballet pumps out of my bag.

I’m a complete failure in the high heel stakes. After a summer of wearing espadrilles and pumps I tried wearing my favourite (and usually blissfully comfortable) platforms. When I got out of the car I had to walk at such a snail’s pace that my husband got fed up with waiting and strode in without me. At the end of the evening I gave up the battle and walked back to the car park in bare feet. I’m worried I’ll never wear heels again. And at my height, that’s not a good look.

PS: Back in May, David Cameron asked Mary Queen of Shops, alias the wonderful Mary Portas, to carry out an independent review of the nation’s high streets – with a view to bringing back “the bustle” to our town centres.

If anyone can do it, Mary can, but I wish she’d persuade all shops to match the amazing customer service offered by John Lewis. Working from home, I look forward to a skinny latte every morning. So I was thrilled to discover a new Dualit gadget called a Lattecino to heat and froth the skimmed milk. It’s a great idea, except I’m now on my fifth. The first, bought from John Lewis in High Wycombe, stopped working after a few weeks. I took it back to John Lewis and they changed it without a murmur. And again. And again. And again. Four times in fact. How impressive is that?

I didn’t get such exemplary treatment at River Island today. The strap of my son’s bag snapped for no reason so I returned it to River Island, along with the receipt. The assistant took it to the manager’s office (he didn’t deign to talk to me) and told me there was nothing they could do. “It’s obviously had some wear and tear,” she said. Well yes. It’s a teenage boy’s school bag. Surely that doesn’t mean the strap should break without reason?

Is four too young to start school?

September is the month of new school uniform, sharpened pencils, and melancholy that the long summer holidays are over for another year. With my son starting year 13 tomorrow, his last year of school, I’m feeling extra nostalgic. It seems no time at all since his very first day, when he was a small boy with white-blond hair, a uniform that was far too big for him and a wide grin.

Actually, looking back, I’m sure he started school far too young. His birthday is in August and he was exactly four years and three weeks old when he pitched up in the reception class of a primary school in North Yorkshire, where we lived at the time.

He was utterly bewildered to be plunged into the classroom when all he wanted to do was play outside. At play school in the village hall he’d resolutely refuse to sit still and write or draw, always rushing to ride around on toy cars or play in the sandpit. It would have suited him much better if we'd lived somehwre like Sweden, Denmark or Finland (a superstar performer when it comes to education), where formal school is delayed till the age of seven. Up until then, young children focus on “play-based” learning and spend as much time as possible outdoors.

A primary school teacher friend of mine has been telling me for years that children start school too young here. She reckons school is especially difficult for boys between the ages of four and six. They hate sitting still for long stretches, loathe colouring in endless worksheets (girls love it!) and would far rather be charging around the playground. She always makes sure her lot get plenty of time outside. Even on rainy days she sticks on her coat at the small primary where she teaches and everyone goes outside for 20 minutes to run off steam.

At 17, my son’s had more than enough time to get used to the notion of school – but as a boy who prefers action, he’s still not ultra-keen. Even now he’d rather be whizzing down hills on his bike than sitting in a classroom learning about protons and neutrons and memorising French verbs.

PS: The picture above shows him with his big sister at the age of seven, on a hearty Lake District climb.