Eye of the storm

The end of my street is pretty chaotic. There is a constant ants-nest of drivers who arrive, park skew or on the pavement, go into the nearby restaurants to pick up deliveries, come out if the food isn't ready and chat through car windows (all the gig economy workers seem to know each other), go back in, load up, drive off, get replaced by others. 

It means that more sedate things, like walking on the pavement, or residents' parking, are regularly disrupted and last night I spotted that a van was in the CoWheels car bay and the CoWheels car was in the electric-vehicle charging bay. Unhelpful. I meant to contact CoWheels to say I'd move the car when there was a space but didn't. This morning I walked up to someone on the phone by the charging point, checked he was talking to CoWheels and offered to intervene. Amazing - I didn't even need to go home and get my key-card: they unlocked the vehicle remotely, I moved it to the right place, then they relocked it remotely. 

I confess to self interest. Minutes later, after neighbour and I had introduced ourselves and I'd checked he didn't need to charge his car right now, my son turned up in an electric CoWheels vehicle from Bristol and parked it in the recharging bay. 

After we'd shared the goose egg for lunch I took him on one of my newly-discovered walks, in Magdalen College's huge grounds. Behind this bastion of serenity and privilege (the upstart 'New Building') is a deer park and a wood - right in the middle of Oxford - and local residents are allowed in. We spent nearly two hours chatting and skirting the rainclouds (extra) there and through Headington Hill Park and reached the top of South Park just in time to watch a fast-paced light-and-rain show over Oxford. 

I have an exceptionally sociable week coming up, so will be mostly absent here. I am fine!