November

Following her First in Honour Mods, Jay was awarded the Armorel Daphne Heron-Allen Scholarship at Lady Margaret Hall, an annual award to an outstanding student in the life sciences. It carries a substantial financial award, a voucher for books from Blackwell’s and an invitation to the annual dinner for new scholars and exhibitioners. Well done, Jay!

In the bowls club quiz on Saturday 1, we lost on the tie-break question. We agreed to set the next one in February.

Teresa visited Jay in Oxford several times and Jay had one weekend at home. On Wednesday 19, Jay went to the Scholars’ Dinner at her college. It turned out that the Heron-Allen Scholar is the top scholar of the year, so she was the guest of honour, seated between the Principal and the Senior Tutor. She wore her scholar’s gown over a new dress bought for the occasion, and declared the meal was the best steak she had ever eaten.

Fizzy the Fiat had an MOT and service without any major alarm. However, the central heating system delivered its usual winter problem of loss of pressure – at one stage within a couple of hours – triggering a call to the gas board, and the start of a series of maintenance visits, with the problem not yet resolved. But the neighbours, whose system has suffered similar symptoms, told us that it has now been fixed, so it may be that ours has the same fault and will also be put right soon.

Home Diary 2008