An early birthday weekend

Like the Queen who has an "official" birthday at a different time to her actual birthday, so this is my birthday weekend. Emma came back from London on Friday evening in time for an Indian takeaway and a movie. Then today, she and I went into Oxford for the afternoon on a trip focused on eating pancakes and book buying.

As always, our good intentions to try a savory pancake are quickly forgotten. My current favourite is the maple syrup and banana - Emma's is the apple compot.

From there it is round to Blackwells and a half hour spent in the Norrington Room, where we each buy a couple of books. Emma gets a guidebook to Shanghai and Beijing ready for her trip this September plus a new Tim Hartford book, Adapt. I buy the new paperback edition of Sorkin's Too big to Fail plus a book I haven't seen before, Peter Brandt's Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader

My main presents this year have also been books - due from Amazon before Wednesday. Francois Dosse's Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: Intersecting Live, Barton Biggs' A Hedge Fund Tale and Ann Blair's Too Much to Know

Our evening is spent at the Blue Boar, our village pub.


Overall, a very nice "official" birthday