To Bristol on the 'new' direct train service from Oxford (recently reintroduced after its unpopular abolishing 21 years ago). A shame it leaves Oxford southbound from the northbound platform, so was delayed 15 minutes while the trains to Manchester and York arrived and left, but at least I didn't have a windy, unreliable wait on the platform at Didcot.

That's all a bit esoteric, but in my life the close connection between Oxford and Bristol goes much deeper than railway schedules. Not only does Firstborn live there, but so does a very large contingent of his friends from adolescence in Oxford. And them being the lovely friendly bunch they are, I know quite a lot of them, and Oxford being the small villagey place it is, I know quite a lot of their parents too. So it was very convivial being invited to the housewarming of G, a friend of Firstborn's, meeting her partner and telling the assembled company that not one but both of G's parents were at one time my line manager. (Yes, at the same time - I had two jobs for a while.) I caught up with the daughter of another of my previous colleagues and, as we were leaving, the son of another ex-colleague came in. All in charge of the next generation with whom I'd inadvertently been doing magic - it's delightfully easy to make a 2½ year old believe that you've made something vanish then reappear. Then they want you to do it again and again and again, so you even start to get quite good at it.

Firstborn and I were off to a riotous ceilidh with another ex-Oxford contingent, among them Charlotte, who was in the Woodcraft folk group I helped lead when she was 4, and Chris, whose parents, thirty years ago, made it very clear they disapproved of my parenting. Water long, long under the bridge: everyone was very good company.

And I discovered that Chris's parents had a point: as we all gathered round the club piano to sing Christmas carols I discovered that I'd omitted to teach Firstborn the words to any of them. Oops.

After we'd galloped and swung ourselves into almost everyone else but, somehow, managed to sidestep almost everyone's toes, the dancing ended, and all the Oxford group went on to another club - except for Firstborn and me because... tomorrow.