Category Archives: Photos

Abu, Guardian of Oxford Castle.

I took a picture of this cat as it was wandering around near the Mound the other day. A lady was sitting in the sun near where I stood. I asked if the cat was hers, she nodded, and told me his name was Abu (like the character in Aladdin).

The Mound is a small hill located next to Oxford Castle. I quickly looked up Oxford Castle on Wikipedia and discovered that according to the Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis (Abingdon Chronicle), the Castle was built from 1071-1073 by the Norman baron Robert D’Oyly. My mind is fascinated with the idea that a thousand years ago, some guy chose this very site to build a moated, wooden motte-and-bailey castle. What must it have been like?

From the Oxford Castle & Prison website:

When William the Conqueror invaded England and won the Battle of Hastings in 1066, Oxford Castle was marked by the Normans as the ideal place for a motte-and-bailey castle. Norman baron Robert O’Doyly took it upon himself to build this castle. Over time, our site transformed from a castle into a prison. Today, after one millennia, Oxford Castle & Prison is a visitor attraction with a story to tell.

I’ve been in Oxford since April 2019 but have never actually visited the Castle proper. It is now closed due to the virus-that-shall-not-be-named but once it’s open, I’ll definitely bring my family along to visit this thousand-year historical site.

Nature is not mute; it is man who is deaf.

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Walking around today, I am reminded of the opening lines from the beautiful poem below:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour

From ‘Auguries of Innocence’ by William Blake

Adobe Lightroom actually had trouble importing this image into my library, initially labelling it as a duplicate of the image I took a few days earlier (seen here in Dendrite).

This was the most snow I’ve seen during all my time in the UK and I’m really happy my kids got to experience it too. I also took a couple of short videos while it was snowing heavily from the park bench that was featured in my previous post Two Views).

Location: Cutteslowe and Sunnymead Park, Oxford

Dendrites are cellular projections that function as information-gathering structures in a neuron.

According to PubMed Wikipedia, the word ‘dendrite‘ is derived from the Greek word δένδρον déndron which means “tree”.

Looking at the picture above, it’s not hard to see why neuroanatomists immediately think of trees when they peer at a neuron under a microscope.

See also: Neurons In Nature