Martin and Margot Hodson, Christmas Letter 2023

Dear All,

Christmas comes again! Our big news this year is that we have bought a new house and will be moving at the end of April. We will have had nearly five years in the benefice in West Oxfordshire. Things have steadied after the pandemic and Margot’s colleague (who was seriously ill in 2021) is now in much better health. It has been a positive year in the benefice with the churches and villages finally feeling back to normal. Alvescot members heroically raised the funds to repair the roof and it has been wonderful to have services in the church again. Festivals continue to be the highlights and the strong links with the local schools.

Meanwhile, our environmental work keeps growing and, though we will be very sorry to leave the communities in West Oxfordshire, we have realised that it is time to focus more fully on the environment and our role in education. We looked for somewhere to live with countryside, a vibrant church, good facilities, community and public transport. To our surprise we found ourselves buying on a new estate in a village near Wantage –where Margot was curate twenty years ago. It has quick links back to Oxford and in easy reach of a mainline station on the London-Bristol rail line. We are delighted with the house and have already been able to install solar. We have a wonderful neighbours and a fantastic view of the Wantage Downs.

Because of the move much of the year has been looking at houses, clearing out or getting Lark Rise set up to move into. But we have managed several trips away. We were in Wells, Somerset in January and it was great to see friends and family there. In May we had a Midlands holiday – staying first in Sutton Coldfield (where Martin grew up) to visit some of his childhood landmarks and see Villa Women play at Villa Park. We moved on via Litchfield to Ombersley and we had a wonderful evening with Margot’s old university friend Dick and family.

In September we headed north to spend a fantastic week with Caroline Hewlett in Swaledale, with the highlight of Muker Agricultural Show. On the way south we stayed near Milton Keynes and especially enjoyed an evening with John and Sue Robertson – Margot’s training incumbent.

Martin speaking at the Theological
Educators conference in July

Holidays and houses apart, it has been a busy year for environmental education and we are currently setting up to teach a Master’s module at All Nations College (online) as well as writing units for an online Master’s module at the London School of Theology. Margot has also contributed to a new ‘Eco College’ scheme with A Rocha UK. This is hopefully to be launched in March.

Our distance learning course, CRES, continues to be popular and it was good to add a module on Living Sustainably, written by David Gould in Bristol. A major sadness was the unexpected death of our friend John Reader, who was a senior tutor on the course and has made a huge contribution to it.

Martin’s research has unexpectedly kicked off again and he is much in demand from younger scientists wanting to tap into his expertise. He was in Brussels in June with his archaeology colleagues and Margot joined him for a few days at the end of the trip. He is also working with a group of plant scientists exploring the potential for sequestering carbon within plant silica deposition.

So a full and fruitful year and we are looking forward to a new start in 2024.

Merry Christmas

Margot and Martin