Wednesday it must be Wallingford.

I was struck by a great sense of joyful familiarity as we were driven from Reading to Wallingford yesterday by our good friend Kathy Mansfield - who took time off from the Oxford Literary Festival.

It seems colder than March of previous stays but much else remains the same.  More houses but still plenty of green space and farms.  Didcot still chuffing out smoke. Faint smell of wood fires in the street.   Waitrose dominates high street and its old store effectively vacant.

The Lime Tree on St John's Green is flourishing although there are worries about the depth of its roots. I played a role as head of CABI in advising that a Lime be selected to replace the old dying oak tree planted more than a 100 years ago so I take a bit of responsibility for its welfare. The old metal seat on the Green has been restored to its place of pride around the tree and a new plaque added to record its planting in December 2005.

Kites, reintroduced to Oxfordshire some twenty years ago, are now prolific but limited to the County.

Later, we walked around town and I spent some time in the Old Post Office (OPO) enjoying a coffee. Kathy Mansfield dropped in to spend some time by the fire and talking about highlights of the Festival with me searching for talks on the science/religion interface.  Talks which I had already missed included one by AC Grayling dealing with arguments against religion and whether arguments for belief stand up to scrutiny and posits humanism as a view of the world and a foundation for morality.  I am reading Jonathan Sack's 'The Great Partnership: God Science and the Search for Meaning.  On the surface, I find Sack's argument that faith has always played a part in human culture and that it inspires people to acts of moral greatness, though undoubtedly true, as curiously unsatisfactory as a basis for belief  and somehow placing religion on a par with science. I find myself with a problem when articles of faith for some religions - such as the resurrection of Jesus - clash obviously with the facts of science. This is a particular problem when I read that faith pivots on the literal acceptance of the resurrection as fact.

Still, I must read on.