Mid-week musings

After a very mild fortnight, where the daily maximum has been around 13°C, the weather has started to cool down and deliver the wintry chill that I was expecting. I think there might be a frost tonight, and I have been rugged up in scarf, beanie, gloves, and windproof coat for the cycle trips to and from work.

Today was one of those crisp winter days, with the sky a bright washed out blue, and striking monochrome streetscapes as the light reflected glaringly from left-over puddles sprawled across the dark bitumen. The sun is now so low on the horizon that at 2:30 in the afternoon my shadow is 10m long. The Thames is very full at the moment, and Port Meadow—the vast unploughed field north-west of the city—is starting to develop small lakes as a foreground to the rows of skeleton trees that bound it. We’ve had only a little rain over the last few days, unlike other parts of England that have been deluged, but the showers can come and go with startling rapidity (“Oooh! Where did that come from? Oh. That’s good, it’s gone again!”).

One of the scary things is that it was only yesterday—seemingly—that I hit the half-way mark, and today I am just about down to the start of my last three weeks. I can’t believe how quickly the weeks have disappeared. I still have so much I want to do.

Today I had lunch at Jesus College as the guest of the daughter of a friend and work colleague from Melbourne. She is a senior research fellow doing research in chemistry and is also becoming more involved in the work and teaching of the college (as a very silly (but actually quite important) example, she is the vegetarian nominee on the committee to select the next head chef!). Jesus College is far, far older and more traditional than Linacre. It has a wonderful old library with an upper balcony accessed by a tiny spiral staircase and rows of archaic books in Latin, and the students’ dining room is surprisingly tiny (it cannot fit all the students at once), with panelled walls, wooden benches, a contemporaneous portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (the college’s nominal founder (in fact, the main instigator was a Welshman)) and a Christmas tree in the corner (since Christmas has to be celebrated before all the students go home at the end of the present Michaelmas term).

In chatting to one of the college members over lunch I was a bit stunned to hear him refer to the college’s first female junior research fellow, as if he were referring to an event that occurred only last week. It was longer ago than that … but it still seemed rather too recent to me! There are many traditions in Oxford … and breaking them seems not to be done easily!

PS I forgot to add one extra piece of information to last week’s account of religious singing. The compere of the Interfaith concert was the chair of the Oxford Pagan Circle. Like I said: about as ecumenical as it is possible to get at one event! [This has now been added to that blog entry.]