Choristers at dawn on Magdalen Tower on May Morning–a tradition which still continues today!
Baisakhi in Oxford
As we were eating in window seats of the First Floor Restaurant in Oxford yesterday, we saw a very colourful Sikh procession pass.
Irene was beside herself as she saw all the things she had learnt about in her unit on Sikhism. Men holding dashing kirpans (swords). Women with brilliant sarees and shalwars and long hair. No kaccha, underpants, on display though. Men in saffron, women in every shade of the rainbow.
The funniest part was the cops on their bikes behind the procession, regular white Oxford lads, laughing and joking, and looking most out of place in all this exotica.
I love living in a cosmopolitan city!
A Walk Through University Parks, Oxford
Lovely family walk yesterday. (Okay, lovely after dragging out daughters who would rather read, do homework, or commune with their computers).
We walked through the University Parks from Magdalen College to Norham Gardens where I used to live as a student at Oxford. It was a Bridehead Revisted set, complete with amusing poseurs with better sartorial than punting skills.
Everything seemed backlit, tender leaf-green and lush. Willow trees leaning into the stream. Ducks and geese on the waters, Happy punters. Families picnicking. Near perfect weather.
I love living in the same place for a long time, and observing the changes in mood and beauty from season to season.
Walking around Oxford on a Dreamy Sunday Evening
Zoe and I enjoyed a walk around Oxford at dusk on Sunday. It’s a funny place, all the colleges with their wooden doors, with an inset door half-open, offering a view of arches, doorways, secrets. It’s a place that both beckons, entices, and shuts out. The ultimate of snobbiness in many ways.
I noticed again that none of the colleges had their names on them. The theory, I’ve read, is that if you belonged, you’d know which College was which. And if you didn’t, you didn’t need to.
I suppose they were built in the days before cheap maps in every corner store. With the names of the Colleges on them.
A sweet beautiful dreamy city. I’d like to think it’s a prototype of an eternal, lovely, dreamy city, which welcomes everyone! The lovely city of God.