Thesisizing

It is gorgeous now. The temperature is hovering around 70 F and I have pulled my sundresses out from the back of the closet.

This change in weather coincides with the final month of writing my thesis, which is due at noon on the 6th of May. I have been hopping between libraries, working through my literature review piece by piece. From my spot here on the third floor of the Rothermere American Institute, I can see students lying in the grass; she has taken her shoes off and he shields his eyes with his forearm.

So I can't believe it, but I am going to pray for rain. Beg for clouds. Plead for fog and damp and grey. I quite disliked Landes's Wealth and Poverty of Nations, but today I subscribe to the climate thesis: some places, be they warm and sunny and hospitable, simply undermine the production of hard work.

Bring back the dour, baleful cloud! For it is what has made Oxford great!

High Table

The culmination of Jess's visit was a formal dinner at the College. Though held twice a week throughout term time, they feel special. The night begins with wine and sherry in the Observatory Common Room; everyone is dressed up and the room is particularly beautiful at night. And the night ends there too - coffee and chocolates before heading home.

Here we are dressed to the nines; Jess was particularly excited that the College Fellows were in their academic robes.

Oxford Spring

I have promised Nonnie to put up a few images from Jess's trip.

We were absolutely obsessed with the flowers, buds, and yellow-green willows. In the weeks since Jess has gone the daffodils have erupted, magnolia buds now look like mauve cigars, and bluebells have taken the place of crocuses and snowdrops amidst the headstones of the old cemeteries.

But we were there on the cusp - on the very edge of spring and its profusions.





We thought of Wordsworth:

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.



Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.



The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:



For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Tassie

In the few weeks before my camera died, I was able to take a few snaps of Tassie. An absolutely stunning landscape - a rougher, more alpine Maine; beaches of fine white sound out of the Caribbean with Antarctic waves; and Hobart's rose trimmed, Victorian cottages with cast iron 'lacework' framing the porches. And with the type of climate where everything seems to thrive; I have never eaten so many cherries and ripe apricots.

The first pictures are from the Boxing Day hike up Hartz Peak, to the west of Hobart. Almost everyone in the party of fifteen or so had brought leftovers from the Christmas meal, and we washed down ham, turkey, and sweets with champagne. The final picture is of Friendly Beaches where we camped (wonderful shore birds). It is good to look back; despite the stresses of the holiday it was a beautiful place, and one that I am lucky to visited.