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.