Snow and more snow

So, I was woken up this morning by a woman's voice yelling, "Oh my God!"

My immediate befuddled thought: there's a fire. There's a mistake and he isn't dead. Followed by of course there isn't a fire, of course he's still dead, of course it's nine o'clock in the morning I am going back to sleep.

Five minutes later Claire and Pat burst in yelling, "Snow, snow, snow!"

Outside my window there is a small bare tree, and although it's dripping now, then it had three inches of perfectly sculpted snow on each bough and twig. It's soft and white and utterly, viscerally magical out there. Oxford has become a city of snowmen. I think it's the gorgeous combination of a city centre full of students avoiding work, and six inches of beautifully lovely packable fabulous snow snow snow. It's snowed before. It's even snowed in Oxford before. But I swear I haven't been anywhere where there was enough snow to build a snowman since I was six years old.

My favourite of the day is certainly the one by the Radcliffe Camera, who is standing coyly on the grass next to the "Do Not Walk On The Grass sign"; other than him, there's one just round the corner on Jowett, with berries for eyes; there's a massive unformed one on the Master's Field that narahttbbs has already noted; there's one in the grounds of the Sheldonian, wearing a Jesus scarf and a welcoming expression; there's one in Balliol's garden quad; there's one just visible through Exeter lodge; there's one visible across the field in the University Parks; there are three on the steps of the Martyrs' Memorial with a sign saying "Endangered species"; there's even one by the Said Business School holding a coffee mug in one hand and the Financial Times in the other.

The Sheldonian philosopher heads have been given neat white beards, and the etching on the roofs of Herford has been finely outlined in white. It is utterly beautiful.

Claire and I decided we were going to do two hours of essay-writing before Pat and Liya came back from lectures, but we got through an hour before the siren-song of virgin snow became too much to cope with, and trudged up Holywell executing the now almost second-nature snow-waddle over the treacherous ice, and finally making it to Balliol where the atmosphere has noticeably lightened. Which is to say, about fifty people are on the back quad throwing snowballs at each other.

Oh, it's lovely out there. Eventually, and with the help of absinthe_shadow, we got to the Master's Field, gazed in awe at the huge expanse of snow that was all ours, and started to build the world's best snow-woman. She had a huge base, an even huger middle - which George insisting on putting breasts on, and a third ball of snow for the head and my polka-dot girl!Doctor hat on the top. She had half-tomatoes for buttons, a carrot for a noise, upturned tealights for eyes and twigs for smile and arms. She was seven-foot-tall monster of a snow-woman.

In fact, I nabbed hundreds of Pat's pictures, so here goes. ( warning - lots and lots of pics, it's just that beautiful out there )

All in all, it was a beautiful day. The city in this white-frosted glory never really got old, just as Oxford's beauty in general never gets old; I'm still, still, even after this term, wandering around in blank amazement that I get to study here, I get to live here, I get to see all this every day, I get to have my home here. And Trinity will be better than this term has been. I know it will. Winter won't last forever.

Having left my flatmates to the various joys of work and sandwiches, and absinthe_shadow to that of a meeting with the Warden of New, I had a coffee and a nice chat with slasheuse. Who saw the beautiful untouched snow on Jowett and naturally pelted me with it, and of course I fell ungracefully on my arse for the fourth time today and lay happily on my back in the middle of the road, looking up at the sky. Bliss.

And since then, I have written my day's essay, 1700 words on secondary qualities according to Locke and Berkeley, so I'm a good person really. Tonight no one feels like cooking, so Liya got in some frozen pizzas and in a bit I'm snow-staggering out to Sainsbury's for supplemental vegetables and dessert.

I'm okay and things are better. Snow makes a difference, surprisingly enough. Planning my essay, I was talking to Claire this morning and complaining that the amount of notes spread about my desk seems too little for three days' work, and she looked thoughtful and said she'd thought the same thing about hers. After a second I realised - we've been working, all of us, trying to work, since Monday, but have spent a lot of time staring into space, as well. This is the time lost just thinking: Andy's dead. There's snow and he isn't here to see it. You know? The thoughts that go round your head never go anywhere, but they go round and round regardless. That said, I think shockwaves make for a good metaphor - the shock has been reverberating over and under and around since Monday, but each time they pass through, they're weaker.


Just as night was falling, this was the last sight we had of the the Master's Field from our kitchen window:( Read more... )