The Cold War Strikes Back.

[raven]

I didn't get up nearly as early as I'd planned. Instead, I spent hours and hours doing economics this morning, then went out with Claire and Pat to the Covered Market, to buy sandwiches. It was very cold, but bright and sunny and I wished very much I wasn't planning to spend the afernoon in the Bod where all the sunshine would be wasted. So about four-ish, I grabbed my textbooks and bits of paper and trekked downstairs, all ready to go to the Bod. I got outside, and well, this happened:



I immediately handed all my books to Claire to stow in her room, and we ventured out into the snow. I was entirely bemused that two hours before we'd been out in the sun, but the bemusement faded away the moment the first snowball went into my ear. First it was Claire and me, and Sky of course, throwing snowballs at people's windows, and then everyone was leaving their essays in mid-sentence and running out onto the grass. Liya kept on aiming at me specifically, so I ran after her and dumped half a metric tonne of snow down her top.

Pat decided she wanted to take more pictures, so she told me to please keep still -



- which was a problem, given Liya was on the warpath. (There was snow in my ears. My ears, I tell you.) Sky was pursuing some sort of vendetta of his own:



While Claire rugby-tackled Liya and rolled her over and over in the snow.



By this point a large proportion of the college was out there playing. I saw Sagar, who said he didn't have time. Who doesn't have time to play in the snow? Who gets to play in the snow in an Oxford college quad in March more than once in a lifetime? Some people need their priorities straightening out. And we had such, such fun, and everyone got rolled in the snow several times by the people they call their friends. It was joyous. More pics:



Me, mid-fight, along with all the others who were too busy to look at the camera.



Snowball fight pioneers.



Sky and Pat.



Everyone, happily waving from a great distance.



College in all its glory.



The Fellows' garden, unmarked by undergraduate feet. And, talking of feet, this is what mine looked like by the end:



And just then, when we'd all been snowballed into oblivion and had a go at everyone, including the Dean, Sky got to searching for new targets. His eye spied Dhruv, standing pretentiously outside the JCR with single cigarette and gazing wistfully into the far distance. "Time to go inside," Sky said, casually. "I need to put stuff on the noticeboard."

"I'll come with you," I said. "What is it you're putting on it?"

"About a culture-related film on Friday," he said, "given that I'm Ethnic Minorities Officer... excuse me..." Without missing a beat, we both let fly at once. I really, really wish we'd been in front of Dhruv so we could have seen his face as four handfuls of snow hit him at once; as it was, we emerged from the JCR in heaps of giggles to find him disgustedly picking bits of snow off his waistcoat. "You're horrible people," Claire told us. I was too busy dying laughing to mind.

And then I had to get my books for real and tramp out across the now mostly-deserted quad, really on the way to the library this time. I walked out onto Broad Street, which was sunny and a little wet, and I looked across the gates to see Trinity's grounds untouched. I guess they don't play there because they're not allowed to walk on the grass. It all seemed a bit like a fading dream as I wandered away from college. But I walked into the Bodleian dripping wet, with snowmelt and bits of grass and caked mud falling out of my hair, and I was so happy, because it was wonderful.

Comments

[--kali--.livejournal.com]

I can't believe some actually said that they didn't have time to play in the snow. I'm sure there's some old half-forgotten law banning such crazy talk.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

There are such people, apparently. I wish to be shot if I should ever be overheard saying such a thing...

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

This entry made me grin like an idiot. Snow fights are so much fun!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, they are! They really are, and I hadn't one in literally years.

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

Me neither!
It was a highschool tradition - annual all school interhouse snow fight until the year we smashed the headmaster's car windshield. Tee hee.

[ceciley.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you photographed - I was admiring the snow in a wistful way earlier.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It's beautiful, isn't it? I'm so glad there were pictures, because the snow vanished overnight.

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

Aw! That sounds like so much fun. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was! *g*

[thecapitalc.livejournal.com]

:D I was in Trinity having a tute when that happened, surprised I didn't hear the manic yelling :P Oh, and I see we have a mutual friend! Sam

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Aww, how do you know Sam? (He's lovely; I met him through Claire and IMSoc.) Very, very surprised you didn't hear the manic yelling!

[thecapitalc.livejournal.com]

Met him through Connie and Laura (his girlfriend). Am astounded I didn't hear yelling, esp. as Trinity is right next door!

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

I live in Scotland and have got no snow. Colour me jealous - glad to see you used it properly!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Good choice of icon! (And, seriously, no snow? In Scotland? Colour me bemused!)

[gwynnega]

Aww, that looks like fun. I have actually never been in snow before! (I've seen a couple of blobs of it on the ground near Las Vegas, but that's all!)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Isn't Las Vegas in the desert? *is v. ignorant of US geography* And ooh, you must find snow to play in even if you have to go somewhere specially. It makes me want to be five again!

[gwynnega]

Yes, Las Vegas in in the desert - but the desert gets very cold in the wintertime! :-)

(Though actually the snow I saw was near Vegas, but not actually there...)

[kismeteve.livejournal.com]

What a gorgeous, gorgeous place to live/work/play in the snow.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It is! Oh, it really is. Of course the snow does help, but every so often I do just stand there gaping at how beautiful it all is, and how lucky I am to live here. [/shameless sentiment]

[tau_sigma]

Oh, oh, oh! I want snow! We were forecast snow for yesterday afternoon, but it didn't come. Of course, we are also forecast it for today... *squints hopefully at the sky* Nah, it's lovely, blue and clear, so no snow methinks. Glad to see your snow was properly appreciated, anyway. *g* Hope you have more!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Did it snow, in the end? My sources inform me it snowed at home in Liverpool, so it looks like the north is getting it too!

[tau_sigma]

No, sadly. There was a very small amount around lunchtime, but only for about 15 minutes, and it didn't settle. I keep seeing people driving around Durham with snow on their cars, though, so it must have snowed decently nearby! And I have been assured by my college dad that it will snow, and we'll all be fed up of walking to lectures in it soon enough. Oh for the chance! *g*

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Splendid pictures! We had snow here, too, and though I lacked anyone to throw snowballs at (and it didn't lie; they would have been marbles) I did go and sit on the swing amid the swirling flurries, which was shiny and fun if freezing fucking cold.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ah, snow! It's worth the cold and the flurries, because it's just so pretty. I do feel for your lack of people to throw marbles at, and there's something I never thought I'd say...

[amchau.livejournal.com]

At least, not having thrown any, I didn't lose any of my marbles.

(I bet you didn't except to say "bless his mpreg baby", either. [/cross-referencing comments threads] )

[elanorkat.livejournal.com]

What lovely photos!

I couldn't believe yesterday's snow actually settled! We got some down in Wallingford, but we drove into Oxford for a class last night and were, like, 'they got loads more than us!' I was quite jealous! :-)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*is smug* We got snow! Actually, it was mostly gone by this morning. I guess I was right, and it won't happen more than once in a lifetime, at least not in March...

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

OMG PICTURES!

It started snowing about twenty minutes before I got on the bus out of Oxford, just my luck. But. Yay!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yay! It was lovely. Where were you off to?

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

I went up to Manchester (seven and a half hours on buses, omg) to see soupytwist, who had been ill and whom I missed. :)