Urban, well Oxonian, poetry

Gargoyles on the chapel. I think I need to take some closeups of those faces.

The Old Warden's Lodgings

Warden is the name given to the head of the college, so this building was formerly his residence (three women have been warden here, including the current warden, but that's obviously more recent than this building.)

It's now one of the libraries; I haven't gone there yet because the Bodleian is only a ten-minute walk away and I'd rather sit in Duke Humfrey's. There's another library here in Mob Quad that is unfortunately closed for renovations. It is supposed to be haunted by a Royalist who was executed during the English Civil War.

Old glass

You aren't allowed to take photos in the best reading room in the Bodleian, Duke Humfrey's Library, and I've tried to be unobtrusive in taking pictures even in areas where photography is allowed. (Also, I'm trying to focus on working and not gawking when I'm there.)

This is the view through the window in one of the other reading rooms—you can see the top of the Radcliffe Camera. I love the bubbles in the old glass.

Old Schools Quadrangle

The Bodleian entrance is at one side of the Schools Quad. The buildings on the other three sides date from the early 17th century and were originally lecture rooms. The names of the original departments (in Latin) still appear above the doorways.

The Bodleian

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

That's the oath I had to recite in order to get my reader's card for the Bodleian.

Every college at Oxford has its own library, but the Bodleian is the main research library for all of the colleges. There are three main buildings: the Weston Library, which is new and houses special collections, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Old Bodleian.

This is the entrance to the Old Bodleian. That jolly-looking fellow is the Earl of Pembroke, who was Chancellor of the University of Oxford in the 17th century. Thomas Bodley, who rebuilt the library in the late 16th-early 17th centuries after it had been stripped and abandoned during the Reformation, has to settle for the plaque over the doorway. And of course having the library named for him.

Hall

Sometimes Oxford just wants to be rendered in black and white.

This is where we have our meals, “in Hall,”as they say here, banishing those uncouth articles as the English are so wont to do (in hospital, at university). Most nights dinner is informal, meaning we're served cafeteria style and seat ourselves, but twice a week we have high table dinner. We're expected to dress up, and we don't sit down until the administrators, tutors and guests eating at high table have come in, and grace (in Latin) has been read.

That's the high table on the right. Everyone gets an invitation to eat there once during the program; I'm scheduled for next week.

Bath

I spent the afternoon in Bath today—it was supposed to be a day, but the British Railway system had other ideas. It's theoretically only an hour from Oxford to Bath by train, but you have to change trains halfway there, and because the first train was a few minutes late we missed the connection to the second train, and had to wait on the platform at Didcot Parkway (an English name if I ever heard one) for an hour and a half.

And this was after having to stand on the very crowded train from Oxford, although I had a reserved seat in a different car. People were crammed in so tight that it was impossible to move, much less change cars, and I was half-bent over some suitcases in a corner trying very hard not to have a panic attack from claustrophobia. I did have a seat for most of the ride on the second train, but my knees and back have yet to forgive me for that first cramped half hour. So, our plan to arrive in Bath at 10:30, visit the Roman Baths for a few hours, have a nice lunch at a famous fish and chips place, and spend the afternoon visiting the Abbey and the Jane Austen Centre, turned into arriving at twelve, having tea and a scone for lunch before visiting the baths, and walking around the city for an hour before getting on the train back to Oxford.

And it was worth it. Bath is a lovely city, very different from London or Oxford, and worth seeing even for a few hours. But next time—and I hope there will be a next time—I'll try to visit when it's not the height of tourist season and spend a couple of days so I don't have to rush.

Sunday bird blogging

I haven't taken any good pictures of birds since I've been here, but this slightly blurry magpie on the Meadow Walk will do for now. At least you can see the beautiful blue of those feathers.

Back to Christ Church Meadow

I visited Christ Church Meadow my first day in Oxford, but I didn't include a picture of the actual meadow. I've now done the meadow walk—a 1.5 mile path circling the meadow—several times. Christ Church College is our next-door neighbor in Oxford, and if you go out the back gate of Merton it's a five minute walk to the meadow.

What still astonishes me is that it is an actual meadow—acres and acres of grass, in the middle of a city where land is almost as expensive as Manhattan. Which tells you how ridiculously wealthy Oxford colleges in general, and Christ Church College in particular, are.

Of course, it wouldn't be a meadow without cows.

Saturday reflections

Windows reflecting the buildings in St. Albans Quad.

Members only

The gate to the Fellows Garden.

I'm not a member of the college, obviously, but I do get to pretend for three weeks, and I confess that I get a thrill whenever I walk through this gate.

When I walked out of Hall after dinner a few nights ago, a group of tourists were standing in Merton Street peering through the gates by the Porter's Lodge. I tried very hard to look as though I belonged here, and since it was a formal night and I was wearing a dress and stockings, maybe I even succeeded.

Of course, I'm here to take a class and I'm really enjoying that as well. We meet every weekday from 9 to 12:30, with a tea and biscuit break at 10:30. We're studying the Victorian ghost story, and have been having some lively discussions about the difference between terror and horror, the reasons for the (very strange to an American) tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas, and today, do vampire stories really count as ghost stories?

The accommodations...

...are fairly basic, as you can see. A small, rather monastic bedroom, and a very large sitting room. This is an undergraduate room, and would look much better with posters on the walls and books on the shelves. (The shower is surprisingly excellent though, with good pressure and lots of hot water.)

The furniture is comfortable enough if kind of clunky, but the carpeting is truly heinous. It reminds me of the scene in The Sound of Music where Captain von Trapp tells Maria she has to change her dress and she says that she doesn't have another. All of her clothes were given to the poor when she entered the convent, except for the dress she's wearing, because “the poor didn't want this one.”

But if I stick my head out of my sitting room window and look up, this is my view: Mob Quad, and behind it, Merton Chapel.

I can live with the carpet.