Snow in Oxford

Early this morning there was a carpet of snow outside my window, apparently a storm had come across from Ireland, picking potatoes along the way and depositing them in the form of snowflakes on our scholarly lawns.


Another view from my room, winter had descended.

I had to run the gauntlet to get into the dining hall at lunch. The undergraduates at college had a field day with the throwing of the snow - as did I. On walking about half way to the hall one bloke hit me in the back with a sphere of snow.... 'Oh, you did not want to do that dear boy...' and my javelin arm, although not as lethal as WR Usher's harpoon, came into deadly effect.

To show how deep the snow was, and to see if my shoes need a shine.

So I decided, on recommendation from my supervisor, to build a snowman. It is tough work. I went down to the University Parks, found a space and began. I couldn't get the hang of rolling snow together into spheres, so I built a column instead. It was a mammoth column, in all seriousness taller than I, I named it Gregor. The goal was to build this column then reshape it to have features, Gregor was quite androgynous at this point. Then... oh then... disaster struck. A group of students came over and were having snowball fights and general merriment.

I laughed and smiled at their jollility and walked away a few steps to gather some more snow. When I turned around to walk back I saw someone rushing at my snowman. He had the look of a scurvy ridden maverick from Macedonia and charged full speed towards Gregor. Then he...

fly kicked Gregor...

That's right, he launched into a full blown Bruce Lee Fly-Kick and hit Gregor about two thirds the way up. The snow fell to the ground, as did he. I was speechless, literally so. I had a pile of snow in my gloves and a look on my face partially composed of snock, anger and wonder. Why, why? He got up from the ground said: 'It is all a bit of fun,' and ran off. Normally I would reach under my jacket, pull out the handy crowbar and remove him from the species gene pool. But today... speechless.

When he left I thought of trying to rebuild my creation, but no amount of CPR would bring Gregor back from the dead. He is now in Valhalla with all the other heroes...

I kicked the stump in disgust and left, disenfranchised by the whole experience.

On the way back though I saw THE SNOWMAN. It would have been at least three metres tall. It was composed of three spheres and the constructors had built two subsiduary snowballs around it to STAND on so they could reach the top. It was quite an experience...

Quote of the Day (remember that old chestnut?): George, colleague of mine in the Maths Institute, was told the story and responded, "You really should carry a knife for such occasions, there is no need for that man to stay alive."