On a high note

I had a lot of sleeping and packing to do today, but I managed to find time to go for a last wander round the city that has become my home. On Broad Street, there were two guys juggling together and rather endearingly dropping the balls every two seconds. I walked round Christchurch Meadow, and watched people in punts get stuck in the bushes, and a young swan came and motioned for some bread, but unfortunately I didn't have any. On the grass, there were some girls sitting together, chatting and playing guitar quietly in the sun. My favourite bagpiper was on Cornmarket, stamping his feet and putting some welly into it. Everything felt groovy. It doesn't feel like Autumn yet, but maybe like summer is turning the corner.

I have so many memories of this place. I have lived in the North, East and West of the city, and camped quite a few times in the South. I know the alleys and short-cuts, I have favourite parts of the Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ashmolean. I have been up the dreaming spires, and know where to get the best ice-cream and the best hot chocolate. I have seen fritilleries and know how to punt and have sung rude songs over the wall at Balliol. I know all the beautiful places in and around the city, the places to see bluebells, the places to look at the sky, the places to go to and practice poi without passers-by staring. I have been to a College Ball on a working ticket, and had friends meet me outside Exam Schools with balloons and champagne. I have sat on the lawns and done nothing.

I have lain on a children's climbing frame watching the Perseids. I have walked barefoot across the lawns at dawn with a basket of laundry. I have stood on top of a multi-storey car-park at night with a group of friends for no particular reason. I have been for long walks along the river. I have stayed up all night working on a problem set with the other Physicists. I have been met at the station by a guy with roses. I have danced on the lawns in the moonlight. I have eaten tinned peaches and custard out of a huge bowl shared with friends. I have climbed out of the window and stood on the flat roof to watch a hot air balloon. I have skipped a lecture to go and eat ice-cream, and fallen asleep in many more lectures. I have seen some of the beautiful rare books in the Bodleian, and worked as a stack-monkey there. I have filled a bath with balloons and made a 14-pint multicoloured jelly and been punting with an eyepatch on like a pirate. I have walked to lectures up Parks Road on perfect, crisp, blue-skyed Autumn mornings, kicking the leaves in front of me. I have walked out barefoot into a thunderstorm, and not stopped walking until I realised I was two kilometres from home. I have cuddled in a duvet under a skylight and listened to the rain drumming. I have helped carry a friend to a standpipe and dump her under it. I have watched tiny ducklings on the river grow day by day. I have attended posh candlelit college dinners. I have seen many beautiful sunsets from the level seven corridor of NAPL. I have built snowmen and made snow angels in the park, and thrown myself in the snow and just rolled in it. I have sat in a field of buttercups and watched a friend throw a boomerang. I have watched films in the glorious mildew-smelling UPP cinema. I have huddled next to a brazier outside the Turf in the winter, talking and laughing. I have been to six nightclubs in a week, staying til 2am at every one, and still making 9am lectures the next day. I have sat out in the garden in the sunshine, revising. I have lost one of my tiny baby rats and found her again. I have spent companionable evenings and weekends in the office, wasting time. I have cycled, hiked or bussed out of town and walked in the countryside around Blenheim Palace, the Rollright Stones, Wytham Woods, Boar Hill, the Harcourt Arboretum, and many other places. I have stood in a field at night, shivering with cold while someone told me how to see Andromeda. I have walked a friend back and forth between our Colleges about three times, until we finally went our separate ways. I have been offered port in a tutorial. I have stayed up all night for May morning, and heard the Madrigals sung. I have been bridge-hopping in a punt, and jumped from one punt to another. I have stashed an illicit sandwich toaster in my room, and spread out a skirt in the quad to trim the hem, and sat on a chaise longue drinking tea, and climbed through the window of the JCR. I have played Hungarian card games, and thrown a dinner party, and sat in the window eating lemon yoghurt on a sunny morning. I have done nothing but lie around reading a book for a whole day. I have spent sunny days walking along the towpath to the pick-your-own and getting delicious fruit and veg. I have seen the transit of Venus from the roof of astro at dawn. I have seen a lunar eclipse while walking back from a concert. I have played with sparklers in the garden and in the road, well-wrapped against the cold, and spent halloweens holding vigil in graveyards. I have collected conkers in the park, and walked on Port Meadow on misty mornings. I have basked in the sunshine slanting in to the attic, or on the lawns, or lying in long grass by the river.

I hope that wherever I end up next, I'll make just as many good memories.