“In retrospect, it always seems to be summer…” says Jan Morris in her book Oxford,
“…and a fine day at that.
The meteorological records for these parts assure us that July 4, 1862 was ‘cool and rather wet’: but on that day Lewis Carroll first told the tale of Alice in Wonderland to four people in a Thames gig, rowing upstream for a picnic tea, and to the ends of their lives all four remembered the afternoon as a dream of cloudless English sunshine.
Such is the magic of Oxford that cameras as well as people may be fooled–as witness my sunny-sky photos from May, 2005 as well as all the ones I’ve been taking this time.
Hmmm–but through the glass of my actual window here, I see what looks very much like some gentle rain–and that’s ok, because I love my old raincoat.
But will I remember this rain a few months from now? Or will Oxford’s magic make even my camera forget?