Cyril Squirrel
And so another year is upon us. I can tell this in various ways. Firstly there are vigorous roadworks, at the entrance to the University, complete with lines of cones (but sadly no hotline) to direct the traffic which magically alter the roadway between the morning and the evening. In between these times, gangs of men appear to be watering the road with high powered hoses, perhaps because of the dry summer? Or possibly all part of a masterplan designed to stem the flow of parents, Volvos stacked with the worldy goods of their offspring, which has been arriving onto campus in long lines, the rather anxious and confused drivers looking for all the world like refugees from some political catastrophe seeking a new life.
The Refectory has been intermittently accessible throughout the vacation. I'm never sure which bit I'm allowed to eat in during the conference season and I am much relieved by the return to normality - numbered soups and all. Clearly my recent observations about the war-time atmosphere in the Refectory have struck home, as I discovered a culinary delight of no mean order on the lunch time menu. This was ham and leek roll, a lovely pale suet paste cylinder neatly stuffed with Welsh leeks and fine English York ham all delicately masked in a light parsley sauce with a consistency that took me straight back to Squirreltheboys Hall. It was the word roll that was so determinedly evocative. If they had wanted to cast it in the modern idiom, it would surely have been called a roulade.
For many years now one of the challenges of the long vacation has been reorientating oneself in the Library to the annual movement of whole categories of books painstakingly shifted all the way from A to B. This year it has been made all the more exciting by the opening of various chunks of the Library extension, which are gradually losing that air of impermanence, so unsettling in a library. The other vacation hazard is my inability to get past the new acquisitions section without checking it thoroughly for some intellectual novelty. It's the idea of fresh knowledge that is so appealing, and of course new books smell so nice.
We are all only too aware that the University is driven by money, or rather the shortage of it, but the march of corporate culture has recently taken a leap forward in the shape of the lavishly restyled School of Cultural and Community Studies which has done away with fusty things like Porters lodges and School Offices and has, instead, a Reception Area complete with a long bar-like fitting at which the visitor is received and then directed to wherever her business might be transacted. This is a good deal more efficient than having people trying to get in and out of school offices in large numbers at the same time, and of course it also improves security, but one somehow feels that one should be enquiring after a double room en suite, with a view of the Downs, and hoping breakfast isn't too early.