So what ARE rising bollards anyway??

Remember this picture?

I saw this sign the very first day we arrived back in April (it is around the corner from our home here), and with the slightly surreal fog of jet lag affecting my senses, I thought I might be seeing the remains of a set for a Monty Python movie or something. But no, the next day it was still there, real as can be. So rising bollards (and not bollocks, as I originally wrote in my last post. Thanks, Christine, for correcting me there) are really a rather smart way of blocking traffic when necessary. These sturdy metal posts rise out of the ground - they're about 7 inches in diameter, maybe 3 feet high, but then retract when they aren't needed. Personally, I just like the traffic sign with the large exclamation point. It could mean so many things. "Beware of being surprised at any time!" or just "Wow!" or the currently (annoyingly) trendy "Hel-looooo?!!"

So that mystery has been solved.

Well I'm back, and it wasn't my imagination, this really is a wonderful place. I arrived at Heathrow Thursday morning, landing in a beautifully sunny and mild England. Jet lagged, but excited to see what's next in this great adventure we're taking. On the bus ride from the airport to Oxford, Greg told me about the latest fun and unique thing going on in the neighborhood . . .

This is exam time for all of the colleges of Oxford, and all of the students take their exams at one large, central building on the High Street. The building's back door lets out on Merton Street (our street for you first-time blog readers), and this is where the a) triumphant  b) exhausted  c) relieved   d) all of the above students exit from their travails. And what a scene awaits them!

Friends and family are waiting outside, cordoned off by those metal gates (due to the fact that in the past, things got pretty rowdy). The students, in all their academic finery (they have to wear their academic gowns when they take their exams), then get sprayed with silly string, get flour, rice, glitter, and confetti dumped on them. They also don silly hats, flowered leis and carry balloons. There is champagne, much shouting and hooting, so it's really quite a spectacle. And this happens a couple times a day. When you're upstairs in our house, it sounds like one giant cocktail party going on out there.

 Congratulations, Helen!

It's almost like Oxford's nod to Mardi Gras, but grounded in serious scholarship.

I think this makes an interesting abstract painting . . .

"Confetti in a Manhole Cover"