Anyone not living in the southern bit of the United Kingdom (which amounts to most of the world, now I think about it) might need reminding that we’ve had quite a bit of rain in the last couple of months. Almost all the rain, in fact, and then some more.
Given that Oxford sits on a flood plain most of it ended up in the water meadows alongside the Isis, as our bit of the Thames is known. The jihadis, by the way, can go whistle – we had the name first, and we’re keeping it, so there.
Christ Church Meadow quickly disappeared underwater, and with it the boat houses at the far end, and the sports pitches at Magdalen College School, and the allotments and playing fields either side of Osney Island (site of the great Augustinian abbey that once dominated the medieval skyline), and Port Meadow to the north where the young people gambol in high summer, feed the wild horses, and in the long warm nights lie in the grass and count the shooting stars.
