Back to School

When I was a youngster I was an avid Enid Blyton fan. My favourite series of all was, I think, Malory Towers. There was something very exciting about the idea of boarding school and all the hijinx that could be got up to. Not that I was the sort of child who would have actually got up to much hijinx, but it was certainly fun to read about.

As we drove to past the village sign to Cuddesdon the July before last and caught the first glimpse of college, I remember trying to summon a quote from the first chapter of the first book of Malory Towers. It goes something like - "Darrell craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the school she would call home for the next five years..." Anyone who has driven into Cuddesdon will know the view I mean - looking across the field towards the back of the Runcie buildings and the college beyond. The roofs and chimneys and bell. The view has altered a bit in the last few years, but the principal is still the same. Did I say principal? - I mean, principle. I mean, the view is still very nice.

Cuddesdon has that sort of boarding school feel about it, and that first term had the feel of starting school. All those worries around making friends and keeping up with the work and figuring out how on earth you manage to be in the correct place at the correct time. Soon they gave way to familiarity and routine - why, of course evening prayer is at 5.15pm on some nights and 5.45pm on others! And of course we enter dinner through a different door on a Wednesday night! And of course you get kippers for breakfast on a Tuesday!

And now it's back to school for the last time. As I walked into chapel this morning and looked around the familiar faces in the slightly less-familiar building it felt like the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-beginning. And as we had our annual 'school photograph' taken this afternoon, I realised it would not be long before this photo - Leavers, 2013 - hanging somewhere in a corridor in College House would be all that would be left of me at Cuddesdon. Removals are booked for precisely 7 weeks time. We're nearly there.

But it's not time to be sentimental. 2 years isn't actually a huge amount of time and, in a sense, it's only ever felt 'transitional'. There have been times this year when Arthur's situation has forced me to detach myself from college almost entirely, and it's a great pity that I feel I still don't know some of the first year as well as I should.

But I need to move on from any regrets now and look to the future. For the next 7 weeks I will be mainly getting as much of my dissertation done as is possible, eating as much free food as is possible and swotting up on all those things I think I really ought to know pre-ordination.

Time to polish those shoes and sharpen those pencils for one final time. Term 6 of 6 is upon us. Over and out!