So long farewell

Once again I am composing a few short words before an evening of academic superfluity.

It is Lucy Cavendish, not Wolfson, and so it is looking suspiciously as though there will be rather less alcohol on offer. We have been told that there will be a glass of sherry served on arrival. That sounds as though it will be all.

Fortunately we have got magnificently capacious bat-sleeves, handy for hiding a multitude of mobile phones, handkerchiefs, wallets, and bottles of whisky, and so I am not unduly distressed. I am writing in a few minutes before my friend Emma arrives. She is not staying in college, but at her sister’s house, has been working in the library and is diving into my cell for a last-minute shower before we head off in pursuit of sherry.

I have changed into respectable garments to be worn beneath the medieval Batman garb, and am somewhat nonplussed to discover that my trousers are actually falling down. I have not worn trousers for months and months, due to the minimal constriction around the waistband area provided by dungarees, and I was mildly concerned that I might not be able to fasten them. To discover that they have become so large that they won’t actually stay up has caused me some dismay, because I have neither a handy belt nor a scarf available, and so am going to have to spend the evening clutching them, at least until I have eaten two helpings of pudding.

Inspiration struck at that very moment, and since the last paragraph I have effected a solution with the cord from the hood of a Mickey Mouse jumper. To my relief, this will not show underneath my shirt, and will prevent any hideous embarrassment when I have had too much to drink later.

I have had another day of mild and peaceable contentment in the world of academia. I rose at eight and worked until twelve. Then I sailed tranquilly through the sunny college gardens to the college library. This is the Lucy Cavendish library, not the forbidding portals of the Cambridge Enter At Your Peril Library. I did not need any books, but felt it incumbent upon me to go and amble around it. It does not look good to complete the entirety of a Master’s’s’ degree without once venturing into any library more intellectual than the one in Windermere, which has got fewer books than the porters’ lodge here.

After ambling contemplatively around the library for a little while, and becoming immersed in a fascinating book about Enid Blyton, whose output of six thousand words a day is a source of wonder and admiration in my eyes, I went to meet Emma for coffee and gossip.

She has just arrived, which is the signal that work is over for the day. We are going to have a pre-sherry whisky before dinner. I will report back when we have done.

LATER NOTE:  We have done, and I most certainly am.

We had the whisky, then the sherry, then some wine, followed by a gin and tonic at the college bar. This was startling firstly in its economy, it is a long time since I have had a gin and tonic which cost me £1.60, but also in its quiet civility. The student bar was comfortable and utterly innocuous, nobody was having beer-drinking competitions or being sick, and almost nobody was actually drinking the unimaginably cheap alcohol. Some boys were having a jovial game of pool and some girls had brought their computers and were working quietly. We were giggling and telling mildly raucous stories in the corner, and were quite the loudest. Young people are disappointingly sensible these days, I do wonder if they will regret it when they grow up.

Worse, the principal addressed us after dinner, which, by the way, was very good and most helpful with the trouser difficulty, and told us that the bar was open if the postgraduates wished for a drink. The undergraduates, all of them over eighteen, did not seem to feel that they wanted to participate, and buzzed off for an early night. They were practically singing So Long Farewell.

I would just like you to know that since I am a proper grown up, and a Postgraduate, we had a lovely time, even though we were still dressed in our ancient batman robes.

I am completely exhausted and am going to bed. I am sorry to say that this is my farewell night.

I have got to leave in the morning.

Benedictus, benedicat.