bikelight, streetlight, starlight

[devi]

I just bought a bike. It was 25 quid. I wondered on the way over to see it whether a) it was a piece of shit, b) the owner was clueless, c) the owner just couldn't be arsed to charge more. It turned out a bit more complicated than that. The bike is lovely, but it's been stripped of anything that isn't actually bike. It has no light and no lock and no pump and no rack. I mentioned the lack of light and the owner said "Um, well, I've never cycled it at night." Hmm.

I rode it all the way back from Kidlington, four or five miles. The streets were quiet. Everyone seemed to be staying in out of the cold. Cycling past the cop shop with no light was a bit worrying, but no one noticed. It was perishingly cold, and I've barely moved a muscle this last week, and before long my legs were throbbing and my eyes were streaming and my cheeks were blaring heat, but I knew I was alive. Alive and mobile and not dependent on eccentric buses, and it was good.

Coming through the town centre I found a short cut down past Keble College, between building after building of fabulous prettiness. It felt funny cycling along the stone-flagged streets in my flappy black coat, in the dim yellow light - as if I wasn't there as myself but was acting in some sort of period drama. When I stopped at some lights to peer at my city map a white-haired man on a bike pulled up to ask if I was lost. I said no, I was figuring it out, but thanks. A tweedy young man with glasses who could have been Son Of Giles gave me a grin from where he was waiting to cross the road. The Radcliffe Camera - that round building which I think is part of the Bodleian Library? - was all lit up inside like a temple to books.

As I cycled past the floodlit dog-racing track, just before the house, a trumpet fanfare rang out through the speakers, out across the estate houses and up towards the icy stars.

I might spray-paint the bike a stupid colour. It needs a name too.

I'm playing at being a student, I know. But while it lasts it's a fun game to play.

Comments

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

You think you were shortchanged? The Radcliffe Camera was built as the *science* library, but when the sciences began to take over the world, they were kicked out to a strip-lit car park under the lawn in front of the University Museum (and opposite Keble).

Barstewards! Humanities gets all the best buildings.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yeah. When I was at Trinity in Dublin doing computers, the Arts end of the college was all stunning and old and gorgeous and cobbled, but the science block looked like a nuclear bunker.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

First come, first served :P