When you read the byline for this article, how did you pronounce my surname? Chances are, you worked through it phonetically, elongating the vowels as you went along.
When I went back to my high school last year to talk to prospective applicants, the number one thing I was asked was: “Are all your conversations, like, really smart?”
As the sun shone over Oxford and my collections drew ever closer, I decided I needed a change of scenery from the panicked atmosphere of my college hall.
'Places are not the same by night. They are transformed. Shapes and forms take on different sizes, colours and shades. Perspective becomes blurred, sounds sharper'
'There’s a wonderful feeling of freedom that comes from being in the water, especially here where it is deep enough to kick your legs out without touching river-bed'
'In such a forest there is of course much more than visual pleasure; there’s the sound of wind bending and creaking age-old timber, or the whiff of damp leaves, the smell of air, damp, imbued with life.'
'Port Meadow is steeped in myth; it’s the unploughed landscape, the land earned from resisting the Danes, a sacred spot where the Freemen graze their cattle'