spring flower walk, fritillaries, cowslips and a snail on a thorn, pippa's song by robert browning, sackler sundays

Too wet to garden last weekend, so starting on the allotment was delayed yet more.

Went on a spring flower walk beside the Thames instead. Wonderful!

Love snake's head fritillaries!

Was intrigued by the snail on the blackthorn, though - and there were many more of them.

Brought to mind Robert Browning's poem, Pippa's Song:

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!

Why do snails like to climb thorns!

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At the Sackler Library, we recently introduced Sunday opening - all the year round. This has been an exciting development - one which has been really popular with readers. I wrote a piece about it for the library blog before Easter. While it has my byline, however, this was very much a collaborative post involving a number of colleagues, who added design and editorial content. Then there's the Sunday team, who make everything work!

white violets, liber digital conference in the hague, noughth week, sir roger bannister

On the last but one day of our holiday, I went cycling and saw the big patch of white violets along Calcroft Lane, near Broadwell.

They bring such joy and freshness to the landscape, especially this gloomy spring. (Though all that may be about to change, if the weather forecasters are to be believed.)

On Sunday, I flew to Rotterdam from London City Airport for a conference at the KB National Library in The Hague. A truly rewarding and thoroughly enjoyable event, which, on the first day, focused on the Cultural Heritage Re-Use Charter, which is currently being drafted by LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries. The second day was the members meeting of the LIBER Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage Working Group, which included excellent presentations and break-out sessions. The latter were a great opportunity to meet colleagues and to learn new ideas and gain knowledge of innovative programmes and resources.

Although the conference was based in the commercial - high-rise - part of the city, there was a chance to do an hour or so of sight-seeing in the old quarter around the Binnenhof and the Mauritshuis (sadly closed by then) before everyone met at the Eetcafé de Paraplu for supper.

Overall, an exhausting but unmissable two days. Quite difficult to separate out the fizzing thoughts and write up my report now!

Not much time to collect my thoughts, because Oxford Noughth Week and the return of the undergraduates are almost upon us.

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I recently contributed to a Department for Continuing Education article on the late Sir Roger Bannister. I taught Roger long fiction when he was studying for the Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing some years ago. It was a great privilege to do so and I was very sad to learn of his death. As the article suggests he was a truly inspirational devotee of life-long learning.

flooded landscape, first chiffchaff, first swallow

The plan was to work on the allotment this week but our holiday didn't turn out like that.

Good walks - splashes - through the flooded landscape, though!

We saw our first chiffchaff yesterday. J saw first swallow today.