Tea Break Daydream (Oxford)

 

Pausing for a happy tea break daydream moment. Oxford style.

When life brings along a cold/sinus situation and you feel somewhat disheartened because you just don't feel your best and as a result carry that pretty worthless vibe, you might start to daydream about a time and place where you are simply filled with joy and in the happy-mode. 

Pardon my daydreaming - these were all photos from this last visit in March 2023, but I hadn't shared yet. I take a lot of photos, you know, every few steps offers another stunning view, building, or quintessential scene of Oxford that fills me with joy. Even if I have seen that view 1,000 times before, the light is different that day, the mood of the sky changes, the people passing differs. It makes for the best kind of photography - always something interesting to observe. I love watching academic scenes in an ancient city. It's just marvelous. Bikes clacking by (I still don't know how they bike along High Street in all the hectic bike/bus chaos - I watch in amazement), students with books filling their satchels/backpacks, raincoats and trenches adorn everyone if there's a cloud in the sky, but when it's bright out, everyone's outside clinging to the sunshine. The flowers burst a bit more openly when the sun comes out. Yet even in a shadier spot at the base of an old tree, the Hellebores look quite lovely and content.

I love the way the light slants into big windows at Christ Church and along the narrow roads and how the light shifts through the day. I love how some of the best people and city watching spots are at Waterstone's bookstore and Black Sheep Coffee on two of the very busy corners in the centre of the city. They are essential places to spend some time. I love moody and picture perfect Turl Street, my favourite street in the city. It gets filled quickly each day with delivery trucks but if you can catch it without any cars looking down toward the grand Lincoln College Library spire (used to be a church) with the craggy branches of the huge horse chestnut tree peaking into the periphery you just can't help but smile at how beautiful it all is.

I wish we paused more. In England it is a culturally normal thing to take a tea break - I'm talking a fresh brewed pot of tea and maybe a treat to go with it, multiple times a day. Maybe not everyone does that, I am totally romanizing my experiences, but there's a reason why there are countless cafes - because people go there all hours of the day, for a tea/coffee break. I love it so much. I'm going to go make a small pot of Earl Grey in honour of this paragraph. 

Oxford has secrets - doors and passages that are ornate and inviting but you may not know what lies beyond. Sure, the street view is a stunner, but the colleges themselves are within walls as you walk by on the streets. Pass through the doorway and you enter another world. It might be a garden so quiet and peaceful. It might be a chapel, ancient and beautiful. It might be a dining hall buzzing with students and clanging tea cups and saucers filled with tea. 

I could carry on with this tea break daydream for awhile. but eventually one runs out of tea in the pot. Until the next tea break...