Thames path, near Kings Lock

21 February.



Sheep graze this grassland on the approach to Kings Lock coming from Godstow bridge under the Oxford ring road. Kings Lock goes back to 1289, then called Kingisweire (kin = cattle), a flash weir trapping eels and fish for the locals. Occasionally one of the odd tree branches that commonly float along the Thames here metamorphoses into a wriggling eel snaking its way across the smooth surface from one bank to the other.

The Thames and Port Meadow

14 February. The snow now some days thawed away, the Thames swelled out over its banks. Colours reappear, cleansed by the snow of some days past.

The floodwater on Port Meadow perfectly still is one large mirror of the sky, in which birds fly upside down and the inverted horizon moves with a different pace to its limit. Held on the surface float occasional disturbers of the illusion such as a discarded feather.


On Port Meadow were dotted about the remains of snowmen. These caused some perplexity amongst the various dogs being taken for a walk, in particular to a small poodle, perhaps feeling a natural affinity on account of the colour of its coat, but whose overtures were rebuffed coldly.

Fiddler's Island and the Thames

30 December. Along the Thames path between Port Meadow and Osney Bridge. At my right shoulder the sun declining at each pace I took, the sky deepening, the final red blush held awhile, then night fell.