Oh look, a post about horses and music. That's definitely never happened here before.

I have neglected you.  Mea culpa.

I've made my triumphant return to Oxford for Year 3 of this surreal new life.  I now find myself installed in a lilliputian house, shared with a friend, in a suburban corner of Oxford.  Because every good English house needs a name, we have christened ours Neuschwanstein, because the house is narrow and white-ish, because we both claim German heritage, and because the house is tiny and therefore it's funny.  See what we did there?  We named a really small house after a castle.  Bahaha.

The adventure began with a cold, rainy excursion to the Blenheim International Horse Trials.  Jet lag was powerless against the titillation of the everywhere-ness of horses against the backdrop of Blenheim Palace.

We saw William Fox-Pitt gallop past us on the cross country course to victory in the 8- and 9-year-old horse division, and we saw Aoife Clark show-jump her way to winning the whole shebang that afternoon.

Another feature of the day, memorable in a different sort of way, was a "sidesaddle dressage demonstration" given by a woman in a sparkly white princess dress and plastic tiara (no helmet).  Her gray mare bumped around the arena on the forehand as a plush unicorn horn flopped around on her face.  It was pretty special.  Don't forget to play the soundtrack as you view the photo (they played this song during the demo).

The other bizarre event of the day was a ride on Henry the mechanical horse.  This is a thing they've built to make riding more accessible and affordable, especially to beginners.  It is odd, but it's quite an impressive thing.  It feels enough like a horse to make you really aware of the ways in which it does not feel like a horse.

So that was great.  More photos and videos of Blenheim are on Facebook.

Last Thursday I went to London to see a few dear friends and to hear the premiere of Blitz Requiem, a new piece by David Goode and Francis Warner, at St Paul's Cathedral.  The first half of the program was full of glorious things by Pärt and Vaughan Williams, and was what my old music history professor would call a "mountaintop experience."  If you're near a computer on October 3, go to to Classic FM and click "Listen" to hear a complete re-broadcast of this fantastic concert.  8pm BST, 2pm CST.

I'm abbreviating this post somewhat, because I've just returned from an unbelievable adventure in Munich, and I don't want to exhaust your patience before setting the next post loose on you.

The Best Birthday Present (other than a pony)

RED ALERT ! ! !

It's happening.  This is the end.  We're all going to die.  Power outages, school closings, and train cancellations ransack the country, according to the BBC.

What is this terror laying waste to the United Kingdom, bringing civilization to a standstill?  So far, about an inch of snow.

The Telegraph has posted a video of haggard drivers creeping through the dusting, navigating their way through a graveyard of stranded trucks and abandoned cars.  They report "thousands" of school closings, panic buying at supermarkets, and "travel chaos."  The Mirror posted the following dire headline last night:

Gripped by the big freeze: Panic buying and travel warnings with up to TWELVE inches of snow due

Lord have mercy upon our souls.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.  I'll stop.  Yea though I mock, I mock in love.  I'm sure there are few cities in the world that look as beautiful as Oxford looks right now:

Speaking of snow, I have discovered something delightful about English weather.  No, really.  Stop laughing.

Let me explain.  It's a normal state of affairs here for there to be a light, gray, endless drizzle going on and on, making everything just damp enough to be limp and wet and cold.  Sounds great, doesn't it?  Well I didn't come here for the weather.  BUT, yesterday I made an amazing discovery about drizzle in winter.  If the temperature drops low enough for this misty not-quite-rain to freeze, what we're left with is a light, sugary sprinkling of tiny dry snowflakes that don't make a mess, don't get you wet or make you cold, and don't accumulate.  They're just tiny white specks of glitter in the air.  I call it snizzle.  Yesterday it snizzed all day long.  It was lovely, especially after dark when the snizzle glowed white in the city lights against the black sky.

So now the snizzle has been upgraded to actual snow, just in time for my birthday tomorrow.  Since I'm pretty sure a pony is not on the agenda this year, I'll put this snow down as my #1 birthday wish.  Let the rejoicing commence.

The Appendices of Rejoicing: