Dawn

Last night's appalling night's sleep wasn't due to caffeine this time. Perhaps it was the wine. Perhaps it was spending much of yesterday evening comforting a friend who's had terrible news. Perhaps it was due to the unfortunate misunderstanding that freaked out a different friend this week (gah!). Definitely it had something to do with it being May Ball night last night. Bass thumped through the glass until the early hours. Boof boof boof.

I'm woken at 5am by an insanely jealous cock chaffinch beating up his reflection in my window. Bam, bam, bam. Bam clatter blam. You have to be joking. I throw back the duvet, trudge sleepily downstairs to tape newsprint over the reflection, and can't get back to sleep.

But it's a seriously beautiful morning, and so I shoulder the D2x and a telephoto and patter off, half-asleep into the early, sunny haze to photograph post-May Ball carnage. Which is always a bittersweet, beautiful, and glorious thing to witness.

Barefoot in the park. Well, the small square of grass and lime trees in front of my house. It's sort of a park.

Jesus lane. My college ball, and I didn't go. Pah.

Yes, it's 6am. Cool, huh?

Barefoot not in the park. Barefoot on the cobbles. I got a horrendous glass injury doing this once, so watching this was a little harrowing.

I love this couple. Look how happy they are. Bless 'em.

Ya de ya, architecture, bicycles, ballgowns, blah. Constant exposure to this kind of thing tends to make it invisible. It is pretty though.

And then this carriage came around the corner, carrying tired ball-goers homeward. Brilliant.

Others go home by punt. The kind of transport that seems such an obvious solution when you've been knocking back vintage champagne and oysters all night...

This is my favourite. Looking into Clare College from the Backs. It's not technically a very good photograph, but it bears close inspection (click to enlarge) because of all of the pics here, this one has something of the mysterious and magical wozname that inheres in this small, crazy town. Cheers!