Nature Makes Art

Despite the existence of a Staff Room inside the Library, I like to walk across the road to have my morning coffee break in the Staff Club, mainly because I got into the habit back in the day when I was a smoker, and we used to have a lively smokers' table where the best conversation was to be had.

When I looked out of the Staff Club window this morning, I saw something remarkable. Despite our lack of real snow, it has at least been very cold, and this -- together with whatever other freakish combination of conditions -- has led to something I have never seen before. The goldfish pool within the Staff Club courtyard is covered by netting to fend off snacking herons, but a hole has been cut through to allow the aerating fountain to have free play. This morning, icicles had formed in a circle all around the fountain, weighing down the netting (a bit like one of those demonstrations of how gravity bends the time-space continuum). It's a Richard Long or Andy Goldsworthy sculpture, thrown up by natural processes in an un-natural setting.





Extraordinary, no? The fish, meanwhile, have all congregated in a motionless grump in one corner. I don't think they're frozen ...