between the rock and the cold, cold sea

The sun shines in blueness above floating carpets of white-grey cloud. A bright day, and brilliant, all the colours sharp and stark as though someone had retouched the lighting on a photograph. The grass in Library Square luridly green, framed by grey granite and red brick and the arch of the campanile: every corner a defined contrast between brightness and shadow. The air, still chill, smells of warm earth and the promise of spring, and a songbird is trilling loudly from under the pediment of the chapel in Front Square.

A bright day, and brilliant, and I want to be anywhere but here.

Ah, well. Such is, I suppose, the lot of the thesis student.