Sir, there’s been a spillage in Osprey!’

Silently invoking the Deity and imagining that I would discover a flood of biblical proportions in the aforementioned dorm, I hastened to the disaster zone. What I found was hardly tsunamian in its proportions, just a damp area that had tumbled from an Ospreyite’s cup of water and covered the top of his locker.

“Rather a minor spillage, I’d say,’ said I.

“Not a major one,” responded another Ospreyite from his top bunk.

I then made the mistake of saying that I was looking forward to the day when we had a Mynor called Maurice, or Morris, at Summer Fields, because that would mean that he would be Maurice Mynor.

“Oh!” said top bunk man, “I love those cars! My mum used to have one of those! It got stolen, unfortunately.”

Now, if there’s one thing I can be nerdy about (apart from notes inégales in Baroque music – when two written quavers become dotted when played), it’s the Morris Minor. I could bore for England, if not the United Kingdom, about the original version, then the 848cc engine version, with its split windscreen, and then how the radiator grille and the dashboard changed but the split windscreen remained, how it became the Minor 1000, with its 998cc engine, single windscreen and enlarged rear window. I could talk about the convertible version, the estate, or ‘shooting brake’ version, with its half-timbered back, etc., etc.

We had a mass shoe-cleaning last night, notwithstanding tsunamis. It was a wonderful sight to behold, with everyone ensuring that their footwear was respectable! We then lined all the shoes up in the downstairs corridor – and to my utter delight one Newtonian decided, of his own volition, that he would take it upon himself to buff up every single pair!

Yes, it was a good evening. There was a group of six playing our newly-acquired (and generously donated) game ‘Romans’ in our drawing room, which gave immense pleasure, others were on the computer, the phone was in almost constant use and everyone, it seemed, was happy.