Oh my! That alarm clock was exceedingly early this morning, and heralded the end of our decadent cups of morning tea in bed! Still, up we all got, and I could tell that the term had started as I went into each dorm, and received a monosyllabic grunt or three in response to my cheery 'Good morning!'

When they come downstairs, they come via the originally-named Downstairs Common Room, where they are re-greeted by me and by the BBC News, which many seem to like. I did have to change the channel, though, because there was a somewhat inapppropriate article on at the time - but of course, this being the classy joint this is, there was only so much ITV morning banter about the world of entertainment one could cope with, so we returned to the erudition of BBC1 as soon as possible.

Tonight has been generally happy, although I think one or two have been taken a little by surprise at the pace of the new term, and there were, if truth be told (and it must be, on a blog like this one), there were a few fairly tired LMs. (Little Men.) I suspect that a good night's sleep will work wonders, though, and all will be well again tomorrow morning. Of course, Bourbon biscuits, apple juice and a whole load of fruit have helped to keep morale up, as did Miss Alex's game of Twister in the DCR, which had to be seen to be believed. The image you may have in your mind of about eight Newtonians in various contortionistic poises (I know the word doesn't exist, but I rather like it) on a plastic mat is one that may play havoc with your mental decoding!

I just had to get rather cross, as there were one or two who, forgetting that your correspondent types next door to the dorms, seemed to think that a quick post-lights out amble around the top floor was rather pleasant. So I took an inter-paragraph stroll myself, and extinguished the flame of alacrity that was manifesting itself on the top corridor. They're silent now. Strange, that.

Goodnight.