College Scarves

Useful things, these. But not only because they let us walk around Cambridge being Newnham-proud (yes, I went there) and keep our necks warm and suchlike, oh no. They have MANY MANY MYRIAD uses.

1. Oven mitts. When taking a bowl of hot soup/baked beans/jacket potato out of the microwave, you cast your eyes around the kitchen and realise that once again, there isn't a teatowel. You put your hands around the bowl - gingerly - and yank them back because, damn, it's hot. You look around the kitchen again, in hopes that a teatowel will have materialised. No such luck. You fold your college scarf in half, and use that instead, and it keeps your hands from burning. Excellent

2. General-purpose cloth. Admittedly, being woven wool, they're not ideal for this, but they're better than nothing. You get to your bike; it is pouring it down rain and you either forgot to put a plastic bag over the seat, or you didn't think it'd rain so it wasn't necessary, or it's been torn, or you thought your bike was undercover but the driving winds meant it got wet anyway...you don't want to sit on a sopping wet bike saddle in your jeans. You also don't want to stand on the pedals the whole way home, for stability's sake (what with your tonne-weight of lecture notes in a bag over one of the handlebars, you understand). You get your college scarf, and you wipe the saddle down, and it is all a little bit better.

3. Muff. One of our lecture theatres is freezing, I think because the air-conditioning is apparently still on, despite it being November and cold. I always forget this when I get dressed in the morning, though, so I quite often end up wearing tops that leave my arms bare. Brrrr. The solution? Wrap the Newnham college scarf around your forearms! It's long enough that you can actually carry on writing after you've done this.

...don't you just HATE it when you start a list and it was going to be beautiful and long and then you forget half of it? That just happened. I'll put the others in later when I remember them/if I remember them/when people remind me of them.

Love,
Felicity