Glow-sticks and body glitter came out in force yesterday as students in St Catz celebrated the end of their first week with ORA, Music Festival-style, at Kingston Bagpuize House. Bunting adorned a marquee in the house grounds, and students sat back in deck chairs to eat the honest fare on offer: burgers, candy floss, and ice cream. A tree asserted its presence amongst revellers, as if to remind them that Mother Nature presided over all. Despite the driving rain, which did a good job of providing authenticity, one key element might have been missing―the famous English mud―but perhaps its absence only added to the experience.

When students had eaten their fill and donned their flower crowns, it was time to hit the dancefloor. As the night darkened and glow-sticks, fairy lights, and the neon signage of the burger van came into their own, students danced to the pumping music and enjoyed the stylings of a light-twirling magician. Students also took turns trying their luck on the surf-simulator, in feat after feat of impressive balance (and even some opportunistic dance moves from the very confident).

Students also got the chance to socialise, not only with their classmates in Catz, but their counterparts in Balliol and Queen’s colleges as well. After an evening of forging new friendships and solidifying the ones of a week’s making, students returned to Catz with spirits soaring, and vowing that this was an evening to remember―or perhaps recreate, come Glastonbury next summer.