It's Thursday, Nov 6. We're at home today. Ralph has just gone out to grocery shop. He's doing chores while I sit here indulging myself writing. Internet service here today is erratic. Every few minutes I have to disconnect from it and reconnect. Tedious.
Election day was Tuesday. I was on pins and needles all day. It didn't look good and yet there was a possibility that a wonderful thing would happen in that Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter would be elected senator and governor. Yesterday I got the news. It was a Republican sweep not only in Ga. but Charlie Crist lost in Fla. and they won a majority in the U. S. Senate. The few bright spots were legalization of marijuana in three places and a raise in the minimum wage in three states and a city and passage of a measure to protect Florida's environment. I'm still sad about the results. I think Democrats did not turn out and Republicans were very motivated. And I am just baffled by the appeal of the Republican agenda to the I know. I think Fox News is irresponsible. Well this is not supposed to be about my politics but that is a part of the experience here in London. We sent in our absentee ballots.
To pick up where I left off last time...
Walt returned from France. He enjoyed himself. He said the people were very nice and the food and wine were great. He spent his first night in his hotel and proclaimed it satisfactory. It's a couple of blocks from the British Museum and about four blocks from the FSU Study Centre.
Walt and Ralph and I did a lot of eating out and some touring, including the exhibit on William Morris at the National Portrait Gallery. And Walt and I did a lot of walking around town and touring the portrait gallery and the National Gallery and British Museum and the Tate Modern. Walt's feet got very sore and we were able to walk slowly as Ralph was absent. Fun. Walt spent Sunday night, too, with us as his hotel was booked, and then he returned to the Thanet for his final night. We accompanied him to Heathrow for his departure. I hope he was able to enjoy himself despite having a heavy pack some of the time and a lot of walking.
That was Tuesday and we were off to Oxford with FSU on Wednesday. That was an early day and a train ride. After touring Christ Church Catheral (started by Cardinal Wolsey 1522, subsequently taken over by Henry VIII) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Church_Cathedral,_Oxford , we had lunch with David, Kathleen, and Marie and then were off to claim our reservation of the guest room at Wadham College. This is Laurel's college for study while in Oxford. Very old England feel. Formal, quiet, ancient, proper. Nice guest room reached through courtyards, hallways, and stairways.
Then we met Laurel and John at the entrance to the college and she took us all out for a tour of the campus. Beautiful green walled gardens. Flowers are considered to be disturbing and distracting so are not widely used there. Really a beautiful place. The colleges look like just another row house along the street until you go through the gate into the courtyards and beyond. All are behind high walls. We had tea in the faculty lounge, I guess you would call it. Stuffed leather and upholstered chairs in groups. Coffee or tea and biscuits. Every one very polite.
The next event was a formal dinner of some of the faculty. We were told to dress for the occasion and, luckily for me, the weather turned cold so that I could wear my wool dress and boots without perspiring and embarrassing myself. Really very fortunate. We met in the faculty lounge for drinks. Chatted. Then we proceeded to dinner which turned out to be on a sort of stage raised platform at the far end of a formal dining hall where the students were seated at tables running the length of the room. The faculty had donned black robes before entering. I happened to be seated at one end of the long table. It was a three course meal with fish specially provided for Ralph and me. Polite conversation all around. The third course was an apple pie and in the midst of eating this a loud gavel rapped on the table and every one immediately stood and filed out to go to dessert upstairs. Here we had wine, port (?), and other libations and trays of delectable items such as fruit and sweets were passed. We were told by the host where to sit and I was seated next to him away from Ralph and Laurel, who were seated on the other side down the way. Yikes. Thankfully it was dark and my host was a charming conversationalist. He's a physician possibly younger than me. Got "stuck" (sure he was) at Wadham years ago, he said. After we'd talked for a bit, he turned to the gentleman facing me and to his right. He had proclaimed that he needed him sitting next to him so they could talk so I understood. But there were a slightly unsettling few minutes when I was sitting there with no one to talk to as my other neighbor was deep in conversation to her left. Ralph and Laurel signaled to me across the table concerned I was okay. I was. I was too intrigued to be nervous. And then we went back downstairs to the faculty lounge where we could have more drinks and coffee and conversation. Snockered we should have been by now. Ralph was wonderfully beaming, seemingly relaxed and right at home. And from there we retired.
Next morning breakfast was scheduled for us for early. We just made it. Turned out to be just us at seated at a round table with table cloth, etc in a small room. There were the usual cold items such as cereal and yogurt and fruit. And there was someone there to take and bring us our orders for hot items such as eggs and the hard veggie sausages sometimes served here. We were joined by an American visiting professor who had brought her laptop planning to work as she ate having anticipated, as we had, that she would be in a room full of other people. She was repeatedly apologetic but needed to do last minute work on a presentation scheduled for that day.
Ralph and I did some touring around and then met up with John and Laurel. They took us on a tour of the town and their flat until 4:00 when we were scheduled for high tea at a posh hotel in town. Excellent tea and a tower of delicacies to eat. More than we could eat. More conversation. And then we walked to the bus station and were able to immediately grab a bus for London.
Traveled out, we were.
Since then we spent a quiet couple of days and then Sunday which included an outing to Islington to a veggie brunch I'd found online, grocery shopping at Whole Foods Piccadilly, and a tour in Hampton Heath of a 1930's modernist house. Really fun and interesting and fast walking and exhausting.
No photos as I have been tired of shouldering the camera and hand bag.
Tuesday was a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon with the students by bus. Blog entry to be made separately
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