Thursday--last class day this week

Tomorrow almost all of the students and the American faculty are going to London for the week-end. There is great excitment among all of them. Dean & I chose to not go this time, as we'll have 5 days there after we visit Melanie & family in Germany at the end of the month. Instead, Dean & I are riding the train to York tomorrow (one of our favorite English cities); we'll go to several favorites places, including the Yorkminster (wonderful cathedral), the castle museum, maybe walk some of the wall (if it's not too cold and windy), and visit a new spot for us--the railway museum. We're thinking that will be a fun link with the "Art in the Age of Steam" exhibit that Dean took tours around.

Saturday we're to get together with Barbara Cross and ALL her kids and grandkids and then Sunday we're going to Malcolm & Nita Knapp's and for a pub meal at The Blue Pig. More about all these things after we've done them.

Dean's "work" has been writing some essays that Gordon requested; he has enjoyed doing a little research and then writing up a page for students to use later. My "work" involves the Archives, specifically the pages about the manor building itself. I have done lots of reading and now "know" more than I really want to about all the people involved in this magnificent building through the years. It was completed around 1838, so it's not very old by English standards. I'm supposed to be organizing all the info; we'll see if I can get that accomplished in the next 2 weeks, though it's no biggie if I can't.

The British Studies lectures at 8:30 AM (Yes, I made both of them this week.) are very interesting. I sometimes have trouble keeping up with the different speakers with their accents and rapid speech. I feel for the students who are just hearing the British accents for the first time.

We had 2 days when the sun was shining (Tues & Wed) much of the day, but we were back to rain and dreary skies today. The sun's shining makes our daily 2-mile walk down the Drive and back much more enjoyable. I rode the shuttle-bus into Grantham this afternoon to get a few things at the grocery store and to walk around in town a little bit before catching the shuttle back home. One of the students from Baker University (Eric Ford) was on both trips; he knows Marci Zigler well, so he had fun talking about her and music making at Baker, Lyric Opera, and here at Harlaxton. (She taught at WJC for a number of years since 2000.)

We have gotten to know the five (5) WJC students to varying degrees. It is so much fun to live, have classes and activities with, ride the shuttle-bus, and eat with all the students. What a special opportunity, which I especially enjoy tremendously. (Again, wish we could stay all semester!! But, we won't, of course.)

There is an Irish Ceilidh tonight in the Great Hall, which will be mostly dancing with a few musicians, I think. It will be loud, no doubt. I'm going to go for a little while before going to the faculty party. There is always something going on that we can join in if we want.

Enough for now! There will be more photos after our week-end, I'm sure.