January Amblings

With the hustle and bustle of Christmas past, I spent a large part of January in England, hopping first of all on a train (really, three trains) to Oxford, where I stayed in Wadham College whilst attending a conference hosted by the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies. Highlights of the stay included accidentally having a private and elegant breakfast on my first morning at Wadham, spending the first free morning of the conference shopping(!) at the five-story Waterstones that is around the corner from the college in which I was staying, receiving wonderful feedback on my paper, meeting the author of one of the most important books cited in my third thesis chapter, and enjoying a burrito from the finest burrito shop in Oxford.
Here's the main quad of Wadham College:

Perhaps the least delightful part of my Oxford trip was the grueling journey home, which took more than ten hours (once upon a time, an express train from Leuchars to St Andrews took just over six, though that journey has been discontinued). My first trains were delayed, causing me to miss connections, and by the time I'd reached Carlisle, a station remarkably without telephone facilities, it was sleeting heavily--and my ensuing wait of three quarters of an hour was too short for supper and too long for warmth. Alas. However, I arrived home safely, and Isaac had washed the dishes of his bachelor week in celebration of my return.
Here's Carlisle:

More recently, I attended another conference, this one in Manchester, a city I'd never visited and for which I had fairly low expectations (it's often compared to Birmingham). All anti-Birmingham prejudices aside, I had a wonderful time, spending my first day reading old books in the John Rylands library of Manchester University and the two subsequent days attending a conference held on the grounds of Chetham's, a music school which (more importantly) boasts the oldest public library in the United Kingdom. I gave my conference paper in a Tudor kitchen, enjoyed conference lunches in a Baronial hall, and had this beautiful view upon exiting the building after the conference concluded:

A particular highlight of my stay in Manchester was the wonderful hospitality provided by one of my friends (a fellow PhD student at St A's) and her wonderful parents, who treated me like royalty for my entire trip. A particularly amazing highlight of this was watching them prepare proper Yorkshire Puddings for our last supper. Here they are, fully expanded in the oven:

A happy time.