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.

DPP 24: Potato Peelings

Leek and potato soup.

DPP 23: The Light of the Church

As part of our life in our cold little flat here, Isaac and I have some locking and unlocking duties at the church that owns the property. A single oil lamp burns at the front of the church all week long, and a more modern light is kept on in the back of the church whenever it's open to the public (during daylight hours most days). This lamp is off to the side of the church, near the rooms in which the clergy and other servers prepare for services, but it is switched on only occasionally. I love the way the light cascades down the steps.

DPP 22: Pipe Envy

Since the original idea behind the December Photo Project was to capture the everyday stories occurring all around us during this hectic season, here's today's everyday story: one of our drainpipes, which descends from our top-story flat down the outside of our building, is frozen; our landlords are blissfully unconcerned; and the one plumber who actually stopped by first couldn't help us for lack of a ladder, and then (when a ladder was procured) suddenly remembered that he doesn't do external pipes.

On the bright side, our other drainpipe, which removes the smellier water from our flat, still works, and I managed to create an exciting chemical reaction in the stagnant water currently living in our bathtub.

DPP 21: Tundra Train

Our London adventure ended today. If all had gone well, we would have left our flat at quarter til seven, taken a direct train to St Pancras rail station (where thousands of unfortunates are currently queued hoping to get across the Channel before Christmas), and taken a direct train to Edinburgh before arriving home shortly past two o'clock. Instead, we ended up on an eight-train adventure that had us leaving our rented flat just after six, trekking along a the cold dark streets around St Paul's Cathedral before rush hour had even begun, dashing through tube stations, visiting Cambridge, and narrowly managing to get home in time to plan supper and then discover that our plumbing no longer drains water. It has been an exciting day. Here's a moment of relative stillness: our train speeding along the frozen British countryside.

DPP 20: Time-Travelling Warriors

On our third day in London, our familial trio visited one of my very favourite places in the world: the Tower of London. We were treated to a tour by a beefeater, and enjoyed many displays: a mixture of old things left looking as ancient as possible, new things built and constructed to resemble the originals, and some interactive displays. This archer crouches in the middle of an interactive display rigged to recreate one of the great battles once fought around the Tower. Below his arrow are the homes of some beefeaters who work in the Tower and live, with their families, in homes built into these eight-metre-thick walls thousands of years ago. Above his arrow, the bustle of modern-day London can be seen.

DPP 19: New Breath in Fresh Air

On our second London morning, our amiable trio set out to visit the Tate Modern art gallery and Globe Theatre, but were distracted en route by a wonderful market near Waterloo station. This garlic display caught my eye particularly.