London, Take One: the fun trip

I am returned from a lovely jaunt to London to meet up with Hannah, who was swinging back west after a family trip to Amsterdam and had time to stop over and see some theatre and have a wander with me. We had an awesome time being non-obnoxious tourists, walking to and fro around central London, drinking coffee, and generally catching up.

London behaved itself in terms of weather, and as we walked we saw the telltale signs of everyone gearing up for the Paralympics, which is pretty cool.

New logo for Tower Bridge!

We went to the Tate Modern and and the Victoria and Albert Museum, the latter of which is officially my favourite museum ever because they have everything from historical costume to Islamic art to ironwork and other decorative arts, and basically it's everything I want in a museum all at once. Also, this time around they had a bunch of chairs in the entrance and out in the courtyard, which bore a very specific design element--they had conical bases!

(Not shown: much giddy laughter and trying to balance upside down while making silly noises.)

We ended up just hanging out in the V&A's garden for a couple of hours, just because the chairs were, in addition to being extremely fun to faff about in, extremely comfortable. It was a good time.

In addition, we went and saw a spectacular production of Sweeney Todd, and a fun production of Singin' in the Rain, which prompted me to watch the movie as soon as I got home. But more than anything, we just walked around, seeing stuff. We hit Baker Street, Fleet Street, Downing Street, saw Buckingham Palace and a very unhappy changing of the guard that started in sunshine and finished in the rain, and wandered around Hyde Park for quite a while. We also walked a good deal of the south bank of the Thames, which neither of us had seen, which was quite lovely.

Most importantly, however, we hit my personal favourite road, which is of course:

Land of the spectacular tailoring. We drooled at many suits in the windows, and were thoroughly intimidated by the people inside the shops who looked so at home amidst so much mahogany and chalked fabric. Ah, the magic of bespoke. 

Anyway, it was a lovely time! I think I finally have a better sense of the overall geography of London, which is definitely something that has eluded me for a long while. So hopefully when I go back on Monday for my intellectual history program I won't get lost. 

In which I embrace country living

Or perhaps more accurately, poke it inquiringly with a stick.

I'm house and dog-sitting for one of the college tutors at St. Chad's, which means that I'm staying in her cottage in Bishop Auckland, a mile outside of town, surrounded by farmland and Roman archaeological sites. I am accompanied only by a very old German shepherd and a giant bumbling mastiff.

It's pretty great, not gonna lie. Highlights have included:

• Getting up close and personal with a squirrel that was stealing dog food out of the shed
• Talking to fellow dogwalkers who I can only half-understand because man, are the accents thick out here
• Finding a giant spider in the sink first thing in the morning and shrieking like a damsel in distress
• Actually learning how the bus system works 
• Listening intensely to Radio 3 since there's a radio in the kitchen, which means everything from my favourite Brahms piano quintet to a John Cage celebration at the Edinburgh festival to excerpts from Dr. Faustus and Richard III and various others accompanied by Black Sabbath and Liszt. Seriously awesome programming that I was not previously aware of. 
• Fresh baked bread, because there is a bread maker so I don't have to actually do any work to make it.
• And the very best, chatting with people camped out on the Roman fort area outside the house who are dressed as Romans for some sort of yearly get-together and re-enactment. Yes, I am totes serious. They had shields! And capes! And some of them drove up from Manchester just to hang out and entertain children! Awesome.

Also, have a spam of pictures taken while walking the dogs:

Dweeg no. 1

Dweeg no. 2

Archaeology! aka Binchester Roman Fort, approximately 30 seconds away from the house. There's a more cleared up bit over to the right, but you have to go through the mini-museum to get to it proper.

Sheep! Also 30 seconds away, and Suzie (the shepherd) likes to fantasize about chasing them.

Auckland castle! I haven't figured out how to get there yet, but it's very close, and technically owns all the grounds from it to the fort, so we're technically neighbours.

Pretty fields. Usually there are pinto ponies grazing there, it's very picturesque.

Speaking of picturesque...

Following the same wall...

...up to a badass Victorian bridge! Man, I love these things.

FAVOURITE KIND OF LANDSCAPE.

I will take pictures with an actual camera next time I'm there, seeing as I'm doing more housesitting at the end of September after I get back from London. These are all ipod photos, so apologies for the crappy quality. 

So yes, now I'm off to London to meet up with Hannah and tool around being touristy, then back to Durham, then back to London again to do intellectual history summer school, then back to Durham again, and then it's time for the NENC Symposium! And then back to housesitting, and then teacher training for the coming academic year.

Phew. This summer has been way busier than expected. But I can't say that I mind. I am much better at being productive if I have more things to do.

Huzzah work and money!

I'm teaching this coming year! Just two sessions of Introduction to the Novel, and nothing at the secondary level, but it's more than this past year, so I'm happy enough. Now, fingers remained crossed about the combined honours position, and I'll be set.

I also got some money from my department to do the UCL-Sussex class in London, so that's good too. I had to buy a book that's going to be round-tabled or something during one of the sessions, and it's all about stoicism through history, which hopefully will be interesting--I'm not used to having to buy books at full price because they're so new, grrr.

Also on the reading front, I've extracted several non-academic books from my bookshelf that I simply haven't gotten around to reading yet, with the hope that having them on my nightstand will make me read them. First on the pile is Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, which is amazing so far, but not exactly light reading. I may have to intersperse it with something silly, but I fear I've read most of my really silly books, and am now only left with substantial things. Maybe I'll take a weekend and power through a bunch of them. I will edify myself by force! And then maybe traumatise myself immediately afterwards by finishing House of Leaves. Good times.

That's all the news for now! I am reading about Marx getting into drunken fights with Prussian aristocrats and writing bad poetry. It is a good time!