to King's Lynn

Don't ever try Godalming to Kings Lynn on a hot August Saturday.  First train was held up by signal failture at, of all places, Wimbledon.  Tube held up at Aldgate.  All through trains from Kings Cross to KL canceled (failure with overhead wires).  Took train to Cambridge (dry countryside, above); spent some good hours in Cambridge with friend; very slow substitute train to Kings Lynn and eventually walked to the hotel (in a terrific old bank) arriving two minutes after they stopped serving dinner.  I talked my way in.

Wonderful small non-touristy river front and buildings; lovely hotel (view from my room in bottom picture).

Why Kings Lynn???  More tomorrow!

 

family wedding

A very happy wedding - first in a field, then in a barn - for my second cousin Megan, marrying Richard: she's the daughter of my middle cousin Peter, and it was a genuine family reunion.  Is waving table napkins in the air now a custom in English weddings?  It was like people dancing the Zamba in northern Argentina...

With apologies for the fact that better photos are on my camera, not my iphone, but it's late, by now..  I was so glad to be able to come and celebrate.

 

real English countryside

This is so beautiful!  And not visibly drought-stricken, either.  It's at the end of the garden of the large pub in which I'm staying (before my cousin's daughter's wedding tomorrow), and only half an hour's walk into Godalming, and indeed on a bus route (no Tube for me, today - I really couldn't stand it - bus to Kingston, to Guildford, and then literally to the door) - it was like mainlining Englishness.  I would be lying if I said I didn't miss this.

Oh, the book?  Just the alt-text to 100 images, and the permissions spreadsheet to go - I deposited in my allocated dropbox everything else.  So no, not exactly there, but very very nearly ...

 

miscellany from a nose to the grindstone day

The view from my window when I woke up;

the passage way into Richmond Station;

the British Library locker that wouldn't open - in solidarity with its friends, which also had "Out of Order" stickers on them - once my bag was firmly inside it;

and the reward for a hard day's work: dinner at Ottolenghi - green beans in a charred pineapple and jalapeño dressing, and some smoked labneh.

Book?  Onwards ... progress was made.

 

London summer

I don't think I've ever flown in LHR and seen everything look so yellow and dry: I might as well have been landing in Abu Dhabi.  it was 94 degrees when I landed. This, of course, meant that the Tube was working, or not working, rather shakily: the points at Acton Town had failed, and this meant a good deal of complicated navigation (I was glad I'd downloaded Mooveit in Buenos Aires). Yes - I know they have taxis here, but the last time I took one to where I'm staying the driver - to my mind wilfully - went to a very wrong address, and refused to take anything off the bill.  However - here I am - having dinner overlooking the Thames (a gulp of time off from picture permissions, etc).

 

greetings from DFW

Hello, England: I'm on my way ... I wish that meant that my book was entirely trim and tidy and all loose ends tied up, but with luck (read: a very full day in the British Library on Thursday and maybe Friday - which isn't quite what I'd planned, but there you go) it will be send off to the U of Chicago Press on time, and I'll be able to breathe fresh air by the weekend.   Today brought very large hail as I drove (and pulled over, and drove again) down to Albuquerque; a ground stop of American Airlines planes as their computer system briefly went down; and dealing with stray bits of grad studies stuff, undergrads wanting letters of recommendation for law school, and the rest of it, in interstices ...

 

evening clouds

Pretty!  Of course, it says everything about the day that I'm casting around for something to take a picture of, and that isn't my desktop, as the sun is going down.  A hard-working day, largely on the book - so much busywork!  I'm making progress, but I'll need every last moment to check everything is in place.  But I do want to note the generosity of certain (famous) artists, who make things so much easier ...