Breakfast with the Doyles

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On Thursday I departed for my first administrative meeting in England during the winter. I arrived in Thorpe to find everything as I had left it for the most part. The new construction on campus finally started (after excavation in the fall revealed bones and ruins and had to be halted), yet the charm and the fantasy of the town remain even during the winter months. As I passed my favorite street sign "Fleetway Leading to the Gower" I continue to wonder what "the Gower" actually is. The little house named "Green Shutters" still has "green shutters" and I am still searching for a Hobbit to run out of the Orchard.

My friends finally arrived ... from Greece, Latvia and California, and we jumped right into work. Ok, that is not quite true. We actually jumped into a taxi and went down to Staines to shop and for dinner, but we did over the weekend get quite a lot of work done 😊

I must explain the title of this blog of course. We stayed at a beautiful B&B called Coltscroft, nestled in the town of Thorpe. Ann, the owner, is a lovely British woman who wants her guests to be happy. She cranked up the heat in the house, wanting us all to have a snuggly night's sleep. Um, yes, my windows were wide open within 5 minutes, as England felt like a heat wave to me after the freezing cold temperatures here. Yet the sound of the English rain is quite comforting to me, even in the winter. I woke up the first morning to the smell of a full English breakfast. As I entered the kitchen there were my friends, sitting at the breakfast table dining with the Doyles and a handful of British truckers who had stopped for the night on their routes. Bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, mushrooms, toast, cereal, coffee (weak British kind of course), veggies from the garden. It was all so surreal however, chatting with the Doyles, a Latvian, 2 Aussie/Greeks, and a bunch of truckers about the inauguration, in a lovely British home, in the kitchen of the Doyles. Again, England continues to amaze me.

Saturday night led us into London. Of course, the Jubilee line was closed and we had to take a few crowded underground lines to our destination. After dinner we stumbled upon a Palenstian rally at the embassy. Cops were everywhere! There must have been hundreds of them there, hoping to avoid last summer's situation. After spending some time at the rally, we headed into the Wellcome Center, a museum in Euston Square which is Northern London. We saw Napolean's toothbrush, Florence Nightengale's slippers, and a bunch of odd sex toys from the 1920's. As always, London is my favorite city in the world. There is something about the pulse of the city that makes me comfortable and feel alive. Oxford Street, Picadilly Circus, Regent Street, Covent Garden ... all have such a personality of their own.

As my job is to send kids on trips all weekend I did some "research" for the summer. We went to a little town called Camberly in the South to have lunch. Ten pin bowling, movies, restaurants and cafes ... all things that kids will love on a friday night in the summer. My final night I had dinner in Egham with my friend Cal. A few too many glasses of Rioja found me in bed quite early. I left TASIS the next morning for a horrid 8 hour and ten minute flight. I suppose with the competing tail winds and traffic we were forced to fly over Greenland. Yet, what a sight ... snowy peaks covered the entire view out the window.

And now ... jetlag of course. Yet my winter trip to TASIS made me miss the quaint little place quite a bit.

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