A Belated Post

We are expecting our first visitors this week, which is very exciting--I feel so fortunate that my folks are able to come. When I studied at Harlaxton, my folks were doing all they could for me to be here, and my brother was still in high school, etc…so it wasn't the time. I really envied my friends whose parents got to visit. Three years ago, my folks joined me for a three-week Interterm in London, and we briefly visited Harlaxton then, but it's a real dream come true to have a couple of weeks with them in the English Midlands.

The end of this week will be a month at Harlaxton. Of course I knew it would fly by, but gosh has it flown by. Homework is real, eating meals in the refectory is real….and so are the intense joys of traveling. Since I've last written we've had a few "local-ish" adventures, and they've all been grand, but we've also learned that one "big" day in the weekend is about our speed, especially with the realities of homework and laundry and time for the kids to just play and ride their bikes.

On Saturday the 10th we spent the day in Cambridge, returning first to the American cemetery at Madingley, then visiting King's College Chapel, the market, the Eagle pub, and Fitzbillies before finishing our day with a punt on the cam. That was the highlight for me, though I had to really dial-it-back with my obnoxious hand-raising as the punter was asking questions about the Tudors. Shades of fifth-grade Robyn at the Geography Bee, for those of you who remember that story. The kids loved the Fitzbillies sweets and mostly enjoyed the attention of the college students on the trip, who carried them on their shoulders through the cemetery. Our boys are still really invested in identifying "my friend" and "your friend" and maybe that’s' a product of being one of three? Sacou's hair is a little long and he's been asking to wear a man-bun to school based on a student named Nick's follicular choices, and Gabe loves to boss the older kids around. Tonight is the first night that we've asked a student to play with the boys while Ebi does homework, as I'm teaching still at the 4 p.m. hour--with three, it's always zone defense.

Sunday we drove to the coast, a drive I'd not done for 18 years since I'd visited the wash with my Meet-a-Family in 1998; there was a festival at Sandringham, which slowed us down, and Ben started to feel flu-y, which is a bad deal when I can't drive manual, but we landed in Wells-next-the-Sea and walked along the beach wall while Ben slept, having great seafood (kids tried, and LIKED, herring roll mops!) and played on a pirate ship during the Pirate Festival, then took a miniature train back to dad, and spent about an hour as a family (Ben only marginally recovered) at Holkham Beach. I loved Norfolk, as I'd suspected I would--there is a village called Little Snoring! We elected to extend our time at the beach and missed refectory dinner (NO REGRETS) and were very tired, but were also really glad to have made the trip.

Ebi started Girl Guides on Monday night, and she has to make a tough decision soon about a Harry Potter-themed camping weekend or a trip with the family; we scrapped plans to make the family go to Stratford for a THREE HOUR showing of Cymbeline by the RSC (so still no Stratford for me) and I'm adjusting to the horrible news about The Great British Baking Show, my Wednesdays this fall made even more bittersweet for their brevity. On Wednesday Ben and I got colleagues and students to help make it possible for us BOTH to go TOGETHER to Stamford, which I loved (cheese shop, William Cecil's tomb and a second-hand bookstore-cum-taxidermy shop!) and on Thursday I forewent my spot on the Lincoln trip so Ben could see Lincoln, which I love but had just visited in June on the alumni trip. My Thursday was good, too, though, as I realized that it was the first day I'd been by myself in nearly five weeks. Some people don't believe this, but I am an introvert, and that can make some aspects of the Harlaxton and traveling-with-family-for-five months experience challenging. In our downtime, Ben and I are working through Game of Thrones and I'm on book six of the Maisie Dobbs series, which I love, but there is not a lot of downtime. Friday night Ben and I had a date night, back to Lincoln, to an atmospheric tapas bar with great sangria and a long walk by the cathedral at night, and our choice to cancel Stratford worked out because we spent Saturday at the fantastic Belton House, which appealed to me because of the former owner's role in Edward VI's abdication, appealed to Ben because of the photography opps and the cricket game on the lawn, and appealed to the kids because of the SWEET adventure playground on-site, which is great for parents, too, as we read and drank tea and chatted while they played for nearly three hours. Grand.  We also tried another Grantham restaurant, Nepalese this time, which we enjoyed. And yesterday, Sunday, we had a Sunday lunch in Woolsthorpe before spending the afternoon at Belvoir Castle, home of the 11th Duke of Rutland, another place I'd not been for 18 years. The gardens have since been restored and are quite beautiful, and we had fun at lunch with a colleague, Amber, whom the kids adore. They also did really well on the nearly two-hour tour of the house, which is only mildly-appealing to kids because the swords and bayonets are sweet but who cares about a Hans Holbein portrait of Henry VIII when you're five? Ebi is studying the Tudors this year, though, so she was pretty keen on the portrait.

I know this sounds silly and privileged, but life here is so full it can be hard to find time to plan trips, but Ben and I have Dover and Canterbury on the horizon with my folks, and a canal trip on the Grantham canal. We've booked a long-weekend in Edinburgh, and are visiting Northumberland with Cristin, Caitlin, Esme and Fiona when they visit. Esme is visiting us here at Harlaxton in a couple of weeks, and I am jazzed about a nice tea shop in Grantchester where I'll pretend to be a 1950s vicar. Look, here's what I've done: I've played Wallander in Sweden, and will play Mary Russell in Sussex, Maisie Dobbs in Kent, and basically Sherlock Holmes and Ned Stark everywhere else I go. I play Hermoine Granger here at Harlaxton quite a lot. It's fantastic. Travel choices are being largely made upon this basis. We are weighing up the Costwolds or Cornwall, and just enjoying the beauty of where we are at present, too.  Thanks for reading.