Alnwick Castle

Yesterday's outing was to Alnwick [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnwick] and the impressively maintained castle there. Fans of the movies about a certain bespectacled juvenile wizard-in-training may recognize this particular castle, which was/is home to seven generations of the Percies, including Harry, nicknamed Hotspur, who you may recall is a minor character in Shakespeare's Henry IV. (Neither did I, but they talk about it in the castle literature.)

Parenthetically: there's a strange tradition at some of these castles. It stems from the fact that some of these places continue to be functioning homes for the Dukes and Duchesses of the area. (In Alnwick Castle's case, it's still the Percy family, one of whom was chancellor of my university a few decades ago.) So you'll go into the library, say, and it'll be this amazing historic room, with two stories of books surrounding you and this elaborate furniture, but then they have tables filled with pictures and mementos of the present-day family, which is just strange on a few levels. Are they trying to make the place seem more real, or more modern, by having the present-day inhabitants represented too? Or are they trying too hard to place themselves in such august lineage? Or are you meant to appreciate the castle more because people still live there?

Either way, the effect is jarring: over the mantel is a giant oil portrait of Duke William Ichabod Johnson the XVI ("The Good" or "The Righteous" or whatever nickname they have), with the faithful hunting dog nuzzling his hand, and then on the table you have a c. 1992 photo (and usually not a very good one) with his descendant wearing a Yankees hat and smiling crookedly for a random wannabe Kodak moment. And nearby is a foosball table and an autographed picture of Muhammed Ali (true story, in Alnick's case). It's just a very bizarre juxtaposition.

Hexham & Corbridge (B speaking).

My second cousin and her boyfriend just finished a summer stint at University of Stirling, in Scotland, as part of some college course credit, and now they are down here for a week visiting the northeast. It's so fun to see them, and gives us an excuse to wander around to bits here that we've not yet seen.

Witness yesterday, where,with some colleagues/friends of our from work, we took a train to Hexham [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexham] and set off on a hike that rambled through fields, forest, and along the Tyne river (the same river that eventually goes through Newcastle) before ending up at Corbridge [http://www.thisiscorbridge.co.uk/] for a well-deserved pint (and, in Michelle's case, the largest fried cod as part of a fish and chips dinner you've ever seen....) Cute towns, and unbelievable scenery. As usual, it never fails to amaze me: the bridge pictured in our Corbridge pictures is older than the United States of America (and itself replaces a medieval version.) Unbelievable.

Of course, the one picture proves that my cousin was acting up, so we had to put her in a medieval time-out....

More soon!

Jesmond Dene.

Just by way of following up from below: http://www.jesmonddene.org.uk/
and some pics....

And all this a ten minute walk from our flat. Pretty awesome.

Alfie. (B speaking).

This is Alfie. Alfie is the dog of our school administrator, who is attending her daughter's graduation today, which is why Alfie is drooling all over our kitchen floor. ("School" in England is equivalent to "department" in the US, so the school administrator is sort of like the office manager, but even more important--she oversees the budget and pretty much everything else. We like our administrator quite a bit, but doubly so given that last year she found money that the school hadn't spent yet in sufficient quantities to the extent that they were able to hire me!)

Alfie used to be a guide dog, so he's extremely smart, curious, and fearless. His one weakness is food, and it's enough to make him go off the reservation discipline-wise: the enticing presence of it, or even just the hope and hint that it's around the corner. Apparently he's been known to go into the lunch bags slung over a wheelchair or a toddler's stroller ("pram"), or jump up on a picnic table to feast ravenously during walks, so much so that our friend carries around a few five-pound notes along with the leash and poop bags to compensate anyone who Alfie "robs" during the day.

And, needless to say, he's making us miss Ethan.

For what it's worth, a random observation. One hears a lot about how class-conscious Britain is, and it's undeniably true. Speaking of our school administrator, I couldn't help but notice that not only is all of history's office staff named interchangeably among the professors on our website, but they routinely attend meetings (and contribute, not just take notes and such.) That would never happen in US departments, in my experience.

More generally....hello! it's been awhile since we've written. I'm writing this along with the help of some french-pressed coffee as M sips her cup and waters our plants, and as I hear Alfie's tail beating like a metronome against our wall, furniture, and pretty much everything else. I've got a bit of a sinus thing which I'm trying to fight off, so my voice sounds vaguely Kermit the Frog-ish. It's been a summer chock-full of work and fun. M is teaching like crazy--she's got some more classes lined up through some connections she's made, and is especially excited about some new yoga ones. I've been trying to revise my manuscript, and just sent a redone chapter off to a friend. It's been a gorgeous summer so far, which we plan to exploit by taking Alfie to the Jesmond Dene this afternoon (a sprawling, beautiful urban park with one edge that touches our neighborhood). We are off to visit friends in Manchester this weekend, and at the end of the month will be going to London for a wedding and hopefully get some culture ("kultchur") or something too.