Summer adventures

Well, it's been quite a summer. We travelled for over three weeks, perhaps the longest trip we've ever done together, and I have so many great things to tell you about that I don't know where to start!

We began in Iceland where I finally fulfilled a dream of riding a beautiful Icelandic horse. Wow, they are super speedy but also very comfortable. We also went to the bottom of a volcano (the only place in the world you can do this) and ate at a stonking restaurant called the Grill Market. Next we flew out to San Diego and spent five days at the zoo, Chargers game, pottering in La Jolla and Torrey Pines, exploring the USS Midway and just generally enjoying this amazing and beautiful city. Next we caught the train to LA (actually Burbank) and picked up our hire car. This was the first time driving in the US but D did just great in his massive Chevy Tahoe. We headed up to Malibu where we hiked in the Santa Monica mountains, ate amazing fish, swam in the sea, visited the Getty Villa and drove about enjoying all the little communities that side of LA.

Then we drove up to Topanga and stayed a couple of nights in the mountains in a beautiful, eccentric hideaway. While here we went to the Getty Center, worked out LA style at Burn 60 and watched a performance of Midsummer at the Theatricum Botanicum. We returned the car and headed back to central LA for a few nights for a Dodgers game, a tour around Hollywood and the city, and WWE Summerslam at the Staples Center. Then we flew north to Banff for a couple of days in the Canadian mountains for lots of walking and glacier exploring. We took the Greyhound bus to Lacombe to visit our besties and their sweet family there, and D fulfilled his lifetime ambition(!) by going to the West Edmonton Mall. Then we flew out of Edmonton to Vancouver which remains one of our favourite cities in the world. The weather was warm again (lovely after a couple of freezing days in Alberta) and we took a tour of Gastown, ate amazing sandwiches, watched a BC Lions game, took a trip in a speed boat, visited Granville Island and enjoyed a celebratory last night meal at Market by Jean Georges.

So, just a typical Warden holiday of adventures and excitement. It was such a great trip. We met loads of super cool people along the way, staying in Air BnB homes, visiting welcoming churches, chatting to folks in shops. For the first time ever I have had a bit of post-holiday blues. Usually I am glad to go on an adventure but also glad to get home. This holiday I could have stayed in Vancouver for at least another week enjoying the warm sun and the cool vibe. We've been back three days and I am starting to get used to not having iced tea on tap, not being too friendly in shops and the chilly autumnal weather than has started to arrive in the UK.

This term is full of exciting stuff though so I'm focusing on all that. Plenty of conferences, collaborations, projects, trips. I have completed my term plan for up to Christmas and it is FULL!

Hope your summer was amazing and that you have exciting adventures planned for the autumn.
CSW

Lambing 24

Last week was a really interesting one. First I travelled down to London for a rather exciting meeting which I can't talk about really but which hopefully will lead on to big things (cryptic!). Then we headed down to South Wales (through the floods - totally feel for all those having to cope with extreme weather right now) so I could enjoy my Christmas present. Three years ago I got really into BBC's Lambing Live, the programme that shows all the ins and outs of the lambing season on a farm. Since then I've really enjoyed each series, hosted by one of my favourite presenters (actually favourite people on TV): Kate Humble.

So imagine my delight when I received a voucher for my Christmas that entitled me to 24 hours in a lambing shed on Kate Humble's farm. She has set up an initiative called Humble by Nature which allows members of the public to learn more about farming. It is based on a beautiful farm in Monmouthshire. So, I got to spend 24 hours with Kate (who was as generous and down to earth in real life as she is on the telly) and her team learning all about lambing. It was an incredible experience. At 2am on Sat night/Sun morning I got up to check the lambing shed with one of my fellow lambers. Imagine our delight when we found a small lamb sitting in the corner and her mother giving birth to her wee sister as we watched. We took care of the lambs (which is a very gooey business that I won't go in to). It was an amazing, beautiful moment: yet another highlight of 2014 which, frankly, has already been filled with enough highlights!

You'll have to forgive the silly hat/mucky jacket/sleepy face but I thought you might enjoy seeing the picture of us with the girlie twins the morning after:

It was the most wonderful weekend.

Other than all that excitement it's been a steady round of teaching, writing and getting back into a more regular fitness regime with Ultimate Yogi (which I'm still enjoying) and Focus t25 which is like Insanity but shorter.

This weekend is a slightly quieter one - some riding, some resting, some reading and (yuck) some cleaning.

I'm off to bed to dream of the beautiful little twins.
CSW

Portugal

What better way to start one’s sabbatical than with a jolly trip to Portugal with the in-laws. The weather was amazing (an autumn tan is so nice) and we enjoyed 7 days of pools, dolphins, boats, sea and food…lots of food! Oh, and coconut/pineapple juice.

Wherever we go, D looks out the most promising restaurant in the area. For this trip we found the wonderful Vila Joya, a beautiful hotel looking out over the sea. We sat under sun umbrellas and enjoyed one of the best meals we have ever eaten. I can’t even begin to tell you what we ate as there were so many courses. And they were all delicious – really delicious! Vila Joya also had two sweet love birds that I got to chat to after our food.

While on holiday I read two and a half books. The first was triathlete Chrissie Wellington’s autobiography. I have had this on my coffee table for two months and have been looking forward to reading it. It didn’t disappoint. Wellington is a very inspiring athlete, someone who is disciplined yet reassuringly normal…or at least as normal as anyone who does Ironman events. I have been enjoying ‘Road to Kona’ on Sky Sports over the past few weeks and really admire the Ironman guys. They are awesome, if slightly barmy. D keeps suggesting I train for one – I’m afraid that I simply couldn’t cope with the pain! I am, at heart, a big wuss.

The second was Neil Peart’s book about cycling in Cameroon. I read his poignant ‘Ghost Rider’ earlier this month. This one was completely different yet still had Peart’s intellectual approach. He is such an insightful guy. Reading his books has made me admire Rush’s music (while not always liking it). D is determined to convert me though as Rush plays almost constantly in the car (though it must be said, that on the way back from the airport, he put on a bit of The Boss for me – by the by, did you see that Bruce played until 2am the other night in NJ…the guy is a LEGEND!).

Anyways, the whole holiday was wonderful and relaxing. Thanks to the in-laws for letting us come and crash their vacation!

CSW

Perpetual Motion

So, I am beginning to forget what my own bed looks like! After seeing The Boss in Manchester (listening to his whole back catalogue right now), our lovely Minnesota friends came to visit for a couple of days before the three of us headed off to the University of Leeds for the Performance Studies international (with a small ‘i’ – I don’t know why either) conference. It was four days of chat, listening to papers (a mixed bag but some really great stuff) book promo. Three highlights: watching a great group doing Kathakali Indian dancing in a swimming pool, an amazing paper on mass performance in the French Revolution and a fun authors’ event with the good folks at Palgrave. It was a pretty unusual conference for me but good fun and I got to hang out with some great folks.

When I got back (10.30 Saturday night – academics are slackers, right?), my fab brother and sis-in law were there with our niece. While I had been sitting in darkened university seminar rooms all day, they had been to a duck race and eaten ice cream. We spent Sunday together before they headed back up the road to Auld Reekie and D and I went down to Northampton. So, a few weeks back D won a competition. He never wins anything so it was a bit of a surprise. Here was the prize: a day out with Lexus – chauffeur driven, lunch at Heston Blumenthal’s pub The Hind’s Head, a trip on the Thames and a night at Windsor races. Turns out we are pretty rubbish at betting (which I found rather encouraging for two Presbyterians!) but rather good at eating a mountain of food! It was a wonderfully unusual Monday! It also gave us the opportunity to celebrate D’s 30^th birthday which actually fell right in the middle of my conference so I wasn’t even there to spoil him. We spent the night in Northampton and sped back this morning to get to work. Phew! I think I now have a few days at home!

My research summer is just beginning so I’m getting everything sorted out in readiness. Today I worked my way through a raft of emails, caught up with correspondence from the conference, rejigged all my online profiles (website, academia.edu etc) and then carried on with a book that really needs to be back in the library tomorrow. These preparatory days are always fun and inspirational.

Oh, and a final congrats to our wonderful third years who are now graduands after officially receiving their marks this week. Looking forward to graduation now!

CSW

Our European Travels

So, I've not posted for a couple of weeks but I do have a great excuse. D and I were travelling round Europe with backpacks! We spent ten days (ish) moving from Cologne to Friedrichshafen to Lauterbrunnen (Germany to Switzerland) by train and boat. It was an amazing trip full of excitement and fun. Here are just some of the things I'll remember from it:

• Catching up with our wonderful friends in Friedrichshafen. With some people it doesn't matter if you haven't seen each other for a year, you just click back into place. 
• Speaking German again. Many years ago I got a B at A-Level for German (trust me, that was a remarkable result!) but I haven't used my German in earnest since a trip to Austria about ten years ago! Actually I was quite amazed by what came back and I found that I could understand a good deal more than I thought I would be able to. 
• Enjoying the delights of the spa in Cologne. Spas in Europe are quite different than in the UK (!) but we rose to the challenge!
• Seeing photographs of bombed out Cologne. I hadn't realised how much the folks of Cologne had suffered during WW2. The pictures on the bombed out cathedral were really shocking.
• Marvelling at the European train system. Man, the trains are just great over there. They are clean with two decks and they go super quick!
• Altitude sickness! So (and, while I'm going to relay this story, you just know that D will tell the embellished version) while in Switzerland we took the train up to the Jungfraujoch. This is incredibly high and we were amazed to see all the snow. The sun was shining and it was just beautiful so off we set for a jolly ramble through the snow. We made it to the Monchjochhutte (the starting point if you are going to climb the next mountain, the Monch) and were very grateful to find hot drinks at the remote hut. But walking in those sort of conditions was far more challenging than you might imagine and both of us ended the day feeling elated but a little lacking in oxygen. D suffered particularly and was very ill all over Lauterbrunnen station. We thought altitude sickness was kinda showbiz. D maintains that I just had a case of 'woman feeling a bit poorly'.
• Train avalanches! On our final day I thought a lovely trip in an old fashioned train up to some lovely Alpine gardens might be just the thing. Except that almost at the top we were struck by an avalanche of snow, rock and trees. Now hanging over an extremely high precipice (OK so I am exaggerating just slightly) is pretty scary but the good people a the Jungfraubahn eventually got us down.
• Cheese! Tonight we have burgers with gruyere for dinner. Swiss cheese is the greatest!
• Waterfalls. Of all natural phenomenon, waterfalls are my absolute favourite. Our room overlooked a lovely waterfall and we had an amazing trip to the Trummelbach Falls which are spectacular.

And, given that D has just indicated that the BBQ is ready, I had better go. All in all a great trip. Photographs will be up as soon as D has found the wire! ;-)

CSW

Happy Easter one and all!

Ooops, only a day late with my Resurrection greeting! The delay is really due to the fact that D and I have been on annual leave this week and have spent happy days chilling out, travelling about and seeing folks. So, it all started with a great weekend in Ely/Cambridge. D was beside himself with excitement as we were staying in the field where the front cover of Pink Floyd's Division Bell album was photographed.

Fortunately the field now contains a sensational B&B where we stayed. We spent Saturday in Ely behaving like 12 year olds in the Cromwell museum (we tried on helmets and everything!) and Sunday exploring the beautiful city of Cambridge. We went into all the colleges that were free and tutted at all that charged! We then went to the Aussie Pink Floyd gig (a happy coincidence). We had backstage passes so hung out with the band before and after (free bar and cake at after-show party - D and I both had rock n' roll Sprites!) and everyone was so friendly and gracious.

We came back to Nocton for a day at home (caught up with Wrestlemania - HHH/HBK/Taker...how we love you guys!) and then headed off to Edinburgh for Easter with the fam. On our way up we ate at the wonderful Greywalls. The souffle was so good that I had a cheese one for starters and a sweet one with peaches for pudding. Gorgeous, gorgeous and, although the weather was pretty grim, Muirfield still looked pretty stunning. We had such a happy few days with the family. I had a single day in the library which was topped off with a visit to one of my favourite inspirational Auld Reekie haunts, The Museum of Scotland/National Museum. It was packed with kids for science week and it was so wonderful to see so many children really wanting to learn. I have a theory that Scotland has a stronger commitment to education and learning than England, and experiences like this one just convinces me I'm right! We caught up with the whole family and ended up with the usual unbelievable amount of Easter eggs. We arrived back last night and have spent today having breakfast at Doddington Hall, seeing the horses at Bransby and watching the first episode of Game of Thrones (new series). Just a typical vacation day chez Warden.

We are back to work tomorrow though I have a couple of days at home to try and get some articles finished before the assessment period arrives. We were so glad to wake up in our lovely Garden House this morning. The weather is a bit wet but our house is still fab! Ah the peace of the countryside. We have had ducklings, deer, bunnies and all sorts of birds in our garden in recent days. It's just lovely.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter time.
CSW

Getting ready to go

Much of our thinking time has been taken up with moving house. D has managed to source some terrific furniture bargains and we pick up the keys on Saturday. I am very excited about it. We have also booked our summer holiday. We are off to Germany and Switzerland to visit some wonderful friends (Evelyn and family, we can't wait to see you!) and to enjoy the beauty of the mountains for a few days. Rather than flying, we are making the journey by train! It's going to be an adventure. The last time I travelled round Europe on a train I was 21 and didn't mind arriving in Florence with nowhere to stay and kipping down for the night in a nunnery in Venice, not to mention sleeping in a hostel in Zagreb which cost €6 a night! I am now older and demand a hot shower each morning!

Back to Lincoln life, I am currently finishing off a raft of projects including the Hassan paper (which was accepted by the good people of Theatre Notebook yesterday!), the proofs for the Literary North chapter and the final indexing/proofing of British Avant-Garde Theatre. I also have a conference abstract to write tomorrow. We are reaching the end of term (only two more weeks to go!) and the students are starting to think seriously about their performance assessments. Teaching has been so fun this term. Cool students, interesting courses!

So, I'm going to make some tea. D is watching a youtube video about Switzerland. It looks amazingly beautiful and we are so grateful for our Germany/Switzerland May holiday. Will try and post amidst the boxes next week. Until then, hope everyone is doing great.

CSW

Happy New Year

So, we're back in Lincoln after two weeks of travelling around the UK seeing family and friends, eating far too much food and climbing mountains in waist-high snow! We've had a wonderful holiday and, despite racing about like mad things, we both feel pretty rested and ready for 2012. We both did remarkably well for Christmas. I am still getting to grips with my iphone but can now tweet on the move (hoorah, you say?), I have a lot of new clothes and am looking forward to spending vouchers for weekends away and meals out. We feel pretty blessed by everything really.

Just so you don't presume I spent all the festive season lying on a sofa eating chocolate, I also spent a day in the National Library, finished the marking and completed the new module handbooks. All is coming together for the new term although the house still needs a bit of a sort out (Christmas paper everywhere) and I still have some lectures to write and dissertation supervisors to assign. We are, however, getting there and my jolly half hour of planning in Edinburgh's Valvona and Crolla has helped to sort out the next few months. I foresee a busy few months of research and teaching. Go me!

And so, I'm going to carry on with the second marking. Will post more about new year's resolutions later in the week. I have made some for what it's worth. They are mostly based around my new Zumba Wi game!

Oh, and happy birthday to Big Dave, world's best father-in-law and avid reader of Molemaison.

CSW

Our trip over the water

So, as promised here...finally...is a post about our trip to the States and Canada. Rather than go through a blow by blow account (two weeks is a long time!) I thought I'd just write a wee list of things we did:

Spent some wonderful time with our friends - Ann, Tim, Jack and Maddy in Seattle and David, Megan and their sweet family in Vancouver
Watched a winning game from the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field
Ate some wonderful food...in fact too much wonderful food!
Did a lot of hiking
Climbed a lot of mountains
Bought clothes at half the price you'd pay at British shops
Revisited Mars Hill
Frightened ourselves silly on zip trek through the Whistler mountains
Went on far too many chair lifts and gondolas for my weak and wussy stomach
Had a special 'Mole' day with a visit to the art gallery and afternoon tea at the Fairmont
Enjoyed a magnificent, intense yoga session in Whistler
Took the train overlooking the Puget Sound
Watched some inspiring dance performances at the Bumbershoot festival
Saw the amazing Alphine flowers at Mount Rainer
Wandered round the beautiful city of Vancouver
Watched the Huskies win against Hawaii
Took a trip to Bainbridge Island to see the poignant exhibition on Japanese-American experience during the War

Phew, that's surely enough for the time being. I'll probably add to the list when D arrives home as he'll remember hundreds of things I've forgotten. Do check out the photographs. D did a great job. And what is my overriding memory of our trip? I think it'd have to be just hanging out for two weeks with D. Having two whole weeks to spend together and enjoy so many exciting experiences was an amazing blessing. And it was made all the more wonderful by our friends. I had just a little cry when we left as I was genuinely sad to leave Seattle and the friends we love. We'll be back as soon as we can.

Anyways, that's your lot. It was the first day of teaching today and I am strangely exhausted! I don't have the energy to post coherently about it right now. Suffice to say, everything went just fine and it was great to have the students back in the LPAC. Off for tea and a snooze.

CSW

Back home

Me enjoying a day at the Bumbershoot Arts Festival in Seattle. Saw some great dance pieces!

Phew, that was a quick couple of weeks. So here we are back in Lincoln. We arrived about an hour ago, after dropping in at my folks for a lunch treat and a little snooze. Their proximity to the airport is proving to be most useful! What a great trip we had! We spent some great times with our friends in Seattle, including boats trips to islands, watching entertaining TV shows about dogs, eating steak and witnessing a Mariners win (baseball). We then headed up to Vancouver and Whistler for a couple of days of sunshine (the weather was incredible for the whole fortnight), hiking and adventures. The photos will tell more of a story than I will be able to here - suffice to say, imagine me standing on a little wooden ledge about to throw myself down a zip wire over a huge ravine. This was my most terrifying moment and we have photos that clearly capture that terror. It was a great trip made possible by our wonderful Seattle friends - thanks guys! Keep popping back to Molemaison if you are interested in stories and (much more importantly) photos a la D.

Tomorrow we are both back to work. I am participating in a departmental away day and am really looking forward to getting back into things. Holidays are fab but I do love inspiring days of research and teaching. Before you ask, there really is no sarcasm in this sentence! I made this term's plans on the long flight back and am ready to dive back in...just as soon as I've had a sleep.

CSW

Good morning from the Pacific North West

Here we are in Seattle and I've remembered how much I love this city. We arrived yesterday and spent a wonderful afternoon and evening with our friends, catching up and enjoying the mixed blessings of American cable. And here we are this morning in Starbucks (where the coffee is much better than in the UK) in the University district. We've had a slow start after a great night's sleep and are just about to head to UW for a wander around. I am so excited to be here and to have the chance to enjoy two amazing weeks of adventures and relaxation. Tomorrow we are off up Mount Rainer and on Wednesday we have a wee tour of the Capitol Hill area and then we're off to the Mariners' game. Man, life is good.
Hope everyone is doing really well.
C&D

Leaving rainy Blighty

Goodness, it is really raining in the East of England today. I've got to nip out to do some jobs and am putting it off. Fortunately we are off to sunnier (hopefully) climes - America and Canada here we come! We are going to enjoy a couple of jolly weeks with our wonderful friends. The bags are just about packed, house is relatively tidy and jobs are just about done. In preparation I've been enjoying a whole load of big American plays from Williams and Miller. Have one more to battle with this afternoon - 'A View from the Bridge'. I like my coffee skinny and hot, my weather warm and sunny, and my plays depressing and American. Anyways, I'm going to crack on with some more jobs and grab some lunch. There might be a post while we're away but there might not. Hope everyone has a magnificent start to September.

CSW

Reflections on China: the full story

So, as promised here are some thoughts about our trip to China. If you have time and a large cup of tea then check out our photos taken (mostly) by D with his new camera. There is a slide show flicking away to the right of the blog under my lists. This is the cut down album - we started with nearly a thousand so brace yourself...

China was a place I had wanted to visit for a great many years. As an excitable undergraduate living in Aberystwyth I had a number of friends who were fascinated by this great country, and their enthusiasm eventually rubbed off on me. I learnt a lot about Chinese history and about the missionaries who had travelled over to China during the nineteenth century. I own at least five Hudson Taylor books which I read cover-to-cover. And now China is in the midst of great changes economically, socially, politically. It has become a place where the old meets the new, where hutongs make way for skyscrapers and luxury German cars are becoming as prevalent as bicycles. So it seemed an exciting time to visit.

And so it proved. As we wandered around the busy streets of Beijing it all felt rather surreal. Given that I was fulfilling a dream simply by being there, D asked whether I felt a little sad. Often when we achieve something we have been working towards and thinking about for many years we can just feel a little flat. I can honestly say that I didn’t feel sad at all, just a little overwhelmed and very excited. 

So here are the high points of our trip:

Walking the Great Wall

This was an incredible experience. I’m not sure what I was expecting but a complete wall snaking off into the distance with forts and breathtaking views was not it. It is one of the highlights of my life and also proved to be one of the toughest fitness challenges D and I had ever attempted. A four-hour hike (the first hour and a half up an almost vertical mountain) in 36 (ish) degree heat. Phew! You know those lists of things to do before you die…put this on it!

Seeing beautiful stuff

Beijing is full of incredible sights, from the architecture of the Forbidden Palace to the amazing parks at Bei Hai and the Summer Palace. At times it feels as if you have entered 'China World' as it is almost exactly as you would imagine, complete with temples, locals doing tai chi and dragon boats. But it really is like that. Take a scan through the photos (click to the right) and see some of the amazing things we saw. Every site was packed full of Chinese tourists, coming to visit their own history.

The Chinese people

Now it is tough to generalise about the inhabitants of a country that makes up 1/5 of the population of the whole world, but everyone we met was so friendly and welcoming. There weren’t many who could speak English (my knowledge of Chinese adds up to ‘hello’, ‘thank you’ and pointing with a grin) but there was a lot of laughter and smiles. On our trip round the old hutongs a lady welcomed us into her house. We had a good chat through our interpreter. Can you imagine this sort of thing happening in Britain? I miss the Chinese people very much.

Visiting Beijing Baptist Church

We love going to different churches on our trips and this one was no exception. Generally it means trips out into the desert or, in this case, to a tucked away hotel. We had a wonderful time with them and got taken out to lunch where they informed us that we shouldn’t eat anything that falls on the table…a useful factoid that stayed with us for the rest of our trip.

Seeing real Beijing

We had booked a guide for one day of our trip to show us around the real Beijing. As tourists who don’t speak Chinese it can be difficult to get around at times. So she took us to markets, tea ceremonies and art galleries and we caught a glimpse of real Beijing. In fact we were lucky to see it at all as the hutongs are disappearing rapidly to make way for flats or offices. The skyline of Beijing has changed at an unbelievable rate. Unfortunately this means that some of Beijing’s most historical districts are disappearing too. Ancient temples and houses are making way for big glass towers. We saw the effects of this in the rubble of the hutong we visited. When we asked our guide she said that there were good and bad things about this. How true!

Chinese TV

D loves watching local telly whenever we are abroad. Chinese telly, however, is rubbish. There is a lot of patriotic dancing and badminton. That said, in a slightly surreal, nostalgic moment, we got to watch Costner’s magnificent Robin Hood Prince of Thieves one night.

Food

The food in Beijing is really excellent and very cheap. Even the best places are a fraction of the cost of the UK. I enjoyed all the vegetables we ate. The Chinese seem to have a good food ethic, cooking from scratch and including veg, meat and carbs in every meal. Here’s hoping that the growing amount of KFC and MacDonald’s won't ruin this. On Thursday night we ate at the Dadong Duck Restaurant, which was truly incredible. Normally I don’t even really like duck! Oh, and D got to eat a snake on the final night and felt no ill effects. One of his other foodie highlights were the vegetable ice lollies - pea or sweetcorn lolly anyone?

D as a celebrity

One thing we hadn’t really prepared ourselves for was D’s celebrity status in China. As he is 6”5 with blond curly hair (goodness, he sounds like a real hunk!) he stood out like an alien in Beijing. Everyone found him hilarious and wanted their picture taken next to him. Cue much laughter and fun all round. I think D has felt a little flat back in Lincoln. 

Standing in Tiananmen Square

I remember this place well from my childhood and it was a slightly eerie feeling to stand there in the heat surrounded by Soviet-style architecture with Mao looking down on us.

Wandering round 798 Art District

While we saw a lot of old stuff, we were also impressed with the new. 798 is a contemporary arts district that feels like a mad moment of anarchy in an otherwise ordered country. It taps into a modern movement exemplified by the work of Ai Wei Wei. It was a great inspiring place of experiment and I hope it will continue to go from strength to strength.

And here is a list of the things I won’t miss (it is a very short list!):

Not being able to speak the language

This is a very frustrating experience. But our Chinese friends were very forgiving.

The toilets

Ah yes! I am afraid that I am a soft, wimpy Westerner and cannot cope with holes in the ground.

The traffic

Wow, Beijing roads are insane. I have no idea why there aren’t more accidents. They go by the ‘patient impatience’ rule. Do any move you like, however crazy. But if someone gets there before you then you just shrug your shoulders and nod to them as the better man. In Britain there would be riots in the streets and blood on the tarmac, but in Beijing we didn’t even see anyone raise their voice let alone their fist.

And there you are: some not-so-brief reflections on our trip. As a brief footnote, it may well be surprising (given my research interests etc) that I haven’t really mentioned politics. We are well aware of the political situation in China and some the human rights issues that this country faces. To be honest, we didn’t see anything that caused us concern while we were there, though we learnt that the capital punishment statistics are horrendous. I’m not wanting to put my head in the sand over this one but I can’t really comment, given that everyone we met treated us with the greatest warmth and we wandered around the city with total freedom.

Suffice to say, we had a truly wonderful time and are currently working our way through our canon of beautiful Chinese films – last night it was House of Flying Daggers. I cried…a lot….but I wasn’t sure whether I was crying at the film or at the fact that I missed our Chinese friends.

CSW

Reflections on China: the prologue

Evening folks,
We've just arrived back after a jolly cinema/Nando's combo. Tonight's film was the new X Men flick and very good it was too. I really like this franchise - intelligent movies with lovely cinematography and really engaging characters. This evening's offering was a great addition to the series. And the delicious Hugh Jackman made a wee cameo appearance. I'd definitely recommend it.

We haven't got our holiday photos online yet as Nikon, in their wisdom, do not include a USB cable with their new cameras. D is waiting for one to arrive from Amazon so for the moment you'll have to make do with a couple of snaps from the iphone. When the photos are up (and I have had some time to think about it all) I'll post some real reflections on our Chinese adventure.

Here's one for all you plane enthusiasts. We flew on the Airbus A380, the biggest plane in the skies. Here it is at Beijing Airport with its little brother from British Airways next to it:

Wandering around Tiananmen Square at night was an incredible experience. Everyone was super friendly and even late at night we felt totally safe and well looked after.

We really loved the English translations of signs. They were always polite and read a little like an essay by an undergraduate who is trying too hard. Here is D standing next to one of our favourites:

And finally for the time being, here is a wee film. D's favourite thing about plane travel is being able to watch back-to-back movies. On the way home they were showing The Edge with Sir Anthony Hopkins (one for all you Kermode fans there). He was slightly surprised by this as, and I quote, "I'm sure that film has a plane crash in it". Everyone knows it is poor etiquette to show an air disaster film while zooming through the air at a gizzilion miles an hour at 30,000 feet. But, in a moment of true comic genius, D managed to capture what the good people of Lufthansa decided to do with the dreaded crash scene.

Anyways, that's your lot for tonight. I'll probably post a more comprehensive response to China at the weekend. Between now and then it is Book, some faffy admin jobs and some serious flat tidying.

Enjoy the week folks.
CSW

And another quickie...

...just to say that we have arrived back safely from China. Phew, that was a quick week! I'll post further about our trip in the next few days and the photos should be up and about by the end of the week in case you are interested. Suffice to say, it was amazing! D and I couldn't believe some of the things we saw and experienced during our seven days. We were welcomed wherever we went. So if you would like to read stories about eating snake, hiking the Great Wall, trying pea ice lollies and D becoming a Beijing celebrity then check back over the coming days. While D gets another day off to recover, I am back to work today and can't wait to get cracking on the Book. We always love our holidays but we are always glad to get back into things here too. Enjoy your day one and all.

CSW

On our way...

Just a quickie to say that we've made it as far as Manchester! Hopefully we'll arrive in Beijing on Saturday morning local time. I'll update again on our return but you probably won't get anything while we're in China. Have a happy week one and all.

CSW

Grimsvotn

No, today's post title is not a mythical place from Lord of the Rings but, rather, the name of an erupting volcano that is currently taking over conversation chez Warden. As the ash cloud hovers over northern Britain we are following the news avidly hoping that our plane will be able to take off on Friday. I have a scarily organised packing system going in hopeful expectation. As D rightly reminded me yesterday when I felt sad about the prospect of not getting to China, there will be people who are trying to travel to see sick relatives or to attend important family events; we are just attempting to go on holiday. So, we live in hope...

This week is taken up with meetings and uploading marks. I have spent a bit of time on the Book, though, and on a new paper which discusses the historical avant-garde archive as raw material for contemporary performance. It is a fun, challenging new project. Tonight we grabbed some sushi with our friends and then, as part of a Tuesday night tradition, watched WWE Tough Enough. What a great show! The Rock was on tonight and we are now left with three really good guys for Stone Cold to choose between.

And if you imagine that the Wardens have intense conversations about theology or politics or ethics then you would be mistaken - the chief topic of discussion this week was the difference between a bread bun and a roll. Hmmm...a question that will keep you awake this evening perhaps.

I'll post when we know more about our trip. "Ash cloud, ash cloud, go away".
CSW

Happy Easter

Evening all! We are back from our jolly holiday in Norfolk just in time to enjoy Easter here in Lincoln. 'He is risen' and it was good to celebrate with our LEC friends.

I'll post a longer holiday debrief tomorrow but here's a picture to wet (literally) your appetite...

...after a week with no rain at all, we arrived back to an incredible thunder storm. D took this picture from our balcony with his iphone! Unbelievable, huh?

More tomorrow folks.
CSW

End of term at Eden Hall

So, yesterday the parents came to visit and Mum and I went to Eden Hall Spa. I have never been to a spa before, though I've always quite fancied the idea. A few months ago I received a 'phone call from HR reminding me of a competition I had entered before Christmas. I had won the prize! Two vouchers for Eden Hall. So I decided that Mum deserved a special day and what a day we had! It began with a lovely fruit breakfast. Then I did a quick gym session and we hit the aqua detox rooms, a collection of gorgeous water-themed chill out spaces, including a steam room that smelt of rose turkish delight and a salt room that left our skin feeling all soft. We then found the slumber room, a darkened room with huge sofa bean bags, fish tanks and cosy rugs...and promptly feel asleep. The boys laughed at us for this one! After a delicious lunch we went back to our aqua rooms, pool and hot tubs before embarking on a Tai Chi class. I really loved this class. It was a cross between Bodycombat and yoga, two things I like very much indeed! We arrived back feeling very rested and both of us slept for eight hours straight. Sweet! We will definitely do it again.

Today was the last day before the Easter holidays and, after yesterday's chill out, I had to re-energise myself for tutorials and research. I sent off a couple more projects to various folks and am now waiting on five different responses. Hopefully there'll be some new publications coming up soon! Today was also the last chance to visit our favourite cafe, Cafe Portico, before it closes forever next week. We are so sad to see these guys go. I don't know where I'll work now!

We are now officially on holiday - hoorah! - and are looking forward to some happy days in Norfolk next week. Don't expect any posting until next weekend, though you never know with the power of technology! Enjoy the week folks.

CSW

We're all going on a summer holiday...again!

And where are we going, you may ask? Well, the Wardens are off to Beijing at the end of May and I can barely contain my excitement! I have wanted to go to China for many years for three major reasons: 1) the events at Tiananmen Square are firmly ingrained in my brain from being a wee girlie 2) the idea of walking along the Great Wall fills me with unexplainable joy 3) Hudson Taylor is one of my heroes and his tales of China and his love for the Chinese people have long been an inspiration to me. So, all to say, we are really looking forward to our trip.

But for the time being I have a book to concentrate on. Today was very profitable as I sat in a cafe reading Marinetti's Critical Writings and writing the conclusion. And then I watched some great physical theatre pieces as part of our assessment week. Great stuff! The next book proposal will be in by the end of tomorrow and I am quietly pleased with it considering that I haven't had chance to start the research in earnest yet. I am really enjoying my research right now and extremely grateful for all the time I have been given to work on my projects. With all the academic reading I'm doing, my private reading has been sadly lacking. I have a whole heap of books on the go but am making no progress at all. A long flight to China could be exactly what I need!

I'm off for a snooze. I didn't finish assessing until 9pm so it has been a long ol' day. I'm hoping Spring will arrive pretty soon. It is cold here and I have at least four items of summer clothing that I really want to wear. And a new (extremely cheap) pair of Superdry sneakers that need to be broken in. As these are light grey and white, I think they need to be saved for a sunny day!

CSW