July 3-5: The Weekend

My weekend began THURSDAY evening, sort of, when a small group of us met with the professors at the Old Bank of England Pub for dinner and to discuss our paper topics. (We broke into groups, each group meeting a different night at the pub. My group met Thursday night.)

I enjoyed hearing about everyone's subjects for their papers, from Agatha Christie, to Arctic fur traders, to . I want to read them all when they're finished. 

I won't say the discussion made me feel more confident in my own topic, but the professors seemed confident. So, I decided to rely on that until I got into the work.

FRIDAY was an independent research day, so I worked mostly on this blog and a little on my paper.

That night some classmates and I went to a performance of Agatha Christie's Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play. This was performance number 26,102.

Don't ask me whodunnit. I've been sworn to secrecy.


On SATURDAY, I worked on my paper a little more, ran some errands, and took a nap. It was wonderful. Some of us met up for dinner that night.


On SUNDAY, I went on a tour of Stonehenge and Winchester. It was amazing how close they let you get to the stones. Between the audio tour and the winding path around the henge, I felt like I got a good grasp of its size and its history.

So, here come a lot of pictures of Stonehenge...

In the afternoon, we went to Winchester. We found the house where Jane Austen spent her final months...

...the cathedral where she's laid to rest (Winchester Cathedral--I didn't go in' I was all cathedralled[?] out)...

Then we wandered over to the Great Hall, home of the Round Table...

The Round Table

And here are some random pictures of pretty scenes in Winchester...