Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Day Four of This Week, and still nothing much has happened. I’ve had my hair done and it looks fairly alarming. It should quiet down by Saturday.

I wonder if I might not block the Princess this afternoon? I might find it calming.

In what follows, assume a DV or insh’Allah after every statement with a verb referring to the future. I won’t keep inserting them so as not to break the flow of the prose.

My husband’s train leaves at 12 noon. Lizzie’s, at the other end, doesn’t leave until 1. I’ll go up to the station with my husband this morning, and hang around until I see the wheels turning. Then come back and have a light, carefully chosen lunch with a bottle of nicely chilled cider. (Regimes don’t count this week – and anyway, I can’t drink all that much because they don’t have Weston’s Vintage Cider in CT. I hope to drink a lot of champagne, but that is famously low-calorie, the drink of jockeys.)

That leaves several hours before I go back up to the station to meet Lizzie. I need to pack, but everything has been laid out, lists made, telephone numbers noted.

Janet asked what books I’m taking: the new Kate Atkinson, “When Will There Be Good News”; Eudora Welty’s “Delta Wedding”; something about Schrodinger’s cat; and Julian Barnes, “Nothing to be Frightened Of”, about death.

The cat book is to get me up to speed on quantum mechanics and string theory. Examining it more closely after I got it back from the bookstore, I was surprised to find that it is a couple of decades old. That might mean it’s readable. I hope so. My own knowledge of physics is a good five decades old, anyway.

Professor Higgs (of “Higgs besom” fame) used to live in Drummond Place. And James Clerk Maxwell lived not all that far away, although in a different century. Why is he not as famous as Newton and Einstein, between whom he stands? I suppose because his achievements are utterly incomprehensible, whereas we can all grasp the fall of an apple and the evaporation of a city.

Lizzie and I will have hours and hours in Newark airport on the way home next Monday so I should have time to get through all that, and start again.

16 comments:

  1. It is good to be back on line in time to wish you a heartfelt "Bon Voyage". And to say that if you go to a yarn store, I found the Cascade handpainted sock yarn to be some of the smoothest I have used.

    Wring every bit of pleasure out of the trip! best wishes.

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  2. have a wonderful time and I hope the sun shines for the wedding and your journeys are tedious not exciting

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  3. Safe journeys to you and your husband. Enjoy all the festivities in Connecticut.

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  4. Good, all caught up on the things that matter in the Northern Hemisphere. Congratulations on getting so much of your red currant crop in. I'm not surprised that the white currents got blasted - what alternative was there? Do you have wild blackberries growing near TCOTU? They make an impressive summer pudding, particularly if you sieve out the seeds.

    BTW, do you plan to freeze the Princess while you're gone? It would be tragic to come home, start blocking it and find the moths had done a white currant crop on you.

    All the best for your trip back west. I'm sure that everything will work out well and you certainly have the mental resources and the stamina to sort out any hiccups as they arise. Tilly's great grandmother, now in her late 80s, is headed off to the UK to party on with her 90 year old sister. Makes me feel very lazy : )

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  5. Enjoy your trip!
    Best wishes for smooth travels.
    We look forward to the photos!

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  6. Bon voyage! (And here's hoping for fine weather, too.)

    Have you seen the portrait of Dr Higgs in the "new" University of Edinburgh bioinfomatics building?

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  7. Gerrie2:40 PM

    Have a wonderful trip! Hope you enjoy every minute and have wonderful family time.

    When you return, reveal your trick for reading in airports-I may read a lot of pages but it seems to be the same page over and over. Too distracted by all the noise. Knitting works much better.

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  8. Anonymous6:03 PM

    Just adding my best wishes for smooth and safe trips for all, and a fine time at the wedding.
    - Beth

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  9. Anonymous6:25 PM

    Best wishes for a fine trip. I'm sure you will enjoy the lovely wedding.
    Genie

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  10. =Tamar9:07 PM

    Blocking the Princess is calming? I suppose it might be. Is it mended, then?

    Higgs-boson, I thought, though I like the idea of something in Physics being a besom (for all I know, there is one).

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  11. Safe travels for all concerned and have a wonderful time!

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  12. Have a great trip. Will be thinking of you. I love reading your blog!

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  13. Anonymous12:47 AM

    Have a good trip. And I think it must matter whom you hang out with- in my corner of the world (chemistry) Maxwell is just as famous as the others-
    Kimmen

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  14. To paraphrase Dale Evans - happy trails to you until we meet on the blog again.

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  15. Looking forward to hearing how it all went. Bon voyage!

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  16. I heard you had a lovely time with Cindersall and Seaglass. I wish I had been there too.

    And yes, Cardinal Newman is a wise, wise person. Thank you.

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